Hyouka - General Discussion

[Arya]

Speaking a bit of the plot instead of the animation, that it looks really good, but not as eye-catching as others studios (basically those Triple_r and DemiSoda were talking about) for me at least.
Looking at how the mysteries were presented and the way the talkative boy spoke, implying more than explaining it directly by words, I've got the feeling that the style they are gonna follow will be a mixture of bake- series and SoL style having the mystery used as a mean to relate the main leads. So we will not have our typical mystery to be solved, but a mystery built by Houtarou to be solved, or not solved, by Eru. They did that twice and I found interesting how they revisited the typical locked room mystery to fit into their first meeting. This would fit Houtarou's energy saving-mode apparent behavior, that he will try to preserve by all means on the surface.
To me Houtarou looks the typical male lead that has high potential, but lack the reason to act. Eru seems to have stimulated these reasons.
I can't say anything about Eru so far, except for her eyes, since she seems not very smart, but I don't think she really isn't.
Talkative boy, no comment.

Or I hope so, because a plain mystery-half-driven plot would be just too plain. I mean, with mysterious zombie cuties, mysterious weird cuties, mysterious ghost cuties we are full of mysteries

[Arabesque]

Originally Posted by totoum

In a weird way she reminds me me of inga from un-go who could hypnotise people with her purple eyes lol

I do think now that's it's more of a stable of the genre to have the male lead ''hypnotized'' by whatever means to get with the mystery. Now I'm even more interested if this is a recent trend or if it's much older.

[Sheba]

She is a Bene Gesserit in training. She only switched The Voice to The Eyes.

[Arabesque]

Acjem, Blue-Kun: I think there might have been a serious case of miscommunication here, so let's just drop this already. If you guys want to talk about PA WORKS itself, let's do it in the appropriate thread

Originally Posted by Arya

To me Houtarou looks the typical male lead that has high potential, but lack the reason to act. Eru seems to have stimulated these reasons.

I don't think he has that much of a potential from what I gathered from the first episode, though I do think it's clear that Eru is having a very positive effect on him. Hopefully she'll get him out of his constant eregy saving mode into actually-a-productive-person mode soon

Originally Posted by Arya

I can't say anything about Eru so far, except for her eyes, since she seems not very smart, but I don't think she really isn't.

I think she's earnest if a little naive, but certainly a lot smarter than she appears if she knows what sort of effect her eyes have on Houtaro. Call it a hunch, but I think the girl might just have a diabolic mind under all that fluffiness

Originally Posted by Arya

Or I hope so, because a plain mystery-half-driven plot would be just too plain. I mean, with mysterious zombie cuties, mysterious weird cuties, mysterious ghost cuties we are full of mysteries

Hey, the genre is having a revival right now in different flavors, so there is nothing wrong in having a ''plain'' one as well.

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Arabesque

~~ I think she's earnest if a little naive, but certainly a lot smarter than she appears if she knows what sort of effect her eyes have on Houtaro. Call it a hunch, but I think the girl might just have a diabolic mind under all that fluffiness. ~~

Until she starts laughing like this, I think it is safe to assume that she's a genuinely nice girl. Just maybe a bit naive. Based on what Satoshi said, she is definitely a book-smart girl. Now whether or not she is street-smart, that is another issue.

Cheers.

[Arya]

Originally Posted by Arabesque

I don't think he has that much of a potential from what I gathered from the first episode, though I do think it's clear that Eru is having a very positive effect on him. Hopefully she'll get him out of his constant eregy saving mode into actually-a-productive-person mode soon

Spoiler for ep. 1:

Well, he solved quite easily the locked room mystery, while having futabe saying to Eru how smart he is when he want (or something along these lines), then while he was redoing his homework also schemed the second mystery to apparently, but effectively, optimize his back home route and at the same to involve Eru in it. Quite impressive for one who says to save his energy. And futabe was implying that too, and even if I don't like him for now, he seemed smart too, and seemed to know Houtarou quite well.

Originally Posted by Arabesque

I think she's earnest if a little naive, but certainly a lot smarter than she appears if she knows what sort of effect her eyes have on Houtaro. Call it a hunch, but I think the girl might just have a diabolic mind under all that fluffiness

That's the question, does she know about her powers? I didn't have that impression (diabolic mind) of her, but probably I would like this kind of personality.

Originally Posted by Arabesque

Hey, the genre is having a revival right now in different flavors, so there is nothing wrong in having a ''plain'' one as well.

Yep. That was just a preference of mine. I don't usually like much standard mystery stories, mostly because they tend to be episodic. So I would find more amusing that kind of approach and more fitting for a slice of life series.

[Blue-kun]

I don't think she was particularly aware of how much influence she has over people when looking at them with those huge purple eyes of hers. Then again, it also remains to be seen if the effect will be the same towards everyone or if it's somewhat limited to Houtarou. There's either the option of Eru being able to 'mesmerize' everyone, or it simply worked this way because Houtarou really was captivated by her 'beauty'. It kinda goes back to the question I had in my mind when I finished watching the first episode, though, which was whether or not I should expect some romantic developments out of these two. With how out-of-character Houtarou acted after getting to know Eru, that was one of the first things that popped up in my head, haha.

Then again, maybe that's just me already imagining things. All the time I spent in Golden Sun Forums reading the people push for certain shippings certainly might have played a part in this!

