Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Movie 1: Operazakan - Aratanaru Satsujin

I personally watched this after completing the 1997 series and highly recommend doing this. Even if it's the pilot, it takes place well after the first case in the series so it was sort of a perfect finale. Kindaichi is written/characterized/treated differently here from the rest of the series. We always see him as part of slapstick and pervy humor while he's off playing hero but the former two are really toned down. Not to say there's nothing of the sort at all but the Kindaichi we see in this movie is much more quieter? Bitter? He's a bit curt at times, not mean, but hedoesn't want to engage with people because he's tired. It's extremely jarring in comparison to the main series and even later entries like Returns and the second movie (but excluding the lns and manga (i havent read yet)), because they let him take his time and breathe in movie 1. It's handled very well. I'm not too big of a fan of the suspects in this film but they served their purpose on another one of his trips to murder island. Also this is the best looking animated media for Kindaichi imo. There's some really cool sequences throughout the movie and really pretty stills. My only mention in regards to "bad" animation was with the background at the end when confronting the killer cuz it kept getting flipflopped around and it made me laugh.