A ghost was seen on the 12th floor of the Asakusa Juunikai building. A newspaper article featuring the sighting brought together Takuboku Ishikawa, who runs a private detective agency to support his family, and his assistant Kyosuke Kindaichi to solve the case. (Source: MAL News)
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I'll just cut to the chase here: if you're looking for a good historical mystery show, this isn't it. In the same season where Yesterday wo Utatte airs to old nostalgia (and immediately getting a bad rap for its obscene adaptation), this series created in the late 90s (1999 to be exact) and falling into obscurity is honestly not a surprise. Fast forward 20 years later, and Liden Films' anime adaptation...will quickly fall into obscurity as well (not to mention the obviously low amount of people watching this). Think with me like this: We have seen detective shows and played detective games before, but historical ones arerife with accuracy, and as much as "fiction" allows the brazen content to skirt around its intended "plot", sadly what we have here in the Woodpecker's Detective Office, is nothing but merely a Shakespeare-ish kind of mediocre play that wears on its audience. (Don't fault me on the adaptation though, I know next to nothing about it.} Cases to solve a crime. There are many ways to go around this, especially in historical context (19th Century Japan, or the Edo Period), where works of art come around to play a part in solving crimes...that is: the art of poetry. Characters are somewhat wishy-washy for the most part. The main leads Kyousuke Kindaichi (I'd swear that surname is to cash in on the late 90s craze of "Kindaichi's Case Files" from the novelist) and Takuboku Ishikawa. One full fledged detective, the other a poet. I'll admit that solving crimes through poetry is kinda of an art in itself, and it's interesting to see how it connects to the sole purpose of giving justice a name, but the story itself, feels like unconnected chapters of a novel, just there to give the book a name and "exposition" for the many "case files" to be tackled. Both of their relationship with each other is mutual, but a constantly fractured one as one acts insane, the other tries to quell his insanity, and it feels very forced for the most part. Not to mention the calefare "detectives" who are there to always give the main characters some pep talk about the cases and their narration, it just feels RPG-ish and something that's definitely not from a novel (that is, story content). For the most part, getting subpar studio Liden Films to do this production just feels like it's the studio's bread-and-butter whilst awaiting for high-profile jobs (I'm looking at you, Cells at Work: Black) to produce with ease. Not saying that it looks bad, but the world around it just looks boring, even for shows that try to portray the historical theme to decent fluidity. Not to mention that studios like this are floating by just to get noticed, it just feels like wasted effort (and proven for the last year as well). Music really is so-so. Not really memorable though, I feel like you could pass this show by and have better shows to watch instead of this. But if this ever tickles your fancy, try the 3-episode rule on this if there's anything to recommend by.
I have very mixed feelings about this. Never read the original story before, so I can’t say if this is a decent adaptation of the source material or not. The first episode was really intriguing and I loved the art style. The Meiji-era is also especially interesting I think, although you won’t notice it much in terms of politics etc., you’ll notice it in the way they speak and obviously what they wear and so on. But personally, I love this period where Japanese and „western“ style first came together like this. The story itself wasn’t really interesting to me, halfway through the show I didn’t even paymuch attention to what was happening - until episode 8 or 9. The score is also just what I like, and even though the anime is mediocre, I’m starting to feel low-key obsessed with it. I don’t know, it’s romantic somehow. The way this anime looks, poets sitting in cafés, wearing suits and Kimono, the change of the seasons, talking about friendship, accompanied by soft piano and dramatic strings. I just like that. This whole mystery-solving thing is just something that also happens. It’s not a good detective show. I think a lot of people will like this on an emotional level, but I can’t really say it’s good. The story (or stories) as a whole seem not very well thought out (at least in this adaptation) and might as well not happen. This is how I felt, at least. Thank you for your time.
In fiction, a MacGuffin is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. What is the MacGuffin here? The murders, the conspiracy, the ensuing detective work. If these are insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in themselves, what matters? 1. Friendship. Real friendship. Until about episode 9, Ishikawa lives a life of total self-indulgence. While his Epicurean lifestyle creates genius-level poetry, it comes at a cost. This cost is burdened by Kindaichi. Is Ishikawa a bad friend for consciously using Kindaichi? Is Kindaichi a little groveling bitch for deluding himself that Ishikawa is goingto change... giving him limitless chances? Kindaichi understands that he is being "used" for his deep pockets. Although Kindaichi admonishes Ishikawa, cuts him off financially, cuts him out of his life... he always comes back. Is Kindaichi a sucker, or is Ishikawa's friendship worth whatever the cost may be. The 21st century American view would be to "cut that negativity out of your life." But maybe true friendship is worth any cost. 2. Raison d'être. (Or as it was translated in my subtitles "Reason for being born".) Existentialism crises are always interesting; I don't know why. To be honest, I'm not sure I picked up on any conclusions the characters made. (Sorry!) This could be because I binged the show, or because I am a slow reader. Or maybe its because purpose is always just outside our grasp. Does the show have anything novel to say about Friendship or Telos? No. But if someone wants to explore these genuinely, I'm not only going to watch it but love it. (Caveat: I don't know anything about poetry. I'm a person who loves prose; I "don't get" poetry. I know nothing about Japanese poetry. Nor do I know anything about the real people these characters are based upon. I'm not sure the show is any more or less enjoyable being informed, contextually.)
