Review of Hyouka

My experience with Hyouka was a good, but decrescent one. It started off great but as i got closer to the end, my disappointment kept rising. There were a few problems with the story, specially the extreme attention on not getting it out of the slice of life genre, which ended up making the whole plot pointless (if there was even one). Story. As mentioned, it had the potential to be good. There was no need for a solid storyline and big revelations, Hyouka definitely could have worked its way to perfection with only the main genre. Since the first episode, they kept rising the tensionand expectations on the characters and their relationship, or even the main’s mysterious way of solving puzzles. But as i kept watching it, it got dull, boring. The whole story so far was pointless for the ending, there was no conclusion. The whole building up of expectations was destroyed and the unexpected romance felt more like a try to make it end in a better way.

Art. What can i say? Kyoto Animation never disappoints. The style is on point and the playing with focus and brightness to create depth was perfectly used.

Sound. As well as the animation, the sounds were a great add to the mystery and depth of the story.

Characters. The relationships and bounding between them were nicely developed, but i feel like there could be a little more background to each one. Specially the boys’ friendship, it would be interesting to know how they met and also the girl, where did she even come from?

Overall, i’m a fan of slice of life, so regardless of the boring stretch, i really enjoyed it and the mysterious stories. One of the big reasons i didn’t give up on it was that awesome pilot and the animation itself.