Not Recommended
Trickster is right!, as in this anime tricked you into watching this borefest. Well LA will be quite honest here...from the eyesore of Soul Busters, to the utter lull of Bloodivores...Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori was LA WORST anime of Fall 2016 and had rightfully gained that title. So want to know why?...let's dive into it shall we? Before getting to the flaws of Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori, let's at least see LA giving "praise"...though there's not gonna be much. For what the one-episode mysteries Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori brings out, some are interesting, no not intriguing or anything but the earliestmysteries were pretty weird or the resolution is at least funny enough. Next strength would be Nao Nakamura voiced by Azusa Tadokoro, a police detective. She is LA's favourite character and you'll know why later on when LA covers the flaws section, the only other character LA had an inkling of interest would be Makoto Noro voiced by Ibuki Kido the hacker of the Boys Detective Club. In terms of plotlines, Akechi and Twenty Faces connection was intriguing to LA which later gets wrecked majorly...but that later. Lastly, the anime voice cast is "ok" at best but LA does have to say that GACKT as Twenty Faces was sorely wasted potential and he could have been in something better than this.
Ok, let's get to this, there's alot of elements within Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori that annoyed LA all throughout the anime, be it sooo bad it's good or just annoyingly horrible. Let's start with the characters. The majority of the characters are god damn emo edgelords, Yoshio Kobayashi voiced by Daiki Yamashita is an immortal with inconsistent powers used to convenience the plot whenever it wants and doesn't care about anything or anyone besides his own death, Kensuke Hanasaki voiced by Ryota Osaka was a hyper-genki and really annoying main protagonist and probably even worse when he gets "character development" and turns into a depressing wreck, these two characters are the primarily focus of the anime, let's not even get started on the rest...with Kogorou Akechi voiced by Daisuke Ono the leader of the Boys Detective Club and sure his backstory is interesting, but what he does for the plot is nonsensical or expects Hanasaki and Kobayashi to deal with it....what a nice leader. Twenty Faces voiced by GACKT is a poorer version of Shoko Makeshima from Psycho Pass and his motivations and goals clashes greatly with the entire anime throughout (as LA said...GACKT is wasted potential to this anime but GACKT's theatrical vocals did put a smile on LA's face once in a while). Ryou Inoue voiced by Yuuichirou Umehara and Tasuku Yamane voiced by Yoshitaka Yamaya, Hisa Ootomo voiced by Makoto Furukawa all members of the Boys Detective Club do get an arc or an episode for character development respectively but they ultimately become active spectators or forgotten after their development finishes. As LA said in LA's strength section, both Nao Nakamura and Makoto Noro were LA's favourite characters only because they don't get caught up in Kobayashi, Hanasaki, Twenty Faces and Akechi's stupid mess...though Makoto Noro DOES get caught up in it but through the bridge bunny if anything...as for Nao Nakamura...she's "was" a badass that doesn't give a crap and just wants to do her job with the assistance of the Boys Detective Club...until the near final episodes of the anime where they absolutely RUINS her character...way to go Trickster, your stupid cliche writing even could destroy the best character of the anime, good plot twist and all, but her impact is just as eye rollingly annoying just to be thematically "deep". With these kind of characters...the interest to this anime wanes...the plot?...makes it even worse.
The plot in the earliest follows a one-shot-episode each mystery with the underlining goal of Hanasaki promising to kill Kobayashi where the mysteries were ok at best bringing in something of a double-edged side in looking at a mercenary-type detective club and the consequences it might entail...BUT is utterly annoying as soon as the topic of Kobayashi killing starts again and again and again, it's not until Hanasaki's character development or REGRESSION that it starts to "kick off" the anime. Hanasaki's character development felt both forced along with Hanasaki acting like a god damn idiot and what with Twenty Faces trying to be like Shoko Makeshima but not as great as him into brainwashing. Then by the half way point essentially Kobayashi and Hanasaki's roles are reversed and we learned more about Akechi and his connection to Twenty Faces, this is the time when the anime tried to redeem itself...then it utterly destroyed it with Kobayashi's backstory arc...and his backstory is as obvious as it gets and the ever annoying as they keep dangling the carrot when you already have it in bulk for. Plot twists DOES like to be theatrical in some sense...but for what they did on theatrics they substitute with common reasoning (partly with characters' denseness as well).
Ohh and can we talk about Kobayashi's inconsistent powers, namely his immortality. His immortality is one of the most infuriating and annoying things in the anime. One, is the fact that his immortality powers won't allow him to die to the point of him TOUCHING anything that might kill him will immediately explode...even hot water. Second is that even after his "important backstory on how he got his powers" his powers just get even more inconsistent as now his powers allows him to get hurt....wait what?, even little sharp stones can cause him to bleed even though his immortality was suppose to PROTECT him from dying yet he nonchalantly walks off WALKING ROBOT TURRET BULLETS like it's nothing. (To get into LA's headspace for the inconsistency, what would of happened if his immortality stopped like how the little stones managed to touch and caused him to bleed a bit, then shouldn't Kobayashi be A BIT fearful of his life instead of just walking in front of a mecha turret fire. UMM HELLO!?!??!, again Trickster's constant wanting the grand theatrics over common sense.). Finally, LA is gonna say the obvious, but because he's a OP IMMORTAL being, his battle scenes, hell ALL of his battle scenes immediately destroys any battle tension as we KNOW he'll NEVER get killed (post or pre-imporant backstory), again like Tatsuya Shiba from Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, this is kinda what happens when you have TOO OP main protagonist...only Kobayashi doesn't have any of Tatsuya's badassness and to be replaced with constant angst and annoyance. Yes LA thinks Kobayashi is an emo asshat all throughout the anime, his powers is just a major factor of annoyance to it all.
