me when you tell me there’s gonna be media with metatextual references to the process of making art and the entertainer-entertainment-audience relationship at the function:
in 2025, i committed to doing a personal challenge called "Rochi's Anime of the Year", basically drawing an anime per year that left a big impact on me. I finally made it to 2015 LOL you can view the beginning below!
2004 - 2009
What's your most niche interest you wish people asked you more about? Tell me about it!
Hyouka (2012)!
It used to be a popular anime a decade ago so is weird to call it niche, but NO ONE talks about it anymore. I just wish there was more fics of it *sighs sadly*
It's personal to me, so full disclaimer: I am bias as hell. Strap in.
Hyouka is a slice of life mystery anime, so instead of the usual "who is the murder?" mystery, the questions asked are really mundane "Why is a door locked if the club owner, the only one with the key, didn't lock it?" "Why are so many people picking up the same thick book from the library and returning it the very next day?" and so on, every answer is also pretty simple. Most of the time you just go 'Oh yeah. Make sense' instead of getting hyped up. Other times I get surprisingly invested in these no stake mysteries.
The MC (my boy Houtarou) is painted as super smart, the typical 'lazy genios that could do anything if he really tried' type of 'wasting your potential' MC, and after a streak of always figuring out the answer to every question I unconciously put him in the 'guy that is never wrong' archetype.
And then, he got something wrong, and I was hooked.
Houtarou is a guy that never tries anything, he just... exists... His motto is literally "If I don't have to do it, I won't. If I have to do it, I'll make it quick.", is like he wants really hard to be a generic anime protagonist that fades into the background
And these mundane mysteries people beg him to solve to satiate their curiosity is when he first start making an effort to do things he doesn't have too. He keep being right so he got confident and arrogant about his mystery solving skills. Best part: He didn't even notice. Pride is the last thing anyone would associate Houtarou with, he feels borderline depressed most of the time.
He does this mistake in the middle of the anime: He was tasked to figure out what someone's vision for a low budget high school movie was, he was given propts, watched what was already filmed of the movie before the director stopped working on it, and got so wrapped up trying to 'solve' the movie, figure out who is the killer, that he started to focus on finding an answer to the movie instead of trying to figured out what the original creator intended. He lost sight of what he should be doing, he made his own ending instead of figuring out the directors ending and he didn't even notice until later.
The character development is so subtle, but so good in Hyouka <3
There are four main characters, each have their own arcs and play important roles, but the main duo is Houtarou, our detective, Chitanda, who is very bubbly and curious! She is the force that forces houtarou to stop giving a million excuses and try to solve these mysteries. Houtarou absolutely have a crush on her he just have no idea wtf to do about it, awkward boy that he is.
Chitanda is also awkward, but in a more impulsive way, she does something and only later gets awkward about it. She is adorable, and smart in other areas, she is not the airhead she appears to be. They both like each other, but because of the very diferent brand of awkward that they have nothing truly happens. We are in pining hell, but is less dramatic than you would normally expect from an anime. Kind of an 'I find you attractive, I have desires, I don't know how to deal with that, I want to be alone, I don't want to be lonely' type pining.
It's still a slice of life story in the end, you won't be getting any mindblowing hype and sheer heartbreak here. It's just a casual watch that personally gave me one hell of a good time but that I can easily see people be bored by. ALSO FOR AN ANIME OF 2012 IT LOOKS GORGEOUS, THIS ANIME IS BEAUTIFUL. It's only 22 episodes if you like anime and like slice of life i hightly recomend.
