You know what? There is one volume of the light novels left, right? And it’s one continuous story, right? With this episode something dawned to me: Kyoani could be toying with the idea of making a movie for this show, couldn’t they? I mean, I’m not sure how their policy with movies is after they made one for Haruhi, K-On and… Munto, but Hyouka would actually work perfectly in movie-format with its slow pacing. I mean, I’d love to see it, but they’re not going to do a climax of only two episodes.
As for this episode, the mystery in it was completely different from any other episode so far. Oreki didn’t have to solve something weird that was going on, but rather he had to find something to get the attention of a specific person. His final solution was quite creative. It was also a realistic look at symbolism: what kind of symbols would someone understand if one spotted this randomly, and which symbols would just be too obscure?
But this episode was really there to flesh out the cast some more. Oreki and Chitanda got to spend a lot of time together, and Satoshi finally was useful for something. The whole set-up of this episode was also great and down to earth, in the way that everyone had different agendas throughout the whole episode beyond just the main plot. Touches like this show once more that the rest of the cast also have lives and things to do.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)
definitely finishing all the stories they can in the anthology volume instead of going for the final volume. It’s well set up since the 5th volume is set after their freshmen years, so there’s a time skip for the movie or ova
Is vol5 really the final one? Some sites list the series as ongoing and others do it as finished so I have this doubt.
he wrote another short story of Kotenbu to publish on a magazine recently, but Kotenbu series as a whole has not had any information or indications of new volume coming out, though it is not announced that it ended either. He’s got at least one more volume of the ordinary citizen series that he has to complete, and I’m still waiting on that. It’s been more commercially successful before the anime of hyouka
He’s been rather popular it seems, his other mystery book, Calculation, was adapted into a movie
Very complete info, gotta look for that movie. Also I saw that he wrote a two volume manga series (too bad it hasn’t been scanlated yet).
Calculation is more traditional mystery, though i have little faith in Japanese movie adaptations remaining faithful to the source material.
The manga Spring’s strawberry tart limited case is an adaptation of the first volume of the ordinary citizen series of the same name, consist of little mundane mysteries like Hyouka, but I like the characters in that series better
I think a movie or ova followup is precisely what this show needs, were it to end on a random episode with no continuation I think that could sour it a bit.
What I love about Hyouka are it’s uniqueness and ability to always bring something new to the table. Great episode, loved it, don’t know about movies or any of that, but as long as I see the conclusion to the story from its original source I’ll be happy.
Unique? The plot device of a boy and a girl getting accidently locked in a shed is one as old as anime itself. Same with new years shrine visit episodes are as well. The only different thing was Oreki had to figure a smart way out.
It might have been a bit cliche and redundant since one of them could have just hid and come back and such, but this definitely had an air unlike any other anime I’ve watched. Anyways you kind of negated your own comment, there was a difference wasn’t there? And I meant different for this particular anime. That happens when you’ve got a culture. How about Hollywood movies? Full of endless cliches, some handled in new ways from time to time.
I wonder if either of them would leave the other in the cold. Oreki is logical enough to be able to make that decision, but he’s hardly logical when it comes to Chitanda. I can just see Chitanda disagree with that plan too “because, what about Oreki-kun” I can also see her get distracted afterwards
That is something quite curious.
I hadn’t even considered those emotions. Thats some good input man.
It shows that the writer is borrowing heavily from standard clichés and attempting fuse them with some mystery so that it makes it seem different. So this was pretty much a guy hiding the fact that he made a standard new years/festival episode. If you are to call this unique than I guess you better plough through some harems as I can promise you will find an episode or twenty with this same situation. So I guess those harems were unique as well then.
Yeah but I liked those episodes, even psgels said it brought a new light to it. I see this episode the same way, the writer has borrowed cliches but I think he’s handled them pretty well. It’s no worst than what Wanted did with “the normal office worker” type of character, or what Avatar did with Native Americans or Pocahontas. Sure it’s a cliche, but if it bothers you thats okay, if it doesn’t thats okay too.
Sorry everyone, but I thought this episode was plain bad. The scenario made little sense, and they had little character development to counter-balance how bad the plot was.
