Friday, February 7, 2014

(An Informal) Analysis of the Show Hyouka With Regards to Something



            Hyouka, along with a lot of Kyoto Animation’s other shows, has a pretty keen eye for detail. I watched episodes 4-6 again to get an idea of the scenes that I somehow completely overlooked. People who enjoy studying film might think “did Zeldaru go frame-by-frame?” Unfortunately, I actually went in a manner closer to scene-by-scene. Throughout the show, KyoAni has a knack for creating simplistic, realistic scenes that are at the same time stylized and interesting. At the same time, focus is shifted back and forth from characters to objects and vice versa, creating dynamic exposition. When Oreki and Satoshi are exposed to the Chitanda residence for the first time, the view zooms onto the front entrance and then expands to show most of the expansive farming residence. The place has a simple elegance, evidenced by sparse arrangements in the rooms. In this episode, Oreki sees Chitanda’s room for the first time. Like the rest of the house, her room is sparsely arranged and neat. What he notices, however, was the mess that was the books, newspaper articles, letters, and other things on her desk. Oreki, after seeing how intensely Chitanda wanted to know the truth about her uncle as evidenced by her desk, finally felt that he should try. Further in the episode, a beautifully simple scene is visible for a very short period of time. The view zooms onto a section of the pond. A small bird is sitting on stones at the bottom of a hill and drinking water from the pond. Many similar scenes of nature are briefly depicted before focus is re-established onto the plot and characters.

            While going through this segment of the show, I noticed that Hyouka is full of partial light-dark gradients that stopped me from ever recoiling from excessive brightness that can be so hard to swallow. I can handle Rococo, for example, but at some point the fluffy color scheme and brightness of the paintings are too much. A rain scene begins at the end of episode four and continues onto the beginning of episode 5. Rain clouds float along the blue sky towards the house. Cut to the ground and rain droplets can be seen falling at some urgent volumetric flow rate. Next one can see water carving an intricate gravity-driven pathway down the windows. The next episode opens up with a cello-dominated theme playing as the viewer sees Oreki and Satoshi leading their bikes to the road passing away from the residence. Dark rain clouds are overhead but patches of light diffuse through, creating patches of brightness that give the shadows a warm aesthetic. Rather than a dismal image created, which is the typical result of a rain scene, the scene evokes warmth and serenity.

            A dissimilar scene creates an interesting light-dark dynamic. When Oreki hears Chitanda say that she avoids getting angry because it tires her out, he envisions her as an angel. Angelic Chitanda is very bright and emanates white light from her being, a very impressionist sort of scene. A gradient starting with slightly grey white and ending with black grounds the image, creating a sense of the ethereal without beating me over the head with it. Oreki is small in size compared to her and bathed in slight shadows. Chitanda then says she was joking, and the fantasy is broken anyways.

            Episode 6 opens with a calm view of the school building. The sky takes up half the “shot,” and is barely dominated by clouds; a sunny day aesthetic is readily created. The very right is dominated entirely by a green tree. Trees rise up behind the pink building, which resides in the lower third. Pink and blue are both “fluffy” colors, but they are balanced out by the trees that mostly hold some kind of shade of green with slight orange mixed in. Dark green balances out the brighter colors, creating again a warm and stylized but still realistic image. Dull pink allows the building to stand out yet at the same time fade into the background. In my mind, this image is representative of Hyouka’s usage of light-dark to create serenity without beating me over the head with it.

            I could probably write about characters, their voices, their dialogue, and their actions, but I have trouble analyzing that. That is not to say that Hyouka is not also excellent in characterization. In episode 4, Chitanda is walking in the hallway while rain patters on the wooden building. She grabs a wet leaf, looks at it, then peers outside. A close up on her face occurs, and she looks down at an angle with a distraught expression. This example of characterization is simple while still allowing insight into Chitanda’s character.

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