Moriarty the Patriot – Not So Smart

Japanese Title: Yuukoku no Moriarty

 

Similar: Death Note

Black Butler

Monster

 

Watched in: Japanese

Genre: Mystery Thriller

Length: 24 episodes (2 seasons)

 

Positives:

• Production I.G. production values
• Spiffin opening songs

Negatives:

• Poor use and understanding of these iconic characters
• Villains are comically flat
• Artificially intelligent
• James Bonde

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Moriarty the Patriot is Dexter by way of the Sherlock Holmes universe, presenting a “what if” alternative to Holmes’s infamous rival. What if Moriarty had committed his crimes for the good of Britain? It’s not the first time someone has taken such an angle for this character, so let’s investigate how anime fared.

William James Moriarty is an orphan adopted into nobility who wants to break the class divide and mete out justice against the rich for their treatment of lower classes. Class disparity is the main theme of Moriarty the Patriot. Early episodes have him helping lower class people enact revenge against the rich that “got away with it.” For example, he helps a tailor kill the nobleman who murdered children, including the tailor’s son, for sport.

The immediate difference those familiar with the original Moriarty will notice about this version is his conversion into that of a bishounen. Professor Moriarty was far from handsome, caring about intellect over vanity. Holmes described him as hunched over, balding, and with sunken eyes. It is weird seeing Moriarty as a simpering pretty boy. The appearance change is of no importance to me. In fact, he looks as I would expect for an anime. His character matters. And this is where Moriarty is a pale imitation of his inspiration.

In the backstory episode of him as a child orphan with his sickly brother, it tries to make him look smart and benevolent by giving advice on all sorts of things to commoners, but it comes across as forced and condescending for a kid. He’s a know-it-all that happens to know exactly everything to advise these stupid commoners. The only bit that worked was him advising a group of bank robbers on dirt around the bank. The explanation is that he read a lot at the grand library. Firstly, an ability to riddle off a bunch of facts for “life hacks” isn’t a sign a genius (and has nothing to do with what made the original Moriarty a smart villain). Second, the Victorian lower class weren’t dumb. It’s up there with the myth that medieval peasants never bathed. Moriarty the Patriot needs everyone else to look like idiots so that Moriarty can prove his “genius” (remember my point in other reviews about how bad early writing echoes throughout a story? Keep this in mind.)

Also, while knowing the data helps with horse racing betting, it isn’t as sure as he makes it out to be. If you could win 80% of the time…just think for a second.

As an adult, they tone down the know-it-all aspect of Moriarty, yet we never witness an instance of actual genius from him. Original Moriarty avoided getting his hands dirty and preferred eliminating people through “accidents.” He was a schemer, not a hitman. Holmes described him as a spider at the centre of a web. This iteration is so unlike the original in appearance, personality, motivation, and methods that I don’t know why they called him Moriarty (commercial familiarity aside). If he weren’t called Moriarty but this were still a Holmesian story, I would never guess who he is meant to be. His plans rely on stupid opponents.

The classism is extreme and ridiculous. Every high-class person spits on anyone lower than them at every opportunity. It’s inaccurate and makes no sense. Think about it – if the people who work for you do a great job, you want them to keep doing that job well. So why treat them in such a manner that would make them worse at their job? We aren’t talking a faceless corporation where a money pusher at the top never sees the people below him. Nothing exemplifies this more than episode four, where a nobleman allows his gardener’s baby to die rather than allow his personal doctor to provide a simple treatment. The gardener falls into depression and the botanical garden, the nobleman’s pride and joy (all thanks to this gardener), falls in quality. When the gardener’s wife tries to take revenge, the show presents it as some great surprise to the noble. What could the motivation possibly be?

I get that some people are scum of the earth – obviously – and money can’t make everyone smart, but these villains are another level of stupid writing. I don’t refer to one or two here. All villains in Moriarty the Patriot are the stupidest characters in the show, which is ironic for a series based on Holmes’s smartest opponent. One guy murders a low class passenger in his expensive room on a cruise ship. Even if you do throw the body overboard, what about the pool of blood on the carpet in your room? This is the genius intellect Moriarty has to contend with?

They all amount to the same motive: “I am rich, therefore I hate poor people.”

The upper class did look down on the lower class in an organised hierarchical sense, where each individual has their place in society and must not step above their station. The lower class weren’t like slaves of the South. Even within the upper class, one could find further structure of which rich families could associate with particular other rich families as equals. Mastering social standing wasn’t an afternoon’s lesson.

