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[Branduil]

Adolescence is not always kind. Nor is it always harsh.

What is it?

Originally written as a series of novels by Honobu Yonezawa, the story centers on a high school boy named Houtarou Oreki, a passive, self-proclaimed "energy-saver," who refuses to do things that will force him to expend unnecessary energy. At the insistence of his older sister, he enters his new school's Classics Club, where he meets the inquisitive Eru Chitanda, and the group begins investigating a mystery that occurred 33 years ago. Clues to the mystery are found in a collection of works called "Hyouka."



Who is making it?

The newest work from KyoAni, the studio responsible for popular works such as Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Clannad, and K-on. The staff includes such notables as-

Director: Yasuhiro Takemoto(FMP Fumoffu, Lucky Star, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya)
Series Composition: Shoji Gatoh(Original author of Full Metal Panic)
Music: Kouhei Tanaka(Gunbuster series, One Piece, Violinist of Hamelin)



Where can I watch it?

Unfortunately, there are no currently announced simulcasts. Check this space again later.



Characters

Houtaro Oreki | Yuuichi Nakamura | Tomoya(Clannad), Ryuu(Kimi ni Todoke), Laquld(Glass Fleet)

A first-year student, he refers to himself as someone "always in battery-saving mode" by principle.



Eru Chitanda | Satomi Satou | Ritsu(K-on)

Daughter to a wealthy family, Eru is by nature an enthusiastically curious girl. Her most striking feature is her deep violet eyes.



Satoshi Fukube | Daisuke Sakaguchi | Sunohara(Clannad), Yamazaki(Welcome to the NHK)

An easily excited boy who always carries a drawstring bag.



Mayaka Ibara | Ai Kayano | Menma(We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day), Inori(Guilty Crown), Kanade(Chihayafuru)

A short girl with a sharp tongue, who has known Houtarou since childhood.



Official website(Japanese): http://www.kyotoanimation.co.jp/kotenbu/

Preview Trailer: http://www.kotenbu.com/special/120316pv.html

Full Staff list: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=13817

 

[Haly]

Will watch for quality if nothing else.

 

[Branduil]

Episode 1:

Hyouka 1

This is the best audiovisual package this season, with the possible exception of Tsuritama. I could post a bunch of screenshots, but I think it's better experienced in context. Incredibly atmospheric, even magical in places. Kyoto Animation does not disappoint.

The "mysteries" are straightforward so far, but I like how they're presented. There were some really neat directing tricks on display. The deliberate pace and mood will serve well once we get into the more elaborate mysteries I'm sure will come. I'm completely satisfied.

Hyouka 1

Character animation, oh my.

The initial few minutes were a bit dull, albeit well directed and animated, but once the show got going it was pretty amazing. I'd love to post some screen shots of stuff, but I think that would be better saved till more people have watched the episode. Definitely KyoAni's most atmospheric show, the choices for background music are perfect and the direction is spot on. There's some wonderful scene framing on display, and later in the episode there's some neat scenes where they mess with the artstyle.

Gotta say

Spoiler

That scene with the hair growing out Bayonetta style, and the music room ghost story were the big highlights for me. Excellent stuff there.

In fact everything after the former scene I mentioned was ace.

Yeah I also really enjoyed the first episode. The first couple minutes with the inner monolouging of the MC were not particularly engaging but after that it was all great. The three characters we have met seem to have very good chemistry together. The mystery solving makes this rather apparent, it was rather interesting to see how each character plays on each other even for these minor mysteries. Looking forward to how they solve something a little more grand than just

Spoiler

who locked the door?! lol

One thing I rather liked was how while the characters would be talking and so on, the scene itself wasn't always focused on them. Like in the classroom, the camera cuts to some shots from the top of the projector screen, then below the chalk board, etc etc.

This scene blew me away btw. It was such a sudden change of pace, with all the little visual effects as the hair quickly spreads around the room. They played around a bit in the music room ghost story as well, as we can see in the images wonzo posted. If they are going to be doing a lot of creative scenes like these then this show will be a blast.

And of course the music was excellent. Audiovisually Hyouka is unmatched I think.

