Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective

Episode 10

Wow. I'm almost in awe. What manner of ancient curse has been laid upon the visuals this week? Sure, it's no Momentary Lily, and this isn't the first time we've seen the animation quality suffer in this show. But still, this is the first time the visuals have been this bad.

Like, I thought maybe something was up in the beginning of the episode—the whole sequence of them discovering the body looked hastily drawn, but the main thing that stuck out to me was the glasses-guy-who-we-later-learn-is-the-dad's eyes. I'm sure I don't need to remind you—these truly are eyes that stare into the abyss—but surely a refresher couldn't hurt:

…Oh, what's that? OH, up until I specified who I was talking about, you thought I was referring to the other case of weird-looking eyes in that opening scene, because somehow—against all odds—there were two! Plural! Multiple cases! Well, ask and you shall receive.

But you know how it is with anime. We can't all be ufotable or Pierrot Films all the time. Sometimes some scenes just don't look so great, and it just is what it is. …But then, only moments later, I saw Dr. Takao's arms. Or rather, her arm. I saw her singular anchor arm. It stopped me in my tracks. It's a good thing she's a doctor and knows CPR, because this took my breath away. Whatever was happening, it became clear, wasn't just some one-off thing. It was just going to be how this entire episode was.

People's hands were sometimes little more than blocks with lines. Eyes were frequently misaligned. And movements got really choppy at times. See this show stopping example. My guy's moving like he's in a 90s FMV game.

I'd have to rewatch it to confidently say whether or not it was quite this level of bad, but by the end, I couldn't help but feel reminded of that episode of Psycho-Pass that looked so terrible that it prompted the director to apologize for it. Especially considering that this show didn't even air last week, I can't help but be curious and a bit concerned about the circumstances behind the scenes that led to this. Still, credit where it's due: this is the most entertained I've ever been by this show. Granted, it's ironic entertainment. But still, I'll take what I can get.

The visuals weren't the only thing that seemed to suffer this week—the general editing and direction did, too. Something that stuck out at me was about 10 minutes in, the music cuts really suddenly. It's really abrupt, and there doesn't seem to be a particular rhyme or reason for it. Why does this happen? And if this was intentional, then why not pick a more natural sounding spot for it to end? As it stands, it's so jarring.

But taking the visuals and such out of the equation, this was just a set-up episode. That said, hey, at least this anime is giving itself an episode for set-up. Pacing has been such a consistent problem for this show, so combined with how low it's seen to it that the bar is kept, even something as basic as this feels impressive at this point. In any case, someone drowning in a dry room. On its face this sounds like this could have the makings of an interesting mystery, but I've said that before in this very anime only to be met with underwhelming, if not downright disappointing, results.

Were it not for the general (lack of) production value in this episode, it had a solid chance at not getting a significant complaint from me for once. Being a set-up episode, there wasn't too much in the episode itself to talk about—positive, or negative. But for better or for worse, this has certainly been the most memorable episode of this show so far.

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