Back to PorcupineHead's Profile PorcupineHead's Profile

NOTE: I have previously made a review for this series 10 years ago, but it was pretty poorly written and recently I have started reading the manga so I have decided to do a complete review redux. There are also some minor spoilers ahead.

Demon Detective Neuro is the first series by Yusei Matsui, an author who later came to prominence with his smash hit comedy series Assassination Classroom. In comparison, Neuro, which is definitely darker in tone seems relatively forgotten. The anime never received an English dub and the manga was never officially released in English, though it was licensed in other languages such as ... Spanish and French. So one might wonder, is Neuro a hidden gem which deserves its cult following or does it deserve to fade into obscurity? Frankly while the manga is great and still worth checking out, the anime is a faulty adaptation held back by several issues.

First let’s talk about the presentation, the anime was made by studio Madhouse, so you can expect decent animation quality, but don’t expect to be blown away by epic fights and pretty colours. The character designs are also bold looking and easily recognizable with Neuro himself in his true form being the most striking. In terms of sound there are two things that stand out, the opening Theme DIRTY by the band Nightmare, (who have also done music for Death Note and Claymore) is a catchy and surprisingly heavy tune, in comparison the ending theme is a fairly typical sentimental ballad. The other notable thing is the voice of the main character Neuro, the legend Takehito Koyasu known for many roles such as Shinsuke from Gintama, Dio Brando and… Excalibur from Soul Eater. His performance truly steals the show and his manic laugh in one of the later episodes is unforgettable. We also have the main villain voiced by the CV of Edward Elric, Romi Park. The soundtrack composed by Tomoki Hasegawa is surprisingly decent and varied, containing dramatic orchestral tracks, some moody and goofy tunes.

But obviously what really matters here are the characters and the story, which centers around the titular Nougami Neuro, a sadistic badass demon who comes to the human world to feed on people’s mysteries and possesses over 777 demonic tools. As a cover up he sets up a detective agency with Yako Katsuragi, a high school student whose father recently got murdered. At first she seems useless and unremarkable, with her only noticable trait being her appetite for food which puts Luffy, Lina Inverse and Chouji Akimichi to shame. However as the story progresses her character and relationship with Neuro starts developing, though initially their interactions just involve Neuro bullying and torturing her, those slapstick comedy moments feel amusing at first, but they will start getting old and feel inappropriate. It’s definitely an unusual premise and not something typical you’d expect from a shounen Jump manga. Other significant characters include Shinobu Godai, a hotheaded office assistant and former member of Yakuza who likes drinking beer, Akane, a conscious ponytail of a girl buried in a wall, Eishi Sasazuka, a stoic smart detective with name and appearance similar to teacher Onizuka who always acts calm and collected and his assistant Jun Ishigaki, who in contrast acts dumb and childish and likes collecting toys, he’s similar to Matsuda from Death Note. The main cast is definitely memorable, but the villains are a mixed bag.

The problems start arising with the story and its structure, if you are expecting something like Detective Conan with a supernatural twist you are going to be very disappointed. In fact the manga author Matsui said in an interview he was not fan of mysteries and wanted to create an unconventional detective manga. So what we get here is a collection of episodic cases where the culprit is nearly always obvious from the beginning and then Yako with help of Neuro reveals the culprit while he explains the convoluted elaborate scheme straight out of CSI which the suspect used to commit the crime. Then Neuro usually devours their mystery and the criminal is arrested. Nevertheless, it quickly becomes very formulaic, especially because almost all cases in the first 15 episodes are murders with the exception of one mad bomber. Other standout cases include two episodes involving an idol singer and a springs episode which contains one of the most hilariously bad national stereotypes in anime. Most villains are shallow and one dimensional and once the case ends they have no relevance to the story. The big exception is the main villain, "Phantom Thief" Sai, a murderer who puts people in red boxes and searches for his lost identity. The 3 episodes dedicated to him are by far the most interesting part of the series until we get to the first major arc involving evil artificial intelligence HAL (Where could author get that name from?), easily the highlight of the anime which breaks from the usual formula by introducing way more action and a genius hacker Higuchi, who plays a major part in the story. Then we get a few more cases before the main characters are once more confronted by Sai, the series ends with a decent but open conclusion. So in a nutshell this is basically a mystery series for people who hate mysteries.

However, then we get to the manga and we quickly realise that the anime is just a really sloppy adaptation. Firstly the manga was far from complete and was running for just two years when the series started airing so it roughly adapts only the first half up to the HAL arc before the story diverges with an anime original ending. It’s worth noting that there is a dramatic tonal shift in the second half of the manga and the series transforms from a pseudo-mystery series into something quite different and much darker. Unlike many manga which have an interesting beginning and later jump the shark, Neuro actually gets better over time.

