The story in Hyouka is advancing a lot faster than I had originally expected. Mysteries in this series are still pretty low profile, but the cases are definitely getting more complicated.
I took a significant risk last week by translating the episode title as “Troubled Descendents of the Classic Literature Club” instead of “Descendent(s) of the Troubled CLC“, even though both are grammatically feasible, and the former had an alternative way of phrasing in Japanese without adding more clarification （「古典部の事情ある末裔」） while the latter did not. Eru’s “confession” sounded like she was going to tell Houtarou about a new mystery, so I thought this episode was most likely to be about her troubled past as well.
I’m glad to see the risk appeared to be worth it. The title may have been intentionally kept ambiguous in Japanese to cover both, but this episode spent a lot more time elaborating Eru’s concerns and a new trouble that will haunt her, rather than trying to show how Eru is the descendent of a troubled club. This conflict was what she kept saying in the previous episodes by “It’s personal”.
Eru is the trouble descendant of the Classic Literature Club (that his uncle was in).
He goes “wut?” twice. He was totally expecting Eru to say “I… am actually in love with you” lol
Cider wrote:
I found it interesting how at the beginning of the episode in the cafe, the clock’s pendulum changed from a heart shape to a regular circle shape after he heard what she was actually going to say. The meaning behind it is fairly straightforward of course.
「酢昆布 (スコンブ)」 is vinegar-flavored dried kelp.
I have no idea what “basic mixture kelp” means lol, but it sounds like kelp-based soup stock or something, and that would fit in a red box… In the end, this is a pretty forced pun.
I’m open to suggestions for v2.
Houtarou looks away. Probably not in shame and guilt, but because it led to more energy consumption.
The metaphor here doesn’t get any more obvious.
Houtarou being a tsundere that he is, snaps out of actually trying to take the responsibility…
…but when he looked inside his cup, all the coffee was gone again.
He was in his own world again, just like with Eru’s entangling illusion. It shows his internal struggle and that he probably unconsciously sipped all his coffee.
Major mishearing in this scene. She was in the consulate of Japan, and the following line by Houtarou should’ve been “What did she do now?”
It’s been about a month two weeks since the last episode, but she’s still on a tour around the world.
This will be fixed in v2.
Houtarou grimaces in this scene because his sister basically told him that she’s living a fulfilling, or a “rose colored” life right now, and he probably compared that to his own “gray” life.
As seen in the previous episode’s gray scene in the library, although Houtarou claims to be satisfied with his “energy conserving” life, but he does have the desire for a rosy life.
This all connects to unconsciously calling the gray as a “sad way of life” in the first episode.
I like how this imagination scene is in the Geo Storeroom instead of Bio Storeroom because he didn’t know the clubrooms changed yet at this point. This show has a pretty good attention to detail.
It’s kind of weird a high school would have a drug safe though… Are they trying to make bio-weapons? lol
Also, why would something like that be unused?
Eru being her airhead self. When it comes to things related to her uncle, she really seem to get to absorbed to what’s in front of her and fail to see the big picture.
Look, it’s Koizumi.
Since Houtarou is Kyon, and Eru is Haruhi+Mikuru+Nagato, the entire Suzumiya Haruhi crew is in this show now.
This scene really shows how alert this guy is. He instantly senses Houtarou suspecting him.
There was absolutely no way the full translation of the first line in this scene would’ve fit within a reasonable text length, so we’ve omitted a part it, but 「神田」 are farms that are exempt from taxes, but contributes to local shrines instead, so the shrines can operate with insufficient donations. This probably means Chitanda is close with the Juumonji Family mentioned in the first episode.
The second screenshot once again cements her good upbringing and manner, and depicts Tougaito family as an influential family in the city that participates in upper-class social gatherings.
Man, this guy may be even lazier than me.
I don’t know what happened in the month they’ve been active, but I don’t think she actually joined the club yet?
She will probably officially join the club after this.
The motion scene of the episode. Used at the perfect timing to increase tension before the showdown.
The upside to the general “laziness” of animation in this show is that they can use a high-animation scene to emphasize certain portions of every episode.
The purpose of that question was to make sure that the drug safe wasn’t taken out of this room, so it must be concealed somewhere in here.
