New Anime Series maybe...: Hyouka episode 1

Hello my lovely readers! Are you having a good day? If you live in the United States you probably had a rather cold day. Here in Florida the average temperature has been 75 degrees or higher for the last two months or so. But today it was about 62 degrees. What is up with that?! Oh and I hear that half of New England is under snow. So cold indeed. Craziness, it is time for flowers not SNOW. Or weather where I have to wear a light jacket.

Biggest spoiler ever! I am awful XD

In an effort to try and stop the crazy spacer monster you only get two paragraphs. XD But in an effort to watch 3829483 shows this season I decided to give Hyouka a chance..even though they are debut late into the season. Shame on them. But yes episode 1. Spoilers for people being more boring than me!!  

Episode Summary: Sakura blossoms are blooming and falling on the heads of new high school students. Upper class men are excitedly handing out flyers for their clubs while new students happily take them and look happy to be alive. All except one student who slips quietly passed the crowds. He explains that he, Houtarou has certain life mottoes that he lives by and one of the most important ones is not doing unnecessary things and to do necessary things with as little energy as possible. Satoshi, his friend, basically chimes in and says yeah you are real boring. Satoshi doesn’t know how Houtarou can live like that, especially in an amazing high school with tons of clubs. Despite not wanting to do anything…..Houtarou has to join the Classic Club as his sister in India (wtf all these family members being in India?!) commands him to or the club will be disbanded. Houtarou seems bleh about it perks up when he realizes he will be the only member in a far off corner of the school. Only when he gets there a very PERKY girl named Eru is there and is excited to see Houtarou. Houtarou tries to leave as this girl can be in the member the Classic Club needs. Eru won’t state her reason for joining this club and isn’t about ready to let Houtarou walk out.

So....what does he do?

Then there is a five minute conversation about how the club door was not locked when Eru walked in but was locked when Houtarou having the key. Satoshi was spying behind the door listening to this amazing conversation. Houtarou tries to leave again but Eru NEEDS to know why the door was locked. Houtarou has an acid trip on Eru asking him for help so he eventually does. After some AMAZING turn of events it turns out the maintenance worker is behind the whole locked door deal. Eru declares the whole thing amazing and Satoshi wants to join the Classic Club now too. Houtarou ends up giving Eru his club form after another acid trip but probably regrets that. The next day Satoshi is keeping Houtarou company as the latter has to redo his homework forgotten at home. Satoshi tells Houtarou a crazy story about a music club ghost. Houtarou reacts weird when he finds out that Eru’s class was talking about this rumor.

When Eru makes her way to his classroom Houtarou makes Satoshi tell her the rumor about the secret club of the school. Golden Web has never been found out and often have sneaky flyers somewhere on the school boards. Eru decides that they NEED to find out this mystery and Houtarou agrees. He automatically goes to the most popular billboard, stating it is easier to hide a poster among all the other ones. While Eru and Satoshi search Houtarou finds it hidden under another flyer. Eru considers this day a success and they all make their way home. Satoshi smirks, saying that Houtarou set this whole thing up to give Eru another mystery. Houtarou claims he didn’t want to walk all the way over to the music club for THAT mystery so he made up this one. Satoshi is like okay Mr. Low Energy. Satoshi just thinks that Houtarou can’t resist Eru and Houtarou remains silent. Good bye boring days. THE END! HMMM. I am not sure how I feel about this. Not sure how I feel at all. And since I only tuned in because this company churns out shows that I enjoy….well actually I am not sure where I was going with that sentence. Just that I normally would have not have checked out this show and because a certain company was behind it I tuned in. Which should mean my expectations were either low because the synopsis didn’t interest me enough or they were high because I like this company.

So pretty....for like 10 days. :(

I love sakura blossoms. So basically I am like everyone else in the world yes? This has nothing to do with the show. Or very little since the sakura blossoms were falling/blooming for the beginning of school year. So clever of Japan. Yes going back to school sucks but lets make it near sakura blossom season so we can tie in rebirth, the brief moment of youth, and fleeting beauty. So while it might SEEM like a cliché, to have anime start off with new characters walking under the cherry blossoms, it makes sense. Because we can’t start off an anime show in the middle of the year now can we? Of course not! How are people supposed to meet for the first time and join clubs? No no it has to be the first week of school or everything in the anime world will fall apart. And I like sakura blossoms.

I am sensing a party pooper!

Okay onto the show! Houtarou…I guess it would be way too easy to compare him to Kyon. But I think that Houtarou is even “worse” than Kyon. Like Kyon came across pretty lazy and as a person who just wanted to blah his way through like. Like Tomoya. HMMM I am sensing a pattern. But I think Houtarou puts both those boys to shame. He is consciously trying to conserve energy, thinking of ways to make his life easier. A new level of lazy I think. Of course maybe this is a gimmick, to show how SAD and PATHETIC the main characters are for not embracing their fleeting youth and what not. That being said I still think Houtarou takes it a wee bit too far. I can see not wanting to join a club or being gunho about school but you got to be excited about something. Converse your energy for the fun stuff, not to just store it in.

