Review of Hyouka

Mysteries are something that I will almost always be captivated by when framed in the proper way. For me, they have to give you enough information that you feel you can come to your own "mini-conclusion" (an understanding that might not be a full answer to the mystery, but make you feel that you have made progress or have enough information to come to an answer soon) yet they can't outright give you the obvious answer every time. Hyouka does this exceptionally well almost every time, however I'd like to start off with what I'm disappointed with first. I use "disappointing" because there was almost nothingI felt was "bad" with this series, more like there were missed opportunities that I felt the series failed to capitalize on. First of all, this series only adapts the first 4 volumes of this work, and only 2 have been released since then. From all the synopsis I've read, really only one of the two main "burning questions" have been answered, and one of those is in this series of anime. Unfortunately, this means with 22 episodes the show still feels "incomplete" in an unsatisfying way, knowing that more material is out there yet not adapted currently. If you're looking to watch this for a decent feeling of closure, I would probably not recommend this anime. Additionally, I felt like many of the characters that we meet outside of the club are very interesting and curious. However, we rarely interact with them past this. This is probably the main missed opportunity that was actually the shows fault, and not the result of a lack of source material.

All this being said, what this show lacks in satisfaction it makes up for in substance. This show is probably closest compared to popcorn: you can go through 22 whole episodes chowing down with great pleasure yet still feel hungry at the end. I actually had very similar vibes to the Monogatari series throughout, as their explanations were often supplemented by visually appealing and artistic representations of their theories to solve mysteries. Past this, most of the mysteries have good hints at what they're trying to go for. Some borderline on ridiculous, but often they gave you plenty of tools to allow someone to come to a similar answer. In fact, the only episode I can recall where they make a pretty large leap of logic is one episode where Houtarou is trying to prove that it's easy to make a crazy theory that seems plausible. The only mystery I felt was "easy" to solve wasn't in the main series, but actually the OVA (considered episode 11.5) which I'll write a review for out of sheer spite. Overall, the show doesn't seem to treat the viewer as "dumb" for not getting the answer, rather it presents each mystery as just working out the clues for a logical answer.

Writing this all out, I've been going back and forth between a 7 or an 8 for an overall rating (I tend to like shows in general, so my bias is usually higher towards that range). Even with the unsatisfying abrupt ending, I think I'll stick with an 8 out of sheer reverence for what it does well for the mystery genre. So many seem to rely on gimmicks of information that they don't give you, and others try to rely on the shock value of a crime such as murder to keep you drawn in. Hyouka, in comparison, can give you an episode about writing a project for your semester which evolves into an enthralling 4-5 episode mystery about the history of a civil disobedience movement.