The Shoushimin Series or How to Become Ordinary is a Japanese Novel written by Honobu Yonezawa. He also wrote the popular Classic Literature Club Series or Hyouka. It received a beloved anime adaptation in 2012. Fans have been waiting for a second season ever since.
Now in 2024, we didn’t quite get a second season. But we did get an anime adaptation of Yonezawa’s Shoushimin series. Another mystery novel similar to Hyouka.
Lapin Track adapted the series and titled it Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary. The studio is best known for Undead Girl Murder Farce.
The studio got Mamoru Kanbe to direct it; he is best known for directing The Promised Neverland. How to Become Ordinary recently finished airing its 10 episodes. They have already announced a second season.
Synopsis
Jougarou Kobato has a bad habit of doing “wisdom work” or playing detective. It led to a bad middle school experience. Now entering high school, he and Yuki Osanai made an agreement to become ordinary students from then on.
As they go through their new life as high schoolers they attempt to keep their promise. But the duo get into mysterious scenarios which leads them to not being able to fulfill their promise.
What I liked
Concept of the Story
I am a huge fan of Hyouka, so I got excited when I saw the trailer for this anime. They are both extremely similar in concept. The concept being solving simple trivial mysteries in everyday life.
An example from the anime is when the main characters try to deduct how their friend made hot cocoa efficiently.
It does seem boring when explained. However the writing of Yonezawa and the vision of Director Kanbe make the concept more interesting.
Characters
The main duo also enhance the concept of the story. Kobato is addicted to solving all kinds of mysteries. He loved the attention he got from his classmates. His classmates began to dislike and avoid him. They took it as Kobato showing off. This caused his classmates to shun him in middle school.
Nowadays he tries to stay quiet and normal. He tries not to play detective, but he and Osanai encounter a lot of mysteries unintentionally and his old habits die hard.
On the other hand, Osanai is a quiet girl, but becomes talkative about desserts. She shows no emotion. However she is fashionable, to the point that her outfits don’t match her personality.
In the anime we learn she loves taking revenge on those who do her wrong. She never forgets what people did to her, and she will do anything to get back at them tenfold.
The dynamic between the main duo isn’t something new. We see the same dynamic between the main characters in other well-known anime. Some examples are Oregairu, Classroom of the Elite and even Death Note.
Everything is Movie Quality
I think that the director intentionally made everything in production be more than an ordinary anime. The series is of movie quality, they obviously put a lot of thought into the production.
VFX & Animation
The animation is movie quality, Lapin Track did an amazing job with it. From the first few seconds of the pilot episode I could tell the quality would be great.
The studio also decided to create the series in a wide screen aspect ratio. Something rare for an anime series. We would normally only see this in anime films, even then it’s still rare. The aspect ratio helps focus on the well done animation and VFX. It also gives it a high-quality feel to the series.
Even the opening sequence and ending sequence look way better than a lot of other series’, animation wise.
SFX & Soundtrack
An aside: there was one time in the show where the studio had placed a kind of knocking sound. I was wearing earphones and I thought someone was knocking on my door in real life.
I thought the SFX and soundtrack used were perfect. Nothing felt out of place to me.
The well known Japanese Band Eve did the opening theme song. They have done a lot of other anime opening theme songs such as the Jujutsu Kaisen one. The band ammo did the ending theme.
What I Thought Could Have Been Better
More Backstory
We get a slight backstory to why Kobato wants to become an ordinary person. However we don’t get a full backstory of why Osanai made that agreement with him. The upcoming season two in 2025 could easily resolve this.
But if there is no backstory, I think it’s fine as is. This story is of the mystery genre overall, so maybe Yonezawa wrote it to be that way.
Would I Recommend the How to Become Ordinary Anime?
If you are a fan of Hyouka, I highly recommend this. It has a similar concept, but the character dynamic is way different. The main duo in this anime aren’t Chitanda and Oreki, they share similarities but have more differences.
The production is far superior to Hyouka, which is expected since Hyouka is over 10 years old.Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary is only 10 episodes long. You can finish it in one or two sittings.
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