Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we return to the tangled mysteries of Shoushimin Series, as Jogoro and Osani continue their wandering journeys toward normalcy. Having spent a season realizing they were each enabling the other’s alleged worst tendencies, the pair have split and found new partners, with Osanai dating newspaper club member Urino while Jogoro pursues the charming Nakamura. And yet their underlying passions still endure, exemplified through both the awkward distances of their new bonds and their embroilment in the town’s latest mystery, a serial arson case that is only rising in intensity with each new incident.
It was a bold play by Honobu Yonezawa to take their stable paradigm and shatter it, but the results are already proving this franchise can survive and even thrive with its leads no longer in close contact. Frankly, their lack of physical proximity has only underlined the strength of their bond; Jogoro is constantly framing Nakamura in terms of how she differs from Osanai, while Osanai seems to be performing some kind of Vertigo-style personality resculpting of her boyfriend Urino. It’s a messy, emotionally fraught situation, and those are precisely the sort of situations that let richly realized character dramas like this thrive. With both their personal bonds and the town at large in a state of violent flux, let’s see how this case continues to develop!
Episode 13
Our episode title is “Hesitant Spring.” It’s interesting how willing this narrative is to make significant temporal jumps across their high school experience, with no apparent fear of “using up” this dynamic’s temporal resources. It certainly results in a more meaningful sense of separation between our leads, as we see clearly the months they’re spending apart, sacrificing these precious idle days in committed pursuit of their personal reinventions
God, this OP is such a stunner. So many playful mixed-media flourishes, so many fun visual interpretations of their bonds and mindsets. It would have been hard for any OP to measure up to the sonic and visual thematic unity of the first season’s, but they actually managed it
“New entrants, congratulations on entering high school.” Our first lines and first composition both emphasize spring’s arrival, as we stare out above the campus through the blooming cherry blossoms. For freshman, these speeches are a vitalizing invitation to an exciting new world; for any older students, they are a reminder how swiftly time has passed, and that they are not as young nor as fully ensconced in high school as they were just a year ago
Urino’s narration is contrasted against his clubmates laying the school newspaper on each desk, as if they’re carefully setting a bomb to explode
Jogoro is clearly intrigued by the investigation, but drawn away from his old self by Nakamura’s interruption. And Osanai reads the news alone, her face unreadable
Apparently the opposing guidance councilor Nitta got transferred, removing one of Urino’s obstacles. But he’s well aware Osanai won’t be happy about him continuing to “be naughty” and pursue this investigation
“Have you any idea how much work I put into those articles? I didn’t just go up to the principal and ask him to write something like you did!” Urino is clearly starting to personally identify himself with this article series, to take significant pride in his investigations, to the extent where he’s willing to fight his fellow club members to keep pursuing them. The mundane, low-confidence boy Osanai originally selected is disappearing as Urino clings to his source of uniqueness
“Only I could have written them! You never could have produced them!” The smaller or less secure our source of pride, the more fiercely and violently we defend it
Kengo raises an ominous counterpoint – what if Nitta was not a sole actor, but actually representing the overall view of the guidance office? Though Urino is proud of his deductions, he frequently fails to consider all angles of a situation
Kengo further chastises him for directly calling for new club volunteers. It’s not Urino’s job to set the newspaper’s overall agenda, even if he thinks his articles are the only interesting thing in them
And finally, Kengo asks him to reveal his method
Interestingly, unlike Jogoro’s series of nigh-miraculous intellectual deductions, Urino solves mysteries in the way of a newspaper man: copious research, looking up every single relevant detail, consulting fire safety charts and fire department regulations and anything else that might create some intriguing correlation
Thus he uncovered the Kira City fire plans, with a list of which stations apply to which regions, a list that the arsonist has apparently been following from bottom to top
“I suspect the arsonist is someone in the fire department or who works for the city.”