The one area in which Moriarty the Patriot is accurate is the charity of nobles. Or rather, the appearance of benevolence by nobles. The Moriarty family takes in the two orphan brothers because it makes them look good to other nobles. Appearance is the material point. A noble doesn’t allow tenants to die on their land because it would look bad. Perhaps nobles care for the lower class employees, perhaps they don’t. Regardless, they care about appearances.

All of this is not to defend nobles or paint them as kind. My point is that nobles would be just as varied and complex a class of people as any other and that making them so two-dimensionally evil is lazy. The final moral message is equally flat.

Most of season one is a series of cases with Moriarty helping victims enact revenge on the rich that wronged them – a revenge of the week, if you will. I thought it would remain this way throughout, acting as a prequel to Moriarty’s encounters with Holmes in the book. Perhaps the clash in The Final Problem (the main Moriarty novel) would be the finale or hint that it occurs after the end of the anime. However, Sherlock Holmes himself enters the story and Watson too. Proceedings switch to a Holmes perspective for a good while before it cuts back and forth, becoming almost fifty-fifty between Moriarty and Holmes.

Holmes is a little closer in depiction to the source material. For one, Holmes was a good-looking man with great care for personal cleanliness (his residence was a mess on account of being a hoarder though). Still, it is weird to see Holmes as a bit of a ditz in this incarnation, always at odds with Mrs Hudson, who is more like a mother/nanny to keep his antics in check. Though as I said, I don’t care about changes as long as they deliver something worthwhile.

The most accurate element of this adaptation is Scotland Yard, still easily fooled by master criminals.

Moriarty the Patriot is better when it follows Holmes, funnily enough, owed in large parts to drawing more from the original Sherlock Holmes cases. It’s evident that the writer for this series would have nothing without another franchise to lean on. The structural shift feels like the intended “revenge of the week” formula ran out of ideas and the author had to return to the source.

The improvement in quality is short lived, sadly, with the introductions of “James Bonde” and Jack the Ripper. James Bonde may just be the worst reference I have ever seen to an iconic franchise. I can’t elaborate without spoiling anything. You should know, however, I actually cringed. Jack the Ripper drops things a level further with supernatural physical abilities, something not presented in the world elsewhere and it tries attributing them to intelligence (?) when he escapes a trap. Overall, anime isn’t sending over its best.

The greatest deception Moriarty the Patriot ever pulled was giving me hope for a great anime with these high production values based on a beloved franchise. Victorian London looks great (could use a full time spellchecker though) and I love the opening songs. My hope mostly worsened as time went on.

I have read the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes and seen a dozen different adaptations, some with greater departures from the source material than this yet still delivered. I would have to go back through the archives to be sure, but I’m confident Moriarty the Patriot is the weakest series to utilise the great detective that I have consumed.

Overall Quality – Low

Recommendation: Not for Sherlock Holmes fans. Others may be able to switch off and enjoy Moriarty the Patriot as a schlock thriller.

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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: None

Negative: None

ID: Invaded – Anime Review

Japanese Title: ID:Invaded

 

Similar: Psycho Pass

Real Drive

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

 

Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Mystery Science Fiction

Length: 13 episodes

 

Positives:

• Great concept
• A nice blend of “hype” and “mystery” music
• Weirdly awesome mental landscape

Negatives:

• The abstract mind makes the mysteries unsolvable ahead of time

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Every great crime mystery has three components to success. The first is an interesting crime that generates plenty of questions and mystery. This doesn’t mean it has to be something crazy like a dead clown hanging from a chandelier with foam sword in one hand and nuclear detonator in the other. It can be something as simple as a shot to head during lunchtime, dead body in the apartment, yet the neighbours heard nothing. The second component is engaging characters, most notably for the detective protagonist and the main suspects. You want to look forward to these characters parrying words. And lastly, to engage the audience fully, the crime must be solvable before the big reveal. You don’t want to make it obvious – keep them guessing, unsure of their theories – but the pieces must be present.

In this third component, ID: Invaded fails.

ID: Invaded is about a detective agency that can investigate cases by diving into the unconscious minds of criminals by using a machine called Mizuhanome. Our main detective, Sakaido, is a murder himself after avenging the death of his family, for only a killer can safely enter into the mind of another killer. While he investigates on the mental plane, rookie detective Hondomachi hits the streets to interview witnesses and suspects.

