Tag: mystery

Spring 2015 capsules

A few words on Vampire Holmes, first. It’s an adaptation of a… smartphone game app (!) as a series of barely-animated shorts ; the premise is that this Holmes completely sucks at using reason… not that it stops him from solving the crimes. It’s supposed to be funny, but this one joke is way too slight to support even a 3-minute short, let alone a whole season of it. Don’t bother with this one.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015.

 

Oh, frack it, I’m not doing a full review of Wish Upon the Pleiades (Houkago no Pleiades). For one thing, I already reviewed the pilot web-thingy 4 years ago, and this first episode is a slightly abbreviated version of the same story. I think Gainax reanimated the whole thing thanks to that sweet Subaru money, but I can’t be arsed to track the original version down to compare.

Anyway, it’s still as boring and utterly bizarre as a use of a sponsor’s money (the magical girls’ brooms roar like motorbikes ! The main character is named Subaru ! And, er, that’s it for product placement…) ; I can only fathom that the few people left at Gainax needed the money, no questions asked.

 

On Sunday aired a short called Rainy Cocoa (Ame-iro Cocoa), about a bunch of handsome dudes running a café. It’s a string of mediocre jokes and stereotypical characterization that just abruptly stops because we’ve hit the 2-minute mark. (There’s technically a cliffhanger with a dude suddenly showing up, but come on now.) Nothing to see there.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

 

A few words on a couple of shorts, first.

BAR Kiraware Yasai features a bunch of vegetables having a drink and complaining about how nobody likes them. It’s mildly cute as a concept, and at least it’s a joke that fits the “series of shorts” format, but there’s nothing particularly compelling in the execution to make me come back next week.

Urawa no Usagi-chan is *COME TO URAWA CITY* a series of shorts featuring a girl called Usagi *PLEASE COME, WE’RE DESPERATE ENOUGH TO COMMISSION THIS* who has utterly normal fri- *NO SERIOUSLY, WE NEED YOUNG PEOPLE TO COMPENSATE OUR POPULATION’S AGING* -ends *TOURISTS ARE FINE TOO*…

Excuse me, please wait a second.

/Shoots the representative from Urawa City’s tourism board.

Now, that’s better. Unfortunately, while there’s enough budget to make this look decent, the producers forgot to include anything like a plot, characters doing anything, or even the glimmer of a single joke. It’s just a scene that lasts for more that three minutes and accomplishes nothing in that duration.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

 

No full review for Saint Seiya : Soul of Gold. I’m not sure whether this is a proper sequel or just a side-story ; the premise is that a good chunk of the supprting cast sacrificed themselves in the Hades arc (which I haven’t watched), and now at least some of them find themselves surprisingly not dead (or maybe undead), in Asgard of all places. And of course there’s something nasty going on there.

This is a perfectly alright on all levels : it looks alright, it quickly establishes the premise and the first miniboss, and even takes the time to allude to the Lion Gold Saint’s origin story as a stab to make him engaging as a protagonist. There’s even a weird cliffhanger to make the viewer question what’s really going on. Quite competent all around… It’s just that unlike the Latin-American market who demands the franchise to be revived every few years, I have no particular nostalgia for Saint Seiya (easy “endless stair-climbing” jokes aside), so I don’t particularly care about this project. Not for me, I guess.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 5.

 

Now for the final straggler… and there’s no way in hell I’m doing a full review of Ninja Slayer From Animation.

The signs should have been obvious. It’s adapted from an elaborate prank (an alleged “traduction” of an American novel, serialized on Twitter). Episodes are barely 12-minute-long, and broadcast only on NicoNico over in Japan. (They’re in a goddarn 4/3 format !) They got the Inferno Cop guy to direct it. Of course it was going to turn out to be a no-budget, no-plot “gonzo parody”.

The thing is, this is actually much worse than Inferno Cop. I may not have liked it, but that show had personality and embraced its own lunacy. It wasn’t boring like this crap, and its shorter episode length made for much better pacing. Ninja Slayer, on the other hand, has an even thinner premise (“dude who hates ninjas gets reborn as a ninja who kills ninjas”), characters with no depth whatsoever, and just piles on cliché after cliché without ever doing anything interesting with them. It doesn’t even have the guts of going all paperdoll-style like Inferno Cop, instead having random bursts of semi-decent animation that make it look even more boring.

