Our gg release got delayed a lot because I was translating something for work and didn’t start until other groups were already getting ready to release ^^;
We just took time to polish the script and messing up a lot in the process due to sleep deprivation. Hopefully we’ll finish it faster from now on.
Rose Color
Rose obviously symbolizes passion. 「華」(flamboyance/glamor) and 「花」(flower) are homophones and are often interchangeable in Japan as well. “Rose color” contrasts with “gray color” (monochrome), so basically he’s saying that people associate it with colorful lives. “Rose” was kept here because it’s most likely to be a main theme in this anime.
Houtarou is a “gray” guy. He’s not interested in anything, and pretty much just try to find the shortest route for everything.
His family name “Oreki” can be translated to “snapped stick”, so that kind of gives you an idea of what kind of a guy he is.
Houtarou’s motto can be seen in this scene. He didn’t want to go through the trouble of actually interacting with these people, so he waits until they’re gone to get the key.
“Book Club” is literally “Classic Literature Club”, but we simplified that for obvious reasons. It’s a fictional/unique club name, so it’s not even certain what their activities are…
The screenshot is the sister’s letter in the background. I’m way too tired right now to translate this, but it’s basically her telling Houtarou how she used to be a member of the Book Club, and heard it’s dying and tells him to join to keep it alive since he doesn’t have interest of his own.
「十、百、千、万」 is “Ten, Hundred, Thousand, Ten Thousand”.
A “lucky” coincidence here.
Of course she didn’t forget. She has photographic memory.
Her mesmerizing eyes drew him in. The first time, he sounded a bit sarcastic and just went with the flow, but the second time was totally unconscious movement. Perhaps that’s her special ability, or maybe he’s just being a real high schooler now with color in his life.
I was pretty impressed with how they were able to show her entire body gesture only by showing her legs. It’s quite realistic.
However, you have to be pretty damn absorbed in looking at that building if you can’t hear yourself getting locked in.
Okay, something’s up with this building. Almost 100% plot device for later.
lol the irony.
Seimei is one of 24 solar terms. The spring, when a new school year begins in Japan.
The line here is a proverb about spring. “Seimei” is basically the “pure and clear” part of this sentence. New plant life start growing in spring (when everything appears beautiful).
“Moonlight” turned out to be Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Interesting art to accompany the piece as well. They have these random artistic inserts throughout the show.
Really nice body language here. She’s pure and curious like a child and couldn’t wait to ask him what he though of the rumor (and maybe get him to solve the case).
And those are some seriously sparkly eyes 
Fukube is such a good storyteller. His (KyoAni’s) timing and delivery is godly, and tbh even I was on the edge of my seat wondering what he was going to say next.
KyoAni shows are usually pretty heavy on recurring themes, and this series is no exception.
I have no idea what the hell is going on with his gloomy face.
Could he be hating himself for lying like that?
Did he realize he was doing what he was preaching at this point already?
Or does he have some connection with the Black Widow Society?
Well, the last guess is not likely, but again, something is up with this scene.
An epiphany here??? I have no idea why this is such a big revelation to him. We’ll see what happens later.
Fukube definitely knows something Houtarou doesn’t. Maybe he sensed her unlimited curiosity and expects her to make a lot more approaches too, now that he “solved” another case for her. As a story, I have no doubt what he said is true lol
I had to do some research to make sense of this. Apparently, that is their intended English title for “Hyouka”.
「氷菓」 is literally “ice snacks” like snow cones and popsicles, but my Wikipedia research skillz revealed that the title was a homage to The Daughter of Time. One of the lines in the novel is “Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.” I’m guessing a similar line will appear near end of this show.
It looks like Hyouka is going to be a mystery series, as he has done some “detective” work already in this episode. It’s very similar to Haruhi (almost “starting” a new club and all), except less comedy/sci-fi and much more mystery.
Personally, I wasn’t very thrilled with this series after the first viewing, but I was drawn in to this series as I was translating and rewatched this first episode over and over again.
I am really thrilled with Satou Satomi‘s voice acting for Eru as well. It perfectly matched the innocent and well-educated rich girl character.
We were originally going to sub this show with UTW, but various factors eventually led us to gg. I still think audience for both Accel World and Hyouka are pretty reversed in terms of group “personalities”, but this series may turn out to be a pretentious anime that actually suits our style pretty well. In fact, I didn’t really even understand it in the first view (still don’t understand it completely…). It’s probably 2deep4me, but I’ll definitely enjoy following this show.
