Hyouka : You Can't Escape

Manga – Hyouka

Genre – Mystery/Slice of life

This manga was originally a mystery light novel (is a regular novel but shorter then regular novels with multiple volumes) written by the genius writer Honobu Yonezawa around the year 2001. Most Animes and Mangas were originally light novels and Mangas and Animes are adaptations of it. Through 2001 and 2016 there were an additional five volumes of the light novel that came out. March 2012 was when the artist Taskohna picked up his pen and drew a manga adaptation of this light novel.

The name Hyouka means ‘Ice Cream’ it might sound irrelevant at first glance but this name was given to this manga with some great thought it was truly a work of a genius writer.

The story follows the protagonist a high school boy called Oreki Hotaro a self-proclaimed ‘energy conservationist’. Oreki wants to spend his high school days using as little energy he can.

Oreki Hotaro has a unique talent of deduction. He can be one of the smartest people if he actually put effort into things. Oreki can look at mysteries from a different perspective and can even be considered the smartest character in the series.

Oreki has a motto he lives by though and it goes like this “If I don't have to do it, I won't. If I have to do it, I'll make it quick” Satoshi Fukube, His Best friend since middle school. He thinks different though Satoshi is always filled with energy and is part of the Crafts club, The executive committee and finally the classics club.

Satoshi would always talk to Oreki about a “Rose colored life” and what he is implying is people with a rose colored life are the people enjoying high school to the fullest and he describes Oreki’s life to be “Grey Colored” or in other words boring.

Oreki’s elder sister Tomoe Oreki is an alumnus of the high school Oreki Hotaro attends now and the club she was part of was called the classics club. Tomoe heard the news that the club could be closing down since they didn’t have any members anymore and requested Oreki to join the club to prevent it from disbanding. Since the club didn’t have any members which meant Oreki didn’t need to do any work he agreed.

What Oreki didn’t realise is through the Classic club Oreki meets Eru Chitanda. Chitanda is a girl who is incredibly dense at times but charismatic and gets curious about each and every little mystery presented to her in their daily lives whether it be how someone might’ve lost an earring or figuring out what the mysterious history of the classics club and the story of Chitanda’s Uncle.

I’ve watched and read quite a number of anime and manga and I think that Hyouka is extremely unique and different in the mystery genre. I felt that other mystery mangas felt generic after reading Hyouka. In my personal opinion I totally recommend this manga for the people out there that like realism mixed with high levels of mystery and deduction. This manga will have you scratching your head for answers that was right there in front of you and yet you missed. So go on ahead and give it a read. If you like mystery I promise you, you won’t regret it