*May contain spoilers* Okay, first of all, I have been watching anime for about 2 and a half years and have used MAL as my reference for which ones I should be watching and usually it hasn't let me down, but the score for this one really did not sit right with me. I'm honestly surprised it's so low. I guess to each their own and that it's probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I still don't understand why it only has 6 stars. I took a dive into this anime because my favourite seiyuus play the main roles and I honestly couldn't understand the6-star score from just the PV. To start off, the story having been set in the Meiji period was something new and exciting to me. I haven't read the original manga and neither do I have enough knowledge about the early 1900s in Japan, but it seemed like a well-handled setting with characters that fit said setting. The story itself is not just a detective mystery drama but also a slice-of-life chapter in the characters' lives. It has been created with these specific characters set in mind and that's the beauty of it. The way that poetry was set to be the tying ribbon in the story is also beautiful in its own way. Moving onto the characters, they're all named after and inspired by famous Japanese poets and authors of the time. Each character has a personality of their own; a way they communicate and a way they fit in with the story. The friendship between the characters, especially the main characters, is gently crafted too with various layers to it. There are people that are always looking for concrete reasons for certain people's behaviours or personalities and relationships, but there is no way to fully understand something as deep as emotions. Trying to overanalyse the friendships in this or most any other animes of the same type is not something I understand. Unlike other animes, we don't really learn a lot about the past of the characters but we are given a front-row seat to their current selves and their growth in the short period that we are with them. The added fact that Asanuma-san and Sakurai-san play the main roles really did the best for me. Their voice acting was amazing, as usual. The art is probably one of the biggest points of this anime. Its use of colours that are pleasing to the eyes, the simple feel it gives in some scenes while in others it shows raw emotion and life, is definitely something to keep in mind. The only places that found me just a little less interested were how some of the cases were just a little bit on the cliche spectrum, not that it matters at all in the big picture, and how the dialogues seemed fairly scripted but then again, set in a whole different era, I'm no one to say what is right as I know nothing of how people used to speak at the time. While I say that it is a good anime, I cannot say that it is to everyone's taste. To some that come looking for complicated detective stories or thriller mysteries, this might fall short of their expectation but I suggest that anyone that is wishing to watch this, watches it with no prior assumptions. Happy watching! :)
A story like life: Impossibly long, and yet... So painfully short. The episodes of this detective story had always an engrossing tinge of sadness to them that I couldn't quite put my finger on for the longest time. After merely twenty minutes, I felt as though my heart had been immersed in the stories of these poets for hours. Every time, without fail, this time distortion only grew, and after a while, I began to enjoy it. I put off watching the final episode for almost a year, precisely because a part of me couldn't believe all these hours of serene storytelling could, or rather should, come toan end. It left me feeling both empty, like a church without faith, and incomplete, like a letter left unwritten. But that didn't make the finale less beautiful. Even without faith, the psalms remain gorgeous verses, and even without dramatic twists and turns, the much more intimate and human tales I had been told made me glad to have heard them. If anything, they made my heart ache for more, but I suppose that's the way life, and specially death always are. If each life is a book, then one's love is a poem. I know this review isn't useful, nor did I want it to be. The technical aspects matter little in this tale, yet they were always sufficient. The story was muted and methodical, yet the characters were anything but, and the music seemed more like that they would choose to enjoy, rather than anything meant for us, much like the entire work. But I love it all the same.
Woodpecker Detective's Office is pretty okay. Production-wise, the artwork is beautiful. The animation may be static in most places, but the camera work and the tone of the story makes up for it. The OST suits the mood, though unremarkable. For a story about a poet being a detective, it doesn't feel like a detective story. There's rarely a battle of wits or the tension that occurs when solving a mystery. That being said, I think the anime itself is more interested to how we as the audience solve the mystery. The characters' dialogue and routines, the way the camera shoots the scenes would often becomeclues for the viewers to think about. They can even be a form of foreshadowing, which definitely shows in the final episode where the key to a certain mystery is just thinking about what's already established before. Furthermore, Woodpecker seems to be about the relationships between the characters, particularly the two main leads. Of course, the show's pacing and writing aren't necessarily amazing. It can feel slow at times or uninteresting, but it's still an okay watch. The characters themselves are fine. While the two leads seem to be the most fleshed out, most of the others seem flat in comparison which doesn't have to be bad since those flat characters have okay personalities and they don't have a character arc so it makes sense. Overall, Woodpecker Detective's Office may not have the best experience, but I'm still recommending it because it's an okay experience.
