Hyouka - Episodes 1-3 Discussion / Poll

[Kairin]

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[Arabesque]

Impressions from the General thread

Spoiler for Episode 1:

Originally Posted by Arabesque

Right, so while I wasn't exactly all that wowed by the episode outside of the audiovisual aspect (more since the animation and direction was top notch I felt, and there wasn't much story to get a proper feel for the plot) I feel like the thread at this point has derailed into a KyoAni/top of the season/compression/comment on fanbases/etc. rather about the actual first episode itself ... and while I don't mind seeing variety in topics, to be perfectly honest, I think we should try and limit the discussion on Hyo-Ka itself rather than go on these different tangents ...

On the actual episode itself, so far I am still unsure about what to make of Houtaro. I do agree that the first impression I got from him is that he's ''boring'' due to his energy saving-mode being always stuck on the ''active'' dial, and I while I normally love Nakamura Yuuichi, I do think that he's more fit for far more ''heroic'' roles than one that seems to be this laid back. I will say that I thought he still done a great job regardless, but I can see why some might not like him in here.

My opinion on Eru is tied to what I said previously about how he she cast a spell on Houtaro i.e. her eyes are truly captivating, but more than that I do think she has a lot of nice chemistry from their initial meeting (though more from her reactions to his non-reaction to her ). I wan to call her energetic from what I have seen of her, but at the same time I don't think she's so much energetic so much as forceful, even if that is a bit too strong to describe her. Satou Satomi done a competent job as the voice behind Eru, though I haven't found anything praise worthy as of yet.

Returning to the animation side, I do find it funny how S_B joked about how the finale was going to be about purging Eru from the world () even if I had a better impression on the ''magical'' meeting between the two leads. I do find it curious how this seems to be more of a trend in mystery anime nowadays (Another, Un-Go, Gosick, Dantalian no Shoka etc., even Bake- with Araragi catching Senjougahara while she is falling from the sky) where the first initial meeting between would usually conclude with the male lead being touched on a ''spiritual'' level, if you go by what the symbolism implies. 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.

Spoiler for Episode 2:

Originally Posted by Arabesque

So I got around to watching episode 2, and boy, does that theory about Eru's eye being magical just get more fuel

I don't think she might be as aware of it as I speculated earlier (she's using her eyes to make people fall under her command) but it's clear that it's has more to do with her flipping over to her curious mode on the moment she sees something that catches her fancy. In any case, it does appear that it has less to do with the eyes themselves and more with the aura she emits whenever she starts wanting to learn more about something i.e when Houtarou was trying to escape knowing he was about to get dragged into something he doesn't want to do in the library and she literally brightens up like a lamp In any case, Eru is certainly one girl you just can't say no to ...

Which moves me to my next point. Eru is really annoying isn't she? I mean I didn't notice back in episode one due to DEM EYES and Houtarou's wild imagination making me forget about how she on their first meeting broke through all his personal space and just kept on touching him and garbing him (that one scene in episode one where he wanted to go home and she stopped him by forcibly holding his bag was hilarious to watch ) but this episode Eru was just on full drive Do-what-I-tell-you-to-do-what-do-you-mean-you-want-to-be-alone-what-is-this-personal-space-you-talk-about mode, to the point where I thought Houtarou's imaginary scene of the week was actually more accurate, if as outlandish as last week's imaginary world, was actually more accurate. Eru was literally beating him into taking a choice, and then forcing his hand into the choice she wanted him to make, not the one he wanted. Going by that, his outburst at the end made perfect sense, since he had already tolerated her behavior at school, and than decided to meet her only for her to be late and then beat around the bush even more ... everyone has their limit, and Eru hit Houtarou's.

That said, I could till it's not really intentional, and there is the positive of getting Houtarou out of his shell. Eru needs to tone down a bit though, since shoving a book into someones face and dragging them around and graping their hand without their permission is honestly poor manners and is going to get people upset with you.

On other things, I didn't think the mystery was anything interesting, however the scene transitions were interesting to watch and creative, as usual. So no changes so far in Animation>Story front for myself.

The cliffhanger seems really obvious to me, going by Eru's reaction to Satoshi's implication last episode about her and Houtarou talking alone in a classroom and going by Houtarou's Airhead comment, she doesn't seem to be the type that usually misunderstands these things. So when Houtarou said that she wanted to confess to him, she might have taken it that he had figured out what her ''personal circumstances'' were and just wanted her to come clean with him. Or that's what she'll think, but not what he'll think
I always thought that it was the women who initiates the exchange? Unless men started letting women eat their spit too.

Unless we are talking about something else ... like going on blood donation drives or something.

