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
Personally, I don’t find the Japanese dialogue all that bad – at least, it sounds alright, and seems relevant for Sakurako’s character (what she said to the baby, at least). I’m not liking the way it’s been translated, though…
Somehow people at ANN aren’t getting the “groan/bone” wordplay…