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「僕が二人にできること」 (Boku ga Futari ni Dekiru Koto)
“What I Can Do For Those Two”
The money-laundering case is concluded fairly satisfactorily, but I found myself barely paying attention to the details of the case and the whole mystery wasn’t all that interesting, which is a bad sign. The detective aspect simply isn’t engrossing, and the main draw so far has been the inside look at NEET culture. The case itself was solved fairly straightforwardly, and had perhaps the most typical conclusion possible. After Meo tries to call her dad in the last episode and gets tracked, a bunch of thugs show up at the Hanamaru ramen shop demanding for her. Min is a very strong-willed one and deals with her troubling past pretty well in my opinion, and also makes Narumi look like a total wuss and a weakling.
I guess Meo felt guilty about causing trouble for others so she runs off, but her naivety made it pretty much impossible for her to get father back on her own. Like Narumi, I highly suspect that giving the money to the Yakuza would not save her father. Narumi is pretty rash too and doesn’t follow Alice’s directions, ending up needing the Yondaime’s to come around and save his ass. I half-wanted an “I told you so” moment, but even Narumi himself knows that he’s pretty useless, and so formally asks the yakuza boss for help, performing the sake pledge (with just water). Luckily, his resolve seems to increase quite a bit afterwards, and he gains some balls too. Narumi comes up with an interesting plan to force the Kiwada group to bring out Kusakabe, and it works out, giving Meo a borderline-inappropriate reunion with her father. Case solved, and there’s not much else I have to say about it.
Aside from criticism due to my own peeves though, I feel like there’s a huge breach of privacy going on here with Alice’s incredible hoard of information, largely gathered by tapping phone calls, hacking databases and secretly tracking people. She’s apparently quite skilled with a computer, even for a NEET, and that observation is supported strongly by the enormous array of machines she setup in her room that would make any tech geek extremely green with envy. For me, Alice is fairly interesting, probably because the large cast hinders a lot of character development. Alice’s cute antics and hints of tsundere do provide for amusing moments too, and she also tends to wear elaborate clothing when going outside, to which I have no complaints. There’s too many misses in this show though, so I’m not impressed.
Preview
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So let’s see…
We have a pussy ass protagonist, unlikeable side characters (especially that military otaku), questionable and very convenient ways of presenting its case, and a pretentious “detective” that makes Shinichi Kudou facepalm a hundred times in disbelief.
Awesome show, this is.
Sarcasm aside, this show is pretty weak in terms of story line progression. There’s a lot of deus ex machinas, I’ve found, and they don’t really help to engage the viewer. It’s just like – “Oh, there we go, now we can get on to the next part of the episode.” Yeah, not exciting stuff.
Pretentious detective? No, Alice is just a normal moeblob crafted to please people. 😛
This is the best show since they invented the aids cupcake and feces burgers.
Gotta say I’m enjoying this show a lot more than I expected. It’s nothing ground breaking but the idea is simple and is executed very well. My only problems with the show is when it has to do the occasional shit fanservice along with tsundere slapping.
@Proof
The Mystery isn’t like what you would come to expect from Detective Anime because it doesn’t deal with what I call the “Crime in the locked room” cases where the detective figures out what is the magic trick that the criminal used to pull this off.
Instead KamiMemo opts for a more down-to-earth type cases like missing persons and in this case, dealing with organized crime. This is good because it doesn’t have to be overly creative with the magic trick of the crime, which may or may not impress the viewers.
That is certainly correct, though unfortunately it’s also true that I’m not finding this particularly interesting.
we all know were just here to watch Alice cause shes so damn cute with her teddy bear
Didn’t have high expectations for this. Aside from finding it rushing too way much (while I found the manga too slow), it’s somewhat entertaining. The growth of the protagonist is really slow though, despite the rush.
The military otaku is freaking retarded
Despite browsing RC these past days, I haven’t even heard of this show until today (granted, I didn’t catch the season preview you guys come out with, but that’s because I wanted to read up on the impressions you guys have first, before deciding on what to pick up myself).
Anyway, I’m going to go ahead and be that guy, and just point out that I think you meant “breach” up there, not “breech”; I wasn’t sure if breech itself was a word, but after finding out its definition, I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant at all (“the lower, rear part of the trunk of the body; buttocks”).
All in all, though, this was a good post, and I might just check this out for the NEET stuff.
fixed, thanks
lol @ Vice-Admiral nickname (the story of V.Adm.Ozawa at Leyte was true,btw… because Japanese didnt have much aircraft left on the carriers they used them as a bait to draw out Halsey’s fleet, while Kurita’s battleships and cruisers were to attack transport fleet at Leyte bay… unfortunately for the Imperial Japanese Navy, a bunch of small US carriers got into Kurita’s way and distracted him in turn long enough so the transport fleet was saved. Here endeth history lesson for today)
I actually like the military otaku because I am one myself. Alice seems to rather think in terms of serving the justice than following the letter of law. And while the main character himself isn’t exactly a superhero, he is quite capable for a high schooler. How many of these do you know that would tangle with real mobsters?
Not gonna lie, I watch this for Min and Alice.
The sake ritual really felt like it came outta nowhere, so I had a hard time feeling… anything about it, aside from the boss-guy kinda approving of Narumi. Was that really just water? Thought it was bottled sake, but whatever. While these “mysteries” aren’t complicated, they’re still good enough to be interesting because the show makes you care about the client(or at least tries to). He/she isn’t just there at the beginning and end, so that’s something.
