If you’re keeping score at home, we only have two episodes of Shoushimin Series left. Not a lot of time for a statement of purpose, considering how little has actually happened for most of this show. We are getting plot-heavy now (in relative terms at least) but even if the series fully commits to that route (which I don’t think it will) I’m not sure how much it can really accomplish. Especially given we haven’t even really delved into the underlying mystery of why these two weirdos are living like this in the first place.
I don’t think there was any question that it was Kengo’s drug gang that had kidnapped Osanai-san. And given the revelations at the end of last week’s episode – and what we know of Yuki’s character – it seemed very likely she was the one who narced on the ringleader. The interesting thing here is watching Jougorou struggle to not enjoy himself at having a real case to solve. He knows it’s wrong – his sweets-wife has been abducted – but he just can’t help himself. In that light the fact that she seems to have orchestrated the whole thing as a sort of present to him is rather ironic.
For me at least the ship has long since sailed on Shoushimin Series being remotely realistic (in a way it never did with Hyouka, by the way). Most of these scenarios play out in rather silly fashion, but they can be entertaining as long as you don’t apply the realism standard. One thing that bugs me here is how Yuki sent the text (or LINE, or whatever it was) to Jougorou. Fine, she knew she was being kidnapped, but as far as I knew there was no way to send a scheduled text or LINE message on iPhone at least. As it turns out there is and I’m just old, though it does take about 20 steps.
Another rather silly detail is that in all of Gifu City Isawa happened to take Osanai to an abandoned gymnasium perfectly on a line between two of the ten places she’d marked on her sweetie map. The odds of that are, frankly, ludicrously small. Or perhaps Yuki is so many moves of 5-D chess ahead that she knew where Isawa-san would take her. In any event Jougorou had no trouble with her mystery event – once he got the text he found her in about 2 minutes. Next time she gets kidnapped she should make it a little harder to solve.
If indeed Osanai-san has staged (or orchestrated) the whole thing – as Jougorou flat-out accuses her of at the end – it seems like a pretty appalling risk. She did get roughed up a little, not to mention poor Kengo winds up going to the hospital in an ambulance, not that either of them can be bothered to accompany him. I want answers if I’m honest, and “Yuki orchestrated the whole thing to entertain Kobato-kun” is not an answer. Or if it is, then the real question is what sort of person is she that she would do something like that?
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