Detective Anime | Death Note, Psycho-Pass and Ghost in the Shell | Gateway to Anime Podcast

One of my favorite characters is Elle the detective. He's like a genius, eccentric detective, which is an absolute stereotype that you have in so many things, you know? I'm trying to think of who's like Monk, you know, like those characters. Do you remember? Yeah, you're not wrong. But what the [ __ ]?

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All right, well, hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to Gateway To Anime. How are you all? What's going on? Charlie, how are you? I'm good. I am shrouded with mystery, and I am gonna do some investigating. So, this is the worst introduction to what we're about to do. Uh, Graham, how are you? Hopefully better than that. I'm searching for clues in a crime scene of podcasting. Well, in case that wasn't enough information for you, we are, of course, talking about detective anime shows. Now, this is quite a large genre, surprisingly large one. Now, it's funny when we go through a lot of these, like, as I've said, we've been through the Samurai and we've been through the ninja ones, and again, we're kind of like, well, not as many of these as we kind of thought. Obviously, a lot in Japanese media in entirely, but not so much in respect to anime and manga. But almost an anime, however, the detective cup runneth over in anime and manga, and it's actually in more places than you think. So, I'll just give a quick little background here. So, basically, of course, Americans created the detective genre. We all know this. Film Noir, the 1920s, you know, the classic she walked in, yeah, just that classic genre, of course. And naturally, like most things with Japan and America, uh, there was a big crossover, of course, post-World War II. Got even more so with the intertwining of the cultures, but we'll get to that later. So, the detective fiction genre spread widely after the 20s when sort of, sort of got picked up by Japan. But in Japan, they created the genre somewhat new. So, they called it *tantei shosetsu*, which means detective fiction, and later became known as *suri sosetsu*, which is deductive reasoning fiction, which is kind of the genre. This is more in novels and films back then, but this can be applied to anime and all these things. You can hear me talk about, you will start understanding once you start talking about the animes. They changed a little bit in respect to the Japan, obviously did Japan's way. So, yeah, it's very heavily influenced by the US, but we're talking a little bit more sci-fi, a little bit more erotic, a little bit more experimental when Japan started doing it. Then there was Edogawa Rampo, who was the first Japanese modern mystery writer and the founder of the detective story club in Japan. That's right, there's a club. Sounds like a cool bunch of guys. Rampo greatly admired Western mystery writers and gained fame in the early 20s when he began incorporating more fantastical, bizarre, and erotic elements into the typical Western detective story. He became synonymous with *honkaku*, which means orthodox, standard, or authentic school detective fiction. So, this is the early days, the earliest days of detective fiction in Japan. But in 1957, post-World War II, we got Seicho Matsumoto, who received the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for his short story, "The Face." This and Matsumoto's preceding work began the social school, *shakai ha*, of the genre, which emphasized social realism, describing crimes in ordinary settings and set motives within a wider context of social injustice and political corruption. So, actually, it kind of went away from the fantastical and more into the realistic, kind of went backwards in a weird way. But for Japan, it was going forwards. It was kind of a reverse of what the West was doing, which is pretty common. But in the 80s, we see the rise of the new orthodox school, *shin hokankoha*, and it features the restoration of the classic rules of detective fiction and the use of more self-reflective elements. Now, this is where it gets interesting in respect to the shows that we'll be talking about, because one of the big things that became much more cerebral, much more psychological, and slightly more fantastical again, which pretty much all of the shows we're talking about deal with. So, there are, of course, the hard-boiled detectives, but generally in Japan, and we'll talk about these, there's a real twist. Like, I won't dive into this one too much, but there is a show called "No Guns Life," which is probably the most noir of many of the detective animes I've ever watched. But the guy has a gun for a head. That's right, classic anime. So, but it's actually, it's very noir. It's the most wild one I've probably ever seen in respect to all the, all the genre tropes, all the things. It's very much is, we're in the big trench coat and whatever, it's just that in that world, people get cybernetically enhanced with weapons, and he just happens to be a gun head. It's a whole thing. We won't talk about that too much, but actually quite a good show. Probably check it out. But Graham, yes, why don't you start us off with a bit of an old school one in comparison to the ones that we're talking about? It's not, you know, 1920s old. It's old, but it's probably more relevant than a lot of these shows. Well, it's unbelievably influential. Yeah, and it's one of the most