There may also be some psychology stuff going on. Maybe it was a leading question that caused Tougaito to say what was actually in his mind, which was under the cardboard boxes.
Really beautiful hypothetical flashback scene. The art here reminds me a bit of BakaTest.
It’s good to see that they will experiment every episode, with Ep1 being impressionist painting, Ep2 SHAFT-like text animation, and now this. Let’s see they can keep this up for all 21 episodes 
I’m pretty sure that most of you were thinking of he was smoking weed when you saw the first scene.
Well, underage smoking is a pretty serious offense in Japan.
Because she had dog-like hearing and smelling abilities.
Eru can theoretically smell even the faint smell of cigarettes over the air freshener.
I guess this is what this show was titled for. I wonder why it was named after “frozen treat.”
I’m pretty sure they’re going to explain this later in the series.
The exceptionally old building shown in Ep1 was shown as the anthology was being read.
This is probably where Vol.1 can be found.
On episode 2, the name of the library adviser (糸魚川 養子) was obviously emphasized. Now, in this episode, the excerpt that was read by Houtarou was written by a 郡山 養子
They may have different surnames but “Youko” is a feminine name and if she was married, she would have changed it to the surname of her spouse. And 45 years it a long time.
This would explain a lot about her reaction in Ep2, and the possibility that Vol.1 is actually in the library reserves or her role as a clue giver later in the series.
I like how Vol.1 missing doesn’t actually seem like a forced plot device because they set it up as something that should be forgotten, so it makes sense if it was destroyed or hidden it somewhere else.
Once again, she overreacts because it has to do with her uncle. It’s only a matter of time before Fukube and Ibara find out about it.
This episode was very well-directed and its pacing was absolutely amazing. It kept me interested the entire time even though nothing flashy really happened besides the case-solving imagination scene. I’m glad I didn’t give up subbing this series after the first view of Ep1.
lol at koizumi xD
i understand though, about searching the entire school, i might be more lazy than him
Posted by Plasmacannon | May 9, 2012, 12:03 amYou made an error in the translation of the book reading. It was probably meant to be ambiguous but
Posted by Alexander | May 9, 2012, 12:04 amI see… It looks like I over-interpreted that line.
Looks like I have to play really safe for this series starting next episode.
Posted by 8thSin | May 9, 2012, 12:21 amThe show is still great, easily one of the best of the season, but the ‘minor mysteries’ they keep throwing in for Houtarou to solve to the amazement of everyone are a little too obvious. I’m not sure if that’s intentional and to get the viewer to feel like they’re understanding things from his point of view, or if it’s to make the rest of the characters seem clueless. The thing about Eru having a cold also seems like an afterthought, thrown in as a excuse for her not to smell the smoke for the whole thing to work. Makes me wonder if the minor stuff will keep popping up or if the main plot takes over from here on.
I’m still hoping for increased Houtarou + Eru involvement, now that they have a secret between them, there’s something for them to have to talk about privately. Hopefully there’s some Satoshi + Mayaka developement too, otherwise they’ll just be characters that tag along or are just present to also be amazed at Houtarou.
The old building is obviously involved somehow, but I wonder if it’s more to do with the incident in question rather than the location of the first volume.
It’s almost a shame a show like this doesn’t have more of an element of things being shown that only make sense later on – but the material here may not be that deep.
Posted by A.Crush | May 9, 2012, 3:08 amTwo things/questions:
1) Question regarding the whole pun with the Classic Club and kelp mixture.
After Eru explains herself, in your translation, Houtarou says something about a bad pun. But, in Mazui, it’s translated as “What a kid” or something like that.
Mistranslation? Liberal translation? Just curious.
2) Drug safe? Do you mean chemical cabinet of sorts? I would assume, especially, in a bio room, there would be a small fireproof chemical cabinet for potentially flammable chemicals used in experiments.
Posted by Silicon_J | May 9, 2012, 12:32 pm1) Houtarou specifically asked a rhetoric question to himself about whether or not that was actually a pun (“kotenbu” vs “sukonbu” in Japanese). If Mazui translated to “what a kid”, then most likely they were lazy and dodged Eru’s pun line, so that “Was that a pun?” wouldn’t work for Houtarou’s line so they had to make something up instead.
