The 2nd Bone – “Where Do You Live?”

Lately, I’ve been concerning myself more and more with what I call the “throughline” of an anime, namely the metaphorical thread that ties each episode together. If you’ve graciously read my Charlotte impressions, then you already know my stance on that series and how I believe that it fell apart (or rather was never really together) because it lacked a solid throughline. Something that worried me when starting Sakurako-san was that it would be too much of an episodic mystery series, with nothing to weave together a satisfying, overarching narrative.

For me, this is what makes Gosick great and Un-Go simply okay. In the former, the relationship between the main characters is developed with each mystery solved, while the latter just has a pair of detectives solve new crimes every episode, largely suffering from its shorter runtime. I feared that Sakurako-san would fall into the same camp as Un-Go, but the events thus far and the many teases in the OP encourage me to believe otherwise.

The OP alone, with its focus on the surprising number of side characters, raises the question of how all of these bodies will be incorporated into a story that, so far, has only featured two main protagonists. Perhaps a poor selection of words, while I said “bodies” when referring to the side characters, I really hope that their involvement in the story doesn’t involve them dying. However, if someone turns out to be crazy and evil, then they can probably just die.

Despite being episodic in nature, the murder mystery this time around is equal parts intriguing, tense, and emotional and is just long enough to be have a satisfying buildup and resolution. However,The big mystery that is hinted at this episode is Sakurako-san’s connection to somebody named Soutarou. Is this someone she used to know, and is this why we’re seeing shots of a young Sakurako-san in the OP? It’s this question that creates our throughline to future episodes, sparking and driving our hungry curiosities. My hope is that this series will be able to expertly unravel this overarching mystery through these mini-mysteries we’ve been experiencing.

“Living is your duty, as one so young.” ~ Sakurako Kujou

B.W.