Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

A lot of series will be ending at the end of december. The ending I’m looking forward to the most however is Shinrei Tantei Yakumo, closely followed by Shiki. The current (and probably final) arc has only just started and already it has delivered some amazing twists. Just think of how everything is going to come together in the end. I’m also the least worried of a rushed and incomplete ending, exactly because how the past episodes made it clear that they rushed the first half, exactly in order to avoid this problem.

The previous arc really cemented Miyuki Nanase as a bad-ass, and yet here this episode comes and also labels her as flawed when she completely unexpectedly gets caught. Not through some overblown car chase by one of the lead characters, but instead she gets cornered by regular patrol cars. Finally another series comes along that completely busts the “police are useless”-trope. To make things even more interesting, it’s heavily implied here that the main villain… is already dead. Again: why does this guy have such a grudge that even in the grave, his soul still continues to haunt Yakumo. On top of that, this makes Miyuki Nanase even more awesome, considering how just about everything in the previous arc was her work.

meanwhile, it’s good to see that finally there is another man who is about to die from a terminal illness, breaking the “women get sick really easy”-trope, and yet this isn’t a simple reversal in the way that the creators introduced that little girl whose future is also looking pretty bleak, balancing things out. In any case, the creators gave Yakumo’s uncle a very good portrayal. He was bleak, yet things didn’t get too sappy. Same with Yakumo’s baby pictures (nice touch to his character, by the way) that finally showed Yakumo some of the good sides of his mother again.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Again: I’m baffled here. We all know that the first episodes had problems due to being rushed and all. And so here this episode comes with the main plot of this show and it suddenly becomes incredibly solid. Seriously, this episode was amazing in both its plot and atmosphere, and showed more than ever that Koichi Mashimo isn’t the only big talent that’s walking around in Bee-Train.

I’m really impressed by the plot here, and especially how it focused on just about everyone here: both the main characters and the villains. I just love how this episode tied everything together, the plot is both disturbing, imaginative and deep. And I really have to admit here: the bad guys in this series kick ass. They don’t just look evil, their actions really pack a punch here, from the trauma they inflicted on Yakumo’s mother by first raping her, murdering her boyfriend and then getting her to kill her own son, to recruiting little girls by having them kill off their own family. I also love the subtlety with which Yakumo now remembers his past. He’s obviously silent and introvert, but it’s not like he’s angsting over it either. I also really liked how he as a kid didn’t really like Takeda Shunsuke, and only much later found out that he was dating his mother.

Now, the one point at which I have criticisms of this episode was the way in which Gotou suddenly arrived at exactly the right time behind Miyuki Nanase, but I’ve seen far worse coincidences: Takeda Shunsuke made sure to tell everyone the location of Yakumo, with Gotou using a car with a bit of a delay, he could catch up to Haruka who took the train.

Speaking of which, Haruka again just ran into a situation unprotected, even though Takeda Shunsuke advised her to stay, but for once her actions make sense here: she was being targeted by Miyuki Nanase, and hiding would have actually worked against her favour: Miyuki would have easily captured her, just going to Yakumo would have saved Miyuki the trouble of dragging her over to Nagano, which is why she was left untouched. The way Miyuki was defeated may perhaps been a bit of a cop-out, but really: it was the only way. It’s already been established at this point that she’s completely badass, and that there’s no way that she would have lost in a real fight.

Also, what the hell was up with the animation in this episode? I mean, that’s not Bee-Train. I mean, smooth frame-rates are one thing, but there were tons of shots in this episode which had completely fluent movement, with more frame-rates than I’ve probably ever seen in a Bee-Train series. That scene in which Nanase told about how she murdered her parents was also just amazing: there was a TON of style within just those thirty seconds.

