Suteki Tantei Labyrinth

I really like this anime because for me its something knew. It is unlike an other detective anime which on revolves around crimes and such. The characters have different kinds of past and it was very interesting.

When we talk about the supernatural the first thing that will come into our minds will be ghosts and monsters. This anime has defined supernatural on another level which is a bit interesting. Well if you like something new watch this anime

How often do you see series listed on MyAnimeList have close to no reviews? The society of anime lovers barely ever leaves a show unattended and this particular oddity tickled my fancy.

I've started watching Suteki Tantei Labyrinth out of curiosity. The trailer and art suggested it must have been a great show of its time and now it was my job to reveal the mystery behind the absence of reviews. After all, it also meant a great opportunity to be noticed—if I wrote one, it wouldn't be lost in the sea of others. Was I any intrigued for the plot? Barely.

As the series begun, the ... first thing I've noticed was art. In my opinion, 2007 was generally the year of visually appealing series and the point when animation and digital art had completely taken over the industry and introduced the audience to the style most of the mainstream animes rely on today. Although a lover of old school, I'm a huge fan of the stereotypical millennium anime art style. Suteki Tantei Labyrinth, aired in the fall of 2007, had also adopted the back then novelty style, which made the series particularly pleasant to my eye. It was especially delightful after Gakkou no Kaidan I've reviewed a while ago.

The beginning gave anime a positive vibe of secrecy and a mystery filled story ahead, although I was a little disappointed to see no opening at the first episode. I'm that oddball who genuinely listens to the opening and ending songs, and often judges series by the soundtrack. As stupid as it sounds. Truth be told, the beginning made me tense with paranoia: will everything go wrong in the beginning or will the creators mess up by the end?

It did not take long 'til I found myself genuinely enjoying the show. Surprisingly, two episodes into the anime I found myself fully captivated and even gasping as events unfolded. As a person who's seen a handful of series, I must admit it's rare to have me on the edge and truly interested at the very beginning.

What had truly impressed me were the plot twists and unexpected turns. On multiple occasions I would roll my eyes thinking I've already solved the mystery before the characters did, meaning the next two episodes were to drag, and every single time I'd be proven wrong. It was a pleasant surprise and something you'd expect from a detective anime.

Another highlight should be placed on the characters. Suteki Tantei Labyrinth has loads of them and yet we never know who (apart from Mayuki) are actually the main cast or who are side characters. In fact, it changed so much through the series it is simply impossible to tell now. My biggest compliments are dedicated to the villain, though.

A common thing to see in anime shows is that the villain is a bad guy no one wants to deal with as he seeks to destroy everything and everyone on his way. And so this leads to the fact the "good" characters only interact with the "baddie" when it's a fight time. In Suteki Tantei Labyrinth, however, the villain is actually pretty chill to talk even to representatives of the enemy. I was very pleased to see the antagonist being presented as a human being, capable to hold a civilized conversation instead of just yelling and destroying everything in his sight.

However, once the villain eventually stepped into the game, the anime went downhill. Although creators clearly tried to make it a transition in a new arc, even changing the ending song, I seriously wish they simply carried on with the primary mood of the series.

Now, where do I even begin with the cons? Probably the unnecessary episodes AKA fillers. Although Suteki Tantei Labyrinth is only 25 episodes long, holy molly, it's full of fillers. While I could understand the first episodes not contributing much towards the main story and are just there to hook the audience in, throwing absolutely unrelated episodes midway the series is just wrong, especially when the anime is so short.

Next step would be the characters. Although it's understandable the new arc will require new characters appearing, there was absolutely no need to throw so many of them in, especially with no intention of developing them anyhow. It felt as if the author just didn't know how to cope with another half of anime he produced—either it was too much for him, or not enough room he tried to squeeze everything in. In the end, the result stays the same: it sucked and lost its primary vibe. Worst of all, it became predictable.