The only kind thing I can say here is that it’s got good colour design, and an okayish soundtrack. Everything else about it is pure, unadultered crap. Congratulations, Ninja Slayer ! You’re easily the worst show this season, and by far.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 6.

Magic Kaitou 1412

(24 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Spin-off of Detective Conan about a kid Gentleman Thief. This already got a few TV movies over the years, but here it seems we’re getting a fresh start from the ground up.

Characters

Kaito, our protagonist, is your average lecherous high-schooler… scratch that, he’s an incredible illusionist who constantly enacts pranks and can still solve complex math problems (as well as look up the teacher’s panties) in the middle of them. One of his signature tricks involves putting on a fake head as he’s standing upside down, and his others are similarly impossible-looking.

Aoko, his long-suffering childhood friend and neighbour, isn’t a slouch in the smarts department either, and she would very much like him to cut the crap. Her father happens to be the kind of caricaturally incompetent police inspector you often see in those series. Kaitou often eats out at their home, as his mother is always on the move (sometimes abroad), and his father…

Well, his father was a stunt artist who “died” 8 years ago in an “accident”. But he was really “Kaito Kid”, a genius Gentleman Thief who also stopped making waves 8 years ago (for obvious reasons). Kaito’s just learned about his legacy, just as a Kaito Kid copycat has started showing up. Obviously, he’s going to investigate the fake and retake his legacy ! (And also follow up on the hints that Dad was murdered.) And as it turns out, Kaito Kid was Aoko’s father’s white whale…

Production Values

Perfectly okay, although there’s no way to make Kaito’s stunts look even remotely credible. The show does try its best, though.

Taku Iwasaki produces the score, and while it’s less wild than most of his recent production, it’s still very good.

Overall Impression

On the one hand, this is a deeply silly show. (Why the heck would Kaito’s dad choose such a revealing stagename ?) And Kaito’s panty-watching antics are quite aggrievating indeed for anyone above the age of 12.

… Still, it does have its charm ; it starts finding its feet towards the second half as the plot kicks in and Kaito gets to be something other than a jerk. And, well, I’m a sucker for mysteries, which are rather thin on the ground in anime ; together with Iwasaki on board, there’s a good chance I’m going to stick with this.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 2.

Summer 2014 capsules

But before all that, a few words about Sword Art Online II : well, so far, it’s not doing a bad job of not rubbing me the wrong way, like Alfheim Online did. The writing is still pretty poor (go, go, tepid exposition !), but the setup of bringing in Kirito to investigate a bizarre murder spree in a new game setting is a decent one. (Also, anything that marginalizes the absence of chemistry he’s got with Asuna is welcome.) I might still watch this after all.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2014 – Page 3.

A couple of shorts before moving on to the full Monday shows…

Mobile Suit Gundam-san is yet another of those comedy SD skits Sunrise puts out occasionally. (This one adapted from a 4-panel gag manga.) It starts off by an Austin Powers-style naked dance by Char, which should give you an idea of the high level of humour we’re dealing with here. It’s mildly funny, but nothing to go out of your way for.

Secret Princess Himegoto adapts a manga about a pretty boy being blackmailed into crossdressing by the student council. It’s got a main character called Unko (“Poop”). That kinda sums up my opinion of it.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2014 – Page 4.

So, Persona 4 The Golden Animation. I reviewed the original series back in 2011 ; this is a weird spin-off that adapts an updated rerelease of the game.

The selling point here, apparently, is a new character being added to the main cast, Marie. The script thus chooses wisely to fast-forward through a very bare bones version of the plot (skipping all the business related to Konishi), so that Marie can get 5 minutes or so of screentime after the end credits. To say that her introduction feels very forced an unnatural is an understatement ; she’s just dropped in without any explanation by the gamemaster. The core problem here is that this series is at its best with deadpan weirdness, and Marie’s way too melodramatic to fit in. So, well, it doesn’t quite work.

(By the way, the whole thing seems to have been reanimated from scratch, with a somewhat higher budget ; every single scene is slightly different from the previous series.)

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2014 – Page 5.

Black Butler – Book of Circus spends its first episode re-establishing the premise with a “Day in the Life of Sebastian Michaelis”… Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as it’s a charming setup, and the script does get to play a bit with clever ellipses. I’ve got no clue where this would fit in continuity, but it’s not like this franchise ever sweats this kind of fine detail.

