Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns

trashcan007 Nov 16, 2023

4

They returned to make the same mistakes that they made in the first one. In fact, this version was worse in some ways due to the technology upgrades in the setting.  They have to go way out of their way to make these crimes hard to solve. A lot of coincidences. The storylines are drawn out and unrealistic.   Murderers get nicknames tied to some outlandish historic event or some magic fantasy story. Eventually, everyone gets lovey dovey and gushy after the psycho serial killer is revealed. Why are you sympathizing with the victimizer? No clear overarching plot (at least not revealed in the first 9 or so episodes).  Boring shallow secondary characters (if you can even call them that). There are a few cool puzzle-solving explanations here or there but the other factors make this hard to watch. It's just sad that they didn't learn from the first. The animation is better than the first, but that is to be expected with the release-date gap.  Under average. 4/10. The only people I could see cosigning this anime are the megafans of the first (which was just barely above average).