Nope, can’t see anything suspicious about this situation.
Last time on The File of Young Kindaichi Returns, Kindaichi solved the alchemy murder mystery.
Summary of The File of Young Kindaichi Returns Episodes 10-14
- After doing very poorly in his courses, Kindaichi is told by Miyuki that the two of them should enlist in a prep school. After talking to another friend, they decide to sign up at Gokumon Prep School, a notoriously strict prep school. As the two of them arrive, however, a former student is revealed to have been murdered with poison. This comes on the eve of a retreat the school goes on to a remote, abandoned “prison” where the students do nothing but study for three days. The students are then split up into two groups, each going to a different building. Because of the recent murder, Inspector Akechi disguises himself as a teacher and goes on the retreat.
- As the students arrive at the two buildings, Kindaichi and Miyuki are split up. Soon after, five of the students are found dead. It’s soon revealed that the killing of the six students were in revenge for their involvement in the murder of a former student.
- Kindaichi then reveals that the murderer is the head instructor of the prep school, Ujie Takayuki. He was aided in the murders by a student at the school, and the two of them were lead by the Puppeteer from Hell.
My Take
- Another case, another murder mystery! Kindaichi has some of the worst luck, doesn’t he? The average teenage boy would probably not find himself thrust into a single murder case, however Kindaichi has found a way to be involved in three so far! I’m starting to think that this show is somewhat unrealistic…
As a part of the law enforcement, maybe you should focus more on trying to stop the retreat altogether?
- This case gets off a pretty good start. Kindaichi’s grades are suffering, so Miyuki suggests that they both enter a prep school. However, the prep school that they’re directed towards is an infamously strict one that’s about to go on a retreat to a remote building for intensive studying. Sounds like a good setting for a murder case, but then it went and lost all of its momentum very, very early on.
- For Kindaichi, it’s normal to show up to a random place such as a prep school and get drawn into a murder mystery. That’s fine, but the fact that he and Miyuki joined the school immediately after one of the students was murdered was such a dumb move. I guess it could be said that they were just joining to get to the bottom of the first murder, but that’s highly unlikely.
- The antagonist, the “Puppeteer from Hell”, is just a character who’s introduced out of the blue at the end of the first episode. Kindaichi and the inspector obviously know who he is, yet the audience doesn’t. That’d be fine, except for the fact that everyone went on presuming we already knew who this character is! It’s like he was given an entire backstory, but we’re not allowed to know it! How does he know Kindaichi? Why does this series introduce people who we should know but then never let us get to know them?! I read somewhere that we’re supposed to know him from the original series, but that aired over 15 years ago. Things like that help make this show extremely inaccessible to newer fans who aren’t aware of the entire series.
Oh, shut up Kindaichi. People are dying.
- This case spans 5 episodes, and it completely lost me on the second episode. The premise is that students at a prep school are being targeted. This comes on the eve of a retreat the cram school goes on to a remote building miles away from civilization. Any sane writer would have enough sense to make the situations realistic, but not here. The fact that students are being targeted and the fact that they still go on the retreat is just incredibly bad writing. I know that the head instructor was behind the killings, and he would go on the retreat to carry out this plan no matter what, but that doesn’t mean anybody else has to go on it. So from a realistic standpoint, this case is just laughable more than anything else.
- The suspicious teacher who didn’t show his face turned out to be this fabled Puppeteer from Hell? Wow, as if it weren’t blatantly obvious, they just flat out told us who’s doing what. That’s a sign of a good murder mystery, right? The ones that tell you who’s doing what very early on. It’d be like watching Durarara!!, and knowing from the start who was affiliated with what gang.
- It took four episodes to reveal the motive for these murders. Four. Episodes.
- The fact that the Puppeteer from Hell wasn’t the person doing the actual killings was a genuine surprise to me. I guess that’s just how little I think of this show.
- In the end, the Puppeteer from Hell sets the mansion on fire with nothing that can be explained, so I guess it’s magic. That’s it, ladies and gentlemen; magic officially exists! Case closed.
- That’s not before we get more explanations that nobody could have guessed. I’d say something about them, but I already did last time I talked about this show. They’ve become a standard. I fully accept the fact that nobody watching this series (if anybody but me is stupid enough to be doing so) will ever guess how the crimes were carried out.
- Just like the last case, the motive behind the murders was heartbreaking. It makes me hate this show for having such powerful motivations for these crimes only to have the crimes themselves be boring and unoriginal.
I don’t know, maybe the suspicious teacher who always wears a mask?
- These five episodes made up the case called The Prep School Murder Case, and these episodes are monumentally stupid. The fact is that if this show is going to have gut-wrenching, heartbreaking moments, it cannot be this lazy. There is real substance to these episodes, but it’s buried under a pile of nearly unwatchable garbage. The writing behind this show doesn’t know what it wants to be, and every character is flat and uninteresting. Every negative in a detective show comes to light here. To be fair, this case wasn’t the worst piece of anime I’ve ever seen, but it was pretty damn close.
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Ben
20 year old university student studying economics by day, snooty anime blogger by night! I have high standards for anime, but I also keep an open mind when it comes to shows outside my comfort area, which usually includes dialogue-heavy drama. Always happy to have a discussion.
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