Un-Go #01 — Magical Transexual

October 13th, 2011

 

I don’t think this was how the original detective novels went.

Impressions:

Well, Bones. Let’s see what we’ve learned from GOSICK and No. 6 about creating a mystery/thriller. You’ve taken an old detective novel and decided to add… a magical boy that transforms into a slutty woman who uses magical hypnosis to send an entire room full of people into a heretofore unseen and unknown flashback about their past where they confess their crime and motive. At this point, the latin guitar kicks in. Bones. What the hell are you doing? Do you need to go watch some Detective Conan again to remember how mysteries work? Maybe read some Encyclopedia Brown?

Bones is also phoning it in on the production pretty heavily too. There’s not a whole ton to animate in the first place and the art style is highly simplistic. It seems like Bones was also using the ‘mystery’ setup to just get away with recycling stills, of which there were already many in the first place. You could also put out someone’s eye with those chins. As seems par for the course this season too, there was also an absolute cluster-disaster of characters in the episode, the only one of which that stood out was the panting, moaning, magical transexual. That’s not a compliment, that’s just one of the few notable features of the show.

So, yuck. Bones still hasn’t figured out how detective stories are supposed to work and the magical boygirl just strikes me as a blatant gimmick. There’s little else noteworthy to the episode besdes him/her and even then, claims of magic in a mystery story are meant to obfuscate the truth of what really happened and be shown as lies by the detective, not be used as a deus ex machina to get a sudden info dump out of nowhere as to the sum and total of the crime. That’s just lazy and horrible all around.

Posted in Anime | 5 Comments »

5 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Nan says:
    October 13, 2011 at 11:58 am

    Well, the show *is* called Un-Go. Maybe they’re trying to slip a message about it.

    …it makes sense without coffee, ok.

  • Travis says:
    October 13, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    I recall a Father Brown mystery where the good Father remarks that the best-intentioned homage is still less sincere then the most amateur of creative efforts.

    … That might be pretty daft, actually. But the point I think I was trying to make is – there’s a bunch of really good mysteries to draw inspiration from/blatantly rip off. So why is it that we’re gonna be Shafted – er, boned – by the crummy mystery offerings here?

    Ah, well. Encylopedia Brown, haha. I gotta say, the Donut Dilemma introduced me to crime capers – and possibly my love of donuts. I also vaguely recall a detective series with Ulysses somethingorother. Like the poor kids Hercule Poirot. Speaking of – Why isn’t there a Hercule Poirot anime? By world masterpiece or whatever?… Answered my own question, there.

  • Jared says:
    October 17, 2011 at 2:47 am

    I was actually happier with this than Guilty Crown, though that might just be because I had ACTUAL expectation for Guilty Crown.

    As for the characters, I expect 5 to stick around: The father, daughter, police investigator, ‘failed’ investigator, and transsexual. All the others were probably just store props.

    I see some room for conflict between the two private investigators, so hopefully this’ll develop some actual character during it’s run.