This show used to be thrilling when it premiered in the late 90s - esp. to kids of the 90s. But after 20 years, it is running into too many problems that it cannot overcome.
On the one hand, the cases (the plots, the methods, the motives) have become somewhat repetitive. In some cases, old cases are adapted in a new setting (sometimes as part of the official tourist attraction program featuring places of interests outside of Tokyo). In this way, it lost the thrill it once had for young viewers.
On the other hand, the premise of the show is extended too far that it becomes, i) too silly to be taken seriously, and ii) too inflated to come to a satisfactory conclusion in a couple of shows (one kid vs. an international criminal conglomerate?!).
The first couple of years of the show are excellent (the earliest shows are wonderfully dark and superbly scary) and are rewatched again and again. But later shows I only watch sporadically. For truly thrilling, well-developed, and not over-inflated, detective anime (a limited genre in the West), I watch The File of Young Kindaichi.
On the one hand, the cases (the plots, the methods, the motives) have become somewhat repetitive. In some cases, old cases are adapted in a new setting (sometimes as part of the official tourist attraction program featuring places of interests outside of Tokyo). In this way, it lost the thrill it once had for young viewers.
On the other hand, the premise of the show is extended too far that it becomes, i) too silly to be taken seriously, and ii) too inflated to come to a satisfactory conclusion in a couple of shows (one kid vs. an international criminal conglomerate?!).
The first couple of years of the show are excellent (the earliest shows are wonderfully dark and superbly scary) and are rewatched again and again. But later shows I only watch sporadically. For truly thrilling, well-developed, and not over-inflated, detective anime (a limited genre in the West), I watch The File of Young Kindaichi.