Beautiful Bones: Sakurako’s Investigation ~ Episode 2 [Missing Child]

This episode we deal not with a murder of the past but a murder in the present. It all begins when Shotaro is out grabbing a late night snack at the convenience store and spots a lost little girl. Like a good citizen he runs the lost child to the police. The problem is, she’s three, with no form of identification. She can’t speak in any clear sentences and it leaves them with next to no idea where her mother is.
They also notice blood on the little girls panda backpack. Blood in the shape of a woman’s hand print. So they take the kid to the only logical place to go at a time like this. Sakurako’s house. I mean, the master of death might be able to pull up some clues right?

Well she does, she notices that the little girls arm had been twisted recently, it looked like possible abuse. So they send the cop to go around to the hospitals and check if the kid had been taken care of anywhere. They find the place, but the name given was a fake.
When it looks as if they are out of leads, here comes that girl from Shotaro’s class in episode one. I’m curious if she’ll become a larger part of the plot all together or if she’ll only be used as a plot device like this. Well she happens to know the kids name from when she worked part time at a daycare service.
They head to the little girls house and go to head in. Shotaro stops the girl as he notices the smell of death in the air. How he could smell it over all of the garbage in the place, I don’t know. This woman was an obvious hoarder.

Well isn’t she in the running for parent of the year. Well, I guess when we get to the end of the episode that part is left up for interpretation. She was a hoarder, she was abusive but she gave her life to save her two children. How are we supposed to feel towards this woman?
She loved her kids enough to die for them but not to care for them. Was the drug addict that killed her and was ranting about butterflies the father of the kids? Not that it really matters, with their mother dead and if he was their father, him going to jail for killing their mother, being a druggie and stabbing a police officer.
He’s probably not getting out for the rest of his life.

I think the most intriguing part of this episode is the part where Shotaro goes to tackle the addict as he goes to attack the cop and Sakurako screams out “Soutaro, don’t go.”, we get a brief glimpse of a small boy running away from her when she was younger. Is it a cousin? A younger brother? I’m pretty sure that it’s someone that died.
He also shows up in the opening along with her younger self. I think whoever that boy was is key to figuring out the relationship between Sakurako and Shotaro.
Who, by the way, she called by name this episode. After everything and she was explaining that the woman gave her life for her children. She calls him by his name, which means he’s earned her respect. Perhaps by taking down that criminal and giving her time to keep the baby alive.

You can see the greater plot forming in this episode, but it’s still relatively episodic. We’ll have to see who Soutaro is and what his importance is to her at a later date. Once again, this episode is just gorgeous. I love this shows animation and while I think i MIGHT get a little sick of the investigation animation if it happens every episode.
Sure it’s pretty, but it’s like any scene that is used more then once. It becomes stock footage and loses it’s initial beauty.

A solid second episode, let’s keep this up!

~Midnight