Japanese Title: Hyouka
Similar: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Watched in: Japanese
Genre: Slice of Life Mystery
Length: 22 episodes, 1 OVA
Positives:
- Pleasant art and animation details.
Negatives:
- So boring.
- No obstacles to the mysteries.
- No reason to care.
(Request an anime for review here.)
Imagine a mystery where characters sit around and talk about the mystery instead of facing obstacles in the pursuit of answers. Now imagine that halfway through this series, what little mystery there was dwindles to a mere ember dying out in Sherlock Holmes’s fireplace. There you have Hyouka.
Oreki is a high school student who doesn’t like to expend energy unless absolutely necessary. He joins the school’s Classic Literature Club thinking it will be an easy ride without energy required, but when the inquisitive Eru begins an investigation into a mystery connecting her uncle and the club, his plans of laziness vanish.
Damn Hyouka is boring. This mystery they speak of is so uninteresting. It involves old books and finding meaning behind a passage, uncovering the author, getting the facts of a past incident, etc. The answer, which I won’t give away, feels so unimportant and is so unremarkable that I would understand if you thought it was a minor detail before the real solution.
It’s the journey, not the destination, you say? Well, the journey is a chore of bland dialogue replacing actual investigation. Where Sherlock Holmes – an inspiration for Hyouka (apparently) – would hit the streets looking for clues and talking to unusual witnesses, Oreki and co. chat with a librarian and then return to the clubroom to talk about the rest of the case. Hyouka has no flair, no style – no tension. Nonsense slice of life punctuates the investigation, though has no effect on the monotony, making Hyouka even duller.
Having a light mystery can work – we see it all the time in one-shot sitcom episodes – but you must have great characters to hang out with for the duration. Such pieces are more about having a good time with interesting people than about solving some deep mystery. Oreki’s trait of energy conservation has no purpose to the story. It’s a gimmick and nothing more. When a protagonist has ‘the trait,’ it must mean something to the story at large. As an example, Holmes’s abrasiveness gives him the ability to ask insensitive but necessary questions of witnesses and suspects alike. Yet this abrasiveness also makes him difficult to work with. Oreki’s laziness doesn’t do anything because he completes his task anyway with no meaningful conflict. Remove his gimmick and nothing changes.
To worsen matters, the second half of Hyouka devolves into meaningless slice of life – the Sherlock Holmes motif in the second ED is an insult, at this point. Hyouka’s mysteries are so few, so uninteresting that they run out of steam halfway through the series.
Honestly, I have so little to say about Hyouka that this feels like a waste of a review. It never gave me a reason to care about any of its characters or mysteries. So what drew me to this in the first place? When I was in Takayama (a town close to Shirakawa-go of Higurashi fame) for a festival, I saw in the hotel’s window a poster for Hyouka’s Blu-ray, which is set in fictional Kamiyama based on Takayama. When an anime takes place in a real Japanese location, the locals of said location size the opportunity to attract fans for tourism. ‘Location pilgrimages’ are common among otaku – similar to how Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings fans go on holidays to hunt filming locations. I was doing the reverse, interested in the fictional portrayal after visiting the real place. And as it turns out, the real place is far more engaging.
Art – High
The art is Hyouka’s best quality with its bright palette and great animation. The little movements in each scene are a nice touch.
Sound – Medium
Even top actors could not make this dry dialogue engaging. Characters talk a lot without saying much.
Story – Low
A lazy guy is roped into a literature club that seeks to uncover mysteries surrounding their clubroom and its books. Never have I seen mysteries less interesting nor so boringly told than in Hyouka.
Overall Quality – Low
Recommendation: Skip it. Hyouka is so boring that I can’t see reason to recommend it.
(Request reviews here. Find out more about the rating system here.)
Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)
Positive: None
Negative: None
Nefarious Reviews 
Intriguing perspective, as you’re the first person to completely disregard the series for being dull. I’ve heard that the mysteries were dull, but not that the entire show itself was dull. Were you not amused with Eru’s c-u-r-i-o-s-i-t-y?
LikeLiked by 2 people
The problem is that she’s curious about something that isn’t interesting. Hyouka either needed better characters or better mysteries (preferably both), but as it has neither, I sadly found the whole series dull. Going full slice of life in the second half was also a strange decision…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I believe you missed the actual points of the story. This was not really a mystery series. Growth of the main character and a lot of symbolism concerning other topics. Not for everyone, but very good none the less.
LikeLike