Okay, time to talk about the most underrated show of the season. Autumn 2010 featured a lot of comedies. Out of all those shows, the series with the best jokes was without a doubt Milky Holmes.
And yeah, I know that from the outside, it looks like the cheesiest moe show imaginable, but that’s its entire point as a parody: this series takes the piss out of the phantom thief and the moe genre; it makes fun of all kinds of annoying and overused tropes, including itself. It’s completely over the top and nonsensical, but this really allows it to come up with some very inspired episodes and scenarios. Some of the things it comes up with are as brilliant as they are bizarre, despite the overall stupidity of the plot.
A plot which granted isn’t the most solid for a comedy. The series has a general premise that’s quite an interesting twist on the usual Phantom Thief genre, but as a series it mostly stands as a series of unrelated episodes with a conclusion at the end. Some of these episodes are brilliant, while others are a bit less impressive and try too hard, making this a very inconsistent series. The cast of characters is very fun to watch, but also flat and two dimensional, with the very notable exception of Henriette: a wonderful character who on her own manages to carry the entire plot of this show.
But seriously, it’s been ages since I laughed as hard as I did with the series. Especially the sarcophagus scene is just utterly priceless. The way this series makes its jokes is unlike any other, and a real recommendation for any parody fan. It does have its share of cheesy episodes, and at times the fanservice gets a bit out of hand, but those moments are vastly overshadowed by the good stuff.
| Storytelling: | 9/10 – Perhaps not consistent, but when it’s funny it’s absolutely hilarious. uses its lack of subtlety wonderfully with its comedic timing. |
| Characters: | 8/10 – Especially Sherlock and Cordellia are always fun to watch, despite their flat characters. The rest of the cast is also flat but great to watch. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Surprisingly good, really. Some of the action scenes are better animated than most shounen series. Beyond the action scenes it could have been more solid, though. |
| Setting: | 8/10 – Leaves nothing intact from the phantom thief genre, but its overall backstory could have been more fleshed out. |
Suggestions:
– Marie&Gali 1st Season
– The Law of Ueki
– Skip Beat
“Okay, time to talk about the most underrated show of the season.”
just wanted to point out that while there wasn’t much hype in the english speaking community,in japan dvd sales are looking good and 2chan voted it anime of the year,so it’s popular among japanese otakus.
On the other hand, Japanese otakus are very sad human beings who should not be emulated. I dunno Psgels, even reading your review it seems to me your reaction is pretty personal and not likely to be shared by many – not that we don’t all have a few titles like that in our lives! (there was a forum thread on it, plenty of contributors). I don’t blame you for writing the review as you did, as I have never hesitated to heartily recommend a series I loved that wasn’t popular either, including, most notably, the infamous Ragnarok the Animation. But I don’t think I’ll be watching it myself.
I just started marathoning this the other day (guess the growing hype caught up to me), and boy is it fun!
Comedic timing is spot on, and the visual gags are hilarious. It won’t be considered masterpiece material, but it’s nevertheless a model on how to make good anime with limited budget.
Oh you are so right about this being underrated.
I honestly can understand why so many passed this up (heck, I passed this up) but when you watch it at least until the second episode, you understand how totally freaking insane and hilarious it is.
When it first started airing, I immediately passed it up as just another run-of-the-mill moe comedy series and didn’t even give it a glance.
But, after reading your review of the third ep, I decided to give it a chance. Boy, am I glad I did. So, thanks psgels for again leading me to another good series that I might never have watched. Keep up the good work 🙂
It was clear from the start this was an uncommon little jewel.
I hope psgs will have plenty of good show to blog next year too like it was this last season.
It’d be nice if you kept the rotating slot too.
Solaris: I don’t think I will use that slot in the next season, simply because I’m already able to blog eight different shows. For a season that has only 17 series that debut, that’s plenty of room to cover the interesting ones.
Milky Holmes is apparently the least watched anime show of the season outside of japan and it’s ratings are just as low inside airing at a dead hour on an exclusive channel. Yet it’s definitely considered highly enough, as it’s 2ch’s official pick for anime of the year, is doing well in sales. Now if only if it had the viewership to match.
Milky Holmes turned out to be my favorite comedy so far. I’ve still got one or two to check out but it made me cry from laughing so damn much. It was funny looking at pgels first impressions of the show because he clearly had no idea if that was a comedy/parody show or not and assumed it was a moe tantei show.
I just finished marathoning it and I would really love to see a new season of it. Kinda reminds me of Gintama seeing how it’s so crazy and stupid it’s hilarious and suddenly turns out to be have some amazing action-packed finale and it delivered!