Anyway, this is good fun, and I’m glad it’s back.

(Also, no Grell whatsover for now, which is a definite plus in my book.)

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2014 – Page 5.

Hey, someone finally fansubbed the first episode of Fran♥cesca : Girls Be Ambitious, more than a week after it aired !

… Having had a look at it, I can easily see why nobody bothered to do it for so long.

The high concept is that this is a series of 11-minute episodes built around a recently-created mascot character for Hokkaido, the titular Francesca. Who happens to be some sort of undead idol or something. But she barely shows up at the end of the first episode ; in practice, it mainly features the head of the anti-undead Hokkaido forces (of course a cute sassy girl) investigating killing the shit out of a recent surge of zombies rising from the ground. Also, tons of jokes that probably make sense to people who know of Hokkaido’s culture, but are completely impenetrable to me.

As far as promotional vehicles from tourism boards go, this one at least has the merit of originality. But that’s pretty much it ; it looks badly-animated (is this Flash-based ?), and at its core it’s comedy where I don’t get most of the jokes. (Which don’t look that funny, anyway.)

I’ll pass.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2014 – Page 8.

Nanana’s Buried Treasure (Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin)

(11 episodes, noitaminA)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a series of supernatural/adventure light novels.

Characters

Jugo, our protagonist. He’s moved to the “island of students”, which sounds like a great place but leaves him with a tight budget. The rent having to be paid in advance should have raised a warning flag, but now he’s stuck in this apartment.

Nanana, the ghost living in the room. Basically a NEET, since she can’t leave. And it doesn’t take much time for her to gain the upper hand in this cohabitation. Her background is fascinating : she was the leader of the seven student who founded the whole place, and the one who provided the funds (from a mysterious treasure) to bankroll it. The circumstances of her assassination are opaque, to say the least.

Ms Shiki, the owner of the apartment block, was another of the seven founders. She’s renting the room on purpose so that Nanana will be less lonely.

Production Values

This looks great : the island looks like a great place to live, and the architect seems to have gone to town with the weird but awesome-looking buildings and monuments. The opening adventuring sequence features some great animation, too.

Overall Impression

This is a lot of fun. The premise is promising, the Jugo/Nanana interplay works, and the progressive exposition is well-paced. It’s just brimming with joy, and that’s hard to dislike.

Of course I’ll keep watching it.

Kindaichi’s Case Files RETURNS (Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R)

(26 episodes)

What’s it about ?

This is the revival of a well-regarded 1997-2000 TV series, which itself adapted a long-running manga. (I’m not sure whether this new series directly adapts some of the manga or involves original material. The plot does involve smartphones, after all.)

The gimmick is that this is a fairplay whodunnit mystery series, with each arc mostly self-contained.

Characters

Kindaichi, our protagonist, is the archetypal “brilliant but lazy” high-school protagonist. He’s the grandson of a famous (fictional) detective, whom this series can’t actually name because of a lawsuit from the original author. Ahem. Anyway, he’s himself a great amateur detective, which is very useful as he can’t make two steps without stumbling into a new murder case.

Miyuki, his childhood friend who’s always hanging around him, hint hint nudge nudge. This arc’s plot involves her getting scouted by a model agency because she looks just like a fashion model who’s just disappeared, which should have rung some alarm bells. So the pair of them are invited to a fashion show in Hong Kong.

There are half a dozen suspects for the inevitable murder that ensues, helpfully introduced one by one by the script. Usually they start dropping like flies until only half are left and Kindaichi unmasks the culprit.

The location move to Hong Kong prevents most of the usual (sparse) supporting cast from showing up, although there’s a game attempt by Saki, an underclassman of the duo, who conveniently happens to be visiting Hong Kong with his parents. You don’t say.

Production Values

There’s been a fresh coat of paint to update the series to modern standards, but it’s still more than a bit old-fashioned. It still has all the signature gimmicks (such as the suspect grid where they’re crossed out one by one as they die), and even the music’s a rearrangement of the old tunes.

Overall Impression

I can’t be objective with this one. I’m a mystery nut in general, and I’ve always enjoyed what little of the original series I could lay my hands on. This is basically more of the same ; self-contained enough to be accessible, but I’m not sure how appealing it can be for a modern audience.

