Second impressions – Shoushimin series (How to become ordinary)

Where is Sherlock Holmes when you need him?

I have some basic thoughts when watching the second episode of Shoushimin seriesFirst, I would be patient enough to jumpstart this series if I didn’t have the Hyouka Experience that I can draw on? And secondly, I would have Hyouka every catwalk if the images had not been so lush and beautiful? It has been over a decade since Hyouka (damn, really?), and I didn’t rewatch it in its entirety, so my memories are sketchy. But I do know (and I think it shows in my notes) that I was close to quitting after a few episodes. Of course, this was during the busiest season in LiA’s history, so context is important.

As far as I may say – you won’t find an episode that better illustrates Yonezawa Honobu’s experience than this one. It was as trivial a mystery as one could hope for – “How did DB classmate make oishii cocoa without dirtying the dishes?”. The thing that really mattered – the theft of Osanai’s bike and the fatal attack on her tarts – is only mentioned very briefly. It was certainly jarring to hear the school blame her for the theft of her bike, but only because it reminded us that victim shaming is widespread in Japanese culture. This has its roots in bushido. If a samurai was murdered (or injured in an attack), he was considered guilty for allowing it to happen. That’s why there were famous people who publicly apologized for contracting COVID-19.

I have to say right from the start that I am not a fan of Kengo so far. He just seems pushy and obnoxious. And Osanai’s gentle personality is pretty clichéd across the board. If there is a fourth wheel on the wagon, a-la Hyouka it’s not obvious (Kengo’s sister doesn’t seem that important), so a lot is on Kobato’s shoulders to carry the story. This whole “trying to be ordinary” thing seems to be a reference to the Japanese proverb of the same name, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered in.” And judging by his conversation with Kengo, it probably boils down to the younger Kobato being arrogant about being the smartest guy in the room, and pretentiously solving puzzles of the kind we saw this week.

This all sounds pretty negative, I guess, but I ended up getting more caught up in this trivial matter than I should have. That’s Yonezawa too – he lets you play the game on his terms and often manages to make it interesting. The fact that the whole thing wasn’t based on a challenge from Kengo, but simply on him being too lazy to wash dishes was pretty funny. That kind of attraction has a limited shelf life – if I had never started to care about the characters in Hyouka it wouldn’t have worked. But hey, Shoushimin series only has ten episodes to play, it can get through on the surface in a way Hyouka wouldn’t have been able to.