SPOILER PAST HERE
There were many ways for them to easily get out of that locked room without “appearing together” (which yet again is so dumb given they had only been stuck in that shed for a minute when they could have called for help! How could people misunderstand that?!). Here’s a simpler solution they could have taken to even avoid that “problem”. One hides as the other calls for help. The person who called for help would be let out by someone who presumably would then close up the shed. This first person would then walk away for 3ish minutes and then come back. They would non-nonchalantly open the shed again (it’s not like people were paying attention to it) and let out the other person.
Simple.
Instead, they contrived this elaborate and silly plan while they froze their butts off.
This is a huge let down from the school festival arc, which was much better done.
I thought this as well. While I do think people will misunderstand regardless of how it looked.(Just say Chitanda was found in a shed alone with a boy and it sounds suspicious)
However I thought that Oreki could easily hide while she calls for help as well.
I thought of that as well! But they way they did it was also interesting.
But I disagree with you on Chitanda’s concerns. They were valid. Especially when taking into consideration that she is from a well known family (which we’ve seen before, but this episode made sure to reinforce it).
Example:
“Did you hear? Chitanda was found locked in a shed with a boy!”
“What were they doing there?”
“Nothing apparently, they got locked in by mistake”
“Right….”
I consider this episode laid back, sure, sure, they could have done that. But Oreki doesn’t think like a normal human being, and Chitanda… well, most of her character development has been later rather than sooner so it’s hard to know where her head is at.
At anyrate, I don’t think it was a bad episode. It was fun, and by fun I mean something enjoyable, if your going to nitpick how bout the fact that Oreki didn’t shout when they were closing it? Before Chitanda told him not to shout, he didn’t know, one normally would shout.
Lets just say that they were cold and didn’t weren’t thinking as they should have been, Oreki is a sloth so thats covered.
Listen, no one cares about the truth more than me, if everything can have a proper explanation, then nothing is inherently wrong with the story. This could have happened to people, in the same way or shape in real life. Whether or not it makes for a good story is irrelevant. People constantly judge anime or anything created by what they believe to be “good story telling” but in real life things aren’t always note worthy, sometimes dumb things happen.
Now I’m sure all lot of you will not understand this or think me mad, but this is my conclusion. This sort of scenario actually adds more realism to the situation. Truth is stranger than fiction, crazy things happen in real life, put it into story form and you might say… man what bad writing, but it really happened. Do you get my point here?
In other words you’re all annoying and too caught up illusion. If you can’t accept the episode for what it was I conclude that you are missing out on reality quite a bit. You want to go in depth we can go in depth into why this is not a bad episode. We can also go into depth into how it could have been better. Just be prepared to face new thinking.
I’d like to apologize in advance for getting so swept up in emotion, but my point I think is valid. I just don’t think it will be a popular one.
Don’t worry, you always get swept up in emotion considering that your posts are often nothing more than that.
But let me ask you this. Citanda has the intelligence of a puppy (Quite literally as in the school festival arc when a girl held out a hand in a paw gesture and she did it) so we can’t honestly expect anything out of her. So it’s logical that she didn’t think herself and depended on Oreki like the imbecile she is. But how does this make Oreki look? I am going to quote Rider from fate/zero on this
“Using a simple method to accomplish something impressive far outshines using a complex method to achieve the same thing”
He we have our genus deductor Oreki who was so fixated on getting out in a clever way that he completely ignored the obvious solution. That just makes me look down on his character and prove that his experience with getting the film mystery wrong truly did teach him nothing.
@ the quote “Using a simple method to accomplish something impressive far outshines using a complex method to achieve the same thing”
You know, I’m reminded of all the suspense/mystery shows I’ve watched where the killer hardly ever runs up to his victim and stabs him. There always has to be some kind of trick.
In the same vein, I suppose you could apply that in this situation too. It was even highlighted by Oreki and Chitanda that there were easier solutions (breaking down the door/calling someone over and handling any rumors afterwards).
I suppose this is an instance of Oreki ‘showing off’. I recall previously that in Oreki’s solutions, he doesn’t really try to come up with the correct answer, but rather ‘an answer that would satisfy Chitanda’s curiosity’. Granted Chitanda didn’t outright say she was curious, but Oreki seemed to jump at the chance to try and impress her.
I suppose another quote would go something like:
“If you’re going to do something, might as well go all out.”
The ‘mystery’ itself became less about ‘how can I get out of this shed’ and more about ‘how can I get this person’s attention’. And The solution created was only obvious to two people (Oreki and Satoshi). In that regard, the solution fit the criteria of the ‘mystery’.