Also, it’s not “Classic(s) Club” =_=;
2) I haven’t heard of fireproof chemical cabinet etc and I’m not really know about these things, so we went with the “safer” choice.
We were originally going to go with “medical cabinet”, but the actual thing in the show looked like an elaborate safe with digital keypad, so we decided to just use the literal translation “drug safe”, which also matched google image search for what we were looking for.
Posted by 8thSin | May 9, 2012, 1:57 pmYou might have noticed this and simply not put it up in the review, but I found it interesting how at the beginning of the episode in the cafe, the clock’s pendulum changed from a heart shape to a regular circle shape after he heard what she was actually going to say. The meaning behind it is fairly straightforward of course.
Posted by Cider | May 9, 2012, 3:15 pmThanks. I totally missed that somehow.
It really goes on to support his mindset
Posted by 8thSin | May 9, 2012, 6:28 pmI wonder if there’s other stuff like this in the earlier eps that winds up flying by and not getting noticed.
I’m not sure if it means he was just expecting a confession, or was actually hoping for one, even if it was in a sort of reluctant way. I’m thinking that Houtarou will slowly develop feelings for Eru, and moments like that seem to imply it.
Posted by A.Crush | May 12, 2012, 4:58 amClassic Literature Club Kelp-in’a-Cup
.Or something like that. Don’t think the type of food is important, so maybe Noodles-in’a-Cup as circumlocution for ramen.
Posted by corocoro | May 10, 2012, 4:55 amOn episode 2, the name of the library adviser (糸魚川 養子) was obviously emphasized. Now, in this episode, the excerpt that was read by Houtarou was written by a 郡山 養子
They may have different surnames but “Youko” is a feminine name and if she was married, she would have changed it to the surname of her spouse. And 45 years it a long time.
That would kinda explain her reaction in that scene.
Posted by ws09 | May 10, 2012, 5:26 amOh, I noticed her name deliberately being shown in Ep2, so she will probably be relevant later, but I didn’t notice the same given name in Ep3. Her family name stands out more for obvious reasons ^^;
I’ll update the post. Thanks
Posted by 8thSin | May 10, 2012, 2:47 pm“It’s been about a month since the last episode, but she’s still on a tour around the world.” It was only two weeks. Ep2 21:44, it reads 05/20 Sun (so we can suppose it is this year). Ep3 08:44, tests are over so it’s 05/31. And there an inconsistency too as 05/20 being a Sunday is incompatible with 05/31 being a Friday.
Also about the clock at the beginning, it’s very impressive how everything is orchestrated. 00:12 Eru takes a breath, 00:14 music starts and clocks slightly pauses.
Posted by Srph | May 10, 2012, 12:48 pmYou’re totally right. I automatically assumed the previous episode was beginning of the month since solar term for that episode was 「立夏」= usually the beginning of May.
It’s weird how days of the week don’t match… The alarm clock at the beginning of Ep2 showed 5/18 Fri as well.
Posted by 8thSin | May 10, 2012, 2:49 pmIt’s definitely an error from KyoAni. Ep1 03:55, there is a calendar, and more in Ep3. (Sposored by the school? same in CLC room and newspaper club room) And Ep3 15:03 makes it clear it’s set in 2012.
Posted by Srph | May 10, 2012, 4:12 pmI have the feeling that so far rather trivialities have been blow up to no proportion. That might be to emphasize their effect on some characters but it still kind of leaves a bad aftertaste. That said, this show still is one of the best at the moment.
Posted by crimso | May 10, 2012, 2:40 pmSo Eru’s uncle went missing in India. Houtarou’s sister wrote to him from India in episode 1.
It might be coincidence but maybe Houtarou’s sister found something out during her time in the Classic Lit Club and is following Eru’s uncle?
Posted by Asta | May 11, 2012, 2:57 amThat’s quite possible, though if the entire show is devoted to Eru’s finding out about her uncle and then that’s the resolution at the end, with his sister bringing Eru’s uncle back or something, it’s gonna suck now.
Posted by A.Crush | May 12, 2012, 5:03 am