Hyouka - General Discussion

[ThereminVox]

Late to the party on Episode 3. I'm trying not to devour this one as the eps come out because it just makes waiting for next week harder. The continuation from last week in the cafe is what SHAFT looks like when it remembers to take its meds.

Anyone who is going into animation, traditional or otherwise, and isn't watching this show is missing a masterclass on how to convey emotion and more importantly an active, living mind through facial animation. Seriously, if Hyouka does absolutely nothing else for you, you have to give it that. There's so much going on in every characters' expressions that it puts even KyoAni's previous shows to shame. I'm guessing it has a lot to do with how solving a mystery can require one to look for tells that a character makes, but it's carried over into the more mundane scenes to the point where I now actively notice how flat and lifeless so many other 2D characters are by comparison. Watch the eyes flash and flicker, look at how they cast about as the characters process what they're hearing, and how to respond. I just hope they can keep this up, and don't end up back at the standard anime 1000-yard "I'm waiting for my turn to flaps my lips" stare by episode 10.

Originally Posted by Julio C

Eru look a lot cuter with her little red nose.

At first I couldn't understand why her nose was discolored, but then I remembered the cold. That's some real attention to detail, even if the cold itself was just a contrivance to explain away why she didn't pick up on the cigarette smoke, since her bloodhound-like sense of smell has been established.

I agree that the nature of the classic lit club itself is the overarching mystery. They're not letting us forget Oreki's sister, or that she had him join for no immediately apparent reason. My (mostly baseless) guess is that it's some kind of combination of 1) she feels that it is very important for him to have an experience like the one she had, one that is unique to this club and 2) she knows he's Encyclopedia Brown with a bad case of Hypersomnia, and she wants to put him on the case of the club's secrets. I can't blame those getting Jun Maeda "magical realism" vibes, but we haven't seen any evidence yet that's where the show is going. Just a lot of suspicious imagery.

I've had the opportunity to listen to the full OP, and I'm wearing out my ipod's replay button. Unfortunately, my first listen through, I could have sworn I heard ChouCho sing the words "Mamma-jamma" in the second and third chorus, and I just can't unhear it. And now neither can you.

[sa547]

As expected, this show is on top.
http://anime.biglobe.ne.jp/userranking/title/32231/

[OceanBlue]

Originally Posted by sa547

As expected, this show is on top.
http://anime.biglobe.ne.jp/userranking/title/32231/

I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but it's hard to trust something with a 11k difference between first and everything else .

[Arturia Polaris]

Look for AnimePaw in facebook, they TLed the whole list.

Niker

[ultimatemegax]

Originally Posted by OceanBlue

I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but it's hard to trust something with a 11k difference between first and everything else .

It's a popularity ranking of the spring anime series. There was a total of 11698 votes and the most popular show of this season is Hyouka with 944 votes. It beat Fate/zero by 14 votes and Accel World by 73 votes.

Personally, I'm surprised at another show's performance, but this isn't the thread for that. It is a Big Globe poll, so it doesn't count for much, but it's nice to see the show has a lot of fans.

[OceanBlue]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

It's a popularity ranking of the spring anime series. There was a total of 11698 votes and the most popular show of this season is Hyouka with 944 votes. It beat Fate/zero by 14 votes and Accel World by 73 votes.

Personally, I'm surprised at another show's performance, but this isn't the thread for that.

Ah, okay. I took a quick glance and assumed Nyaruko-san had 11k votes. My bad .

[rulfo]

Originally Posted by flack

Any chance the mystery and suspense in this anime will beat that of Death Note?

I have this weird feeling that it might.

The show is not dark and grim as Death Note so I'd so no.

[winhlp32]

Episode 3:

- Tomoya owns Akio. Pretty satisfying to see. And Eru seriously sounded like Ritsu when she called out asking if there was any one inside the old Classic Club room.

- Eru and Ibara both walk like penguins. People in anime always walk too slow and run too fast. This anime sort of justifies the slowness I guess.

- The next two episodes are crucial and, depending on how Kyoani handles this, will make or break this series. I certainly hope this episode isn't the highlight of this arc.

[Skane]

Houtarou has one heck of an imagination. I didn't realise the clock pendulum changed into a heart shape during his expectant period until I rewatched it.

Heh.

[Korps!]

- Eru and Ibara both walk like penguins.

When I saw that scene I thought something along those lines, it's like their feet must touch the ground at all time, it's hard to be moe.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Skane

Houtarou has one heck of an imagination. I didn't realise the clock pendulum changed into a heart shape during his expectant period until I rewatched it.

Heh.

It was the opposite for me: I noticed the heart-shaped pendulum and thought it was always like that.

[GMT]

So I've picked up this series. Why? I blame it on THE HYPNOTOADChitanda's eyes (there's an idea for a Youtube video.) The promo video was meh, the introductory mystery was telegraphed from a mile away, but it was really a device for foreshadowing. SherlockOreki distinctly reminds me of Kyon, if Kyon had a vivid imagination that he probably used to plot out the outcome of fistfights in advance.

If I hadn't already known that Satomi Sato was playing the female lead, it would've taken me a long time to guess that it was her . . . so major props there.

I did find myself going back into the episode to try to catch the pieces and clues I missed when HolmesOreki laid out the solution to the Mundane Mystery of the Day.

So, in short, the mysteries are small, the characters reasonably compelling, and the environment is lovingly rendered with an attention to detail befitting of a show that has a mystery bent to it.

Feh! Only a few more days until Episode Four comes out.

