I always have high hopes when a mystery show comes along but Ranpo Kitan from last year left me wondering if anyone can pull it off anymore. Along comes The Perfect Insider which is adapted from a 1996 novel. It’s already been made into a manga, a visual novel and a drama so why not kick the tires on an anime right?
There is a very simple premise here. Sohei Saikawa, an associate professor of architectural engineering and Moe Nishinosono who is the daughter of his mentor, travel to a remote island to meet an artificial intelligence researcher named Shiki Magata. Shiki was accused of killing her parents but was found innocent because of her mental state at the time. After this incident Shiki locked herself away on this remote island to do her research. When Sohei and Moe get to the island, they meet Shiki Magata but not in the way they expected. When they see her, she is just a torso with her appendages on a dining cart. Since Sohei is a big fan of hers and Moe is the one Shiki was talking to before the trip, they decide that it’s up to them to solve the murder.
Except for Moe, Sohei and Shiki, the other characters are really none factors. Moe is the bright, upbeat character who seems to have a thing for Sohei. Sohei is more of your doom and gloom personality who doesn’t want to do anything but what he has to do and everything else is a bother. Shiki you don’t get to see too much of but you can kind of tell the type of person she is in those few sentences. She has a very sullen personality but I guess you run into that a lot with smart types right? I hear that all the time….ugh. Anyway….the characters just seem to not be the right fit for a mystery show.
The presentation of the show is pretty good. I can’t think of anything that stood out as an issue or anything that was spectacular though. The opening theme isn’t something I’d expect from a mystery show though. It was like an uptempo dance type song. I actually wish there was something wrong or something to pick at or praise because I really don’t have too much to say about this show. I guess I can say the plot and all that are okay for a mystery show, they didn’t do some supernatural weirdness or anything like that so there’s a positive.
After 11 episodes of this show I am left wondering if anyone has a good mystery left in them. Is there anyone in Japan who knows of a good mystery that might make a good anime? These recent shows are just not up to par. The show is okay I guess but so slow and probably could have been wrapped in even less than 11 episodes. Some of it just seemed like embellishment really. A 90 minute movie is about 4 episodes of an anime and that probably would have been the sweet spot for this.
[yasr_overall_rating]