Beautiful Bones

Summary: >

Shotaro is fairly plain for a high school student, except for his unusual relationship with an eccentric woman. She lives in a mansion filled with various animal skelotons she's collected over the years. Sakurako is an expert of sorts on bones leading her to be consulted on mysterious deaths.

Thoughts: >

Shows with intelligence rarely get the level of budget that Beautiful Bones does, and that in itself is something of note. I like a change of pace, so a morbid mystery show has its own a kind of appeal, even if it doesn't fair as well as I'd prefer.

Subject matter in Beautiful Bones revolve around death, and it doesn't shy away from the topic so be prepared for it to get fairly morbid (and graphic). The underlying theme is that death isn't the end of a story, it tells the last few chapters. That's Sakurako's objective view on death (and bones in particular), while Shotaro is more horrified by things. The anime does well presenting Sakurako's eccentric personality, especially with her child like excitement at the prospect of looking at dead things (brilliantly highlighted with her facial expressions). However I didn't think Shotaro and Sakurako meshed well as a pair, and that tends to hold the anime back. Shotaro is supposed to provide a contrast, but it seems like he would have gotten over his issues with dead stuff hanging around a woman always involved with just that. Other characters vary in success, but likewise didn't win me over.

All that aside, Beautiful Bones is a mystery first, and in that regard does great assuming you don't need facts as conclusive proof. Sometimes there's a confession or hard evidence, however at other times a theory is presented with little to support it. Because Sakurako "is always right", it's assumed even her conjecture is correct, but I can't say I had the faith in her stories as others in the anime did. That's okay though. Even if the story and characters don't push this one to greatness, the topics were enough to keep me interested.

Beautiful Bones is initially an odd collection of morbid tales, but later on a bigger plot is hinted at but not yet begun. This could become something pretty cool later on. What's done now is fairly episodic in nature, which gives each story enough weight to make this show worty of the watch at this point.

Screen Caps: >