The look of the virtual world in the target’s unconscious is cool. The opening scene has Sakaido in pieces with digital cube particles instead of blood. After he pulls himself together, he needs to reconstruct the scene physically from the fragmented reality that is the human mind. It recalls games like Ghost Trick and Remember Me. I love this representation. There is no denying the visual engagement. It’s weirdly awesome. However, this very concept is also ID: Invaded’s greatest flaw.

What Sakaido is looking at, these pieces to a murder mystery, are abstract. Even the faces on the people in the unconscious realm aren’t accurate. They are an amalgamation of faces remembered from one’s life, just as it is in your dreams. This means that the clues don’t mean much until we see the answers. It’s like solving a 1000-piece puzzle of pure white that doesn’t reveal the picture until all pieces are in place. The audience doesn’t have the opportunity to solve the case ahead of time – as you would in an Agatha Christie novel – without relying almost exclusively on guesswork, and in a crime story, this drops audience engagement to a level no author wants.

Now, the visuals do make up some of the loss, as mentioned earlier, as do the unusual characters on both the law enforcement and criminal sides. One of the criminals, called “The Perforator”, likes to drill holes in people’s skulls. Always delightful. Sakaido is also an interesting protagonist with his status as both criminal (still in jail) and detective. Sorry, “brilliant detective” as the mind detectives call themselves. Side note: it took me a while to realise that brilliant detective refers to their job title and not a token of praise. Poor choice of name.

I’m not sold on Hondomachi. She feels like a character design first (adult that looks like a teenager) and personality second, though her role in the story is interesting. The Inception-like system of her in the real world on the job while Sakaido is in the brain finding clues works well. It adds a nice dose of tension when everything is parallel in real time. Incorporating the Mizuhanome in the crimes itself is another good choice that heightens the stakes. It isn’t just a tool. One could almost call it evidence in the grander story, similar to the PreCrime unit in Minority Report or the Sibyl System in Psycho Pass. I like it when wild science fiction concepts go all in on the unique selling point.

ID: Invaded is a good anime, all aspects considered, and its unique nature means you aren’t looking at “more of the usual”. So I do recommend it if you liked any of the titles that I referred to throughout the review. It’s a story I would like to see the author take another crack at to elevate it to greatness.

Art – High

ID: Invaded has one of the most distinct art styles for faces, notably in the eyes. Oddly successful. The abstract design of the unconscious is great.

Sound – High

Several solid tracks accompany the series – I’ll be listening to the OP & ED beyond the final episode. The mystery music of ethereal piano notes and sinister violin adds much to the scene. The acting is strong too and you can go with either language to suit your preference.

Story – Medium

A former detective turned criminal investigates cases by diving into the minds of criminals via a machine. This cool concept is a little too abstract for its own good, as it doesn’t give the audience the information needed to solve the case until the big reveal.

Overall Quality – Medium

Recommendation: For sci-fi fans. I recommend ID: Invaded to fans of Psycho Pass and Ghost in the Shell for its unique take on the exploration of the criminal mind to solve mysteries.

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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: None

Negative: None

Paranoia Agent – Anime Review

Japanese Title: Mousou Dairinin

 

Similar: Perfect Blue

Paprika

Monster

Serial Experiments Lain

 

Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Psychological Mystery Thriller

Length: 13 episodes

 

Positives:

• Unnerving.
• Great music.
• One wild ride.

Negatives:

• Wacky at the expense of clarity at times.

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Finishing Paranoia Agent is a bittersweet experience for me with Satoshi Kon being one of my favourite anime directors. He was one of the few directors whose anime I could be sure to watch on his name alone. Ironically, my experience with Kon’s work started in disgust as he disturbed me for years with the psychological horror Perfect Blue. I put off watching Paranoia Agent for the longest time since it would mean I have none of his filmography left to watch. However, when a dear reader requested it, I couldn’t make any more excuses.

I can best describe Paranoia Agent as an amalgamation of all his work. It has bits of everything. The psychological unease of Perfect Blue, the mind-bending trip of Paprika, the endearing adventure of Tokyo Godfathers, and the visual storytelling of Millennium Actress are all present. To gather so many varied elements in one place and have them work together is no easy task, so how does Paranoia Agent fare?

It follows the case of Lil’ Slugger, a boy who zips around town on rollerblades beating people with a bent baseball bat. The detectives’ task seems an impossible one with the kid appearing and disappearing at what feels like random. He makes no sense.

