The color theme in this show should be pretty apparent to you by now. I’ll start this post with some Ep1 follow-up, and some examples of symbolism in this show.
Rose vs Gray
The very first scene of Hyouka is a close-up shot of cherry blossom. The opening monologue compares high school life and the “rose color”.
The connotation of “rose color” in Japanese is almost same as the meaning “rosy” in English. It’s same in that it represents an optimistic and cheerful view, although it doesn’t have the naivete commonly associated with being “rose-colored”. In addition, the color also represents a fulfilling or colorful life. The hustle and bustle of the opening scene represents what it means to have a “rose-colored high school life” pretty well.
Although fulfilling high school life is often described as “rose-colored” in Japanese and you see roses blossoming in shoujo anime and their parodies, “rose color” is in no way the first thing that comes to mind for an average Japanese viewer and vice versa.
High school is more commonly associated with cherry blossom for new encounters and partings, as well as the starting point of a person’s adult life (spring and “seishun”). On the other hand, “rose color”, especially when paired with a lifestyle, is more often associated with glamor of and fame of celebrities and people living to their life to the fullest with successful careers etc.
For this reason, the producers must have chosen to add cherry blossom in the very first scene to associate its pink color of sakura cherry blossoms with the “rose color”, and possibly to retain the “optimistic” meaning of “rose color” rather than simply a fulfilling high school life.
I didn’t include this whole color theme in last week’s post because it seemed so obvious to me, but even after some initial confusion, and decided to wait until this week because I wanted to perfect the lyrics before posting screenshots of it.
The OP, in fact, screams of color symbolism and depicting the colors added to the main character’s life. It’s practically all “colors” in forms of actual saturation or a characters adding meaning and fulfillment to Houtarou’s “gray” view of life and world.
“Rose” in Japanese text appearing out of monochrome textbook in OP. This anime is clearly about the cynical and lazy Houtarou who found school boring (“gray”) finding joy from even the littlest events (“rose”) as his life will probably filled with colors by end of this show.
Saturation boost by characters everywhere.
I had to add “color” in the first screen here because unless we’re translating shallow pointless lyrics, songs must always be translated with high LS-scale for them to make sense.
This section of lyric and video is clearly another metaphor for finding colors (rays of light) in the gray (gloomy cloudy sky) world.
Again, it doesn’t get any more obvious.
I find this sequence in Ep1 to be particularly intriguing because Houtarou actually painted an entire story originally painted in shades of red (“rose”) into gloomy gray.
I think this is an indirect depiction of his view of life, and repeating the exactly same scene with less saturated colors and gloomier dialog makes these scenes particularly powerful.
I tweaked this line a bit for v2. They were talking about delaying Chitanda’s question, either that same music room one, or the fact that he successfully solved two cases in her eyes will lead to more work in the future, as seen in Ep2. That was mostly likely explanation for his little epiphany.
On to Ep2.
Japanese characters jump out of gray paper and leads Houtarou to an eventful high school life. The letter from his sister is significant in that it started everything. Without this letter, the main character wouldn’t have met the heroine (at least not in a situation where he would’ve been persuaded to actually join this club).
Yes, it’s a really bad pun. 「不毛」 (“waste”) is written as “no-hair”, while 「二毛作」 (“double-cropping”) is written as “two hair production” in kanji.
Also notice the Chitanda Family is supposedly “wealthy farmers” according to Fukube, and it’s a waste if you don’t double-crop a field. I thought it was actually a pretty funny joke.
Forced perspective here is pretty nice, and it’s pretty funny how he caught Houtarou trying to escape.
I like how he’s consistently lazy, but unfortunately, he miscalculated the extra effort that would’ve ensued from actually staying in the library and listen to their mystery.
Lazey Sense is tingling, but it’s too late now. Should’ve left when you had the chance.
And of course, there’s no escape once our princess gets interested in a mystery.
