The Sixth Bone – “Asahi Bridge Irregulars“

This week, Sakurako-san proves that it can carry a mystery featuring its side characters that is just as interesting as each of its predecessors. Yuriko finds herself involved in another incident, and what makes her such a good character for me, other than the fact that she’s really cute, is that she personifies the “normal girl” trope very well. While being “normal” sounds incredibly boring, it works in a series like this where everything can be considered strange and questionable. Being “normal” opens up new ways to look at each situation that we wouldn’t be able to see with the decidedly not normal Sakurako-san and Shoutarou.

And again, we have a great example of how the series treats its side characters as though they’re real people living real lives. Though, at this point it may be more appropriate to call Yuriko a main character, seeing as how she has appeared in almost every episode so far in varying levels of importance. This week she acts as the heroine, and we get a sense of her values, which have obviously been affected by her experiences in previous episodes, namely the death of her grandmother, and these help set her apart from the dynamic between Shoutarou and Sakurako-san that we’ve grown accustomed to.

As for her relationship with her teacher, Isozaki-sensei, I’m still uncertain as to how I should feel about it. He has a very dislikeable air about him, and that’s largely the point of his character. I guess I just have a personal aversion to male characters that we’re “supposed to hate” and yet female characters become romantically interested in them for whatever inexplicable reason. While an overt romance isn’t being pushed here, there’s still the subtext happening with the long shots of them together as well as their dialogue interactions. Personally, I’d like to see more of Yuriko, much like how in Gosick Avril Bradley grew into her own important character role alongside the main leading pair.

“Isn’t it human nature to just not want someone to die, instead of analyzing it like a rational choice?” ~Yuriko Kougami

B.W.