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Old 2012-05-23, 21:00   Link #75
Upscaled
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Toronto
I think Mayaka is annoyed by Houtarou for the same reason that some viewers are annoyed by him. She doesn't like his attitude about work. She herself works hard. She takes initiative. See how quickly she volunteered to help the teacher put away the books in the library. What she demands of herself, she expects of others. She expects people not to be late for appointments. (I think that might be a running gag throughout the whole series.)

Near the end of the episode, she is shown to have taken the initiative in laying out the pages for the anthology. She has designated Houtarou to write the main article. When he complains that it's too much work, Eru volunteers to help. Mayaka immediately stops her, saying that this should be Houtarou's contribution.

I think Mayaka equates industriousness with virtue. When she sees Houtarou apparently solving problems without too much effort, this confounds her value system, so she calls him weird. Also, keep in mind that of the four main characters, these two seem to have known each other the longest. They've known each other since grade school. So she's had a long time to build up resentment about what she sees as his slacker attitude. I'm not sure there's any deeper, hidden secret to this. Hyouka seems to be a show that presents the mysteries of everyday occurrences as having reasonable and not fantastic explanations, so until shown otherwise, I'm going to go with that.

Long term, I think we'll see that Mayaka's role is that of the manager and the enforcer. She'll make sure that each member does what he/she needs to do in order to get things done.

Last edited by Upscaled; 2012-05-23 at 21:16. Reason: added last paragraph.
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