Tasokare Hotel – Episode 1

What’s it about? Tsukahara Neko wakes up outside a hotel at twilight, where she is greeted by the proprietor: a man with a flame for a head. He tells her the hotel is a space between life and death where the souls of those between life and death try to uncover their memories and identity. She takes it upon herself to become an afterlife detective, helping souls to reclaim their stories.

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I have the flu right now, so I will attempt to be even-handed with this show, but I am afraid I may fail.

There was a moment about 10 minutes into this show where, after five minutes straight of exposition dump, completely flat performances from all involved, and the protagonist “finding” a clue very prominently displayed on a bookshelf, that I asked myself: is this based on an adventure game?

Of course it was!

I wanted to emphasize that there is nothing inherently wrong with video game adaptations, if Nier Automata Ver. 1.1A has taught us anything. And I wanted to like this show, I really did. A show that takes aesthetic cues from Death Parade, with its mid-century interior decors and bartending afterlife staff, and a protagonist clearly based on the gremlin detective Mao Mao from The Apothecary Diaries, right down to the cat-related name “Neko?” Sounds like it was made for me, right? Right????

Unfortunately, in execution Tasokare Hotel has about as much in common with Death Parade as Bunny Girl Senpai has with Monogatari. There is much promise in this premise: the possibility of people hiding from their true selves, plot twists based on misdirection, people refusing to leave the hotel because to leave it is to die. Absolutely none of that is mined in this premiere. The “mystery” at the heart of this episode plays out in simple flashbacks with no sense of pathos—which is quite an accomplishment, given they are about a lady being betrayed and nearly killed by her idol! You would expect them to present this scene in vivid detail, as a “scales falling off the eyes” moment, where we see the truth of her life, but nope! Tiny snatches and glimpses, and Neko pats herself on the back. Well done, gremlin girl detective.

Our protagonist is transparently a self-insert character who exists to have the rules of the world explained to her, pick up various clues in obvious locations, and to have as little personality as possible so anybody could see themself as her. There is absolutely no sense of stakes about how she died (or did she???), no sense of urgency to figure out the mystery of her life. All we catch of her life before is that she apparently liked going to concerts and somehow ended up face first on the pavement, nothing that would draw any interest. Her attitude towards the people who she is investigating is one of bland encouragement, full of obvious suggestions responded to with “well why didn’t I think of that?” 

The rest of the characters feel like NPCs, because they are, in fact, NPCs. There is no spice or flair to the way they are animated, and their designs range from “object head with fire” to “object head with tarot cards.” Only the lady bartender and her monkey friend look more than merely bland. 

Suffice to say, I did not enjoy this show, as it committed the gravest sin a show can commit in my book: it was boring.