A note about the major points of contention before I continue with my own views: The movie arc (episodes 8-11) and the immediately succeeding festival arc (12-17) are pretty much the meat of the series, and watching the two is generally recommended. The latter is considered by many who even are ambivalent or dislike the show to be one of the better done school festivals in a slice of life. The rest of the series is very, very hit and miss.
[Story] - 6
Ignoring the early Classics Club "arc," which generally lacked propulsion, and the movie and festival arcs, which had it in spades, the show is made up of self-contained episodes wherein Oreki solves a mystery about some topic that is sometimes forced to be mysterious. These episodes, which make up a good half of the series and bookend it, can either be taken as inertia-filled character development opportunities or completely aimless attempts to show off KyoAni's budget. The conclusions are usually fun, even if the process isn't, and none of the curiosities feel cheap. Sadly, a lot of these episodes are formulaic and their strength comes from the characters, so I can't recommend the stories on their own. The good pacing and general captivation of the multi-episode arcs, however, serve to balance this problem and prevent me from scoring this as lowly as I could.
[Art] and [Sound] - 9
These two HAVE to be lumped together for this series. KyoAni's impressive atmospheric precision and high quality are here. Even in the more boring mysteries, the animations of Oreki's thought process are nearly breathtaking. Complement these with a varied soundtrack featuring far more than the typical orchestral range of higher-brow anime, and you've got a winner. These are the points that make me wish I liked the series more, because listening to or looking at the series is an absolute joy from start to finish. Seriously immersive, seriously worth the price of admission if you can stomach that they're misused.
[Character] - 7
I can't say I disliked any of the characters, and there was a good swath of side characters to maintain interest, but the central characters were hit and miss in the development department. The slow, very organic progression is executed well for a time, but certain arcs (and, much more frequently, single episodes) throw a large amount of drama into the mix all at once, making the transitions from beginning to end jumpy and leaving me, for one, confused. Romantic tension in the series between two of the characters is rarely referenced until it becomes clear in one of the FINAL EPISODES that it was a defining moment that weighed on both characters' minds throughout. Take also the example of Oreki's self-doubt about midway through and how quickly it comes about and then is resolved (yes, the OVA does a good amount to explain the latter part, but it is not so much as REFERENCED again until, again, the final couple of episodes). This kind of characterization bugs me, especially in light of the fact that in one season of much fewer episodes, a lot of shows are able to create a forward narrative that makes the characters change at a steady, if unrealistically quick, rate. There is a balance here, and Hyouka experiments, but it fails in that it is too jarring when the characters up and change in one rush of emotion.
[Enjoyment] - 6
And here's the big nail in the coffin for Hyouka: a solid half of the episodes warrant not a single rewatch. They are meaningless, grasping, and silly, misusing characters who really are interesting and an art direction that is virtually peerless. The pacing of the series is all wrong, and the choice to make the climax about five or six episodes before the series is resolved (with only the final two episodes dealing with any resolution at all) is very misguided.
On the whole, Hyouka is a boring watch with a couple of solid sets of episodes. Sorry to sound like a broken record, but there's not much more I can dissect. In short, if you are willing to sink into some of the slowest writing ever for big intermittent payoffs, this is your show. If not, I suggest you find something lighter or at least with a single narrative thread that at least appears in each episode to provide unification and that all-important desire to watch another episode after you finish one.
