The funny thing about Kyoto Animation

Image Credit: koba from Pixiv

I realize that I may be beating a dead horse, but I’m still (after all of these years) baffled at KyoAni’s business practices. They’re just so bizarre and simply do not match what your typical business-minded person would think of when you say “making a profit from popularity.”

This is seriously one of the ONLY times where I wished a company would milk their popular products, yet they don’t! They just don’t want my money. Do they like money? Because they don’t like mine.

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Cardcaptor Sakura 【HD Rewatch】15

“Hey beautiful, whatcha’ doin’?”

Sakura and Kero get into a fight, leading to Kero wandering off on his own little adventure, under somewhat involuntary circumstances (a.k.a. getting crazy drunk off of alcoholic chocolates).

Remind you of any particular recent anime series?

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Hyouka Final Impressions

Well, Hyouka‘s finally ended, and as I expected from an anime based on a novel, it leaves the series open for a continuation. Now all that’s left is for KyoAni to take one up along with tons of other series they need to continue.

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Hyouka 21

Episodes centering around Valentine’s Day usually tend to be all flowers and sunshine, maybe even comical. Surprisingly, Hyouka managed to make its Valentine’s Day episode a spiral of emotions. It was particularly jarring to see Chitanda act angry or depressed about anything, at least. Or seeing Satoshi going about something in an extremely dickish and alarming way, despite him being easygoing most of the time. Or seeing the apathetic Houtarou very openly give two shits about something right off the bat.

Looks like they’re trying to end Hyouka off with a character-focused bang before the end of the season and KyoAni’s doing a good job of it.

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Hyouka 20 – No awesome thigh scene here

Me on Sundays.

Man, Houtarou. It’s pretty obvious that you and Chitanda want it both ways. And it’s especially obvious in this episode, where Chitanda was willing to remove her obi in front of you. Too bad Kyoto Animation didn’t try to top the situation that happened in CLANNAD, where instead of an awkward and hilarious scene between a guy and a girl in her burumas locked in a shed, it’s an awkward and hilarious scene between a guy and a girl exposing her EVERYTHING locked in a shed.

What we expected:

What we got:

Hm… Kininarimasu, indeed.

In retrospect… HNNNNNG KIMONOS. Nothing to complain about.

Hyouka – Houtarou is not an ordinary human

Not only was episode 19 a haven for Houtarou/Chitanda hints, it also supports my theory that Houtarou is simply not an ordinary human being, even by anime standards. The connoisseur of strangeness, Haruhi, may even agree with me.

Seriously, this kid makes a completely out-of-there guess about a mundane-sounding announcement at school being related to counterfeit through pure conjecture… and at the end of day, turns out to be right. This kid is better than actual police detectives!

If Houtarou’s name was Ryuuichi instead, I wouldn’t doubt that this was a prequel to the Ace Attorney/Gyakuten Saiban series of visual novels.

+10 points if Chitanda’s first name was “Mayoi” or “Maya”

Hyouka 17

The conclusion of this “School Festival arc” caught me by surprise. I didn’t expect Hyouka to pull off something rather this complex. It took three subplots of the previous episodes that were seemingly unrelated and managed to weave them together to into a conclusion which focused on one central theme, expectations. And it did it really well.

What I liked particularly about this arc was the focus on Satoshi and Mayaka. It took two characters that seemed like mere background props in the beginning (in my opinion) and revealed more interesting facets about them, resulting to them pretty much stealing the show from Houtarou and Chitanda (hnnnnnng, impossible!) this time around. Houtarou may have solved the mystery, Satoshi, but I sure enjoyed the added depth to your character.

Bravo, Hyouka. Bravo. If this is you at your best, then you should keep it up. =)

By the way, this isn’t supposed to be condescending.

Hyouka 15

After a few episodes of festival fun, the mystery hovering below the noses of our beloved Classics Club finally shows itself (well, it already did, but now they actually give a damn about it lol).

