Yuukoku no Moriarty

Anyone who is familiar with mystery and detective stories probably heard of the name ‘Sherlock Holmes’. However, how many are familiar with his future nemesis, William James Moriarty. An anti-hero. A mischievous mastermind. A cunning strategist. A living psychological weapon. Those are just a few ways to describe such a person. Welcome to a world where crime, corruption, and class system dominates the society. Watching Yuukoku no Moriarty feels like an old school mystery thriller with the good and bad folks. In their society, what separates from those that are drunk with power and those who seek to make the world a better place? It’s atough question as this show tests the integrity of a complex society in this 19th century. But make no mistake, when I first started watching this show, I already had a checklist of anticipated items on my mind. Among those includes the mystery and suspense as well as the character study of the main cast, particular Moriarty. His character profile is complex but one that we must understand him to get the best experience from this show. A show like this sets his character up as not a heroic protagonist but as an anti-hero. Throughout the story, we see his cunning mind at work when engineering scenarios to disrupt Great Britain’s class system. Taking place in this 19th century timeline, their land is dominated by nobles. Moriarty’s main purpose in life is to destroy such a system and seek to replace it with one that is justice. It all sounds complex and believe me, this show is not one that’s easily recommendable. To understand Moriarty, you have to dissect his actions and understand his origins. Luckily, early episodes provides details about his family origins and his relationship with Albert and Louis. It’s an important trademark as the three individuals are intertwined in the story. From episode 2, we learn the grim details and identity of William. Watch it for yourself and realize that William’s role in the story is more than just rebuilding society. It’s about showing the world can change even if means resorting to the darker experimentations and underworld activities to accomplish it. And that’s the type of person William is. He would take any risk and involve any individual to accomplish his goal to make an equal society. He walks the path of not righteousness but one that is ruthless with consequences every step along the way. That is William James Moriarty. Despite some of the controversial elements of the show, it’s actually not a complex story once you take a dive into its themes. Storytelling is sold with each arc consisting of cases and the machinations of the main characters’ actions. At the same time, we are exposed to the timeline of this era and realize how corrupt its class system really is. Nobility is a far cry from the meaning of justice and those who seek it will understand the immense difficult of challenging the system. However, we are talking about William James Moriarty here, the most infamous nemesis of the great Sherlock Holmes himself. But is this a character driven story or one filled with a desire to show us the world of the 19th century and its corruption in England? Watching every episode told me it’s a crime thriller and showing the darker side of humanity. A show like this is geared towards those who wants to learn more its story than just what’s shown on the surface. With every case, there’s the hidden truths and secrets. As we go through these cases, we learn more about the characters. There’s no room for foolish humor as the anime maintains a suspenseful and thrilling atmosphere. To be quite honest, Sherlock Holmes and William Moriarty exposes everything about human personalities. Humans are among the most complex creatures on the planet and for this anime, it shows us why. With such a sensational premise, studio Production I.G. wanted to portray the show for its thrilling mood. Capturing such world based on a real life setting isn’t easy but truth to be told, it looks and feels just right. Indeed, Great Britain feels alive with the lavish architectures, aristocratic style clothing, and overall, corrupt culture. Watching this show gave me the impression that the animators and producers did extensive research. Character designs also lives and breathes the style of a crime mystery. In particular, William, Albert, and Louis stands out above crowds with their trademark hair and masking their true personalities. There’s also room for violence in the show as some crimes can be quite gruesome. Make no mistake, this anime may not be a gorefest but it isn’t a walk in the park either. Giving this show a chance will depend on if you feel like you’re the target audience. As a fan of crime fiction and mystery thrillers, I couldn’t be more excited when I heard about the anime adaptation news. This is also just the first half as the show will return in April 2021 for its second run. From what we’ve experienced from these 11 episodes, it’s safe to say that we will have at least one intriguing crime mystery thriller to talk about next year.

