I wanted a change of pace from all the comedies I’d been watching, so I took a chance on Hyouka, which Funimation describes as “a stunning masterwork that spins a charming tale of high school romance and mystery.” Mystery? Sure, sounds good!

Our first and primary character, Hotaro, isn’t a slacker, he just lives by a philosophy of energy conservation that means he tries to do as little as possible at all times: take the most direct route, find the most efficient method, whatever. At the behest of his older sister, he joins the Classic Literature Club upon entering high school, as it has no members as is therefore in danger of being disbanded. But hey, with no other members, that means he should be able to use the club room for homework and use as little energy as possible, right?

well

Turns out he’s not the only new member. Which wouldn’t be a problem (now he can leave!) except Eru Chitanda is so earnestly inquisitive about anything mildly curious and Hotaro is caught so off-guard when she asks for help that he finds himself agreeing.

Boy has a very minor crush, and was not prepared to deal with bright purple eyes looking at him beseechingly.

But since his life goal is still to do as little as possible, he’s actually gotten quite good at mentally putting things together, making connections and drawing conclusions (so he doesn’t waste energy on taking a long route, or having track people down). So he’s actually quite good at helping find answers to Eru’s questions…which means she’ll keep coming back.

Eru herself isn’t really overbearing, she’s just enthusiastic, incredibly sincere, and disarms Hotaro completely. It’s great.

While the mysteries, such as they are, form the impetus for most of the plot, the focus here are the characters and relationships. There are four club members total: Eru, Hotaro, his longtime friend Satoshi, and classmate Mayaka.

The Classic Lit club itself does very little—they track down some information in the first few episodes, and create an anthology to sell at the school festival in a later arc—but the members find themselves drawn to mysteries that are, objectively, usually not big: trying to determine a writer’s planned-but-unwritten ending for a movie script after the writer falls ill and can’t answer questions; figuring out why the same book gets checked out by different people at the same time every week; finding a lost item; why someone reacted to a certain sound.

But Hyouka frames each of these as important and serious, because that’s how the characters themselves experience it: something that affected them emotionally, something they have to find out. It’s not just curiosity in all cases, it’s uncovering something about themselves, or feeling a duty to someone else. The weight and atmosphere we feel as viewers isn’t because we personally consider any of these topics important, but because we’re experiencing them through the lens of people who do.

The characters themselves are fun, and each have their own worries and insecurities. Several times throughout the series, we can see a character…not get taken down a peg, as that would imply they deserved it, but rather experience a normal part of life in which we all, occasionally, are forced to face the fact that our inner view of ourselves and the world does not always line up with others’, whether it be a marketing philosophy or one’s image of oneself as good at something–or viewing someone else as good or bad at something.

This familiar to all of us, or it should be (never having your views/assumptions challenged or reconsidered leads to personalities like Donald Trump), and the students in Hyouka sometimes accept the results, and sometimes it slides them into disarray.

Hotaro, for example, takes forever to admit to himself, much less anyone else, that he might be willing to put in some effort that’s not actually required? Just because he wants to? It’s a slow process, but by the end of the school year—and the series—he’s opened himself up, a little.

Eru and Mayaka both have more depth than they appear at first, more than you would assume from their easily-pigeonholed first appearances as “wide-eyed enthusiastic innocent” or “grumpy friend.” And Satoshi, my favorite character—tries so hard not to get hurt, positioning himself as a friendly and enthusiastic “database” of information the others can use for deductions because if he’s that, then he doesn’t have to try at things he might fail at, and get hurt.

Verdict

English dub? Yes

Visuals: Can’t you just feel the setting sun on your face?

Don’t your eyes just want to instinctively squint a little in a sunset you’re not actually seeing?

Just for a moment, do you reach for a jacket that’s still stuffed into a closet?

Backgrounds are gorgeous, animation is fluid, and—while harder to show in gifs—a lot is shot like a film, with wide sweeping shots that serve to emphasize a character’s loneliness or isolation, or close shots that avoid faces as characters wrestle with emotions.

Worth watching? Yes. I can see why the Funimation description is so enthusiastic. It’s a beautiful, enjoyable series. Not slice of life, but slower-paced than a lot of other shows I’m drawn to (action, fantasy, and/or comedy), but the pacing feels deliberate and doesn’t drag. It’s a great show, with 22 episodes.