The base story of Hyouka is about a completely unmotivated, unenergetic high school boy named Houtarou Oreki. His motto in life is literally “If I don’t have to do it, I won’t. If I have to do it, I’ll make it quick”. If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about his character, I don’t know what will.
Continuing with my description of the base story, a girl named Eru Chitanda meets Houtarou inside the club room for the classic lit club, which Houtarou’s sister told him to join. Houtarou quickly learns that Chitanda is a very curious girl who wants to know - or rather HAS to know - everything.
So they basically go around and solve weird mysteris around their school, and sometimes in places other than their school, right? Yeah, basically.
Sound boring? Well it's not. It's fucking PHENOMENAL. But not only is the story phenomonal, everything else is too.
The animation in Hyouka gives off major summer vibes to me - that makes sense, since a portion of it takes place in the summer, which should tell you that they did a pretty good job with the animation if I could feel the vibes.
For such an old anime, it’s only really beautifully animated. The animation felt alive, and it just made me feel happy for some reason. Not sure why, but I'm not one to complain.
The character are… okay. Houtarou is a very well written and interesting character, Chitanda is okay, and then the two side characters (I’m sorry, I don’t remember their names) aren’t that interesting and don’t really have enough depth.
Houtarou - Houtarou is obviously the best character. Aside from his attractiveness, Houtarou is interesting because of his character development. He is slowly pulled out of his shell by Chitanda, and becomes less and less reluctant to actually do stuff and solve stuff each time she asks. He is the embodiment of me but on a much larger scale. He's incredibly intelligent and has a real knack for solving stuff, and he's the main thing that kept my eyes glued to my screen for the entire duration of the show.
Chitanda - Chitanda is also an interesting character. She’s the reason Houtarou is breaking out of his shell and doing more stuff with his life. She’s giving his “grey life” color, because she’s living a rose colored life, and she wants him to do the same. She's constantly pushing him to not be such a lazy bum, and it slowly begins working.
The opening is actually pretty good, but it’s not as good as the OST. The OST that plays throughout Hyouka is so perfect. It makes such good study music. It's great music to study to, and I listen to it CONSTANTLY to this day.
I really liked this anime. It had good characters, a good plot, good pacing, and it kept me hooked the entire time. I can understand why some people think it's boring, but in my opinon this is KyoAni's best from what I've seen. Please, give it a watch if you haven't already. It's great.
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