For villains sake, Twenty Faces for being such a mysterious figure having a connection to Akechi and even his involvement to Hanasaki...he's a VERY relaxed villain that doesn't actively does anything to the plot unless the plot tells him to, sure he even orchestrated some of the one-shot mysteries at times (as LA said poor vers. of Shoko Makeshima) but it ultimately leads to an anti-climax (though hilariously stupid) what with Hanasaki's regression. The only thing that made LA a bit interested in Akechi's backstory in connection to Twenty Faces but that's about it as he just disappears after that until the final arc.
The animation done by TMS Entertainment is decent at best, derpy at worst to say the least, the best praise LA can give the animation is the character designs. Due to this being a 24 episode anime, the animation tended to dip by the latter half though with lots of derpy or lower quality scenes from time to time, TMS Entertainment tries to up their game when it came to the battles though slightly janky or worse...physics-defying in the weirdest possible way. The animation for LA is mixed but at the same time LA will say that the animation is one of the anime's worst elements of it, especially when the anime starts getting derpy and low quality when it was trying to be serious and "awesome" only to make it look funny when it wasn't suppose to and just lazy for no good reason (this especially during the later half of the anime when it just starts not caring and the quality DEFINITELY lowers even when the anime's plot is "trying" to go at all cylinders). TMS Entertainment get a hold of yourself, because this is laughably awful and "trying too hard" at best for animation and for an anime with lackluster plot and characters, this is one of the elements that kinda NEEDED to land and it stumbled and broke it legs in the process and limps the rest of the way.
As LA said in the strengths, the voice cast isn't that bad, if anything, it's the material that couldn't keep up with the voice cast and this was just what the voice cast had going for it so LA won't say the voice cast did horrible...if anything, the most annoying voice actors would easily go to both Daiki Yamashita and Ryota Osaka, LA wanted them to emote (but in Ryota's case...emote a lot less) instead of being wannabe emo edgelords and annoying the crap out of LA in the process. Favourite voice actor easily go to both Asuza Tadokoro and Ibuki Kido as they were the most acceptable and less annoying from the voice cast overall, though Ibuki Kido more for default but Asuza Tadokoro felt like she was giving her all through this dirge *cough* *cough* (YES..even more than GACKT and that's kinda saying something).
The ending...ohh boy, the ending god damn TRIES to be epic on a grand scale, what with Twenty Faces final showdown as well as Hanasaki's promise in killing Kobayashi annnnnnnnd it leads into an anti-climax with the straw that kept breaking this entire ending for LA was Kobayashi's inconsistent immortality powers...it's like the ending wanted to have it's cake and eat it too concerning his powers and bringing in tension which again failed due to the entire showdown of Twenty Faces, HELL...Nao DISAPPEARS after her major plot twist and has no relevance to the final showdown...-sigh-. The ending as anti-climaxed as it is, it ends in a happy front because of course it does just to annoy LA further!?!??!!
Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori is without a doubt for LA, has an identity crisis mainly focused on our diametric opposite main protagonists Hanasaki and Kobayashi, to make it worse, the lazy and confused naval gazing character development that either means nothing in the long run or has no impact to the plot at large though not all the time as some of the minor characters development are interesting, LA just wished it could have been injected to Hanasaki and Kobayashi, the animation that is janky at worst, ok at best but ultimately fails in the end making it lazy and inconsistent even when it goes all out. Plot twists that occurs have more focus on theatricals sense than common sense, villains are effectively pawns to a bigger villain who ultimately doesn't actively does anything unless the "plot says so" when he could have used his theatrical mood to lighten up the emotional hostaging by Hanasaki and Kobayashi and mysteries by majority coincidentally link to backstories and are framing devices than anything else.
Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori LA will say this honestly throughout the 24 weeks LA has been watching you...you were effectively a waste of time and quite frankly a chore to get through for LA's Tuesdays and sure you can claim "why do you watch it if you think it's a waste of time"...well LA watched Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori so that LA can find a silver of something good in you and LA did, only to ruin that silver of hope with terrible plot and character progression and not to mention not alleviating the utter boredom, character derailments, janky animation and emotional atmospheric mood hostaging to say otherwise for LA. Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori you DESERVE LA's title of the worst anime of Fall 2016 AND LA needing to put an addendum of LA's Worst Anime of 2016 list as the 2nd WORST anime LA watched in 2016.
