Review of Hyouka

I'm going to preface this review by saying I am probably not the sort of person this anime was made for. In terms of the typical male-focused coming-of-age/first love stories, I'm probably pretty far from the demographic that it'll hit home for! It's a strange thing to compare it to, but the Disney-Pixar movie Brave likely had a similar effect on its audience - some people just lack the life experiences that make it easier to relate to the story and characters. STORY (3/10) Hyouka being a slice of life, it was never going to have a particularly complex story. Even so, I felt that the lack ofconsistent pacing and character development actively prevented me from fully enjoying the series. The story is by far the weakest aspect of Hyouka - it's not quite long enough as an anime to get away with dropping arcs significant to the main characters and coming back to them later, but it does this anyway. Pseudo-'filler' arcs all follow the same theme of Chitanda being impressed by Oreki, and Oreki becoming more interested in Chitanda, with the (not particularly interesting) mysteries serving as a means to that end. Chitanda is curious, Oreki tries to avoid her, Chitanda is a bit dense, Oreki is dragged into the mystery and solves it, Chitanda is impressed and maybe gets up close to his face, they both blush, Oreki is now more interested in Chitanda. The result is a story whose pieces are actually better enjoyed individually than as a whole. Pulling out the arcs with actual character development in them, watching those, and treating the fillers as OVA material might add to the enjoyment factor a little?

ART (9/10)

As ever, KyoAni knows how to make an absolutely gorgeous show.
The character designs are simple but distinctive - little details like Chitanda's hair's unmistakeable rounded silhouette and Oreki's morning hair make them memorable. Even side characters benefit from this treatment! the attention to detail is fantastic, moments of relative quiet allow viewers to notice small accessories, fleeting expressions and background animation, and as ever KyoAni has the nostalgic, historic school setting down to a fine art. The second opening and Oreki's theories and daydreams are vividly animated, especially the moments depicting how he is captivated by Chitanda - those had me partially conviced that the series has elements of magical realism woven into it and that Chitanda does in fact wield a sort of bewitching power!

SOUND (7/10)

Wonderful music choices throughout, the Bach cello piece especially is used to great effect and helps give the series its nostalgic and somewhat magical feel. Actually, there's quite a bit of Bach in this series.. In terms of original soundtrack, the OPs also align really well with Oreki's character development, with the first being slow (almost lethargic) and the second along with its video tying in with some of those themes of Hyouka's mundanely magical atmosphere. The EDs are fun but a little less good, largely focusing on the girls pining over the guys, being adorable and looking into the camera with huge doe-eyes.

Voice acting was good quality and fit the characters. All the voices were suitably expressive, though maybe not as distinctive as the characters' visual designs!

Perhaps I'm being a little harsh in this section, but I weighted it towards the original soundtrack slightly and the OPs fitted so well with Oreki's character development that I was hoping for something better for the girls, or even anything for poor Fukube.. Regardless, a score of 7 is still really good, and subjectively I definitely go back and listen to the soundtrack sometimes!

CHARACTER (4/10)

Pretty much everything said in the story section applies here. A slice of life's story is only really as good as its handling of the characters, and Hyouka is a fairly weak in this area. the characters were actually likeable, though! the main flaws were in how they were handled throughout the story, and how at times they could become a little tropey. Fukube is pretty interesting and could use more screen time; Oreki is an albeit, more nuanced, look at the standard apathetic male protag; Ibara is a textbook tsundere childhood friend; Chitanda fits neatly into the manic pixie dream girl archetype and takes a good while to develop outside that. I did enjoy seeing Fukube, Oreki and Ibara go about their respective hobbies and excel at them, and I wish Chitanda had had more of her personal interests and hobbies depicted outside of just sort of.. Being Oreki's motivation.

It's implied and stated throughout that's she's pretty book-smart but lacking in the life-smarts department, but the focus is largely on the cutesy-ditzy aspect of her which sort of makes her stand out a little less as a character for me. And her more serious moments exploring her devotion to her family nearer the end are fascinating and I'd have loved for more of the series to touch on that!

ENJOYMENT (3/10)

Eck, sorry Hyouka fans. This just didn't do it for me.. I think if I had picked out the specific episodes to watch that were suggested to me and ignored the others, I would've enjoyed it a lot more. As it is, this series took me literal years to finish because of how generic the fillers felt.. This section is always so so subjective though, so don't take this as an absolute 'I do not recommend this anime'

OVERALL (5/10)

While the visuals and the sound were stunning, Hyouka's stories and characters left me wanting more, in a bad way. The pacing really killed it for me. I think perhaps I'd feel differently towards this in movie format with some of the filler cut out, as I really enjoyed Garden of Words which is also beautiful but slow!