Hyouka - General Discussion

[zeniselv]

i dont see why people has so much disconfort with this, any good mystery has a slow development so i wouldnt jusge yet, i certainly dont agree with polls saying this is the best so far this season, and i dont think a lot of people knows this story, so i think there are to many tards, i mean, even i wich consider k-on one of the most uninteresting and uneventful anime in the past years, still thinks this can turn good.

[teja208]

Originally Posted by DragoonKain3

Ibara was supposed to be fat? lol

Indeed, form now on I will try vitualizing her as big fat bully. It might make things more interesting.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by winhlp32

The left-most column: Original novel designs
Right-most column: Futoshi Nishiya (Kyoani)
Everything else: manga adaptation designs.



Kyoani why you unfaithful to the original character designs?! You betrayed me!!

To be fair, the manga adaptations are guilty of changing the designs as well.

[orion]

Originally Posted by winhlp32

The left-most column: Original novel designs
Right-most column: Futoshi Nishiya (Kyoani)
Everything else: manga adaptation designs.



Kyoani why you unfaithful to the original character designs?! You betrayed me!!

The original designs suck. No one would buy the BR/DVDs for those designs. Now KyoAni's designs....drool....

[winhlp32]

Originally Posted by orion

The original designs suck. No one would buy the BR/DVDs for those designs. Now KyoAni's designs....drool....

Yep, I like Kyoani's designs as well.

Time to invoke a old favorite(before I get criticized any further ):

YouTube

https://youtu.be/3kwt6wWblXo

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Kaioshin Sama]

People who enjoy this show continue to fail to grasp what people's reasoning for criticizing the show is while people that don't like the show continue to fail to grasp people's reasoning for loving the show despite much effort to explain it all, albeit more so from the critics side IMO. A common trend in Kyoani produced series threads I've long since found.

Personally I think the subject is best left dropped entirely since it's not getting anyone any closer to a mutual understanding despite peoples best efforts and therefore kind of fulfills the criteria of cyclical posting and pointless discussion.

[Arabesque]

Originally Posted by winhlp32

Yep, I like Kyoani's designs as well.

But ... you said ...

>:T

Was Eru's eye purple originally in the novel though? I'm noticing that the eye color seems to have been light blue before from the first two illustrations.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by NCP

EDIT:
Just saw Triple_R’s post. I think we make similar points. I would say that your first option is more likely considering how Houtaro feels about the “gray” colored lifestyle.

Yeah, it probably is the more likely of the two options.

Also, I disagree somewhat with the idea that Houtaro is not passionate about anything.

Well, as you correctly pointed out yourself, he's passionate about adhering to his philosophy. And I do think that he has some core beliefs that he stands for.

What I was really referring to is how he seems to lack passion for a specific interest. You know, like sports, or video games, or art, etc...

Houtaro is actually a pretty well-grounded character with generally well-structured thinking and standards. It's just that he'd like to have his own "rose" - A specific interest that enlivens him a bit.

That being said...

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

Most people look at the board and filter out all the things that aren't interesting. Houtaro seems not to do this. Instead he takes it all in and has to process it all. That leads him to having no clear interest, and it also means that merely looking at clutter is exhausting, in a way that others don't understand.

Here's my hypothesis: he needs to keep to his motto, because reducing the world to a set of currently relevant relation nodes is already hard work. He simply expends more energy perceiving the world in the first place than we do. (This is similar to some form of autism, but he's not there quite yet.)

I definitely think that Dawnstorm is on to something here. Houtaro may simply have a harder time filtering things out than other people have, the negative side-effect of his generally beneficial nature to take careful note of every detail in his surroundings. Houtaro picks up on things that most other people would probably just filter out without even knowing it. This gives Houtaro a real edge in solving mysteries, but it can also cause sensory overload.

With this in mind, what Eru might bring into Houtaro's life is an ability to more keenly focus on one key thing, as Eru herself is very good at this.

Originally Posted by winhlp32

The left-most column: Original novel designs
Right-most column: Futoshi Nishiya (Kyoani)
Everything else: manga adaptation designs.



Kyoani why you unfaithful to the original character designs?! You betrayed me!!

