Haruhi 14 ZA WARUDO! (END) (OSHI PUN FACTOR)

See one of the things about Haruhi is I honestly like her the least out of the rest of the female characters.
This includes Kyon's sister and Tsuruya.
That's not to say I hate her, or even dislike her.
It's just that I like her the least.

I have had problems with the tsundere character type, it can be done well, and it can be done horribly.
Horribly would be Love Hina, which has a fucking psycho bitch as the main girl, or her counterpart in Negima (Which I admittedly tolerated for a lot longer than I should have), or Ranma 1/2.
Well would be...Rin/Saber from FSN, Suiseiseki from Rozen Maiden, or admittedly Shana from Shakugan no Shana.
Most tsundere characters are also rather lacking in intelligence.

Haruhi is...well she'd rate decently if NOT FOR THE UTTER SUPERIORITY of the portrayal of the other two character types around her.
The types being "Silent-girl" and "Childhood friend/devoted/sister."

Nagato Yuki is a "silent-girl" type, one could argue a Rei (Evangelion) clone.
Except Yuki is honestly flat out more awesome in every way.
No crazy tragic past of cloning and no giant robot to pilot, but there is something amazingly appealing about Yuki that makes her my favorite character in the entire story.
Perhaps it's her fight against Asakura.
Perhaps it's her completely destroying the computer club single-handedly at real time strategy battleship.
Perhaps it's her completely deadpanning guitar riffs in a witch outfit in the awesomest bit of animation evar.
Perhaps it's all of that combined with her changing personality from non-human to a really sweet girl.

Asahina Mikuru is the "childhood friend/devoted/sister" type.
If you notice her voice actor, she's basically played the same role a whole shitload of times (Kaede in Shuffle, with a twist =D, or Cierra from Riviera, or Hiyori from Mizuiro)
Mikuru is like...fanservice personified; we know it, it's listed episode two (Volume one) on the dotted line.
Is this bad?
She does it in such a way that she's utterly adorable everytime I see her, and somehow doesn't get old.
And you're talking to someone who has seen a lot of crappy fanservice (Hi Love Hina/Tenchi Muyo/Anything by the guy who did I's/Divergence Eve/Green Green/Da Crapo/etc)
Plus her chemistry with Kyon (To a lesser extent Haruhi) is absolutely a joy to watch.
While Nagato is my favorite character, Mikuru x Kyon is probably my favorite pairing.

Which brings us to the final point...
I know the pairing listed above probably won't happen, but it's almost infuriating to think of the REASON it won't happen, namely, HARUHI WILL COMPLETELY DESTROY THE WORLD if it does.
It happens in episode 14 when she flirts with him and it happens when they play baseball.
It just strikes me as sort of unfair.

Anyway, the episode flat out ruled, even being a Haruhi episode.
Wraps up season one nicely.
Also, you can assume that Haruhi completely did not believe what Kyon said at the end of episode 14, as she's still completely oblivious.
I'm sort of curious how season 2 will pan out, seeing as they've nailed all the short stories and basically only have long arcs left.
Hopefully they'll be done well. (3 years ago arc, world w/o Haruhi arc, summer arc.)