This is really the type of episode of Hyouka that I enjoy watching and I’d say this was one of the best episodes yet, and totally makes up for the rather uneventful set of episodes that came before it (to be fair, they did serve as set-up). Again, I must say that I love Hyouka‘s focus on the mundane yet complicated mysteries and, most importantly, the never-ending cuteness of Chitanda. xD

Out of a thousand people attending the festival, I wonder how our Sherlocke Houtarou will figure out the A.B.C. culprit?

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Hyouka 14

Today’s secret ingredient is… MOEEEEHHHHH

No mysteries today, folks. Instead, we bring you Iron Chef, guest starring Eru Chitanda!

And those other people.

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Hyouka 13

The new opening sequence is a TOTAL SHIP TEASE.

Chitanda, Houtarou: JUST PROPOSE ALREADY.

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Hyouka 12

On this episode of Hyouka, Kyoto Animation shows us that attention deficit disorder can be moé as well.

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Hyouka 11

At first I was like this.

So it took them three whole episodes to realize that there was something wrong with the absolute communication failure between Hongou and the production crew.

I facepalmed. Oh well, I liked the way Houtaro deduced the whole ploy and the original intent of the “scriptwriter,” as well as his RAGE. Also, Chitanda.

But then I was like this.

Hyouka 10

Not much Chintanda or her “kininarimasu!” in this episode, but the character development for Houtarou sort of makes up for it.

Sort of.

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Hyouka 09

The highlight of this episode was definitely Chitanda getting drunk off of whiskey candy.

No, seriously. xD

While Hyouka‘s logical babble should really be the defining trait of the show, I find myself enjoying Chitanda’s “refined” ditzy antics more than anything else.

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Hyouka 08

This week on mystery-lite, the gang watches a pretty amusing attempt at a Noroi (or maybe, Blair Witch Project)-esque film. I give props for conveying how ridiculously flat acting for a school movie could be.

“Hey guys, I found a severed arm on the floor!”

“aaaaaah”

Funny thing about Hyouka is the fact that if there is no solution to a mystery or strong character interaction within an episode, it’s pretty easy to summarize in one sentence. It’s not like Lucky Star or K-ON! where multiple things happen at once in an episode regardless if it’s significant or not. I can certainly understand why it isn’t the cup of tea for some people, but I (for one) am looking forward to the next episode where Houtarou deducts who the culprit in the film is.

Because I have a feeling it’s going to be extremely elaborate. I wonder how sick the scriptwriter must be that they simply can’t just ask her about it?

A pretty weak episode, since it’s Hyouka and feels like only half of a whole episode considering what we were given before (this whole episode served as a set-up for the next one, after all). I’m sure the next one will be mildly interesting, though.

Hyouka 07

Very enjoyable episode this week, except for the massive dose of female fanservice, which is enjoyable for the females I suppose.

A simple hot springs episode made interesting by Hyouka standards. This week’s mystery basically revolved around the deconstruction of local ghost stories. Despite being big on mystery shows revolving around loud conspiracies, I find myself to be enjoying the anime’s episodic focus on quiet, subtle, and somewhat regular mysteries that can be solved with a bit of higher thinking.

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Hyouka – First Impressions

Japanese Curious George is moé.

Despite starting Hyouka with the initial bad reactions still stuck in the back of my head, I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it, despite the first episode being rather so-so (being based on a novel rather than a light novel, I was expecting a much larger scale of depth in the vein of a schoolboy Sherlocke Holmes). While I am known to enjoy complete crap sometimes (Mirai Nikki comes to mind, but that’s meant to be crap in a good sense), I often realize it – and I must say, this isn’t crap at all. On the contrary, after the whole lock-mystery with the janitor in the first episode, I rationally adjusted my level of expectation to that of what I expect a light-hearted mystery to be, and I ended up appreciating what the show is trying to be.

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