Godly execution in this line. I laughed pretty hard at how she just kept invading his personal space. It was also a nice surprise, because I (and I suspect most viewers) expected another entangling charm scene like in Ep1, but he just gave up.
They really like bad puns.
As mentioned in last week’s notes, “The niece of time” appeared in the end is a homage to The Daughter of Time and possibly the line “Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.” I wonder if his opinion would change by end of this series.
SHAFT-tier text animation going on. Basically 「某」here is “someone” and 「本」 is book etc, and what he’s saying is animated by kanji instead of pictures.
I have no idea wtf this is.
Usually “asazuke” don’t need elaborate, heavy sealing to press it down, but things like nukazuke do.
She did have a really good hearing too, as displayed in Ep1. Not human?
He does start treating her like a dog.
Sign translation for this scene was annoying as hell, but we have further description of what constitutes a “gray” life vs “rose colored” life.
He wants to choose the lazy gray life, but Chitanda forces him toward the rosy one.
I like how she’s constantly smiling and looks creepy as hell. It’s Houtarou’s internal image of her, as well as the sheer pressure and charisma of her smile that causes him to obey.
Phew! Being Tsundere saves the day.
“I-It’s not like I chose the rosy route or anything… I just have some spare energy left!”
The four on the right side are Gym, Music, Fine Art, and Calligraphy.
Lazy Kusion.
Sparkly eyes on Ibara too lol
Oh noez, two interested girls now. You’ll be solving school urban legends for rest of your high school days.
Potential yandere?!
Near-nonsensical technobabble here. I’ve been thinking how Chitanda’s character is almost a combination of Haruhi’s active energy and Mikuru’s moe-ness, but now she’s got the Nagato element as well.
Well done, KyoAni. She’s invincible now.
If I were to venture a guess, she or her family has some mystery that need to be solved. “Oreki might just be [capable of solving X mystery].”
Maybe she’s in the Black Widow Society or something, and “Oreki might just be [smart enough to join us]” or maybe even “Oreki might just be [the chosen one in the prophecy]!” are possible… I guess we’ll see in the next episode.
The second screen can either be what I had, or “I don’t belong in this place” depending on interpretation. This scene is another obvious use of color to describe two very different worlds. Judging from his monologue asking why they’re different, it appears like he does want to have a fulfilling and promising rosy life.
Something is wrong with her reaction… Did Houtarou notice too?
She’s way too surprised by it IMO. Maybe she’s a former member, or she has reasons to conceal the archives from them…
I don’t know what the hell happened to the editing here… She just said “Are you feeling pretty good from solving the mystery?”
This is meant to be a rhetorical question with the edit. It doesn’t imply she has more mysteries for him to solve.
She implies that she did gain something from today’s trip to the library. From what I can see, this mystery only served to confirm his intelligence, so most likely she has a really tough case to be solved by someone trustworthy and smart enough. Trying to recruit him to a secret organization is another possibility.
Very convenient excuse 
Apparently it’s going to be repeated a lot. Girls are always so unreasonable.
Moe~!
Cliffhanger ending. I really hope whatever she’ll say will explain her mumbling soon.
This ED is some serious fanservice. It feels really off with the main story being so “serious” and relatively devoid of fanservice other than general moe-ness of the main girl characters.
They launched Polaris into the sky?! Polaris’s position is supposedly fixed in the sky, so even if time passes, it’ll stay in the same position when seen from Earth… Polaris somehow caused the universe to spin???
I found the show pretty enjoyable after many repeated viewing for the first episode. It seems pretty interesting to me so far, and I hope they can keep it up without having this show degrade into fanservice like the ED.
Episode rating: 8/10
1.) That water ripple effect that KyoAni is crazy about in the OP and the start of the 2nd ep… I think it represents disturbance. In context, that’d mean that the things with the ripple disturb Houtarou’s conservationist lifestyle. His sister’s letter, the start of all of this, is used with it, and the characters in the OP bring color to his life.
2.) The two female characters’ sparkling eyes should be used for a banner. That’d be pretty nice.
