Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo

Story is about a high schooler who's the grandson of a famous detective and he and his friend always end up at the epicenter of some crime with a murder or multiple murders and the protagonist solves them.

At first I thought it was really good and interesting, but later on it became a real drag to watch. For the 40 episodes I've watched, I took two breaks from the show because I had zero desire to watch it. In the end I gave up because I realized I was forcing myself to watch it and not having much fun.

Reason why I felt like this is ... because there doesn't seem to be an overarching plot or anything, the only way you can tell the show has progressed is that the main characters and some recurring characters are using new information based on events that took place in past episodes. Other than that, nothing really changes. Every case takes about 3-5 episodes and then the next one starts, I find it amazing that this has 148 episodes when at around 40 I thought I've seen all there is to see.

I find it very unrealistic how the two main characters who are 17 (but look like 14) are so calm and composed when they encounter death so often and seeing dead people literally every other day. It gets to the point where they don't pay any mind to them, aside from the first reaction of shock or screaming, after that they are totally fine, even the other characters that are just for the case are also calm and composed. It looks so fake and it destroys any immersion the show might have had.

It's not just Kindaichi, it's Miyuki as well. She can't have seen so much death in her life, yet she doesn't flinch after the first few seconds. And she is not even a persistent character, she is just a supporting deuteragonist to Kindaichi. She doesn't appear in other series, only this one and is then replaced by another girl.

The same goes for every other character, even the ones that are just for the specific case. It happens in every case and in every episode without exception.

People find a corpse, then some woman/girl screams, the rest gather around, look shocked for 1 second and then everyone is completely fine and OK. Since every case is a recycled copy/paste of every other case, it's always the murderer being among them all, and it's known to all and yet nobody seems at all nervous to be among the others, especially in situations where Kindaichi gathers them around to have some meeting with them or to try and trick the murderer of slipping up.

This is just a minor issue among the pile of issues with Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, at least this is the only Kindaichi anime I've seen (up to episode 40) and after that I have no desire to see the other. Every case becomes predictable after you've seen a few cases, very scarcely the crime committed has been really elaborate and well thought out, usually it's something very simplistic and even idiotic. In some occasions it even defies the laws of physics and nature, like showing someone traveling between rooms on the outside of a building walking on a ledge and then disappearing or something like that.

The author tried really hard to make everything look elaborate and milk it for as long as possible, but it just keeps getting more and more boring as there is no overarching plot, in 40 episodes I did not see anything happen that can be considered a main plot material. There was this case/arc where Kindaichi got framed for a murder he did not commit, at that point, I thought it might mean something, but this is quickly forgotten and never touched upon ever again. I even went through the trouble to watch the last episode, 148 I believe, just to see if something happens, well it doesn't. It ends like just another case and ends in some forced comedic manner like 90s/00s anime where Kindaichi is running chasing after a car where his friends are in the car laughing at him while he has a dumb face and is shouting something incomprehensible. Which is just insulting to me, because it means for 148 episodes nothing really happened. Maybe if people like this simplistic type of murder mystery that goes on and on and on until even the author gets bored and puts an end to it, it may be fine, for me it was a waste of time, the first 5-10 episodes were promising, but when I realized nothing else happens, I saw no reason to waste my time with it anymore.

The cases themselves quickly get old, some are predictable, others have really stupid solutions, there was one where the murderer was jumping from door to door so that he doesn't leave any footprints in the mud because it was rainy, the stupid thing was that each door had a concrete platform in front of it and they were close enough that anyone can jump from one platform to the other and the door thing is absolutely idiotic and pointless. It made me feel like the author is trying really hard to make everything look elaborate when it's in fact pretty stupid.

There is an anime called Tantei Gakuen Q, which was a bit more interesting and some cases were real head scratchers. I would advise anyone to watch that instead of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, it's a bit cliche, mostly the main character stereotypes, but the cases themselves are more interesting.

I think Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo can be best enjoyed if you are in the age group 7 - 14, after that it's hard to enjoy something so cheap and predictable that basically doesn't go anywhere. Another way I can describe it is "watch it only if you absolutely need to watch something and for some reason there isn't anything else to watch". It's not horrible, but it's not that good either, just mediocre and boring. The show is overrated and most of its praise is fake.