Episode rating: 7.5/10 8.5/10
I think this is more “Sherlock Holmes” than “Jacques Derrida”, so I don’t think you’re missing anything. At least, it didn’t seem like it. There’ll be motifs, but this is, I believe, a “realistic” series. So the visuals are just visuals and not something super natural.
Plus, how can you not look at those eyes and be reminded why moe unfortunately works on us. >_<
Posted by sqa | April 23, 2012, 5:04 pmYou’re right. The whole episode was practically about disproving urban legends, so sticking to “realism” makes a lot of sense.
The heroine sure is charming. Character/face design is almost same as Haruhi (well, Mikuru), same as K-On!, but hey, it works
Posted by 8thSin | April 23, 2012, 8:01 pmIt seems more like he is debunking a lack of critical thinking and awareness of surrounding. He’s acting the skeptic. Does this situation have a logical, easy process that explains it better?
Posted by skylion | April 24, 2012, 6:10 pm…given how Oreki likes to conserve his energy, he is more like Sherlock’s older brother, Mycroft.
Posted by skylion | April 24, 2012, 8:54 amEven better point! Nice catch too.
Posted by sqa | April 24, 2012, 5:02 pmOh, so that’s why he left the room when he saw those ppl in there.
With this being a KyoAni show, I am bit skeptical, since I wasn’t that great of a fan of past shows like K-On or Lucky Star. She kinda reminds me of K-On’s Yui.
Both you with gg and Mazui working on this? Maybe you should have just made a joint.
Posted by boingman | April 23, 2012, 5:56 pmMazui have a different translator (translators?) so I’m not really sure how that would work out…
Posted by Xythar | April 23, 2012, 7:22 pmcombo of Yui & Azusa (pure as child & curious) with Mio’s body and Ritsu’s voice… She should be rich to fit Mugi too
Joint… lol, that would make everything easier for us viewers. I like this idea, wonder what fansubbers think.
Posted by Progeusz | April 23, 2012, 7:27 pmYou’re approaching this from the mindset that group name is what’s important, when in reality it’s the people working on the show that count. This show is being subbed by 3 groups because there are people in each of those 3 groups who want to translate it, so the only way you could do a joint would be for those translators to compromise and let others make the decisions for them. In practice, that doesn’t happen.
Posted by Xythar | April 23, 2012, 7:42 pmYeah, TLC/QC doesn’t exist.
Posted by Progeusz | April 23, 2012, 8:02 pmWhat Xythar said, plus I can’t imagine working with more than one other translator for a show. I’m a total control freak when it comes to script, and I wouldn’t want my script completely changed or end up completely replacing other people’s lines.
Posted by 8thSin | April 23, 2012, 8:06 pmInteresting, many other fansubbers seem to be fine with changes applied to their script however I can see you point. I edited some texts in my native language and usually am reluctant to do more than grammar, punctuation & spell check unless there’s something clearly wrong, I believe in preserving essence of writer’s creation.
Actually, it makes sense seeing how personal your observations/notes/speculations posts are.
P.S. Eye in your av belongs to Kuroyukihime, right?
Posted by Progeusz | April 23, 2012, 8:46 pmYes, it’s Kuroyukihime
I change avatars a lot, but always eye zoom for a current series~
I was actually thinking of switching to a screen in Hyouka already lol
Posted by 8thSin | April 24, 2012, 1:17 amYeah, I don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding a good eye-zoom pic from there
Posted by Xythar | April 24, 2012, 1:20 amMakes sense that you, especially as the translator, wants to have control over the series that you’re working on.
btw. I think you mentioned Kusion also working with you on this title, right?
Does that make 3 ppl with the 3rd one being from GG, since both you and Kusion don’t seem to exclusively work with one group only (worked for both UTW and GG)?
Would help if you folks would add credits for those interested, but I guess there’s a good reason why you prefer not to or at least wait until the end of the season.
Posted by boingman | April 26, 2012, 4:59 pmYeah, I was like wtf at that scene in my first view too. Good thing I kind of committed myself to this show before, because I probably would’ve missed a lot of stuff and just dropped it.
And yeah, Mazui has 3 translators working on this already. They don’t need me so I need to work with another group lol
Posted by 8thSin | April 23, 2012, 8:03 pmlol, ok. I hope you’ll review every group soon.
That scene bothered me too, it’s good to see you’ll be blogging about Hyouka, I suspect more easy to miss subtleties and things worthy of elaborating on in future episodes.
Posted by Progeusz | April 23, 2012, 8:14 pmReally liked the show, KyoAni is providing god-tier visual experience as expected, what’s more, even chara design is outstanding (much better than e.g. K-ON! which mostly relied on animation). Characters are likeable too, especially Fukube. I can’t wait for Ibara next week.
