The story of “The Detective is Already Dead” is about a mysterious girl claiming to be a detective, and the main character got caught up in some events as the girl’s sidekick. Up to this point, you are probably thinking about what kind of mystery it will offer in the following episodes and how both characters will solve them. However, you will be disappointed if you believe that this anime is anything close to a mystery anime. Unlike other detective stories, such as Sherlock and Detective Conan, it offers no mystery because everything is explained right at your face. Even in an anime like Detective Conan, where the culprits’ motives are stupid, each case successfully builds up suspense and allows the audience to engage in solving the cases. Apart from this, the supposed female main character, aka the detective, Siesta, shows up only around 5 times in the entirety of 12 episodes. The male main character, Kimihiko, aka the sidekick, paired up with another random girl and they started their journey to do God knows what. The story jumps from point A to point B and to point Z, and this is not an exaggeration. Everything part of the story is being tossed around with no explanation and occasionally some flashbacks are supposed to depict the relationship between Siesta and the MC. The story is a disaster because the story doesn’t know which direction to go and there’s no consistency in anything.
Art: 4
The first episode is where all the budget is and when animators are hired. In the first episode, the animations are amazing with 360 camera angles and constant movements on the plane. The way the fight scene was animated makes you feel the momentum and intensity of the battle without giving you the time to breathe. There are certain times when I thought that the entire anime is going to be this good and I just came across a hidden gem in the mines. It turns out to be that I was wrong the whole time, and everything turned to sh!t afterward. After the first episode, I have two speculations: The animators died from exhaustion or there’s no budget left. The still motion and PowerPoint scenes disappointed me after seeing how great the animation is in episode 1. Other than the first episode, nothing from the rest of the anime is impressive as they look bland and uninteresting. By the way, the colors the anime decided to use lean towards a greyish style, so nothing looks vibrant or colorful in a way.
Sound: 3
The opening and ending are both pretty nice to listen to, but other than that nothing stands out in any particular way. Everything after episode 1 shrinks in terms of quality, so there’s nothing to expect from it. The opening and ending have high replayability as they are well produced by the singers.
Characters: 1
The male MC, Kimihiko, is probably one of the blandest characters you can ever see in an anime. You cannot separate him from Hyouka’s MC as they are identical. The MC tried to give off this “I don’t care,” “I’m bored,” and “I don’t want to do your bidding” attitude, but in the end, he will do everything for Siesta, the female MC. His personality is also the same as many other MCs, which is shoving his ideologies down other people’s throats. It is so one-dimensional to the point where it’s annoying to watch him on the screen and you will hope that he can just shut up for real.
Siesta is one of the female MCs, but a girl named Nagisa takes her place (literally) by having 90% of the screen time. Both characters are the same because they have no personality whatsoever, and they exist for Kimihiko’s sake. Their backstories are not sad or touching because the anime did not bother to elaborate more on them, and they give you the feeling of “oh that’s it? Huh, interesting.” Notice how I did not mention any other characters or villains? That is because they don’t matter to the story at all. The “villain” is an evil organization that is evil because it is evil…Yep, that’s how it is. With or without them, the story can continue perfectly fine, so I don’t even want to bother writing about them.
Verdict: 1
I’m one of the idiots on the internet that got tricked into wanting to watch this anime after seeing the PV released by the anime studio. Throughout my watching experience, I find myself dozing off because of the terrible writing and I have a hard time trying to piece everything together. I regret my decision to watch it, and I hope none of you waste your time on this.
