Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace - First Impressions

I’ll admit that normally I wouldn’t bother with a show like Ranpo Kitan. I’ve got a short attention span when it comes to anime and mysteries tend to bore me, but I was intrigued by the literary connection from this show, which is based on the works of Japanese mystery writer Ranpo Edogawa (1894-1965). I’m not at all familiar with Ranpo, but the 20^th century is a bit of a blank space for anime and it’s interesting to see the works of an author from that period getting an adaptation (Though given the use of laptops and cell phones in this first episode, the setting seems to have been updated to a more modern period.). The only question is whether Ranpo Kitan can hold my interest with more than just its background.

Thirteen year old Kobayashi (Ridiculously androgynous, though at least it's acknowledged rather than remaining an elephant in the room.) wakes up in a classroom to find the corpse of his teacher, dismembered and arranged in a grotesque diorama. Naturally, this makes him the prime suspect and during the police investigation he encounters Akechi, a 17 year old prodigy employed by the Japanese government as a sort of covert detective. Kobayashi turns out to be a pretty good investigator himself and tracks Akechi to his cushy bachelor pad (The government clearly spares no expense in furnishing its off the books agents). Rather than mortified by the situation, Kobayashi is thrilled by the chance to have something exciting in his life. The plot thickens when the police arrive to arrest Kobayashi again, this time as an accomplice to his murdered teacher, who it turns out was himself a serial killer invested in body art.

This is being the first episode of a mystery series, the narrative clearly has plenty of cards being left off the table. Akechi clearly a lot more than he lets on, and I’d hazard that Kobayashi’s arrest is just a ploy to catch the real killer. Both he and Kobayashi seem to see crime solving more as a game than a civic duty, a way for clever people like themselves to escape the drudgery of everyday life. This is hardly a novelty in mystery fiction, but it will be interesting to see how the theme is pursued (if it is pursued at all). Another line that drew my attention was Akechi’s claim that without the government’s covert use of him and those like him as agents “those with talents and abilities would remain untapped.” I might still be on guard after Mahouka, but do I detect a thread of Randyian elitism?

Ranpo sports some decent animation, though I find the extensive use of shadow figures more irritating than mood-setting. Nevertheless, I’m interested enough to push on and see where this show goes, not only with the overt mystery but with its underlying themes as well.