Beautiful Bones: Sakurako’s Investigation ~ Episode 3 [Grandmother]

There’s just one thing in most mystery anime that always both amuses and bothers me at the same time. I like to call it the Detective Conan syndrome, as it really sort of coined the trope of stumbling upon a dead body no matter where you go or what you’re doing.
At the beach looking for the bones of fish? Dead body!
Out at the store at night and stumble upon a missing child? DEAD BODY!
Nice summer walk through the woods? Dead body!

That’s pretty much the story of what happens in this episode. Sakurako and Shotaro go off on a walk through the woods on a hunting trail to find animal bones that may of been left behind in the process of hunters shooting their prey or animals taking out smaller animals when instead they find the remains of an older woman.
Who turns out to be the grandmother of Shotaro’s classmate, Yuriko, who was the girl who helped them in the previous episode. The police pass the death, which was from falling off a cliff nearby as a suicide which doesn’t sit right with Yuriko.

I get it, it looked like a suicide. It read pretty much like a suicide, but it didn’t even really take someone of Sakurako’s skill to tell that, that wasn’t really the case. It was an accidental death, her grandmother had gone up to that spot to see the sunrise that her husband. Who was slowly slipping away to dementia had painted years earlier.
She’d probably stepped the wrong way and fell at an awkward angle which had caused the death. Are police really that inept? We’re they honestly looking to close the case that quickly? Leaving the family with false information which was hurting them? Why is it in shows like this, the cops seem to be completely useless.
I mean, I get that it helps our main characters look better but there is still just something…maybe if they worked together. The cop in this episode was the guy from the first episode, who gets Sakurako in trouble. She’s obviously sharp, is very good at pulling clues from the smallest thing. Rather then reporting her and getting her in trouble, why not work with her and get together a more comprehensive report of the situation.

Once again we are left with only small clues to this series greater plot. Telling us that Soutaro is the deceased younger brother of Sakurako. I know this will play a larger part later in the series. For now, we are left with a series of emotional stories. I do like that this episode the focus was around a character that we were already familiar with and is connected to one of our main characters. In having it be not only one of Shotaro’s classmates but the girl who helped them last episode and was with him in episode one. It left a greater emotional impact then it would of if it had been the grandmother of a random character that we had no connection too.
I was almost afraid of something like that happening when the episode bridged mentioning the family of the body they found. It was almost a relief to see that it wasn’t someone random, made me feel a lot more connected.

Overall, a pretty solid episode but I can’t wait to get into the deeper details that I know this series is hiding…for now, I’ll enjoy my Detective Conan syndrome anime. Because, YAY DEAD BODIES!

~Midnight