Well, having watched the first episode it's hard to fault technically. Some of the CG tracking shots aren't to my taste but it's impeccably animated, directed, even sound-designed (they sound more metallic when they're in the corridors!). There's one repeated "thing" that I really didn't care for, but it's certainly a well-done enough piece of animation.

Story-wise... I dunno. The first episode isn't a mystery anime in the sense of actually solving any major crimes - when the first half of the episode is devoted to solving the mystery of

Spoiler

who locked a clubroom door

and the second half has a mystery

Spoiler

manufactured by the protagonist so he had an excuse to do stuff with Eru

, we're not talking Sherlock Holmes yet.

As for the characters, again... I dunno. Maybe it's not fair to judge until the full central quartet is introduced (as this doesn't happen in the first episode). This will sound bizarre, but I don't like the exaggerated way KyoAni animates their female characters; I know why they do it, and it'll never be bettered, but I can't see Eru as a character in her own right. The male characters suffer less from this, partly because of their character types; Houtarou in particular is intriguingly deadpan, although I'm not fond of the brash archetype that Satoshi mostly represents.

Something of a slow-burner, perhaps. Not sure if I'll watch another episode, but we'll see.

Hyouka 1

Animation is top notch as expected and I'm loving the music already. (the BGM is wonderful)

The direction and the art made the opening episode really atmospheric.

Excellent start and I cant wait for further character development!

Hyouka 1

Holy crap, KyoAni sure did crank up their high standard of animation up to eleven for this. No screenshot could even begin to do justice to just how amazing this looks in motion (but i'll add some anyway to raise people's interest).

They handled the rather simple mysteries in a very interesting way. Hopefully they can keep that up for the rest of the show.

Story-wise it's probably going be a little to low-concept for some people; but the episode was FUCKING classy and super-atmospheric otherwise, totally loved the first episode, even managed to feel like a movie at times. Kyoani does it again!

Hyouka Episode 01

Definitely the best looking show of the season, next to Tsuritama. The episode just oozes atmosphere which I really really appreciated. The art direction, the lighting, the music, all of it came together and formed something that looks and sounds amazing. Definitely gotta give KyoAni respect for that.

The characters seem really interesting as well and I like Houtarou's character, in particular. His reactions to Eru were pretty amusing especially that hair scene. He's fairly deadpan but something about him is intriguing. I initially thought his VA sounded a bit too deep for the character, but after a while I grew to like it and I honestly think it's sort of fitting for his personality.

I'm not really sure about the premise though. As well done as it was, I can't get over how mundane the "mysteries" were. I really hope the show tackles mysteries and ideas that are more bigger than

Spoiler

how someone got locked in a room.

These 'mysteries' did lead to some interesting character interactions though.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this episode for the godlike production values if nothing else. It's a promising start but I hope it grows into something a little grander scale-wise.

Hyouka 1

Oh, wow. That looked stunning. The backgrounds, the character animation... Nice job, KyoAni.

Yeah - Eru's violet eyes are pretty stunning too. Houtarou seems to agree.

I said damn.

And my fears that the protagonist would be annoying weren't actually justified, fortunately. He's actually an interesting person already, with a lot of room for character development.

This season's killing it.

Hyouka 1

The visuals, for the most part, are eye-catching and at certain screens down right beautiful

Spoiler

(and very,very brightly contrasted).

But not interested in any of the characters thus far. The classical music made for good background music for simple school held conversations. Mysteries started off lame in their simplicity (not uncalled for in a pilot of a school mystery show).

I will keep watching, in hopes of finding interest in the characters later on.

Hyouka - 01

Trying to answer the age old questions of "What if the SOS dan had a Haruhi that wasn't insane". I thought it was a good episode to introduce the characters and basically show what the show will be about going forward. I had always thought the genre of "seishun mystery" was kinda weird but I guess it just means mysteries in the school sense rather than the more standard police and/or murder mysteries. Structurally it reminds me a lot of Bungaku Shoujo in that there's a club and they try to resolve incidents in one way or the other.

Outside of some unfortunate uses of CG I thought the visuals were a sight to behold. I love how they visualize the main dude getting dragged into this whole thing by having him literally wrapped around the girl's hair.