influential. It's not the original movie. No, no. But because we talked a movie to death at this point, one must if you talk about anime. But Graham, why don't you talk to us about your show? It's, it's probably loosely detective. It's, it's a mixture of cyberpunk, sci-fi, body horror type stuff. So, I'm going to be talking about "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex." I think probably most of the, well, this is game with anime, so maybe not, but I think most people are familiar with the original movie. Came out in '89, yeah, around then, yeah, late 80s, turned around a while. So, "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" is a follow-up series. So, it was produced by Production I.G., who did the movie as well. If you don't know that name, they did Haikyuu!! and Fullmetal Alchemist, yep, bunch of other stuff. Stand Alone Complex was written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, but it also brought back the original manga author to the production, who is Masamune Shirow. It follows the Major and also the other people that are in Section 9. I'll read you the synopsis because I went back through and watched other videos and stuff, and I didn't know what the hell it was about. I don't remember this at all. In the not-so-distant future, mankind has advanced to a state where complete body transplants from flesh to machine is possible. This allows for great increases in both physical and cybernetic prowess and blurring the lines between two worlds. However, criminals can also make full use of technology, leading to new and sometimes very dangerous criminals. In response to such innovation, new methods, and new crimes, the Japanese government has established Section 9, an independent operating police unit to deal with these crimes. And that's basically the plot. It does stay close to the movie. It's about people being hacked and the nature of, you know, individuality, the blurring of lines between people and machines, terrorism. Like, it's, it's a huge series that's existential. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not just a straight-up detective show, as most of these other things are. It does lean into, like, the nature of humanity a lot. Yes. You're basically just tracking down cybercriminals and sort of exploring what it means to be human, pretty much. Very blatant, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's very Blade Runner, or cyberpunk, I guess we're going to throw in there now. Yep. A lot of, a lot of cross streams and that sort of stuff. Absolutely. Do you think there's a difference between genres that are like detective and police work? Like, you think they're different inherently? So, if you've got, like, a Sherlock Holmes as a private detective, or you have, like, a Bureau of Detectives in an FBI, are they somewhat different? Or do you think that it's kind of evolved to be this style more than, like, what it literally is about? That's a good question. I mean, is Law & Order a detective show? Technically, yes. It's awesome. Yeah, it's a cop show, but they're detectives. Yeah. Is there lawyers in that as well? Lawyers as well. Two sides. Oh, yeah. Law & Order. See, I would say that, like, um, Scandinavian, well, I like Scandi, those kind of shows are often following police, but are very much more noir, cerebral, detective kind of genre. It's an interesting differentiation point because I'm like, The Shield, or something, or NYPD Blue, any of those real cop shows, which are cop shows, but most of the characters are detectives trying to solve crimes. But it's not that, like, cat and mouse game, right? Which most detective, I think it's pretty emblematic of. Well, the one that I'm talking about and the one that you're talking about, very much cat and mouse, cerebral nemesis conflicts. Still billing with cops, though, in mine. Yep. Mine too. Well, some of them. There's like, some cops, but yeah. It's, it is very interesting because, yeah, but the private detective is a little bit different. The project had that kind of ragtag sort of, like, often played, you know, that out of money, and they're going to say, yeah, misfit detective. They got a divorced wife, yes, yeah. They've been through [ __ ] they're usually a war veteran or something. And there's a lot of shows like that in anime as well, that have like misfit teams of private detectives or like, you know, people that take it on in their spare time. Uh, there's also in America, like, obviously, Veronica Mars, it's like a team. Nancy Drew, yeah, yeah. Like the Babysitter's Club, never read it, investigated some stuff, I'm sure. Yeah. Enid Blyton's, you know, some stuff. Absolutely. Famous Five, Inspector Gadget, yeah. Was he? Yeah. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Absolutely. That is a classic Marvel film. We see this all the time. Blade Runner, obviously, like, there are so many. And yeah, but anime is no different. And it's, it's all over the place. But yeah, like I said, the three that we're talking about, the two, they're all fantasy, sci-fi. All fantasy, sci-fi. Yeah. And even "No Guns Life," I've been mentioned before, full sci-fi, you know, like futuristic. I'll jump with this one quickly because I can't, we can't talk about this without actually bringing up this manga anime. And not one that I've ever really seen because it always seemed very niche to me, but it is the third highest-selling manga of all time, behind only One Piece. And let me bring it up again, Golgo 13. Which no one seems to know a [ __ ] thing about. It is the second most weird to read manga of all time. And I have no [ __ ] remember I read the synopsis out when he looked it up when we brought this up, like, last time, we're all like, that sounds sick, never heard of it. I don't even, no one talks about it online. No one knows a damn thing. I guess this is one of those things that was big in Japan. Is it just been raped because it's a generational thing? It is older. It's like the Beano in the UK has been around since the 40s. Yeah, maybe it's just old people that ruin it, I guess. But we need to look, we're going to limit 13 episodes. Yeah, yeah. We have to because I'm going to put my detective hat on and I'm going to research that. Is what I'm doing. Jesus. All right. But no, we are going to talk about it quickly. I'm just going to bring it up. Detective Conan. Okay. Yes, of course. So, a Japanese detective too, written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. It's been serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday since 1994, uh, with the chapters collected into 103 tankobon volumes as of April this year, 2023. Been an anime series since 1996 and produced by TMS Entertainment, who did, amongst many things, Rent-a-Girlfriend, Charlotte's favorite show, uh, Dr. Stone, and Megalo Box. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. And they've done myself, many, many old things, obviously. It's been around since the 90s. Over 270 million copies of the tankobon in circulation, not even online publications or whatever, as of January this year. And I said, first, third highest-selling manga of all time. It's about a kid called Jimmy Kudo, who's a high school detective who occasionally works for the police to solve crimes. He's a prodigy, classic. During the investigation, he is ambushed by a member of a crime syndicate known as the Black Organization. In an attempt to murder the young detective, they give him a dangerous drug. However, instead of killing him, it shrinks his body to the size of an elementary school kid. Adopting the pseudonym Conan Edogawa and keeping his true identity a secret, Kudo lives with his childhood friend Rachel Moore and her father, Richard, who is a private detective. Conan tags along on Richard's cases and helps solve them, as well as starting a junior detective league at school with some friends. Conan pursues the Black Organization to bring them to justice and to get his body back. Now, that's a hell of a mystery to run since 1994. He hasn't found out yet. He hasn't figured it out. I didn't have no idea that he was shrunk. I thought he was just, he's just a perpetual Bart Simpson kid. Higher selling manga of all time without no damn [ __ ] about it, honestly. Now, I know that there's like a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids aspect to this. Um, I'm, I'm invested. It's doing something right. Actually, just interesting. I'm trying to think back to a lot of animes and a lot of games I've played that are JRPGs. Like, all the Persona series feature some kind of prodigy high school detective. And it seems to be a character trope where it's like this cool, like, and they're like celebrities that go on TV. I'm like, who is this? Like, this hinge detective? Like, and it happens every game. And I, I'm just like, it's like, oh, yeah, does this actually, is this a thing in Japan? And a bunch of child detectives around? Like, I'm scared. I'm not gonna go. I'm gonna get arrested by a child protector. I don't even know. It's like when they do a Sherlock Holmes show or like a film, and everyone in the street's like, oh, that Sherlock. Oh, how do you know? Biggest celebrity in London is Sherlock Holmes. Awesome, dude. Yeah, smoking a pipe. Is he the most famous spy? Sherlock Holmes, detective. [Music] Talking spy. Your family. It did pretty well. It's fine. James Bond. You're shut up. You're not supposed to tell me. It's clandestine. Brother, yeah. The most famous detective, surely, is Sherlock Holmes, right? No question. Or Batman. Is Batman a detective? Yes, absolutely. Oh, don't care for the DC. People are going to come for you. So, Detective Conan is still technically kind of, there's always a little twist on it. It's rare to have like a pure one. I'd say the closest one is maybe "Monster." Even then, that's still like, oh, it's a horror, but the detective's also not the lead character either. No, that's sort of like a, yeah, that's why I didn't, element of it. That's why I didn't actually, I wouldn't call it a detective's show. I call it a horror show. Yeah. Do you know there's a, I think there's a town in Japan named after Conan? It's called, yeah. It's just very interesting. And you're right, there's always a twist. It's often to do with sci-fi. So many of these to do with sci-fi or fantastical, which, you know. So, the two shows that Charlie and I are going to talk about are both shows that we've actually talked about on the podcast before, but don't think we're lazy because maybe we are. It's been years, and honestly, we need to rehash. We've gotten a little bit better over time, or worse, I don't know. Maybe go back and listen and then let us know which one, which is better. I think you were better before, obviously. The two shows we talked about were in literally our first like five episodes that we ever did, and frankly, didn't know what we were