Quite a slick start for Kabukicho Sherlock! It has nice animation, good music, great voice acting and a cast of intriguing characters in a vein that reminds me a bit of Durarara!! It will probably not reach that kind of storytelling, but so far, it’s a nice concept. So, in Kabukicho Sherlock there’s a private investigator/detective competition of sorts going on. It’s a quite modern adaptation with Ms. Hudson being the owner of an okama bar and renting out to tenants above the bar. The important case they’re investigating is the serial murders of Jack the Ripper and 10 million are being given to the person who solves the case.
We start with Watson, a young doctor, wandering the streets of Kabukicho. Kabukicho seems like a red light district of sorts with a very active nightlife and hints of prostitution. He arrives to a bar where there’s a meeting of detectives and a member of the police, Lestrade, who briefs them in a murder of a woman. The killer has the same M.O. than Jack the Ripper, so the quickly assume it’s another one of his murders, but I figured the first one would be a copycat because I’ve seen more than enough murder mysteries in my life to sort of see where they’re going to go.
Soon enough Watson meets Sherlock and pesters him until he can stick around. Sherlock allows this and soon they’re at the crime scene. The actual inspection of the crime scene is a pretty over the top affair to the point of becoming humorous, same with one of the detectives being in the running to uncover who the criminal is. The guy seems petty, underhanded and a bit pretentious. The show was fairly standard and entertaining through most of the first half, then something unexpected happened!
So, the Sherlock from this show does a sort of special type of reasoning about clues and the case that he presents through the Japanese art of storytelling, Rakugo. First, it’s quite nice how the whole aesthetic of the show morphs into something more artistic and refined while he’s in this role, although there’s still some of the same humor that relies on more physical jokes, like him getting run over by Watson at the end after the criminal is caught.
Secondly, it’s a pretty curious approach, but also really unique, interesting and appealing. Rakugo is a form storytelling, but also a dialogue with yourself and it is sort of like the organization of information out loud in a way that follows a logical series of events and concludes in a punchline that ends up being, in this case, who the killer really is.
The side characters we just had glimpses of also seem quite intriguing. I wonder how they will be involved in the bigger scheme of things and I also wonder if this show will follow a one case per episode formula or if it’ll be more of multi-episode narrative arcs with an overarching story on top of it. Either way, the show appeals to me quite a bit, even more so than Babylon, the other crime mystery show I’m covering at the moment. I’ll try my best not to compare them too much, but it might be hard at times.
Either way, I’m excited about Kabukicho Sherlock and I hope it’ll continue to deliver fun, interesting and fast-paced slick episodes.
Possibility of watching: High
Possibility of blogging: High
Babylon’s a political mystery while Kabu is a regular mystery with comedic undertones.
Kabu so far hasn’t shown any major plot yet and I’m the complete opposite of you- I actually prefer Babylon over this. But mystery’s a mystery regardless of their sub genres and I’m going to stick with watching both.
Apparently Babylon’s author was behind Kado: The Right Answer. I hope Babylon won’t turn out to be the disappointing, rushed mess Kado eventually became.
Babylon episode 2 was a total game changer! I haven’t watched Kado, so no opinion on that, but yeah, so far both are promising in different extremes of the mystery spectrum. I was more on Kabukicho when I wrote this entry because it made more of a lasting impression in the premiere. Despite the first three episodes of Babylon being out, I watched the weekly because otherwise I won’t remember everything when it’s time to cover it. After writing today’s entry I’m more partial to Babylon as well.