Review of Hyouka

If you'd rather listen to this review over reading it, theres a video version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGXZuZBC7fc Hyouka is a 2012 anime by Kyoto animation, it's a school slice of life (WHAT OMG SO ORIGINAL KYOANI HOW U DO DIS MIND=BLOWN) but in all seriousness this show is actually fairly fresh and has a rather unique feel, unlike some of the other SoL Kyoto animation are known for, notably, Kyoukai No Kanata and Haruhi Suzumiya, which both actually have story's where stuff ACTUALLY HAPPENS, this... Doesn't. Literally nothing happens, like, at all. Hell even K-ON had a more serious plot than this show, and that's not abad thing don't get me wrong, cos the story isn't actually the strongest part of the... Story... Yeah, ummm. It's the characters, there's about half a dozen important characters in the show, and of them, 4 of them are even more important and of them, 2 of them are even more important, it starts with the very typical boy joins club in high school, girl is in club at high school, friends join and get involved plot happens kind of story, but about as early as half way through the first episode, you kinda sorta feel like this will be different, you see that the main character Oreki, isn't the stereotypical naive yet lovable and aloof MC, or rather, he's a lazy ass son of a bitch that only does what he absolutely has to do and nothing more, and what he does have to do, he does quickly so that he can get back to "conserving his energy" AKA sitting on his ass doing fuck all... And immediately I relate to this character... It's great, he joins the club cos his big sis told him to or something, it's not all to clear but that's pretty much the just of it, when he gets to the club room and walks in, the second MC Chitanda is already there, she recognises him as the lazy Oreki, even though they've never spoken, which immediately reveals how crazy this girl is, THEYVE NEVER SPOKEN, THEYRE IN DIFFERENT CLASSES, HE DIDNT EVEN KNOW WHO SHE WAS... SHE KNEW ALMOST EVERY THING ABOUT HIM, it's serves to strengthen our understanding of both characters, andddddd, if you were paying any attention you would have picked up almost as much information about Chitanda (aside from the fact that she is the generic KyoAni moeblob that we've all come to expect) as you have from Oreki, they're both pretty different characters as apposed to what you'd expect from this genre, and to be honest there's no real romance or connection between them... Well... I mean... There kinda is I guess. It's hinted at that they kinda dig each other, and we can assume that, what 3 years after the series finished, there like 20 now? Yeah they banging... Anyway the other two important notably characters would be Satoshi, Orekis, pretty much only friend by the looks of it, and Mayaka, one of chitandas friends, Satoshis girl friend and all round bitchy bitch... It's makes me wonder actually, since there close friends to both Chitanda and Oreki, and have known them for a long time, and there dating, how come Oreki and Chitanda have never even met... Dafuk, anyway it's unimportant... What IS important is that these two support characters support the main characters (who woulda thunk it) Satoshi likes to think of himself as some kind of "database" and somehow has an absurd amount of information on pretty much everything, Mayaka is just a smart girl who's very smart and pushy, these 2 characters are really my only gripe with the series, and by that I mean, I wish I could see more into there lives too, they're shown to be incredibly relatable and human characters going through an experiencing things many people have been through in the school lives. there are a few episodes throughout this 22 episode long series that are almost entirely focused on them, but aside from that it's mainly centred on Oreki and his overbearing weakness to Chitanda, and mo specifically, the words "watashi kininanimasu". It roughly translates to "I can't stop thinking about it" and is essentially orekis trigger, when Chitanda leans in blatantly intrudes on his personal space, and shoves her big round... Eyes.... In his face, and then shouts this at him, he can't really do anything aside from helping her, and this is where the "mystery" part of the series comes into play, it follows a fairly episodic structure, with mainly 1 or two episode long arcs which normally end with Oreki solving the glorified mystery (more like riddle, or puzzle, or in one case, math equation...) but there is one longer arc that lasts about half the series, and that arc is probably my favourite story arc of any arc I've seen in any anime ever, it brings together all of the characters we've met already, brings them all together to try and solve an actually mystery... Finally something's happening right? Nope. Still the same slice of life stuff, that, if you think about it, doesn't really matter, but that's the beauty of the show, you really care about it, it feels like it does matter, and it makes you wanna find out the answers, even if it's just so you can brag to your friend who you forced to watch the show about how you solved the mystery before the answer was revealed *cough* this is also where two more important characters are fleshed out, they had both been spoken about and introduced previously but only as side characters but here we see more of the student council president who's name I can't fucking remember at all, meh, and Irisu-senpai, aka best grill, she acts as kind of a mentor to Chitanda through out this arc and teaches her ways to get Oreki to do what she wants, aka the basics of seduction.... Nice. Through this, Chitanda becomes aware of Orekis weakness which leads to some of the more humourous scenes in the show, where Chitanda fails and convince him due to her own naivety and innocence, and where Oreki gets all flustered cos a cute girl just jumped up infront of him and tried to act all seductive n stuff without even knowing what she was doing.... Either way the mystery gets solved and it returns to its much more peaceful episodic format for the last few episodes and at this point you really see how all of the characters have changed, Satoshi has become more humble, but also has developed a great deal of both respect and resentment for Oreki who, whilst being incredibly lazy, solves all the mysteries with relative easy whilst he (who likes to think of himself as some kind of detective) could not, Mayaka shows her insecurity throughout, both infront of Satoshi, and during he manga club problems, and at the end, after confronting them all, she has become much more reliable and confident, Chitanda has become a little less naive but pretty much doesn't change, and Oreki, well he doesn't really change at all, he just becomes a little less lazy, which all works out for the better.

In short it's a great and very interesting series with a unique story in where literally nothing of any importance happens at all, and yet it feels super dramatic thanks to the strength of the characters and the artistic direction (the art is fantastic btw, like even compared to other KyoAni stuff, it's beautiful) there's a reason this is on my favourite anime list on my MAL account...

Would I recommend it? Yeah to some people, I kinda see it like marmite, you either think it's a master piece or you absolutely hate it and find it boring as hell, I'm in the first camp, the only difference is, if you like marmite, I might say "yuck it's disgusting how can u like that stuff" but if you don't like hyouka I won't even talk to you... Like seriously, get out of my sight right now you fucking WEEB... But in all seriousness, go and watch this series right now, even if your one of the people who would find it boring, it's something I think you should experience either way.

My score for hyouka is 10/10... Also if this review wasn't enough to persuade you to watch it, hyouka translates to ice cream... Yeah... And if you don't like ice cream, even if you lactose intolerant, there's something wrong with you...