Review of Beautiful Bones -Sakurako's Investigation-
It's hard to put my finger on exactly what it is with Sakurako that clicks. As this is the second mystery anime of the season that I've seen; it's hard to not compare Sakurako and Perfect Insider- as disparately as the way they tell their stories and treat their characters are. A quick way to put it would be that the show watches a lot like "Bones" mixed with "Castle" and some "Law and Order SVU". Mostly the first two. Sakurako focuses on two characters- a high school kid named Shoutarou, and the bourgeoisie, genius young lady that he hangs out with- the eponymous Sakurako.A few major supporting characters also float in and out- Utsumi the cop, Yuri, a schoolmate of Shoutarou's, Isozaki, a teacher at their school, and Sakurako's grandma- the chillest, sassiest, every-one's-grandma ever. Their stories are mostly arc based, or they simply appear as contacts or random happenings as the story progresses.
What's interesting about Sakurako and Shoutarou's relationship is how inverse it really seems, especially to outsiders. Sakurako, despite her nearly royal upbringing, is probably 23 going on 3 years old. She has terrible social cues, a temper, is openly rude to nearly everyone, and has a penchant for speaking her mind, no matter to whom, or what about- much to the chagrin of Shoutarou.
Shoutarou on the other hand is more of a father figure in the relationship with Sakurako, despite being her junior by as many as 10 years. He acts practically as her handler and mouthpiece, particularly when dealing with the police- a group whose attention she often attracts with her obsession with acquiring bones, even if it meant stealing state evidence in a homicide investigation. It's obvious that Shoutarou has the hots for Miss Bones, even if she doesn't seem to reciprocate those romantic feels. Shoutarou is a bit bland for a protagonist, but his even and mellow personality reflect the petulant little tyrant that Sakurako wants to be- often with humorous results. They balance each other out pretty well.
One point that I found interesting is that though Sakurako involves high school age kids, they're not the real focal point of the show, and neither does the show include a bunch of mundane and pointless scenes taking place in the local high school. I appreciate that, a lot. In fact, the setting for Sakurako is as off beat as its eponymous character, being that the series takes place in Hokkaido, the northernmost part of Japan, bordering Russia. As such, it involves a lot of coastal, mountainous, and forested areas, vs the typical urban environment of school-set anime. This lends itself to some beautiful natural vistas, homes, and generally a more rustic feel.
This is the first solo production the new studio TROYCA has undertaken, and I felt they did a great job with production values for what's an average of average budgeted anime.
Sakurako being a mystery anime, it would be against my nature to spoil the plot for anyone, so I have to say that anyone reading who's not seen the show should see it for themselves (see this as my recommendation), but I have to comment on the way the story presents itself. What's seemingly an episodic sort of slice of life about Shoutarou tagging along with Sakurako places and them happening to come upon bones (sometimes human) in their travels- along with Sakurako helping Shoutarou solve people's mysterious happenings/deaths/etc. By the end of the show, what seemed like loose ends and random dead end plot points manage to connect with some red threads with a pretty thrilling conclusion, if a bit expected. If I were to say one thing about Sakurako- it's a bit more clever than it looks plotwise, for a show about a woman whose near boundless intellect enables her to solve the murder or medical malady of nearly anyone.
Some would say that Sakurako herself is a huge deus ex machina with her sometimes implausible amount of intellect and knowledge that enable her to solve crimes with very few clues, but as a viewer, I was also coming to some of the same conclusions she was, given the same amount of time. This isn't an excuse for breaking "show, not tell", but it wasn't a Light Yagami VS L level of jumping to seemingly illogical conclusions only to be right. Sakurako stays grounded, even though the titular character sometimes feels like she has a supernatural mind.
The biggest issue with Sakurako's story is certainly the length. If Sakurako were a two cour series, it would be able to make a lot better use of time, because the pacing is, at times, so fast that it almost feels like an abbreviated form of a mystery. In one episode you'll have a setup and introduction, exposition, and then have the mystery solved. That's a lot of progression for 24 minutes, and as such it feels rushed. The arcs that take up two episodes feel a lot more natural and the extended length of time gievs the audience more time to hypothesize and try to figure the mystery out for themselves vs just being directly told by Sakurako.
If the show had more room to stretch its legs, I imagine that it would be a heck of a lot better, as it ended leaving me wanting more. It's likely that as recent as Sakurako is, they simply did not have enough material to animate into a second cour- but with that, I have to say that I will look forward to whatever comes in the future.