I think I like the manga designs best, but of the three colored options, I definitely prefer KyoAni's version to the other two. And KyoAni's style isn't too far off the manga designs anyway (especially when it comes to Eru and Satoshi).

[Arabesque]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

With this in mind, what Eru might bring into Houtaro's life is an ability to more keenly focus on one key thing, as Eru herself is very good at this.

Wouldn't that be detrimental to the mystery solving though?

I think what Eru brings over to Houtaro is more of someone to balance his abilities. He has his creative mind and attentive nature, she has the photographic memory and one mind track set. She's the one who gives the goal to focus on, he's the one to figure out how to crack it.

In the end, both of them will end up learning to relay more on each other to correct the faults within them.

Or I'm just hoping for the romantic option ...

[winhlp32]

Originally Posted by Arabesque

But ... you said ...

>:T

Was Eru's eye purple originally in the novel though? I'm noticing that the eye color seems to have been light blue before from the first two illustrations.

In the first novel its always emphasized that her eyes are huge. But no color was mentioned. But there was a small detail saying Satoshi's eyes were brown. And so Satoshi is the only person in Kotenbu with normal colored eyes.

Oh, and that " >:T " emoticon is adorable~

[rulfo]

<confirmed troll feel free to delete>

[Arabesque]

Originally Posted by winhlp32

In the first novel its always emphasized that her eyes are huge. But no color was mentioned. But there was a small detail saying Satoshi's eyes were brown. And so Satoshi is the only person in Kotenbu with normal colored eyes.

Thanks. It's strange that out of everything Houtaro can notice, he never mentioned what the colour was. I suppose that's part of the reason why they decided to give her a very different and rare colour (since by default, her eyes were going to be big anyways) to help emphasize that aspect.

Still, to think Satoshi is the one who is most normal in this area compared to the others

Originally Posted by winhlp32

Oh, and that " >:T " emoticon is adorable~

I'm impervious to sweet talk, but yes, it's incredibly adorable :3

(This forum needs some new Smilies)

[Arturia Polaris]

So the novel did say that The hypnotoad Eru's eyes are huge. Well that's one deet that was kept correctly.

Niker

[rulfo]

I don't remember exactly how it was said but it did describe that Houtarou found Chitanda's eyes alluring.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Either way, I suspect that Oreki's character arc will be like a blending of Kyon and Tomoya's - Starts off vaguely anti-social, cynical, and/or emo, but slowly finds things to channel his youthful zeal into due to meeting people who add a spark of inspiration into his life.

The problem is, we haven't been given a good reason for Oreki's attitude. Kyon starts off talking about how he used to have a different attitude but gave up when he realized it was fantasy, and Tomoya had his home-life to explain his attitude. Likewise with Konoha Inoue from Bungaku Shoujo, we find out early on why he's so apathetic to everything. We're halfway through the first novel and there's been nothing comparable for Oreki, which makes him seem like a jerk for the sake of being a jerk.

If he's like anyone, it's Ii-chan in Nisioisin's Zaregoto series. But Ii-chan is a sociopathic ***hole who solves mysteries mainly so he can tell everyone how stupid they are for not figuring things out on their own. Oreki doesn't even have that going for him.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

The problem is, we haven't been given a good reason for Oreki's attitude. Kyon starts off talking about how he used to have a different attitude but gave up when he realized it was fantasy, and Tomoya had his home-life to explain his attitude. Likewise with Konoha Inoue from Bungaku Shoujo, we find out early on why he's so apathetic to everything. We're halfway through the first novel and there's been nothing comparable for Oreki, which makes him seem like a jerk for the sake of being a jerk.

If he's like anyone, it's Ii-chan in Nisioisin's Zaregoto series. But Ii-chan is a sociopathic ***hole who solves mysteries mainly so he can tell everyone how stupid they are for not figuring things out on their own. Oreki doesn't even have that going for him.

You make it sound like Houtarou's attitude is horribly offensive.

I hope you realize that the characters you actually do poke fun at other characters - a character trait that Houtarou does not possess. Kyon repeatedly complains and ridicules Haruhi's ideas in his head, and Tomoya teases nearly everyone around him. Even Konoka occasionally writes a "bitter" story on purpose to mess with Touko.

