First Impression – Tantei Kageki Milky Holmes TD

DAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEDAME

Welcome to our latest First Impression! If you’re a long time fan of the franchise or just arriving, the story remains the same. Wacky characters, hodgepodgy references, brain-damaged plotlines, and general unruliness mark these stories like few other shows. But it looks like things might be getting a bit more streamlined…

Chew-Toys

You just keep on telling yourselves that girls….

Well, it’s like I say in the introduction, if you’ve been following the franchise, you probably know what to expect. If this is your first time ’round, then I can give a brief TL;DR. It’s all about the characters being a chew-toy to the “plot”. Tragedy is when you try to, with the goodness of all intentions, befriend a hungry bear and get Smash Bro’d off the screen. Comedy is when it happens to Sherl. In the first series of the show Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, the main cast lose what are called Toys, a superpower of sorts. In this world of semi-futuristic Yokohama, the Great Detectives and the Gentlemen Thieves are the usual recipients of said Toys. Unless of course your Sherlock Shellingford, Cordelia Glauca, Nero Yuzurizaki, or Herclue Barton (left to right in above pic). When they had them, they were the best the Tantei (Detective) Academy ever had. When they lost them…..pure chew-toy. No wits, no brains, no clues, nothing but pratfalls and harebrained logic. This was, of course, the plan of the Great Gentlemen Thief Arséne, who stole their Toys to make them….better. It fails, humorously so. I rather enjoyed the first season, but felt the second one indulged in flanderization tropes to it’s discredit; what was goofy humor became perverse and at times, just idiotic….

The Faeries are Hiding in the Forest

(probably a Cottingham Faerie reference, heck if I know!)

Stealing idol voices….it’s a metaphor for illegal downloading? Maybe? No…..who cares….

So while the first two outings of the franchise were marked by insanity, they released two OVA’s based on a video game where they were with Toys, and cool, confident, and collected, Milky Holmes Alternate. Fans generally hated it, but liked the idea of competent Toy using detectives. So, they then gave us Futari wa Milky Holmes, the adventure of Alice and Kazumi, two elementary school students with Toys that form their own detective duo. It was a bit more serious, with a somewhat approachable non-comedic plot. Fans didn’t like it. And with that in mind, I do wonder what the fans reaction will be to this Extreme fourth series (the titular Kageki…maybe TD means True Detective). It feels like they’ve split the difference between the first series and Futari wa, giving us something a touch less brain-damaged, but still generally goofy.

Kokora hates detectives almost as much as she hates her other mortal enemy…

So in this new adventure, our set up is a mysterious new Thief stealing all the voices of the popular idols in Yokohama. Not just the singing voice, but all the data on the CDs, eTones (I’m avoiding a lawsuit folks), clouds, and one would assume any eight-track tapes that remain popular. So both the city’s top police detective, Kokoro Akechi (don’t call her Kokoro-chan) of the Genius 4 (the other three are out sick, or trying to figure out life, or returning a book for this adventure) and our Milky Holmes are on the case.

                   It’s Grand Theft Faerie

…and it looks like the prime target is the possessor of a unique Toys called Elements, the joy and happiness of an idol singing music….or…stuff like that…..Marine Amagi of the idol group BKT 1000 (feckin’ heck Japan….get some new writers!).

   

I’m just gonna make it easy on you….the honey is foreshadowing….not that that will make any sense…

I’ll just cut this short, and go right into it. It’s a plot complicated only by how bizzare they can make it out to be. There really is no detective work this episode, there never really is. And that is somewhat the strength of the franchise, poking fun at the genre of Great Detective novels. You know the drill…right place right time, coincidental uncovering of a miracle clue, false confessions, strained confessions, silly confessions, outright misleads, and other general derp…

…cause a race in Elemental Faerie land is what all Great Detectives are prepared for…

But it looks like her manager had a bit of a convoluted plan to set Marine up for early retirement, just to cash in on a rare figure deal, Marine’s hour of shame. Or was it Melodia’s possession of said manager that caused it all? Or does it even matter? I’m guessing the Elements affect different peoples in different ways….

Cause losing her Elements just made her a horrible comedian….

They used the honey to attract bees that stung them to lumps that float like helium balloons…..because….reasons….

…cause really this is how all great detectives operate. A specific soil in a boot print? Nah. A certain kind of tobacco ash and the shape of one’s hands. Balderdash. It’s all about being Milky Holmes….that’s how you solve the case!

Well, if you’ve been following the franchise, there really shouldn’t be any big surprises here, it’s fair typical Milky Holmes, innit? If your new, I’ve either convinced you to give it a shot, or I’ve scared you away for good. Well, them’s the breaks, this show aims to be insanity triplicated and sublimated, and it doesn’t apologize for that in the least. But, I think that this time they might have something of a more coherent style of plot to wrap the goofiness around….bet that won’t last for long….I mean, they’ve already sent Kazumi to jail, for being accused of being accused….sigh…