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anime: Psychic Detective Yakumo
Aug. 17th, 2012 10:51 pmThe OP for this anime begins with Our Hero, Yakumo, curled up in a box with chains crisscrossing everwhere and the proceeds to have a somewhat gothic and rather emo OP sequence with repeated shots on Yakumo clutching his head in agony and slamming against a couple walls from the power of his angst. (I tried looking for it on youtube for your enjoyment, but was thwarted.) Yakumo has a very difficult life.
This is a fairly standard but very fun supernatural detective anime in which (inevitably) Our Hero is a grumpy and antisocial bishounen who is a college student who can see ghosts who offers up his services for a fee. Then he starts getting dragged around by an inevitably perky classmate, Haruka, and appears to start foretting to charge people. The police also pull them in for help on cases, because no one's better than 20 year old psychics who never go to class. This is one of those series that goes "We are not a romance series. Understand? Not. A. Romance. Series. But in case you are wondering, we believe you should be shipping and will be sure to remind you every episode, plus have all the other characters ship them. But we aren't a romance series." (Actually, the in-canon shipping is exceptionally amusing, as it's essentially "Don't chase her off! You'll never get another friend your age with your attitude, much less someone who might be interested in dating you!")
There's a metaplot involving a mystery about Yakumo's parents (specifically, who his father is and what happened to his mother), plus a mysterious creepy dude with shades and his sociopathic blonde sidekick who seems to get rather excited when she sees dead people. Or weapons. Or blood. The metaplot is sometimes good and sometimes...not, and there are backstory aspects I don't care for (I'm pretending one character's background doesn't exist) and some of the drama surrounding it gets a bit absurd towards the end, but it largely adds to the entertainment value of the series.
Early episodes especially are reminiscent of Ghost Hunt, but with a considerably more likable male lead, but it manages to separate itself from too many comparisons before long, and has a more satisfying ending than I remember Ghost Hunt having. (Of course, it may just be a rule that anime adaptations of Fuyumi Ono's works are allowed to wrap up what's going on at the time but leave important metaplot elements hanging.)
This is a fairly standard but very fun supernatural detective anime in which (inevitably) Our Hero is a grumpy and antisocial bishounen who is a college student who can see ghosts who offers up his services for a fee. Then he starts getting dragged around by an inevitably perky classmate, Haruka, and appears to start foretting to charge people. The police also pull them in for help on cases, because no one's better than 20 year old psychics who never go to class. This is one of those series that goes "We are not a romance series. Understand? Not. A. Romance. Series. But in case you are wondering, we believe you should be shipping and will be sure to remind you every episode, plus have all the other characters ship them. But we aren't a romance series." (Actually, the in-canon shipping is exceptionally amusing, as it's essentially "Don't chase her off! You'll never get another friend your age with your attitude, much less someone who might be interested in dating you!")
There's a metaplot involving a mystery about Yakumo's parents (specifically, who his father is and what happened to his mother), plus a mysterious creepy dude with shades and his sociopathic blonde sidekick who seems to get rather excited when she sees dead people. Or weapons. Or blood. The metaplot is sometimes good and sometimes...not, and there are backstory aspects I don't care for (I'm pretending one character's background doesn't exist) and some of the drama surrounding it gets a bit absurd towards the end, but it largely adds to the entertainment value of the series.
Early episodes especially are reminiscent of Ghost Hunt, but with a considerably more likable male lead, but it manages to separate itself from too many comparisons before long, and has a more satisfying ending than I remember Ghost Hunt having. (Of course, it may just be a rule that anime adaptations of Fuyumi Ono's works are allowed to wrap up what's going on at the time but leave important metaplot elements hanging.)
