This world we live in is a dream. The dream we have at night is in fact the true world. ...No its not? I know youre going for something that sounds deep or insightful but maybe we can just calm down for a second? 500https://i.ur.com/5hNS0Xt.png ...Oh. Oh no. For a laugh while simultaneously unaware of what this show was I jotted down my general thoughts as I progressed throughout each episode. Ill include some of these quotes here and there. Introduction This shows already giving me a headache. A brutal murder happened and Im the suspected murderer Fun Im going to become a detectives assistant Thoughts from episode 1. This anime was meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the mystery author Edogawa Ranpohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EdogawaRanpos death. The anime itself is loosely based on Edogawas stories. Loosely. Ive never read any of his works so I have no way of confirming or denying if this was a faithful representation of them. But given how absolutely absurd everything in this show is... Im just going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his stories are better than this. But who knows? Maybe he DID have a minor morgue side character whose segments are completely insane and hilarious that they dont even feel like a part of this show. Maybe he DID have an imprisoned sadist/masochist master thief character. Maybe he DID have a character who wears a paper bag over his head and can magically disguise himself as anyone. Id be interested in finding out actually. 440http://66.media.tumblr.com/855e0595f5d15ed3f872df723eaa7bde/tumblrnrc16nePC31u6zbi9o2400.gif Okay hands down the morgue character/medical assistant is genuinely the best part of the show. Its not like she commonly actually interacts with or are shown with the main characters though so it feels like her sequences are pulled straight from a completely different show. Characters How are you capable of smiling in this situation you woke up in front of a gory corpse which they think you are responsible for arent you just a goddamned high school student or something? Thoughts from episode 1. 220http://1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire4/30771859d900bf3bad59d0b6cebced171431018151large.jpg This is our protagonist Yoshio Kobayashi. Hes a middle schooler who one day wakes up in his classroom in front of his brutally murdered teacher. Basically his whole thing is that hes a sociopath. His whole role in the show is to say Fun and smile. All we really know about Kobayashi is that prior to the start of the show hes been finding life boring. We need a little bit more than that to be able to understand why a middle schooler would still be smiling when hes believed to have brutally murdered his home room teacher. He just happily agrees to dress up as a girl to be kidnapped by this serial killer who kidnaps little girls and then crushes up the ones who doesnt want to be a part of his family and then turns them into cement walls. Eventually theres a point in the show where he leaps off of a building to commit suicide because somebody just tells him to. Could argue he was being forced to do this but he didnt look or sound unhappy about probably jumping to his certain death. 300https://i.ur.com/iZl6aYQ.png Our real protagonist is this fellow Kogorou Akechi. Hes the actual detective character and unfortunately ends up with the strange Koayashi as his assistant. Hes so good at being a detective that he doesnt have to go to school anymore but by like episode three hes been shown doing nothing but crushing up pills taking those pills and drinking coffee. Hes the sort of character who will put on a record of some really melancholic sounding music and then throw a line like this at you: No matter how much medicine I take the pain doesnt go away.... But then in episode three I guess they realized that they couldnt just have Kobayashi and his friend carry the show so Akechi is the one who confronts the cement wall murderer. By confronts I mean he outright starts to fight this tall fat man who abducts and murders little girls. He later has a cast on because he apparently hurt himself punching and kicking the mans fat ???. He takes pills drinks coffee is a genius and can fight. Hes a detective 220http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/rampokitan/images/6/69/Hashibaprofile.png/revision/latest?cb=20160311215044 Theres also Souji Hashiba Kobayashis friend. His purpose in the show is to follow Kobayashi around wherever he goes basically saying what were all thinking. This is dangerous not fun why are you smiling? Getting abducted is a bad thing and you probably shouldnt almost commit suicide because someone told you so. His whole character is the voice of reason to the extent that almost everything he says is annoying/groan worthy. Like yeah of course middle schoolers shouldnt go around trying to solve murders we dont need an entire character dedicated to showing how messed up Kobayashi is. Eventually he just starts pleading to Kobayashi over and over again for him to at least resume going to school. Id rather investigate grisly murders than go to school because school is boring. 350http://66.media.tumblr.com/3048a6d3d8fd0df4b4d0b00dd6b4d84e/tumblrnro0nswL6e1u6zbi9o1400.gif Absurdity for the Sake of Absurdity? AND THERES PAPER BAG MAN WITH A BOMB STRAPPED TO HIS CHEST FIVE MINUTES IN AND WERE ALREADY THERE. Thoughts from episode 6. 440http://1.bp.blogspot.com/0hgn8glvbGI/VcQiSObtLtI/AAAAAAAAI1k/0jbH2G6ee7I/s1600/ranpokitanepisode6shadowmanbomb.PNG Love being the equivalent of being brutally killed and then being turned into a chair? Sure. A fat man kidnapping girls and turning some into cement walls? Yeah. An episode with the paper bag man having a bomb strapped to his chest and then the introduction of a cat a baby and robbers being added to this already whacky situation? You bet. An amusement park island with the theme of purposefully creepy horror mannequins? Why not Weird nationwide conspiracy with the central message of murdering evil people/committing suicide will make the world better somehow? Woah lets not get into the main plot just yet 440http://i.ur.com/4HDUtGZ.png Everything in this show is absolutely absurd but theres certain points where it feels like as if its trying to be taken seriously. Like if someone had told me that all of these things happened in this anime while having this overall main plot that they wanted people to take seriously ? I wouldnt have believed them. If we had stuck with the chair or the cement wall murderers I could have maybe seen a possible for the laughs argument that could be made. Going over absolutely all of in excruciating detail would take hours feel like easy pickings and would probably the one reason I would maybe recommend giving this a watch if you have absolutely nothing else better to do. Chairs are easy targets lets move on. 440https://i.ur.com/5gcfjof.png The Main Plot... Section Alternatively Titled What? Japanese illuminati is gonna get you THE ONLY WAY TO BETTER SOCIETY IS THROUGH MURDER. Thoughts from episode 9. 440http://pm1.narvii.com/5803/2c0e2a2d15c3928dcdd17f1d507b5e3f38db7b02hq.jpg Its episode four where the main plot really starts happening I suppose. Theres this fellow who wears a skull mask calling himself Twenty Faces. Hes essentially a vigilante who announces his crimes via the internet beforehand and then murders murderers who are let out early or beat the system. But as it turns out the original Twenty Faces died via spontaneous combustion no less and this is just essentially the next of many in a line of copycats. Or so thats what they thought. In reality this vigilante/murderer of other murderers has a pretty strong following and this only increases further as the show progresses. Akechi the detective and co. begin to try and stop the spread of Twenty Faces. Because you know murdering a murderer is still... murder? Perhaps its my overwhelming belief in humanity but I dont think the response that would come from the majority of people is okay lets go out there and murder the bad guys. Going any further is spoiler territory but there are several flaws/problems I still wish to address. Itll spoil the entire plot though like anyone cares. Conclusion...? ...so thats it? THATS THE END? Thoughts from episode 11. ...Yeah its bad. Annoying downright infuriating sometimes characters absurdity purposefully pushed to the absolute max and a strange illogical and faulty main plot that doesnt even really amount to anything in the end. I would recommend this only if youre looking for something bad to watch or if youre the sort of person like me I guess who likes dissecting horrible schlock. I give it a score of 2.5 out of 10 or 25 out of 100 chairs. 500http://i.ur.com/YJ7l4LZ.png