Bishounen Tanteidan

Before I begin my review, I believe there is a thing or two about Bishounen Tanteidan that needs to be cleared up before actual scoring the show on its own merits, as it feels other reviews seem to miss these aspects. Bishounen Tanteidan is inherently, unrealistic. The middle schoolers act like 20s bohemian adults. They go toe to toe with kidnappers, a possibly supernatural murderer, an esoteric artistic weirdo, a first grader who acts like an adult princess trying to save her dynasty through marriage, and somehow, a middle school casino racket done for very....dangerous purposes and reasons. Realism is completely lacking in this show. And thatswhat it is supposed to be. The middle school setting of the story, is a way for nisioisin to focus on topics relating to growth and childhood, and using extreme situations to examine them. To put it simply, its intentionally ridiculous, but to the normal point of requiring suspension of disbelief. The middle school setting and age of the characters, is an aesthetic allowing Nisioisin to explore and admittedly have fun with situations of growing up, such as discarding your dream, your change in personal philosophy, and your habits. Basically, if you can suspend your disbelief for something like fantasy or science fiction, you should suspend disbelief here because this is similarly an aesthetic, just not one we are really used to, and if ever seen, usually done unintentionally(like western YA novels having kids talk like 30 year olds...is mostly unintentional bad writing. Nisio's trying for that here though). Saying all that, the first arc is stupid. Too unrealistic even for suspension of disbelief. Almost dropped the show because of it. Thankfully, I didnt. Although Im not saying this show is a masterpiece or even great, its just a fairly enjoyable and fun show. Witty dialogues, charming philosophical conversations, great visuals. The pretty boys are all one note for the most part, with Mayumi being the only one with real complexity. Most of the time, or pretty much all the time, the mysteries are kind of no big deal, and you are left wondering as to why they are thinking so much about this(im talking about the esoteric artist weirdo arc). But it is through these frivolous adventures, that the show is trying to show us something important. Child's play and wonder. Even in small, even ridiculous things, there can be a sense of excitement, mystery and wonder. Sometimes its not even about solving the mystery, but just making something beautiful and having fun in the process. Its not a classic show. I doubt this is one of Nisio's stronger works either(Ive only seen Monogatari and Katanagatari at the time of this review). But its a fairly fun seasonal show, and if you like shaft or nisio, you should watch it. Also, while I do give it an 8, if MAL allowed for .5 ratings, Id give it a 7.5. Definition of good and fun, but nothing too special.

First anime I watch of this writer. The art style, animation and everything else is amazing. The character designs are creative and attractive. I found the story to be really terrible though. It was really long winded and boring at times. Things that could be told in a more clear way were explained in really weird and complex ways for no reason. It is obvious that is how this writer likes to narrate their stories. The story also doesn't seem to have any plot. It's literally episodic, in each episode they deal with something for no apparent reason, nor final objective. The story ends withnothing but some kind of weird bonds between the characters. As if nothing happened, there was nothing this story wanted to tell, nothing that it wanted me to feel. I find that the characters are quite peculiar. I came to appreciate them at the end, but I also find that most of the guys (except Manabu Sotoin and Hyouta) and the protagonist, Mayumi, do not reflect their ages at all. I know age means nothing in anime, but here it was clear and appalling as Manabu was the only one that actually sometimes showed childlike behaviour. The other all acted as if they were highschoolers, while they only are in middle school. Manabu still being in elementary/primary school. I kind of appreciated the more mature ways of some of the characters, but it was also weird as they were still children, but thinking like adults.