Time and time again Sherlock Holmes has been re-imagined, re-invented, modernised and so on. But often times, when set in the particular historical period the original novel is set, people forget the effects of the time period small intricacies. (as well as read and pay attention to the source material, but then again Sherlock name sells, seen by how much people venerate this anime lol) Moriarty is a incredibly interesting character in the novels, however he was not given a lot of focus. Here the anime had a chance to explore his character and...well choose to play the "Noble bad, poor good" card as his motivation.Which frankly for a character such as Moriarty is lacking(as in not strong enough for him to trouble himself). He's a genius like Sherlock, so he must have an even stronger motivation to push him to be the 'Napoleon of Crime'. Even if he did want to change the situation of the lower classes, crime is the least favourable thing, as often it hurts more those of which that do not have the means to defend themselves. The characters look great in the show, I do like their design but they lack strong motivators to follow Moriarty so blindly. The villains are often so dumb and easy to control that Moriarty is just a genius because he is surrounded by idiots. They butchered Sherlock's character too, I won't get into detail but it's worth seeing (he looks good but meh much too easily played by Moriarty). Fandom for this is often only simping for the looks of the show rather than the content, people aren't thinking too much about how some of the 'logic' is often very questionable. P.S. On Ep 8 - Police constables hats have Queen Elizabeth II's initials not Victoria's (and that's priceless aha) I've watched and found it a very ok show, definitely not the best of the best but good when there wasn't anything else too thrilling to watch.

It was a fun mystery/drama that managed to be rather light hearted despite its darker subject matter. Moriarty is a kind of Robin Hood character except instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, he helps the poor murder the rich; often in ever more increasingly elaborate ways. It tries to tackle some interesting moral questions, but in my opinion doesn't delve very deep into them and thus is kind of shallow. "Rich people are terrible, the world would be better without them, so to bring about that better world let's kill them". Additionally, each "villain" is comically villainous to the point of seeming tolack any humanity or redeeming qualities, thus making it easy for the audience to sympathize with Moriarty's views without question. Holmes is the only one we really get to see grappling with the morality around killing someone, but even that isn't given much serious attention. Additionally I felt some of the more "anime-esque" additions kind of took away from the "real world" settings they were placed in. i.e. characters leaping onto and off of multi-story buildings, some of the hand to hand combat techniques, wearing cloaks whenever engaging in shady business, etc. Overall it was an enjoyable watch, nice to look at, rocking music for both the opening and ending, and had interesting enough stories to keep my attention, but it could have done more with its premise and wasn't spectacular, thought provoking, or particularly memorable.

4/10 Very shallow show. Fanfiction? More like a bleak shadow of the original... Imagine Sherlock Holmes's original series but adapted for kids. This show is exactly this, a really dumbed down version so that even 5yo can get the point. Story: 3/10 What you see on the screen is exactly what will happen, there is no mystery or any sort of guesswork that you need to do. Too predictable, mysteries are solved effortlessly, the main characters are too powerful for the challenges they face. I got a feeling that the original creator of the manga misinterpreted the original work (hope they actually read it) and no onefixed the deficiencies during the production... Art: 8/10 The art and animation are of good quality. Lots of detailed backgrounds, textures, character design is fine too. You can tell the show was funded well, but that's the sad part. There are great story-driven shows out there that could not afford such excellent visuals, but somehow this garbage got them. Sound: 8/10 Music in the opening/ending is ok. Throughout the show, the sound engineer(s) appropriately used environmental sounds to enhance the action. Character: 2/10 Very flat, non developing characters, main traits taken from original Conan Doyle story, but mangafied a bit. Moriarty is a cheap version of Kira from Death Note. Sherlock, well, nothing outstanding. Enjoyment: 4/10 Overall: 4/10 Please don't get your hopes up, I don't know why this shown has almost 8 score right now. Perhaps, most people rated when the first episode came out. If you haven't read the original Sherlock Holmes, I highly recommend it, unlike this show.

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