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.