Spoiler for Episode 3:

Originally Posted by Arabesque

I want to bring back some of Director Yasuhiro Takemoto's comment about this series, and what he thought about adapting Hyou-ka into an anime
Looking at this episode, I feel that not only had he (and the staff) done a good job, but I honestly believe they made excellent improvements on the series when compared with the original novel.

I guess it should go without saying at this point, but I remain impressed with the visual aspect of this anime, not only in terms of the animation and attention to details (or how funny it is ... I seriously laughed when Chitanda got out of the classroom with Ibara only for her to come back again to get him (an old joke, but still fun to watch ), or how when Houtarou realized he was about to get dragged around to search the entire student campus ), but how well the art manages to deliver important clues about the cast and their personalities as well as allows us to learn more about them via showing, not telling. It's incredible just how good this episode had been at giving a lot of important information and clarification about our leads, to the point where I was left having to rearrange my earlier impressions about both Houtarou and Eru.

I suppose that if I was going to talk about the visuals, I should start with how much we got to learn as well as understand about Houtarou himself. I think that Acejem was right in saying that Houtarou energy saving mode is more of a facade than anything else, since his reasons for refusing to help Eru were more out of realization that this isn't something that anyone can really take on lightly, as well as him helping her along at the end. In a lot of ways, I'm reminded of Claude from Ikoku Meiro no Croisée, since both of them have a certain loner aura, but without the anti-social mindset and they certainly are crude and a little unintentionally callous but are deep down actually very considerate and caring (as well as having a conscience, going by how unsettled he was when Eru brought up the Secret Club thing, since he did trick her and felt rather bad when should took it as a sign of his intelligence). Of course, there is an area that makes Houtarou more interesting (and likable) and that is how we get to see how his mind works and how does he view the world.

I didn't really understand what was the point of having Houtarou experience these ''alternate reality scenes'' in the past two episodes other than perhaps to give the animators some differing scenes to experiment on, but in here I get what they were gunning for. The reason of having Houtarou thinking about the events he sees in such a manner isn't only to make impressive looking scenes, it's to also make us understand how exactly does someone like Houtarou who isn't really all that intelligent could manage to solve these puzzles so easily by merely taking in a few details and without further research.

What these alternate reality scenes aim to do is give us an idea of just how imaginative and attentive Oreki really is. When he noticed these sensors(lol) or when he deduced where the safe was from just going into the room and managing to figure out what the Senpai was hiding, when he kept on trying to avoid eye contact with Eru and focused on the customers newspaper all the while imagining her story with her uncle as a pop-up book, or when he saw Eru as being like a child trying to find something she lost ... these are scenes that give us insight into how Houtarou views the world, how he solves the ''mysteries'' by reconstructing the world in a different light to get to the answer he wants, how his mind wanders into an imaginary world where he can see people in the way they are deep down, and how creative his brain actually is .

If Eru's strong aspects are her high senses of smell and memory, Houtarou's key strength is his creative mind and attention to details. With that, I can now see where Houtarou Oreki's potential is at that Blue-kun once told me about, and that he might really become an interesting protagonist.

Of course, what makes this all the more impressive is that we didn't need a lot of dialogue to understand all of this. It was merely by the body language and the art that all this got across. Some of it was pointed out yes like this weeks case, but a lot of things weren't. The scene at the café where we got to see that despite his claims of constantly energy saving and not caring much about what happens around him, Houtarou still ended up becoming very tense the moment Eru told him she was about to confess to him, thinking she was about to till him she loved him. His behavior from not really knowing how to answer and avoiding any sort of eye contact (or looking at her directly for that matter) till he got a better idea of what she meant, or how his thought about how she was like a child matched her previous behavior (grabbing him without remorse or shame, ignoring his personal space etc.) and her answer to every time he helped her with a simple child-like nod.

The same can be seen when he was taking his mid-terms, where we got across the entire timespan in less than a minute of footage by simply showing us what was the essence of a student taking these exams would feel like. First day of studying, a quick exam, second day studying, a bit longer like, third day and you see him starting to worry and the pressure getting to him before having what seemed like the longest sitting for him. I could relate to that scene since it felt like an abridged version of my high school exam years haha. In a lot of ways, I'm reminded of how this effective time usage is similar to Boy's on the Slope and how despite the quick pacing and fast forwarding in the in-story time, the show still manages to get the point across just as well if it had spent more time on it.

