Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are returning to the enigmatic wanderings of Shoushimin Series, as Jogoro and Osanai continue in their renewed commitment to becoming ordinary. Having severed their connection in the wake of Osanai’s outrageous self-kidnapping gambit, they have each found new partners who seem to earnestly appreciate them, and who crucially do not enable their respective antisocial tendencies.
In fact, the two of them have seemingly become so ordinary that they’re no longer the protagonists of their own series. Season two has opened with a graceful flipping of perspective, centering on Osanai’s new boyfriend Urino and his efforts to uncover an alleged serial arson case around town. Through this reversal, Shoushimin Series is elegantly demonstrating the strength of Honobu Yonezawa’s character writing; though Jogoro and Osanai are certainly compelling characters, it’s just as interesting to explore this world from a new shoulder, with the appearances by our old leads lent all the more impact by their newfound rarity. And in director Mamoru Kanbe’s hands, it is already equally apparent what this new formulation is lacking – that spark of restless, relentless inquiry, the powerful unity of intellectual intent that was heretofore represented through the production’s consistent location-jumping visual flourishes. Richly articulated characters navigating a world whose physical and psychological contours have been realized through a distinct visual vocabulary – that’s essentially the core recipe for cinematic psychological drama, and it’s been extremely gratifying seeing season one’s visual language put to such novel and dramatic purposes. Let’s get back to the investigation!