I will preface this saying I have also read most of the Light Novels. I mean this completely unironically. I like weird shit like this so it was right up my alley. Having it last 8 episodes was one of the ballsiest artistic decisions ever made in any anime production ever and it pays off in spades. It makes Tatami Galaxys exploration of a time loop concept blush. This is probably one of the few instances where an anime fleshes out and explores a concept more thoroughly than its light novel source material. It legit bumps it up a number of points for me. Honestly I had a blast watching every single one of the episodes in that arc and I still watch through all of them whenever I rewatch Haruhi. I get that its a highly contentious arc but I genuinely do think its an amazing experience and genuinely manages to flesh out even minute character aspects and really puts you in the same headspace as Kyon and makes you understand Yuki that much more essential for the Disappearance movie to have worked as well as it did. If youre really that blasted about watching the same episode 8 times pick and choose man Watch 4 episodes watch endless 8 8 times watch 8 minutes of each episode in different 8 minute chunks. You will be losing a ton from the intended experience though. Anime is such an interesting medium with endless possibilities. Its really cool to see a series that actually took an artistic risk instead of having a more marketable bythebooks production that would no doubt make it more money. I dont think something like it could release nowadays. The anime industry in the early 2000s was a time of experimental throw everything at the wall and see what sticks productions. Nowadays with animation and marketing budgets ballooning with production committees being much safer with their decisions E8 will forever remain in its own class of interesting artistic endeavours that could only happen exactly when it did. Honestly with 90 of shows coming out nowadays being the exact same concepts copypasted which every single season people throw themselves at loving E8 even speaks to the state of the modern anime industry. Except E8 is an interesting unique artistic decision while most shows nowadays are bland safe and with tropes and concepts youve seen explored with the shallowness of a dwarven kiddy pool time and time again one could even say endlessly. I dont wanna see anyone who has ever watched more than a single isekai show or VRMMO show or ecchi show or... talk shit about Endless Eight. Other than that its Haruhi. Good stuff. Characters are fun and have surprising depth. Each arc is usually a selfcontained story that everyone can enjoy. 50 is average btw. 80 is an amazing score.