Hyouka

[ImperialX]

1:

Because it's KyoAni. Simple.

Art is absolutely gorgeous, but that's something we've already come to expect from KyoAni. In addition, you can see KyoAni try new things such as the stylized mystery sequences and the watercolor painting. I already eagerly await the OST, and the occasional use of classical music is more than welcome. I really like the atmosphere of this series too in general, but then again I really liked K-ON and I understand that to some people, this art style is a turn-off.

I don't expect any serious mysteries from this series, but that doesn't mean this is going to be anything as boring as Kami-sama no Memochou, KyoAni today is about the characters, and is a full-fledged high-quality production studio of B-Type series. Coming into this series expecting any form of real mystery will undoubtedly end in disappointment, looking at the resolutions of the mystery elements of this first episode, but that's not what you look for KyoAni to do. I'm glad to see that KyoAni is doing what they're best at in this series, and they're not trying to be a studio they're not. I know the K-ON haters will bash this show as well, citing the same reasons as they did for K-ON, but they just don't really get the appeal of KyoAni's works.

I'm eagerly awaiting the next episode. In fact, much more so than Fate/zero's next episode, if that says anything about how much I enjoyed this series thus far.

[leokiko.]

1:

I'm an K-ON hater, but here the characters aren't boring at all. They aren't moe shit. This was an enjoyable episode, great visuals and interesting start for the characters. I'm not an fan of KyoAni, didn't enjoy most of their shows, but I could follow this. It depends on how much shows I am gonna follow in this season, which so far, has been proven to be amazing.

Anyway, I hope Hyouka does something different for the next episode, because the only fault in this one is that there was no hook. What's this about anyway? The purple-eyed girl seems to have her reasons for joining the club.

Also: HOLY SHIT HER EYES.

[Reckoner]

1:

Forgettable, boring drivel.

I first have to muse over what the selling point of this show is. As with any opener one has to latch onto something. It could be a character, it could be some exciting plot, but it has got to be something. What does this show have? From what I can tell nothing.

Our main character is some guy who apparently hates to waste energy, and does only what he must as quick as possible. OK cool, what a fascinating person right? No of course not. He's not funny, he's not charismatic, and his characterization is as flat as a pancake. What are we left with? Some dude with no scene presence apparently good at solving mysteries.

What kind of mysteries I dare say? Some boring school mysteries nobody gives two sh*ts about. Oh look a janitor accidentally locked in a girl in the classroom. FREAKING AMAZING!!!  Wait wut. Only the most interesting mysteries will ever entertain us in this show I gather. Dear god, I hope this is not all they have.

Now the main girl shown so far was somehow even more forgettable than our main character. She kinda just ran around with her shiny eyes while getting excited at every little thing. Of course our main character takes a fancy to her, we needed a nice overdone plot like this. Girl somehow entangles a dude into joining a club he didn't want to be a part of. Where have I seen this one before?

The visuals were not that spectacular. Yes they were good, particularly the background movement at times, but what about the high amount of static scenes of 3 people talking in a circle? If you continuously shuffle out nicely animated scenes with very static scenes why should I believe this is a better visual effort than the likes of EO7 Ao, Fate/zero, lupin III, Sakamichi no Apollon? KyoAni is not even that special in the visual department anymore.

Ending conclusion --- Am I seriously supposed to believe that Kadoakawa and KyoAni have passed off further productions of Haruhi and FMP for this piece of turd? What the ****... 3/10

Good god Kyoani, even DEEN is making better anime than you these days.

[Sorrows Neptune]

1:

Nothing really grabbing apart from the visuals; I pretty much agree with all of Reckoner's points. Although I did find Fukube to be really likable for some reason.

According to the synposis on MAL, there will be an overarcing mystery, so it won't all be highschool hijinks. My guess is they'll just using these mundane mysteries to introduce the characters, and build up to the actual thing. Or rather, that's what I'm hoping is the case.

[SQA]

1: Well, that's one way to use an animation budget.  It's damn pretty.

We'll see how it goes.  It could be good, it could be bad, but I do hope its interesting.

[AC]

2:

First things first: the fact that the show looks too much like K-On bugs me. I kinda hate that much, so this show did me the favor of reminding me about it.

But this is KyoAni, and this shit is bananas. I mean, look at how visually stunning that whole hair-vines scene is. No idea what the **** is up with that and all, but it certainly looks fabulous. And that horror water-painting scene. Man KyoAni, you're really blowing you budget on Hyouka. As for the characters, they look like those from K-On but in character, they remind me more of TMoHS. Male lead Oreki is a deadbeat, which isn't far off if you compare him with Kyon (for some reason, him being voiced by the same person who did Clannad's Tomoya didn't surprise me for some reason). Satoshi is a motivator who goes with the flow, just like Itsuki. Chitanda is Mikuru; yes, she isn't as moe as the latter but she plays the demure and feminine role in the group. The only ones missing now are those similar to Nagato and Suzumiya.

The story? I don't know what to make out of it exactly for now. It looks like a mystery/slice of life genre, but to me it's leaning more towards the latter. Heck, not even sure if it's going for a mystery plot. What's so mysterious about getting lock in a room and justifying a horror mystery in the simplest way possible? This isn't exactly Sherlock Holmes material, although there's a supernatural hint going on which I can't quite put my finger on. But one thing's for sure: the show executes every scene well. Although the so-called "mysteries" weren't engrossing per se, the show knows how to visually present them in such a way that they were riveting. For that, I give this show some credit.