Kengo thinks about this like Jogoro would – “that list seems solid, but what is the motive?” The motive is always the key
Apparently Urino’s brother is a firefighter
“We happened to be saved by Urino’s rash decision.” Kengo and the original arsonist presumably care about motive, but copycats would not – if they’d actually published Urino’s secret, they would simultaneously have inspired more copycats and cast heavy suspicion on their own club as the culprits. An incomplete truth can be far more dangerous than a lie – and in fact, even a full truth improperly wielded can have disastrous consequences, as Jogoro has repeatedly learned. Jogoro used to believe the truth would absolve him of negative consequences, but now he understands few people in his life actually want it in the first place
“I’m definitely not cut out for this sort of thing.” Well Kengo, this is the second time in a year you’ve accidentally found yourself wrapped up in an active police investigation, so you might not be wrong there
As such, Kengo says he’s stepping down as president. As with the seasons passing, there’s no sense of solidity here – Kengo’s a third year, he won’t be here for long
Oh my god, Osanai is actually receiving secret intel on the newspaper club from Urino’s nemesis Monchi. No matter what relationship she’s in, it seems like an impossible fantasy that Osanai could ever become normal
Pointed lighting design as she meets him after the club meeting, with Urino shrouded in darkness and Osanai cast in the orange light of the fading sun. Rather than the bright, inviting light of midday, this darker-tinted light instead calls to mind Osanai’s red fantasy on the bridge, the threat of violence lurking within her nature
Urino remains cast in darkness as he announces his intention to continue pursuing the arsons, to be the detective Osanai feared he would become. Of course, her desires are contradictory; she finds these arsons as compelling as he does, she’s just trying to avoid indulging that aspect of herself. But as Urino grows into the person he wants to be, he is serving less and less effectively as a normalizing influence in Osanai’s life. The “normalcy” that both she and Jogoro seek is partially just a mirage conjured by adolescence – many of their peers act “normal” because they have not yet gained the confidence or direction to act like their eventual selves
“Do you believe in Dojima more? I’m the one who knows all the secrets.” But Urino’s transformation is fragile, of course. He’s still willing himself to believe in his deductive expertise, and that means he’s vulnerable to others doubting him, resulting in scenes like his outburst towards Monchi
“I don’t mind try-hards. But what I really like is people who don’t do anything. I’m an ordinary person. I like ordinary people.” One last attempt to draw him back, both for him and herself
“I’m not some idle commoner,” says Urino. He is struggling just as desperately to escape normalcy as our original two are struggling to achieve it
“You’re going to impress me, right?” And she can’t deny her own inquisitive nature. Urino is in well over his head here
Meanwhile, Jogoro is in similar straits: attempting to focus on his mundane studies while secretly mulling over the arsons. This ultimately leads him to call Kengo directly, though he almost hangs up before letting himself indulge fully in the investigation
Interestingly, their conversation reveals neither Jogoro nor Kengo actually know about Urino and Osanai’s relationship. Another indicator of how tenuous their relationship really is, that it could go undetected for most of a year
“Osanai might have been the one influencing Itsukaichi-kun, too.” It is extremely in keeping with both Jogoro and Osanai’s personalities that neither of them would have contacted the other regarding any of this, and that Jogoro would instead keep track of his former partner through a series of deductions that assume the worst about her motives at all times
“Do you think Osanai-san’s the kind of person to set a van on fire?” Kengo’s too polite to answer, but his face makes his answer obvious nonetheless
Jogoro’s only defense is “it seems too lacking in subtlety to be her doing.” It’s true, it’s certainly far more of a direct lashing out than her layered demolition of her old school bullies
A classmate who actually pays attention to her peers casually reveals that yes, Osanai and Urino have been dating. Additionally, Nakamura is apparently two-timing!
“Come to think of it, including you, she’s got three guys!” Love Kengo’s slow, stunned turn towards Jogoro at this revelation
Kengo ultimately extracts Jogoro’s underlying motive: he really can’t leave Osanai alone
And Done
The plot thickens as Jogoro at last joins the investigation! Though he and Osanai have spent half a year attempting to abandon their eccentricities, this episode made it clear that they’ve been lying to themselves, either secretly mulling over mysteries like Jogoro or directly manipulating them like Osanai. But hey, high school involves a lot of lying to yourself, either through rejecting your unwanted truths or embracing a desired falsehood. Urino’s been lying his way towards a happier self-image, Kengo’s been engaging in self-effacing lies to distance himself from the club drama, and god knows what Nakamura’s got going on with her apparent three simultaneous relationships. Our wandering cast clearly cannot solve their own identities, but it seems like they’re at least closing in on a culprit for this arson epidemic. I’m eager to see where the chips fall!
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