Majin Tantei Nougami NeuroFollow

It's pretty bad, but I'm still watching it. In fact, I think it is borderline so bad it's good.

The setup is simple. Neuro is a demon who feasts on mysteries. Having consumed all the mysteries in the demon world he ventures into the human world to sate his hunger. Then it stats to get bad. For some unexplained reason, Neuro needs a host/disguise/whatever, for some reason he needs this girl (female lead) to hang around him and pretend to be a detective. The reason is never fully explained and has so far never been brought up again. What's worse is that he never effectively use her as a disguise. Neuro does all the talking and expplain how the crimes occurred, then tacks on "at least that's what sensei (the girl) said." Apparently everyone falls for this gimmick and doesn't seem to notice that the girl sits around and makes no insightful commentary on the case ever.

The plots are bad. The series is basically "mystery of the day format," with 1 instance of a recurring villain being introduced (but nothing further) and finally a two parter by episode 10. Episodic series are not necessarily bad, but this is a horrible framework for a mystery series, and MTNN only exacerbates the problem. The problem? Any key character introduced in an episode who is not a recurring character is either the victim (or one seeking investigation) or the perpetrator. It's painfully obvious whodunnit every episode, with at best a 50-50 shot (and the series doesn't give the grace of enough evidence to accurately make the prediction yourself).

Motives and tools to discover evidence are deus ex machina every episode. Neuro has access to what he calls the "777 tools of the demon world." These are made up on the spot by the author to resolve a plot problem, and so far only one has reoccurred in an superficial way. Motives could never be predicted, but usually revealed in a monologue by either Neuro or the criminal. To further the spontaneous nature of the series, every criminal--upon the revelation of their crime--turns into some sort of grotesque monster. Why this occurs is not fully explained.

The series has the memory of a goldfish. In one episode a 777 tool was introduced which makes both of the protagonists invisible (and as a plot hole people instantly forget they were in the room as well). Later, perhaps the very next episode, a completely different tool which serves the same purpose, but seems to be superior, was introduced. It gets far worse. In episode 10 there is a guest character whose profession is singing. During one of her songs there is a long set of pans showing the audience in awe of her singing. I almost missed it, but I managed to catch a glimpse of the the criminal from episode 2 in the audience. "Wait, is that the serial killer from episode 2? Yes.... yes it is. How did she get out of prison so fast?" Japan has an extremely lenient justice system it seems. Nor does the author do much research. The songstress from episode 10 has has "sold 3 billion records." Nearly half of all people on the planet have bought her record, that unnecessarily implausible.

Oh and there is an assistant in the detective agency with Neuro and the girl. He has been there since episode 1, but the series has yet to explain why he is there at all. He is in the mafia so he's not simply someone they hired. He must have a story, but none is ever given. Oh... and he has yet to do anything. He doesn't assist in mysteries, he just serves as occasional comic relief. Why does he exist?

The biggest mystery of all is how this was a popular enough manga to be made into a 24 episode anime series.

Edited, Dec 31st 2009 2:16am by Allegory

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