Hyouka

[Fumoffu!!]

7:

I loved seeing Oreki getting flustered over Chitanda. It's the obvious romantic development, but the way he reacted to her was quite amusing, especially considering how he is most of the time. The first glimpse was how he reacted after realizing Chitanda expected a mixed bath, and after that it just got funny. It was a good portrayal of someone fantasizing.

The mystery was pretty obvious this time, the culprit was at least. As soon as we learnt it had rained, I guessed someone was drying clothes, and the girl was just suspicious from the start. Let's see where the next episode goes.

[Ascaloth]

7:

Fanservice AND manservice ahoy!

[TypicalIdiotFan]

7:

I honestly laughed heartily at "cover kid".  Maybe I'm just not used to the censorship levels that Japan has gone to these last few years (or more aptly, the inconsistency of it), but when the pants came down the last thing I expected was an out of focus kid to run into the scene and block the goods.

For a guy who proclaims to be a saver of energy, Oreki sure gets worked up quickly.  Don't get me wrong, I've fantasized about some womens before in my life, too, but never to the point where I passed out in a bath.  Or... had to quickly turn over away from a girl, with my knees up, hunched over, in order to hide my "excitement", if you get my drift.

These episodes are well written, no matter if the mysteries turn out to be simplistic, and the visuals continue to be superb.  Throwing together the two main unrelated talking points about how paranormal mysteries turn out to be nothing and the ideal of a sibling was perfectly done.

[Ascaloth]

Heh, then you should watch the onsen episode of FMP: Fumoffu again. 'Cover kid' is small beans compared to the censoring shenanigans KyoAni got up to there, though it was a nice callback to it.

[TypicalIdiotFan]

Oh I have not forgotten how beautiful it was when Kazama got a face full of Sousuke junk.  That scene always makes me laugh, both for the obvious, and because Sousuke is apparently either a eunuch or has nards of steel, because I don't think I could take some dude's face in my sack at hilarious speeds and stay standing upright.

[Sorrows Neptune]

7:

Wait, if you see something that looks an awful lot like a hanged person, shouldn't you like, investigate it immediately? Chitanda and Ibara got a good look at it, so they knew it wasn't just their imagination, and they were obviously scared by it, so I find it hard to believe they would just shrug it off and assume it's no big deal. (Even if it did turn out to be nothing, but that's beside the point.)

[SQA]

8:

This episode pretty much existed so KyoAni can practice/show off their 2d/3d compositioning work.  I wonder if they had any of it bought from Studio Rika because it looked a whole lot like that.  (I.e. Time of Eve effects) 

I wonder how hard it is for a seiyuu to actually act that woodenly for the amateur movie scenes, haha.

[TypicalIdiotFan]

I wonder that as well.  I mean, during some of the stupidest parts of a dub and sub debate, someone will inevitably mention how "bad" the acting of dubs are (even if their claim is ****ing asinine and inaccurate).  The counter argument is generally that the Japanese acting could be pretty piss poor, too, and the only way to tell would be if you were a native speaker.  While this is true, this episode (and other anime with intentionally "bad" or wooden acting during scenes) demonstrates to us that... yeah you can tell.  Bad acting is bad acting.  A universal ham or a generic overactor, if you will.

As for the episode, I feel so sorry for Houtarou sometimes.  He gets railroaded so easily into shit, which is his own fault of course.  Still, Chitanda and her KININARIMASU is pretty hard to resist.  It's when the other two follow suit that things get a bit absurd for our poor slacker hero.

[Fumoffu!!]

8:

Well, I've already made a tepid guess as to who the murderer could be, though I've assumed there was only one, and that he/she was part of the group.

I guess I should put it in spoilers:

Spoiler for Hiden:

When they went in the room and he looked outside the window, the tall grass had not been trampled, therefore I assume that the person must have got out through the door. The key was inside though, and whilst it could have been chucked in from the outside, I doubt that because of the grass. Therefore, someone probably used the master key. As far as I'm aware, there were two people who knew about the aster key, the silent girl who knew a suspicious amount about everything, or the quiet guy. When they went off to search on their own, they were both left on their own, so either of them could have done it. I'd guess the girl, because she just knew too much, but I think that's a bit too simplistic a case if that's so, so I would choose the quiet boy instead. A problem is that it doesn't explain the arm being detached nor does it have any real evidence going for it.

The thing is, there seems to be a mystery concerning the person who came up with the story in the first place as well... I'm fairly interested to see the next episode.

[Ascaloth]

8:

Shades of the Fumoffu! onsen episode last week, shades of the Asahina Mikuru no Densetsu Episode 00 episode this week. Put that together with the Nichijou SHAFT-like trippiness in general, as well as the signature lush visuals, and Hyouka is starting to look like KyoAni's showcase of everything they have ever done.

Hmmm. I wonder how they're going to slot the Lambda Driver effect into this series.

[AC]

7:



I snickered at this split-second scene. This is meme material.