Of course, no matter how great the visual-audio experience is, it remains to be seen if the writing can match up to it. I'm still liking the chemistry between Oreki and Chitanda, and do think they might make for a cute couple if the story decides to go down that route (I don't know if it does, or if it will end as a good thing, considering the ''bittersweet'' warning stuck here ... I hate to have the story bring two characters with a lot of nice interactions and good feelings emitting from them only to separate them in the end, so I'll be keeping my distance for the time being from that aspect ) but so far, the Achilles heel for myself remains how little there is in terms of substance there is to this story. We did manage to get a little closer to what appears to be a continuous storyline, but I have been finding myself less interested in the mysteries going by how poor the pay off had been for them, and worry that this one will be the same, especially we seen it having this much importance on Eru and her very being (or so we are told).

Regardless of how the future episodes might end playing out, I thought that for the 3rd episode, this one was so far the best I had scene from this show, and gives me more hope for the 7th one

Looking back on it, I now just realized that out of all the shows premiering this season, Hyou-Ka somehow ended up being the one I wrote about most on AS. It's funny, since I'm quite sure there are a lot of other shows that I consider to be better written and like a lot more on a personal level, but I just couldn't help but be drawn in by this anime.

I guess it has to do with it's visual aspect. Yes, this is show is nicely animated, but I think I only realized that it wasn't the high level of animation that caught my eye, but also the level of detail, care and attention given to every scene in each episode. There was a noticeable amount of effort placed into the planning and creation of this show, and I couldn't help but admired it all before getting mesmerized much like Oreki had been

I suppose if I were to rank them, I'd give all three episode an 8. I'm not a believer in the 3rd episode myth (I think the whole thing is starting to get out of hand recently), and I honestly think that the show had displayed it's main strong points from the get go, but due to the story not having an interesting introduction as well as presenting rather inane puzzle solving and trying to make them look more interesting than they really are, it took sometime time before we got to the more interesting bits. Thankfully, the anime team had done a superb job in making up for that weakness, and we ended up with stronger opening episodes than what should have been. Hopefully the writing can match up to the same level of effort the anime staff had shown, now that we got away from puzzle solving into something more crucial to the core cast. I remain optimistic that it does, since we did get to see some interesting things in the presentation of the cast (a huge part of that had more to do with the visuals carrying it over, but the dialogue helped too) and the interactions between the two leads.

[Triple_R]

8/10 for the first three episodes sounds about right to me as well.

However, I have to disagree with you, Arabesque, on the 3-Episode rule and on this show displaying its main strong points from the very first episode.


I'm a big believer in the 3-episode Rule, and sure enough, it was the third episode of this anime that truly sold me on it. And I think that it wasn't until the third episode that one of the main strong points of this show was displayed: Overarching mysteries tying directly and personally into the main cast of the show.

Up until the third episode, the only mysteries we really had were small episodic ones, and many viewers found them inane, as you did. No matter how good the animation and attention to visual detail is, this is still billed as a Mystery anime (not just a straight-up Slice of Life) and so some people watching this show were hoping for good mysteries, so I don't see how that could be considered anything less than one of the main strength of the show (since going by Episodes 3 and 4, it may in fact have that strength after all).


Mind you, the visual strengths of the show were displayed well from the very first episode, and three of the four main cast members received good introductions in the first episode. But that's just the good foundational work for what the show is actually about, imo.

[ronelm2000]

I'm a believer in 3-Episode Rule (although I could easily extend it to 5).

So far what I got in Hyouka is an SoL-Mystery. Slice of Mystery, per se. You can say that I was already sold on the Slice of Life feeling that Hyouka had. Note that it was supposed to be a novel, yet they have adapted it into an anime. (and 21 eps too, unusually.) And the mere fact that it was a 2001 (or so) series intrigues me.

If it already existed since around 2005, it would already have the capacity to be adapted. I see shows like Haruhi, Negima! and the like get adapted, but why not this particular series. My bet is that it was a full pledged novel, something that only gets noticed when it had something to do with otaku culture somehow or is utterly famous... to otakus.

My hypothesis: Hyouka's Ep 1 - 3 was a risk, an experiment, and a marginal divider. These episodes provided a risk, being setting off anger by some KyoAni fags here and there. It was an experiment, because people often view mystery anime as thrilling, and often having wierd murders and stuff, something people already have gotten used to. Heck, it reminded me of Konata's conversation with Kagami (Lucky Star reference) about mystery animes. In it, Konata asked why mystery protagonists in anime didn't solved normal cases? (ie. finding a lost relative, searching for a husband that's been cheating on a wife) Their answer: it isn't interesting. Hyouka's answer: this.

Hyouka's key is in the characters. Why should I even go here now, when KyoAni is merely famous (or merely TOO famous) for such a characterization. Oreki is a Holmes-In-Lax-Mode monochrome guy who suddenly finds the rose of his life in an eccentric girl called Eru. Trust me, it's often more than that.

