This anime series focuses on a group of high school students who engage in solving mysteries. The central character is Hotaro Oreki, who joins the school's classic literature club when it faces closure for lack of activity. Hotaro and three of the club's members—Eru Chitanda, Satoshi Fukube, and Mayaka Ibara—initially engage in a rather mild mystery of determining how someone without a key could gain access to a locked club room, but the series then graduates into a prolonged storyline involving mysteries surrounding Eru's uncle and missing books from the school's library. Following successful resolutions, the four students are recruited by classmates to explore a situation involving a film script authored by a writer who became ill and abandoned the work before it was completed. Hyouka is a rare anime centering on normal teens facing intellectual challenges (instead of aliens and robots). Unfortunately, it's also a bit dull—the storylines meander, and the ultimate payoffs to the mysteries are not exactly mind-bending. Presenting the first 11 episodes from 2012 in a dual-language Blu-ray/DVD Combo edition, rated TV-14, extras include a bonus OVA. Optional. [Note: Hyouka: Part Two is also newly available.] (P. Hall)
Hyouka: Part One
(2012) 4 discs. 300 min. Blu-ray/DVD Combo: $59.98. Funimation (avail. from most distributors). Volume 33, Issue 1
Hyouka: Part One
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