And while you would probably not agree with their way of resolving things by murder, you would probably feel a sense of sympathy for them after you listen to their backstories.Īs a 90's production, the art definitely leaves room to be desired. The murderers in Kindaichi's cases all usually have a well-justified reason why they want to kill their victims. The tricks may appear simple, but still have their own elements of surprise.įurthermore, I would also recommend the murder cases to people who enjoy tragic, sad backstories. Kindaichi's cases are well-known for their unique tricks used by the murderers in each case. However, each case does not simply become boring because of this. One could argue that with the introduction of the criminal mastermind Takato Youichi in the 3rd season of the anime, the story became continuous, but I would argue that one could still watch each case individually or in a non-linear fashion, and would still not be confused.ĭissecting into the structure of each case, a Kindaichi whodunit mystery follows the same formula: Kindaichi goes to a place, meets a few murders, solves them, end of story. Each individual murder case takes up about 3-4 or even 5 episodes to resolve, usually involving a murder of about 3 people, 4 if longer, but rarely does it elevate to 5 or more (though there do exist such cases). The anime series of Kindaichi does not have an actual continuous story unlike Detective Conan. I would say that the series deserves a larger audience, because of the reasons that I would explain now. Online fansubs are also rumored to be rather terrible, with the first 20 or so episodes being watchable only. Onto the anime adaptation, it is definitely a pity that this anime series did not receive any release in the western world by any distributors. In the late 90s, due to Detective Conan pandering to a wider audience, Kindaichi's popularity slowly plummeted, and now even though it is still considered a classic mystery series, it could no longer regain its former glory. fans loved it for its whodunit mysteries, which I would explain below. In the early days, Kindaichi was better received in Japan than the latter, as shown by its sales numbers. Its more kid-friendly, well-known counterpart Detective Conan (aka Case Closed) only began serialization 2 years after this one.

The original manga series is known in Japan as one of the earliest manga series of the mystery genre. While the sequel, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns is being broadcast currently, allow me to convince you why you should watch this well-written mystery anime series. An anime adaptation of my favorite manga series of all time, and certainly a very underrated one.

Kindaichi shounen no jikenbo rawhide