Hyouka, A.K.A. That KyoAni Show

But the literary club is the 文芸部.

I think the only problem with "Classics Club" is that in English the subject "Classics" tends to refer to Greek and Roman antiquity, but I think it's still the preferable translation.

My only problem with it is that I don't consider the word "classics" to be inherently linked to literature. It can be, but there are plenty of other things that get described as classics as well. Thus my confusion.

Same thing is actually true of 古典 too.

My guess is that they probably won't be doing much reading, anyway. The club name is a misnomer; it's almost completely irrelevant given the show setting its cast up as a mystery-solving team.

That's my main problem with the term.

same in that it is ambigious, not the same in that the ambiguity is way, way worse with "classics," eg, 5-dollar foot-longs.

Well "You've only delayed the present situation" makes much more sense then the "You are just holding on" in the sub I watched.

Indeed. Before that, I wasn't giving much thought to the animation. They're just doing the same thing they did in K-On, right? Wrong. That scene made me wish KyoAni was animating Sankarea.

So yeah, this guy is basically an anti-Kyon. And she's a Haruhi that isn't a bitch. But Taniguchi is still Taniguchi except maybe he won't get written out of the script after two eps.

And I had thought "classics" meant the music because of all the Bach.

I don't think she said "karuta" though, just "100 poems". Or did she just not know that the game is called that. Chihayafuru did make it seem like it's not very popular these days.

She just called it the 100 poems club from what I heard, probably read out what is on the poster. Whether such a club is about the study of the poems, or involves the card game is another matter. But I reckon a club doesn't last long just studying the poems, so the two probably go hand in hand hence the translation of just karuta club probably isn't off.

As far the translation of the club name, I prefer the term Classics Club since its pretty vague and ambiguous to me. Book Club seems to imply reading books. Overall I'm not too fussed, but it'd be preferable the subs uses what most people call it otherwise shit just gets annoying to talk about.

I've seen a lot of people elsewhere compare her to Haruhi. I never would have made the connection myself, but I suppose there's some validity to it. Chitanda is a lot more likeable, though.

I'm honestly not sure what to think about this series yet. There's not enough of it. But it has spawnd a fairly large amount of noise, both positive and negative, just because it's by KyoAni. Discussions in some places have gotten rather heated, which I think is ridiculous considering how little there is to talk about yet.

I like some of the visuals, and I don't dislike what little there has been to see of the story and characters thus far. I'll try giving it a three-episode test, and see if it appeals to me more over time.

I guess the Haruhi analogy works in a loose sense, but Chitanda seems too normal of a girl to me. Of course, she's introduced as someone who scores the highest on the tests (what main anime character isn't..), but she doesn't really come off as that intellectual.

She just strikes me as a typical ditsy girl that is pretty whose attentions a regular boy, who usually doesn't get looks from girls, can't ignore. They don't really seem that compatible and if this is a love story, then I don't really have any interest in seeing where it goes. That being said, the animation is pretty nice (some wonky faces aside), so I'll keep this one at a 3 episode test.

That describes 99% of the ren'ai games where the targeted girl is part of a club...

This lowers the previous percentile, but only because not all targeted girls would be extraverted enough to do that.

Just saying.

(I think that Haruhi is a bit more than just how you described it)

It describes well why and how most plots involving what I mentioned work~

I suspect most of the Haruhi comparisons are due to the same company being behind both series. People see KyoAni, think Haruhi, and and up thinking that anything the two series have in common makes them alike.

To be fair, Chitanda-san never actually grabbed the main character's hand and dragged him down the hall in the episode. There is one small scene in the OP where she is shown grabbing his hand and pulling him out of their clubroom in a rush, but that's all, and her expression at the time is nothing like Haruhi's.

Chitanda is enthusiastic, but nowhere near as controlling or pushy as Haruhi.

Her eyes were definitely glowing this week.

it's not like haruhi, but the approach to the adaptation (both are light novel adaptations after all, with similar settings and target audience etc) is almost the same.

to be honest the story is getting a little slow, but i'm sure it'll build up into something more interesting. if this was any other studio people would be crying and throwing rocks by now, but kyoani hauls some ass even when absolutely nothing is happening.

I liked the restaurant metaphorical scene. It was pretty amusing. Also that ED is pretty tasty.

Looks like Chitanda did her fair share of hand grabbing and yanking down halls this episode. Its pretty amusing how Oreki backed into Chitanda by his friends.

But p.much, if it wasn't KyoAni it probably wouldn't work. Perhaps if SHAFT gets all weird on it, it could work out.

the ending is pretty delicious but i think it's another example of nothing happening yet it looks great. it's like, they just do all this detail character animation just because they could :3

Faure, a first for anime, that I know of.

Seems unlikely. At the very least there was this

This post has been edited by WorkPanda on May 1 2012, 03:01 AM

Just tried the first ep.

I am enjoying quite a bit really. At first i was leery of the comparison to Haruhi, and that description honestly put me off a bit.

Granted there are similarities, but I am quite enjoying the feel and character interaction, and even the sidekick is kinda cool.

Chitanda..oh man, those eyes...they suck me in...

There are similarities. But I'm surprised there aren't more comparisons to Amano Tohko. (Well, not many people cared about that anime, so...)

now that you mention it..you have a point...

((will amano tohko show up as a mystery new library girl for an ep, i wonder.....))

Yes, Tooko came to my mind with this second episode.

I like the way Kyoto Animation is playing around with their inner SHAFT, especially with the paper form workings of the protagonist's thought processes.

I also liked what's his name's evident discomfort as Chitanda invaded his space. His visions are nice, too.

I wonder if the older sister has any copies of the anthology in her collection.

Although, I'm noticing that unlike Haruhi and Tohko, Chitanda is more passive in pursuing mysteries. She mostly mopes about until someone mentions something then she pressgangs Oreki into solving it for her. In that sense, she's a lot like Victorique, minus the tsun.

I'm not so into that. There isn't a consistency to how they cut away. I think they're trying too hard to show off the fancy animation. But there's enough of KyoAni's signature "god-like art" in the normal scenes. The one that fascinated me this week was the cut of the head librarian walking out of the room. It wasn't flashy, it was just good.

Series still feels pretty slow. I remain uncertain about it.

Episode 3

All it took was our apathetic hero mentioning that he smelled air freshener for me to figure out that the guy they were talking to had probably been smoking something and wanted to hide it. I worked out most of the clues from that point, although I hadn't figured out that the things outside were a homemade sensor system to alert him if anyone was coming.

Chitanda's request feels a little strange, but I can understand wanting to get some closure on this in time for her uncle's funeral.

This week, her superior senses are mentioned specifically in their absence, due to a cold. What's the club supposed to do without their bloodhound? Hurry up and get better, girl.

So the other girl has officially joined the club as well? Well, at least her personality is more tolerable to have along for the mysteries than that other guy's.

For me, episode 3 moved this show out of "it's okay" to "it's pretty damn good." The mysteries are there and are relatively clever for being realistic for the setting and Houtarou is increasingly entertaining to watch. I loved how disappointed he seemed when Eru's confession wasn't of the type he assumed.

But the mysteries aren't really the focus, at least not this week. What he was hiding wasn't particularly important and that he was hiding something was obvious. It might have been more interesting had he been hiding something more relevant to the anthologies, but it didn't really make much sense for him to care.

I think "where is the missing volume" and its contents will be driving the plot for a while, if not the rest of the show. Little mysteries to drive character development as they pursue the big one is probably where this is going. And since the little mysteries have been fun and the characters are pretty awesome...I'm quite happy with this show so far.