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This is one of those episodes where the action starts right away and they back track in order to explain what happens before it, but from all view points of the characters so the audience is omniscient. Although, this is by no means original - it shows at least they tried doing something different. The premise is based on strange murders happening after a debilitating earthquake in Kyuto. Probably, a supernatural power of some kind that has to do with dolls and of course, there’s the young blonde boy who’s supposed to be a master detective (or something, also keeper of the path to life? Or whatever Byakko was rambling about) and his older dark haired “Haji” protector, who just happens to be the silent type.

There’s some fighting between the scantily clad busty girls (who aren’t busty by anime standards and I sat through Witchblade) who may or may not all be dolls. Yui Horie voices Byakko, the psycho villain of the series? She gave me a C.C. vibe but I doubt her role would be like that of C.C., so it’s all good. But apart from that, I liked the character design for the most part…Mayuki Hyuga, the main character kind of annoyed me. There’s something unwholesome about blonde little children ever since I saw Children of the Corn. The clumsy maid/but actually powerful underling element is also kind of lame but who knows, but it won’t be so bad. And the fact that there are twins in this show means that they are serious! The animation is also relatively fluid and since I assume there will be more locations to the show, I am looking forward to seeing how the background sets are and so forth.

One thing that I really liked was the background music at some parts which really stood out and in a positive way. There’s also a hint that someone’s mother is probably involved, and if I’ve learned from stories - almost everyone has a mother complex. In fact, Witchblade is a giant mother complex…but that’s for another review. The opening was not show (unless I missed accidentally) but the ending is a slightly better run-of-the-mill frenetic Jrock ending. I hope that the detectives reprise, which it seems as if they will and I do hope that Mayuki’s power is explained more directly and not in a lame weird pseudo ploy of “internal power that cannot be seen or heard” because that’s where too many deus ex machinas appear.

In any case, this is probably one I will be watching since it has some mysterious elements that for now, is hard to predict.

Tags: Anime Review, suteki tantei labyrinth

Category: Episode Synopsis

A. Papillon is not amused.