Near future, post-war Tokyo? Sign me the hell up!
What They Say:
In a near-future, post-war Tokyo, the war hero president of a major corporation is murdered at his own party. Will the brilliant, young Shinjurou prove his self-proclaimed title as “the last great detective” by solving the case, or will devious “Media King” Rinroku Kaishou beat him to it, leading to a questionable outcome and the branding of Shinjurou as the “Defeated Detective” once again?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sometimes there are types of shows that will grab me just because of the basic setting idea and you have to hope that the story can deliver. Having gotten into anime in the 80’s and thoroughly in the 90’s, the whole near-future angle with the post-war backdrop is highly appealing. Now have it animated by Bones based off of a novel by Ango Sakaguchi whose works were done during the post-World War II period of Japan and you have the potential for something that can be used, modernized and examined well to give me the kind of series styled after some of what I basically grew up on when it came to anime. Now make it a noitaminA series? Talk about doubling my interest. But with Bones, there’s always some trepidation as their works are decidedly hit or miss for me.
The series looks to revolve around Yuuki Shinjurou, a young man who proclaims himself to be the world’s last great detective. He and his attendant have a certain flair about them as they attend a very wealthy party that’s meant to celebrate one of the men who was a war hero and became a significant player in the corporate world that existed afterward. There’s a richness and detail to the event as we see the various people involved, from the police to relatives and hanger ons. When you factor in that Yuuki is a detective, you start to process the episode like it’s part of Detective Conan and everyone who gets named is instantly a suspect for something that hasn’t even happened yet. So when said war hero is killed at the party, there is a real little thrill about it all in trying to figure it all out.
The very public murder certainly puts everyone under the spotlight but the police themselves are quickly called into question with one of them there is thought to be suspicious through some well placed movements and items that would implicate them. With it being a competition of sorts in a short amount of time to figure out who the killer is, as the man known as Kaishou puts Yuuki to the task, there’s a very good bit of tension here about things. What starts to separate things is that we see that Yuuki’s companion, Inga, has some intriguing abilities as she’s able to force a single truthful answer out of someone and they cannot resist. Because of the person murdered, the look at the past gives us a brief but useful overview of an aspect of the war and what happened, and the psychological fallout some have suffered since. It’s certainly intriguing and a good start to things while avoiding laying it out in an info dump.
In Summary:
The opening episode of Un-Go is one that is certainly intriguing with what it wants to do, but it’s hard to pin down where it will really go from here. Offering up this one as a straightforward murder mystery solved within itself, there’s plenty to like as we get an idea of who the lead characters are, a look at some of the foundation of the post-war situation and the results of some of the recovery problems as well. There isn’t a lot of real meat to the episode, but there is substance here to balance out the very strong looking animation and character designs so that it’s not all about the flashy. It has a certain quirky nature to it as well, particularly with the music, that makes it surprisingly engaging to watch. It’s not an out of the park hit by any means, but it definitely merits more episodes to figure out what it will really do and how it will all come together.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
