I figured that after how much I liked Banana Fish, it must be time for the somewhat less enjoyable stuff. I sure wasn’t wrong.

Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou no Holmes/Holmes at Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou

While largely inoffensive, I honestly can’t think of much reason to praise Holmes. And I’m not particularly surprised – can anyone think of any anime title or anime character named after the famous detective that turned out even halfway decent? I get the Japanese pun and all, and can even sort of appreciate that Kiyotaka isn’t actually the one who gave himself the nickname (though he does refer to himself as a “nasty Kyoto boy”, so there is that). However, the fact that it’s included as part of the show at all baffles me; it seems not only pointless but detrimental to the series as a whole. Invoke a name like Holmes and you’re going to invite comparisons, deserved or not – and most of them will probably not be flattering. Anyhow, for the most part I found myself profoundly bored by proceedings, and unless you happen to be really into Japanese antiques, I can’t see Holmes being a hit with any viewer, least of all die-hard mystery/Sherlock Holmes fans. It certainly doesn’t help that the show looks incredibly cheap, from the generic character designs and oversaturated colour palette to the extremely shoddy background art and poorly-animated movement. My advice is to skip over this one unless you need some help getting to sleep – in which case, go for it, you might just be in luck.

Phantom in the Twilight

This could probably be worse. Actually, I know it could be worse, because our main heroine wasn’t threatened, abused, or assaulted by any of the resident vampire (?) bishounen, and also she had like actual thoughts and opinions and stuff. That doesn’t make Phantom in the Twilight in any way a good series though, and this first episode forced me to ask myself some pretty deep questions. Questions such as “who funded this?”, and “why?” Granted, the source material could be considerably better for all I know, so I suppose I’d better not hastily judge the entire- OH WAIT IT’S AN ANIME ORIGINAL NEVER MIND. From beginning to end, this is just plain bad storytelling – an unoriginal and uninspired story with dialogue bogged down in clumsy exposition and with noticeably cheap animation to boot. Even the male character designs aren’t all pretty in the least, which bewilders me a bit – why make the girls look good and then draw the guys (i.e. the main purpose of the anime) so lazily that not only are they unappealing, but a couple of them look like completely different characters from scene to scene? At one point during the episode, I briefly entertained the notion that the whole thing might be a parody, so crap it was actually intentional. Then I realised this was giving the show way too much credit, and it really was just that bad.

Question of the post: Did you watch either of these shows and if so, what are your thoughts?