Review of Hyouka

Personally, I'm the type of person that tends to read/watch almost anything as long as it has at least a 7 or higher, and occasionally a 6 or higher, if I'm in the mood for a particular genre, but couldn't find anything else. However, many people out there, no matter how good a story is, won't give it a shot if it doesn't fit the genres that they preference. Unfortunately, Hyouka is an anime that's likely to be missed by many that choose to judge it on its genre alone. Why? Mystery, it's one of those genres that most people either definitively like or dislike,but there's a very particular reason that the average person feels this way, its because mystery stories are almost always linked to crimes, however for Hyouka, it's more so about solving the mysteries of everyday, mundane life. However, it does so in a fashion that is anything but mundane.

Story: 8, This is actually a lower score than I had originally planned to give the anime by the halfway point, but honestly, the ending didn't feel very conclusive. While certain episodes have their own standalone, mystery-based plot, there are a total of 3 overarching mysteries that last about 3-5 episodes. Personally, these were my favorites as they held a greater level of depth, and substantially helped to flesh out our four main characters. In many ways, they created the greatest intrigue from myself, and it was a little disheartening when I reached the last couple episodes and realized that we wouldn't be ending on another of these longer mysteries. Nonetheless, the story aspects of the show certainly held their own.

Art: 10, It's rare for me to give 10s as a general statement, but even more so in a category such as art. The greatest reason is that for me to give a 10 in art, there has to be multiple beautifully animated sequences throughout the series, there can't be a single stand-out scene when I think of the art, yet instead, many different scenes should jump into my head. Hyouka matches this perfectly, but there is another qualification I hope it to match, and that's a consistence in the shows quality, thus why multiple beautiful scenes are so important, and it was a little tricky for me to decide whether or not Hyouka truly met this second standard, as I feel there may be a few scenes where I would say the animation quality/style differed, however, the scenes in which I felt this, felt as though the difference in the animation between said particular scene and the average quality, was intentional, and thus a 10 in art. Additionally, I greatly appreciated the visuals in the OPs and EDs

Sound: 9, The shameful thing, is that I personally much preferred the visuals of the OPs and EDs to the songs that played during them. My favorite of the four (2 OPs and 2 Eds) was probably the second OP, but regardless, my major issue with them was the fact that the majority of the OSTs worked incredibly well with the show. They were clearly OSTs built for a mystery story, and really helped to add the extra suspense a story like this needed. On the other hand, the OPs and EDs had music that really fit with the SOL genre that this also represents, but they felt slightly out of place, as the series's focus was certainly on the mystery genre not SOL. Lastly, I watched the English dub, and all the voices, including minor characters were excellent, the casting team made great selections, and all the VA's did exceptional work.

Character: 9, I had a hard time not giving this a 10 for characters, but it unfortunately falls into the same pitfalls most in the mystery genre do, which to be more specific, is that every mystery tends to have its own supporting cast, this is especially true of crime-based mystery stories that cover a large number of unrelated crimes. The major problem is that most supporting casts don't really have a chance to develop themselves, and this makes it harder to understand some of these minor characters, and, ironically, the one's that reappear tend to fit this the most. Typically we'll see another side of a character that doesn't fit what we've been lead to believe of them, I'm not saying its wrong to do this, but it can be slightly jarring from the reader's perspective. We, the readers, had, what we thought, was a very informed opinion of a character, suddenly broken apart. Sometimes this leaves the reader with the feeling that the character isn't so much a character, but a tool the author uses to get certain things to happen, and can feel slightly unnatural. Unfortunately, there are at least one or two minor characters that I would say fit this breakdown in Hyouka.
On the other hand, our four main characters are all excellent. Each one has a considerable amount of depth, and certainly a lot more depth than you could ever imagine based on the first time you meet the characters. I find Fukube to be the greatest example of this. Ultimately, if there had been a greater feeling of resolution at the end of this, then I believe that I might have given 10 for this stories characters, but I simply felt there was more that could have been shown on even the main characters.

Enjoyment: 9, Honestly, if I hadn't of started on the evening before a rather busy day, then I probably would've watched it all in one sitting, but unfortunately it got broken up into three sittings. I watched the first 11 episodes (plus the side story episode) in one sitting, but as it was nearly 2 am, I decided to call it a night. Managed to squeeze in a couple episode yesterday morning, but ultimately got too busy to continue, and finished the last of them off this morning. As I just expressed, I basically watched it at every chance I got until I finished, so this might seem needless to say, but I enjoyed it extensively.

Overall: 9, Based on the lowest of my scores being an 8, it's no mystery (pun intended) as to whether or not I enjoyed Hyouka, heck, I even said I did in my previous sentence. Ultimately, I believe Hyouka to be the kind of story anyone can enjoy regardless of their genre based preferences. It's a story that can only be described as a mystery story, while defying the common logic that goes through the average person's brain upon hearing the phrase, 'mystery story'. I would highly recommend you give it a try.