I also love the scenes with just Alice and Narumi. There’s some good cuteness there!
I don’t care about the mysteries at all. In fact, I think this show perfect the way it’s not: less mystery and more character development. All like all the characters of this show, specially that Yakuza group with those idiot, yet, awesome guys.
I feel “detached” from the mystery, like it’s actually not the main point of the show. Since the 1st episode the mystery doesn’t even feel solved. It’s just like suddenly God whispers to Alice what the fart is happenning, and boom! She gets the answer.
I might be thinking too much, but I wonder where the hell she gets all the money to set up those surveillance cameras, hacking phones etc. At least in hollywood movies they have that super stinking rich boss who pays for everything.
Sorry for the long comment ^^;
I can share a wild guess of mine there: Alice inherited all those from her disappeared dad, who bought her all those stuffed animals she kept in her room, who taught her to hack, and the one she’s supposedly waiting for by locking herself inside that room.
I like that guess of mine better than all the mysteries shown so far. At least it has a ground on facts and not some random ass-pulls or God’s whispers inside Alice’s ears.
I honestly can’t stand the show, especially the main character. It’s like somebody took Mikado from Durarara, made him the main character we have to follow every episode, took away his uniqueness, and made it so that any cool thing he does comes across as forced.
Also, these yakuza are the worst yakuza ever. I’m pretty sure real yakuza have guns, and that’s just one problem I have with them.
This anime is one of the best
Wow, I’m sensing a lot of disappointment (even rage??). I was pretty satisfied with the episode and intend to continue following it, personally.
I liked Narumi’s plan on drawing out the Yakuza and ambushing them. However I am not impressed with the pacing and the lack of character depth. Hate to say it, but it is already showing signs of being the next Yumeki Merry…
My fav character in this whole series thus far is actually Min, so hopefully they will show more of her 🙂
I decided to drop this show after watching this episode. The characters are very bland especially the main guy, and the plot lacks interests and creativity. Alice is the only good thing about the show, but not enough to keep me watching.
Both this show and Dolls has/had some interesting concepts and characters to work with,
however Dolls is actively developing those ideas whereas I feel like this show is not.
At this point, it’s a flat show, and yes, it does feel like another Yumeki Merry… (:
I thought spineless vaginamale protagonists were out of fashion already.
Honestly, I haven’t been impressed with this show since the beginning. Stuck around hoping it would improve, but I guess it’s good time to drop this.
They’re never out of fashion, although I wish beyond anything that they’d stop shoving those asswipes down your gullets every season. Those basterds seem to always be “stuck” in crazy situations or surrounded by super-girls, MAN (like they even know what that word means) I just hope the wimpy male stuff isn’t a reflection on what viewers want. That would just be sad.
I just FF through any of the pussy-guy stuff this season, even though that means skipping some shows altogether 🙁
Well, to be fair there are some sissies I can’t just help but root for (maybe because I can’t relate somewhat?… don’t really know why), like the lead from Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, or Claus from Last Exile (okay, he wasn’t exactly useless as a pilot), or that pitcher form Ookiku Furikabutte . But the current ones from the last couple of years or so have been just genuinely useless on all levels. To compound things, they seem to all have this penchant for embarrassing themselves in public.
I really dislike the way they animated the story. The novel itself is slow-paced with a lot of emphasis on life ideas and problems of people’s lives. If I had to give it a genre, it would be slice-of-life.
The anime turned it into a detective comedy. Which conflicts with the source material because the source isn’t about super-smart detective outwitting devious criminal masterminds. That’s why the cases seem lame and the characters uninteresting.
Really, they should’ve kept the original style, perhaps lengthen it to 3-4 episodes per book(rather than 2 episodes for the Meo story) or not animate it at all.
Detective comedy? I don’t know how you get that from this show. I mean the first episode the girl happens to kill herself because she couldn’t handle what everyone expects from her…
Oh god, it’s the Hanasaku Iroha syndrome. The first episode will be stunning, but the rest of the show (until around episode 11) will be absolute bullcrap.
Seriously, the first episode was okay, but it was hindered down by the bland characters and terrible comedy. While the show’s quality is debatable, that doesn’t change the fact that the yakuza in this episode stink.
Hold your horses and your flamethrowers till you reach the end of the season.
I’m dropping this the second Alice and Narumi start sucking each othres faces off.
I wanted him to be with Ayaka but now I really hate tsunderes especially ones who’s clothes stay on the entire series.
Bit disappointed that the series shifted greatly from the mood the hour-long episode provided. This two episode arc seems like it’s trying to expand on character development but unlike the first episode, it overshadows the mystery aspect, which originally drew me in.
I’ll still watch, though with only 12 episodes, I was, and still am a bit concerned at what’s to come.
I’m not sure if it’s safe to say or not, but I think maybe your expecting a bit too much from the show? I mean, I’m having fun just watching the characters interact with each other and what not. Like said before, it’s not ground breaking but it ISN’T that boring. Maybe it’s just the fact I’m enjoying it far more than everyone else ha. Or..I just find Alice too damn adorable heh. I’ll continue watching.
Just some info, I heard from one of the fan that. This arc is one of the weaker one, all the juicy part is coming soon. So hold your horse on this one.