Honestly, I won’t be watching Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions this season. I certainly won’t be reviewing it every week. The synopsis was fine, I enjoyed the mystery and the main picture was fine but there are a lot more interesting things coming up this season and honestly I don’t want to see another The Case Files of Jeweler Richard. But then I realized that this title has been on my manga TBR for over a year now and I thought, why not jump right into the anime… instead, I haven’t planned on reviewing it yet…
So far, this show has only aired one episode and has dozens of 1/10 ratings on AniList. Bad start, right? Maybe people just changed their manga ratings but why watch a show on a manga that you rated 1/10? Perhaps morbid curiosity? This really wasn’t a great start to my journey with Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions. I decided I would watch an episode before work just to see if I could get it off my list right away and save some time.
Although, as I said, this title has been on my manga TBR for some time, I should clarify that I have never read a single chapter. I just happen to really like mysteries and have been looking for a good one in manga or anime form for a while. I also like the cover. It has some great colors and the manga is by Psycho Pass’s character designer so I guess there’s something familiar. However, I only discovered the connection a minute ago so it’s not too obvious. In any case, I at least had no idea what I was getting into and no idea what would happen. If you are like me, let me enlighten you.
The first thing I noticed about this show is that it’s actually quite funny. I mean your mileage may vary like any comedy but Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions doesn’t take itself seriously. There are plenty of straight, funny, and funny jokes, not to mention our two main characters: Toto and Ron are the classic odd couple archetype.
I have to say, finding out that this is a light and funny little series and 5:30 a.m. before work was one of the best surprises I’ve had in a while. It immediately put me in a good mood and probably made me a little biased towards this series.
The second thing I discovered was that this was Sherlock Holmes. Not exactly, but it’s basically another retelling/adaptation/modernization of Sherlock Holmes. And as someone who has seen most of them, I welcome this. Ronn is a pretty standard Sherlock archetype. Brilliant but eccentric, sometimes rude, often flippant but with a strong, even unyielding sense of justice and likeable good people. Totomaru steps into the role of Watson, he is the one who has to drag Ron in and is the more conventional and socially acceptable person but instead of being a completely straight man he is also seen as a character innocent but pure as a foil for Ron’s let’s say darker tendencies.
In the first episode, we see the two meet and they even solve a crime together. I don’t know if this is the crime show of the week or not but I hope so. The crime itself was fine. It’s a bit complicated but since the show doesn’t take itself too seriously it works quite well with the tone the show is setting and they explained everything.
In the end, I realized I had a really good time watching this first episode. It’s far from perfect but it’s fun. And then the terrible truth gradually emerged. I will have to write about it. I don’t know if many other anime bloggers will cover it, it’s pretty low in the popularity polls. But I think it’s more interesting than most people think. I certainly didn’t think it would. So now I have to tell you about it… every week…