"Hyouka" is not one of those stories.
It's the opposite: a celebration of the sort of genius that burns so brightly that ordinary mortals like you and me can only sit back and admire, often with envy, knowing that no matter how hard we try, we'll never be the next Mozart or Holmes.
On the surface, "Hyouka" tells of the mystery-solving escapades of a student literary club. But like most anime involving detective work, this aspect of the show is a bit rubbish. Underneath the dressing lies an intriguing character study of a genius and his effects on the people around him. The story centres on Houtarou Oreki, a high school student with Sherlock-esq powers of deduction. But while Sherlock Holmes puts his powers to good use, Oreki's philosophy to life is that of an energy conservationist: "If I don't have to do it, I won't; if I have to do it, I'll make it quick".
Then one day Oreki meets a girl Chitanda, who's fresh off of the conveyor belt of Kyoto Animation Studio's infamous moeblob factory, and the encounter precipitates a gradual change in his attitude to life.
A recurring theme of "Hyouka" is that of living a "rose coloured life", particularly in regards to highschool. Highschool life is something much romanticised in Japanese culture. A lot of how the west feel about university life - the plentiful club activities, the vibrant social life, and for some even the first steps of independence of moving away from parents - seem to apply with even greater force to how the Japanese view their high school years. And in the context of "Hyouka", the metaphor of a "rose coloured life" goes further than just the bright and beautiful: it encompasses not just the splendour of a rose, but also the prickliness of its thorns; it represents a high school life of many ups and downs, of experiencing joys and growing pains - in other words, a life lived to the full.
I'll be honest: I didn't approach "Hyouka" with high expecations, given what I'd seen of KyoAni studio's prior output consisted mostly of pandering moefests. But "Hyouka" - Chitanda aside - immediately struck me as a different breed, with character designs that aren't an immediate turn-off and skillful use of classical music lending an air of elegance to the production ("Legend of the Galactic Heros" eat your heart out).
Sure enough, the potential hinted at in the opening episode was brought to fruition. Perhaps it's because "Hyouka" originates from a series of novels rather than some disposable 4-panel comic or manipulative nakige (which I believe translates roughly as "crying-porn games"), but it's an anime that lacks neither substance nor good writing and characterisation.
The show's crowning achievement is its thoughtful exploration on the themes of genius and self worth against the backdrop of adolescence. Epitomising this is the fascinating dynamics between Oreki and his friend Fukube. On the surface, Fukube seems content to play second fiddle to Oreki's genius, often self deprecatingly labelling himself as a human database, a store of knowledge without the analytical ability to join up the dots. As the show goes on though, it becomes obvious that Oreki's effortless brilliance is constantly eroding Fukube's sense of identity and self worth, and he does not want to be stuck in this situation.
This theme also plays out in other character interactions, and it's interesting to see the different ways people deal with being in the shadows created by someone else's light. The side story involving Fukube's friend Ibara and her run in with Kouchi (a fellow manga club member) serves to illustrate this nicely: while Ibara meets these situations head-on with a mixture of earnest praise for the greatness of others and despair at her own ordinary-ness, Kouchi's reactions are a combination of outward denial and inward grudging admiration.
These vignettes of personal crises cuts especially deep in the high school settings. Adolescence is, after all, a turbulent time for a lot of people: it’s a time of emotional instability, of trying to discover who you are. And as much as I find teenagers rather trying at times, (who doesn't?) I can also sympathise with the amount of damage a sense of inferiority and big knocks on confidence can inflict on these young adults during this vulnerable time of their development.
The tragedy is deepened by the fact that we, as viewers, can see clearly see these characters are far from worthless. And not just us: each of the characters can cherish the values they see in others - Fukube's emotional intelligence, Ibara's endearing earnestness - but they cannot seem to appreciate the values present in themselves. Their mistake lies in trying measuring themselves against the geniuses' strengths and not seeing their own. The supreme irony is that even geniuses rarely thrive in a vacuum: Mozart’s talents was nurtured in draconian fashion by his father from a young age, and Oreki, without all his friends coaxing him towards a rose-coloured life, would have wasted all his talents conserving his energy and achieving fuck all - they may envy his brilliance, but he needs THEM in order to shine. And so beneath all the cheerful overtones runs a strong undercurrent of pathos as the characters flounder in the misguided perceptions of their own inadequacy.
Despite the mostly great character work and the sparkling interplay, "Hyouka" doesn't quite fire on all cylinders here. Though in Ibara we have a rare example of a decent KyoAni female character - a down to earth girl with a likeable streak of sincerity - the studio had to cancel it out with an opposite example in Chitanda. I could feel a certain tension within Chitanda's characterisation: on one hand her character clearly contains some complexity, given our glimpses into her family life outside of school, but on the other hand her creators really wanted to make her appealing in typical KyoAni moe fashion. This results in an odd character who's practically throwing herself at Oreki with wide, purple-eyed innocence while occasionally revealing an inner layer of maturity and capacity for subtle manipulation. These two facets comes together so poorly that you can practically see the fault line running through her characterisation.
Another shortcoming of "Hyouka" is that the mystery genre foil holding the real story together functions better for some scenarios than others. The foil works okay in the earlier episodes, but as the drama intensifies, the mysteries start feeling jarringly inane. The show sometimes also tries too hard to be clever, engineering convoluted solutions for problems that have far simpler fixes. But I get it - it can't be easy to consistently come up with stories that convincingly showcase Oreki's genius. My own fascination with the underlying themes means that I could look past this weakness in narrative for the most part, but your own mileage may vary.
Some of the conflict scenarios also feels overwrought. I don't know what it is, but KyoAni's sensibilities when it comes to depicting dramatic conflicts often feel a little too stilted to me. Even though the symptoms are much lighter here than in most of their other works, they're still present.
Thankfully, even though some of KyoAni's weaknesses still shows in "Hyouka", so do their strengths in emphatic manner. Their talents at capturing the vibrancy of school life is on full display - there is so much movement and bustle, with minute details crammed into the every frame. "Hyouka" is heavy on dialogue, but the studio even managed to make talking interesting through the use of dramatic angles, quirky framing, and interesting visualisations. I want to single out a particularly memorable visual metaphor for a rose-coloured life that turns up towards the end of the series, as the extraordinary use of colour and beauty of the scene was breathtakingly.
"Hyouka" was actually recommended to me through a secret santa event and, despite my initial reservations, the recommendation turned out to be a genuinely nice gift. To me, the series represents a turning period in KyoAni's output. Their anime I watched pre-Hyouka were mostly duds, while the ones I watched afterwards I've mostly liked. In fact, "Hyouka" is probably one of, if not the best anime KyoAni has ever done. With the studio's polished production applied to a story laden with fascinating ideas and themes, "Hyouka" is one classy anime.
Personal rating: +1.5 (very good)
