There's one thing in particular that I think that anime, as a medium, has a tendency to do better than all other entertainment mediums.
That thing is what I like to call "enhanced realism".
What I mean by that is the ability to take something fairly mundane, lowkey, and/or unimportant, and build it up to be something captivating, entertaining, and interesting. Anime can make the mildest and most common of disputes seem dramatically important, and it can make the most lowkey and common of special events (like a high school cultural festival, or a march through town) seem very special indeed.
And I don't think there's any anime that pulls this "enhanced realism" off more carefully, impressively, and shrewdly, than Hyouka does. Ultimately, that is this show's greatest strength - The ability to make you believe that the molehill being addressed is an epic mountain being scaled.
No other anime has done the cultural festival as well as Hyouka has, and I don't know if any other anime could focus an entire episode around a truly mundane mystery and make it a decently pleasant and engaging watch like Hyouka can.
However, Hyouka sometimes goes a bit too far here. While I generally found its arcs very pleasing, I also found two of them to be a bit dragged out. Nothing
that severe, but enough so that some steam started to go out of Hyouka's otherwise well-winded sails for me.
And while I found the Hyouka main cast very well-written and likeable
enough, it took me awhile to truly care about them, and even in the end I don't know if I'd consider either amongst my favorite anime characters of all-time.
Still, Hyouka was an unique anime with a distinct charm. In many ways, it really highlights the talents of KyoAni - Hyouka has an enhanced realism heart, and KyoAni does enhanced realism spectacle as well as any other animation studio around, and better than most. Hyouka and KyoAni truly made a very fitting match, not unlike Oreki and Chitanda themselves.
Hyouka also had pretty good consistency. None of its episodes was what I would call
bad. They all had their strengths and likeable scenes. Even the episode that was all about Chitanda wondering why she became upset with a teacher, had some good dialogue and the adorably hilarious image of a multitude of mini-Angel Chitandas climbing all over Oreki.
Hyouka isn't perfect, but it's arguably the best at what it does. And there's no question that it's wrote and presented with tender-loving care. A bit more of what I call "the Fun Factor", and it may well have been amongst my all-time favorite shows. But even as is, it deserves a high rating and I will remember it fondly.
8/10 for the Hyouka series taken as a whole.