Hyouka 16 saw Satoshi’s struggle to solve the Juumonji incident and show the world his brilliance continue. Alas, the episode wasn’t kind to him; Satoshi slipped further into despair and ultimately gave up on his quest, leaving Houtarou to solve the mystery, as per usual.
The relationship between Satoshi and Houtarou has become strenuous. What was once a light hearted, fairly ordinary but happy relationship has twisted itself into one filled with jealousy and oblivity. So before we begin to dissect the events of this arc and look at the scene between the two friends on the bridge, I feel it would be prudent to look at their friendship over the series and what precipitated this change.
Let’s go back to episode 1, where we’re introduced to our characters; the “energy conserving” Houtarou and the lively Satoshi. Despite Houtarou’s obvious apatahy for, well, everything, we can see that these two are obviously good friends. Further episodes demonstrate this with their interactions and banter. I think one of my favourite scenes in which we see this is in episode 4, where Satoshi and Houtarou are about to ride off to Chitanda’s place. Satoshi loudly walks up to Houtarou, much to his embarrassment and chagrin. I think this scene, with Houtarou violently kicking Satoshi’s bike, sums up their relationship nicely. Satoshi is the fool, loud and flippant, constantly derided by the ever-serious Houtarou, but never in a malicious manner. It’s endering and from their reactions to each other (Houtarou’s dismissal of Satoshi’s liveliness, and Satoshi being blasé about it all), I think we can see that it’s all done out of care. No signs of anything going wrong. It’s a beautiful bromance and nothing can go wrong because this is a generic slice of life, right?
Things continue on their merry way for the next seven or so episodes. Chitanda becomes curious about something inconsequential, Satoshi provides some relevant information to help with the case, Houtarou comes up with a solution, Mayaka dons her black hat and shoots it down, and Houtarou then comes up with a final explanation. Hindsight is wonderful, though, since what seemed like rather boring episodes were actually carefully constructing the characters so we could observe the changes occurring both within and between them over the following episodes.
The film arc has Houtarou working by himself to solve the mystery, and in doing so, he incorrectly solves the case. Overconfident with his previous successes, he fails without the aid of his friends. Whether or not he was aware of it, the contributions of the other members of the Classics Club were invaluable; Satoshi’s random facts, Chitanda’s questions and Mayaka’s critical thinking. To me, it seems Houtarou never really recognised these attributes as talents, but rather just the characters being themselves. And this is where things start to fall apart. Houtarou has neglected to acknowledge his friend’s strengths and skills, and tried to do this alone. He came up with a pretty good solution, though, all by himself, but passes it off as something easy. A trifle. “Oh, solving that mystery with nothing to go off? Wasn’t that hard, just dumb luck.” Cheers, bro, I tried super hard and nothing came of it. Guess you’re just superhuman.
Now let’s get to the meaty bit, the Kanya Fest arc. Having learnt from his previous cases, Houtarou has undoubtedly become something of a prodigy in the mystery solving department. So much so that he’s going to solve this Juumonji case all by himself with an absolute minimum of information.
Satoshi desperately wants to be like Houtarou. He wants to be able to string all the information in his database and make those brilliant deductions like his best friend does so effortlessly. But now, he finds out that despite his best efforts to try and catch the elusive Juumonji, Houtarou’s going to solve it anyway. Satoshi has been striving for the unobtainable and failed. Utterly defeated, what is left to do but just hand it all over to Houtarou? It’s crushing to see him so defeated because we’ve all been there; trying to reach those unreachable heights, only to come crashing back down to Earth. But why is it such a big thing for Satoshi? Why is it that having Houtarou solve all this so big a deal?
