By far, Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru, is the most interesting anime that I have the pleasure of watching. Typically I’m not one to actively seek out mystery anime (I’ve discussed my preferences plenty of times by now). However, something about this anime stood out at me and screamed “watch me”. One of the major pulls for me was the Anime’s english title “The Detective Is Already Dead”, then you’re presented with the following synopsis.
Kimizuka Kimihiko is a crisis-magnet. From getting caught up in a crime scene to accidentally witnessing a drug deal, trouble seems to find him around every corner. So it is no surprise when his rather mundane flight suddenly enters a state of emergency with a dire need of a detective onboard. Unfortunately, his attempt at avoiding trouble is foiled by a beautiful girl with silver hair who goes by the codename Siesta. Declaring herself a detective, she unceremoniously drags Kimizuka into the case as her assistant.
That incident spelled the beginning of an adventure around the globe that went beyond his wildest imagination. Putting their lives on the line, the two took down criminal organizations, prevented disasters, and saved thousands. But the curtain closed to their epic journey with Siesta’s untimely death three years later.
Resolving to live an ordinary high school life this time, Kimizuka spends a year maintaining a low profile. However, as fate would have it, a girl with an uncanny resemblance to Siesta comes crashing into his life, threatening to throw his peaceful days into disarray.
I couldn’t help but think “Now this may be interesting”. Now, what were my first impressions of Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru? I’d say it was okay at best. The first episode was very long 40+ minutes, which was something I liked because like Bokutachi no Remake it provided a little background before we got into the story. Weirdly enough, with regards to both anime not only do they both share an extremely long first episode. But that first episode provides a backstory to the main characters, in Bokutachi no Remake‘s case, it’s about a person wanting to change his current situation so he goes to the past to fix his wrongs. Essentially, it’s an anime where we know the end, but not the beginning. While Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru, is an anime where we know the beginning but we do not know the end. Since I started watching both anime at the same time, I was able to make that comparison relatively quickly and it was because of that comparison it caused me to be very interesting in the show.
Now all that being said, I would like to say there were also a few things I disliked about previous two episodes of Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru. One of the major things being, after such an excellent first episode, the second and third episode fall flat on it’s face and I feel have regressed slightly. If episode one was the peak, episode two was a few steps down and episode three is where it falls off. A lot of this had to do with the main characters, which at the time of writing this blog are questionable. We have Kimihiko Kimizuka (herein known as “Kimi”), who feels like a very one dimensional character. Has he been able to show emotion when needed? Yeah. However there is something about him that feels flat. Maybe it’s his straightforward and extremely blunt personality, he reminds me a lesser (in all ways) version of Hikigaya from Oregairu.
Then we have Nagisa Natsunagi who seems to be a handful to say the least. Her personality is closest to a tsundere. Which for me has always been a personality type that is either or hit or miss. There are certain tsunderes that I like, for example, Lisara (Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai?), Kyouko (Horimiya), Shinomiya (Love is War), Ayuzawa (Kaichou Wa Maid-Sama!), the list can go on. Then there are plenty more that I do not like. Unfortunately, I think Nagisa Natsunagi is leaning towards one of those tsunderes that I probably won’t end up liking unless something drastically changes in the anime.
In addition to all that, I think my biggest issue I have with Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru so far is that from the episodes I’ve seen (three episodes as of writing this blog), I feel like we’ve strayed away from what I consider to be the main focus of the anime. Finding out what happened to Siesta. Obviously, Kimi could just tell us what happened (something he hasn’t done), which leads me to suspect that we’re probably going to explore that latter on in the anime. However, if your title is “The Detective Is Already Dead” and we do everything but address what happened, then what am I really watching for? The detective is already dead, okay, next I guess? How will the adventures Natsunagi and Kimi somehow link to Siesta? The lack of clarity in my eyes is probably the most disappointing thing thus far because it doesn’t feel like there is any substance.
Just yeah, Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru., feels like an anime that can talk the talk, but can it walk the walk? Only time will tell, obviously I will continue to watch because I want to find out. However, I do hope for my sake and for the anime’s sake, that everything from episode four onwards is very entertaining.
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One response to “Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru. | First Impressions”
Natsunagi seems so much less than Siesta. Remember that Siesta was a middle aged woman with a child of Kimi’s age while Natsunagi IS Kimi’s age.
Siesta had a powerful intellect and a formidable fighting ability. OTOH, Natsunagi has neither and only shares her heart. Are they saying that the heart is the only thing that counts? Are they implying that he’ll be happier with a less powerful female? Will they try to build Natsunagi up into the next Siesta? Or is she the new sidekick and he’s the new Siesta? Maybe between Siesta’s heart and Siesta’s daughter he’ll have a small harem.
None of these sound satisfying. So I’ll give it a couple more episodes to see what happens. That first episode really blew me away. Was really hoping that what they meant the detective was pretending to be dead or presumed dead with no identified body. I hate it when a show starts out great and then fades to dull.