Review of Hyouka

Hyouka is the epitome of a promising series/story that I sometimes wish hadn't gotten myself invested in. The reason being the fact that I will possibly never know how the story will wrap up. That doesn't mean that this a bad show by any means - on the contrary, it is a very good series indeed. However, this is my biggest gripe with Hyouka summed up as concisely as possible - the fact that the anime adaption goes seemingly nowhere in terms of plot progression, and the relationships between our characters which appear to build up over the course of the show, conclude unsatisfactorily. Yet,look past this and Hyouka is a really good anime that you should consider watching if you're into slice-of-life and/or mysteries. (EDIT: I'd like to add that this is a Slice of Life anime, so I may have been quite harsh on this aspect of the show. However, there are still quite a few SoL anime that do this better than Hyouka does.)

Much of the praise that Hyouka receives is due to its gorgeous art and animations, and frankly, this is well deserved. It remains one of the most visually appealing shows I have ever watched and you're in for a treat with this one. Kyoto Animation has a standard beyond most other studios. Chitanda is possibly one of the cutest girls in anime, ever, and her bubbliness and curiosity is perfectly adapted by the animators. Little things like environment quality, character movements, etc. are so well done. However, the icing on the cake are the little sketch like, brainstorming analogies that are used when the characters are theorizing solutions to the various mysteries they come across. Which brings us to the theme of this show, the mysteries.

Hyouka is basically about a ragtag band of schoolkids who solve a wide range of mysteries that they run into, mostly due to the fact that Chitanda is the most curious person in the history of the universe. Our MC, Oreki joins the "Classics Club" at his school due to constant nagging (this is a trend in this anime) by his elder sister, which is when he meets Chitanda. Her inexplicable connection with the extremely apathetic and lethargic Oreki combined with her unshakeable begging (see, I told you!) forces the latter to utilize his smarts to solve a host of enigmas. The other two supporting characters seem rather bland in comparison, but they balance out the cast satisfactorily (I'm being generous). There could be room for improvement here and the show certainly does try to give them more attention, but I'm not too sold on it. However, Chitanda and Oreki are excellent characters who carry the show forward with their interactions.

I did enjoy this show a lot. I'd like to point out that it is more of a watch-once-and-be-done kinda anime. The little story arcs are interesting enough but lack any real interconnectivity between them, so it feels more like a collection of standalone short stories featuring the Famous Five or Secret Seven (if you're familiar with those) rather than one single series of events. I was left a little unsatisfied by the ending, which I felt was a bit too open-ended and safe, and the fact that no sequel has been announced makes me feel rather disappointed. I hope I'm not giving off a pessimistic view on this show though, let it be said that this is certainly quite enjoyable and worth watching. It is way better than most slice-of-life shows out there and you'll find good value in the time you invest into it.

Ideally, I'd give this a 7.7~, so I rounded it up to an 8 due to MAL's rating system. Cheers!