As soon as you start Paranoia Agent, you know it is Kon’s work. That opening sequence of the cast laughing uncontrollably with soulless eyes, ethereal vocals blasting behind them, is just the right levels of insane and unnerving to set the tone (see video above if you haven’t). The plot seems to start normal enough when Lil’ Slugger attacks the creator of a beloved animal mascot, but once people question if there really was an attack – did she make it all up for attention? – a plushie of the mascot comes to life to comfort her. All in her head, of course. Simple enough to explain.

Then we move onto episode 2, where a popular kid doesn’t like that the fat kid he kept around to make himself feel better starts getting more attention than him. He wishes Lil’ Slugger would attack his “friend” so that he could save him and be hailed a hero by all. He daydreams of the applause. His wish comes true, except everyone thinks he’s the attacker. With the world turned against him, his reality distorts and life begins to melt away. Further and further we, the audience, descend into a world of madness that is difficult to describe and follow. Episode 3 enters full Perfect Blue territory that I won’t give away. Another episode has a student sneezing out his math knowledge. Literal formulas expelled from nose and mouth. And wait until you see what a kid, a middle-aged man, and a geriatric get up to.

For a while, the series feels like an anthology of short stories as it focuses on a different victim each episode. One must wait until the end for it to come together and make sense – well, for the most part. So if you feel lost along the way, don’t worry too much.

That said, Kon could have put more work into making the audience understand what is going on in the moment. I’ll use an early example. During an interrogation, a suspect believes they’re on some fantasy adventure and any questions the detective asks make no sense because they don’t fit the fantasy. The co-detective has the idea to roleplay as a party member to extract bits and pieces within the context of the fantasy world. The lead detective finds this ridiculous, of course, growing increasingly frustrated as they have to humour these delusions. However, when he reacts, it is as though he is a participant of the fantasy world, which doesn’t quite make sense, since he is a non-believer. In short, the fantasy exaggerations go too far and just cause confusion.

Instead of having him in the fantasy, cutting back to the detective should have shown him sitting there irked in boring reality while others play pretend like weirdos next to him. It feels like Kon overindulged in the fantasy element that would become central to Paprika, where it works better, two years later.

Kon truly knows how to make the audience uncomfortable at every turn. His use of creepy imagery and minimal audio makes for tension that grips to breaking point. Even the way a character animates puts one on edge. The journalist hounding the mascot artist has an ordinary enough design, but when he’s looking into the camera at the perspective character and you in the audience by extension, his every mouth movement feels as if he’s about kiss you in the most horrid manner. You want to get away from him – just like the woman does.

Only upon reaching the end of the anime can you receive any relief from all the madness. It’s a wild ride. Paranoia Agent isn’t as good as his more focused films, but it is still a Satoshi Kon work all the way through.

Art – High

Sporting Kon’s realistic art style and creative visuals, Paranoia Agent is a great looking anime. There is a downgrade in animation and detail compared to his movies.

Sound – High

Kon uses one of his (and my) favourite composers, Susumu Hirasawa, having worked previously on Millennium Actress and later in Paprika with him to make a damn weird OP sequence. (Hirasawa is also responsible for the superb Berserk soundtrack). Despite the great tracks, Kon allows a lack of music to unnerve the audience in key scenes.

Story – High

A rollerblading kid with a baseball bat terrorises residents, prompting an investigation by the police that takes a turn for the mental. Not all pieces quite fit together, but Paranoia Agent is a thrill ride nonetheless.

Overall Quality – High

Recommendation: Watch it. Paranoia Agent will be too weird for many, yet I still recommend it to all but the faintest of heart. Its strangeness is worth experiencing at least once.

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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: 

Negative: None

Banana Fish – Anime Review

Japanese Title: BANANA FISH

 

Similar: Rainbow

Black Lagoon

91 Days

No. 6

 

Watched in: Japanese

Genre: Action Adventure Drama

Length: 24 episodes

 

Positives:

• Strong protagonist.
• Great visuals.
• Doesn’t cringe from the subject matter.

Negatives:

• Weak villains.
• Humour doesn’t work.
• Could use more brains.

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Banana Fish is an adaptation of a manga by the same name that ended 24 years ago. Once a manga reaches a certain age, it’s often deemed outdated and financially unviable. Should one receive an anime adaptation, even then it could become “old news” and have no second season in favour of a gamble at the next big hit. So it’s a pleasant surprise to see something as old as Banana Fish on the slate. And when a studio does go out of its way for an old licence, they will put the full production effort behind it, as is the case here.

