What’s it about? Elite heiress Hosho Reiko lives a double life. By day, she’s a rich young lady, and when no one’s looking, she’s a novice detective who fights crime alongside Inspector Kazamatsuri, a fellow social elite. But Reiko’s no Columbo: in truth, her sleuthing skills are practically nonexistent. Thankfully, she has her faithful butler Kageyama to confide in as she unravels the lies and seeks justice and truth!
True crime is something I have very little interest in. I find it hard to geek out about actual crimes that caused trauma of all kinds, especially when the victims are still with us. That said, I grew up on Snapped and Law and Order: SVU as primetime evening fare, so I’m not completely immune to the draw of a good mystery.
Hence my interest in The Dinner Table Detective, a josei mystery series that, on its surface, presents a fairly solid premiere. Question is, will I walk away with a crime committed against me, or justice served? Spoiler: it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
Episode 1, “Welcome to the Murderous Party, File 1” places viewers in the midst of the scene of the crime. Much like Clue(do), we’re at the moment a person becomes a body and a corpse becomes a mystery to unravel. Post-opening, things don’t necessarily look better for the victim or the witnesses, either.
But before that, let’s go back in time to a celebration and the introduction of the simply stunning Hosho Reiko, heiress elite. Rocking a red dress and lipstick to match, Reiko burst onto the scene of her Uncle’s 60th birthday to rub elbows with her cultural contemporaries…only to fall flat on her face. This, in many ways, sets the tone for The Dinner Table Detective as a comedy and a mystery series that feels quite grounded in reality.
As the episode proceeds, we engage with the duality of Reiko as an heiress but also as an heiress who doesn’t want that to precede her reputation in regard to her work as a detective. But when a murder appears, Reiko gets launched into the meat of the central struggle as she works to solve a case involving a socialite alongside her very, very flashy coworker. Will they be able to figure out what’s going on, or is Reiko’s future as a detective looking bleak?
I’m going to be honest: this is perfectly fine viewing, but not good viewing. Reiko is just goofy enough in her presentation that it feels plausible, even if I’ve never heard of a modern elite playing Danganronpa IRL. Then again, series like Knives Out exist, though don’t expect that level of art from this premiere. The Dinner Table Detective isn’t that level of balanced comedy and mystery, especially once Inspector Kazamatsuri, the world’s most irritating man, gets introduced.
During the premiere’s runtime, we get a lot of interplay of a wide cast of adults who crack wise while the viewer sits back, relaxes, and tries to figure out the whodunit of it all. Sometimes the timing is great: sometimes, it feels a bit off, and unfortunately, the animation style doesn’t help things. While faithful to the manga, it just feels…off? Flat? Like a relic of the late 2000s? It’s definitely not MADHOUSE’s best. They’re definitely bringing mid, which unfortunately, kind of extends to the back half of the episode.
It’s a shame too, because I think a solid josei adaptation would really round out my watchlist this season; though, as we know, premieres aren’t the end-all be-all of a show. Still, this isn’t the best opener for a show that’s trying to combine the seriousness of crime with the hijinks of a rich girl working the beat. My hope is it’ll get better all around, but… well, this episode feels like foreshadowing of needing to lower my expectations.
One of the strange benefits of this premiere is that I could watch it in English, which is something I’m enjoying becoming more widely available with streaming and simulcasts. That said, I highly suggest enjoying the Japanese track for this anime: the Amazon dub isn’t bad, but of course, it doesn’t match the subtitles. I don’t blame that on localizers though: I will always, first and foremost, blame large companies who cut corners to earn more millions and, in Amazon’s case, billions.
But those subtitles aren’t the only thing marring my experience: while I blithely enjoyed this episode enough to keep at it with this series, I wish it had more structure to it. It’s not bad, by all means, but it’s not good enough to be even kind of memorable, at least not yet. Hopefully next week’s episode will have a bit more foundation to its story and detective work because while I’m no Adrian Monk, I feel like mysteries work best when viewers can piece them together instead of laughing–or being expected to laugh–at a woman who, while competent, never seems to get the chance to show that she’s a worthwhile detective in her own right and has to rely on her curt, sharp-tongued butler.
My verdict? Watch it for yourself and see what you think. I sense I’m not the only one who will feel this way, which is a shame because I’d love more anime with women being cool this season.
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