I now understand what this series is doing, and why the first few chapters were so incredibly rushed: they were simply trying to go through those chapters as fast as possible, so that they could put more emphasis on these final few episodes. You know how a lot of series waste too much time on their introductions, so that their endings get rushed? Denyuuden is a good example of that at the moment: it’s currently amazing, but it did take sixteen episodes with a lot of boring build-up to get there. That’s what the creators most likely wanted to avoid here, so for that they had to sacrifice some first impressions due to these rushed chapters.

The current Autumn Season wasn’t the best one for the reputation of series that feature adults as main characters, with Iron Man, Togainu no Chi and Hakuouki with their cheesy stories and characters and in a bit less of a way Panty and Stocking and Arakawa who have their minds in the gutter and riverbed respectively, but at the same time I really appreciate how there still are series like Otome Youkai Zakuro, Kuragehime and Shinrei Tantei Yakumo that try to come with mature storylines that aren’t chockful of teenaged antics. They may have a few cliches, they may be a bit rushed, but they really are the proof that anime hasn’t entirely been taken over by whimsical teenagers.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

A building up episode, but nevertheless a really solid one. It’s here where we finally get to see the “mystery”-part of this series, because the entire episode was full of twists and revelations to spice up this arc. It’s a bit weird at times, but that also gave this show a bit of a charm. Yakumo’s past suddenly got a lot more intriguing here, and I’m beginning to see what the creators were building up for here.

It’s also an episode who completely removes some of the key lead characters: Yakumo only appears in one shot, while Gotou is nowhere to be found at all. I like these kinds of episodes, as they really give the side-cast their time to shine, and in this episode they really show that they’re more than a useless bunch. Especially that wimpy detective gets some background and development and also Haruka was very different from back when she still got kidnapped every other episode.

I do have to wonder which police office keeps secret files hidden behind a toilet, of all things. This episode also returned to the quick-fire pacing of this series which feels like the creators tried to stuff a ton of material into just twenty episodes. Again though: it works. You can say a lot about this series, but it definitely doesn’t drag on.

The fact that Yakumo is the child born off a rape victim makes a lot of sense in the story, and only ends up making that bad guy even more of an asshole, establishing him now as an uncaught rapist. It’s still a complete mystery about what he’s planning to do with him though, but it probably involves the spirit seeing powers that he has. The bond between his mother and Haruka’s mother is a bit coincidental, but on the other hand, it’s entirely possible for Haruka’s mother to send Haruka towards Yakumo. I doubt she knew about the extent of the practices that Yakumo was involved in, and instead probably tried to prevent Yakumo from really losing his way.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Holy crap, that was awesome! What the hell happened here? This show suddenly starts building up its main story, and then it delivers by far the bets episode it ever had. I wasn’t really expecting much from this series other than its great music, style and atmosphere, but damn: this episode pushed a ton of right buttons. Not to mention that the soundtrack surpassed itself. Yet again.

The biggest part of why this episode was so awesome was because it introduced us to the two most bad-ass women of the entire season. I mean, I was aware that Bee-Train had something for strong female characters and all, but even for those standards, Nanase Miyuki and Miya both were awesome in this episode in completely different ways, though their similarity is their professionalism. Miya is just… I love her voice actress: the way that she’s just so serious, and yet she doesn’t try to add in anything more. Nanase Miyuki meanwhile was who most of this episode focused on. We had never really seen that much about her: she just kept standing next to Yakumo’s father, but that’s all she did. In this episode she finally comes into action, and she’s just crazy, yet hardly wastes any movement in order to get what she wants. (Also, take that, Sailor Moon! Even I didn’t recognize her in that disguise and yet Gotou nearly noticed it).

And oh, the character-development. In particular Yakumo and Yuutarou got hit hard: the phone call Yakumo made to Haruka was definitely not one he would have made a few episodes back. Yuutarou meanwhile also was a bit of a klutz, but the creators used that one surprisingly well near the end, when he really got pounded by Miya for not doing anything while Gotou got captured.