doing back then. No one knows what they're doing. Graham, and it tells you otherwise, a liar. I don't know. Batman is a detective. There's one thing he knows. What's that? That's all I got. That's all I got. Did you start? Is it an orphan? Yeah. Do you train some? I don't really familiar on Batman. Yeah. And he's from a rich, but he trained and then became his. Is he like a private detective? He's not like a police official. Perspective, unless you're Adam West, who is a deputy, a deputized officer of the law. Is he really? Yeah, in the Adam West TV show, they make a point of saying, like, I'm deputized by the police because he's a vigilante. I know more about Adam West Bat than I do about Stand Alone Complex. I think that's pretty obvious. Oh, we found graves. True knowledge. Well, we're going to talk about these because I think we have a lot more to say about them now. And frankly, with the detective genre, these just make so much sense. Two of the more famous modern, modern-ish, I suppose. They're not really that modern now, are they? 20 years old. The one I'm talking about is so, it's like retro these days. 10 years old too, as of this year. [ __ ] Anyway, I'm going to talk about Psycho-Pass. And I'm going to talk about it for several reasons. One, because it's a great detective show. B, because it's a [ __ ] great show, full stop. And C, because it was made by Production I.G., and it was made because they wanted to do something like Stand Alone Complex. So, two of the directors are both worked on Stand Alone Complex. But they also got Gen Urobuchi, who we have mentioned many times on this podcast, who is a rather extraordinary writer who wrote Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero. Now, when he wrote Puella, the head of Production I.G. literally went, this guy, we want this guy to work on this project, and he put them in touch with the two directors, and that is how the show was born. So, yeah, here we go. Yeah, literally, uh, literally wouldn't exist without some guy walking through the corridors going, you're dead. But also, none of these shows would exist without Blade Runner, which is their biggest, heaviest influence, and they wear it on their sleeve quite, quite heavily, as they should, because Blade Runner is amazing. So, Psycho-Pass is a cyberpunk psychological thriller produced by Production I.G. and co-directed by Naoyoshi Shiotani and Katsuyuki Motohiro, who were both worked on, as I mentioned before, Stand Alone Complex and the original movie. Japan is now under the control of the Sibyl System, a seemingly all-powerful, omniscient biomechatronic computer network which endlessly measures the biometrics of the citizens' brains and mental states using cymatic scans. The resulting assessment is referred to as a "Psycho-Pass," which includes a numeric crime coefficient index revealing the citizens' potential for criminality and a color-coded hue alerting law enforcement to the improvement, clearing, or the decline, clouding of their Psycho-Pass. If a citizen's crime coefficient index raises above 100, they are pursued by the Crime Investigation Department of the Ministry of Welfare's Public Safety Bureau, split into two teams of inspectors and enforcers. So, enforcers are latent criminals who are charged with protecting the detectives and doing the dirty work, enabling the detectives to maintain their clear hues. So, in this world, not only does the Sibyl System track people's potential to commit crimes, it also literally gives you jobs. It runs everything. So, the people with the clearest hues become detectives. It's a very, very aspirational and admired job. So, as those who can see the most clearly and not become clouded by the horrible things that they see. The enforcers, on the other hand, as mentioned before, are latent criminals, those who are criminals but can get out there and actually like bust some skulls and ship without, they're just, they're going to give them a free pass. Now, what's very interesting, though, is one of the lead characters that we follow is Kogami. And Kogami is an ex-detective. Kagami, while chasing a serial killer who murdered his partner, his hue becomes clouded, therefore making him a latent criminal despite being a detective. So, he gets busted down to an enforcer, who is a second-class citizen, but still is not in jail or in therapy, as a lot of these people get given. So, what we do follow is Akane Tsunemori, a rookie inspector within the division one of the Ministry of Welfare Public Safety Bureau and Criminal Investigation Department, and she is on her first day on the job. Now, what's interesting about this is that where this show gets very interesting, like Stand Alone Complex, it is incredibly existential and really raises a lot of questions about what it is to be human. And of course, if anyone's seen Minority Report, I'm sure a lot of bells have just been rung. But basically, what's interesting is that, for example, the system is not perfect. In fact, it's far from it, despite proclaiming to be perfect. So, in the first episode, they're sent out to see a serial killer, basically trying to murder a woman in the golf tournament. That all of the detectives and enforcers carry these weapons called the Dominators. And a Dominator is when you, like, it's a very futuristic-looking gun. You point it at someone, and it reads their Psycho-Pass. It will then do one of three things. One, if someone's Psycho-Pass is