Kyokou Suiri Episode 1~3: Kotoko is this season’s best character

Kyokou Suiri turned out very similar to what I had hoped for. From being super natural triller to a fun witty comedy, the show was quite a joy for the first three episodes.

Right off the bat, I can say that my favorite thing about this show is Iwanaga Kotoko. First, her character design is absolutely fantastic. Her whole outfit with the frilly dress and beret hat with the huge ribbon on the back really goes well with her curly hair and general young-ish look. Her eyelashes are also very unique in the way they surround her eyes being colored like her hair. Her expressions are really pretty fun and expressive (the cat face at the end of episode three got me laughing quite a bit. Her personality is also really fun. The way she acts so happily around Kurou and the way she talks to the youkai all come off very playful. I mean she waited two years for Kurou to break up with his girlfriend to get the chance to ask him out. Although it was very dialogue heavy, the first scene where she confesses was really fun because of her personality and the way she spoke. The voice acting is another part that I think fit very well with Kotoko’s character. Her clingy and outgoing personality is portrayed really well by the upbeat yet slightly deep tone of Kitou Akari. I can go as far to say that Kotoko is definitely my favorite character this season. 

The concept of the show is also interesting. Unlike most mystery shows that spend its time on trying to solve the case, Kyokou Suiri’s mystery spends its time making a solution for the case. Kotoko’s only reason for solving these cases are to convince the youkais of what happened so they don’t have to be restless. This means she has no real incentive to find definite proof for the answer, just the most convincing one that fits the given info. Although I felt a little bitter since I hoped to find the real motives of the killer, their conversation in the car about possible solutions afterwards cleared that up for me a little. I don’t know how well this concept will hold up in the future, but from what I’ve seen it’s definitely interesting enough to keep me entertained and I’ll just have to accept that a hard solution in this show will never be given.

I liked how they separated the episodes even though I know that both the ending of episode two and three were both made that way to create that cliffhanger. Although the snake arc ending only around 5 or so minutes in the three episodes was somewhat frustrating, I think this allowed the time skip to fit in a little better. After finishing the second episode, I had fully expected the third episode to start off with a solution to the case that would be given very quickly, (which I was not wrong) then move on to the aftermath of the case with more scenes of witty dialogue between Kotoko Kurou, then end with some foreshadowing of the next event. This would be more typical and would allow the arc to end on a more smooth note along with the episode. But because there is a sudden two year time skip, I think that having an episode start in such fashion may be a bit too sudden and boring to watch, especially with the police scene that happened in the middle of episode three. Do I think that they could have done it better? Yes. But at least as it is now, the viewers are kind of eased into the next episode even with the confusing time skip. 

I think the worst part about the show is that it can get slightly boring. The whole show really relies on dialogue to the point where I’m surprised this isn’t a light novel adaptation. Although the dialogue can be fun with interesting characters like Kotoko, without her, the show seemed to drag a little.  When the cops started talking in the later bits of the third episode, I couldn’t care the slightest. This may be because I didn’t pay enough attention to realize that the cop girl was Kurou’s ex but regardless, hearing a random conversation of characters I didn’t care about, just sitting and eating for 10 minutes, was awfully boring. Again, had I known that the cop girl was Kurou’s ex a little sooner, I may have found her trauma to be a lot more interesting. But it’s hard to remember those details two weeks.

A lot of things are still left unexplained and the way that Kurou and Kotoko kinda continued on after the events of the first episodes left me with questions but having the third episode end the way it did, I can’t wait to see the character dynamics with the new character. To me, Kyokou Suiri looks like a fun show with a few holes that won’t be too bothersome.