Now, it IS going to be really hard for this show to keep this momentum, I realize that very well: this episode ended with all of the main characters kidnapped all in different ways. It’s the reason Miyuki was so awesome, but how the heck are the creators going to write themselves out of that? There really has to be something within Yakumo’s father’s plans that specifically includes not to kill them, otherwise things could get a bit nasty with Deus ex Machina…

Oh, and the music. Dear god, the music! at first I wasn’t the most impressed it (having heard far better from Bee-Train in the past), but seriously, when it just keeps introducing new tracks that just get better and better then I’m really anticipating the tracks that they’re still saving for the last parts…
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Quite an unusual episode for Yakumo: in most of its episodes it tries to stuff in as much as possible. The story in this episode however was really small. It was so simple that it probably would have fit into half an episode. So instead the creators stuff in a lot of scenes to flesh out the different characters. It works well.

And seriously, the drama in this episode was simple, yet very effective. The ghost in this episode was not angry because of some romance, but instead this episode featured a shy and secluded girl who once made a picture of herself wearing a pretty dress. It’s a simple yet very effective twist here.

Karuka, she has her issues, but in the end I do consider her to be a good female sidekick. She’s got plenty of weaknesses, but she also is pretty useful in getting Yakumo to crawl out of his shell. She’s certainly no moron and is really trying to understand him and the various ghosts she runs into, without becoming overly pushy or obnoxious. I like that. Speaking of morons… To think that “the klutz” in this series would be played by a guy. This guy… has no backbone. And yet I like his purpose in the series, having to work together with that woman that he’d once seen possessed.

This episode featured quite a few of those small scenes of characters who had nothing to do with the plot of this episode, but I like those kinds of scenes for some reasons. Heh, and yet this was the first episode in which we didn’t get to see Yakumo’s father. This really was meant to be some sort of quiet before the storm.
Rating: * (Good)

It’s rushed, it’s full of coincidences, I know that. But damn, this episode was surprisingly good here. I really want to praise the creators here, that even though they had to cut god knows how much from the manga in order to make this fit into just one episode, they still managed to make it work. This show is indeed visibly flawed, but it also avoids the single biggest pitfall for any rushed anime: the fact that the plot doesn’t come together.

This episode just kept building up its tension, right from the start, and within these 20 minutes, they really did lot here: they gave the doctor a good backstory, it fleshed the rest of the cast, especially Gotou tried to squeeze a bit of personality as much as he could without getting in the way of the story or the rest of the characters, we know a bit more about the new intern (who despite his whining is surprisingly useful), and most importantly: we now know who Yakumo’s father is. That certainly added a neat twist to this series.

The atmosphere was particularly wonderful in this episode. That’s where it really helps to be a Bee-Train series, because that soundtrack definitely kept me to the edge of my seat, and it worked great with the storytelling and the pacing of the series. This balance is probably the thing that makes this show works so well: the characters and story are very well balanced in each episode, and the creators make sure to give all of them equal time to show themselves off. Its definitely not the most solid series, but to me it does feel like everything comes together like it should.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

This series has… something. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I like this show surprisingly much because of it and this episode solidified that for me. I mean, this has been the first fast-paced Bee-Train series since Murder Princess, and even though Koichi Mashimo’s absence is very apparent here, but the charms of the characters still shine through here.

I also like the formula this show is using: the first half of every episode is usually not very special, and mostly used to set things up, only for the second half to set things off with interesting twists, new and interesting pieces of music, and to close off each episode we have those mysterious monologues of the main bad guys of the series that get more intriguing with every episode. I know that the individual stories of this series aren’t exactly mystery, but the overall story is doing a very good job at it.

I think that at this point, the biggest flaw of this series is its coincidences, but it’s nothing too major at the point, and it’s used well. And I guess that it was an interesting twist for Yakumo to learn about his mother by running into someone who happened to know her around the time she was pregnant. It’s definitely an interesting twist here that Yakumo’s mother tried to strangle him before disappearing, rather than having her be the usual “mother who is gone” stereotype.