Unless my memory fails me, Houtarou doesn't really verbally snap at anyone. While keeping to oneself doesn't make an interesting character, I don't see how his inactivity that makes him offensive. It's not like these mysteries are grand crises that involve murder or theft.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Arabesque

Wouldn't that be detrimental to the mystery solving though?

No. Each individual mystery is the point of focus that I'm referring to. Eru gives Houtaro something specific to latch onto.

I think what Eru brings over to Houtaro is more of someone to balance his abilities. He has his creative mind and attentive nature, she has the photographic memory and one mind track set.

Right. Her "one-track mind set" helps to focus Houtaro on very specific tasks, and individual mysteries.

She's the one who gives the goal to focus on, he's the one to figure out how to crack it.

Right. And that's exactly my point.

It's a very mutually beneficial relationship. I'm certainly not saying that Eru isn't getting something out of this. She most certainly is. In fact, it's so obvious what Eru is getting out of this that I didn't feel it was necessary to really delve into that much.

What I find more interesting to discuss is what Houtaro is getting out of this, since the whole situation seems to run contrary to his seeming "laziness" and energy conservation philosophy.

Or I'm just hoping for the romantic option ...

I think you'll probably get something of a romance between Houtarou and Eru. But it'll likely be subtle/understated. That's the impression I'm getting so far, anyway.

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

You make it sound like Houtarou's attitude is horribly offensive.

I hope you realize that the characters you actually do poke fun at other characters - a character trait that Houtarou does not possess. Kyon repeatedly complains and ridicules Haruhi's ideas in his head, and Tomoya teases nearly everyone around him. Even Konoka occasionally writes a "bitter" story on purpose to mess with Touko.

Unless my memory fails me, Houtarou doesn't really verbally snap at anyone. While keeping to oneself doesn't make an interesting character, I don't see how his inactivity that makes him offensive. It's not like these mysteries are grand crises that involve murder or theft.

Very well-said.

I don't see how Houtarou's apathy makes him a jerk. Jerks generally aren't apathetic. A jerk is somebody who goes out of his way to poke fun and pick on people. As you rightly point out, Houtarou isn't doing that. Simply saying "No, not interested" is not jerkish (except in very extenuating circumstances; ones not in this anime, at least not yet).

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

You make it sound like Houtarou's attitude is horribly offensive.

I hope you realize that the characters you actually do poke fun at other characters - a character trait that Houtarou does not possess. Kyon repeatedly complains and ridicules Haruhi's ideas in his head, and Tomoya teases nearly everyone around him. Even Konoka occasionally writes a "bitter" story on purpose to mess with Touko.

Unless my memory fails me, Houtarou doesn't really verbally snap at anyone. While keeping to oneself doesn't make an interesting character, I don't see how his inactivity that makes him offensive. It's not like these mysteries are grand crises that involve murder or theft.

Tomoya never goes beyond playful teasing, while Inoue and Kyon are reacting to pushy girls who force them into situations they want nothing to do with. The worst Chitanda's ever done is look at Oreki with her big eyes and say, "Pretty please, with sugar on top," and in return he treats her rudely all the time, particularly at the cafe.

[Skane]

Reverse the genders and look at it from that perspective. It will probably help erase the "Beauty Can Do No Wrong" bias.

Cheers.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

Tomoya never goes beyond playful teasing, while Inoue and Kyon are reacting to pushy girls who force them into situations they want nothing to do with. The worst Chitanda's ever done is look at Oreki with her big eyes and say, "Pretty please, with sugar on top," and in return he treats her rudely all the time, particularly at the cafe.

The worst? You must not remember the time when Eru wanted him to look at the library book and essentially shoved it in his face, or the multiple times where Eru was curious about something, so she physically pulled him along.

The worst Houtarou did to Eru was say "I'm going home." He never insulted her. Also keep in mind that Eru was late when she was the one who called him out.

I fail to see how Tomoya's dysfunctional family justifies his over the top antics like assisting Tomoyo in beating up Sunohara, no matter how entertaining it may be. I also don't see how Konoha and Kyon are justified in "reacting to pushy girls who force them into situations they want nothing to do with" when Houtarou, who is far less severe in his actions, is not.