ThatAnimeSnob

In the late 2000s there was this weird explosion of a subgenre most didn’t care about. Anime with loli detectives begun to sprout like mushrooms all over the place as if all of a sudden they were the coolest brand new trend that every animation studio just HAD to be part of it. Here is the list:
I.G.: Loups=Garous
J.C. Staff: Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, Heaven's Memo Pad
Gainax: Dantalian
Bones: Un-Go, Gosick
Silver Link: Tasogare Otome x Amnesia
There was no indication for making anyone to assume such a thing would work, and not even one of them ended up being above average. After a few months of ridiculous hype most in the fandom didn’t care about them either. It’s as if a representative of every studio gathered around the same table and made a bet on who’s going to create the most unmemorable show.

The last one who entered the competition was Kyoto Animation with Hyouka, and the thing we all know about that studio is that it attracts ronery virgins and pedos who are totally not into real girls with their K-On moe style. And yeah, these people are really watching Kyoani shows for the theme exploration and not for the cute girls doing cute whatever.
Beyond the Boundary: I am totally watching this for the ghost hunting
Sound Euphonium: I am totally watching this for the music
Dragon Maid: I am totally watching this for the dragons
Violet Evergarden: I am totally watching this for people suffering from PTSD

There is a third type of people attracted to these type of shows and those would be the sasugafags, people who only care about pretty colors and disregard everything else. Why do you think Demon Slayer won the anime of the decade award? For its amazing plot? It was the animation. Kyoani shows are known for that and they overall look much more detailed, lively, fluent, and cute than their contemporaries. Voice acting and music pieces are also good for what they aim to accomplish (making you feel fluffy inside). But in case you are looking for something out of the ordinary in terms of plot or themes, you are not going to find it here, because moe shows are comfort food for tired people who want to fall asleep after another day of exams, deadlines, school bullies, demanding teachers, nagging supervisors, gang shootouts, and insane otakus burning down your studio. You only get more of the same high schools and generic looking moe chicks that would you get everywhere else, and that’s the only thing you care about.

And now that the basics are out of the way, let’s talk about really unimportant things, such as the detective aspect… in a detective show. You heard right, it’s completely unimportant although that what the show is supposed to be about, since the mystery cases are some of the dullest, first world nonsense you can imagine. Their seriousness is of the same level as “Why did the chicken cross the road” and the answers will always be something like “Because it saw a worm on the other side.” The only thing they do for making you give a damn is having the waifubait of the show looking at the camera with those huge starry eyes of hers and saying as if she’s talking to you “I really wanna know”. Even if there isn’t much to know, since it’s just a chicken crossing the road. The animators are just luring you in with moe and let the horny males to imagine she is asking them to answer where do babies come from. She is willing to use her body as a test subject, guys, show here how it’s done.

Most of the duration is obviously spent on the slice of life aspect of the show, where you get to know the characters. It’s supposed to be motivational for making the viewer being more active with his life, since the main character is bored and uncaring and doesn’t want to do anything with his life. Until the dream pixie girl appears and spurs him to be part of activity clubs, and mysteries, and stuff no sane person wouldn’t be bored of after a couple of hours. The catch here is that the main waifubait is thrilled with how smart he is and can figure out the answers to bottom of the barrel mysteries, so she is constantly begging him to give her explanations. And after a lot of internal monologue that amounts to “You can’t say no when a cute girl is asking you to do favors for her”. Talk about patting a certain type of people on the back in a too obvious way.
Are you an anti-social person, with a rosy but otherwise boring life? Someone who deep inside feels you are charismatic and cute girls should be very interested in you, even if you act like an uncaring person that would normally make everybody to be fed up with you? Then Hyouka is the show for you!

Obviously the only thing that remains after the nonsense mysteries and the waifu begging you to do her favors, is what you learn about the characters as the episodes gradually flesh them out more and more by having a lot of internal monologues that dig deep into their psyches. The thing is there is very little psyche to dig into, as most of the show is just about carefree moments and the characters can be summed up in three lines at the most. You are not going to remember much once it’s over, especially if you watched Oregairu that does the exact same thing in a more memorable way.

So ultimately, the show suffers from the same problem most moe anime suffer from. They don’t focus on something other than being cute, and as a result that is the only thing the audience remembers. There is not much of a plot, hardly any gripping mysteries, and the characterization is fairly basic. The moment the next moe show comes your way, it won’t be hard to get over Hyouka. With that said, as far as loli detective shows are concerned, a subgenre nobody ever cared about, it’s the best of the lot. There is no magic or fringe technology that would make the solution to a mystery nonsensical. The missions are not murder cases solved in 10 minutes and treated like nothing much has happened. The mysteries are also a light excuse for the characters to do something, open up to one another, and it gives them a goal other than studying for school and growing old without doing anything with their lives. It does it in very subtle and eventually superficial ways, yet it’s still more than what the other loli detective shows were doing. Thus Hyouka is the best of the worst in a fad that came, left, and nobody gave a damn.