In this episode, the gang take one of those inevitable trips to a hot spring inn. And though Hyouka does find time for just a smidgen of fanservice (which is very appropriate, given this episode was directed by the future director of Free!, and even this piece of animation was handled by one of Free!’s shirt-flinging maestros), the majority of this episode’s running time is dedicated to another hot springs staple – the classic ghost story. We’re here for mysteries, after all, and what’s more mysterious than whatever compels a lost spirit to haunt its final resting place?
Tag Archives: Hyouka
Hyouka – Episode 6
Episode six of Hyouka is very nearly a bottle episode – an episode where every scene takes place within the same room. Episodes like this used to be born of budgetary necessity; nowadays, they’re more often used as an intentional dramatic gimmick, as in shows like Community or Breaking Bad. Of course, this episode isn’t really self-consciously trying to do some structural trick with that; this is Hyouka, it’s all about small moments, and even episodes that aren’t exactly bottle episodes generally use a sparse economy of settings. This show is about tiny events that are nonetheless important, and spaces that contain great import in spite of their everyday nature.
Hyouka – Episode 5
Hyouka’s fifth episode opens with one more of the series’ most iconic sequences (directed and storyboarded by Yoshiji Kigami, in what would be his single largest contribution to the series – though he’s done plenty of other excellent work). Oreki and Satoshi head back from Chitanda’s in the rain, with Satoshi once again needling Oreki about his inconsistent actions. “You had your chance to escape,” he says, this time moving beyond “you’ve made a mistake relative to your persona” to “you really are interested in Chitanda, aren’t you?” And as the rain begins to stop, Oreki turns back to Satoshi, and for once doesn’t disagree.
Hyouka – Episode 4
Episode four opens with another idyllic after-school scene. Classes are out, kids are leaving the gate, and Chitanda and Oreki are walking home in that classic sepia light.
It’s not a particularly climactic moment, but it’s reflective of something I find kinda generally interesting about Hyouka – in comparison to most shows, it feels like Hyouka uses shot transitions almost as “paragraph breaks.” A sequence of shots sets a scene, and then a couple jump transitions move into a conversation. Two characters reach some agreement in a conversation, and then the shots reset for their next engagement.
Fall 2015 – Week 11 in Review
This week in anime wasn’t the best, I’m sad to say. My reliable favorites were reliable-to-great, but… well, there are only two of those. And everything else kinda let me down. I feel like I’ve more or less set myself up for disappointment this season – instead of accepting that it’s a bad season and relying wholly on backlist shows to get me through, I’ve basically just assumed a handful of shows are permanently in “dud episodes” and keep feeling disappointed when they consistently prove their dud episodes are actually just their normal episodes. It’s no way to live, frankly, and I don’t actually know if next season offers any escape – considering how tentative my excitement is for basically everything on my preview list, it seems pretty likely that Monogatari and Iron-Blooded Orphans will be next season’s best shows, too.
But I don’t mean to depress you. Even if this week’s shows were bad (and even when it comes to what I was reviewing for ANN, they were), that doesn’t mean I don’t have stuff to say about ’em. And hey, not every show tripped on its face – in fact, Owarimonogatari pulled off an episode that I’d probably count among the best of the year. So let’s put on a brave face, assume a stiff upper lip, and contort your muscles in any other way you feel appropriate as we RUN ‘EM DOWN.
Hyouka – Episode 3
Hyouka’s third episode opens with one of the most iconic scenes of the whole series, an intimate back-and-forth between Oreki and Chitanda that consumes the entire first half of the episode. Storyboarded and directed by Taichi Ishidate (who’d later get his first full series as director for Beyond the Boundary), it’s a stunning sequence, one that goes far above and beyond the original material through acuity of character acting and direction. The overt text of the scene is “Chitanda finally feels comfortable enough with Oreki to make a request of him regarding her missing uncle” – but the execution is a constant negotiation of comfort and misunderstanding and growing mutual engagement. It’s…
Eh, to hell with it. Let’s start at the top.
Hyouka – Episode 2
The light mysteries and other assorted treasures continue in Hyouka’s second episode. A month has passed since Oreki joined the classics club, and we feel the passage of that time. This episode opens with a sequence of lazy establishing shots, all of which emphasize the lovely but very specific color palette of Hyouka. Like Chuunibyou’s purple sunset colors, Amagi Brilliant Park’s bright pastels, and Euphonium’s deeper browns and greens, Hyouka has a very specific visual personality – auburn and yellow gold, the browning light of the late afternoon.
Hyouka – Episode 1
It’s interesting returning to a show like Hyouka after all this time away from it. Particularly given the unique circumstances of this return, and how different I am as a consumer now than I was then. Back when I first watched Hyouka, it was the second anime I’d ever watched as it was airing, with the first being Toradora several years before. I was just getting back into anime then, over the spring and summer of 2012 – playing through Katawa Shoujo that winter had prompted a renewed interest in anime-style media, and so I’d been catching up on shows like Madoka and Mawaru Penguindrum. Hyouka was less aggressive than those shows – in fact, its incredibly low-key execution first led to me dropping it only halfway through the first episode, before being convinced to continue by a friend with much better taste. And I watched through it, and I enjoyed it, and it became one of my favorite shows; but even then, I likely didn’t get out of the show what I’m guessing I’ll get now. Hyouka embodies KyoAni’s mastery of tiny moments – it is the studio, and anime itself by extension, at their best.
Character Design 101: Want and Need
Management: Vague character-arc spoilers for a few shows here – FLCL, Eva, Tatami Galaxy, Cowboy Bebop, Hyouka. Hyouka’s the only one I get particularly specific on.
Gonna share something a little different today! Recently I’ve been thinking about characters, which is probably because I am always thinking about characters. While a lot of my personal views on character writing have obviously come from reading and watching a whole lot of stories, a fair amount of my understanding has also come from writing characters. As a fiction writer, knowing how to write a fleshed-out human being is rarely optional – but even just as someone who just wants to poke more deeply at the things they consume, I think analyzing characters from a character-creation standpoint can be very enlightening. Characters are kind of like trees – though the individual branches of their actions may look strange and circuitous, generally everything winds its way back to the central trunk of their base nature and desires. And looking at characters trunk-first can do a whole lot of work to make sense of their wildly winding limbs.
So let’s get down to that trunk, to the absolute base nature of a character. There are a few ways to approach this, but personally I think the easiest way to consider character writing is to start with two key variables. The two often-conflicting desires that tend to define their choices, their conflicts, and their ultimate resolution: what they want and what they need.
Top 30 Anime Series of All Time
Yep, I’ve finally put together a top shows list. As I hopefully made clear in part one and part two of my critical biases post, this is obviously my list – it represents the things I think are most valuable in stories in the way I think they’ve best been articulated. It’s also just a list of shows I enjoy – there’s no hard criteria here, so I wouldn’t stress the numbers too much. Also, it’s a bit front-loaded – I only started watching anime seasonally about two years ago, so the last couple years are disproportionately represented. Incidentally, I’m not including movies here either – I think direct comparisons between shows and films are a bit of a stretch, but if they were included, this list would certainly be somewhat different. And finally, I’m absolutely (and thankfully) certain this list will change over time – there are still piles of widely beloved shows I’ve never seen, so I’m sure the current rankings will be filled out in the years to come. So with that all said, let’s get to the list – Bobduh’s Top 30 Anime of All Time.
-edit- I have now created a Top Shows Addendum for shows that have either fallen off or just barely missed this list. Please enjoy these additional almost-top shows!