Anime: Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace

IDENTITY CRISIS

Ranpo Kitan is supposed to be a detective / horror anime that ends up being more of an unintended satire than a psychological thriller. And you cannot blame the source material for that, but rather the era it was adapted in, as well as the stylistic choices made by the animators. You see, the author of the books lived in a time when Japan was losing its identity and the traditional lifestyle of centuries was rapidly being westernized. His stories and artstyles were meant to show the chaos that comes with such sudden changes, by making all the characters suffering from an identity crisis, and doing lots of bizarre things in their search for a new identity. They were supposed to show how experimentation can seem completely alien, and horrifying when driving people to unspeakable acts.

The adaptation fails completely to transmit that feeling. Not only it came out at a time when Japan doesn’t give that much damn about its identity anymore, but it also makes it seem like it takes place in modern times, when everything is over-stylized and ostentatious to the point they don’t have an identity. The protagonist for example looks, sounds, acts and dresses like a girl, when is otherwise a boy. What used to be an identity crisis in the original books, over here is just something done for laughs. It doesn’t add anything to his characters, and on top of that it gives the show a yaoi aspect that is constantly not letting you focus on the so called detective cases he takes part in.

MISLEADING PRESENTATION

It also suffers greatly from not knowing how to present itself to the audience. It constantly tells you it is about detective mysteries and body horror, yet when you watch it you feel like you are watching a parody of gay porn with trippy animation. The animators want you to think this way it stands out and keeps you interested, but fail completely at that since they treat the characters as a patchwork of colorful objects instead of people the audience can care about.

Although studio SHAFT is doing the exact same thing in its own series, it flavors the shows with crafty inner monologues, perky dialogues, and lots of pseudo-artistic fan service. It mesmerizes you through your carnal desires, something that studio Lerche does not. Its characters are also defined by sexual fetishes and nothing else, making them one-note and easily forgettable. They don’t even make sense within the boundaries of the story. Why is there a gothic lolita teacher, a guy with a paper bag on his head who stalks little girls, and a slapstick comedy morgue doctor? Saying they have an identity crisis is not excusing these out of place roles.

RETARDED CASES

Even the mystery cases fail to be good since aside from being episodic, meaning you will never see the secondary characters ever again, they also don’t feel like there is actual detective work done in them. They don’t gather clues, and reach to conclusions in a logical manner, as much as they guess the answer by reading the script. There is no way to make sense of anything either, since the show is constantly shoehorning events at the last moment, and pretend they were always there, even if you never knew about them. So here is the explanation you would never be able to piece together yourself, because we never told you about it. Heck, let’s not even bother to have the heroes reaching to conclusions, let’s just have the guilty guy revealing everything out of nowhere. And since every case ends in less than half an hour, there is no build up.

The result is a rushed succession of events, where you see horrible things happening to characters you barely know of, will never see again, and which the show treats as monochromatic paper cutouts to make it even harder for the viewer to sympathize with. Meaning, there is a lot of shock effect which means nothing besides being shocking, since you don’t give a dime about the victims suffering from it, or the fucked up psychopaths who perform these acts.

TONAL SHIFTS

And as usual, Japanese animators keep thinking that it’s cool to have gore and tragedy being immediately replaced by yaoi fan service and slapstick comedy. Because that’s going to impress the audience, instead of presenting it seriously, right? … Wrong, it makes it an abomination of mood whiplash that constantly breaks immersion. And until animation studios realize that you cannot treat your characters are paper cutouts that exist to monologue and then be shred to pieces for the amusement through destruction, modern anime will remain dead.

Same director and animation as for Assassination Classroom, with much of the same feel. Original concept by Edogawa Rampo, a mystery writer from the time around WWII, with an Edgar Allen Poe feel to it. Excellent character design, and as with Assassination Classroom, the players get text to tell you a bit about them as they are introduced. First episode sets up a classic murder mystery, a middle-schooler is in the room with a murdered teacher and is holding the murder weapon, but has no memory of anything. He asks to help the detective to find the murderer to help clear his name, but also because it's the most interesting thing he's done. Hold promise as an interesting series, and different from the standard summer fare.