In a way, Hyouka is about Oreki and his group of friend who solves mysteries together. How Oreki starts off very monotone and lazy and ends up being a lot more colorful. But the best way for me to describe it is a show about Orekis life which gets its life turned around by a curious who tries to understand people and herself, and how it affects his personality and life afterward. The reason why I'm reluctant to say anything about its mystery is because it isn't about that. The mysteries are there to make the characters form a bond, and then the characters do the rest. So in many ways, the series is a character-driven episodic show. Yes, it has mini-arcs, but most of the episodes are one-off mysteries that are used to develop the characters. So at the end of each mystery, the characters develop more and more and they get to learn more about themselves. Plus, if you're expecting a mystery show with a very complicated mystery, then you should change your expectations.
At the beginning of the show, we learn about Oreki and his view on life. "If I don't have to do it, I won't. If I have to do it, I'll make it quick." is a quote that effects everything in his life. His personality, his choices and even how he talks. His dull and monotone personality, how he chooses to do as little as possible in whatever scenario as possible and the short dialogue he has is all because of this. And it's all shown in the first scene, where we see Oreki walking through a cheerful crowd, while he has all the shadow on himself, really sticking out of the crowd. Then we meet Orekis friend Satoshi, who's the contrast to Oreki (or so it might seem at the beginning). He has the normal friend personality. Cracking jokes, energetic and is the self-proclaimed database. This is something we see as being a big insecurity of his later, and it makes him very realistic.
When Orekis sister tells him that the classic literature club is empty, he decides to join it. But to his disarray, a girl by the name of Chitanda is standing by the window. This is where she is first presented, and it gives you a good idea of what kind of character she is. She could be seen as a moeblob, just there to be cute. But she's a lot deeper in many ways.
The reason for her extreme curiosity that is shown in the series a lot of times, is because of her urge to understand people. Her urge to get a new perspective on something. So the mysteries gives her them in an interesting way. And they also show her parts of her that she didn't know about.
She also feels stuck in a one-wayed road. Where whatever she does, she'll always end on the same place. I won't say where though.
The fourth character we get introduced to is Ibara. She doesn't show a lot of imperfections, in the beginning, being smart, kind and having a fun personality. But again, when we get to learn more about her, we see that she gets very emotional when talking about something she is passionate about. She's also very insecure about other peoples opinion on her.
Even though I said that the anime isn't really about what's happening with the story, but how the characters develop. But the mysteries featured in the show are still very interesting. It could be about the most mundane thing there is (like why a door was locked when nobody locked it) but they would make it interesting because the conclusions are always something that you didn't think of, but they didn't feel out-of-nowhere, so you could come up with the conclusion by yourself with the small hints that you don't notice.
And the way they ended it all was perfect for me. It keeps the same tone and doesn't feel too out-of-character. And it makes some characters even better in my opinion
And something that complimented the story was the visuals and the music. The music, though not very memorable, it reflected the mysterious tone of the show and doesn't take too much focus from the story. That way you don't notice the music, but it helps you get the emotion that the scene is trying to convey. And the art, ahhhhhhh the art. Honestly, I saw two scenes that had animation that felt weird, the rest was fantastic. The character designs were almost all great (Chitanda's character design isn't bad, but looks like many other Kyoto animation characters. her design didn't feel as uniques as the other characters), the style looked very pretty and the way they use color is amazing. Like how they compliment Orekis development by having a lot of the colors to be very dark and bland in the beginning and become more vibrant as Oreki develop into a more colorful person.
In the end, this show might not be for you. The pacing is quite slow and if you don't concentrate on what's happening, then you won't understand the appeal of the show. But if it sounds like something for you, then go for it. Cause it was great!
