Beautiful Bones is a 2015 done by studio Troyca, of which I’m not very familiar with. This anime was based off of a series of novels. Is it worth it though? Let's find out.
Story:
Beautiful Bones doesn’t have an overarching plot, rather it’s comprised of episodic thriller scenarios in which our main lead Sakurako & her shall I say, lackey, Tatewak go around solving mysteries. Our main lead is very interested in Bones & uses her knowledge to help solve mysteries.
Ok, we’ve got ourselves a nice little set-up here. The problem is, the series doesn’t make any sort of effort to actually utilize its concept to create anything beyond basic. The series largely consists of “Sakurako goes around pulling the strings, while the others occasionally help out”. It’s not very interesting, as they basically just tell you everything & really don’t show us the scenes playing out.
Characters:
This is another big problem for Beautiful Bones. The characters are boring. Sakurako is pretty much the only one who has any defining character traits that make her stand out amongst the group, but they really don’t develop her much throughout the story. Near the end they try to write it to where Sakurako cares more about Tatewaki than she lets on, but by then, it’s too little too late, & the anime has ended. Tatewaki is the definition of a blank slate, he pretty much does nothing but go along with Sakurako, occasionally he goes “Sakurako-San!” to try & steer her away from anything he deems “pushing it”, but this almost never works. Sakurako basically does all the work while Tatewaki is occasionally given a chance to help out.
The other characters aren’t much themselves. They pretty much only exist as some attempt at giving the world more life, but this doesn’t work, as the characters are so flat & have barely any notable character traits that they might as well be replaced by planks of wood.
If you want to improve the characters, actually give them more to offer than just “I’m here because reasons”. Actually give the characters some challenges that they have to go through, give them something to make them stand out, give them something they’re interested in. Sakurako is the closest to falling into these lines, & even she isn’t much of an interesting character herself.
Art:
This is actually a huge positive for Beautiful Bones, the artwork on display here is incredible. It’s all very vibrant, colorful, & variable. Some very clear thought & effort was put into these backgrounds. They’re also incredibly unique backgrounds too. Now, the anime does make use of GCI, however I think they implemented CGI incredibly well. The backgrounds such as buildings & trees are largely composed of CGI, though you’d be hard-pressed to notice that’s how well implemented it is. One aspect of the CGI that isn’t good however are the crowds. They stick out like a sore thumb, & look incredibly Janky, yet stilted at the same time. If you wanted to improve on this, keep the characters 2D, I know it would’ve been harder to animate, but a little effort goes a long way. The backgrounds look fine CGI wise, but the characters do not.
The animation is good. But I wouldn’t go beyond good. It doesn’t become lazy, & there was clearly effort put into the animation. The animators at least cared & wanted to make their movements look nice. Bonus points that this series has what I like to call an “Ikuhara moment” where there’s an intentional use of stock-footage for when a key-event happens, love it.
The cinematography is also good. There’s quite a lot of flat shots where it’s just characters sitting around talking in a room admittedly, but there’s also plenty of great transitional shots & well-made framing at the same time. Overall, the cinematography of this show is good, but nothing too special.
Sound:
The sound is ok, it gets the job done, but there’s all there is to it really. The voice acting gets the job done, but the voice actors (aside from Ito Shizuka as Sakurako) don't sound very invested in their roles, but at least the performances they give work for the kind of series that this is. If I could assign a number to the voice acting specifically, I’d give it a 6/10
The music just exists, I really couldn’t tell you much about the music, it’s pretty much just there. The sound design is also incredibly lacking, the sound-effects just don’t really leave much impact or add as much to the scenes as they could’ve. I’d give the music & sound design a 4/10.
Fina Thoughts/Overall:
I don’t want to call Beautiful Bones completely effortless, as there was clearly effort put into this work, it’s just too bad that effort didn’t go towards the writing of this show. The biggest issue with this show is that the writing team just didn’t try. They pretty much thought up the concept, & thought that the concept alone would be enough to sell the series. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Your concept can only go so far if you don’t have the execution to back it up. Beautiful Bones is yet another example for me to use in my “Good art doesn’t save bad writing” argument. Although, I’d call Bones’s writing lacking rather than outright bad. My final rating for Beautiful Bones is going to be a 5/10. There was some great potential here, but the team just didn’t follow through.
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