====
And then this:

One thing I noticed in this (could be true for Nichijou too but I didn't watch that) was that KyoAni is most likely fronting money for this production (as opposed to being hired animation slaves ala SHAFT). Their name is in the credits as part of the sponsors and they had commercials promoting, well, KyoAni itself.

Hyouka 1

Character 1: *monologues*

Character 2: I shall now proceed to describe your quirks and characteristics and recite them to you while you are sitting right here in front of me.

I really dislike this type of character introduction. Having the characters describe each other to themselves feels really artificial and it always stands out to me as really lazy writing.

The rest of the episode fared better but not by much. If this show is really gonna be about mysteries then they're gonna have to do a better job than this. I have to say it didn't really grab me. The characters also seem to have this tendency to explain themselves and their actions way too much. It comes across as exceedingly wordy when it shouldn't. The last scene with the two dudes felt completely unnecesary to me.

Spoiler

I kept thinking "what went on was was rather apparent and not very complex so why are they explaining all this shit to each other like that?" and "couldn't they have come up with a better way to show me all this without throwing so many lines of dialogue at my face?".

It's almost like these dudes love the sound of their voice way too much.

But visually, it's fantastic. One could say beautiful, even. Of course, I would expect no less from KyoAni. Everyone knows their production values are super top notch but that has never been my problem with their most recent output anyway.

I'll keep watching for now because while I found this introduction rather underwhelming I can't deny that, at very least, the potential for something is there. That, and the fact those purple eyes are downright hypnotic. Seriously, it's really tempting to just keep watching for that alone.

Episode 1

The opening scene reminded me of Tatami Galaxy a lot. Not entirely a bad thing, since both shows seem to be about a main character who is rather cynical about the "spring of youth" perception. The art and direction is very reminiscent of other KyoAni works, which is probably a good sign that the studio has developed a strong visual brand for themselves.

I kinda wonder if adapting a bunch of 4koma works over the years have had a direct impact on the way they plan and pace their shows, since Hyouka feels like that too, even though it is based on novels. There is a very clear compartmentalized pace here where you can break the entire episode down to Part A, Part B, Part C, Part D, etc, and each part has a slightly different self-contained arc and/or tone. It's certainly efficient, and probably works better for retaining the attention span of the viewer on drier material.

The overall writing and characters are okay, but there's nothing really outstanding about it. There is a pleasant feel, where you don't feel pressurized to feel a certain emotion at various scenes, or to care for the characters immediately. I liked that. It made it easier to just watch and go with the flow to see where things develop.

Two things that bothered me about the episode were totally visual in nature. The first person view CG shot where the main character approaches the girl gave me a slight headache, and in general I don't like such scenes because they're distracting. What made this scene worse was that they cut back and forth between his perspective and a camera view pointed at him as he approached. The disconnect was pretty strong.

The other scene was the weird "curiosity" scene where the camera zooms into Eru's eyes and everything goes crazy. I've seen this scene twice before in recent seasons - both in mystery anime as well. One was Gosick, and the other is Un-Go. I don't know why there is such a visual trend for mystery anime to have a female lead who does crazy things with their eyes with presented with a mystery, but I don't like it and it looks silly. It's worse now because it also reminds me of the last two shows which had pretty bad mysteries. Hopefully this bucks the trend.

In the end, I'm not really sure if this is even a real mystery show. It seems the mysteries are more about giving an excuse for the characters to come together and do things which might or might not be fun. There's a definite feel of a slice-of-life pace going on, except I find that the show doesn't really have a good actual hook for the scenario or the characters. I don't really care for who they are or what they are doing. The only hook is that Eru is kinda cute when the show isn't focusing on her creepy glass purple eyes, and viewers might want to spend 23 minutes each week with her doing mundane things. I hate to admit it, but that hook seems to work with the first episode at least.


Extra: The opening animation is really nice. I love the style they use for it ranging from the overlays to the pencil sketch look. KyoAni is great at visual design, and the opening was a good example of how attractive they can make things look visually, even when the content isn't really much to shout about.