“You know, I’m reminded of all the suspense/mystery shows I’ve watched where the killer hardly ever runs up to his victim and stabs him. There always has to be some kind of trick.”
Of course there is. If the murder was as simple as someone running up and stabbing someone then it wouldn’t be a mystery. It’s just a murder. It’s too easy to figure out who the murderer is if they go with a simple plan like this. The reason there’s a trick is because the murderer wants to get away with killing someone while leaving behind as little evidence as possible.
Though you may be correct in that Oreki was trying to show off. But it would be nice if they mentioned the simpler solution.
Well I’m emotional! And very rational! Mix the too and its quite explosive. Well I don’t really look down on him. First of all he believes correct solutions to be chance, there is the fact that he is a sloth, and it could have just slipped his mind. *shrugs* nobody is perfect. We all end up doing things others would look down on.
two*
“Truth is stranger than fiction, crazy things happen in real life, put it into story form and you might say… man what bad writing, but it really happened. Do you get my point here?”
I do, point well made and I think I agree.
I think I love you.
Thanks for not freaking out, I kind of got swept up there, don’t get me wrong I consider your point pretty solid. This episode could have been handled much different/gone in a totally different direction.
I just think it is what it is, and that’s okay, so to speak.
Have you seen Chitanda’s house? She’s like the Paris Hilton of that area. People will probably talk regardless of the explanation. Your plan is probably more sound, though Chitanda would have to be the one waiting in the cold since if she was let out first, she might get hounded by her other duty to socialize, not to mention she’s pretty easily distracted. Oreki probably wont leave Chitanda in the cold by herself.
“With this episode something dawned to me: Kyoani could be toying with the idea of making a movie for this show, couldn’t they?”
Not to toot my own horn here but I do believe I was the one to bring that up on the shoutbox.
But man, I am going to be so smug if it turns out to be true.
@Aidan:Would you believe I was going to tell him that very thing myself that I was also one of the people talking about it in the shoutbox.
On further thought I’m not sure now about this, I didn’t really feel all that bothered looking into the Haruhi movie and munto was terrible so in my head the words Kyoani+movie don’t sound positive.
The Haruhi movie was terrible???? What movie did you watch? The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was an awesome movie! As a fan of the franchise it was certainly the best thing done to it and almost (note I said almost) redeemed them for inflicting the “Endless Eight” on us. The K-On movie was nicely done as well.
I agree, I dont really like the anime series all that much, but the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was excellent
That was probably it, I didn’t like alot of the series so I never checked out the movie.
Suzumiya was one of the first light novels I picked up, and I thought it was pretty original despite the settings looking like the ramblings of a middle school dreamer. The author makes it work. but the 2nd series was just not as good as the first even without the dumb endless august thing that they pulled
The only thing I didn’t like about the movie/series was the lack of plot. I always wished it had more plot. The ending felt.. soft, to me, but other than that it was pretty well done, I enjoyed it.
Scuffy, if you read his post again you will notice that he didn’t say that the Haruhi movie was terrible. He said that the “Munto” movie was terrible. He clearly stated that he wasn’t bothered to check out the Haruhi movie.
Though Kaiser I do suggest you check it out. It’s the best of the series. So much so that even Psgels said something good about it.
@Aidan:It was the comedy, school life bits and slice of life moments I liked in Haruhi, I’m not big on the mystery/sci-fi element. I liked the male characters in it but Haruhi herself was too unlikeable for me and thats down to me not liking Aya Hirano’s voice acting. The endless eight part of the series just made me give up on Haruhi.
Maybe I’ll pick up the dvd of disappearance in the dub or read the book instead.
Aidan is right though scruffy I only mentioned not liking Munto.
The K-on movie actually to be fair I did enjoy, I was kinda concentrating on the negative a bit too much back there.
I think I remember talking to bunny about this episode in the shoutbox recently that this episode didn’t even feel like a mystery at all and I agree with him on that. I know they have to follow the novels and all but I think these final episodes could have done more character work than they have been but thats probably just wanting more than already offered.
For three episodes I have had the impression that the creators of this show are on holidays.
The plots are totally neglectable. Character development has regressed (even Oreki is no longer Oreki).
I could not finish this one. Loss of time.
So… how’d they fit that purse through that tiny crack?
But if they were gonna be making holes at all (and I thought Chitanda was actually against damage), why didn’t they make a crack near the door handle and nudge the beam out of the way?