Eru Chitanda

**Eru Chitanda** (千反田 える *Chitanda Eru*) is the main character of the *Hyouka* series. She is a 15-year-old student at Kamiyama High School and the president of the Classical Literature Club where it is usually her who is responsible for getting the club involved with solving various mysteries.

## Etymology

Eru's surname **Chitanda** means "thousand" (千) (**chi**), "anti" (反) (**tan**) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (**ta**/**da**).

## Description

Chitanda is a calm and happy person, but can become very excited when new or interesting things happen, especially when it involves her club. She is described as a beautiful 15-year-old girl with long black hair and purple eyes. She usually sports a cheerful expression and is usually seen in her uniform.

She is the single daughter of the Chitanda Family, one of the four remaining wealthy farming families of the area, according to Satoshi. She joined the Classics Club due to "personal reasons," and is the president of the club due to it not retaining any members from the previous year. She likes mysteries and has a great curiosity, which often drags Houtarou into solving them. She often expresses her curiosity with the phrase "Watashi kininarimasu!", which is often translated as "I'm curious!"

## Appearance

Eru is a very cute young girl (as Satoshi Fukube says that Eru is considered a stunning beauty ) of average height (on the taller side in the light novels) with straight mid-back length black hair that she sometimes wears in a rough high ponytail, bangs that are cut straight across her forehead that covers her eyebrows, rather large indigo-purple eyes that tend to sparkle when intrigued, a shapely figure and she is principally seen in the school uniform. When not in her school uniform, Eru wears somewhat loose fitting, "dainty" clothing.

## Personality

Eru is a very ladylike, polite and cheerful girl who is described as being sensible, emotive, friendly, and innocent, coming across as "childlike" in many aspects. Eru has a very positive demeanor and rarely seems to harbor negative emotions. Contrary to her well-behaved mannerisms, she can become compulsively nosy when intrigued; becoming hyperactive and having a tendency to glare and ignore personal space.

Although easily distracted, Eru can become very focused on a particular subject, to a point of forgetting anything else not associated with it. She can be very persistent and stubborn, especially concerning mysteries, as she will not be able to stop thinking about it until she finally solves it.

## Plot

### Reviving the Classics Club

On the first day of the new school term, Eru meets Houtarou Oreki at the Kamiyama High School's Geography Prep Room, which serves as a club room for the Classics Club. After a short dialogue, Eru and Houtarou stumble upon a mystery case waiting to be solved. After Houtarou solves the mystery of Eru being locked down in the club room, Eru becomes attached to him. However, this attachment endangers Houtarou's "energy-saving" lifestyle, because Eru's requests to solve more mysteries, which sparkle her curiosity. Other cases would quell her curiosity. The Classics Club, now composed of Houtarou, his friend Satoshi Fukube, and Eru herself, begins work on a new issue of the yearly anthology of the Classics Club, called *Hyōka*. After much difficulty, they traced back an archive of *Hyouka* past issues in the Biology Prep Room. In the process, a discovery triggered a memory of Eru. She discusses this later with Houtarou the following weekend.

### The Case of Jun Sekitani

The three members of the Classics Club, with Houtarou's childhood friend Mayaka Ibara tagging along, retrace the steps of history leading to a series of events that happened 45 years into the past involving Eru's uncle Jun Sekitani and the reason for the term "Kanya Festival" being considered as taboo at school. The efforts of the Classics Club soon paid off, and Eru tearfully recalls the reason why she cried as a young girl when she listened to the story featured in the *Hyouka* of 45 years ago from her uncle. In turn, they also understood the meaning behind the name "Hyouka" and used their findings in publishing the newest issue of the *Hyouka* anthology.

In order to reward the Classics Club for its achievements in the Jun Sekitani case, Eru brings the club to the nearby Zaizen village for a short vacation, and they stayed for free at Seizansou, a hot spring inn owned by Mayaka's relatives. During their short stay, they discover a mystery involving a ghost sighting in a closed room at the inn. Houtarou later debunks the ghost story to the Classics Club but allowed the story to persist.

### Kamiyama High School Festival

Preparations for the Kamiyama High School Festival, also known as Kanya-sai among the student body, go underway, and Eru receives an invitation from her senior Fuyumi Irisu to review an amateur film made by Class 2-F. Unlike the other members of the Classic Club who clearly see the problems of the film, Eru is shown to be hooked into the film, and even more so when a new mystery case involving the missing end for the film shows up. She then joins the club in consulting three of the film's crew members and was able to formulate her own ideas of the ending. However, during the long consultation session, Eru ends up getting drunk from eating too much brandy chocolate and was unable to contribute her thoughts the next day, when Houtarou decides on an ending for the movie. Eru returns to school on the day of the showing of Class 2-F's film and later voices her surprise at the ending chosen for the film. Unsurprisingly, she confronted Houtarou about his decisions in her absence.

