Review of Hyouka

Before I get into this review, here's some context of my experience with Hyouka: I started this anime around January 2020 and, put bluntly, did not enjoy it. While I did find myself liking the characters and animation, the lack of interesting mysteries really turned me off, especially considering how serious the show wanted to be about it. After watching up to episode 18, I lost patience with the show and wrote a pretty scathing review here afterwards, giving it an overall score of 5. From then on I would talk endless smack about this show whenever someone had asked me about it (which, surprisingly,happened more than I expected).

Fast forward, it’s now December 2021. Literally out of no where, I decided I’ll give Hyouka another chance, and I am very glad I did. A lot of the issues I had with Hyouka back when I last watched it still exist, but I have a newfound appreciation for the show.

If I had to sum up what makes Hyouka great: it is 100% the characters, or, more specifically, their chemistry together. The four main characters, while maybe not being very iconic as a group, have a lively, enjoyable, and cute dynamic. I love that, while their character tropes are there and do exist, they’re able to interact in a way that doesn’t just feel like character archetypes being archetypes (*ahem* looking at you, K-On!). Sometimes in 1-on-1 interactions, the conversations do have that anime cheesiness/cliché (as in they say things to each other that no one would say in real life), but, as a whole group, the cast is pretty enjoyable to watch.

As individuals, I’ll admit that some of these main characters took some time for me to warm-up to: namely Houtarou and Chitanda.
Houtarou, admittedly, kind of rubbed me the wrong way at the beginning of the show. I’ve never been a fan of the smart/smug/apathetic character trope. His interactions with the other characters, however, was enough to show me that there was potential in his character, so I was able to look past his qualities that I’d normally find very irritating. That said, his character arc is one that really resonated with me. Seeing Houtarou go through his personal journey to better understand himself and enjoy a lifestyle he previously thought he couldn’t live is satisfying. I appreciate how realistic and well-paced the development is for him. Houtarou becomes a pretty different person by the end, yet, because of how well done his arc is, it doesn’t feel like a jarring change. While I did have to warm-up a bit to Houatarou, I found myself very satisfied with him by the end.

I’m gonna be super honest here, Chitanda is the least interesting character in the main cast. That’s not to say she’s bad, per say, but she doesn’t really change in any meaningful way. That said, I don’t really think she needed to have much development, but she does fall a bit short of the others, especially by the end of the show. Chitanda rarely ever does anything other than say “I’m curious” over the silliest mysteries. Other than that, she might provide some input here and there. Yes, there is more to her, but the show takes a long time to really shine any light on that. Overall though, she didn’t really do much for me until maybe episode 10 (whenever that student film arc starts).

I don’t have much to say about Satoshi and Mayaka. They’re fun and cute, and their individual arcs, while not having too much focus, are still satisfying to watch. The romance subplot was done particularly well and, in my opinion, was pretty mature, too. Satoshi is the biggest offender to the “anime cheesiness” I mentioned earlier, in terms of the dialogue he exchanges with Houtarou 1-on-1, (like who the hell goes around proclaiming “life mottos” every other day to their friends lmao) but I was able to look past that. Overall, I like Satoshi and Mayaka.

Now, to sum up what brings Hyouka down for me: it’s definitely the mysteries.
This was my biggest issue with the show my first time going through it. The cast kept going through all these mundane and, frankly, uninteresting cases. A lot of people have told me that I should look at Hyouka as a slice-of-life and not a mystery, but that’s kind of hard to do when the entire first half of the show follows the same mystery formula every episode or two. The mysteries in the later arcs are considerably better than the previous ones, but I still wouldn’t call any of them outstanding. I do appreciate that the characters and show do have a self-awareness about these pretty dumb mysteries later on, but I still don’t think it justifies spending all those episodes solving, let’s be real, boring mysteries. The best mystery, in my opinion, is the student film one. The conclusion was actually pretty satisfying to me, the clues forced me to think, and it’s the arc where we really see the characters become, well, better characters. I think at some point the writers realized the mysteries should just stop being the focus, because, for the last few episodes, mysteries are instead used as ways to continue the plot, and not the focus of the plot itself. I’m glad that the last few episodes really embraced the slice-of-life/drama aspects that was only semi-present previously, because the focus on mystery really did not help much.

As a result of this, I began to notice that Hyouka feels like two completely different shows by the time you reach the end. The story and mysteries are so weak in the first half of the show, but things really pick up at the halfway point. Some mysteries become bigger in scale (as opposed to small/mundane ones), the characters have more time to shine as individuals, and the overall flow and pacing drastically improve/speed up. I also mentioned that mystery stops becoming such a huge factor in the show in the last few episodes, but I’m glad it was still present as to not betray the first half of the show. I’m not entirely sure whether or not I should classify this as a good or bad thing, but I think it’s worth noting that there is a pretty clear change in quality once the halfway point of the show is reached.

There isn’t much else of substance for me to say here. The animation is beautiful, as expected. The soundtrack is alright, though sometimes the eerie music it uses isn’t always the most appropriate for the scene it might be in. The openings are decent, but ending 2 is a banger with some really cute animation to back it up.

I don’t think Hyouka is anything outstanding, but I honestly do regret not being able to appreciate it my first time going through it. I didn’t touch too much on the themes/messages of the show; not because they’re bad or not worth talking about, but I think it’d be better for you to experience them in the show than have me explain in detail what they are lol.
To anyone out there that was turned off by the shallow mystery formula present in the beginning of the show like I was, I do recommend giving Hyouka another shot.
The characters, their interactions, and their eventual development all make it worth it, in my opinion.

TL;DR - show is a bit of a trudge to get through in the first half even with the good cast, but things do get better and the characters for the most part don’t disappoint

7/10