Considering that Sakurako suddenly told Shoutaro to forget about her, will he accept it or try to convince her otherwise?
From the looks of it, it’s clear that Shoutarou cannot accept Sakurako’s decision to have him forget about her. During his decision on whether or not he should go to her house or not, we get a nice flashback of him meeting Sakurako for the first time during his time in middle school. From first sight, he thought that she was a woman who came from a dream. Sadly, he eventually finds out that it’s not necessary the case when he finds out her obsession over bones of dead things. At one point, he thought that Sakurako has cook the bones of his neighbor’s grandmother, Hatsue Yachi who escaped from the nursing home.
While it’s a funny misunderstanding, underneath it all reveals something tragic that Yachi is hiding as she searches for a particular shine. This is basically the first time Shoutarou and Sakurako solves a mystery by finding the thing that Yachi was looking for. They eventually find bones at the Shirayama Shrine under a tree and it revealed that Yachi was the one that killed her father when he was going crazy from a drinking problem. Thus, her heart was filled with regret or rather, it was frozen in time. Regardless, time will not stop, which is something that Sakurako told Shoutarou after finding out what happened to Yachi’s father.
After Shoutarou remembers what happened two years ago, it’s clear that he does not want Sakurako regret her decision of forgetting about him for the sake of her protecting him from Hanabusa. Believe it or not, being separated with each other increases the chances that Shoutarou will get harmed opposed to if they were together. Besides, he is a valuable asset to Sakurako after all in solving mysteries. Without him, she wouldn’t be able to solve all the mysteries. Besides, it seems that Sakurako’s caretaker miss him as well. With them reunited and Hanabusa is still at large, it’s up to Sakurako and Shoutarou to take him on while they protect each other.
Final Impressions
While the mysteries were a mixed bag at times, it was interesting to see how mysteries are connected to Sakurako in one way or another. Sure, some of the mysteries are influenced by a criminal mastermind, but it seems that the show is not as thrilling as I thought would be. Despite few of the mysteries being somewhat lackluster, I still think the interactions, dialogues and visual representations is what makes the show enjoyable and interesting to watch despite the flaws.
I’m a weird one, I’m not even remotely finished watching this show and yet still not be affected by spoilers? xDD. Anyway, from the episode reviews I do, I also noticed the same thing you do did. The mysteries were interesting in their own way, however they lacked that “bite”. I’ve watched shows like CSI, X-files, briefly Agatha Christie’ Poirot, read young Sherlock Holmes, have but not read the entire Holmes (AC Doyle) stories.
Mystery tend to be meaty in their content, Sakurako tends to be light on that. The said mention shows and books are long and have time to develop a world etc, Sakurako doesn’t have that. It has only 20+ minus to fill in as much exposition and then have a resolve at the end. Here is the key thing, retention. It has to try and keep the audience engaged and keep their attention other wise it will lose them. And some of them fore mentioned shows did have some boring episodes. I found the show tried to appeal to a much larger audience; the older ones and the younger ones. It failed on that aspect. Also the amount of episodes hits this anime really hard.
That’s my on take on the show (so far). Long comment I know xDD.
I understand what you are getting. From the looks of it, the mysteries are probably there to develop Sakurako and her dark past aside from trying to catch Hanabusa. This is probably why some of the episodes were underwhelming, although the show was enjoyable. Of course, other shows that have better mysteries such as Hyouka or Gosick will probably be a bot better in the mystery department.
Would be better if it had 24 episodes? Probably since there would be more time for more development and such, but oh well.
It lacks the impact. I thought this show would have beaten Subete in terms of mystery easily, when I watch the first few episode. Turns out Subete is a lot more enjoyable to watch as a whole, as they only focus on a single mystery. I kinda wish they would just focus on that shady guy instead, it would be a lot more interesting, with no fillers in between. It’s still enjoyable sure, but lacks a lot of stuff to make it great. I’m actually pretty disappointed how they focus a lot of those mini arcs, instead of the real plot. We still don’t know much about that kid, but at least it’s going somewhere.. if there is not season 2, it’s just… meh 🙁
It’s understandable considering that the mastermind behind all those mysteries is behind those mysteries… or at least some of them. I kind of wish there were more clues so that they can get closer to catching him, aside from few of the mysteries which don’t feel that related to catching him.
Could have been better, but oh well. If there is another season, hopefully things will get a bit more interesting.