lindgren.virgie - 2015-03-07 22:30:38

[Old review is old.]

Fantastic Detective Labyrinth is a show that I can easily say without a moment’s hesitation is accomplishing absolutely nothing noteworthy, making it an easy pass for any audience. But on the other hand, there’s only so many times I can write the words “bland”, “boring”, or “unoriginal”, and heaven knows I’m tired of overusing them in past reviews.

It is a semi-post apocalyptic future after Tokyo is ravaged by an earthquake, and now supernatural occurrences plague the surrounding area. A little boy named Hyuga Mayuki, who happens to be a genius detective of sorts, becomes quite curious of these events. With the help of his new schoolmates and his caretakers, he attempts to get to the bottom of what exactly is going on in the ruined capital. Along the way he encounters many perils, mysterious happenings, and a much bigger dilemma than he could have imagined.

Mayuki isn’t engrossing whatsoever, nor is he able to carry a smart mystery show. We as the audience have already solved the predictable mysteries by the episode intermission, so he’s just an average take on your lighthearted little anime boy. But thankfully the entire cast consists of unoriginal tropes so we can cover them lickety-split! We’ve got resident overdramatic fangirl maid, a couple nervous moe schoolgirls, some twins who are twins and that’s the extent of their characterization, loyal butler, energetic older sister, token cute animal, the super-serious adults who only spout exposition, and a plethora of recycled template villains to top them all off. Slap on some simplistic designs, give them a bunch of voice actors who barely sound invested in the material, and we have an effectively forgettable overall cast! So the characters a huge detriment to the entire show, barely withstanding any attempts of major developments and proving too shallow to dig any worthwhile content out of them. Everybody remains the same as they were first introduced, the most development given to Mayuki as he becomes slightly happier with his friends, but after ten hours and a finale that should have changed him significantly, nothing feels significant at all.

The episodic mysteries, filler episodes, and overarching plot are also unfathomably stale and would easily make good replacements for brand insomniac pills. I couldn’t be bothered if the one-dimensional characters come out ontop of whatever problems were pulled out of the creators’ asses to fill 25 episodes. The mysteries are so simple and straightforward that they would still prove unsatisfying on the off chance that I found the characters entertaining. Too much use of talking heads to explain things that could be exposed in a few seconds in competent writing, muddy dialogue whenever things start moving along, and filler episodes that rarely deviate from usual pool outings or school shenanigans solidified the writing’s low quality. The dialogue tries way too hard to make sure every little bit of the story can reach a younger audience that isn’t watching. It’s like it knew that it isn’t memorable in the least, so it constantly reminds us of everything in the plot so we can retain it for another minute before our lack of interest erases it from our minds. It has no problem guiding the viewers through its “labyrinth” of a plot, gripping their hands way too tight for them to properly enjoy while giving them no reason to care about it in the first place.

When the show tries to be humorous, it lacks any sense of passion to show a genuine comedic moment. They’re carelessly thrown in because it’s a shounen for the kiddies, and who really cares if they work or not? Unless effort to the same levels of FLCL, Nichijou, or GTO are put in, nothing will register in the wastebin of half-assed anime comedies, nor will it make a difference in the overall show.

We barely know anything about the supernatural shounen plot it until a bunch of girls with magical powers suddenly start fighting eachother. Said fights are completely ludicrous and end up being the same old DBZ lightning-fast punching bullshit scenes that never worked in the first place. Does anybody find these fights remotely fun to watch? Does anyone think they succeed as suspenseful or interesting methods for showcasing battle? What happened to connecting with characters or interesting ideas or developments riding on the fight? I don’t think that Soul Eater is a shounen masterpiece but it sure as hell is looking like one right now.

The show wraps up (sans spoilers) with a conflicting family background plot. Yet another cliche that was never a memorable conflict for me even in shows where it fit in well. A couple of bad asspulls here and there, as well as one of the more pathetic iterations of Third Impact I’ve seen, resulted in a safe ending without consequence.If that wasn’t enough, the last few seconds tease a possible second season, and seven years later it doesn’t surprise me that there is none to speak of.

Animation for this show was done by Studio Deen, and it feels like they were aware that the show wouldn’t benefit in the slightest with decent work, so they saved it for that one horror show that deserved it at the time. The art was bare and passionless in character animation and backgrounds. I already mentioned the frighteningly cardboard character designs, being the go-to style that studios use whenever they just want to get something done quickly without consideration for quality. Everything is stiff, many corners were cut regularly, and those fight scenes are atill laughably bad.

I couldn’t take away many memorable musical aspects aside from a couple of tracks played once for certain effects. The voice actors do very little for their counterparts since I’d heard this unimpressive acting in other effortless shows. Sound effects were noteworthy in laziness, which I found surprising because the foley doesn’t bring up a lot of complaints in everything else I see. Many sounds felt out of place and even jarring at times. The best example is in the finale, where the supernatural magical auras of from the opponents made extremely annoying sounds whenever camera shots were exchanged between the two parties. So the sound sucks more than usual as well, and it’s probably time to close this thing out.

So why did I decide to stick with this show anyway? Aside from a completionist mindset that I ought to re-evaluate, I watched this anime because I saw that Nozomi had put out a DVD release it. They had always licensed gems that weren’t picked up by the bigwigs, like Sound Of The Sky, the Aria series, Revolutionary Girl Utena, The Rose Of Versailles, Boogiepop Phantom, and Princess Nine. I thought I’d quickly check it out to see if I was missing out on anything. I wasn’t. I went into this show expecting something a bit surprising or unique. What I got was insipid shounen garbage. There is absolutely nothing here of interest or value, and I sincerely hope I can steer some people away from buying this show blind.

Fantastic Detective Labyrinth (2008):
2.6/10