Episode 1

That was pretty good. I think the key word for this episode was "atmospheric," in that the high-quality visuals and audio established a an extremely effective atmosphere. I think this is why, despite the fairly accurate criticisms about some of the writing, the episode was mostly successful. It was very reminiscent of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya in its ability to evoke certain moods.

While it's true it wasn't the best-written show of the season, I found the chemistry between the characters fairly enjoyable, and I think there's potential for more interesting plotlines to develop.

Kouhei Tanaka's score was masterful, as expected. Well, maybe not expected, but I certainly knew he had it in him. And this season really is spoiling us with incredible background art across a variety of shows.

What makes these backgrounds so effective is not just their technical qualities, but the way they contribute to the visual atmosphere. They're not merely pretty backgrounds for the sake of pretty backgrounds.

Also, I liked both the CGI tracking shot and Eru's eyes. So sue me.

 

[Instro]

I am so hype.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Satoshi seems cool as was the OP.

 

[Brazil]

Looking forward to it!

 

[survivor]

OP was pretty great, can't wait for the first episode.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

While we patiently wait, let's get some first impressions from raito-kun:

Hyouka #1 was great, certainly ranks among this season's best. It may not be something out of the ordinary as anime, but very well executed.

Visually, it was impressive in every respect. Everything fits together beautifully to make for a seamless whole. Takemoto did a great job.

Takemoto directed the opening as expected. He did a nice job with this one as well.

And the new KyoAni CM that aired in the commercial break had an interesting style... I wonder who directed it. Maybe Hiroko Utsumi?

 

[Regulus Tera]

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww dudes :/

 

[Chet Rippo]

If this is K-on! like, then why are there dudes?

 

[Regulus Tera]

If this is K-on! like, then why are there dudes?

To soil the purity of the pretty girls.

 

[PdotMichael]

While we patiently wait, let's get some first impressions from raito-kun:

ehh... Who is Raito-kun?

 

[7Th]

The OP would be a lot better without the godawful CG water effects.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

ehh... Who is Raito-kun?

Animation connoisseur and one of the few good anime bloggers.

The OP would be a lot better without the godawful CG water effects.

The water effects are one of my favorite parts of the OP; they pop in an appealing way and nicely complement the color work.

 

[Jex]

The OP would be a lot better without the godawful CG water effects.

The world would be a lot better without godawful CG effects of any kind.

 

[7Th]

Animation connoisseur and one of the few good anime bloggers.



The water effects are one of my favorite parts of the OP; they pop in an appealing way and nicely complement the color work.

Really? I don't think it meshes very well with the organic design work; it makes the beginning of the OP look like a cheapish AMV edit.

 

[Ultimadrago]

This is mystery, right?

Wouldn't mind seeing a good one adapted well in an anime.

Here's to hoping, Strut your stuff, KyoAni and so on.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Really? I don't think it meshes very well with the organic design work; it makes the beginning of the OP look like a cheapish AMV edit.

I don't know what to say except I disagree. It fits with other watery portions of the OP, the river at 0:18 and the rain puddles at 0:52.

 

[BluWacky]

Well, having watched the first episode it's hard to fault technically. Some of the CG tracking shots aren't to my taste but it's impeccably animated, directed, even sound-designed (they sound more metallic when they're in the corridors!). There's one repeated "thing" that I really didn't care for, but it's certainly a well-done enough piece of animation.

Story-wise... I dunno. The first episode isn't a mystery anime in the sense of actually solving any major crimes - when the first half of the episode is devoted to solving the mystery of

Spoiler

who locked a clubroom door

and the second half has a mystery

Spoiler

manufactured by the protagonist so he had an excuse to do stuff with Eru

, we're not talking Sherlock Holmes yet.

As for the characters, again... I dunno. Maybe it's not fair to judge until the full central quartet is introduced (as this doesn't happen in the first episode). This will sound bizarre, but I don't like the exaggerated way KyoAni animates their female characters; I know why they do it, and it'll never be bettered, but I can't see Eru as a character in her own right. The male characters suffer less from this, partly because of their character types; Houtarou in particular is intriguingly deadpan, although I'm not fond of the brash archetype that Satoshi mostly represents.

