Tomoe Oreki

Tomoe Oreki (折木供恵) is the secondary character of Classic Literature Club series and Hyouka. She is an older sister of Houtarou Oreki whom asks him to join the Classic Lit Club at Kamiyama High School to save it from being disbanded.

Appearance
Tomoe has waist-length brown hair, her eye color is somewhat greenish, possibly the same color as Houtarou Oreki, she seems to be a bit shorter than Houtarou and her face is almost fully revealed during the Kanya Festival as she pays a visit to Houtarou at his booth.

She wears a variety of styles for casual clothes, ranging from simple tops and short pants at home to colorful attire when going out.

Personality
Tomoe's personality seems to be wild, active and ambitious who enjoys travelling that she has traveled alone across the continent of Eurasia at the time of her college enrollment, and even had the experience of climbing a 2000 m mountain. As a martial arts expert in ' and ' and a proficient university student, she "was not content with conquering Japan alone, and had decided to go out and challenge the world."

From the letters she wrote and the interactions she has with Houtarou Oreki, she is portrayed as a hasty and pushy individual. Whether or not this pushiness is something she also does to others is unknown.

At times, she can be rather flaky; when Houtarou asks for a good luck charm, she gives him a broken fountain pen.

Plot
While much is not known about Tomoe yet, she plays an important role in the series, often contributing to the circumstances her younger brother, Houtarou Oreki, would face at school. By the start of Houtarou's second year in high school, Tomoe is in in, en route to  in. In one of the letters she habitually sends to Houtarou, she instructs him to join the Classic Lit Club. Although Houtarou is quite lazy and refuses to join, he eventually reconsiders in the light of the fact that his sister "would make it very painful to refuse". Eventually, her letter would allow the Classic Lit Club to form once more, and she intervenes once again, this time in a case involving the issue of the Hyouka anthologies of 45 years ago, when she mentions the location of old anthologies from the Classic Lit Club.

Tomoe maintains contact with Houtarou by mail or by phone, later pushing Houtarou into a case involving the amateur film of Class 2-F for the Kamiyama High School Festival by referring him to the third year Fuyumi Irisu. She later warns Irisu about messing with Houtarou following the developments of the case.

Soon enough, she comes home, just in time for the day of the school festival. Tomoe even participates in the "" situation Houtarou found himself in, by giving Houtarou a fountain pen, and later trading Houtarou's hand mirror for a copy of "A Corpse by Evening", which Houtarou later required to solve the Juumonji Incident.

Throughout the novel, she travels around the world, from to  and so on. Readers also learn that Tomoe asked her brother to join the Classic Lit Club because she was a member in the past.

Houtarou Oreki
Houtarou is Tomoe's younger brother for whom she has a warm familial, although Houtarou himself is not fond of it and normally acts more bored in a possible attempt to ignore her. However, he seems to fear her in other ways such as knowing that he'd face "something painful" if he tried rejecting her request of joining the Classic Lit Club.

Etymology

 * The name Tomoe means "supply, offer, present, submit,, present, serve (meal), accompany" (供) (tomo) and "favor, benefit" (恵) (e).
 * Tomoe's surname Oreki means "occasion, chance, suitable time" (折) (ore) and "tree, wood" (木) (ki).

Trivia

 * In the Kanya Festival, Eru Chitanda and Tomoe share eye contact in the hallway, with Chitanda following with: "I feel like if I've seen that look before.", which may be a hint that Tomoe's eyes resemble Houtarou Oreki's eyes.
 * In, Houtarou mentioned that the book about cards from his bookcase belongs to his sister. Since Tomoe was part of the Classic Lit Club, most of the books probably belongs to her but she left her bookcase to her brother.
 * It is hinted that she may have connections with the other characters in the anime unbeknownst to Houtarou. For example, during her conversation with Fuyumi Irisu, she called Houtarou "the idiot".
 * It's worth noting that Tomoe and Houtarou are based on and  with interchangeable traits.
 * In most aspects, Tomoe is much like Sherlock, being adventurous and skillful in martial arts. On the other hand, Houtarou resembles Mycroft, as one who doesn't indulge in mystery-solving (and isn't describable as adventurous) and not being that athletic.
 * However, as seen in the series, Houtarou has exceptional deductive skills, to a similar level of Sherlock. He also has the "sidekick," who is Chitanda. While Tomoe does not show up to offer any signs of deductive reasoning, it is implied that she too is smart, but not as much as Houtarou, which is a case similar to Mycroft.
 * On a similar note, the Holmes series is referenced a number of times within Hyouka.