Eru Chitanda

Eru Chitanda (千反田 える) is the main character of Classic Literature Club series and Hyouka. She is a 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.

Biography
Eru is the only daughter of a lineage of wealthy farmers known as the Chitanda family, of which appear to be quite well renowned. She graduated from Inji Middle School and enrolled into Kamiyama High School. Eru entered the Classics Club in an attempt to recollect her last memory of her uncle, and incidentally, became the club's president due to the club not retaining any members from the previous year.

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.

Eru is implied to be very intelligent despite being easily distracted and rather quirky; in fact, she's among the top students in her school and has an excellent memory.

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.

Houtarou Oreki
Eru Chitanda greatly admires Houtarou's talents and skills. In addition, she trusts Oreki and believes he has the ability to solve any mystery. As a result, Oreki is often forced to appease to Eru's rabid curiosity by solving various mysteries Eru drags him into, despite his reluctance. Chitanda has consistently managed to persuade Oreki into helping her at any given time without fail. Despite being usually quiet and polite, she is very forward with Oreki when she is looking to him to appease her curiosity. She will often put her face unusually close to his when declaring her curiosity. Chitanda is very close to Oreki and it is heavily implied that she has romantic feelings for him. Before Valentines Day, Ibara goes shopping for a gift for Satoshi and Chitanda tags along. During their shopping, Ibara asks Chitanda if she likes anyone. Once Chitanda heard this, she immediately blushed and the screen cuts to Oreki. During Valentine's Day, she mentions to Oreki that her family doesn't give presents to those that are close to them, which was why she didn't have anything for him during that day.

Mayaka Ibara
Eru quickly becomes close friends with Mayaka and Mayaka frequently refers to her by her nickname, "Chi-chan." At one point, Eru helps Mayaka, when making some homemade chocolate for Satoshi and was as devastated as the chocolate vanished.

Satoshi Fukube
Eru maintains a friendly relationship with Satoshi, who constantly helps her convince Houtarou into solving the mystery at hand. However, since she has met Satoshi and his friends just recently, Eru is often left out when an issue between Satoshi and his childhood friends erupts.

Fuyumi Irisu
Fuyumi is Chitanda's upperclassman. They are on good terms and seem to be good friends, although Irisu comments that Eru struggles in making others do her bidding.

Kaho Juumonji
Kaho is a close acquaintance of Eru's. Primarily, their familiarity stemmed from the social obligations between the Chitanda and Juumonji families. During New Year's Eve, the Chitanda family makes sure to bring presents to the Juumonji family.

Quotes

 * "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... I have to know!"
 * "If you can never get mad at anything, I'm pretty sure there's nothing you like either!"

Etymology

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

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 Sato (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.
 * 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.

Gallery

 * See Eru Chitanda/Gallery