HIDIVE’s continuing to bring back some times to up their streaming service with shows that lapsed earlier or they didn’t handle. The latest one is for the Beautiful Bones: Sakurako’s Investigation series. With home video releases available with a new edition in the last couple of years in North America, UK distributor Anime Limited announced recently a new home video release there that I missed. The set was released through them as a collector’s edition on March 25th, 2024 priced at £69.99. It’s a two-disc Blu-ray set that’s in Japanese and English but coded for Region B.
The set comes with a 68-page art booklet and comes packed in a rigid case, and inside that an Amaray case to contain the two Blu-ray discs.
Check out our review of the North American release.
The staff for the show has Makoto Kato directing it at studio TROYCA based on scripts by Takayo Ikami. Makoto Bessho is serving as the assistant director while Michio Sato is on board as the character designer and chief animation director.
The cast includes Shizuka Itou as Sakurako Kujyō, Junya Enoki as Shōtarō Tatewaki, Ayaka Imamura as Yuriko Kōgami, Masako Isobe as Housekeeper / Ume Sawa, Hiroki Takahashi as Hiroki Utsumi, Akira Ishida as Itsuki Isozaki and Tetsuya Kakihara as Haruto Imai.
The light novels come from Shiori Ota and the work translates as A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako’s Feet. The property originally appeared on a Japanese writing community site a few years ago and Kadokawa picked up the property in 2013. It’s gotten illustrations by Tetsuo and there’s been three radio dramas for it as well, giving it a pretty decent reach overall.
The series features the opening theme song “Dear Answer” by True while “Uchiyoserareta Bokyaku no Zankyo ni” by Technoboys Pullcraft Green-Fund feat. Yuki Ootake handles the ending theme song.
Plot concept: Shotaro Tatewaki knows that Sakurako Kujo isn’t a normal person. After all, most young women have multiple interests revolving around things like work, fashion, and sports, but Sakurako is fixated on just one thing: bones. While she already has a huge collection of them, mostly animal, she’s always trying to gather more, especially those of the human variety. This can be quite a problem for Shotaro: especially since he and Sakurako have a positively unnatural aptitude for discovering dead bodies together. Fortunately, Sakurako is a naturally brilliant detective who unearths the mystery of what happened to the owners of those bones, but it’s up to Shotaro to make apologies for Sakurako’s odd quirks and tendency to make off with the evidence. It’s a grave business that can leave him literally bone-tired, but for the wheels of justice to turn, there are always more skeletons to be bared and new secrets to be exhumed in BEAUTIFUL BONES – SAKURAKO’S INVESTIGATION -.