But even the material the studio could work with is adapted fairly poorly, while the first half of the manga was still not great, the cases there actually felt a bit connected to each other and there were bits of foreshadowing missing in the anime. There are also many other minor and major differences between manga and adapted material, for example in the manga father’s death is resolved almost instantly in second chapter while in the anime it’s revealed in the finale, still neither version handled such a major plot point particularly well. Many smaller subplots and chapters between cases which served as a break from the action are also missing. The Hayasaka brothers also got cut off from the anime completely.

Generally, in the anime the episodes just seem lazily thrown together willy-nilly in random order from chapter to chapter without much regard for pacing and we also get a few anime original cases which are far less interesting, some details from the manga are also omitted so for example it’s not explained how guardians of one of the HAL computers acquired their guns. However, the biggest issue by far by far is in the characters themselves. The interactions between them are also worse and there is a massive lack of development. In the anime Yako is mostly treated as a joke, but in the manga she really grows into a competent detective and Neuro’s character also changes as he tries to understand humans. Godai’s role in the manga is also way more interesting as he leaves Yako’s agency fairly soon.

One of the biggest problems is that Yusei Matsui's style doesn't translate well to visual media. His characters spend large chunks of time talking out loud or in their minds and the action gets disjointed when the dialogue in real-time. The anime also doesn't quite capture the series rough but unique artstyle.

Ultimately, Neuro is a really botched adaptation of a much better manga, if you enjoyed the anime definitely give it a try. Let’s just hope that with the success of Matsui’s recent series there is a chance for a reboot.

NOTE: I have previously made a review for this series 10 years ago, but it was pretty poorly written so I decided to rewrite it completely.

Blue Exorcist is a perfect example of a series which was supposed to be the next big thing but killed its own hype due to many factors such as long hiatuses and sloppy execution so most people have just lost interest and moved on to the next hyped up thing. The premise of the series might seem generic, taking elements from other shounen titles such as Soul Eater, D. Gray-Man or Fullmetal Alchemist, which would be fine if it was ... well executed, the problem is that the series just doesn’t do anything interesting with it.

The anime was made by A-1 Pictures, so we have above average production values with well animated fights, good looking backgrounds and characters and catchy opening themes. The endings are decent pop songs but not as memorable.

However, once we get past the stylish presentation there are lots of problems with this anime. The setup of the series is intriguing at first, we have a caring adoptive father who takes care of our main character Rin who is in fact the son of Satan. He’s also a pervert who likes reading naughty manga. Unfortunately he quickly dies so later he only appears in some flashbacks. But after the exciting start and when our main character enters the exorcist academy things quickly get boring and instead of doing something fun like training or missions, most episodes are wasted on standard slice of life and school moments which have nothing to do with his task to defeat Satan.

Most of the characters are not particularly memorable or unique, Rin is our typical shounen protagonist, a kind hearted person with a dark side whose notable trait is that he likes cooking. His brother Yukio feels like a waste of potential, they could really do something interesting with the dynamic between the two brothers but he just comes off as jealous and cold despite also being Satan’s son. The Academy is led by a goofy principal Mephisto Pheles who is similar to Shinigami from Soul Eater. The classmates are also painfully bland, we have a guy with pink hair and some weird staff who loves flirting and hates bugs, a short tempered ambitious kid, a girl who is only notable for her ridiculous eyebrows and another girl who is supposed to be caring and friendly but just ends up being whiny and useless. Also one of the exorcists is a woman with big boobs who makes sure to always reveal her cleavage but she is actually competent and not treated just as a token fanservice bimbo.

The sword and gun fights in this show are well made but the fights with praying and summoning beasts look pretty dumb. The religious symbolism and syncretism also feels kind of pointless because it lacks any depth and doesn't add anything. It just looks weird seeing one guy fight with a cross and another one with a Buddhistic prayer.

But then we get to the biggest issue, like many anime, it started airing when the manga was far from complete so what the studio decided to do is adapt the first half which is mostly pretty boring and the second half consists of anime original content. There’s nothing inherently wrong with anime taking a different route and the anime actually gets kind of interesting and has a decent but incomplete ending, but it's a bit too late at that point. However 6 years later we finally get a second season which basically completely retcons the story by ignoring the second half and continues following the manga more closely. But at that point most people did not care anymore and neither did I. After over 10 years the manga still hasn’t been finished and even if third season is announced it’s not certain if it gathers enough interest now.

Honestly I really can’t think of a good reason to check out this series anymore, it’s not offensively bad, it has solid animation and it is not painfully long at 24 episodes, but it quickly throws away its interesting premise and the second half is basically fanfiction which is completely discarded by its sequel. As far as fighting shounen go you can definitely do worse, but you can also do much better.

NOTE: I have previously made a review for this series 10 years ago, but it was pretty crap so I decided to rewrite it completely. There are also some light spoilers ahead.

