ME1: Honobu Yonezawa's Gifu Day 1
A travelogue/diary entry masquerading as an exploration of Shoushimin and Hyouka, anime adaptations of Honobu Yonezawa’s mystery novels.
ME is a (potential) series of posts that are more tabloid-esque columns rather than traditional anime reviews. Expect a lot of personal opinions and experiences.
The point of art is not to be great but to make it transparently obvious that there is something wrong with you.
What does it mean to care for someone? A reductive statement would be “To want the best for someone, and help them in that pursuit”. Which, annoyingly, only begs more questions like “What does ‘the best’ mean, and in whose eyes”, and “How far against someone’s wishes should one go to inform them of ‘the best’”. At what point does wanting ‘the best’ for someone turn into hubris and infringement of free will?
By the way, on the subject of Mystery Detective shows, there’s a new one airing this season (Winter 2025) called Ameku MD (they turned my homie House MD into an anime girl, somebody stop Japan), check it out.
Day 1
I traveled to Gifu with the express purpose of undertaking an anime pilgrimage, Shoushimin being the anime in question. Lapin Track’s staff, and especially Mamoru Kanbe, the director, made certain creative decisions in the course of adapting the first 2 novels of the Shoushimin Series into Season 1 which rendered the City of Gifu an irreplaceable character alongside our MC, Kobato Jogoro, our Female Character, Osanai Yuki, and our Deuteragonist, Dojima Kengo. Every frame is treated with care, and the ED is live footage of the city with our characters inserted in it, doing a great job of immersing the viewer in the sensation of what it’s like to be in Gifu. A wonderful tourist advert, dare I say, and one that makes me wonder if they were paid off by the Gifu tourism board. Good writing makes the reader believe they’re a part of the setting, and Honobu Yonezawa, hailing from Gifu Prefecture certainly does a good job in creating an impression of his hometown Takayama (fictionalised as Kamiyama) in Hyouka and the Prefectural Capital of Gifu in Shoushimin.
I boarded the Shinkansen after having navigated through the chaos of Akihabara, jostling through streets filled with hundreds of anime faithfuls post the successful completion of an errand to purchase a CD (in this age? Yeah, but mostly that’s how one acquires concert tickets in Japan), for a relaxing 90 min trip to Nagoya station (Mt Fuji, sadly, was invisible behind a sombre wall of clouds). A short 30 minute transfer later and I was in Gifu station, and the first thing that hit me was the sheer desolation of the place. There was barely anyone out on the streets, which is the general experience of Japan outside of the Tokyo/Osaka megapolis people magnets, and does reinforce the claims that most JP media make about the imminent birth rate crisis. But the hotel room was cheap, had free laundry facilities, and the night ramen was epic (they did not allow me inside the on-premise onsen cos of my tattoo, but gave me a free Yakult as an apology so yay). A quick shower later, and I was ready for my walk to Chuusetsu Bridge.
The premise of Shoushimin starts off pretty simple, and can be gleaned from the subtitle “How to become Ordinary”. The two MCs, Kobato and Osanai possess certain personality traits, and when they realise the impact these traits have on the people around them and how people view them, vow to help each other address these behaviours by keeping the other in check and aim to be easygoing “Ordinary Citizens” (yes there was a title drop right in Episode 1, screw you Keiichiro Saito and your Episode 8 title drops).
The MCs’ character traits are slowly revealed through the course of the show with immense payoff, and those sequences resonate with those who are aware of how they have behaved in the past and desire to make amends for it, with the most interesting question of all being raised “Can a person truly change and overwrite their fundamental programming without losing the essence of being themselves?”
Now of course, the above highly personal opinion completely glosses over the core genre of Honobu Yonezawa’s writing, which is Mystery. Honobu, like most mystery writers, understands and is bound by the usual rules of writing detective stories, and does a good job of deconstructing the basic structure of Sherlock Holmes in Hyouka and inverting it completely in Shoushimin, through the means of introducing little inconsequential mysteries in the daily lives of our characters, while providing plenty of opportunities to the viewers to make them feel they’re solving them alongside our characters.
