©Honobu Yonezawa/Tokyo Grassroots Society/Small Citizen Series Production Committee
Akechi Kogoro and the Black Lizard. Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. Kohane and Ouchi. None of these pairings are destined to be based solely on the fact that one member of the duo is a detective and the other is a criminal, but I can tell you right now that at least the first two have more intense stories than the others. . But then, Sieve It’s not about tension, it’s about the way we deceive ourselves and willingly be deceived by others.
It’s even hard to pin the blame on one side or the other, since Kobato seems to be the one deceiving himself. He declares at the beginning of the series that he wants to be “normal,” and then spends the next ten episodes proving that if he wants any such thing, it’s only on paper, or at least in the realm of his mind. In fact, Kobato enjoys being different──he want to Be the smartest guy in the room, a genius detective who can figure out the crime, then assemble the cast to demonstrate his brilliant reasoning to as many people as possible. He’s been doing this since the first episode, which makes for some mildly sweet irony when Ouchi sits him down to reveal her clever plot. Aside from Sanae’s brief appearance, though, Ouchi doesn’t bring all the players together: she quietly expresses her thoughts to Kohane and Kohane alone. Naganai doesn’t need to be the smartest woman in the room. She already knew she was.
This unwavering belief, along with the fact that she’s been using Kobato and is now basically the one who broke up with him, leads us to the real secret (or maybe “secret”) of this show all along: Kobato has always Ordinary, in the most prosaic, basic way. He wants someone to notice him, to appease his ego, and if that someone is a pretty, soft-spoken girl, so much the better. While he boasted about his desire to become ordinary, he also fully proved that he was already ordinary, and Nagauchi just took advantage of this. What is the reason why she can do it? Because in the final analysis, Ouchi is not “ordinary”. Ordinary people don’t spend half the school year coming up with a complicated plot to ensure that their middle school bully ends up in police custody. Ordinary people don’t plan kidnappings on their own. Perhaps the most “normal” thing she does is use Kobato to achieve her own ends…which in a way makes her no better than the girl she’s made out to be. What else has she done besides destabilizing others for her own ends?
I understand it to some extent. I also had a bad time in middle school, intentionally breaking an arm in gym class. But I don’t think that necessarily excuses what Nagauchi did, at least because she caused collateral damage. Sieve Never quite reaches its potential, either as a mystery or a statement about a mystery, or as a story about someone forced to see the world for what it is. When the van burned by the river in the final scene, my patience burned with it. Yes, this symbolizes the end of Ouchi and Kohane’s relationship and the kidnapping disaster, although it looks like Ouchi’s next target just agreed to go out for candy with her. But it’s also first and foremost a statement about Kobato and Ouchi’s relationship: one that she designed for her own benefit but destroyed when she no longer needed it. It does feel like a very hollow ending.
grade:
SHOSHIMIN: How to become ordinary Currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