Also, Chitanda Eru’s eyes, they’re really captivating. Impossible do resist overflowing moe.
I expect much from this series but watch it with open mind, being careful not to fell in trap of misplaced hopes resulting in disappointment. I’ll just take whatever it offers me and try to see what it really is, hopefully enjoying myself as much, or possibly more, as I did this time. I advise others to do the same as we still can’t be sure what direction is Hyouka going to take.
It isn’t our typical SoL, on the other hand there most likely* won’t be any Holmes-tier riddles. There’s possibility for some romance too but to what extent? (novelfags, don’t answer, please)
*I saw people bashing the show for simplicity of locked door secret – really? It’s 1st ep, character introduction.
I’m afraid that ‘mystery’ tag can cause harm to Hyouka instead of helping it. There’s nothing worse than incorrect mindset when watching anime.
Posted by Progeusz | April 23, 2012, 7:34 pmThe main character’s disinterest in everything (and even his tone) bored the heck out of me. I guess that means the seiyuu had done his job magnificently, but Fukube’s definitely the most likable character in this show so far
And yeah, Moe is strong in Eru
I had no idea what I was watching at first, because I didn’t expect it to by “mystery” lol. I still don’t know what this show is about, but with such an odd total episode count (21), I have faith in KyoAni to properly pace this and develop into something interesting.
I was really liked the general fluidity of characters, but as you can tell from from our filesize, there’s a LOT of static, motionless backgrounds scenes and uncreative shots that just appears like a visual novel character talking. I guess drawing was A+, but direction/presentation was rather poor.
Posted by 8thSin | April 23, 2012, 8:11 pmI didn’t even notice how motionless the background is. The framing of the character action -contrary to your opinion- was so well done that I never thought about it till now.
Posted by DarkFireBlade25 | April 24, 2012, 4:05 amThe budget for each show is limited, and they tend to choose either detailed art or animation (fluidity) for visual appeal.
Personally, I think it’s harder to execute with art, but they’ve done it very well so you don’t consciously realize it unless you’re really paying attention. I think that’s what makes the scene before OP so powerful, because that was the one scene with extreme fluidity that contrasted with generally static framing for rest of the show.
And yeah, I guess there was a lot of nice framing too. I’m still trying to shake that impression I got from the trailer out of my mind.
Posted by 8thSin | April 24, 2012, 2:21 pmSince three reputable groups are doing this show, I think you should do a tl comparison review.
Mazui seem to have (unexpectedly) messed up big time, their tl (tls?) was over the place, especially the first part of the episode. The editing was non-existent.
Commie’s editing was too liberal at some parts:
Evidently (薔薇色) seems to be a recurring theme in this anime, which also led to the juxtaposition to Oreki’s “approach” to life (灰色), so a more literal translation would have fit better. Maybe it’s not even a question of being “liberal” or “literal”, it basically boils down to consistency and accuracy at this point.
Even vale wasn’t satisfied with some of the “interpretations” of his editors’.
He also did a Mazui tl review:
– for those interested.
Also an interesting fact: all 3 groups translated (女郎蜘蛛)completely differently ( well a spider is still a spider
)
But I guess 8thsin’s “Black Widow” adheres to the context the best, accentuating the “darkness”-secrecy of the aforementioned club.
Posted by OwaruSekai | April 23, 2012, 8:07 pmDammit, I messed up the links.
Commie’s editing was too liberal at some parts:
https://notredreviews.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/xscreen-00534.png
Vale’s notes:
http://notredreviews.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/hyouka-01-notes-and-the-like/
Vale’s Mazui tl review:
http://notredreviews.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/translation-review-mazui-hyouka-01/
Posted by OwaruSekai | April 23, 2012, 8:11 pmMazui has 3 TLs working on this from what I heard, so that may be the reason for the “unevenness” throughout the episode. I can’t really judge from seeing those screenshots, because continuity is pretty important and depending on how they phrased earlier, it could be right or wrong.
As for the spider name, it’s technically a different spider, but both “Black Widow” and「女郎蜘蛛」and have sort of a female description in it, and of course, the sinister image, so I found it to be most appropriate. Should’ve probably explained that in the main post ^^;
Posted by 8thSin | April 23, 2012, 8:50 pmSo, do you plan on doing a comparison review at some point? Since all of the 3 releases differ greatly in LS and quality, and some lines are really bugging me
We’ve been discussing one particular line/interpretation with Xythar here:
http://notredreviews.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/hyouka-01-notes-and-the-like/#comment-301
Posted by OwaruSekai | April 23, 2012, 9:14 pmYes. I will.
