The series can be summed up as "basically a less merchandise-driven Yu-Gi-Oh, but instead of HEART OF THE CARDS it's UNDERSTAND THE FEELINGS OF PUZZLES". Denouements for each episode are easy to see, especially if you've ever seen any other anime series in your life. The animation is bad by 2011 standards and the character designs are amateurish. By all accounts this show should be awful and a waste of time.
And yet, it is neither, due to its dedication at being hilariously over the top.
Take, for example, a flashback in the first episode wherein a certain person implores the main character to solve unsolveable puzzles and ease their pain. Or the moment, also in the first episode, where the female lead asks about what to do, to which the main character replies "Isn't it obvious? It's PUZZLE TIME!" as a salsa tune kicks in. While Yu-Gi-Oh had moments of shining brilliance such as this, they were mere glimmers amidst the sea of generic shounen merchandise glut and couldn't bring up the show. With Phi Brain, these moments ARE the sea, and just when you think the well has run dry, an unnecessary character revelation or an inappropriate phrase pops up and gives you such a giddy whiplash that you're sold all over again.
And the show is currently only four episodes in! Should it continue this trajectory for the remainder of its 25 episode run, it may end up as one of the better offerings from the Fall 2011 season.
People who complain that the puzzles are mostly solved off-screen are missing the point. The show really isn't about the puzzles, and they're given the focus that they get so that the viewer can solve it him/herself and feel like they, too, can be the GOD OF PUZZLES and not focus too much on how things like sudoku and the rush hour puzzle are presented as brain-busting puzzles that only the most brilliant of minds could ever hope to solve.
Other factors that work in this show's favor are Jun Fukuyama, who is hamming up his role so much that he probably wore a curly tail and snout to recording sessions, and the opening theme song, which is the aural equivalent of a plastic army figurine melting in a microwave.
The viewing experience of Phi Brain is akin to watching a three-legged dog energetically hobble its way down the street, trying to dodge passersby and obstacles, in order to reach a fire hydrant to piss on. You have much better things to spend your time on than watch this dog. Your brain deserves to be devoted to much better. And yet you stare transfixed at this dog, from the second you first notice it to the moment the last drip falls, and you finally know true beauty and contentment.
