[First Impression] Hyouka

Our main characters: Chitanda Eru(left) and Oreki Houtarou(right).

It seems to me that I've been watching a lot of shows by Kyoto Animation recently. Of course, this might mean that I've finally fallen victim to the cute-moe-blob machine that KyoAni has set upon the anime world like an all consuming plague, but I don't think that's quite the reason. I've found that KyoAni, as well as producing high quality animation regularly, seem to have a knack of just producing good stories. Not great ones mind(unless you count Clannad or arguably Kanon'06), but they tell short and sweet little adventures to be seen through by likable characters, making their shows usually just fun to watch. Well, besides K-on! because that anime was just pain incarnate. So, with this in mind, imagine my intrigue when I heard that this show, Hyouka, a 2012 show by Kyoto Animation that was directed by Yasuhiro Takemoto and based off the novels by Honobu Yonezawa is considered by some the one of the best by the studio. "Really?" said I, "even when you put it against the best of the studio? Huh."
     So with that in mind, I've now proceeded to watch the first episode of Hyoukai, and I must say..."meh".

Oh, don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but still, if it wasn't for the fact that this was KyoAni and the show's reputation, I'm not entirely sure whether I would continue this series. I'm going to of course, but let's just say that there's only one thing that makes me consider this anime's potential. It's a mystery show. I mean yes, it also takes place in highschool, but the show's tag is mystery primarily, a genre that is really is entertaining to me if done correctly. This first episode didn't have too much of that, it mostly served to introduce the characters and such, though it also established that the show wasn't entirely stupid, which I think is extremely important in this genre. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I think I'll call them the "Scooby Doo Gang". From left to right, Satoshi, Chitanda, Oreki

We start the episode being introduced to our main protagonist: Oreki Houtarou, a highschool who does the absolute minimum that is required of him under the excuse that he's "saving energy." For what exactly, he never tells us, but rest assured it's probably something really important. Anyway as he leads his minimalist life and talks with his best friend Fukube Satoshi, he is forced to join the Classic Literature Club due to his older sister's wishes, agreeing as long as he has to do as little as possible there. He ends up meeting Chitanda Eru at the clubroom, a girl who possibly is a complete opposite to Oreki due to her cheerful and bubbly personality, top notch grades, and her passionate curiosity about pretty much everything. Seriously, this is a girl who can't let a door locking on itself go without a full investigation with witnesses and yellow tape, so obviously Oreki is a little startled at first. They do end up solving that little mystery, with the very small help from Fukube(who ends up joining the club for some reason), but Oreki isn't allowed to return to his peaceful life until Chitanda's curiosity about all the school mysteries is quenched. Which it never is. 

I think I like the characters. Fukube may just be that comic-relief best friend that seemingly every school anime ever conceived must absolutely have, but my real interest comes from our main character Oreki. His dialogue about his low energy life-style in entertaining enough, but I've got a hunch he's a lot more interesting than he first lets on. It's shown in the episode that he's quite intelligent and quick-thinking, so it kind of makes you wonder why he's so uncaring about life in general. My bet is that he had some kind of extremely embarrassing and degrading moment in his past that pretty much made him just say "f*ck it" to life in general, but who knows, there's a lot of places the anime could take his character. If there's one thing I can look forward to with him though, is how Chitanda's cheerfulness rubs off on him. Speaking of Chitanda, I must say she doesn't really interest me right now. Since she's the anime's main heroine, I'm sure she has a tragic past or something, but she didn't give me a lot of things to work with here, so I'll just cut this paragraph off now. 

So Hyouka hasn't been doing anything wrong per say, but is hasn't done a lot of things right. Granted, I think things might pick up when the actual plot involving the secret of the school gets going, but it's just not a very interesting anime right now. I guess it has been only one episode, a little early to judge the show really, but whatever, I wanted to get something on paper(screen, really) before I lost this train of thought. I'll just close off now saying that Hyouka is an anime with something to prove: that it deserves my attention and the praise it has gotten from critics. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, though I'm not going to let this anime take me for granted for the next 10 episodes. I want things to start happening and fast, and give me some mysteries that I can chew on. 

Goodbye for now guys. 

You know how I said I've been watching KyoAnime shows? My First Impression of their other show: Kyoukai no Kanata is here.

My review on Kanon(2006) is here.

And my Top Ten Studio Ghibli Films countdown is here.

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