Previously logical and consistent anime in the blink of an eye turned into an incoherent chaos with a bunch of new characters, new powers, new concepts, new backstories. Although I've somewhat enjoyed learning more about Seiran, whose story was probably the best of the lot, it was still pretty bad. The beautiful series that kept me tense and curious were long gone and replaced by what seemed like a sloppy fan continuation. It had so very little to do with the first episodes it was awful.

In the end, nothing really made sense and so many plot holes were left it made me sad.

When I've first started the series I did not think I would like it. I did not expect to dislike it either. All I wanted was to review it and to find out why others haven't done so. I can't tell if I came across the reasons, but I've come up with an assumption.

The series started great and from episode 2 I was mentally planning how I will praise this unnoticed masterpiece and recommended it to my boyfriend at once. However, midway the series it changed so drastically the previous joy of mine had vanished, leaving me nothing but a bitter taste of ash.

Such unexpected let down hit me harder than I thought and in fact, I felt like giving up on the review altogether. It was just painful how an anime with such great potential was ruined by what seemed to be a careless flick of a wrist.

Truth be told, I myself postponed this review for two weeks, now nearing the end of another series I watch, but eventually decided to share my insights.

In conclusion, I'm sure the anime was noticed and seen by many. The lack of feedback is likely caused by feeling cheated and general confusion of how a 10 went down to a weak 5. It is difficult to rate an anime half of which was brilliant, but the other half a disaster.

Did I enjoy it? Yes.

Am I disappointed? Also a yes.

I can tell why this show has few reviews. I picked it on a whim because I thought the poster was charming, but unfortunately this show is just a whole lot of nothing. A couple of character designs and backgrounds are nice, but everyone in the show is as flat as a board, with a singular personality trait defining them for nearly the entire run. Now, this wouldn’t be much of an issue if the mysteries were engaging, but they're just as shallow as the rest of the writing, taking the place of filler, detracting time from the things that actually matter to the plot ... and characters. There's legit no reason to watch this anime, which pains me to say because I REALLY tried to like it.

There's a lot of questions surrounding Mayuki: Why does he live in a western styled mansion in Japan? Why is white haired Hatsune Miku after him? Why does he go galaxy brain when he drinks tea sometimes? Where are his parents? Why does his butler turn the maid and the older sister of a friend into battle automatons (or as the show calls them, Aya)? Why is every single girl mildly close to his age in love with him? Well, I can safely say, that there will be basically nothing surrounding the answers to these questions until episode 14. None of the initial, smaller mysteries add anything to the overarching plot, which is asinine for a 26 episode show. Mayuki and Seiran are easily the most interesting characters by default, but it's hard to keep that interest if almost every episode is spent spinning the wheels and getting nowhere. The core of the show's plot also has basically nothing to do with Mayuki's school friends or the detectives, so once you find that out, it feels like your time has been wasted with all of the focus that's been put on them. The ideas presented later on when things FINALLY get going are extremely interesting, but they're bogged down by too many faces and not enough to do.

When you have a mystery show, either you need engaging characters, thought out mysteries, or both. (in the best case scenario) This show has neither. If a character is introduced in the episode, and they aren’t the victim, chances are they're the perpetrator, and they're being mind controlled by the villain. It's hard to even consider what happens mysteries because they're either so obvious, something that audience can't possibly solve, or the show bends over backwards to get the mystery to work. (for example: a firefighter making an ice ladder just to impale a guy on a radio tower because the guy found out the firefighter was stealing things from buildings HE set on fire.) A good ⅔ of this anime could be cut and nothing would be lost. Honestly, I don't even know why it's a mystery show when the actual mysteries to be solved are nothing but filler level writing.

Another wasted opportunity is the setting. I'm a big fan of overgrown, dilapidated buildings, so it takes real effort to not make them interesting to me. If the setting was replaced with any other anime that takes place in vaguely futuristic Japan, there wouldn’t be anything missing. It hardly explores the main core of its environment, that being Tokyo becoming ruined in the wake of a natural disaster (caused by something story related at least), and what that potentially did to the entire country. It's like everything about this show was on a dart board and was chosen at random, nothing is cohesive or thematically resonant.

Sad waste of intrigue...