Hello,
Today we'll talk about the 18th episode of the summer season 2012 anime series named Hyouka that deliver an entertaining one-shot episode showing us a different side of the main protagonist Houtarou.
I have to say that the "mystery" by itself wasn't anything of interest just like many of the one-shot mysteries featured till now (like that lame teacher mystery at the beginning of the series).
We can consider it just some explanation to a collection of events coming from Houtarou's middle school days (3 years before the actual series begins).
Everything revolves around a teacher of Houtarou/Mayaka's middle school days named Ogi, who supposedly got hit three times by lightning during his life.
While this is an incredible situation, it isn't an impossible one as there are multiple reported cases in real life as well. I suppose he was "just a bit luckier than us" to survive those events.
It was actually strange/weird to see Houtarou actually get interested in something without Eru's "intervention" and I sort of understand Mayaka/Satoshi's shocked reaction.
I mean, while he did make some progress during the series no event was so deep and important to imply a change in his "I won't do anything I don't need to" policy.
Moreover, his reasoning was quite "sweet" to be something coming from Houtarou. He actually CARED about the feelings of a guy he will probably never see again...
The short preview segment for the next episode seems to imply that the awkward romantic moment (something I was waiting for) for Houtarou and Eru finally arrived.
Eru finally noticed that she is in love with Houtarou, but I'm a bit unsure about how she'll manage to convey her feelings to the "dull" Houtarou in these few remaining episodes
Will they finally decide to make the two become a couple or will they leave the whole situation "undecided" until a future second season?
Concluding, Hyouka continues to be an entertaining anime series and I hope they'll be able to give it a great ending in the following episodes.
See you soon,
feal87