Still, I’m obviously going to watch this for as long as it lasts.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2014 – Page 2.

Winter 2014 Capsules

Double Circle is quite a bizarre project. It spends most of its short screentime introducing its cast of quirky oddballs (that aren’t too interesting yet), until the reveal that they’re actually a sentai hero team. This is quite a gear change, to put it mildly. Apparently this series was produced by Toshiba to promote its clean-energy and environment-friendly projects ; that it’s barely visible in the final product might speak of a core problem. Anyway, it’s fairly generic and the irregular release schedule makes it pretty sure to fall off my radar by the time the next episode is out.

Pupipo! is more conventional stuff. This manga adaptation tells the story of a gloomy girl who’s the only one who can see the many ghosts surrounding her. Presumably they stick around her because she’s the only one who can interact with them ; unfortunately, they’re quite jealously demanding her attention, and she has to fend off any attempts from kids her age trying to be friends with her, lest they get attacked. This understandably puts a crimp onto her social life. This all changes one day when (1) she meets a girl too stupid and stubborn to back off like everyone else, and (2) she finds “Po”, a mysterious creature that looks like a fuzzy pink ball and is scary enough to make the ghosts start behaving a bit.

It’s a standard coming-of-age story, clearly aimed at young girls ; but it’s decently done, and quite good at developing its atmosphere. The gloomy protagonist has a striking design, as well. And it’s short enough not to overstay its welcome ; I could quite see myself sticking with it for the whole season.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014.

Okay, I tried watching Future Card Buddyfight, but there’s only so much I can stand from a blatant cardgame advertisement. Everyone gushing about how awesome Buddyfight is ? Check. The whole world revolving around it, to the point that this cop offers a criminal a choice between surrender, and duelling him at a cardgame ? Check. School classes that include unpacking new cards at the start of the lesson ? Okay, that’s a new one for me, but whatever. Blatant token introductions for a dozen of bit characters that are obviously going to be featured later on ? Par for the course.

Sigh, I’m just not in the market for this. It actually looks quite fine, and there are some decent jokes, but I just can’t get any enthusiasm into watching this. The two annoying protagonists (good samaritan kid and his new dragon-buddypet that just can’t stop complaining about everything) just get on my nerves way too much.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 2.

I tried, but I just can’t gather the will to write at length about Robot Girls Z. It’s a very gimmicky show (mecha-girls patterned after mecha from vintage shows such as Mazinger Z) that falls completely flat for me. I have no nostalgia for those old series (they were before my time), and the actual machines are what I find the least interesting in that genre anyway ; crossing them with moe girls doesn’t help. And it’s not like these shorts really do anything with the premise aside from pure fanservice.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 4.

Strange+ is yet another of those shorts adapting a gag manga. (Not a 4-panel one, though.) It follows the wacky hijinks of a team of “detectives”, and while it’s far from subtle, it did get a few laughs out of me. It looks terrible, but that’s par for the course for this kind of thing.

I know some of you were waiting for my take on pupa, but what is there to say ? I already had an inkling of what I was in for, and anyway the first episode barely gets anywhere, what with clocking at barely four minutes long. For what it’s worth, it’s a straightforward horror series about a girl who gets transformed into a cannibalistic monster ; we don’t even get to the part where she starts eating her brother. Still, it’s good at building atmosphere, and that’s what really matters. I’ll probably keep watching to see where it goes.

Z/X Ignition is a full-length show, but it was so boring I literally fell asleep halfway through ; and I have no wish whatsoever to try rewatching it to get a better sense of the plot. From what I can gather, a bunch of dark portals appeared all over the world, spawned monsters and “destroyed civilization” ; somehow civilization seems mostly fine a few years later, with some people having somehow domesticated monsters. There’s a lot of impenetrable exposition about monster classification and so on, because of course this is adapted from a card game.

To be honest, I have no clue whatsoever which of the characters I’m supposed to be rooting for. They’re all very generic, I seem to have missed out the part where their motivations get explained. Not even a lead role for Miyuki Sawashiro (whom I’ve surprisingly heard nowhere else this season) can make me pay attention to this crap.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 5.

Hamatora the Animation

What’s it about ?

