The bubble is still pretty crowded this season, and Kyokou Suiri hasn’t quite managed to burst it yet.  But it’s getting close, as I feel the allure of Shirodaira’s weirdness and a surprisingly vibrant production from Brain’s Base beginning to suck me in.  The phrase “attention to detail” keeps popping into my head.  The anime has it, as witness the impressive level of said detail it manages to cram into this episode (and otherwise).  And when you rely on dialogue and exposition as much as Shirodaira does, you have to get the little things right or everything starts to fall apart quickly.  Especially when so much of the story is built around bullshit – like any lie, the more complicated it is the harder to keep it straight.

I’ve come to rather like Saki-san, not least because Fukuen Misato is one of anime’s best seiyuu and rarely gets a chance to play a role straight like this.  Her verbal (and occasionally physical) sparring with Kotoko continues to be amusing.  Kotoko appears to be mired deep in delusion where Kuro is concerned, though it would be foolish to make any firm judgments on his feelings yet.  It’s also interesting to speculate on whether Saki still has feelings for Kuro – clearly she still has interest in him but that’s not the same thing.  If she did, I suspect she’d consider herself undeserving of another shot because of the way she threw him over when she learned his true nature.

The Steel Nanase story continues to dominate the narrative, and I suspect it’s going to have lasting implications even once the mystery is solved.  Nanase has a voice, thanks to flashbacks, and it’s Uesaka Sumire.  We’re filled in on some details of her life and death – because really, what is a Shirodaira series if not exposition on top of exposition?  Her father died in an accident, which may or may not have been her doing.  She had a role in a late-night drama – and here’s where some of that attention to detail comes in, because Brain’s Base animated the entire OP (and it’s a good one, too – though the visuals are hilariously discordant with the lyrics).  They even gave Nanase Karin a real website and twitter account.

Meanwhile Kuro has disappeared, leaving behind only a text saying “don’t look for me”.  It’s pretty obvious he’s mixed up in the Nanase madness so it comes as no surprise when he turns up at the end of the episode, but his disappearance does occasion more amusing verbal repartee between Kotoko and Saki.  Kotoko and Saki each pursue the Nanase case from their own angles, metaphysical and material, though it’s clear they’re going to be uneasy allies at some point and for good reason Saki fully believes that Nanase is a spirit.  Even Detective Terada seems open to the idea, though his comment that she seemed “artificial” strikes me as perhaps the key line of the episode (though with ten normal eps worth of dialogue in one Shirodaiara ep, that’s always a tough call to make).

We also got a wonderful cameo from Tobita Nobuo as Genichirou, the little tree spirit Kotoko sends (with a warning to watch out for her violent nature) to ask Saki for assistance in tracking down info on Nanase Karin’s death.  His appearance – knocking at the window as Saki is thinking spooky thoughts about Nanase after viewing her website – is itself one of the most entertaining sequences of the episode.  The charms of this show are much like this – quirky, esoteric, the kind of “you had to be there” moments that made Zetsuen no Tempest’s first cour such a head-scratchingly addictive proposition.  Addictive is a good way to describe Shirodaira’s appeal – and in typical fashion, after a modest start it’s really starting to assert itself with In/Spectre.