In terms of character traits, Shoushimin largely carries over Hyouka’s disinterested but logical MC of Oreki Houtarou, but the biggest way in which Kobato Jogoro differs is the foundation for the disinterest. Kobato wanted to be a detective as a child, but quickly realized by middle school that his desire to rub unpleasant self-declared truths in the faces of those around him made him come across as arrogant and meddlesome, and decided to disengage from such intrusive activities. (Which is a lesson I too have had to painfully learn the hard way this year).
What about Osanai Yuki (Best Girl)? The dessert-obsessed soft-spoken reserved cute FMC is absolutely nothing like Hyouka’s Watson-esque FMC, Chitanda Eru, who was largely a foil and an imperative to push Oreki Houtarou into action, while Osanai Yuki is supposed to restrain Kobato Jogoro. I say supposed to, cos (Massive Spoilers) things happen. I love her character arc, the payoff is massive, and one can no longer say Honobu Yonezawa only writes inconsequential mysteries.
I would be amiss if I didn’t mention the deuteragonist and the MC’s friend, Dojima Kengo. The Watson/Chitanda to our reluctant Sherlock/Oreki, Dojima embodies the goody two-shoes Class President character, always stepping in to assist others in need, while giving it straight to those who need to hear it. Childhood friends separated during Middle School but reunited in High School, Dojima quickly notices Kobato’s change of heart, and tries to “correct” his ways in an imposing manner. But then again, aren’t all friendships imposing in essence? How much would one be willing to put up with the distortion of their boundaries by those considered friends?
Wait, Dojima is the Watson? Then who is Osanai, a Mrs Hudson? Or perhaps…
Now, I’ve made a lot of comparisons between the characters of Sherlock, Hyouka and Shoushimin. My friend says “Comparison is the thief of joy”. To him, I say “Bahh”, and will proceed to compare another important aspect between the adaptations of Honobu Yonezawa’s novels, animation.
The animation industry uses certain animation techniques to deepen the impact of a scene, which breaks the laws of the real world. Some techniques are:
- Chibi/Low Resolution drawings: Drawing the characters in a cuter smol way to make a particular situation funnier.
- Impact sequences: Action sequences with exaggerated motion, colours, and environmental damage.
- Backgrounds: The background/scenery suddenly switches to exaggerate the impact of a character’s actions.
- Strong OSTs: Usage of non-diegetic soundtrack music in a lot of sequences.
Now, Kyoto Animation animated Hyouka, which was released before Shoushimin, and in typical KyoAni fashion utilising all the above techniques, they did an excellent job. But I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I’m grateful to every producer out there that decided to go with Lapin Track for Shoushimin. I’m not saying KyoAni would’ve ruined it (I’m curious how they’d have done it, but there’s a high chance they’d have animated it exactly like Hyouka), but Shoushimin Director Mamoru Kanbe chose to eschew most traditional elements of anime and use the CinemaScope approach (pioneered by A-1 Studio while making Erased, and yes KyoAni have also used it occasionally), which is a movie-esque 2.35:1 aspect ratio, which really hammers home how “Ordinary” it all is supposed to be. A link to the full interview is provided below for interested readers, a few takeaways being:
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Animating a conversational sequence in a manner that grabs the viewer’s attention
This is where I believe Studio Shaft does an excellent job, cos let’s be honest, just watching two people chat in a stationary frame is very boring (which is what most of Blue Lock Season 2 is). Shaft, makers of Monogatari, Hidamari Sketch, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and many others, utilises jump cuts, exaggerated human movements, and unrealistic backgrounds to show a conversation in full flow. Lapin went the other direction, by choosing to change the location in the middle of a dialogue, which adds another dimension in grabbing the attention of the viewer by utilising tastefully animated spots of Gifu. In other sequences, while trying to visualise the actions of the perpetrator of a mystery, the animators use Kobato himself to enact the perp’s behavior. Realistic reality breakers, if I can use such a phrase.