[Archon_Wing]

Oy, so I decided to watch episode 2 to decide whether I'd keep it. So round 2, go for broke!

This episode was boring, but not as boring as episode 1 because:

-- A better soundtrack-- although the tunes are simplistic, they fit the relaxed mood better rather than tossing in classical music for the hell of it. Not the best around, but we're getting there

-- Visually, the direction felt inspired just by who and what we focus in the scenes from a variety of interesting angles. This is a different issue from just it looking pretty. Some of the depictions of ideas was unique.

-- People appear to be having actual conversations of interest. It doesn't have to be about mystery to be interesting.

-- Mayaka seems to be the only one that registers as a character to me. This can be a good thing, but she's the only one thus far that acts like an actual person. Well, Tomoya-lite is okay too, but he just doesn't do enough besides looking bored (just like me?)

-- I just don't like Eru at this point. She just comes across as too forced down our throats as the cute energetic character. It feels like forced moe, and I can't shake it. And no I don't care about dem eyes.

-- The ED is interesting. Suggestive outfits and positions, however, the mediocre sounding song and I'm not too much of a fan of the character designs so it didn't do as much as it could have to me. But oh well

Overall, I give episode 2 a 5/10. It is not bad and thus it leads me to be willing to give it a chance in episode 3. A slower season would have encouraged me to give this more of a chance, but such as the nature of a competitive season. But it survived this round, and I am happy to say that it wasn't completely a wash.

[Westlo]

Man, what's with all the hate?

Anyway on a serious note, the light novels are starting to sell like crazy.

Light Novels
*1, 21,758 *28,643 Medaka Box vol.1
*2, 20,290 121,647 Kotenbu series vol.1 Hyouka
*3, 17,759 *47,126 Touhou Symposium of Post-mysticism
*4, 16,620 208,499 Bokura ga Ita
*5, 15,527 *43,192 Himeiden
*6, 14,441 *60,376 Kotenbu series vol.2
*6, 13,988 738,215 Biblia Koshoten no Jikentecho vol.1
*7, 13,214 *21,275 Mismarka Kokoku Monogatari vol.10
*8, 12,170 514,732 Biblia Koshoten no Jikentecho vol.2
*9, 11,525 *52,723 Kotenbu series vol.3
10, 10,910 192,165 Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai vol.10
11, 10,733 *18,996 Maria-sama ga Miteru vol.39
12, 10,605 *17,217 Hayo no Tsurugi vol.6 Part 12
13, 10,573 *74,079 Kotenbu series vol.4

Similar to how the anime fandom reacted to adaptions of Bakemonogatari, OreNo, DRR, Baka Test and Infinite Stratos. All of them went on to sell really well aside from Baka Test...

[Arya]

This anime is slowly getting better. This episode, the third, was good. I mean, good for Hyou-Ka standards where the first two episodes were boring as hell.
Surely having Satoshi-pedia off screen helped a lot this time. I guess that it will grow more, but steadily with a very slow pace.
At least it is growing and not slowing down like some other shows.

[Bonta Kun]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Man, what's with all the hate?

Way I see it is people aren't actually hating on this show, just they aren't as excited/interested about it as they probably would like to be.
Theres a difference between not being interested and hating.

I think thats probably one, if not the only big problem with this series atm, it's got this wildly weird sense of "boredom" to it which people are getting.
Don't think it's a love or hate series, more love or not as interesting.

[DragoonKain3]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Man, what's with all the hate?

I know right? It's like Endless Eight all over again. How dare these people make a mockery of Kyo Ani!

[Arturia Polaris]

I think people are way too used to rushed series where you get "OMG THE ALIENZ ARE LAZORIN. HERE'S THE MC. NOW SHOOT THE PROTON TORPEDOES. HAPPY ENDING"

Niker

[relentlessflame]

I think it's basically already been discussed a number of times in this thread that this show is airing late in the season so has the disadvantage of needing to catch people's attention at a time when people have already committed to other shows they like. Plus, the pacing of this two-cour show is not common in anime these days, where indeed even many two-cour shows are split into one-cour blocks. And also, whenever a show is given top-class animation, people tend to increase their expectations for other aspects of the show; the pedigree of the studio also helps in this regard.

So as Bonta Kun said, I don't think there's any "hate", but some people are more ambivalent than they would like to be. People may feel compelled to stick around to see what's coming around the corner even though they don't have overwhelmingly positive feelings about what's happened so far.

(There's an odd sort of trend where a well-animated show with a mediocre story attracts a lot more criticism than a poorly-animated show with a poor story (even though the latter ostensibly has more to criticize). I guess people adjust their expectations for the story based on their perception of the production values, sort of as if a show's story should be "worth" the amount spent on the production. The insinuation here is possibly that the money could have been spent on a "better cause" -- i.e. a show the critic would have enjoyed. Anyway, it's neither here nor there, but I find it interesting to watch.)

[Dr. Casey]

Originally Posted by DemiSoda

Lucky Star/K-on had almost diabetes inducing levels of moe to the point it was offensive to some people

Hm, was Lucky Star really that saccharine? I know that K-On could be pretty diabetes-inducingly sentimental sometimes, but Lucky Star seems pretty reserved far as the whole friendship and togetherness angles go.

Good post, though, and I'm glad you're liking the series more.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Anyway, it's neither here nor there, but I find it interesting to watch.)

Y'know, I've always wondered about this phrase. If it's not here or there, then where is it? Is it nowhere? wtf mate

Maybe Orike and Chitanda can team up to solve this mystery