Hey, you over there. Yeah, you, the Japanese high school senior who’s worried about exams. Chukei Publishing wants to help you do better at the English section of your upcoming college admission exam. And for that express purpose, they released “Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu de Eitango ga Omoshiroihodo Minitsuku Hon,” or “The book that, in a fun way, teaches you English words via ‘The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya‘”.

Learn English, the Haruhi way!

The new book (technically books, since there are two volumes) takes the text from the very first Haruhi light novel and gives it a full English translation, with explanations for more difficult English phrases.

Haruhi secures club room, and Nagato.

Of course, this is not the first time a company has mixed English and anime/manga characters. Several years ago, Kodansha released bilingual versions of popular manga such as GTO and Card Captor Sakura. These books were fully translated into English, with the Japanese text off to the side.

Cover for Moetan 3... wait, they made three of these?

And some of you might remember a book series called Moetan, which was turned into an anime series in 2007. Not to mention Pixel Maritan, which used English text from sources like the movie Full Metal Jacket.

I’m never going to run out of Weird Wednesday material, am I?