too low, they will do nothing because it's like, well, they're fine, don't worry about it. If they're starting to rise above 100 and getting problematic, it will stun them so they can be incapacitated. If it goes too far, it will destroy them in a really serious body horror kind of way. Now, what's interesting is that in this first episode, they chase down the killer, and Kagami gets there first, and the killer gets killed because these crime coefficients way, way high. But interesting enough, the victim is so traumatized that her crime coefficient goes up to the point where the Dominator says she must be eliminated because she's so [ __ ] by the horrifying experience that she has urged to kill. So, Kagami just points the gun at her and says, well, do I gotta do? But then Tsunemori points the gun at him, and his crime isn't, his crime coefficient isn't high enough to be killed, but it is enough to be stunned, and she stuns him. That is what this whole show is all about. It is always asking these questions, and of course, there are twists and turns, and I'm not going to spoil them here because you should go watch this show. It is really, really good. There are three seasons. The first season is by far the best, written by Gen Urobuchi. Second is also written by Gen Urobuchi, unfortunately, nowhere near as good. I gave up in the second season. Yeah, a lot of people. I think it's a big mess. I'm one of the few psychos who has kept up with Psycho-Pass. Shoot that man. It's my turn to be a [ __ ] cringe. So, I've kept up with it. The third season gets a lot better. It's not written by Gen Urobuchi anymore, but it is a little bit silly in that the two new lead characters are basically magic. Um, but it's still pretty cool. So, there are a bunch of movies, which gets a little bit confusing. There's like four of them. A fifth one about to come out, in fact, because the third series stopped and then was finished by a movie. It's been a very complex, kind of messy run this show's had, but I still, on the whole, think it's really great. But that first season, the first season of Psycho-Pass is just so, so incredibly good. It could have easily stood alone, and I would kind of wish it. I'm still alone complex. Oh, we have just, yeah. Anyway, so we're all just hoping that it would hold that level all the way through. It hasn't. It has dipped. But at the same time, if you just watched that first season of Psycho-Pass, you will be so heavily rewarded because the characters are brilliant, the story is brilliant, the world is brilliant. It's quite terrifying and also asks some really serious existential questions and philosophical questions. As I mentioned before, Makishima, one of my favorite characters of all time, especially as an antagonist. Yes, he disappears up his own ass a little bit, quite a bit, with his philosophy, you know, according to Nagel and whatnot, who doesn't want to quit certain angles. But like, at the same time, this isn't just you. Yeah, we talked about you. You're talking about Devil Is a Part-Timer or ten times cooler and trying to bring down the system from within, which we all should, but we won't because we're [ __ ] pathetic. But, um, the supporter said it once, he'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work. Anyway, I love Psycho-Pass. You actually watched it before me. Yeah, yeah. And it's one of those ones I actually show a lot of people as gateways. Yes, bringing it back to the podcast, the whole thing. It's been a while since we talked about any gateway anime, but this one is a real, three of these, huh? Is it? Yeah, this one's a real good one because that's why we talked about it early on in the podcast because it's very Minority Report, it's sci-fi, it's really clear, and, um, there's a lot of, you know, talks about rehabilitation versus, what was the thing, restorative versus retributive justice. Yeah, because you've got people who, you know, experience trauma, who then their hues get clouded, and then they suddenly are the ones who get arrested because they're the ones that now have no, got not got sound mind. A lot of cool sci-fi in there, lots of like, um, I can pick my outfit based on a button, you know, like that kind of stuff, which is always a treat. And good characters, I, cool design, this is a cool show. It's really easy, easy sell, easy watch. Second season, I don't know about that, but the first season is easy to watch. No, it's great. And like Kagami is a great character, Tsunemori is a great character, a lot of the detectives and enforcers are great characters. Makishima, as I mentioned before, such a good character, such a good villain, antagonist, because there's some parts of it that'll be like, kind of right, dude, which makes it, which is a good thing for an antagonist to have, as opposed to just mustache-twirling, where like, yeah, people's pain is fun to me. Yeah, great, dude, whatever. No one can relate to that. But like, at least with him, he's like, hey, this system's [ __ ], yeah, he goes about it the entirely wrong way, but, you know, the system is [ __ ] and he wants to break that system. He just goes about it as horrendously as you could possibly imagine. But I just, it brings in a lot of different questions as well about sort of Confucian society, which obviously Japan is based in, most of Asia is based in Confucian ideology and philosophy, and of course, the collective and the whole idea of this. And there's this