Story: Deadbeat teenager with a knack for logical deductions is forced to solve non-mysteries by a bouncy genki moe girl and their two friends. Slice of life ensues.
The show is a string of loosely tied events where the members of the sos brigade...er, literature club find strange little occurrences and force the main character to do the math, so to speak. With every little incident we get a peek into the character’s minds and this carefully crafted buildup continues in a lovely way all the way to the final episodes where it comes to its sweetly inevitable endpoint. Now this all sounds much more exciting than it is but if you appreciate the little curiosities in life and well…real life itself you will love this show.
Characters:
Oreki is our main character: a logical deduction ace and a professional lazybones—or energy conservation expert, heh. At first I really disliked him for his passive nature but throughout the series he actually grew surprisingly well, if predictably so. By a certain poignant episode his character shone the best out of all four.
Chitanda is of course the catalyst for everything that happens and she is a bouncy genki girl, as anime would have it she is also a princess (not really, but a wealthy daughter of an old family. Do these girls grow on trees in Japan? Every anime seems to have one…) a top student and generally has every moe virtue under the sun. At times the moe made me cringe but surprisingly, she evolves beyond that. So now we have two characters who have pushed themselves beyond the stereotypes. Lucky day for you, there’s more!
Fukube is Oreki’s best friend and a genki guy this time. Praise the goddess no moe, the only thing I hate more than moe-turd girls is moe-turd guys. Anyhoo, I liked his character a lot because there is always the subtle tension between his frustration with playing second fiddle to his best friend and the depth of the friendship itself.
Ibara is the other girl (didn’t expect that didya now? Yeah, right…) and she veers towards tsundere territory without ever becoming Haruhi levels of annoying. In the end I liked her most of all for her level-headed attitude and sheer determination.
In general, all characters first appear as your basic stereotypes that anime land is littered with but it only takes an episode for them to start growing beyond that. And it is done while you are busy watching them solve their non-mysteries.
Animation:
Can’t get more beautiful than this. Fluid, smooth and with tons of background it is Hanasaku Iroha level of scenery porn. In fact, they look very much alike. The character design is attractive and pleasing, movement is natural and there are lots of imaginative little sequences playing out as the non-mysteries are explained.
Sound:
Typical. This is not the kind of anime that needs an elaborate soundtrack and that’s just fine.
OP1&2: Dat perky jpop you know so well.
ED1: uhh, this was a total miss. It is creepy pedobear stuff and has the two girls crawling around in their underwear for no reason except to appeal to creepy viewers. Thumbs down for whatever creepster producer greenlit this.
ED2: my favourite ending theme of the season! This fits the show perfectly, is ultra cute and has a totally catchy song to match!
Overview:
While I loved this show, it is not for everyone. I heard many complain that it was too slow, too uneventful and unexciting. I would like to point out that this was never about the mysteries, it was always about the characters’ development and the incidents were always filters through which we’d see them grow. Sure, they could have gone the shonen route and had Oreki solve murders or other crime stuff but that would cheapen the mellow, coming-of-age slice-of-life this show has in its heart.
