The Detective Is Already Dead

Episodes 1-3

Aside from being a surprisingly literal laying out of the show's premise, it's possible that the title of The Detective Is Already Dead also functions as a symbolic declaration of intent as well. That is, the 'detective' element of this series has quickly passed on from being its most important element; the actual detective work, the powers of deduction that fuel that, the possible layers of mysteries that could be presented – they're all generally irrelevant to the stories the series is telling, so you probably shouldn't be coming in here looking for them. It can be frustrating, of course, since the show still loves playing with the idea of being a detective, with the aesthetics, trappings, and so forth. But, as it seems to say right up front, that's all merely a setting to take place in; the actual detective, as it goes, is already dead.

That is crystalized within these first three episodes, which are actually more like four episodes thanks to the double-length premiere. That might be a daunting chunk for me to lead with reviewing, but thankfully not only was that double-stuf dawn of the detective discussed at length in the preview guide by my fellow writers, a lot of its issues bleed into the second episode anyway, making them easier to discuss in detail.

As I hinted before, the primary issue one could take with Detective is that the actual sleuthing is handily the least interesting part of the whole show. Wispily-defined wunderkind Siesta spends the debut double-episode having solved all the mysteries off-screen before we're even properly taken through them, and even after she's out of the picture, the problem-solving falls to her former assistant Kumihiko, who demonstrates that taking us through the actual steps of these deductions somehow makes them make even less sense.

Specifically, the second episode leads on a sequence of Kumihiko solving a mystery through a series of actions that would've made no sense to any real human being who might get involved in the same search. The question centers on new girl Nagisa's transplanted heart, and frankly I'm not even worried about contesting the premise that she sought Kumihiko out because she has nebulously defined heart-transplant memories ghosting through her system. This show opened with cyborg terrorists fighting with robot ears and the titular girl detective defeating that with a gun that fires her own superpowered blood – what're a few magic memories compared to that? Thing is, I'm not sure what the exact setup of Japan's organ donor records are, but you'd think there'd be some sort of medical paper trail that would be the first place to check in questioning where Nagisa's heart came from and where it might be leading her to. But instead of Kumihiko seeking out those options (who otherwise claims to be driven by logic in his pursuit of answers), we get a sequence of bizarrely coincidental contacts with cops and a one-stop reunion with the aforementioned cyber-ear-terrorist for a plot-twist reveal of what's actually going to be this show's truly bonkers premise: Nagisa's transplanted heart is, in fact, that of the Dead Detective Siesta.

So that's less of a mystery solved than even the first episode's plane-hijacking and middle-school drug deals that Siesta had already known about, but honestly, a detective show can function without being driven entirely by bringing the audience along on unraveling the mystery. Everyone loves Columbo, and his show's just about watching him catch the bad guys after we've already seen them commit the crimes! And to its credit, The Detective's third episode does seem to be outlining a more 'standard' mystery with questions and clues we can follow, though I'm not discounting the possibility that it'll be resolved with some absolute nonsense next week. But all that preceding poo-poo-ing of the procedural part of these plots is to make clear that if you were looking forward to jumping onto this show for that element, you're going to be disappointed.

With all that said though, I confess that even if The Detective turns out to be well and truly Dead, I'm having a fair bit of fun with the series so far in spite of itself. The most obvious appreciable element is going to be the characters, those arranged archetypes I suspect were the real motivation for Nigojū to compose the original Light Novel this is based on. What fundamentally doesn't work as mystery storytelling still functions neatly as a setting for our wannabe Watson to share space with marketable girl characters and exchange funny dialogue. Nagisa herself takes a bit to get going, pointedly being along for the explanatory ride in Episode 2 before coming to embrace her role as Siesta's successor in the third episode. (I've always heard 'follow your heart' as guidance for finding what to do in life, but I never expected it would be this dang literal.) Nagisa's also the case where we've got the most potential for examination of ideas from the Dead Detective; there are signs of a pointed question here as to whether her interest in detective work is of her own volition, or merely her agency being imposed upon by Siesta's transplanted ghost memories. Similarly, there are already the makings of Kimihiko grappling with his lingering feelings for Siesta against newly-developing ones for Nagisa, and how much of that is him projecting the ideals of her heart's previous owner onto her.

Of course, it's still early enough that all that conjecture is purely projection on my part, and we'll have to see if the series actually goes anywhere with it. For now, the barbs Kimihiko shares with Nagisa, as well as Yui, the eyepatched, gun-brandishing idol who clocks at least two Batman references in episode 3, functions well enough to be entertaining. The only real oddity is Kimihiko himself, whose performance is much more subdued than you might expect from a character in his role. Even when delivering the stock tsukkomi reactions to any of the girls he's doing the expected manzai schtick with, voice actor Shin Nagai says it in a much lower, calmer register than the style of comedy might lead you to expect. It's distinctive, at least (and with Kimihiko's bog-standard light-novel leading-man design, he needs all the distinction he can get), but I wonder if more energy wouldn't be to the benefit of this series, which otherwise has stretches of relatively little else going on.

A lot of what I think work about Detective are undercut in ways like that, but they're still there. The style hasn't made a return since, but the animation in the big action setpiece partway through the first episode really is a sight that could sell someone on the whole show. The worldbuilding is outlandish but still has enough going on with it that it could coalesce to pique our interest more as it goes on. There's even a badass cigar-chomping lady who, yes, is a cop, but let me repeat, is also a badass cigar-chomping lady. It all adds up to make The Detective Is Already Dead a show that I've got no intention of entirely writing off, even if it's possible that any goodwill that I have for it might be squandered before it's over. That's the biggest sticking point springing from the brazen, perhaps unearned confidence the series has that's propelling it: this is definitely not that smart a show, but it sure as hell thinks it is.

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The Detective Is Already Dead is currently streaming on Funimaton.

Chris is a freelance writer who appreciates anime, action figures, and additional ancillary artistry. He can be found staying up way too late posting screencaps on his Twitter.