Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective

Episode 11

So here we are, at the penultimate episode, and it was mostly a fact-gathering episode. More specifically: up until the end, definitely the biggest thing that happened was Dr. Takao talking to Shirou-Emiya-Is-That-You about his alibi—which by extension, leads to learning that he's in a relationship with the plastic surgeon.

In a word, this episode was boring. Maybe it's because I know the end is drawing ever nearer, but more than usual, I just had the most difficult time finding it in myself to care about anything going on. The scene in the car where Dr. Takao suddenly tries to make it look like she and Dr. Kotori are lovers so as to evade police suspicion stands out as the kind of thing that I feel reasonably confident was written with the hope and intent of being one of the most hilarious, “oh-that's-so-Dr.Takao” moments of the episode, but even then, all I could think was, “Does she really need to be doing this? Does she think the police will care? If they ask what she's doing, she can just say she's waiting to pick someone up or something, it'd be so much easier. This feels so unnecessary. Actually, the running joke of the series is that Dr. Takao looks like she's still a teenager—wouldn't her acting like she's Dr. Kotori's lover make them even more suspicious?”

This is all to say that I feel like I've already mentally checked out of this show, and nothing that happened this week made me want to check back in. Which is wacky, because sometimes fact-gathering episodes can be the meatiest ones of a mystery series. But I've said it week after week, this show just fumbles so hard when it comes to actually delivering plausible, entertaining mysteries. It feels pointless trying to solve it at this point, knowing that there's a pretty high likelihood that some manner of implausibility is going to play a role, and that's no fun to work around. At every turn this anime has disappointed me, so while I'd love to be surprised, I doubt next week will be any different. It's really hard to feel invested in what's going on, let alone feel excited about next week's big reveal.

Speaking of, the episode ends with an ambush on the culprit—whose identity we're going to learn next week. Given this anime's track record, I'd be willing to bet it's only going to take up the first half of the episode, and only sort of make sense. I get suspicious vibes from Shirou-Emiya-Is-That-You, the plastic surgeon, and the dad, but admittedly these guesses aren't substantiated by anything. It's just vibes.

Also, since they were so awful last week, let's talk about the visuals: while being better than last week (not that that means much), the visuals this week still feel pretty weak. Plenty of uneven eyes, choppy movements, and just generally feeling like a mess. I haven't been enjoying this show, obviously, but still, it's always a shame when the visuals take such a sharp turn for the worst as they have the last few weeks.

I'll offer more thoughts on the series as a whole next week, but for now I'll say I'm looking forward to it finally being over. As much as I love mystery anime, this one has been an exhausting reminder that they're not all fun to watch all the time. I definitely think its place among ANN's worst anime of the season is well-earned.

Rating: