My first episodic review of the season is up! Don’t get excited though, it’s just Beautiful Bones. I end this review by calling Beautiful Bones “watchable,” and that’s exactly what it is – not good, not egregiously terrible, just twenty minutes of fairly bland mystery shenanigans and occasionally really bad dialogue. So far it’s the anime equivalent of white bread soaked in water – I’d like for it to improve and be something actually worth talking about, but we’ll have to see. Hope springs eternal!

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes for episode two below.

Jeez, what a crime procedural opening. Even the cold open with some vague element of the “crime” to start – this time a boy wandering the streets alone with blood on his feet

softer colors this time, though still with that heavy light saturation

A girl, actually. Very young

Blood on her backpack

It’s nice how the main guy is perfectly capable on his own

Oh wow, this shot of the house is beautiful

And so he brings the girl to our Sherlock

Yeah, nicely subdued but rich colors

Sakurako’s surprisingly good with kids

She learns her arm was broken

The cops are kind of immersion-breakingly stupid in this show. Not thinking to check hospital files, zzz

Sakurako being all cynical about people

They run into Kougami, Shoutarou’s classmate

she knows the girl, and her real name – Tominaga Yuuka

oh god they’re going to do that stupid transformation scene every episode

Sakurako plotting out how the event went down

She finds another child

And of course the stupid cop gets himself stabbed

“Living is your duty, as one so young.”

“Don’t go, Soutarou” Sakurako has some sort of flashback to a boy leaving her as Soutarou (I guess that’s the sub translation) disarms the dude

He’s a black belt!

“I need the butterflies. I have to get them to him.” This stuff the killer’s mumbling is probably relevant, given the butterflies in the OP

And now it’s Shoutarou

Ah, ok, Soutarou actually is the name of the boy from her past