Posted by 8thSin | April 24, 2012, 2:15 pmAs for the spider name, it’s technically a different spider
I understand the choice of Black Widow but my personal preference would have been to leave it as something like Jorou Spider.
For any interested check wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephila_clavata
If you look at the role the spider plays in folklore it’s use becomes much more appropriate, especially given the imagery in the episode when Chitanda “catches’ him with her eyes.
Posted by EinsamerWanderer | April 28, 2012, 10:58 pmJust want to point out a minor mistake.
13:35 “What don’t you join too, Fukube?”
it should be “Why”, unless ‘what’ can somehow be used that way.
Posted by Rai | April 23, 2012, 9:36 pmOh yeah, we noticed that after release lol
I originally had “What about you, Fukube” and there was an editing derp. I originally had a lot of missing/extra words too because we were both pretty messed up at 4am ^^;
I’ll try to start translating earlier so we don’t get this problem.
Posted by 8thSin | April 23, 2012, 9:56 pmAre there will be v2 for it?
Posted by AGENT | April 24, 2012, 7:45 amThat will solely depend on our (mine and Kusion’s) interest level at end of the series.
Whether we’ll have motivation to go through the script again.
Posted by 8thSin | April 24, 2012, 2:26 pmI’m translating pretty much everything in that timeframe. Can I get some bonus?
Posted by Vale | April 24, 2012, 8:15 amI personally don’t like seeing background dialog for scenes where important lines are being said. It distracts the audience from the most important things that are being said.
Although I’m technically leaving things untranslated, so it’ll be a deduction against myself rather than bonus to you.
Posted by 8thSin | April 24, 2012, 2:28 pmi was trying to say that i’m translating most of my shows late night… but okay.
Posted by Vale | April 24, 2012, 9:33 pmI wasn’t sure what to expect coming into this one, as I’ve been watching pretty much everything blind this season. No expectations, no preconceived notions–just enjoyin’ me some Japanese cartoons.
As soon as I heard the 薔薇色 line (so, like ten seconds in) and saw all the club advertising, I had some intense flashbacks to 四畳半神話大系 (aka The Tatami Galaxy). Though, aside from similarities in the opening scene and the odd choice of English titles, I’m not sure there’s much connecting the two. I’m not even sure if it’s enough to be considered referential–though I’d like it to be, as The Tatami Galaxy is one of my all-time favorite anime.
Nice call on the getting-the-room-key scene. I was stumped when I saw that, but it makes a lot of sense that he’d be avoiding interaction. I guess it was just too early in the episode (not even three minutes) for his character to have really sunk in yet.
In any event, I thought it was a very interesting first episode, and I look forward to what’s coming next. The Japanese is a little bit outside my comfort level at times, so I’ll probably be pretty restrained in any observations, and I definitely won’t pick it apart like Ano Natsu. For one, it takes a lot of time, and I’m not confident I’m picking up enough of the details to do a good, accurate analysis anyway. But if anything jumps out at me, I’ll definitely mention it.
Posted by BDH | April 24, 2012, 1:39 amI totally forgot to discuss the whole color theme in this series. I’ll talk more about it in the next episode.
And I’d appreciate it if you’ll cover anything I missed for this series too
Posted by 8thSin | April 24, 2012, 2:17 pm>“Book Club” is literally “Classic Literature Club”, but we simplified that for obvious reasons.
And what are those?
Posted by Toshiaki | April 24, 2012, 7:39 amExcessive text length. Makes it harder to read, and it’s mentioned a lot, so it’ll feel repetitive too.
Posted by 8thSin | April 24, 2012, 2:24 pmI’ve spent the past year re-reading the Holmes canon, and have been watching the new BBC production to the point of obsession.
Catch? No, I live with those fish.
I hope no one thinks of Oseki as the Mycroft from Guy Ritche’s Game of Shadows. I’m a big fan of Stephen Fry, but that character just wasn’t Mycroft (but then, Mark Gatiss isn’t exactly him either).
More to the point, but Oreki and Satoshi merged are Mycroft.
Posted by skylion | April 24, 2012, 6:05 pmWow, fantastic catch on the “Daughter of Time” line. I’ll definitely be back to read what you have to say about future episodes.
Thanks a lot for your hard work!
Posted by ajthefourth | April 25, 2012, 12:17 amReading through all of this made me really want to watch this. What happened to this season looking really crappy? I’m so backed up T_T.
And I’m still trying to work on those banners but making that size look decent has been a little difficult for me. Probably due to stress headaches. Haven’t forgotten though!
Posted by wraithe | April 30, 2012, 2:45 pm