As a fan of the mystery genre, I have seen a considerable number of anime which have attempted and failed in delivering genuinely interesting stories and those with surprising plot twists are rarer still. Himitsu - The Revelation excels in this.
The overall concept of the show is the development and existence of a 'Memory Reproduction Imaging system (MRI)' which is able to replay the images of memories. Suffice to say, this is a pretty nifty piece of hardware in ascertaining perpetrators. One would think, however, that it would be easy to figure out the culprit from this technology but the clever scripting quite often does not show the criminal and it is up to the team to delve into the memories of the victim to piece together the mystery.
The series is primarily episodic with occasional 2-3 episode arcs and in the background there is an overarching story which culminates in a grand finale. This makes it both easy to watch and gripping at the same time.
Perhaps the greatest strength of the series is the animators refusal to downplay the graphic nature of the crimes. This anime is definitely 18+ and there is no shying away from the bloody scenes or nudity.
However, as much as this is its strength, the low budget animation and limited character development is its weakness. Considering the episodic nature of the series, one can understand the latter but it is a shame that the animation quality was not up to scratch. That said, it does not detract from the story at all.
This is listed as a shoujo anime but it would perhaps better be relabelled as josei or even seinen. An added bonus was the excellent voice acting of Tomokazu Seki, whose role as Chiaki in Nodame is amongst the best I've heard.
I highly recommend you pick up this series, especially if you like gritty detective stories with a slight sci-fi twist. Psycho-Pass fans wont be disappointed either ...