I believe that the coming episodes will have more to do with the characters, and Ep 1 already bought me from the start. Ep 2 mere expounded my interest by making quick and realistic mysteries that are actually interesting. And Ep3 is more like a beginner in a good arc.

Overall, a grand hit or miss, but mostly hit if you're a K-ON / Lucky Star fan.

[Hyper]

My thought on the subject of slow early episodes:

I wonder if Hyouka's lack of "early hook" have anything to do with the fact that it's a "traditional" novel rather than a light novel. Target audience is a little different. As we all know, light novel readers tends to be an extension of manga readers. For a manga, the hook has to appear by the first chapter. For example, compare this to a kind-of-similar-genre Iris Zero,

Spoiler for Iris Zero beginning.:

that story have the heroine "ask the MC out" within the first ten pages, and by the end of chapter one, she was already following him around even without any solid connection between them yet (different class, not sharing a club, etc.)

If Hyouka want to be like that, then Eru would have to say "please help me recovery my lost memory" within halfway through the first episode. Maybe right after Houtara solved the locked room mystery.
However, the usual novel format is a little different, at least IMO, that their readers does not expect that kind of sudden impact. The author actually have something like half a book or more to convince the reader to keep on reading, so the "hook" can be slow rolling. Turning that into an anime, and we have a problem: anime audiences are closer to that of manga, and an episode is more like a manga chapter. People expectation can be, as relentlessflame put it, "You have 24 minutes to impress me. 3..2..1..Go." You cannot say they're wrong expecting that either, because that's how anime format is.

Originally Posted by ronelm2000

My hypothesis: Hyouka's Ep 1 - 3 was a risk, an experiment, and a marginal divider. These episodes provided a risk, being setting off anger by some KyoAni fags here and there. It was an experiment, because people often view mystery anime as thrilling, and often having wierd murders and stuff, something people already have gotten used to. Heck, it reminded me of Konata's conversation with Kagami (Lucky Star reference) about mystery animes. In it, Konata asked why mystery protagonists in anime didn't solved normal cases? (ie. finding a lost relative, searching for a husband that's been cheating on a wife) Their answer: it isn't interesting. Hyouka's answer: this.

I'm not sure about experiment, but I agree that it's certainly a risk. Actually, you can argue that KyoAni can take a risk because they now have enough confident about animation and their own track record that it'll carry over enough people far enough to reach the juice of the story. Looking back, I consider picking up Hyouka a much more risk-taking project than, say, KyoAni picking up a Josei. Sure, the school setup and the down-to-earth feel of the story is not out of their records, but having a 3+ introductory episodes with virtually no comedy or life-changing event to keep the viewers' attention is not something you cannot take lightly. They do not have the "fame" of the source material to rely on either. Add that to the fact that the show air late into the season which arguably packed with good shows (not my opinion here), and you can see why they're facing an uphill battle.

[Arabesque]

Sorry about the late reply, but I've been sort of busy IRL

Originally Posted by Triple_R

However, I have to disagree with you, Arabesque, on the 3-Episode rule and on this show displaying its main strong points from the very first episode.


I'm a big believer in the 3-episode Rule, and sure enough, it was the third episode of this anime that truly sold me on it. And I think that it wasn't until the third episode that one of the main strong points of this show was displayed: Overarching mysteries tying directly and personally into the main cast of the show.

Up until the third episode, the only mysteries we really had were small episodic ones, and many viewers found them inane, as you did. No matter how good the animation and attention to visual detail is, this is still billed as a Mystery anime (not just a straight-up Slice of Life) and so some people watching this show were hoping for good mysteries, so I don't see how that could be considered anything less than one of the main strength of the show (since going by Episodes 3 and 4, it may in fact have that strength after all).

I suppose I need to go more into detail what my criticism of the 3-episode General rule is, and why do I think of it as being a myth and how this relates to Hyou-Ka. I suspect that my view on the 3 episode rule is different from the one you have (I'm talking about the trend of thinking that the 3rd episode is some sort of magical episode, not the one of giving the show 3 chances to sell you on the show)

I don't think you are wrong with the bold part. Certainly, for an anime billed as a mystery (or at least, having mystery solving as a crucial part of it's narrative and the character story arcs) this is an important point that the first few episode failed to deliver in a satisfying manner (I had described it as puzzle solving that you might find in the early parts of a Professor Layton game). So yes, we did finally get what was the first tangible hint to something more mystery-like than what we had already (even though we didn't get into that until the 4th episode actually, and the 3rd episode was still a rather trivial puzzle as well) but yes, we did get our first look into what amounted to something bigger.