I guess I'll stick around. Not because the show's great; I just wanna know what kind of show this really is.

Oh yeah, one question:

Oreki: "The only thing I still don't get is why you didn't hear the sound of the door being locked while you were inside."

Chitanda: "Ah, well that's because... I was looking at that building."

I FAIL TO SEE THE LOGIC.

I'm eagerly awaiting the next episode. In fact, much more so than Fate/zero's next episode, if that says anything about how much I enjoyed this series thus far.

You moe-fag you :U

[ImperialX]

You moe-fag you :U

I'm pretty proud of that. Adds a lot of variety to this forums, don't you think?

[Fumoffu!!]

1:

I watched because of the studio, and whilst I wasn't grabbed, I thought it was fairly good, and i think I could end liking this. I winced when I read this:

Ending conclusion --- Am I seriously supposed to believe that Kadoakawa and KyoAni have passed off further productions of Haruhi and FMP for this piece of turd?

Because whilst I didn't hate the episode, putting it like that makes it sound awful...

I'll stick around.

[ImperialX]

The visuals were not that spectacular. Yes they were good, particularly the background movement at times, but what about the high amount of static scenes of 3 people talking in a circle? If you continuously shuffle out nicely animated scenes with very static scenes why should I believe this is a better visual effort than the likes of EO7 Ao, Fate/zero, lupin III, Sakamichi no Apollon? KyoAni is not even that special in the visual department anymore.

I'm not going to comment too much about this, but just know that there were 25 animators named in the OP. How many shows today even have half that number? There is zero CG here, and just the scene where our protagonist walks into the room and sees her by the window has more frames than the amount of an entire episode of most anime series we see today. If you think Hyouka is nothing special visually...then I feel sorry for you, because I seriously don't know what can please your eyes.

[Reckoner]

I'm not going to comment too much about this, but just know that there were 25 animators named in the OP. How many shows today even have half that number? There is zero CG here, and just the scene where our protagonist walks into the room and sees her by the window has more frames than the amount of an entire episode of most anime series we see today. If you think Hyouka is nothing special visually...then I feel sorry for you, because I seriously don't know what can please your eyes.

Zero CG? You should look closer at the backgrounds. Almost no modern anime is completely devoid of CG. But that's not the point I was trying to make. In the past KyoAni used to be amazing visually and few studios could construct a visual experience like they could in the modern era, but I was just pointing out this is no longer the case. The show is indeed very fluid, more so than a lot of anime these days, but as a trade off you get over simplified character designs that are rather bland and boring (Save DEM eyes). And throughout the episode there was a constant switch off between these gloriously animated scenes and more static ones, so it wasn't like the experience the whole time was amazingly fluid. Keep in mind the visual experience more than just how fluid it is. People can make really fluid stick figures, do we call that amazing?

It's funny you point out that one scene to me because I felt that was unnecessarily fluid and out of place. It was really drawn out and made me actually sit back a second and think "really?"

Anyways the point wasn't that it was bad visually. No, it was simply that compared to other top line works they're nothing special so for me, because I saw this as really boring, this had absolutely nothing over any of the bigger titles this season.

[leokiko.]

Lupin III's animation gave me a better impression than Hyou-ka's....

[Ascaloth]

Is it a bad thing that I hear Houtaro monologuing, and I'm thinking "Hey, that's me!" >_>

Maybe that's why I actually quite enjoyed it. 'Course, there's DEM EYES too...

[Ascaloth]

2:

Wow, is Eru being all pushy and demanding and personal-space-what-personal-space this episode. She certainly has a way of making people uneasy when she gets worked up; it's said that comedy = tragedy + time, and it certainly is amusing seeing Houtarou trying to wriggle out of her grip in vain. DEM EYES appears to be contagious, too.

I dunno, for all of the decidedly mundane pacing and premise, there's just something compelling about Hyouka that makes me want to watch more. DEM EYES, maybe? I'm starting to think there's a reason the good folks at KyoAni decided to choose this particular work for adaptation; all I can say is, I want to see what it is.

[leokiko.]

I like this and I do not know why.

[AC]

2:

Three points:

1) Am I right to say that Houtarou is Kyon with a longer fringe? Because that's who he is: he always gets drawn into Eru's wishes (perhaps with the help of Satoshi's whims) relunctantly, is as optimistic as Ray Romano... in fact, I feel like I'm watching The Melancholy of Haruhu Suzumiya sans the alien/deity/time traveler elements. Could you blame me, especially when Chitanda said that the club should be doing club activities (i.e. fun stuff), just like how Suzumiya thinks SOS Brigade should do fun stuff?

2) What's with all this "eye power" thing that Eru and Mayaka have? Are they supernatural and even mean something, or are they just signs that KyoAni is trying to show off visually? Because there's nothing supernatural about the story... maybe there's something more to the story because Eru apparently has motives but so far, it's been about high school students solving mysteries that no one cares about.

3) If I were there to solve the mystery, I would suggest asking one of the borrowers in person. Problem solved... or am I missing the point?