A back-alley team of Private Investigators. Who happen to have super-powers, and occasionally fight super-powered crime.

(There’s a manga version being published concurrently.)

Characters

Nice is nominally the PI agency’s leader, but it’s like herding cats, and his occasional stubborness doesn’t help. A running joke is that he’s terrible at managing his finances. His case this episode : investigating the disappearance of several college girls. (He also effortlessly foils a bank robbery while making a withdrawal.) His power : listening to music makes him super-fast, I think.

Murasaki is his purple-themed partner. He’s much more suave and sophisticated, but just as stubborn. He takes the case that will actually provide them some decent money : protecting the safe of a rich family, whose patriarch has died without explaining how to open it. His power : either super-strength or super-resiliency, I can’t quite tell.

Also working with them : laid-back Birthday (electrical powers) and Dr Ratio (x-ray vision that lets him see weak points in enemies), who both take a bodyguarding job.

Rounding up the agency’s cast : Koneko, who acts as their secretary, and Hajime, a gluttonous girl that even the opening titles have no clue what she brings to the table. Also : the owner of the restaurant they operate out of.

Art is a police detective who’s old friends with Nice. He seems delighted to have the team’s help for what the police don’t have time to deal with. (He’s the one footing the bill for the first case.) There are hints he’s got a hidden agenda, though.

As it happens, all three jobs are actually different angles on the same case ; they solve it together by the episode’s end.

Production Values

Very stylish indeed. The wild colour shift for the slo-mo power activation sequences are especially pretty.

Overall Impression

Hey, that’s actually quite good ! The mystery story is well-constructed, the characters produce some lively banter, there are some decent jokes, and the fight scenes are fun to watch. That it’s not actually an adaptation of anything even gives me hope that it’ll be able to properly pace its story out (an issue that has plagued many recent shows also directed by Seiji Kishi).

So far, so good. Let’s see how it develops.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 4.

Hyouka – You can’t escape

(21 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A high school detective club.

Characters

Houtarou, our protagonist. He’s usually a partisan of minimum effort, but here he strong-armed by his sister (an alumni of this same high school) into reopening the “Classics Club”, which had no members left. He’s actually quite a clever guy once you get to know him (if you’re not rebuked by his unwillingness to do anything unnecessary).

Satoshi, his best friend for years. He’s very obviously the exposition guy, and relishes in it (calling himself with pride “a database of useless knowledge” at one point). He’s not above starting rumors on his own, either.

Chitanda, a girl they found in the clubroom, and who’s very interested in it. (And so, Houtarou immediately dumps the presidency onto her.) She’s fascinated by mundane mysteries, school urban legends and the like. She’s a bit gullible, to say the least.

Whatever the club is actually about (it apparently has something of a reputation), they never get around to going into any Classic Litterature in this episode ; instead they obsess over several of the most low-key and low-stakes mysteries I’ve ever witnessed. Although it’s mostly an excuse to showcase each character’s personality.

Production Values

You can tell this is a Kyoto Animation production : the animation is wonderfully fluid, and there’s a marvellous attention to detail in the body language and the backgrounds ; every single walk-on extra feel like they have a personality and a story of their own. (Witness in the opening scene that dude desperately trying to do some homework in the deserted classroom and getting progressively more annoyed at Houtaru and Satoshi talking so loudly behind him !)

This isn’t the most visually creative show of the season (aside from that fun little “mystery of the door” sequence and the random fantasy scenes “demonstrating” Houtarou and Chitanda’s chemistry), but it certainly has the best production values by far. (Yes, better than Fate/Zero.)

I’m not a fan of the soundtrack yet, but I could see it grow on me.

Overall Impression

In any other hands, this would have been a forgettable low-key mystery show. But the impressive care put into every single detail pays off at the end, when Houtarou gets to display some impressive sleuthing skills in a way that takes advantage of those details and is perfectly in line with his stated philosophy. And the solution to the “phantom club” mystery is a strong enough piece of writing to make me trust this is going somewhere. (I’m not spoiling it, because I loved getting surprised by it.) Also, I’m now sold on Houtarou (Yuuichi Nakamura is impeccable as always).

I’m definitely going to follow this one.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 15.

Dusk Maiden of Amnesia (Tasogare Otome x Amnesia)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A high school detective club who investigate ghost stories. And the club’s president is a ghost.