Something of a slow-burner, perhaps. Not sure if I'll watch another episode, but we'll see.

 

[Emitan]

What are those things wearing blacks shirts and pants?

 

[Jintor]

New KyoAni? Let's check it out.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Hyouka 1

Animation is top notch as expected and I'm loving the music already. (the BGM is wonderful)

The direction and the art made the opening episode really atmospheric.

Excellent start and I cant wait for further character development!

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Loved the first episode and can't wait for more!

 

[wonzo]

Hyouka 1

Holy crap, KyoAni sure did crank up their high standard of animation up to eleven for this. No screenshot could even begin to do justice to just how amazing this looks in motion (but i'll add some anyway to raise people's interest).

They handled the rather simple mysteries in a very interesting way. Hopefully they can keep that up for the rest of the show.

 

[Lafiel]

Story-wise it's probably going be a little to low-concept for some people; but the episode was FUCKING classy and super-atmospheric otherwise, totally loved the first episode, even managed to feel like a movie at times. Kyoani does it again!

 

[Instro]

Yeah I also really enjoyed the first episode. The first couple minutes with the inner monolouging of the MC were not particularly engaging but after that it was all great. The three characters we have met seem to have very good chemistry together. The mystery solving makes this rather apparent, it was rather interesting to see how each character plays on each other even for these minor mysteries. Looking forward to how they solve something a little more grand than just

Spoiler

who locked the door?! lol

One thing I rather liked was how while the characters would be talking and so on, the scene itself wasn't always focused on them. Like in the classroom, the camera cuts to some shots from the top of the projector screen, then below the chalk board, etc etc.

This scene blew me away btw. It was such a sudden change of pace, with all the little visual effects as the hair quickly spreads around the room. They played around a bit in the music room ghost story as well, as we can see in the images wonzo posted. If they are going to be doing a lot of creative scenes like these then this show will be a blast.

And of course the music was excellent. Audiovisually Hyouka is unmatched I think.

 

[Soma]

Hyouka Episode 01

Definitely the best looking show of the season, next to Tsuritama. The episode just oozes atmosphere which I really really appreciated. The art direction, the lighting, the music, all of it came together and formed something that looks and sounds amazing. Definitely gotta give KyoAni respect for that.

The characters seem really interesting as well and I like Houtarou's character, in particular. His reactions to Eru were pretty amusing especially that hair scene. He's fairly deadpan but something about him is intriguing. I initially thought his VA sounded a bit too deep for the character, but after a while I grew to like it and I honestly think it's sort of fitting for his personality.

I'm not really sure about the premise though. As well done as it was, I can't get over how mundane the "mysteries" were. I really hope the show tackles mysteries and ideas that are more bigger than

Spoiler

how someone got locked in a room.

These 'mysteries' did lead to some interesting character interactions though.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this episode for the godlike production values if nothing else. It's a promising start but I hope it grows into something a little grander scale-wise.

 

[Uchip]

I see Yui dyed her hair black

 

[Emitan]

if he wants to save energy why is he frowning all the time

I see Yui dyed her hair black

haha~

 

[duckroll]

Will watch later. Not expecting much.

 

[Brazil]

Hyouka 1

Oh, wow. That looked stunning. The backgrounds, the character animation... Nice job, KyoAni.

Yeah - Eru's violet eyes are pretty stunning too. Houtarou seems to agree.

I said damn.

And my fears that the protagonist would be annoying weren't actually justified, fortunately. He's actually an interesting person already, with a lot of room for character development.

This season's killing it.

 

[Enron]

That was pretty good.

 

[PdotMichael]

What's exactly the connection between a classic club and mysteries?

have I missed something here?

 

[Ultimadrago]

Hyouka 1

The visuals, for the most part, are eye-catching and at certain screens down right beautiful

Spoiler

(and very,very brightly contrasted).

But not interested in any of the characters thus far. The classical music made for good background music for simple school held conversations. Mysteries started off lame in their simplicity (not uncalled for in a pilot of a school mystery show).

I will keep watching, in hopes of finding interest in the characters later on.

 

[Averon]

Hyouka 1

Animation and art direction is nice. Let's see if the plot and characters can hold up.