Posted by Kusa | May 1, 2012, 7:23 pmI did think about the possibility of ripple = disturbance, but I was initially thinking more of some sort of predicaments, and it didn’t apply.
Disturbance of peace and his lazy lifestyle certainly fits in perfectly here.
I might put it up for the next season (since this is two-season long) if I can somehow make it wide enough. It’ll be like the Penguindrum one with just the eyes
Posted by 8thSin | May 4, 2012, 6:40 pmI love a good puzzle, so the mystery elements in this show click really well for me. That was a nice, solid, logical deduction in this episode, and I felt like I could have solved it at the same time as Oreki did if I had been thinking a little bit harder as I watched. So I was pleased with that.
I don’t have much of value to contribute, though, as I think you covered everything very well. My first thought on Chitanda’s “Oreki might just be…” line was, “…able to solve this mystery,” and the scene at the café was her preparing to tell him about it. From the general tone of the series, and Chitanda’s behavior, that seems like the most likely option. I think her being a member of a secret club/society might be a little outlandish–but anything’s possible, at this point. I think I’d be happier with it being just a regular mystery, given everything else the show has going for it. An actual secret society could unnecessarily muddy things up, if it’s not handled carefully. But anyway, there’s not much point to analyzing the merits of mostly baseless speculation, so I’ll leave it at that.
Aside from that, I love this show. I love the mysteries, the use of color, the quirky SHAFT-style segments, the writing, pretty much everything. It’s got style, it’s got substance, and I approve wholeheartedly.
Posted by BDH | May 1, 2012, 7:30 pmI personally thought “smells like paint thinner” line was too much of a hint, but everything clicked really nicely in the end.
This show took me some time to get used to, but it grew on me after successive viewings. I’m looking forward to bigger mysteries they’re building up for
Posted by 8thSin | May 4, 2012, 6:47 pmHeh. シンナー was a word I hadn’t heard before, and it didn’t register with me until it was too late. I caught 刺激臭 though, and that was enough for me to keep up with the line of reasoning. So I suppose a little bit of ignorance worked to my advantage this time.
It also shows they could have done without it and the mystery still would have worked. So I’ll agree with you there.
Posted by BDH | May 4, 2012, 7:32 pmThis series has me intrigued, even after just two eps, since they’ve set up a lot of things but so far just established the characters and solved some minor mysteries. I do hope it winds up being similar to Haruhi, but stays grounded in reality. It seems like that’s where it’s going so far.
There’s got to be a lot more to the club and Chitanda, looks like we’ll find out more next ep.
Personally I hope it winds up being not just about solving mysteries, but the developing relationships of the main characters. It’ll be great to see how low-energy Houtarou deals with Chitanda as more than just a classmate.
The fanservice ending is great, I like how it contrasts with the serious nature of the series and showcases the character designs of the girls. This also gives me hope the plot is headed in a fun direction and we aren’t just going to get a minor mystery that gets solved each week, with bad puns and some moe-ness.
Posted by A.Crush | May 1, 2012, 8:45 pmThe ED animation reminded me of Mawaru Penguindrum‘s ED, but it felt really out of place since the whole universe thing wasn’t even hinted in the slightest in Hyouka (yet) and it kind of changes the way I view the heroines, who were cute, but I at least don’t think they were presented as sexy in any way or form in the series.
Willingness to take risk is always a good sign though
Posted by 8thSin | May 4, 2012, 6:53 pmEVERY SIGN MOVED THIS EPISODE. I’M SORRY ;;
Posted by Kusion | May 2, 2012, 12:02 amYou will waste more energy in the long run from listening to me bitching at your energy conservation every episode.
Posted by 8thSin | May 4, 2012, 6:55 pmGreat Review (First Impressions!) So far I’ve watched the second episode of Hyouka and it left us with cliffhanger. I was impressed with KyoAni’s animation and the 300mb download that I’ve waited to finish is worth it!