The story centres on young Ash Lynx, a handsome boy adopted by New York City Mafia Don Dino Golzine, who declares that Ash should inherit his empire. The boy is ruthless, resourceful, and charismatic – all the qualities he desires in an heir (and it helps that Ash is just his type). Unfortunately for the Don, the boy is also rebellious and despises him like the devil. Ash becomes hell-bent on destroying his father and abuser, especially once suspicion arises of his involvement in the death of Ash’s brother and a mind control drug called Banana Fish. This dangerous game becomes more personal when he meets Japanese photographer Eiji, with whom he makes fast friends. Eiji has just entered a world of abuse, drugs, and death.

Ash is an interesting character and the strongest element of the story. He is a mix of violence and pain as he hates just about everything in his life, yet has these moments of intense vulnerability like a lost child that has no idea of the world. As a child, people sexually abused him, particularly in the mafia including Dino, which taught him that his most valuable asset to these monsters is his body. He’s so damaged by this, one isn’t sure if he’s actually gay or if he’s willing to use his asset to gain the upper hand. It’s messed up, but it makes for an interesting protagonist.

Banana Fish opens on a song to hype you up for the action and ends on a ballad of sadness to remind you of Ash’s pain. That is the heart of Banana Fish.

Eiji is the opposite: sweet, innocent, doesn’t know how to handle gun, and hasn’t even kissed someone. He’s the only good in Ash’s life. Nothing was free in Ash’s world, until he made a friend.

The rest of the cast is a motley crew of gangsters, street urchins, and forgotten soldiers. They work fine in their roles. Where Banana Fish fails its characters is with the villains. Not one of them is interesting or has any depth. Dino is just a creep obsessed with getting Ash to come back as his heir. His plan to accomplish this? What plan? The Chinese guy with long hair, said to be a master manipulator, only succeeds through plot convenience and his ultimate desire for death is just nonsensical. He’s more whiny cartoon child than evil genius. The rest are run-of-the-mill thugs and henchmen, as normal.

The focus on action over character does lessen the impact of weak villains, since this isn’t a battle of ideologies or wits. However, the action-dominated story does dampen the initial setup with Ash’s background and his friendship with Eiji. It doesn’t stop long enough for us to absorb these characters.

To compound problems further (it’s chain of problems, at this point, one leading into the next), the action isn’t smart like Code Geass or stylised like John Wick or Mad Max: Fury Road, so I don’t feel the action alone can carry the series to greatness. People take life-threatening injuries only to stand up a minute later as if they won’t die of blood loss any moment now. Also, Ash is supposed to have an IQ of 180, yet his plans are far from genius. One hit on Dino involves standing atop a truck to take the shot while speeding past. Really, that’s your plan? Nothing in Banana Fish lends credence to his genius label. If they simply hadn’t mentioned it in that one episode, it would have been irrelevant. He’s of average intelligence with high charisma, which is perfectly fine.

My other problem with Ash is the overuse of certain tropes. For instance, I lost count the number of times he wiled his way out of captivity by seducing his captor/guard. It’s awfully convenient that every single one of them is gay and falls for the oldest trick in the book. It made sense the first time when his captor was a past abuser that still craved him. After that is pushing it. Even the humour, which is often jarringly out of place, uses this trope in a light-hearted manner.

Banana Fish has a much stronger first half than second. The first has all the tension, tough choices, harsh losses, and less to do with weak villains. It’s still a decent anime in the second half, though you have to love it for the action more than anything else. And if you make it to the end, the final scene is the best in the series.

Art – High

One of the better-looking series of the year, Banana Fish has a colourful style with plenty of detail, nice animation, and consistent quality. Distant characters lack detail though.

Sound – High

From OP to ED, main character to supporting, all the audio is great.

Story – Medium

An heir to a criminal empire rebels against the predator that raised him and finds friendship in an unexpected place. Banana Fish has a strong first half, fluctuates up and down for the rest of the way, but ends on a great moment.

Overall Quality – Medium

Recommendation: For action fans. Banana Fish looks great and has plenty of action to keep the crowd busy. Not for children.

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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: None

Negative: None

The Garden of Sinners – Anime Review

Japanese Title: Kara no Kyoukai

 

Similar: Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne

Darker than Black

Ghost Hunt

Key the Metal Idol

 

Watched in: Japanese

Genre: Supernatural Action Mystery Thriller

Length: 9 movies (35 min. to 2 hrs. each)

 

Positives:

• Beautiful environments.
• Fantastic soundtrack.

Negatives:

• Dead eyes syndrome.
• Atrocious editing and pacing.
• No one has a personality.

(Request an anime for review here.)