Characters

Okonogi, our point of view character for the first half of this episode. She seems to be the secretary of the club. She’s really, really stupid, and completely fails to pick up the numerous clues that there’s a ghost just next to her. Half of her interior monologue is devoted to how much she likes…

Teiichi, the vice-president of the club. He’s apparently got a sixth sense for paranormal events (although reading Okonogi’s thoughts is just a string of coincidences and misunderstandings). At the very least, he’s the only person who can see AND touch…

Yuuko, the club president, and a famous ghost haunting the school. It’s just that Okonogi is too dumb to make the connection. Since she’s invisible to most, she spends a lot of her time trolling people and flirting with Teiichi. She’s got some memory problems, hence the series’ title.

Kirie, the fourth member of the club. Somehow she can see Yuuko (the reason why isn’t explained in this episode, but becomes obvious once I did three seconds of research), and thus she spends most of her screentime being annoyed by her antics.

The gimmick in this episode is that you see the exact same sequence of events twice (down to the specific camera angles), first without and then with Yuuko and her dialogue. It’s not as successful as it could be, as most of it was perfectly obvious the first time around ; but there’s enough new material (especially Yuuko’s body language) for it not to feel like a waste of time.

Production Values

Impressive. The animation team goes out of its way to make even a simple corridor look cool, and the episode’s gimmick wouldn’t work without a great attention to detail and body language. There’s also some good use of colour for atmospheric effect. That said, there are some points later on where Okonogi’s hysterics devolve into SD shorthand.

Overall Impression

Hum. This is a decent setup episode ; the joke isn’t subtle, but it works. And of course, it looks great.

The problem is that, while we’ve now got a good handle on the characters, there’s no indication about where the show itself is going. Is the gang going to have random slice-of-life adventures ? Or is there a wider plot coming ? This episode doesn’t tell us, and so it’s hard to say yet whether the series can sustain 11 more episodes. (I really hope the gimmick was a one-shot, because otherwise it’s going to be bloody annoying.)

Well, at least I’m intrigued enough to check a couple more episodes out.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 7.

Lupin the IIIrd – The Woman called Fujiko Mine

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

The Lupin the IIIrd franchise has been around for decades (that’s where Miyazaki himself got his start), cranking out at least a new TV-movie a year ; this is the first new TV series in quite a while though.

Don’t let that history intimidate you, though ; not only is the franchise continuity-light to begin with, but this series goes back to basics, with the first meeting of Lupin the IIIrd & Fujiko.

Characters

Lupin the IIIrd, grandson of the original gentleman-thief. A thief himself, and so good at it that he’s getting a bit bored, to be honest. He’s now at the point where he’s warning the cops beforehand, because that’s more fun.

Fujiko Mine, Lupin’s sexy new rival. They collide on the same score, and it’s slightly irritated fascination at first sight.

Inspector Zenigata, the tireless policeman always on Lupin’s tail. This series makes a noble try at giving him some credibility, mostly by giving him a whiny sidekick (voiced by Yuki Kaji, of course ! Though he’s less annoying than usual, at least…) so that he’ll look better.

The score of the week involves a depraved cult leader trafficking rare narcotics on their private island… Oh, who cares, it’s just a backdrop for the Lupin/Fujiko interplay and an excuse for elaborate set pieces anyway.

Production Values

This clearly makes a bid for the best-looking show of the season. It’s got an impressive budget for the action set pieces, and a rough, artsy style that makes nearly every shot interesting to look at.

A word of warning : this is a sexy series, and Fujiko regularly gets topless and/or nearly naked over the course of the episode.

I really hope that ain’t the regular OP, because that pretentious voiceover sounds like it’s going to get annoying very quickly.

Overall Impression

Pretty !

But there’s something more beyond the mere dazzle. This is a series with a point to make : Fujiko uses her body as a weapon on every possible occasion, however degrading that may be ; and the OP monologue unsubtly points out she may well be a masochist, addicted to that thrill. I’m not quite sure whether this show is arguing it makes her inferior to Lupin (he outclasses her nearly every step on the way, mostly thanks to his “I can do offscreen whatever the plot needs me to” powers).

Still, they’ve got chemistry, the show is gorgeous, and heist anime are rare enough for me not to be picky. I’m in.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 5.