[Skane]

Casual shipping is part of the fun in shows like this. So long as it doesn't degrade into shipping wars and overbearing fanatical zeal, it can be fun to ship characters together.

Cheers.

[Arya]

How naive of me that I thought the romantic developments were assured. It is a sort of habit of mine when I see high school settings.

[alarmadadna hadi]

So...anyone noticed Houtaro's MOMO eraser? I thought that was the same type of eraser used in Nichijou...Or was it NONO in Nichijou...What new mystery is this! Too bad I forgot to save screen.

I wonder if this is something more related to this being anime and all there has to be a significant point where the character leaps into this new world and this event has to be shown as being on an ''earth shattering'' level, or if this is more of a homage to older mystery animes.

Indeed, this show made me realize how often this theme is found in anime, a character muffled by habit becoming "freed" through the charm of another, a finding of self basically. Cannot say regarding old mysteries though.

[relentlessflame]

FYI: I removed 12 posts that were way too off-topic for this Hyou-ka thread. While some discussion about the production studio is relevant, please make sure it is topic-related.

[Blue-kun]

Originally Posted by Arya

How naive of me that I thought the romantic developments were assured. It is a sort of habit of mine when I see high school settings.

Haha, maybe they are, I certainly got the feeling they had something going on there in that front with the conversation about Houtarou not acting like his usual self, despite all the "lies" he came up with to justify the creation of a new mystery.

As for Eru, I don't know, my first impression of her was a smart girl that has a very "kind"/"active" personality. I'm also not sure whether or not she has had a very carefree life, though, considering the whole stuff about her family being somewhat important and the fact she gets easily excited by very simplistic things. But alas, these are all assumptions, and I may be seeing a bit too much of 'Rea' in our 'Eru' right now, hahaha. No evil dads and traumas included, though!

[Arya]

Originally Posted by Blue-kun

Haha, maybe they are, I certainly got the feeling they had something going on there in that front with the conversation about Houtarou not acting like his usual self, despite all the "lies" he came up with to justify the creation of a new mystery.

I can't say that I had that feeling yet, the episode was a bit cryptic depicting the two main leads characters and their interactions so far. The eyes/flowers hypnotic scene was way too peculiar to be just a representation of a sort of romance interest at first sight (I don't know how to put it in words ). If I had to guess it was more like Houtarou noted the Eru's eyes power and got interested by that. But now I'm going to far guessing.
Anyways I'm expecting some romance, but since I'm not used to slice of live genre I can't really say.

Originally Posted by Blue-kun

As for Eru, I don't know, my first impression of her was a smart girl that has a very "kind"/"active" personality. I'm also not sure whether or not she has had a very carefree life, though, considering the whole stuff about her family being somewhat important and the fact she gets easily excited by very simplistic things. But alas, these are all assumptions, and I may be seeing a bit too much of 'Rea' in our 'Eru' right now, hahaha. No evil dads and traumas included, though!

I have to agree that probably you are a bit influenced by Rea and her heavy issues here. ehehe

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by alarmadadna hadi

So...anyone noticed Houtaro's MOMO eraser? I thought that was the same type of eraser used in Nichijou...Or was it NONO in Nichijou...What new mystery is this! Too bad I forgot to save screen.

It's MONO in real life. An internationally popular brand for students and art professionals. I use them myself.

As for the MC... I think he is the very definition of "will do anything to do nothing". As in, he spends so much of his waking hours trying to plan out a way to do as little as possible, that he ends up doing far more mental work than necessary.

[Random Wanderer]

In this case I'd say it cost him more physical effort too, since he had to write up the fake notice, run downstairs to stick it on the bulletin board, then run back upstairs to be in the classroom when Chitanda showed up.

In short, he's using a lot more effort in the process of trying to avoid using effort than he would if he just went about things normally.

[Ithekro]

Satoshi did point out that he probably used more energy on his little plan to entertain Eru than he would have just walking over to the music room.

Did he run down to do that or did he just stick it on when Eru was distracted by Satoshi on the other side on the board?

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Did he run down to do that or did he just stick it on when Eru was distracted by Satoshi on the other side on the board?

I thought it was the former, but looking back at the flashback it may indeed have been the latter.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

I thought it was the former, but looking back at the flashback it may indeed have been the latter.

One does have to wonder if the MC would cause major problems as an adult. Laziness is one thing, but tricking other people out of convenience is another. He better have a strong moral backbone, or I can see him breaking real laws in the future when working in a profession. If he doesn't grow out of it, he would end up breaking regulations every second day.

[Valky]

The first episode was great, although I think it could be better. Honestly still couldn't get used to Eru's voice yet because I'm used to heard it as Ritsu ..

One thing I'm very happy about is the OP by Choucho, I've been a fan of her since I heard her song as Mashiro-iro OP.

[Endless Soul]

Chiming in here, I just watched the first episode. Some interesting scenes in this show. Some have already been discussed, such as the walking-up-behind-Chitanda scene and Chitanda's flowery super-growth hair. There was also the Piano Mystery scene which was presented in an interesting style I don't think I've seen before so it certainly stands out.

I also particularly enjoyed the scene with Oreki and his friend (whose name escapes me) walking home under the awning in the rain having their discussion about the mysteries and Oreki spending more energy with the flyer than going to the music room.

Endless "Rainy day" Soul