A few more examples being:
Kobato and Kengo conversing in a classroom 
Suddenly find themselves at the starting point of the trek up to Gifu Castle 
Our MCs conversing in a Burger joint 
Find themselves at the Statue of Oda Nobunaga 
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OST Choices, immersion or immersion breaker..?
Don’t get me wrong, I love Anime OSTs as much, if not more, than the average anime viewer. Most of the albums saved on my phone are anime OSTs, and I use them as background music to liven up a typical day. Shoushimin however, decided that Gifu was good enough. Throughout the show, there’s only one major insert song used in almost every episode (but you don’t get bored of it) and like 3 other instrumental tracks that are infrequent.
In Mamoru’s words:
I wanted to minimize the background music as much as possible… since it’s a dialogue-heavy work, I thought that the visuals would hold up well enough with just the dialogue alone.
Most scenes lack BGM. The chirping of summer cicadas, the bustle of Gifu’s shopping streets, the songs played by establishments wafting in and out, and the traffic gave perfect company to our characters’ dialogues. The streets felt very familiar on my bipedal journey to both my eyes and ears, which brings me back to my trip. Where was I? Oh yeah, Chuusetsu bridge.
After having crossed the bridge, I walked to Gifu Tanmen’s Nagara branch, a ramen restaurant chain that is featured in one of the episodes and is known for serving a spicy variety of ramen called Tantanmen. In the episode, Dojima orders extra spicy ramen for the two of them, causing Kobato to cry. As an Indian, I was confident in my ability to tolerate spice and ordered the variant ominously and prophetically titled “Death Spicy”. And yes, this led to me regretting a lot of my life choices until this point, and massively deflated my hubris.
The fact that it had a Skull Danger sign and was called Death Spicy was apparently lost on my ego.
Ten minutes after consuming the above, I was in acute pain, in the middle of nowhere, and 7 km away from my hotel room. I cursed myself for every time I was overconfident in my abilities, and reflected upon Kobato’s reasons for wanting to be an ordinary citizen. Walking for 10 min through paddy fields at 10 pm in intense pain really does humble you. Thankfully, I stumbled upon a Pharmacy store in the middle of nowhere, and thanks to the help of the cute pharmacist, scored some medication that I expected would help.
It didn’t, at the beginning. Japanese medicine doesn’t exactly work the same way allopathic medication does, and I spent an hour cursing her and walking in abject pain, until I reached my hotel when it miraculously disappeared. Note to self: carry superior Allopathic medication.
Thus ended Day 1 of the Gifu pilgrimage, and the first post in my series, where I believe I spent a lot of time rambling about the animation and the setting of Gifu. Day/Post 2 will delve more into the story itself of Shoushimin, Hyouka and the average Sherlockesque method of writing Mystery stories, and a brief foray into the “Osanai Sweets Selection tour” of Gifu that led me to some delicious cake, with Day 3 wrapping up my thoughts on these series.
Japanese Name: 〈小市民〉シリーズ (Shoushimin Series, literally meaning “Small Citizens”)
Length: 10 episodes
Year: 2024
Studio: Lapin Track
Adapted from: Novel of the same name, by Honobu Yonezawa
Director: Mamoru Kanbe
Music: Takahiro Obata
Art Director: Akira Ito
More Info: MAL, Anilist, Wikipedia
Interview: https://shinseiki.blog/2024/08/29/mamoru-kanbe-interview-on-shoushimin-series/
Tangent 1: More pictures of Chuusetsu Bridge
Tangent 2: Some Gifu Carposting
Gorgeous Nissan GT-R Skyline R32 spotted from my Hotel Window
A Suzuki Alto Works Kei car, souped up by the factory. 660cc 3-cyl 64hp pocket rocket.
Tangent 3: An advert by the Polish Tourism Org on a train
Tangent 4: A crepe vending machine
Fin
The author of this article wishes to remain anonymous.
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