 

[zeroshiki]

Cross posting from the Anime Thread:

Hyouka - 01

Trying to answer the age old questions of "What if the SOS dan had a Haruhi that wasn't insane". I thought it was a good episode to introduce the characters and basically show what the show will be about going forward. I had always thought the genre of "seishun mystery" was kinda weird but I guess it just means mysteries in the school sense rather than the more standard police and/or murder mysteries. Structurally it reminds me a lot of Bungaku Shoujo in that there's a club and they try to resolve incidents in one way or the other.

Outside of some unfortunate uses of CG I thought the visuals were a sight to behold. I love how they visualize the main dude getting dragged into this whole thing by having him literally wrapped around the girl's hair.

====
And then this:

One thing I noticed in this (could be true for Nichijou too but I didn't watch that) was that KyoAni is most likely fronting money for this production (as opposed to being hired animation slaves ala SHAFT). Their name is in the credits as part of the sponsors and they had commercials promoting, well, KyoAni itself.

 

[Uchip]

The real mystery is finding out who slipped the poor kid a tab of acid

Animation is cool, but ill wait for some level headed impressions of latter episodes before continuing...

 

[Dedication Through Light]

ep 1

I enjoyed this episode. Actually glued to it the whole time. I enjoyed the visuals, the intrigue and such around the club and especially Fukube and Oreki's storytelling and development of the mystery. Even more their interaction together was funny, how odd for Fukube to know exactly what to say to Oreki to get him to actually stop and think or reminisce over his actions. Already like these two already. Chitanda seems like she can become annoying over time, and to me she seems exactly like Miho in Bakuman.

Cant wait to see how more vivid things get as well as what the plot will be once it gets going.

 

[Uchip]

Already like these two already.

I figured you'd like the boys, but the brown haired one is basically the annoying kid from Durarara, which means he doesn't shut up and I want to punch the screen.

 

[LayLa]

Absolutely loved it, can't wait for next week
best season is best season

 

[trejo]

Hyouka 1

Character 1: *monologues*

Character 2: I shall now proceed to describe your quirks and characteristics and recite them to you while you are sitting right here in front of me.

I really dislike this type of character introduction. Having the characters describe each other to themselves feels really artificial and it always stands out to me as really lazy writing.

The rest of the episode fared better but not by much. If this show is really gonna be about mysteries then they're gonna have to do a better job than this. I have to say it didn't really grab me. The characters also seem to have this tendency to explain themselves and their actions way too much. It comes across as exceedingly wordy when it shouldn't. The last scene with the two dudes felt completely unnecesary to me.

Spoiler

I kept thinking "what went on was was rather apparent and not very complex so why are they explaining all this shit to each other like that?" and "couldn't they have come up with a better way to show me all this without throwing so many lines of dialogue at my face?".

It's almost like these dudes love the sound of their voice way too much.

But visually, it's fantastic. One could say beautiful, even. Of course, I would expect no less from KyoAni. Everyone knows their production values are super top notch but that has never been my problem with their most recent output anyway.

I'll keep watching for now because while I found this introduction rather underwhelming I can't deny that, at very least, the potential for something is there. That, and the fact those purple eyes are downright hypnotic. Seriously, it's really tempting to just keep watching for that alone.

 

[TheVampire]

Does this have any romance in it?

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Does this have any romance in it?

It doesnt seem like it.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Does this have any romance in it?

There is some romantic tension between the main guy and main girl, though we've yet to see how or if it'll develop.

 

[trejo]

Well not yet at least. It's only the first episode, after all.

 

[duckroll]

Episode 1

The opening scene reminded me of Tatami Galaxy a lot. Not entirely a bad thing, since both shows seem to be about a main character who is rather cynical about the "spring of youth" perception. The art and direction is very reminiscent of other KyoAni works, which is probably a good sign that the studio has developed a strong visual brand for themselves.

I kinda wonder if adapting a bunch of 4koma works over the years have had a direct impact on the way they plan and pace their shows, since Hyouka feels like that too, even though it is based on novels. There is a very clear compartmentalized pace here where you can break the entire episode down to Part A, Part B, Part C, Part D, etc, and each part has a slightly different self-contained arc and/or tone. It's certainly efficient, and probably works better for retaining the attention span of the viewer on drier material.