Quite an interesting "case of the week" there; although the conclusion to the mysterious hanged shadow seemed too simplistic, I liked the arrival to that conclusion. The clues that are planted in the episode along the way were subtle enough for me to not notice from the onset.

8:

DAT INDIE FILM. God, it's so bad that it's good. The flat dialogue, the wooden acting, the amateurish camera panning... OH EPIC. As for the mystery itself, I guess it would end up being similar to episode 7, in the sense that it would be a simplistic problem with a simplistic answer. The important thing is the deduction to that answer; in fact, that has always been the case in Hyouka.

[AC]

9:

Didn't it occur to Chitanda (or anyone) that those chocolates contained whiskey? Really? Speaking of Chitanda, what did she contribute to the team anyway, other than saying that Theory A or Theory B don't feel right? Everyone there was trying to deduce the logic behind the theories, and Chitanda did anything but that.

Let's see how the mystery is solved in the next episode, and see what detail did everyone apparently missed.

[Yggberry]

9:

Didn't it occur to Chitanda (or anyone) that those chocolates contained whiskey? Really? Speaking of Chitanda, what did she contribute to the team anyway, other than saying that Theory A or Theory B don't feel right? Everyone there was trying to deduce the logic behind the theories, and Chitanda did anything but that.

Let's see how the mystery is solved in the next episode, and see what detail did everyone apparently missed.

Well, that's why Chitanda is "curious" for Oreki. She doesn't behave normally like the uptight princess type. (Good grade, rich family, pretty, etc.)

But come on AC, you of all people should have figured out the hierarchy by now. Chitanda doesn't do any interpretation. The only time she ever did it was during the main story line of Hyouka. And even that, it was more of an introduction than actually a theory. Chitanda fulfilled her role. She is the club president and the person who introduces the mystery. That's all she's there for. She is the initiator. Anything else and she'll be out of character.

Mayaka and her attitude is the investigator of the group. Ask the important questions, compile the introduction.
Satoshi is the database. Collects the data and orders them.
Oreki is the resolution. He puts everything together and solve it.

This is how the series going to be laid out from beginning to finish.

Now as for this arc's mystery itself. Who here has an explanation? I think they are "testing" Oreki. At least that's how I felt with all three stories focused on Oreki at some point. I don't know.

But the last story is somewhat plausible. However, not by an outside source. I think there are two possibilities:

A) It was an accident. The victim got his arm chopped off unexpectedly and fainted. Or else, wouldn't there be some sort of scream? Wouldn't the other have heard him? I don't see any sign of struggle in the room either. I kind think we should look up. Maybe the victim fell from the floor above or something. I mean why would he lock himself in the room? The door was locked, right?

B) The three left behind killed him. I am aware that they didn't have the key but this might have been planned by the three of them. If this indeed was a crime, then there had to be more than one suspect to subdue the victim without any sound made.

[TypicalIdiotFan]

I think they are "testing" Oreki.

That should be obvious.  I'm also convinced that the short, mauve haired girl who claimed to be Hongo's friend and has been doing all the escorting of people to the interview room IS Hongo.  Too many things she knwos that are probably a bit hard for anybody else to know.  She also acquired that script awfully quickly and seemed intent at watching the gang read it.  Perhaps she's stuck and actually needs some help figuring out what would be a good mystery.  I don't doubt that she's an amateur and not familiar with mysteries, so if she can get a mystery worked out from a master mystery solver, she could write it into their film and have a truly epic work.

The victim got his arm chopped off unexpectedly and fainted. Or else, wouldn't there be some sort of scream?

I don't think the arm-chopping off part was in the script.  Remember, Hongo didn't want a lot of blood, so it doesn't make sense to have a dismembered hand there in addition to whatever killed the boy.  Of course, the hand could have been chopped off AFTER the boy was killed.

The door was locked, right?

Actually, this is the most important point of the mystery, but not from the direction the characters are thinking at the moment.  Why was the door locked?  If the murder victim went in there, he just unlocked the room, right?  So why would he lock the room again?  The truth is, this "closed room" is a fabrication.  The killer closed and locked the room behind him.  Before that?  It was unlocked and wide open.

Going back to the hand, maybe it was chopped off because that was the only way to get the key away from the victim in order to lock the door behind the killer.  But I still think that's an improv action by the director and prop master.

[The Big Guy]

The key is in the severed hand. It's mentioned in the light novel. That's what made it a closed room in the first place. Actually, we don't know which key is in the severed hand, so it could be his key, the master key, or it could be the killer's key, which the killer hoped that no one would bother to look at the key since it was in a severed hand. That's probably a stretch though.

My other theory is that there are two killers instead of just one, as a compromise to another part of the novel/class minutes in which the class voted for two people to be killed instead of just one. In that case, the most likely suspects would the two people who ran back to get the master key, as they wanted to cover up the fact they had it. It was also explicitly mentioned in the light novel that two people went to get the key rather than just one, which could be another hint. That's my take though.