I've been on a roll with these 5 reasons posts recently haven't I? I've been watching a lot of anime lately, and these posts are super quick and easy to talk about in these bite size pieces. Not going to lie, I am pretty proud of this particular feature on my blog. It's one of my favorites! When I was in high school, I was a huge manga fan, I devoured them. It got to the point that my family wouldn't buy anymore because at that time, I read mostly Tokyopop and those things were $10 a pop! I used to get 3 or 4 for my birthday every year, and every time I hit the mall, I would buy at least one or two with my allowance, I had a pretty decent collection.
One birthday, my father brought home a new one. The Kindaichi Files: The Mummy's Curse. I was transfixed. Gory murder mysteries, with various levels of clues, and probably the most advanced logic I had ever seen (I was a Middle Schooler what do you want from me?) all in one of my favorite media forms? Well of course I had to learn more. I probably found 5 or 6 more of the English versions of that series, unfortunately, I didn't find them in order and the library never carried them. Fast forward a decent amount of years.
I found an anime series on Crunchyroll, and I have been hooked ever since. Here's 5 reasons why you should be too.
- Hajime Kindaichi's intellect is bar none. No one compares, similar to Conan Edogawa (Jimmy Kudo) in Case Closed, they even had a duel of the wits, in a 50th anniversary magazine crossover. Every case has at least three to four episodes, and they lay out every single clue that Hajime uncovers so that you can follow along and solve the whodunnit, either before him or at the same time. Now, I'm not saying that the clues are super easy to find and unless you are paying the utmost attention, you are bound to miss a few, and that's okay. That's what makes solving mysteries so much fun for me.
He's so good, that he has a working relationship with the police, who routinely pull him into cases, and ask for his help in numerous occasions. Many people come to challenge his deducing skills and he even has arch nemesis, who creates, murders, situations and manipulates people into committing them, just so the Puppet Master can watch Hajime solve them.
- The mysteries themselves are complex and immediately suck you in. The mysteries have several layers to them. Each Mystery has a dedicated three to four episodes, in order to lay down all the clues and all the groundwork and no matter what kind of mystery has been presented, I am always floored at the finale. It's always incredibly complex and the show wants you to use those little Gray Cells. (To Quote Poirot.) It's definitely not a show that dumbs it down for you, and even though I enjoy Columbo, I like solving the cases myself thank you very much, I don't enjoy being shown what happens and then watch Columbo put together the pieces, I want to put the pieces together my damned self! I feel smarter after every episode of Young Kindaichi, Which I love.
- The character development is immense. You learn a little bit about each character as the story goes on. Even minor characters that appear again, or included in the mysteries, sometimes they even BECOME THE MYSTERY. Its never just a background character with half a face that you'll never see again, throughout the series. Every character is important, every character is developed, everything is connected, and everything that is mentioned could be important.- With it being an anime, not only do you learn a lot about how cases are presented and solved, but you learn about Japanese culture, along with new Japanese words, Kanji and how to pronounce them, and what they mean. You are using logic and learning vocabulary, I would dare to go so far as to argue that if not for it's gory nature in the way it goes about framing the murder, I would say it could be considered educational, and shown on PBS!
- I also enjoy their use of bright colors to brighten up what would normally be an incredibly dark and gory anime. There is comedy and levity between bouts of murder, and the show cuts you a break every now and again, unlike Daredevil and Jessica Jones, which I had to take entire breaks away from. There are episodes where you are just like "OH MY GOD, how could someone do that, and then they'll slide in a pure fluff episode, with a light mystery and laughter to ease the tension right before they put you back into a more darker mystery. They also understand that anime doesn't have to be serious all the time.
If you have crunchyroll, I highly suggest this series. I am only on episode 13, but I am in it for the long haul. I'm currently on a mission to find the original series, premiering in 1997, if anyone has any thoughts on that, please let me know!
Do you have a favorite Anime Detective? Let me Know on Twitter! Lets Fangirl together!
Until Next Time,
Stay Nerdy,
~Spokhette!~
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