The Kamiyama Festival officially begins, and the club is suddenly pressed with the task of selling 200 copies of the latest *Hyouka* anthology. In order to help in selling the anthology in the festival, Eru spends the rest of the festival going around to different clubs, and has her pictures taken, visits the Newspaper Club, has been interviewed by the Broadcasting Club, and even asks help from Irisu to sell a portion of the anthology for a profit. It did not take long before Eru and the Classics Club were tangled into a chain of disappearances involving random items, and the club boldly took up the challenge of a so-called "Juumonji", only to become a victim itself. Houtarou mostly handled the case, as well as its connections with the Student Council President, while Eru celebrates for having sold out the anthology.

### Blossoming Relationships

In the weeks following the Kamiyama High School Festival, both Eru and Houtarou underwent changes to their personality. Eru has started to rely on Houtarou more when it comes to even the littlest curiosity, while Houtarou, no longer the energy-saving boy of before, slowly builds patience and initiative when a new mystery shows up. Their bond eventually culminates with Eru personally inviting Houtarou to various occasions such as her uncle's funeral, New Year's Day and the town's Doll Festival, where Houtarou assumes a vital role along with Eru herself. After the festival, while walking with Eru, Houtarou imagines a scenario where he confesses his love by asking Eru whether he can handle the family business for her, and he decides not to confess because of his fear of a rose-coloured life

## Quotes

> I'm curious, I can't stop thinking about it!
>
> Eru Chitanda's catchphrase

* *"I wanted you to see it."*
* *"That's because you've never taken a close look at yourself."*
* *"His brain, I feel like i want to open it up and take a peek inside."*
* *"I find myself hard to understand sometimes"*
* *"I like to avoid getting tired"*
* "*I just have to know!"*
* *"If you can never get mad at anything, I'm pretty sure there's nothing you like either!"*

## Trivia

* Eru is good at cooking.
* Eru is vulnerable to alcohol and caffeine.
* Eru's favorite drink is Matcha milk.
* Eru stands at 160 cm (5'3") and weighs at 54 kg (119 lbs)
* Surprisingly, by her first year's mid-term test, Eru is ranked sixth in her year that she is often called "top student".
* Eru apparently has a good sense of hearing and smell, as she is able to hear and smell things that other characters are unable to.
* Eru is also quite physically strong. Evidence showed in episode 11.5 where she can easily lift and carry Mayaka. Satoshi also commented about her strength in that very same scene.
* Eru is very meticulous as she sees details other people might fail to see.
* In Episode 20, Eru claims that she has excellent night vision.
	+ Eru visual acuity is 2.0 which means her vision is twice as sharp as a normal person within the same distance of a target.
* Eru has not read a mystery novel for years, as claimed by herself.
* Satomi Satou (Chitanda's seiyu) and Daisuke Sakaguchi (Satoshi Fukube's seiyu) sung "Update Go Issho ni" and "Itsuka Bokura no Epilogue" in Hyouka Net Radio "Kotenbu no Kuttaku" Theme song CD.
* Houtarou specified her as The Fool of the tarot cards.
* During the Kanya Festival, she was shown on the photo that Chitanda was wearing a penguin costume while she's on a pictorial session at the Photography Club. Her costume might be a reference to J.C.Staff's anime *Azumanga Daioh*, in which Chiyo, a high school girl who has pigtails, shown also in a Penguin Costume as a mascot during the festival.
* Besides Jun Sekitani, two more relatives of Eru were mentioned in the light novel series; Shounosuke Chitanda (grandfather) in volume 3 and Tetsugo Chitanda (father) in volume 4. However, only Tetsugo was mentioned in the anime series.
* Her seiyuu shares the same with *Chiya Ujimatsu* from *Is the Order a Rabbit* and *Ritsu Tainaka* from *K-ON!*.

## See also

* List of anime girls age 15
* Hyouka

## References

1. ↑ Other dates used April 24, July 26 and August 15. However, October 16 would be the best date for Eru Chitanda's birthday.
2. ↑ 14 years old before October 16 despite first year high school students would be 14 years old if their birthday is before October 1, 15 years old if their birthday is on October 1 and 16 years old if their birthday is after October 1. Therefore, Eru Chitanda is 14 years old at the beginning and 15 at the end.