Back to ObliviousOkapi's Profile ObliviousOkapi's Profile

Have you heard of a title more intriguing than 'Corpses are Buried at Sakurako's Feet'?

As I open the first episode, the almost provocatively thoughtful dialogue and beautiful animation draw me in completely. I decide that I am going to love this show. As Sakurako finds a new corpse, exquisite animal skeletons parade about her and an aura of mystery builds. It is all very sinister, and yet so beautiful.
But then I rate it a 7- what happened?

The story's biggest turnoff is that it is a clueless mystery with a Sherlock Holmes air to it. Sakurako's trite declaration before she unravels a mystery quickly becomes repetitive. ... As the show begins to hint romances, I become further wary. The story takes on an episodic format which ties poorly with its short length. Despite my disinterest in episodic mystery, I hold on to my expectations because of a line in the opening theme: something like 'The two sides of a coin come together as pieces of the same puzzle', and this little message, 'Dedicated to Those Stuck in the Past' (which sounds pretty deep) hinting that there's more to the story than seems. And so I wait, and try to catch every little detail because there's presumably going to be final grand arc where all the mysteries come together. I'm left waiting.. (Although I cannot satisfactorily explain why, or even why it might have be okay to have been left waiting without possibly revealing spoilers.)

Sakurako, the character, is an unlikely combination of unconventional and cliche. While characters with dark, peculiar obsessions are not uncommon in anime, such a character is rarely portrayed in positive light, or even non-maniacally, let alone as relatable. Sakurako achieves this. I learn that it is no social obligation to become queasy at the sight of a corpse and grow to see death in new light as Sakurako harps with fascination the bounty of life a body is transformed into after death. I feel myself grow darker. Then I tire of Sakurako's inexplicable deductions with the sad excuse of 'this much is just speculation'- and yet, eventually, I am forced to accept Sakurako as a woman of logic. Even so, the hackneyed combination of beauty and brains seemed at best, unnecessary.

Shoutarou, on the other hand, is generic in every possible way. There is very little to identify him as a unique character, beyond a smarter than average happy high school student at least as yet- so I will describe him no further.

The art in Sakurako-san is not elaborate, but it's pleasant and beautiful and the kind of animation that makes your eyes happy. From the cherry blossoms of late spring, through Beautiful Bones' erranous season shifts, even through depictions of corpses and skeletons, the art seems sublime. Sakurako-san probably has the best art I've seen in any anime.

In the end, Sakurako has left me disappointed. When I started watching this show, I wanted and expected to like it far more. I wanted to rate it a 9 or a 10, but now, its inconclusitivity makes a 7 feel like an allowance. The show feels devoid of a real message, which it foreplayed too much for its pathetic bathos. Is this show really even over?

Sakurako-san is a good mystery show, but not very much more. It will appeal to two kinds of viewers:
A. People looking for a good episodic mystery
B. People looking for thoughtful dialogue (Although this isn't what the show focuses on, there's a reasonable amount of it happening)
Pick this show up if you’re one of the two. Beautiful Bones might not become your favourite show but it will still have been worth watching.

The most helpful piece of advice I can give anyone at this point is to forget you ever heard about this. This thing is three minutes long and it's not worth anybody's three minutes. I'm sorry I thought it'd be edgy to watch a show everyone hates.

Now I'm going to try to do this the way the guidelines say:
The plot is non-existent.
The video is unworthy of being called anime.
The audio sounds like the whole thing was recorded while a toilet was being flushed in the background.
Character: Sure, Sayuri was an interesting person. Just kidding.

Summarily, don't watch this unless you think there's a show that's ... worse than this or you've been tied to a chair and there's a chain saw slowly wheeling towards you to split your head into two if you refuse to watch it.
There, you've already wasted a minute on this show.

There are a lot of anime shows on time travel, I guess. But Steins;Gate stands out from the rest for a lot of reasons.

a) The rules of the game are well defined
If a show on time travel doesn't define it's limitations, you could easily start asking questions on paradoxes that should have happened, or loopholes that weren't exploited (it's been three years, and I'm still not done picking on Doctor Who). Steins;Gate explains its theory of time early on in the show itself, leaving no room for that kind of thing.

b) It's got real science.
... This show is incredibly well researched. It's interpretation of Chaos Theory and determinism are good enough to be on the first chapter of a college textbook (well, arguably). But a small part, regarding black holes and the like, is somewhat questionable. I guess that's only reasonable, since real science hasn't figured out time travel, while the show has.

The characters were, for me, certainly the best part of the show. Mad scientist, Okabe Rintarou's hilarious spontaineity, his fast-paced, somewhat unintelligible monologues and disconnection with people in general, I found immensely amusing to watch. The characters, without being the kind of people you see everyday, seemed strangely relatable.

However, if you're looking for the kind of smart show that has protagonists making calculated decisions, implicitly asks questions about the meaning of life and the sort, like Psycho-Pass or Death Note, which, for some reason, this show seems to be clubbed with- I don't think you will find it here.

Despite the theme of the show being time travel and science, where the the characters actually do something to figure out how to leap through time, and don't just stumble upon some superhuman ability to do so (which makes you expect really smart people), the protagonists (perhaps, sparing one) do not come across as particularly intelligent, despite being portrayed so. They rarely ask questions about what the consequences of their actions might be- given how messy time travel can be. Through the majority of the show, they sort of just jump through time whenever something they don't like happens. As a result, the potential a show on time travel has for coming with answers regarding the moral dilemma assosciated with changing history remains somewhat unexploited- although, that's probably not what they were going for, any way.

While I don't think the show is as good as reviews seem to claim, it's certainly an amazing show, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a science-y, serious and meaningful, yet lighthearted show.
I give it an 8.5.