Say it a million more times Satoshi!

I think half of Satoshi’s (the second banana) lines were dedicated to saying all that stuff about Houtarou, that he is conversing energy and what not. I get it, the first episode and all, we got to get to know the characters. But do we have to drill home their character traits. Can we not see them over time? But I guess if Houtarou is going to change after meeting Eru we need an explanation on how he was before so we can go GASP at his transformation. Just that Satoshi was laying it on a little thick and I have no idea who he is as a character.

Oh snap there goes a mystery!

Eru is special. Also I think I hate her hair. I was going to say she looked like the baddie from The Ring but that might touch too much on the mystery in the music room. But her hair is unfortunate. Maybe she can wear it up a lot or something. But okay Eru is special. Not quite sure how the rich family thing is going to play in but this is no Mugi. I don’t even think we have a Yui at this point. She is like my cat! That is it! So starved for attention, like no one has ever talked to her. She just instantly clings to you it makes you feel smothered but at the same time she is so cute (well at least my cat is) you can’t turn her away. Cute girls always get their way, these are true facts.

Can I at least know what the club is about? Classic books? Paintings? Poems? What?!

Eru might have a good reason for joining the Classic Club. But at this point I don’t know what that reason is or what the heck the Classic Club even is about. All of that doesn’t matter. All that people could focus on is the fact that Eru is the either the most boring person in the world or finds the most boring things amazing! I guess as long as she doesn’t start singing about cracks in the sidewalk and how her dad is the best dad ever I will survive.

The face of a crazy girl. X___X

But hot damn folks. Hot damn. She gets locked in a room and she wouldn’t let it go. I mean it would have been horrible had she been locked in there and Houtarou didn’t slunk on by. But he did and she was set free. And yet like 10 minutes of this episode (okay it wasn’t that bad but still) was dedicated to a locked door. A LOCKED DOOR FOLKS! I mean throw in a chocolate dessert and what side you it out of for some change of scenery. I wanted to fast forward through all that stuff but then everyone acted like Houtarou was a genius. I needed to watch to make sure I wasn’t missing the genius.

Maybe if you tried to finish your homework faster rather than planting a fake story you could have missed Eru all together?

Then there was ANOTHER mystery. A mystery that Houtarou helped make up for some reason. Well we know he made it up because he likes Eru but is unable to process such an emotion at this time. Instead he pretends like making up this mystery was all a part of his plan to leave school early. Because that makes sense, stopping the homework process to create a little mystery for Eru because the music room was so far away.

Although I do want to know what this mysterious club does....

But back to the mystery. MOG THIS SCHOOL IS BORING! I know most schools in anime have some 7 mysteries going on but this is too boring for words. I am talking about the music room one, not the secret club one. Which I guess was sorta interesting. Maybe a club worth joining or at least finding out about until you realize the members are insane and creepy. But I think it was a stretch for Houtarou to hide it under the other flyers. It is hard to marvel at his amazing smartness when he planned the whole thing.

Tired student=room full of ghosts!

I am slowly thinking that my post is making no sense. The mysteries were super boring. Or the deduction behind them were. Like OH SNAP someone with the only other key locked the doors you are a GENIUS! Look I found the secret club form on the wall AFTER I put it there. WOOHOO! But maybe what was sad was Eru thought this was all amazing. Or maybe none of this is happening at all because Houtarou is really trippin on acid. I have extremely long hair and I hope no one has visions of me turning into some tentacle hair monster that fills the room up with flowers and sparkles.

Love at first sight is scary. As long as there is no ballet Apocalypse it will be okay though.

Okay I know the sparkles, flowers, and the crazy hair is just Houtarou thinking Eru is cute and that he likes her but he can’t accept that as part of his conserving energy routine. It still freaks me out though.

These posters are pretty cool though. Gotta stand out.

Is that it for this episode? I feel as if I went on and on. In conclusion the mysteries were really….lame. But then again not everyone can be a magical 15 year old. Some kids have to be normal and face….normal mysteries that need to be solved right now or the hair will take over the world! Maybe the real reason why Eru joined the club or why Houtarou joined the club will be more interesting. Or maybe it is better not focus on doing mysteries and having crazy fun instead. Or have the reactions to the mysteries be less intense. Maybe I am just in a weird mood. In any event I will watch episode 2 so I can have a better feel for this show.

Tenchi's Japan Trip Fund: $160. A ways to go. :(

OH! I did like it when Houtarou and Satoshi were walking home. I liked the umbrella usage and the look of their town. I like Japan apparently. In case that was obvious. Or at least I like it enough to want to take trips there and pretend everyday would be amazing there. XD