Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective

Episode 5

I've said it multiple times now: I think the foremost issue this anime has is that, more often than not, it's tried to keep its mysteries limited to one episode. The many other problems this show has been having all seem to stem from that. So it's almost impressive how this week, finally, we're being set up for a multi-episode mystery… and yet, I still can't find it in myself to care.

Let's back up: This anime hasn't fully accepted that it needs to give its mysteries room to breathe. We're left with this Scooby Doo-esque nonsense, where the mystery has shifted from a medical mystery to who's wearing the mask-slash-full-face-helmet bit. A lot of this will probably be explained next week, but with the pacing we've seen thus far, I'm not exactly confident in this anime's ability to give us a satisfying resolution.

Comparing this week's episode to Scooby Doo doesn't feel quite right because the only Doo-like quality that this week's episode of Ameku M.D. had was its structure, and even that comes with an asterisk. At least when you watch Scooby Doo, more often than not, the mystery is just who's wearing the mask. Sure, they might need to figure out a few other things to get there, but “who dunnit” is always at the center of it. You can solve the mystery because you know what the mystery is. Meanwhile, this week's episode couldn't seem to make up its mind, whether it wanted to be about who's doing it or how they are doing it—neither of which, it's clear at the end, seem fully answered. And worthwhile questions like why anyone would do this are left without any answer at all. You can't hope to solve a mystery when it's unclear what question needs to be answered.

To be clear, I don't think that it's an inherently flawed thing that this medical mystery series wants to have one brief moment where it's trying to solve a different kind of mystery—which is to say, essentially, an unmasking mystery. I just think that this show isn't going about it well. The show seems weirdly unsure about what it wants to ask the viewers, which often manifests in sloppy and shortsighted writing. This is to say nothing of how, once again, we're seeing the show itself undermine its own protagonist. Almost every single one of the most iconic fictional detectives is framed within their series as a bold and inventive mind, utterly unmatched by anyone else around them—their mysteries could only be solved by them. Yet Takao, like last week, has seemingly just stumbled into a mystery that doesn't necessarily require a doctor to solve it. Last week, it was because it was apparent; this week, it was because it wasn't a medical mystery being solved at all—even if several minutes of the episode were spent wondering how or if a person or corpse could combust. Takao didn't even solve the mystery—Dr. Kotori did.

I might be more willing to look past the messy writing in this mystery if the story behind it were more interesting. And that probably has something to do with the fact that we've learned next to nothing about these historians—well, aside from that, they can't be as smart as they let on if it never occurred to them that breathing in air from a dank tomb just might've made them sick. Even when this show gives itself another episode for a storyline, it just can't resist being poorly paced and focusing its energy in the wrong areas. Maybe I was wrong when I thought the core issue of this show was its baffling insistence on keeping its mysteries so short—maybe its problems go deeper than that.

If there can be said to be a silver lining to this week's episode, however, at least it didn't quite feel like the insult to the audience's intelligence that last week's episode did. It still wasn't a mysterious mystery—the clues were practically broadcast, and it was another very easy solve—but anything is progress at this point. Still, we're nearly at the halfway point, and I've yet to see this show come up with a particularly gripping mystery. This is whacky to me because before watching this show, I never would've believed you if you'd told me I'd be bored by a mystery series that incorporates T-rex skulls and spontaneous human combustion. But, against all odds, here we are.

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Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Wednesdays.