Ah, Mirai Nikki, once extremely popular series which is now remembered only for the ultimate yandere girl Yuno Gasai and for being a massive trainwreck full of plotholes and inconsistencies, the ultimate “Turn off your brain” show. Does it hold up at all over 10 years later?

The presentation is not much to write home about, the anime was done by studio Asread who have never produced anything of note so don’t expect any eye ... candy. The character designs and movements are often ridiculous and the bright shiny colour palette just doesn’t match with the series theme. There are also various directing errors and awkward transitions. The music themes are however much better and the first opening which perfectly sets up the story is iconic at this point. The voice acting ranges from serviceable to annoying with the exception of the God who is voiced by the legend Norio Wakamoto himself.

The premise of a death game has been done to death at this point but at the time it was something actually interesting and fairly unique. We have 12 contestants with their personal future diaries (usually mobile phones) which reflect their personality fighting to the death to decide who will be the next god of time and space. At the time it was often often compared to Deadman Wonderland, another edgy series with a weak protagonist and Eden of the East which also contained 12 people with phones in a survival game. The viewer is easily hooked at first but as the series goes on it becomes dumber and dumber.

The first big issue lies with the characters, almost all of them are unlikable or incredibly stupid, take the main duo for example, Yukiteru Amano, AKA Yuki is one of the most hated main characters of all time. He’s a total wussy who cries a lot and feels like a product of his time when many series had similar protagonists. You might think that he’s overhated because he’s just a 14 year old boy but the problem is that he never develops or learns from his mistakes, he tries to save everyone but ends up killing many people in vain instead. Except he suddenly turns into a murderous psycho near the end as well. However the most infuriating thing about him by far is that he forgives his selfish cunt of a father despite betraying him multiple times because he said it was for their own good. But what about the main heroine Yuno? Honestly she’s just an annoying and stupid one note character who can’t think of anything except Yuki and killing anyone who gets in his way, her stupidity is definitely entertaining though.

Most of the other diary owners are not worth talking about, they are relevant only for a few episodes and then quickly die. For example Third is the first character who poses a threat to the main couple, a serial killer who wears a fireman’s outfit, he seems threatening yet he dies almost instantly in an anti-climatic way. Which is a pattern for most other diary holders, those include a guy who is a parody of Super Sentai heroes, a dog breeder or a whiny insane girl who is leader of a cult, one of the diary owners is literally a 5 year old kid who has access to lethal weapons for some reason and he’s just extremely annoying. The 8th is the only diary owner who is not a total psycho and is not interested in winning at all, she’s kind hearted but her stupid comical character design doesn’t match with the series at all, she is mostly irrelevant to the story as well.

The most relevant diary holders are Keigo Kurusu, the 4th diary owner who is an indecisive detective and the most notable opponent in the first half and 9th Minene Uryuu, a crazy terrorist with a hatred for god and religion who blows up buildings, she is one of the only characters who shows any development and later falls in love with one of the police officers. The biggest disappointment by far is 11th who is presented as the grand mastermind, but he appears too late and barely impacts the story as well.

Another big issue is that the diary owners don’t try to go after each other but they just go after Yuki and Yuno instead which just makes the series feel formulaic since the couple usually just takes them down one by one with only one exception. The whole story just consists of many disappointing and anticlimactic twists and plot conveniences, characters often don’t kill others when they have the opportunity and the interaction between characters feel unbelievable.

Then we have Deus Ex Machina, almighty God of time and space with terrible hairstyle who designed the game. How come he doesn't know the winner of the game, he could have spared the lives of all the stupid people who senselessly died and why did he choose those people including children for his death game? He is assisted by Murmur, an annoying loli comic relief character.

The only somewhat decent character who is not a complete idiot is Aru Akise, a young detective who is a shameless rip off of Near from Death Note and Kaworu from Evangelion, he has similar name and hairstyle, he is also gay for the main character and he is literally voiced by the same guy. We also see a few more of Yuki’s friends, a stupid douche, a tomboy and a lesbian who is in love with her. We never see any other characters in the anime and streets are often completely empty which just looks incredibly awkward. Yuki’s mother is barely present in the story and she doesn’t seem worried her son has nearly died multiple times.

There is no point in comparing the anime to the manga since it follows the source material quite faithfully and there aren’t enough significant differences. The whole story is just an unpredictable mess but that’s what makes it fun, you constantly wonder what kind of stupid twist happens next and then we get to the big plot twist in the end which settles the deal. It’s just entertaining in “so bad it’s good” kind of way which makes it more endearing compared to other similar edgefests like Akame Ga Kill or Deadman Wonderland. It is by far the most successful series the author has made. Don’t even get me started on the absolute shitshow that was Big Order.