Kyokou Suiri – 03 [The Rumors of the Steel Lady]

Hey it’s me Mario who cover this eccentric little talky show this week. I have a confession first, I always have a thing for anime with excessive amount of dialogues, as long as they don’t try to sound like a broken talking dictionary or quote some philosophical nonsense (looking right at you Psycho Pass and Ghost in the Shells the movies), and I think that’s an important aspect to decide whether or not you are in for this particular ride. I mean, Kyokou Suiri is so gutsy that it features its entire second mystery in a single settings just by one character talks things out to another character. When you think of lengthy conversations in one setting, you might think it’s a dull experience but Kyokou Suiri (mostly) gets away with it. I will demonstrate this point by comparing the approach with other talky shows. For Monogatari series, whenever it gets to a lengthy chatter banter it utilizes its quirky visual to keep audience from feeling bored. For shows like OreGairu, it relies on characters gestures (usually a glance) to hint on their subtle inner feelings, for Kyokou Suiri it uses the flow of the conversation to suggest something deeper about its cases.

It’s certainly not an easy approach to pull off, but Kyou Shirodaira the original author has a way with writing dialogues. I only watched the first three episodes of Blast of Tempest (and stopped for no apparent reason) but that show already struck me with lengthy engaging dialogues. The nearest point of reference for now is Hyouka, with the same mundane mysteries that are more about deduction process than the actual result. Here in the majority of episode 2 and first half of episode 3, we have an OCD snake God and Kotoko tries to reason with him. The Snake God cares for every little detail is certainly hilarious to see, and we can see Kotoko flips over many times with her deduction. Is her final conclusion really what happened? It does feel like a stretch at some points in retrospect (bits about the brother being true killer, and her unborn child), but at the end it doesn’t really matter. The point here is not the results and Kyokou Suiri smartly closes the case with a “two years later” timeskip (looks like the anime skips a significant part of manga material though).

It goes without saying that Kotoko is a true star of the show. She is a quick wit but is also playful and childish and has a few screws loose and it’s just so fun to watch her spouting nonsense (her deflower comment included). For now her partner isn’t half as memorable there’s certainly room for improvement. As for now, his ex-fiance Saki reappears as a police officer and overall she serves as another good foil for Kotoko. She also has this compelling drama about the way the break-up still shakes her even now. All I’m saying is  that I really hope she can become a regular character. The new case, Steel Lady Nanase, revolves around the said idol ghost causes many accidents around the city. It’s a compelling enough thriller case, especially next week where I figure that we will learn about Nanase’s accident, but my interest lies in the chemistry between Kotoko, Saki and Kuro and how they interact with each other. And that for me is the sign of a show going in the right direction: its based ingredients – the main characters – are strong and vibrant enough to carry the whole show.