That said, the impression I got from you was that you had already been waiting for this to show up, a final piece to make you more sold on to the show. I know that I'm pretty similar in how I viewed this show. I already had more than enough reasons to like this show and be sold on it, as you put it. The visual aspect was top notch, the attention to details in it as well as the animation mesmerizing and fluid and the imaginative quality to the flashbacks and Oreki's daydreams shows a lot of care was placed into not only the production, but also how do these visuals tie into the story and how much do they tell us about the lead and the story without the usage of any additional dialogue.

By the time episode 3 rolled along, we had already got the push we needed to be sold on the trip fully, the promise of a larger mystery in store.

But that wasn't the episode that was meant to tie things together. That wasn't the conclusion the story was heading towards for this arc, nor was it paced so we'd be satisfied by what we got in that episode. The finale of this first arc was on episode 5, the episode where everything was meant to be revealed, where all the hints we had gotten via either the visuals (e.g. The female Librarian), dialogue (about Eru's ''family circumstances'') or the red hearings about the case (was the Uncle dishonored? etc.) and where we were meant to be truly sold on this anime.

The way Hyouka had been structured for this first arc was that we got about 4 episodes where the show gradually got more and more involving (intentionally) and where we were meant to be thinking about the mystery before the 5th final episode capped it off. we might have been sold on the show prior to that, but it wasn't designed to have it's third episode being the ''one'' where it was intended to change peoples thoughts about the series, or that it was of a completely different quality from the first 2 (it wasn't, it was in fact quite similar in that it had great visuals, and a rather trivial puzzle like the first two). Things didn't truly kick off until the 4th episode where things started coming together, and by the fifth we got our answer.

And that really my problem with the 3 episode rule: It assumes that every anime 3rd episode has to be either the ''best'' episode of the introduction or that it has an event that drastically changes how we are supposed to see the anime. The problem is that not every anime is structured like that. With this show, the first arc was separated into 5 episodes, where the 4th episode is where things started shifting gear. Other anime like Fate/Zero doesn't have it's main conflict starting until episode 4&5, and even then it took thing a while before things got going. Steins;Gate didn't truly start until until the mid way point, and if you think about it, the first 3 episodes didn't show much of what the show is really about.

That's the same here. I don't think this is the correct to view anime, since each show is paced differently, has a different time span for it's introductory episodes, and some take longer to take off, and some are quicker.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Mind you, the visual strengths of the show were displayed well from the very first episode, and three of the four main cast members received good introductions in the first episode. But that's just the good foundational work for what the show is actually about, imo.

Now that this arc had officially concluded, looking back on it, I do think that there is more to the first 3 episodes than good foundational work (though that is very important IMO) It also gave us hints to what the situation was, allowed us to learn about the cast and get to know them better before going into what was the first true case of the club. I think that I appreciate it now a lot more now that I re-watch it after learning of the conclusion of this arc, and I can see that a lot of thought went into constructing how from the meeting with Eru to the moment everything fell into place with what happened to her Uncle.

That said, what really bogs this intro down is the inane mysteries and the lack of good immediate hook. The latter is balanced by the quality of the visuals and the show gradually becoming more interesting, but the former is still a sore point to what I now think is a rather solid opener.

[Whitemoon648]

I have a question about episode 1.

Ok i have to admit i am a bit confused.

But like toward the end, when the main character says " I didn't refuse it", what was he referring too?

Was he saying i didn't refuse the problem/mystery ( just didn't want to go all the way to music room)
or
Was he talking about how he can't refuse her requests?

I was a bit confused. Could some one explain it to me .

Ty in advance.

[SuperBlooper]

I'll try and keep this spoiler free.

To start, the animation is brilliant. The eyes were done really well, especially Chitanda's.

The story isn't much to write home about but by the end of episode 3 it starts to get going. The mysteries aren't that hard to figure out it's a bit frustrating when you figue it out straight away and have to wait 5 minutes for the characters to realise the answer. I hope the mysteries become progressively harder as the series goes on but I also hope it becomes a Detective Conan, where the story is forgotten about for endless puzzles.

The music is allright. I like the opening theme, it makes me hope that Houtarou will come out of his shell and be more outgoing a cheerful by the end. The ending theme is just okay but it might grow on me.

The characters are pretty good. I really like how creative Houtarou is, he is brilliant at thinking outside the box. Chitanda is his polar oppisote but it can be a bit annoying how 'in-your-face' she is. Satoshi and Ibara aren't very developed yet but I hope to see more of them in later episodes.

All in all, I like the series and am pretty interested on where the story will go. The animation is fantastic, the story is okay but has potential, the music is nice and the characters are interesting.