I'm honestly not sure what else to start with other than that I came to this show with expectations that I could watch lolies go on wacky adventures and solve strange cases. At the start I am greeted to the protagonists and the antagonists. The first five minutes prove to be very promising, with the characters losing their powers. I figured that they would have to use teamwork to move forward. What I got after that though was highly disappointing.
I'm going to be straight with you, one of things that got me through the first few episodes was the lolies, and even then, they weren't much on their own. I got the feeling that the creators thought that making the girls borderline retarded would make them more cute, sort of like the girls in K-on, mainly Yui. But the difference between the two casts is that at least the girls in K-on get good at what the set out to do. Yui get to be a good guitar player, and even though she acts it, she does get good grades when she puts her mind to it. The cast of Milky Holmes never really improved. At first I was appalled at the amount of discrimination the girls got simply for losing their powers. Those that lose their powers are called "useless", and Milky Holmes was no exception. Supposedly the girls were famous and had solved many cases, but once their powers were lost, they were treated lower than dirt. I still held similar sentiments throughout the show, because they were expected to get their toys back when it was never proven that anybody had ever done that before. But most of it left because the girls really did tend to be useless, they hindered far more than helped.
And this show really doesn't have a villain. This show is supposed to be lighthearted. We learn in the first episode that the Student Council President is Arsene, and her three henchmen have also all infiltraded the girl's school. One is a teacher, one a chef, and the other a fellow student. I will repeat this show really doesn't have a villain. To be honest, the "villains" were more interesting than the girls. I would guess Arsene enjoys the chase more than victory, because several of her plots are to help the girls get their powers and deep down she seems to have a good heart. Twenty, the teacher, is narcissistic to the point he carries around a dakimakura (hugging pillow) with himself on it.The chef dude (who's name eludes me) is usually serious, but he too tends to provide some comedy, and Rat, the student acts like a rival at times to the girls. The villains remind me a lot of Team Rocket. I felt that they were doing most of the work for making the show enjoyable.
Speaking of enjoyment, I felt the first few episodes were poor, but it picked up in comedy after that, only to get more serious later on. This tended to create a clash I felt. As the story got more serious, the characters didn't really follow suit. I understand that if it had the girls would have seemed too different, but I felt as it was, they stood out and got in the way. The tone in the later episodes I felt didn't really work with the characters. The midsection of the series was definitely the best of them.
I get that the show is suppose to be a parody of the detective genre, I think a parody itself would work, but what I got wasn't so much a parody of the detective genre, and more of k-on where the girls are supposed to be detectives. And it's a k-on where they suck at their job from beginning to end. At least the villains aren't so bad, otherwise the people would be doomed.
The most memorable character and my favorite is Twenty. I really wanted it to be one of the lolies, but my favorite loli of the show, Irene, wasn't featured enough. Twenties antics just really stuck out, even amongst the other strange happenings from the cast. Like when he licked his dakimakura of himself, or when he frequently stripped in class, or best of all, one of his lines in episode 3. He was the star of the show if you ask me.