Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru – Episode 3 – Yuriko Finds The Truth and Police’s Continued Uselessness

Unlike the last mystery, this one hit close to home as the bones of someone’s loved one is found.

Compared to last week’s mystery, this one seems to focus on a remains of someone who freaked a couple out. This makes me wonder how incompetent the police are since they automatically thought that it was a suicide without conducting a full autopsy. Since the cliff is not that high to cause death, saying that it’s suicide doesn’t make sense. Judging from Sakurako’s investigation, the person might have died from an accident or something. To think it’s a suicide when there is a missing person report comes off as being too insensitive.

As expected, it was revealed that it the remains was Yuriko’s grandmother, who was taking care of her grandfather who have Alzheimer’s. Understandably, taking care of someone with a terminal illness is very difficult regardless of age. However, judging from how long Yuriko’s grandmother stayed strong by going to the place where her grandfather painted the picture to find the strength to keep living, I assume that her health didn’t decline. This is something that Yuriko finally realizes after going to the spot that her grandmother goes to, possibly on a frequent basis. Given that Yuriko’s grandmother managed to climb that hill makes me believe that she is relatively active despite being old.

While there are two possible theories on how Yuriko’s grandmother have died such as an accident or someone pushing her off, we will never know. However, it does show that a loss of a loved one can hit close to home, especially given Yuriko’s situation. Despite the difficulties her grandmother faced, Yuriko finally realize the thing that there was a thing that allowed her grandmother to keep living makes her appreciate the difficulties her grandmother faced instead of having her efforts go in vain and Yuriko blaming herself for it.

With that, we now know why Sakurako doesn’t call Shoutaro by his name. It seems that she had a little brother that had a similar name (Soutarou) and appearance. There is no wonder why she scolded Shoutaro last time after trying to be a hero and knock down the guy who were about to stab them with a knife. Still, it makes me wonder if her younger brother’s death is a contributing factor to her obsession over bones at such a young age besides her uncle. I guess time will tell as they solve more mysteries. ¶