Review of Hyouka

So, I just finished watching Hyouka last night as of the writing of the "review," or a little less than that. That'll be more so just some unorganized thoughts that I have about the show. Just to get formalities out of the way, the show looks and sounds amazing. Animations are fluid and the colors and lighting are subtle but effective. The art style is relatively grounded so when the animators decide to be ultra expressive in conveying things such as how Houtarou is immediately drawn into Chitanda's rhythm in the first episode, those times are really special. The soundtrackis also decent.
If you're into the high school club/slice of life vibes, this is a fun and relaxing time, so go for it and watch it.

NOW, I WANNA TALK MINOR SPOILERS BECAUSE I WANNA TALK THOUGHTS ON THE PLOT

As I write this, I'm honestly still trying to wrap my head around whether or not I actually liked the mystery elements that were implemented beyond the first arc. The "Hyouka" arc was great. Our main characters had personal stakes in the solving of the mystery. Additionally, it does some decent "worldbuilding" by outlining the circumstances around the early years of the classic literature club. This was the best mystery which had what I thought were the highest stakes and does a great job establishing the dynamic between our 4 main characters. After this, I felt as though the quality of the mysteries themselves diminished throughout the length of the series as a whole. However, I think it would be silly to judge the show just on the quality and how clever the mysteries can be. Rather, the show uses these mysteries to flesh out our main characters and their motivations, their motivations being heavily grounded in their collective desire to essentially define their own identities and values and learn to reconcile them with the relationships they have with people around them.

This becomes more and more apparent as we get to the end of the series and we most directly explore the romantic elements between our main characters. For example, in ep 21 when the gang is investigating the mystery of Mayaka's lost chocolate, in my head, I know I don't really care about the actual finding of the chocolate. By this point in the series, we know the formula of the mystery-solving process, and that eventually, our genius Houtarou will solve the mystery. But to use this mystery to flesh out Satoshi's motivations and solve the mystery of his and Mayaka's ridiculously complicated relationship was amazing. The cherry on top was Houtarou showing how much he cares about all of his friends. This episode was prime character development for him as well as he lashes out on Satoshi for hurting both Chitanda and Mayaka. Now that I think about it, this was such a good episode lmao.

I could probably go on and on about the small details and plot points but I think I'll end it here. In writing this review, even though the mysteries they solve can be a little silly at times, I think at the end of the day, I loved watching these characters interact and grow together in extremely natural and believable ways.

Before writing this review, I would've rated it an 8/10, but I'ma call this a 10/10. Watch it, and take your time with it!