Hyouka - Episode 13

I was going to say that the school culture festival continues apace in this week's Hyouka, but to be honest the word "apace" doesn't really fit at all as this second episode only takes us to the end of day one of the festival.

As the festival goes on, it does seem to offer up a couple of mysteries for our Classics Club members, with Chitanda learning of a missing Tarot card replaced with some suitably mysterious references, while a "friend" of Satoshi regales a tale of his own about some missing Go pieces (he should probably ask Miri Natayama about them - oops, wait, wrong series) from that particular club.

Aside from that, the gang have mixed success in promoting the Classics Club and their anthology - Satoshi manages a great plug for the club by reaching the final's of the festival quiz, whereas Chitanda fails to find either an alternate location for selling books or a chance to advertise in the school newspaper and Mayaka gets side-tracked entirely by an argument with the manga club president about the value (or otherwise) of writing reviews of manga.  I'm sure some people I know would have something to say about that...  It's arguably only Houtarou who really ends up a winner here, as he gets to spend his day doing very little, and gains both an air gun and a glimpse of some decidedly delicious pictures for his troubles.

Much like last week's episode, Kyoto Animation have again showed their prowess of making something out of nothing here, spreading the way it relates events happening very thinly but somehow making it entertaining to watch courtesy of its incredible attention to detail, particularly as it applies to the show's characters and body language.  At times it's also over-done yet it's still a joy to behold, and at times this episode triumphs more on account of what isn't said, particularly in the case of Mayaka who has clearly had something on her mind over the past couple of episodes that looks set to boil over completely at some point.  It's this kind of thing that makes you realise (much like K-ON) how much you've fallen in love with Hyouka's characters, and although it doesn't cover up the lack of anything particularly interesting happening within the series right now, it does afford it something of a free pass when it comes to unleashing the hounds on it for being outright dull.