A while ago, I heard about the series "Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro", with Takehito Koyasu, one of my favourite seiyuu's, voicing the main character. I told myself I had to watch this series, even if it was bad - after all, I was still able to fangirl about his voice. Now I've finished the anime, I must admit, it was actually really fun and enjoyable.
STORY - 6
When Yako Katsuragi's father is found dead in his locked room, the police calls it a suicide, but Yako herself is convinced it was murder. When she meets Demon Detective Neuro, who came to the earth to solve and "eat" mysteries, she believes that he can help her solve the case of her dad.
A Demon Detective who eats mystery? Isn't that a little far fetched? Hmm.... a little. But you'll get used to it.
It takes a while before this plot really develops. The first, like, 15 episodes, all the episodes are typical detective episodes; a murder, serveral suspects, Neuro finds the culprit, the culprit turns into a monster (alright, that's a little different from the typical) and Neuro... eats the mystery . Although the most of these episodes are really predictable (just look at the suspects: the one who looks the strangest is pretty much always the culprit, after all, they turn into monsters at the end) it is kinda fun to watch. Probably because of the comedy.
The story isn't one of the series greatest points, but if you like comedy and action, you will defenitely enjoy it. Don't watch it for the mystery though.
ANIMATION - 7
The animation of the series is fairly decent: the characters and background look good, and the movements are usually quite smooth. I did notice though that they often draw Neuro with 6 fingers instead of 5 (at first, I actually thought he had 6 fingers because he was a demon, but in the end I was mistaken: just animation-mistakes).
Another something that bothered me, was that the characters sometimes look really weird during comedic moments; for example, the eye-popping and over-the-top expressions (watch the OP, you'll already notice some of it). This is not neccesarily a bad point though, a lot of people seem to find the look of it funny
The animation of the battles with Sai really impressed me though. Wish there were more of them in the anime.
SOUND - 8
It doesn't happen often that I love both the OP and the ED. The opening single, called "Nightmare", is really catchy and got stuck in my head while I was only a few episodes into the series. The ending theme, "Kodoku no Hikari", I must admit, made me tear up when I listened to the full version after watching episode 10; a really beautiful but sad song, and even sadder when you know the "singer" is one of the characters.
The voice acting was very good too; Neuro is voiced by Takehito Koyasu (like I said in the beginning), Yako by Kana Ueda (never heard from her before, but I really liked her voice) and Godai by Hiroyuki Yoshino (a.k.a. Kimblee from FMA Brotherhood and Ox Ford from Soul Eater. I had to look that up - his voice sounds really different in this one)
There was one scene in the final episode of the anime *SPOILERS*, in which the voice-acting REALLY impressed me; the scene where Sai (voiced by Romi Park, a.k.a. Edward Elric) loses his memory again. There was so much emotion putted into it, it almost teared me up.
CHARACTERS - 7.5
Although the characters aren't much developed, they have really charming personalities; I loved all the main characters. Neuro is sadistic and even though he's often very serious, he can be really funny at times, Yako is very cute and Godai cracked me up too. Didn't feel much for Sai, but I loved his voice.
OVERALL - 7
A predictable, but very enjoyable series; that's how I would describe Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro. Defenitely for people who love some good comedy.