Posted by Anime | May 2, 2012, 5:28 amTwo minor things that might be interesting:
Chitanda is describing a holistic view of the world, where she’s only capable of/interested in understanding the big picture. This is a nice contrast to Houtarou, who has an atomistic view of the world and finds it easy to see how smaller concepts add to the whole. It’s his mindset that’s allowed him to solve all these mysteries. Chitanda is probably amazed because she can’t access that perspective.
The universe spinning in the ED is possibly a representation of much time passing (rotations of the Earth from the viewpoint). This could be a visual metaphor of something (Polaris) staying constant as time changes, or maybe even highlight the sheer number of changes that can occur around a constant thing.
Posted by S_ | May 2, 2012, 5:57 amI agree she’s interested in understanding the big picture, but doesn’t she currently have an “atomistic view” of the world right now? I think that’s why she can’t solve the mysteries (she can’t see the whole picture), whereas Houtarou is capable of putting pieces of the puzzles together instead of remembering the details.
“The world rotate around you” is a common expression as well, so I thought maybe that was what was meant by the Polaris launch, but those two you mentioned sound more likely. I guess we’ll wait and see
Posted by 8thSin | May 4, 2012, 7:13 pmI’d still say she has a holistic view. She could understand that the book was being borrowed and returned at precise times, but couldn’t break down the situation any further than the information given to her. She was still thinking about things as a whole, and not about the many small processes adding up to the result (that Houtarou was able to see).
Posted by S_ | May 5, 2012, 11:26 amRegarding the 不毛/二毛作 pun, I think the joke is less about the overlapping kanji an more about the dual meaning of 不毛 as “waste” and also “barren, unproductive”. Chitanda says it to mean the former, and Oreki turns it around to its literal meaning of describing the harvest. It’s still a bad pun, though.
Posted by Neruson | May 2, 2012, 8:12 amHrm, so I guess I wasn’t the only one who felt that the librarian’s reaction felt “off”. And here I was starting to get paranoid about whether I was overthinking things or not.
Anyways, to top it all off, if Eru’s “personal” reasons for joining the Classical Literature club are related to these anthologies somehow, I smell a bigger mystery in the works.
Posted by Tsuki | May 3, 2012, 12:31 amI’m a paranoid viewer when I’m seriously watching a show, so maybe we’re still just seeing things ^^;
Hyouka is a mystery show, so maybe they’re feeding us hints for future episode though.
Posted by 8thSin | May 4, 2012, 7:19 pmThere is no “universe spinning” in the ending. This is exactly the effect you get if you turn on a long exposure (many minutes to hours) and aim your camera at the sky. The north star stays fixed while all the other stars rotate around it during the course of the night leaving “star tracks” (google it).
Posted by ergZay | May 3, 2012, 12:59 amYeah I know, but I was thinking maybe it’s a metaphor.
Posted by 8thSin | May 4, 2012, 7:20 pmExcept that thanks to the precession of the equinoxes, Polaris actually ISN’T fixed at all…
Posted by Margaan | May 3, 2012, 10:13 amThat is way too advance for me…
I thought the North Star is always in the north direction from Earth so it’s in a relatively fixed position.
Posted by 8thSin | May 4, 2012, 7:28 pmI’m late to the party as usual. After going through the spaghetti in DS’s comments for this episode, I think I might have come up with an okay compromise between “lab” (which you chose), “storage room” (which DS wanted), and “prep room” (Mazui): reference room.
Storage room would imply that students don’t really use it. Lab implies sciency stuff stuff goes on in it. Prep room raises the question of what really needs to be prepped.
The only catch with reference room is that, at least where Western high schools (even well-off ones) are concerned, they’re usually attached to libraries. A dedicated “reference room” solely for geography would be a bit of a stretch.
In the end though, judging from the contents of the room and the activities taking place, reference room seems to do the best job of conveying the purpose of the room.
Posted by thecowgoesmoo | May 7, 2012, 4:46 am