Kitsutsuki Tanteidokoro

In fiction, a MacGuffin is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.

What is the MacGuffin here? The murders, the conspiracy, the ensuing detective work. If these are insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in themselves, what matters?

1. Friendship. Real friendship. Until about episode 9, Ishikawa lives a life of total self-indulgence. While his Epicurean lifestyle creates genius-level poetry, it comes at a cost. This cost is burdened by Kindaichi.

Is Ishikawa a bad friend for consciously using Kindaichi? Is Kindaichi a little groveling bitch for deluding himself that Ishikawa is going ... to change... giving him limitless chances?

Kindaichi understands that he is being "used" for his deep pockets. Although Kindaichi admonishes Ishikawa, cuts him off financially, cuts him out of his life... he always comes back. Is Kindaichi a sucker, or is Ishikawa's friendship worth whatever the cost may be. The 21st century American view would be to "cut that negativity out of your life." But maybe true friendship is worth any cost.

2. Raison d'être. (Or as it was translated in my subtitles "Reason for being born".) Existentialism crises are always interesting; I don't know why.

To be honest, I'm not sure I picked up on any conclusions the characters made. (Sorry!) This could be because I binged the show, or because I am a slow reader. Or maybe its because purpose is always just outside our grasp.

Does the show have anything novel to say about Friendship or Telos? No. But if someone wants to explore these genuinely, I'm not only going to watch it but love it.

(Caveat: I don't know anything about poetry. I'm a person who loves prose; I "don't get" poetry. I know nothing about Japanese poetry. Nor do I know anything about the real people these characters are based upon. I'm not sure the show is any more or less enjoyable being informed, contextually.)

I have very mixed feelings about this.
Never read the original story before, so I can’t say if this is a decent adaptation of the source material or not.
The first episode was really intriguing and I loved the art style. The Meiji-era is also especially interesting I think, although you won’t notice it much in terms of politics etc., you’ll notice it in the way they speak and obviously what they wear and so on. But personally, I love this period where Japanese and „western“ style first came together like this.
The story itself wasn’t really interesting to me, halfway through the show I didn’t even pay ... much attention to what was happening - until episode 8 or 9. The score is also just what I like, and even though the anime is mediocre, I’m starting to feel low-key obsessed with it. I don’t know, it’s romantic somehow. The way this anime looks, poets sitting in cafés, wearing suits and Kimono, the change of the seasons, talking about friendship, accompanied by soft piano and dramatic strings. I just like that.
This whole mystery-solving thing is just something that also happens. It’s not a good detective show. I think a lot of people will like this on an emotional level, but I can’t really say it’s good. The story (or stories) as a whole seem not very well thought out (at least in this adaptation) and might as well not happen. This is how I felt, at least.

Thank you for your time.

I'll just cut to the chase here: if you're looking for a good historical mystery show, this isn't it. In the same season where Yesterday wo Utatte airs to old nostalgia (and immediately getting a bad rap for its obscene adaptation), this series created in the late 90s (1999 to be exact) and falling into obscurity is honestly not a surprise.

Fast forward 20 years later, and Liden Films' anime adaptation...will quickly fall into obscurity as well (not to mention the obviously low amount of people watching this).

Think with me like this: We have seen detective shows and played detective games before, but historical ones are ... rife with accuracy, and as much as "fiction" allows the brazen content to skirt around its intended "plot", sadly what we have here in the Woodpecker's Detective Office, is nothing but merely a Shakespeare-ish kind of mediocre play that wears on its audience. (Don't fault me on the adaptation though, I know next to nothing about it.}

Cases to solve a crime. There are many ways to go around this, especially in historical context (19th Century Japan, or the Edo Period), where works of art come around to play a part in solving crimes...that is: the art of poetry.

Characters are somewhat wishy-washy for the most part. The main leads Kyousuke Kindaichi (I'd swear that surname is to cash in on the late 90s craze of "Kindaichi's Case Files" from the novelist) and Takuboku Ishikawa. One full fledged detective, the other a poet. I'll admit that solving crimes through poetry is kinda of an art in itself, and it's interesting to see how it connects to the sole purpose of giving justice a name, but the story itself, feels like unconnected chapters of a novel, just there to give the book a name and "exposition" for the many "case files" to be tackled. Both of their relationship with each other is mutual, but a constantly fractured one as one acts insane, the other tries to quell his insanity, and it feels very forced for the most part. Not to mention the calefare "detectives" who are there to always give the main characters some pep talk about the cases and their narration, it just feels RPG-ish and something that's definitely not from a novel (that is, story content).

For the most part, getting subpar studio Liden Films to do this production just feels like it's the studio's bread-and-butter whilst awaiting for high-profile jobs (I'm looking at you, Cells at Work: Black) to produce with ease. Not saying that it looks bad, but the world around it just looks boring, even for shows that try to portray the historical theme to decent fluidity. Not to mention that studios like this are floating by just to get noticed, it just feels like wasted effort (and proven for the last year as well). Music really is so-so.

Not really memorable though, I feel like you could pass this show by and have better shows to watch instead of this. But if this ever tickles your fancy, try the 3-episode rule on this if there's anything to recommend by.