Summer 2021 First Impressions – The Detective is Already Dead

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12 (The first episode is double-length)

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Note: The first episode is double-length. I will endeavor to keep the summary concise.

Trouble seems to follow Kimihiko wherever he goes, so when he’s nabbed off the street and forced to carry a mysterious attaché case onto a flight, it feels like par for the course. But this is no ordinary plane ride – mid-flight he meets Siesta, a self-proclaimed detective, and involuntarily becomes her sidekick as she’s summoned to the cabin to help solve an… issue. There she faces off with an individual intent on hijacking and crashing the plane. Siesta correctly identifies that this man, code-named “Bat,” was put up to this by a certain organization, but that doesn’t stop him from brutally attacking them both with an augmented appendage. As it happens, the attaché case contains a special gun used to defeat this adversary. The fact that Kimihiko was forced to carry it onto the plane was all a machination on Siesta’s part.

After they land Kimihiko assumes his odd adventure is over. However, Siesta has other plans. Inviting herself into his home, Siesta eventually learns that Kimihiko’s school has been experiencing an odd rash of student disappearances that seem to be related to the Hanako-san urban legend. She poses as a student to attend the cultural festival, and manages to identify the real root of the problem. After all this, Kimihiko is still reticent to become her official sidekick, but an offer of protection pushes him over the edge. Yet their adventures are not all sunshine and roses, because… the detective is already dead.

Impressions: Consuming media occasionally involves questioning the decision-making process of those who create it. The Detective is Already Dead isn’t unique in that it leads off with a double-length episode; I feel like it’s been something that’s gotten to be more frequent recently. But it’s a decision that I rarely find seems warranted by the material it’s attempting to convey, and most of the time I end up feeling as though the storytelling process would have been more successful if broken up into smaller pieces.

The first half of this opener is exciting and mysterious, with some really stunning action animation that’s fun to watch and distracts from all of the things we viewers don’t really understand about what’s happening in the plot. We’re introduced to the idea of a secret organization and a young detective whose powers of deduction seem inhuman. And then that all wraps up and we’re left with another twenty-something minutes of very boilerplate teenage anime rom-com stuff – unanticipated shacking-up, school shenanigans, cutesy will-they-or-won’t they roleplay. The series might attempt to draw a balance between these two modes, and that’s not a failure of an idea by any means, but stitching them together into a very lengthy package and trying to immediately sell it that way requires a sort of storytelling skill that I don’t feel is really demonstrated here. I was tempted to just stop watching after the first half because I had the sneaking suspicion I’d end up having issues with the length (considering it’s taken me multiple days to finish this I’d say my suspicions were sound), but I suppose if an anime series wants to present itself in a certain way I’d rather judge it on those full merits rather than trying to pick apart what puts it in a more favorable light.

The non twist revealed at the end of the episode (as such because it’s literally the title of the series), is that at the point Kimihiko is telling this story, Siesta has already died. I’m still trying to wrangle with how I feel about this, and whether that assertion is as straightforward as it may sound. Several years ago I watched a movie called Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, in which a teenage boy becomes friends with a girl who’s been diagnosed with leukemia. The entire time I was watching it, I was thinking to myself “surely they’re going to subvert the title, because killing off a female character for the benefit of some dude’s emotional growth is so gross and cliche.” Spoiler alert: she dies. Though the rest of the movie was good and I don’t want to diminish it for people who didn’t have this same issue with how things roll out, I had a really difficult time getting past the fact of the character’s tragic disposability. I don’t yet have a great read on Siesta (who seems to be purposely obscuring substantial details about herself) or Kimihiko, and I have no idea what to expect from the story at this point, but now I’m wary of it and I feel like that might be the death knell for my enjoyment.

Pros: The first half has some truly great animation. Staging an action scene within the confines of an airplane cabin has got to be a difficult move, and I felt like the illusion of close-quarters was maintained reasonably well as the character animation went off the rails (in a good way). The tenseness of having to escape alien knife tentacles while running through narrow aisles and hiding between seats is conveyed really well.

Siesta is portrayed as observant and knowledgeable in a way that strikes a good balance between actual reality and the needs of an anime-style story and characterization. She’s neither a haughty know-it-all or a flighty, infantilized savant, which I appreciate. There’s a scene in the second half where she happens to see Kimihiko get out of the bathtub, and her reaction to his nudity is simply being vaguely unimpressed, which is a nice change from the norm.

Cons: I used to be involved in cosplay skits from time-to-time, and one of the most helpful pieces of advice I received over the years was to keep things succinct (too bad I didn’t get that same memo when it comes to my writing!). It’s even more helpful if the masquerade organizers impose an actual time limit on skits, because I find that there’s almost nothing more cringe-worthy than someone who thinks they’re clever and can fill two-and-a-half minutes worth of time with a poorly-acted skit filled with obscure fandom in-jokes (not that I have ever been involved in such a thing). That’s kind of how I feel about double-length anime episodes – many series feel that they’re warranted, and yet I can think of very few where they’re actually necessary (Astra: Lost in Space is the only one that comes to mind and its long first and last episodes are both good).

Content Warnings: Violence. Mild nudity.

Would I Watch More? – I wasn’t blown away by this first episode – I feel a bit like it just lost its way. I think the issue (aside from the pacing) is that I’m jut not convinced by the relationship between the two leads, which feels as though it should be a large part of the appeal of this series. I’ve got the show on pause for now.