The overall writing and characters are okay, but there's nothing really outstanding about it. There is a pleasant feel, where you don't feel pressurized to feel a certain emotion at various scenes, or to care for the characters immediately. I liked that. It made it easier to just watch and go with the flow to see where things develop.

Two things that bothered me about the episode were totally visual in nature. The first person view CG shot where the main character approaches the girl gave me a slight headache, and in general I don't like such scenes because they're distracting. What made this scene worse was that they cut back and forth between his perspective and a camera view pointed at him as he approached. The disconnect was pretty strong.

The other scene was the weird "curiosity" scene where the camera zooms into Eru's eyes and everything goes crazy. I've seen this scene twice before in recent seasons - both in mystery anime as well. One was Gosick, and the other is Un-Go. I don't know why there is such a visual trend for mystery anime to have a female lead who does crazy things with their eyes with presented with a mystery, but I don't like it and it looks silly. It's worse now because it also reminds me of the last two shows which had pretty bad mysteries. Hopefully this bucks the trend.

In the end, I'm not really sure if this is even a real mystery show. It seems the mysteries are more about giving an excuse for the characters to come together and do things which might or might not be fun. There's a definite feel of a slice-of-life pace going on, except I find that the show doesn't really have a good actual hook for the scenario or the characters. I don't really care for who they are or what they are doing. The only hook is that Eru is kinda cute when the show isn't focusing on her creepy glass purple eyes, and viewers might want to spend 23 minutes each week with her doing mundane things. I hate to admit it, but that hook seems to work with the first episode at least.


Extra: The opening animation is really nice. I love the style they use for it ranging from the overlays to the pencil sketch look. KyoAni is great at visual design, and the opening was a good example of how attractive they can make things look visually, even when the content isn't really much to shout about.

 

[zeroshiki]

Supposedly there is a larger overall narrative but I, for one, wouldn't mind if it just turned into Haruhi without the aliens, time travellers or espers.

 

[Instro]

The other scene was the weird "curiosity" scene where the camera zooms into Eru's eyes and everything goes crazy. I've seen this scene twice before in recent seasons - both in mystery anime as well. One was Gosick, and the other is Un-Go. I don't know why there is such a visual trend for mystery anime to have a female lead who does crazy things with their eyes with presented with a mystery, but I don't like it and it looks silly. It's worse now because it also reminds me of the last two shows which had pretty bad mysteries. Hopefully this bucks the trend.

The dangers of watching bad Bones shows.

 

[Makoto]

Hyouka 1

Character 1: *monologues*

Character 2: I shall now proceed to describe your quirks and characteristics and recite them to you while you are sitting right here in front of me.

I really dislike this type of character introduction. Having the characters describe each other to themselves feels really artificial and it always stands out to me as really lazy writing.

Couldn't agree more with your post especially the quoted. Why in the world are they reminding themselves that they went to middle school together other than for the audience's benefit? I feel like this show is going to be super on-the-nose with its writing but I'm eager to see what other mysteries this show will cook up. KyoAni really looks like they won't disappoint in the art either.

 

[Branduil]

Episode 1

That was pretty good. I think the key word for this episode was "atmospheric," in that the high-quality visuals and audio established a an extremely effective atmosphere. I think this is why, despite the fairly accurate criticisms about some of the writing, the episode was mostly successful. It was very reminiscent of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya in its ability to evoke certain moods.

While it's true it wasn't the best-written show of the season, I found the chemistry between the characters fairly enjoyable, and I think there's potential for more interesting plotlines to develop.

Kouhei Tanaka's score was masterful, as expected. Well, maybe not expected, but I certainly knew he had it in him. And this season really is spoiling us with incredible background art across a variety of shows.

What makes these backgrounds so effective is not just their technical qualities, but the way they contribute to the visual atmosphere. They're not merely pretty backgrounds for the sake of pretty backgrounds.

Also, I liked both the CGI tracking shot and Eru's eyes. So sue me.