Review of Hyouka

[This review contains minor spoilers] Are you curious? If you are then are you worried because curiosity kills the cat? Well don't worry this anime does the exact opposite of that, in fact it strives of a person's curiosity. Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to my Hyouka anime review, let's get it. Hyouka is the anime adaptation of the Koten-Bu novel series by Honobu Yonezawa. It follows the perspective of Oreki Houtarou a high schooler that's lives by his motto of "If I don't have to do it, then I won't. If I have to do do it, I'll make it quick". The story shows you howa energy conservationist lives, how he unlike the people surronding him wants to live a grey colored boring live devoid of mysteries, sports activities and romance, as the story goes on he struggles to stand by his motto and way of life, since upon joining the Classics club and meeting Chitanda Eru, an airhead book smart girl, the temptation of the rose colored life that his friends are living grow stronger. When I started watching Hyouka I thought that for a anime made in 2012 it was surprisingly well animated, it looks like it was made in 2017, then I looked up what studio handled it and when I found out that I was made by KyoAni everything clicked for me, no wonder it had good stunning visuals, animation and soundtrack since KyoAni does not miss with the animation and visuals for it's shows. The plot was not really the best, if anything it was decent, the mystery aspect was there and the multi-part mystery arcs like Sekitani Jun, Movie Making Arc and the Festival arc were all pretty good and entertaining, but there is something about Hyouka that doesn't hit it home for me, sure some mysteries are engaging at the same time some of them are pointless, and sometimes instead of the mysteries engaging me to try and solve them I just end up waiting for the solution to be revealed since I wasn't motivated to solve them unlike Houtarou was, I experienced this in the festival and movie arc unfortunately. At it's core this anime is all about the characters not the mysteries that come along their way since that only serves as character development which I love, this stems from me being a big fan of that aspect in stories. As a whole Hyouka is a slice of life heavily catered for growth of it's characters with mystery aspects and a potential unexplored romantic subplot. Now did I enjoy it? Was it entertaining and engaging enough? Well the multi-arc mysteries were definitely entertaining, but then towards the ending of the Festival arc to the stand alone mysteries and the ending I started to realize that the conclusions for these mysteries have become not fulfilling nor engaging enough for me, causing my enjoyment and interest of the series to drop. Now the ending did feel like it was satisfying enough that it made me want to read the Koten-Bu novel for volume 5 and 6, which is unfortunate because at the end it did start disappointing me.

Pros:
-Good relatable characters in terms of what they go through in life [ too bad no one like Houtarou exists in real life, and nobody is that much of an airhead as Chitanda]
-Fantastic animation, visuals and soundtrack
-Relies on multi-part mystery arcs for entertainment
-Good Ops and Eds
-Has a fitting conclusion for the anime

Cons:
-Oreki lowkey simping sometimes
-Some mysteries don't have satisfying and fulfilling conclusions
-Falls flat on it's face during stand alone mystery episodes as those episodes feel out of place and pointless.
-Not entertaining enough, didn't grab my attention from start to finish nor did it have a crave factor for me.

Overall Hyouka is a decent slice of life with mystery elements anime, it focuses more on its characters rather than the mysteries that it introduces, some of them hit while some of them miss. There are even times when it acts as a meta catalyst for the mystery genre, an example of this is during the movie making arc. Fans have different interpretations of how they view this show, and that goes the same for me. I think it's a mystery slice of life anime that grabs ahold of you in it's early stages, but then releases you as it goes on, then presents you a adequate ending to match the story's tone. If you're looking for a mystery anime then Hyouka is definitely worth checking out as it's different from your standard mystery. In conclusion I give Hyouka a 7/10 for my overall personal anime rating.