The Garden of Sinners is an unusual anime series. I’m not sure if you can refer to it as a series, in the standard sense, for it is nine movies of vastly varying length – 35 minutes to 2 hours long. Furthermore, the movies aren’t connected much beyond the main characters and subject matter. It’s akin to older British detective serials like Poirot, where little of the story carries from one episode to the next, which allows the audience to join any week in the series on TV without feeling lost.

Using this series structure, The Garden of Sinners tells of a detective agency that takes on cases involving the supernatural – spirits, curses, and the like. The agency has three members: the sorceress Touko, able to create human-like dolls, the ordinary human Kokutou, and part-doll protagonist Shiki. She has the “Mystic Eyes of Death Perception”, a power that allows her to see a target’s “lifelines” that will kill them when cut. (That’s how they deal with the supernatural entities.)

The first movie follows a string of suicides by schoolgirls all leaping from the same skyscraper set for demolishment. On paper, this is an interesting anime, just my sort of thing. I love contemporary supernatural stories and I am a ravenous consumer of detective serials. This should be a direct feed of serotonin to my brain injected via a syringe of intriguing mystery, complex characters, fascinating mysticism, and unpredictable story. The Garden of Sinners has none of that.

The most glaring issue is that none of these characters has a personality. This should come as no surprise from the same author who brought us the worse-than-Twilight of anime that is Fate/stay night. Shiki is, by intention, an emotionally repressed person. However, once again, like a bloody broken record, I must stress that emotionally repressed does not equate to zero personality, never mind the other characters who are meant to be real people. I can’t imagine what the authors of these soulless characters think mute people must be like in real life. Do they think that mutes will have no personality because they can’t speak?

This lack of soul bleeds into the mysteries themselves. The narrative never makes an effort to have the audience care for the answers to its questions. It assumes that because it hasn’t given us an answer, we must therefore care to know the answer. I hear my neighbour arguing with her daughter in Mandarin on occasion. I’m not interested to translate what they are saying (daughter probably stays out too late). Have the police turn up to cart away a third person I never knew was there and then you have my attention.

The Garden of Sinners tries to con the audience into thinking it has an intricate plot full of hidden details and deeper meaning, when in fact, it is poor structure and storytelling. “This is really complicated – it must be good!”

To compound problems, the editing is a slog. Many shots hold for too long. It’s just a few seconds here and there, but it doesn’t feel right and adds up over time. Directors and editors don’t have to follow set rules for how long a shot should be. Breaking the rules can create an effect. One can let the camera linger for a few seconds to make the audience feel awkward. An extreme close-up, right in a character’s face as they’re talking creates extreme discomfort in the viewer as desired. However, when breaking the rules, it must be with care. Should the effect backfire, it makes the editing seem amateur, as is often the case in The Garden of Sinners. This isn’t deal breaking, but these long shots do allow us to ponder on the fact that the story and characters are empty.

The exception is the fifth movie about a double homicide that never happened. The visuals take a hit in quality, though do get more consistent, and the editing is much tighter. It feels like a different studio’s production. Despite it being nearly 2 hours long, it’s much easier to get through than the movies half its length because things are happening at pace. There is more energy, more life to it all. Doesn’t magically turn into a great movie, mind you, but it shows how much of a difference editing makes.

Before I leave you, I must touch upon the most forced product placement I have seen in anime. The first movie opens on Häagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream, drawing some equation between it and Shiki’s personality. And it returns to the ice cream again later. It is…fascinatingly shocking how blatant this advertising is. I don’t know what to make of it.

Art – High

The good old “dead eyes” syndrome studio ufotable is known for makes a return. The editing needs a lot of work, except in movie five. The animation is a mix of long stills broken up by shots of high animation, some in first person. The environments and atmospherics are beautiful.

Sound – Medium

The one and only thing I will take away from this is the soundtrack. I love the melodies and I am a sucker for ethereal vocals. As for the acting, it seems the actors were told to never have emotion in their voice, and under no circumstances are they to have any range. No talent allowed here!

Story – Low

A detective agency dealing with the supernatural investigates a series of mysterious cases. There is no adequate reason The Garden of Sinners needed to be so long and so slow, nor is there a reason to have such soulless characters.

Overall Quality – Medium

Recommendation: Don’t bother. The Garden of Sinners isn’t the worst anime – rather average, all things considered – but it is certainly one of the dullest. I can’t recommend anyone waste their time. If you must, then just watch the fifth entry as a standalone movie.

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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive:

Negative: