Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

Yakushiji Ryoko no Kaiki Jikenbo (or Ryoko Yakushiji's Strange Case Files to give it it's full name), is another of those odd shows that I always seem to end up reviewing. The anime is based on a series of manga and light novels written by Tanaka Yoshiki, who also wrote the much acclaimed Legend of Galactic Heroes series. The manga was illustrated by Kakinouchi Narumi, who also created the manga series Vampire Princess Miyu, and has worked as an animator, character designer and director, amongst her other roles, on such notable series as Kimagure Orange Road, Superdimensional Fortress Macross (and the movie "Do You RememberLove?"), Urusei Yatsura, and Megazone 23. The series centres around an elite police officer with the Tokyo Metrolpolitan Police Department named Yakushiji Ryoko, who holds the rank of Superintendent. She is one of the heirs to the powerful JACES security company, a place which employs many retired high ranking police officers and officials. She works together with her immediate subordinate Izumida Junichiro, a non career officer who holds the rank of Assistant Inspector in the police department, and a small team of underappreciated officers who handle the daily running of her department within the police. The story gets a bit "strange" once it becomes clear that the case dealt with by Ryoko and her department are considered bizarre to the point of being paranormal or supernatural. This is not an original concept for anime and manga, however Ryoko Case Files does suffer because of the inclusion of such a plot device. The anime begins in an episodic manner, but as it progresses the main story does become apparent (to a certain degree - I'll explain why in a bit). The animation throughout the series is very smooth, and rather stylish at times. The characters are well designed, and the overall feel of the show is very much like that of Baccano!. The sound is nothing overly impressive, with adequate effects used throughout the series. The OP is a nice, jazzy piece that wouldn't be out of place in a Bond or Pink Panther movie, whilst the ED has a very "continental" (think France, Italy, etc), feel to it, and while neither will ever appear on my playlist, they're not bad efforts at all. The seiyuu do a reasonably good job presenting their respective characters, with the best being the titular character's seiyuu, Nabatame Hitomi. She manages to bring across certain qualities of the petulant, spoiled, and generally arrogant Ryoko's character in a rather nice way. The characters in the series are generally okay, but they're also quite one-dimensional. The titular character is, as I mentioned, petulant, arrogant, moody, spoiled, etc, etc, which is generally how anime and manga tend to portray the heirs of wealthy or powerful corporations. Junichiro comes across as long-suffering and hard working, but there isn't really anything overtly impressive about him as a character. The rest of the cast all suffer from the same one-dimensional flaw, and there isn't really any sort of development for any of the characters that is noticeable. Wether you enjoy this show or not will very much depend on how seriously you take it. As a simple "watch then throw away" show it isn't too bad, but it's by no means a classic or original. One of the main problems with the show is the fact that it leaves many unanswered question, and never really makes any attempts at explaining what the hell is going on. Add to this some pseudo-political shenanigans and you have a lopsided storyline which doesn't really give the audience anything to get their teeth into. The show is stylish though, and well animated on the whole. The characters aren't all that annoying (although I do wish that they'd developed the relationship between Ryoko and Junichiro a whole lot more, as that would have added a nice dynamic to the show that may have improved it), and are generally better than quite a few other shows I could name. This is a decent enough show on the whole, but it's not a show that I would recommend to everyone. Mystery lovers may like it, as well as lovers of sexy female lead characters, or those looking for an odd take on the supernatural. Overall this show seems to be more of an advert for the manga and light novels than anything else, but it's worth a watch if you've got half an hour to waste.