Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

A decent mystery anime with a compelling lead character - horror fans should check it out

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation is a horror-crime anime series with a Gothic sensibility based on the original light novels written by Shiori Ohta. Produced by Kenjirou Gomi (Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha, Steins Gate the Movie: Load Region of Déjà vu), Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation unfolds in a mystery-of-the-week style that presents different Sherlock Holmes-esque stories with surprises. Audiences are in for a strange trip with this under-the-radar anime.

Sakurako Kujô (Shizuka Itô) is obsessed with bones. Though most girls her age would be obsessed with boys, make-up, or the latest fashion trends, Sakurako is all about bones: human bones, animal bones, and/or mummified bones. It doesn't matter to Sakurako if the bones are from ancient long-lost specimens or from recently bludgeoned bodies. (Yikes!)

The girl collects bones and studies them while helping her local law enforcement to solve mysteries behind disturbingly grisly murders (murders which often leave behind bones she hopes to add to her collection). She is often joined by her side-kick, a young boy named Shôtarô Tatewaki (Junya Enoki) who is determined to keep her away from hoarding the bones of those being murdered and instead to focus on solving the mysteries as events unfold. Can Sakurako keep her bone-collection at bay while solving the latest murder mysteries?

The series is an interesting one conceptually. The lead character reminds one of Sherlock Holmes. Sakurako Kujô is every bit as deadpan and cold as the famous detective character. Though there certainly are differences between the two characters, it seems as though Sakurako was a clear inspiration of the iconic character from literature. It is interesting to see this type of approach in a anime production as it is not seen as often as it is in British productions.

The new normal.

The original music score by Tohru Fujimura (Trinity Seven: The Movie - Eternity Library and Alchemic Girl, Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn), Tomohisa Ishikawa (Trinity Seven, Innocent Venus) , and Yohei Matsui (She and Her Cat: Everything Flows, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 3rei) gives the production a creepy atmosphere that is full of surprises. The saga unfolds with non-stop morbidity. I certainly found it compelling to hear the themes the composers came up with for each odd scenario. Bizzaro land, indeed.

The animation stands out as one of the greatest stengths of the production. Under the art direction by Akira Itô (One Week Friends, Bodacious Space Pirates) and collaborator Hyun Soo Kim, Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation has a super-dark sensibility that will appeal to those interested in Gothic-toned productions. The animators went for bleakness at every turn and this element is well matched to the cinematography by Ryôsuke Tsuda (Weathering With You, My Bride Is a Mermaid).

One area where Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation could have seen improvement is in the editing by Shouta Migiyama (Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends, Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy). While there were episodes which were highly compelling, there were also moments where the series seemed overlong. Some fine tuning could have been done in editing room to tighten the pacing and structure of the stories.

The screenplays written by Takayo Ikami (WataMote: No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!, Magical Girl Site) and Takao Yoshioka (If It's for My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat a Demon Lord, Interviews with Monster Girls) are interesting. On the one hand, I found that this was certainly a creative anime with interesting characters. I appreciated that it was a mystery-of-the-week style production. I enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes style elements. However, the series was consistently uneven. There was also a sense that the writers were in disagreement on how to approach the lead character and the material on the whole. The pilot episode (and some of the best episodes to follow) were more engaging due to a sly sense of humor that was engaged. Some of the weaker episodes were too dry and lacked the same kind of comedic chops necessary to counterbalance the morbid darkness of the series conceptually. This made the show feel uneven and the problem was clearly in the scripts. Too bad.

Chief director Makoto Katô (Bloom Into You, Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note) makes the most of the uneven screenplays and aims for creating a series that is visually interesting from beginning to end. For the most part, the filmmaker succeeded. Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation is a unique anime creation that stands out from the crowd as something that would appeal to fans of mysteries. While far from a perfect series it is one that many will find worth checking out.

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arriving on Blu-ray from Sentai Filmworks, Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation is presented in 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encoded high definition in the original television broadcast aspect ratio of 1.78:1 widescreen. The Blu-ray release is quite impressive to behold and the encoding retains the gothic sensibilities of the animation. The art work is quite dark and morose at times (with a somewhat subdued color palette) yet these elements are clearly a part of the intended visual aesthetic. The production has impressive animation which is well reproduced here. The image is crisp and clean. Banding is never a major problem during the entire series run. The encoding quality is quite healthy and presents each episode well (with no glaring compression woes to report).

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The release is presented in Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo with English subtitles. There is no English dub option provided on the release. The original Japanese audio track is quite satisfactory, however. The series dub is well-reproduced and music is crisp and clear throughout the entire series presentation. The occasional action-beats are similarly well presented. There are never any scenes in which the track sounds overly harsh to listen to. An impressive effort by Sentai Filmworks.

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:32)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

The Blu-ray release also includes a selection of trailers promoting other releases available from distributor Sentai Filmworks: Wasteful Days of High School Girls (HD, 1:34), Shirobako (HD, 1:32), ef ~ a tale of memories and melodies (HD, 1:32), and The Garden of Words (HD, 1:27).

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation is an uneven production. The anime has a great concept and the mystery-of-the-week style is appreciable. However, the series does not maintain a consistent tone and bounces back-and-forth between a dark comedic sensibility and a more straightforward procedural tone. The comedic episodes were more engaging than the episodes which were strictly darker-the-black and this is where the series faltered. Even despite some underwhelming elements, Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation is an interesting diversion and an anime series that doesn't fit a typical description. It is worth checking out. Recommended.