This show definitely is a good example of how to adapt a show on a tight budget and timespan. It’s far from the best that Bee-Train has produced, but I’m still enjoying it a lot here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Whether a series follows its original source material exactly, like High School of the Dead, it takes its time telling its story and even adds a bit here and there like Nurarihyon no Mago, or whether it tries to put 180 pages into just one episode: it all has the potential to work out well, as long as the creators have a vision and manage to capture the essence of the source material they’re dealing with. Yakumo is a pretty good example of this: it’s indeed rushed but that also gives it its charms. Making a 13 episode anime is completely different from making a 26 episoded one: with the latter, you can take your time and flesh out the cast and the setting, and carefully build up everything. With the former, you do not.

This show has its flaws. This episode was probably the least interesting one so far due to the time it wasted on that rather long car chase scene, on top of this weird coincidence of Haruka being in the exact same car as the bad guy here as he got possessed (that’s something I also really wonder how the manga made plausible…).

Still, I liked this episode, and especially the chemistry between Yakumo and that detective Kazutoshi. At first Yakumo seems a bit of a clone of Ghost Hunt’s Naru-chan, but it’s these things that form the subtle differences between the two. This episode also established that he isn’t perfect, and that there are also cases in which he fails to make a difference. That’s always nice.

What also impressed me was the soundtrack here. Sure, this series’ soundtrack is nowhere near Bee-Train’s better works, but on its own it really is excellent. It’s not all over the place like usual with Bee-Train, and yet it’s varied, creative. It’s really the soundtrack that saved that car chase scene here.
Rating: * (Good)

Okay, I may have to explain myself quite a bit for labelling this as one of the two non-sequels that I immediately found good enough to blog this season. I mean, this isn’t because I’m a Bee-Train fan: I’m a fan of Bee-Train because of Koichi Mashimo and he wasn’t involved here, and it’s also not like I have my criticisms about Shinrei Tantei Yakumo. Yet, while this may seem like a Ghost Hunt rip-off, it’s actually completely different.

I know that this is something very subjective, but out of all of the first episodes I watched this season so far, this series is the one that stuck to my mind the most, aside from perhaps Letter Bee. This show is strange, it advertises itself as a mystery-series, while it actually completely isn’t. It makes no attempt to build up it’s mystery: one moment it introduces things and only a minute later it has already revealed the main culprit. Still, the more I think about it, the more I realize how every moment of this series is meant to contribute to its characters: whether this is the main cast or the side-cast, it doesn’t matter: Yakumo has no wasted scenes whatsoever. I mean, I’m crazy if I’m not going to blog something like that.

This episode again: the genre it belongs to the most was freaking Iyashi-kei. I mean, what the heck? The entire episode went completely against the thriller-esque mood that this series built up, and instead told the story about two old guys and the relationship they had with a woman who died in their past. The story they told about themselves was short and to the point, and yet it worked somehow. And Yakumo… from a bishified detective he actually turned into a medium of all things: his purpose in this series revolves more around healing people’s deep scars by letting them meet their loved ones who died, rather than solving some cheesy mystery here.

I also love that this series is episodic: that’s really something that this series needs, considering that it’s only got 13 episodes. The past two episodes have been rushed, indeed. But they were also short and to the point. I really applaud the creators to put so much meaning into them in so little time. Especially considering how half this episode was focused on Yakumo himself, rather than those two old guys. That uncle of Yakumo succeeded in making Yakumo into more than just another stereotypical silent badass.

Yakumo doesn’t have the biggest budget, and at times the acting also feels a bit flat. But unlike Togainu no Chi, this series provided more than enough to keep my interests: it did a lot of stuff here, in just two episodes. I also love those parts at the end of each episode, which try to foreshadow the main plot and try to keep the different episodes together. They’ve got this really neat atmosphere, completely different from the episode that preceded them. It’s there where this series also doesn’t get afraid to get a little artsy, especially in the previous episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)