Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 02

I’m amazed. I’ve now seen most of the second episodes of the major series that aired this season, apart from Kaiba, Toshokan Sensou, Nijuu Mensou no Musume and Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, and without a doubt Himitsu has been the best series of the season so far, and Kaiba is going to have to be really good in order to top it, but even RD, Kurenai, xxxHolic and Amatsuki didn’t match up to the awesomeness that have been the first two episodes of Himitsu.

The storytelling in this series is absolutely amazing. We first get a bit of background on the main character. He’s clearly a rookie (he still lives with his sister and parents), and he still needs to get used to the idea that he’s invading the privacy of the people he investigates. We then switch to the investigation of the murder of the president of America. The only clue (we don’t even get to see the face of the murderer) is a strange picture he shreds, just as he’s about to die. What is this picture, and why didn’t he want anybody to see it?

The irony is of course obvious: it’s the only clue that the investigation-department has, and they’re basically trying to find something that the president wanted to keep secret at all costs, even after his death. The rest of the episode explores this guy’s life as the investigation department tries to find the moment in his life where he got the picture. I think this post by Iwa ni Hana sums up why I love this series so much:

“That, ladies and gentlemen, is the typical pattern that Shimizu-sensei’s stories will follow. The first half typically presents the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and in the second half the action accelerates faster than you can react, and finally the story is brought to a climax and ends like a bang on a forceful note.”

It really makes me wonder why it’s taken this long for one of the artist’s mangas to get an adaptation. Especially considering how she (he?)’s been writing for decades now. You can also really hear that the music has been done by the same guy who worked on the music of Death Note. I’ve said it before, but it’s great to see so much great soundtracks this season.

Before this season started, I expected that my favourite animation-studio of this season would end up being Production IG, but now that I’ve seen every new show, I realize how wrong I was: this really is THE season for Madhouse. They made a great move to transfer all of their bad staff to Kamen no Maid Guy, because their other series really shine so far (okay, perhaps Chi’s Sweet Home shines a bit less than the others, but even that one turned out better than I expected). Before the season started, I was a bit angry at Madhouse because they kept screwing up their adaptations. Claymore’s ending got screwed up, Shigurui missed its entire final chapters in the anime, Dennou Coil’s ending was rather rushed, Saiunkoku Monogatari ran into budget problems for its final episodes, Kaiji disappointed, and let’s not start with Nougami Neuro and Devil May Cry.

But with this season, they really have the potential to redeem themselves. It first started when Mokke suddenly delivered an awesome ending. With Himitsu and Chi’s Sweet home being concepts where you can’t screw up the ending, and the director of Mokke working on Allison to Lillia, the only real fear for a screwed up ending remains in Kaiba.