Well, Satoshi wants to be like Houtarou. He wants to shine, but as much as he tries, he can’t outshine his best friend, who isn’t feeling much like one. His and Houtarou’s dynamic has changed over the past sixteen episodes. Houtarou has never really formally recognised Satoshi’s massive stores of knowledge up until the film arc, just using them to solve mysteries. Mayaka’s criticisms were just her being Mayaka, not her making valid observations. Clueless is what Houtarou’s been, and Satoshi feels negelected and used. Undoubtedly, Houtarou does value and appreciate Satoshi’s input; we’ve seen no evidence to the contrary. But Houtarou’s an energy conserver. Complimenting others and making a concerted effort to maintain friendships do require effort, after all. Being aware of a friend hurting and feeling wronged requires energy. But for Satoshi, an open, straightforward guy, he needs to hear these words. They can’t just be implied. Houtarou’s never bothered to communicate how much he appreciates and respects Satoshi’s talents (or that he does at all, for that matter), and to Satoshi, that’s as good as saying he doesn’t respect him.
To finish this off, let’s just have a look at some of the conventions this episode uses to fully demonstrate just how their relationship has changed. The bridge scene in particular uses lighting and camera angles to great effect.
Camera directed downwards; does Satoshi percieve Houtarou as looking down on him, or does he simply feel beneath him?
Houtarou in the light and Satoshi in the dark. Houtarou sees things clearly and is illuminated. Satoshi’s finding it difficult to see the answers. It appears Houtarou is casting the shadow onto Satoshi; he’s trapped in his best friend’s shadow.
Again, Satoshi is in the dark. He can’t find the answers, and he’s resigned himself to his fate.
Kagayaki Koteri 
Agree with so much here, especially the attention paid to camera angles! I actually didn’t take much note of that because the focus on shadows/lighting was distracting. I felt they used them almost excessively this episode. Despite that, the episode hit hard because of the foundation set in the first few arcs, and Satoshi and Houtarou’s dynamic definitely has shifted. Love that this post also acknowledges Houtarou’s character and the fact that he does seem to take his friends for granted (many people have discussed how 4 of them are essential in order to solve a case because they bring different elements to the table), though he himself may not be aware of it. I, too, think that Satoshi desires to be recognised for something, which is why he’s so determined to solve the case and at the same time so broken when Houtarou has a breakthrough, leaving him in the dust.
It’s like a reversal of roles from the first ep, where Satoshi pulled Houtarou along. Now, Satoshi is the one trailing one behind Houtarou. That was why I found Satoshi so intriguing in the beginning of Hyouka, because he wasn’t your completely typical ‘best friend’ stereotype!
The direction of camera angles and shots in Hyouka has been fairly masterful so far. The fact that so much attention has been paid to them is a big hint that, “Hey! These actually mean something!”, as opposed to just using the shot because it looks nice. I love it when the staple visual techniques are used symbolically. I do agree that perhaps the use of angles was a bit excessive; it might have been more poignant if they had settled on one angle for a while to really let the message they were trying to communicate sink in.
What I’d really like to know is what Houtarou was like in lower and middle school. Has he always been an energy conserver? Has he had a group of close friends before? If not, that could explain a lot of his actions since he’s never had to bother with the delicate dance of friendship. He, Satoshi and Mayaka might have been friends for a while, but the Classics Club has really solidified their friendship and I don’t think Houtarou’s been in a position like this before, so it’s a learning experience. In saying that, though, I still think it’s a bit rough of him not to make a formal acknowledgement of the contributions of the rest of the Classics Club. However awkward or lacking in experience he is, his friends deserve some return on their admiration of Houtarou’s skills.
They’ve definitely had their roles reversed to a huge degree. It gets done a lot, but I think what I like about the situation in Hyouka is that they’ve not drastically changed the characters during the process. Whether or not that does happen remains to be seen, but I have faith that we’ll still have the Satoshi we love at the end of this.
Urgh, yes, I would love for canon to give us background on their middle school days! I’d also like to believe that Houtarou probably didn’t have much friends since it would have entailed too much energy expenditure on his part. That would definitely explain why he isn’t that tactful when it comes to handling the friends he has right now in the Classics Club.
“what I like about the situation in Hyouka is that they’ve not drastically changed the characters during the process” – mmm, exactly! They are still, at their foundations, the characters that we were introduced to the first ep. Now, they just have added depth! (especially in regards to Satoshi and Mayaka, now their respective ‘optimistic’ and ‘serious’ images makes so much more sense.) Houtarou is arguably the one character who might undergo the most changes from ep 1 to the end of this season.