Author: Lenlo

Welcome all to the penultimate episode of Fugou Keiji! Apologies for the wait, I had to catch a plane and those don’t really wait for anime blogged. On the up side though we have a lot to talk about this week as Daisuke and Kato catch the bad guys and the story starts to wrap up. Lets dive in!

Starting off I want to get some production concerns out of the way. Because for all that Fugou Keiji tried really hard this week, the production made it… awkward at times. With the entire episode taking place at night, on this secret ship, the lighting really should have been better. From Daisuke’s black hair and suit to the dark rooms and exterior, the lighting made it difficult to see what was happening. I understand that lighting a night scene is difficult, especially in anime of all things. How do you make things easily readable without sacrificing the dark and oppressive nature of well… darkness? However this is a solved issue for the most part, with the hardest part being the execution: Use moonlight! Frame the moon behind people, throw a slightly bloom filter, something! Just let me see Shigemaru’s arm clearly against a black background, please!

Continue reading “Fugou Keiji – 10 [Life shouldn’t be printed on dollar bills]” →

Another week, another episode of Fugou Keiji! This week we confront Shigemaru, Daisuke pulls a Christopher Nolan and Modern Crimes finally get their time to shine. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Once again I have to say that Fugou Keiji could have done so much more. Whether it be playing up the serious drama with HEUSC or taking away Daisuke’s money. Show us how he has grown since the series started, show us what he can do without his technology. Have him grow to be self-sufficient like Kato, etc. Yes this takes away from the “Batman” or rich boy power fantasy Fugou Keiji started as. But the series itself has already moved away from that when it became more of a serious crime drama. However I am not here to be a debby-downer, because regardless of what more it could have done, I really enjoyed Fugou Keiji this week. From the consistent Batman references to the Modern Crimes shenanigans, everything was just a lot of fun, and I won’t complain about what we got.

Continue reading “Fugou Keiji – 9 [A golden key can open any door]” →

Hello all and welcome to a rather late chat about Fugou Keiji! I blame Crusader Kings 3 personally, I was a bit busy conquering all of Europe. That aside, this week we get answers to a few mysteries only to have a few more introduced. Cho goes the way of all retired cops and Daisuke gets an unexpected reunion. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Overall, this was a pretty lackluster episode of Fugou Keiji for me. Everything about it felt rushed, felt like it needed more time. More time to expand on the mystery, more time to build up the characters or explore various parts of the setting. Iin this one episode Fugou Keiji introduced and resolved multiple different plots/mysteries, burning through its plot. Take for example the Third Laboratory which Cho introduces this week. We learn where Shigemaru was working, where he met his wife, where the gas from the Presidents assassination attempt was manufactured. However instead of getting an arc about discovering where it is, how to break in, why it was removed from the records etc, its all shoved into this one episode. Kato figures it out from a photo, we immediately drive over and bust in, only to discover something we already knew. It’s wasted potential.

Continue reading “Fugou Keiji – 8 [Money burns a hole in the pocket]” →

This week on Fugou Keiji we get flashbacks in flashbacks as Kiyomizu recounts the unsolved Kambe murder mystery! We have politics, intrigue, corruption and a dash of homicide. So without further ado, lets jump right in!

As far as the episode goes, it was rather weird. The whole first half was a flashback, complete with black bars and everything to make sure we knew. And while it was a good flashback, laying the groundwork for everything else, the 2nd half went off the rails a bit. We will talk about spoilers after the break but this is an example of Fugou Keiji’s identity issue rearing its head again. In the last few episodes it seemed that Fugou Keiji had decided what it wanted to be, a serious detective drama. However this episodes ending bit with the VR clashed with that. Except unlike previous instances of this, such as the old ladies and the boy-band, this one was actually used in a narratively important way. This wasn’t a throw-away absurd gag but rather a serious part of the narrative, and it broke it a little for me.

Continue reading “Fugou Keiji – 7 [Money is the root of all evil]” →

Come one, come all, to the week of Fugou Keiji’s metamorphosis! This week we have intrigue, mystery and a dash of murder. So without further ado, lets dive in.

Starting off, this week completes Fugou Keiji’s transformation from a comedic parody of rich superheroes to a legitimate detective series. Where once the money-based gags were front and center, they have since become the moments of levity between harrowing intrigue. And I am loving it. I said in prior posts that I preferred Fugou Keiji when it was a parody. At the time that was true. I wasn’t convinced at that point that the series could pull off a serious detective story. Daisuke was to ridiculous and the presentation to comedic. Which is I want to think its incredible just how well Fugou Keiji managed this slow tonal shift. Over the course of 3 episodes it toned down the comedy and dialed up the drama bit by bit. Until we got to where we are today, all without ever giving away the game until Daisuke blows up a car.

Continue reading “Fugou Keiji – 6 [Ill Got, Ill Spent]” →