HYOUKA

HYOUKA REVIEW ( ROOPAYAN GHOSH)

Anime review:- 
Anime:- Hyouka
Number of Episodes:- 22
Genre:- Mystery/School/Romance
Rating :- Animation and Artwork:- 9/10, Music- 8/10, Story :- 7/10, Characters:- 7/10, Enjoyment -8/10(39/50)

This is the second mystery anime I watched after Gosick. While it does not repeat a very important mistake Gosick made, is it really very good? Undoubtedly its a nice addition to the mystery genre but it has its own flaws.

For starters the animation is gorgeous. Artwork is typical moe artwork of kyoani. And I have a bone to pick with this kind of artwork. The faces are still fine by the feet of people in this kind of artwork always point inwards rater than outwards and I find that really irritating. Also the multicolored eyes. It looks nice and all but they return to haunt you and its not a nice haunting. Anyway the 1st opening and 1st ED are really nice, not only as a song but the visuals as well. The later ones don't reach that heights. The in anime music is also nothing spectacular, just fine. The voice acting of Chitanda one of the MC s is irritating but that just essentially brings out her character so it gets full points for that. Houtaro the other MC's voice acting is fine, the male supporting actor has a really nice voice acting while the other ones are just average. Well basically it means you will not remember almost anything out of this anime except the japanese version of “I'm curious”.

Hyouka has an episodic plot and it stays true to it till the end making it a better anime than Gosick in this aspect. Each mystery is in an ordinary setting and the reasoning is thoroughly explained and easily follow-able, which makes you feel you could have got it if you have tried a bit harder. Some of the mysteries are really easy while some are seriously interesting. Its a mixed bag basically. And so as the characters. While the main MC shows tremendous development. The supporting cast shows development in only select episodes and that is a tad irritating. That will be a factor in these episodic anime so it cant be helped. But my irritation is at how little we got to know of the female lead character, her life was mainly known in 2-3 episodes with the last episode giving the most exposition and there was really little to no development in her character. The way she was initially was the way she remained at the end of the anime. Except probably she fell in love. And that is another bone I have to pick. Its nice when hints of romance are shown but its really irritating when you don't have a season 2 and you cant quite pinpoint the romantic endings the anime as as there are only hints no definite answers. That s something I hate.

The last episode of the anime is deemed as a masterpiece by many, while I agree it is a masterpiece of situation animation, creating an open ended romantic story which originally was like a high school detective mystery doesn't earn brownie points. Yes there was a mystery even in the last episode but it was not really that relevant. The male MC still remained hesitant, while you can always find 101 reasons to support his actions, it doesn't mean you just end your anime like that. The female MC's life and wants are also hinted at but they are nearly not enough for a 22 episode anime. This would have been better off without the final two episodes. No romance is better than incomplete open ended romance in anime. Which means I have to deduct marks in coherence.

Well overall I cant say I didn't enjoy the anime, but I enjoyed Gosick more even if its a more flawed piece of work. Probably because it had a definite conclusion no matter how cliched it may be.

Final verdict:- Hyouka is a nice piece of animation. The moe artwork distracts a bit, and the incomplete romance leaves you wanting a non existent second season, but the mysteries are really interesting and are commonplace which makes you feel that incidents of this anime can happen around you and hence I give this one a thumbs up, not a big thumbs up but a decent one, i.e. it is a nice time killer. I would still prefer Gosick over this one though.