I've seen fans of this show say they hate when people compare it to Ouran High School Host Club, and I completely understand why. Aside from a crossdressing female protagonist and a club of pretty boys, there really aren't many similarities. They're very different shows, and if you like one of them there's no guarantee you'll like the other. I won't lie, I'm a huge Ouran fan and that premise is exactly why I took interest in this show in the first place, but I won't hold it up against Ouran as a judgement of its quality. Pretty Boy Detective Club's fatal flaw is thatit takes itself too seriously. When the twist of the first arc was revealed in the second episode, I had to pause multiple times because I was laughing so hard. And that's not a bad thing! It was so stupid and over the top that I thought it HAD to be self aware. The show HAD to know that this was a terrible twist, that it was completely nonsensical and no one could ever take it seriously. I was so entertained by it that I was telling people about it for days, and I couldn't wait for the next episode to come out. Sadly, I was mistaken. The show has absolutely no self awareness. The cast of characters navigates their way through nonsensical mysteries, arriving at batshit insane conclusions with no reasoning behind them, with essentially no plot connecting each arc. They hint at something more going on behind the scenes, with a secret society and a rival student body president from another middle school, but these plot threads never go anywhere. I was really disappointed as the show went on, and worse, bored. The mysteries were stupid enough that they didn't make sense, but weren't so over the top dumb that they looped back around to so-bad-it's-good territory. It felt like the show still wanted to be taken seriously, like it was unwilling to just be a silly, low stakes series of mysteries. I might as well mention the cast here. Not a single character has any sort of arc or purpose for existing. They are all given a single personality trait, a name, and a quirk, and then spend the rest of the show doing nothing. When I watched the first episode, I was excited to see what role each of the characters would play in the story. They all seemed to have a decent starting point for some fun character interactions, but they never moved past those starting points. In the last arc, the protagonist and the red hair boy had a couple scenes together where they demonstrated pretty good chemistry. Would've been interesting to explore, in, say, a twelve episode TV anime series. Some of the characters are better than others. The red hair boy I mentioned before comes pretty close to having a personality. The main detective boy, the one with the blue hair, is honestly so grating that I was tempted to skip forward a few times so I wouldn't have to listen to him speak any longer. The only character who has any sort of development (and I use that term very generously) is the student council president, the one with silver hair. His development happens through a different character who exists for one arc, long enough to make us suffer through another nonsensical mystery, and then never comes back. Any development that he went through is instantly scrapped in the next arc and is never brought up again. This show's one saving grace is its visuals. At a certain point, I was only watching for the backgrounds and barely reading the subtitles. The art in this show is absolutely gorgeous, it's honestly worth watching the first couple episodes just to drool over the visuals. I bumped up my overall rating by a full point just because of this. Overall, I'm really disappointed by this show. It's confusing at best and boring at worst, and there is absolutely no depth to the characters. You're better off saving your time and watching something better.

This anime was pure trash. It was so trash that repeatedly, like a theme of the anime, they would introduce arcs and foreshadow events that never came or had no bearing on anything. For example: (MILD SPOILERS AHEAD): The heroes foil an underground casino, which seems to trigger the guy who runs it to want to directly challenge the president of the Pretty Boy Detective Club. But...then he does nothing. The angle just dies. They play up an angle where this little girl is supposed to be excessively mean, with the goal of the MC becoming her friend. Only, she never does.You never see the girl again after the misunderstanding is cleared up. Most egregious was the last villain. A guy who is WAY too extreme for this kind of anime, he just comes from out of nowhere, like he wandered out of Psycho Pass or something...but this dude goes entirely too far to try and win a school election, and they never tell you why. Because he's ordinary and people are ordinary and will vote for him...what? The whole anime they just drop stuff right from the start or never explain anything. Why are Mayumi's eyes like that? Who the heck is Manabu and why do these guys listen to him? The anime is pure shallow drivel meant to do nothing more than showcase pretty bishonen designs. The characters are all as thin as a piece of paper. Literally they can be described as: "Delinquent, Quiet One, Femboy Jock, Smart One and Goofy Leader.". I mean, they don't even use common sense. They make the whole anime about forging strong bonds as a team, but keep reminding us that they have nothing to do with each other outside of the club. Do they not realize that one angle cheapens the other? The characters themselves were so cliche it was almost painful to have to listen to them drone on. Whether it was Manabu's pointless speeches about beauty, or the White haired one giving his snobbish and long-winded expositions, they were just irritating to even listen to. I didn't enjoy this anime much at all and it was a slog I sped through to get to the end of. I would pass on this, as there are many better anime to watch.

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