Category: Suteki Tantei Labyrinth

The stories for the different episodes haven’t impressed me so far. They’re a bit one-sided and uninspired, and series like El Cazador and Night Head Genesis were much better at them. Thankfully, the detective-aspect and the main story of this series did turn out worthwhile so far. I like how Mayuki ad the others figured out what happened inside the train, and the cause of the disappearance of Shichiro. It seems that Byakko used her hacking-skills to switch the final cabins of the train, where Shichiro happened to be in. While the story of the businessmen who want to stop the guy from winning his case in court is rather standard and unimaginative, I like how much detail has been put into Byakko’s plans. We also get some more information about the main storyline. It seems that the two women we saw in the first episode are nothing more than Mayuki’s two maids. Mayuki also finally confirmed that he’s not a normal boy, when he lighted up and all. But please… that final scene of the episode was just too annoying. Creators, please develop this a bit more. I don’t think I’ll be able to stand 20 more episodes of both Minori and Yaya feeding cakes to an embarrassed Mayuki. Okay, I know he’s cute, but you don’t have to rub it in. I’ve also been wondering… wasn’t Shichiro accompanied by two other guys? What happened to them? Surely they wouldn’t abandon the guy for no reason at all?]]>

This really is a strange series…. this episode too: it had many points to like, and many points to dislike. Let me start with the bad ones: this series does feel annoying at parts. The officials who were pestering Yaya’s brother were stereotypes and nothing special. The way their boss also begged the bad guy to do something about Yaya’s brother was awful. I mean, he could have done this himself just as well, if he was desperate enough. I also wonder why nobody else, for eight consecutive years, hasn’t done something about the huge amount of pollution, other than just masking it with holograms. It all felt a bit stupid to me. Luckily, the storytelling made up for it. While the story itself is pretty dull, it’s told in an interesting way, and the climax actually worked because of this and the characters. I’m not sure why, but I like Mayuki, the twins and the policeman. Another thing I appreciated is the bit of development on Yaya, and how she actually has a reason to have a weak health. She definitely steps a bit more away from her stereotype this way. I do wonder, though, why she’s on the same school as Mayuki and the others…. Anyway, next episode we should finally the “detective” part of “amazing detective Labyrinth”.]]>

In this episode, there were quite some flaws in the storytelling, though I do admit that it was nice to watch. The way the heat-seeking wax zombies moved was a bit unbelievable, Minori was also a tad too helpless even though she hurt her ankle, and the way the dog found the Tokyo Tower-figure in the end also didn’t strike well with me. Still, Mayuki and Kouta were fun enough to watch. In the previous spring-season, I’ve watched so many truly believable series, that it takes a bit of time to get used to this series, which is more like a glorified children’s adventure. One thing I do appreciate of this season is that, despite the fact that it’s nowhere near as promising as the previous ones, it is refreshingly different. There are quite a lot of children’s adventures (Shugo Chara, Maple Story, Labyrinth, perhaps Ghost Hound) and competition-series (Shion no Ou, Kaiji), compared to the Spring and Summer-season, which were more about fantasy, sci-fi and historical series. One thing that surprised me in this episode was the soundtrack. It worked out pretty nicely, if I say so myself. It did a fine job to create a bit of tension during the eventful scenes. And regarding the mystery: there’s definitely something strange about Mayuki. Does he have hidden powers? Is he himself important? All we know is that the bad guy wants to have this, which he can’t get by simply kidnapping the guy. It’s probably Seiran’s job to prevent him from doing that, and I think that he didn’t account that Mayuki would run off on his own for this episode. For now, this series isn’t anything special yet, but I’m curious enough for the second half. The first major climax of the series is now over, and it’s now up to the creators to develop this into an engaging series. After all, Night Head Genesis also had a rather mundane middle part, though it turned into a mighty fine series in the end. I’m hoping for the same with Suteki Tantei Labyrinth.]]>

Yup, this was a clear building-up episode. In here, we get to see the real introduction of Mayuki and how “awesome” and cute he’s supposed to be. This episode’s purpose was really to flesh out the different characters and setting a bit. I’m not sure why, but it was actually quite enjoyable. For some reason, the series that take place in the so-called middle school work more often than the high-school ones. But that may also be because the harems and uninspired anime often chose the latter out of laziness… There were a few bugs in this episode, though. Why haven’t there been any attempts to revive the Tokyo Tower after it got destroyed, thirty years ago? Why did the bad guys know that Mayuki was going there? How did they make the elevator operational again? I can’t really think of any logical explanations for this, and that’s rather in a bad way. I’d also wish that the black-haired girl wouldn’t get left behind in everything and actually starts to do something. Also, why doesn’t Mayuki wear the same school-uniform as everyone else? Still, despite all this, I like this series so far. It’s got a nice combination of innocent middle-school adventures and mystery. I think we shouldn’t expect too much of the next coming episodes, as it’ll probably take a while to flesh everything out properly.]]>

To give a quick rundown on why I’m not blogging the other series so far (emphasis on quick): – Bamboo Blade is fun but the black-haired girl is annoying. – Sketchbook had a boring second episode, so I dropped it. – Nougami Neuro’s mystery is so shallow that it can’t even fully submerge a coin if it wanted to. – Mokke is all kinds of awesome and heart-warmingness, though it’s a series you’d best watch while relaxing, and it’s not really fit to be blogged. – I have no idea whether to blog Blue Drop yet, I’ll leave that decision to episode three. – Night Wizard is nice enough, but it’s got too many clichés. So, why Labyrinth? Simply enough: it intrigues me. Out of all mentioned series above, Labyrinth is the only one that made me want to know more about its characters and their mysteries. It’s a big experiment, though, as I have no idea whether it’ll turn out good or not. The previous spring season had so many series where I knew that they were going to turn out good and worth to be blogged about (Seirei no Moribito, El Cazador, Toward the Terra, Kaze no Shoujo Emily, Bokura no, etc etc), but the current season only has two of these series: Kaiji and Ghost Hound. For the other series, I’m going to have to guess which ones will turn out worthwhile, and Suteki Tantei Labyrinth is the first guess. It’s not perfect: it’s produced by Studio Deen and directed by Hiroshi Watanabe: both are behind series that are either incredibly good, or incredibly bad. Studio Deen was behind gems as Higurashi, Simoun, Jigoku Shoujo and Full Moon wo Sagashite, but also behind crap as Amaenaideyo and Mouse. Hiroshi Watanabe is the genius behind the Law of Ueki, he directed Orphen and yet he also produced the crap of Shining Tears X Wind, and the awful second half of Star Ocean Ex. This series really can go anywhere, and it’s going to be fun to find out whether we’ll have another gem here, or another waste of time. There’s a diverse cast of characters here: a bunch of high-school students, detectives, maids and strange females in skimpy clothes who are up to something. The great thing is that none of them really feels like an overdone cliché, and things can turn out great if they actually get developed. The graphics look nice enough, and especially this episode featured some nice music. Anyway, about the episode: it made me really curious about Mayuki’s character. For some reason, that woman is after him, and she lures him out with explosions. We also see him have the first proper birthday in his entire life, and I really wonder how things will end up. Who was his mother, and why did she separate from him? What happened to his father? I’m going to hope that this series is going to turn out worthwhile.]]>