wonderful scene, it's not wonderful, it's horrible, but it's a brilliant scene without spoiling too much. A character can wear something on their head which stops them being scanned by the Psycho-Pass, and he just goes and kills someone with a hammer in the middle of the street, and it's [ __ ] horrendous, but it is a brilliant scene because everyone around them has not seen a violent crime for God knows how long, and just, no one knows how, how to react. And it's like, it's so visceral, it's so brutal, it's, it's horrible, but it's like, it's a brilliant piece of storytelling. And when it happens, you're like, whoa, what the [ __ ]? There's so many moments like that where it really makes you question. I mean, no one's questioning it, that's a good thing. It's obviously a horrible thing, but there are many questions about like free will versus determinism versus all sorts of, you know, does anyone really have a choice in what they're doing? How much control does the internet and the government have over us? What can we do? What, what is actually given to us? Is again, everyone has their jobs planned out, and like the AI exploding and whatnot, and you know, people being, you know, people have literally started to have designer babies and whatnot, which is the whole thing. I'm not going to go into it now, but it's a whole fascinating thing in the way that our world is going. You can start to see some of these dystopian ideas, obviously much less dramatically implemented than what's, you know, there's that great subreddit called, um, Boring Dystopia, and it's so good, it's perfect because it's like, oh yeah, it's nowhere near as cool as Blade Runner and Psycho-Pass. It's actually way more boring, mundane, and we're all just like sleepwalking through all this [ __ ], but that's what's fascinating to me. So, yeah, I just think Psycho-Pass, it's one, you know what, it's in my top ten. Season one is in my top ten of all time. All right, yeah. It's a really good one. Um, and it is really, it is, it's so similar to Minority Report, though. Oh, dangerous. Minority Report with cooler guns. Yeah. And Blade Runner. Yeah. It's funny that both of you, the ones you guys talk about, were futuristic, like, you know, cyberpunk, because I mean, it does lend itself, Neo-noir lends itself to that stuff so easily into anime, in particular. I think this one is definitely not a sci-fi, but is a fantasy. I said that, that I was like, of course it's a fantasy. It's real. This one, if you haven't heard of it by now, I'm genuinely going to be shocked. Even if you have never watched an anime in your life, you've probably heard of this one. It's the story of a guy that finds a notebook, and then sometimes he writes some names in the notebook, and then people have heart attacks and die. And he also then decides that he may as well become a god of a new world. He's also a high school student. And yeah, so this is the story of, of course, Light. You got me in Death Note. It's a very simplified version, but that's kind of that is there you go. Well, shooting is bored. Bored throws his Death Note into the mortal realm. It's picked up from the king of the dead. Yeah, but like, you know, what we don't know that at the start. We just know that he's a kid and he finds a notebook. Yeah, and he's off. He's over the world. The opening scene is the death god throwing it into the world because he's bored. Yes, yes. Such research. I've watched that show so many times. You can't remember my head. It started in my head. It just started with the news program and Light being offered. And then the seeing the notebook drop out of the window. That's in my head. But maybe I just think it would have been cooler if it was like that. And they should remake it with that scene. That's fine. One note. Chapter one note. Also, I probably was [ __ ] watching because I had to. We did a live-action movie episode, and I'm honestly traumatized for it because I watched the Netflix Death Note live-action movie, and it was actually the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. So, I'm criminal. That should all be in jail. But you know what's good? You know what's good is the Death Note musical. And I'm not even kidding. So, there's a Death Note musical that's actually about to be put on in London. Yeah, yeah. So, basically, so hear me out. This is actually crazy. I think it's now in the West End. Like, just, it's actually, they're only doing like concert versions. So, there's a, um, basically, it's actually an American musical that someone's written based on the manga. Oh, God, not based on the Netflix. No, no. It's based on the manga. And so, the couple of things have changed in it. But, um, it's an American musical that has actually been produced in Japan. But they translated the English lyrics to Japanese. So, they've done a full professional production in Japan. And they did a concept album. It was meant to open on Broadway, and then someone pulled the financing. But there's a cult following behind this concept album. It's got this really famous musical theater performer as Light Yagami. Is, um, Jeremy Jordan, is his name. Oh, super famous musician. Very good. Playing Light. Um, it's a banger. I, um, I've been playing one of the songs on repeat around my house. I'm like, what about the future? I think Light is a bit more, apparently he's like motivations are a little less, like, I'm the god of the world, and more kind of like, yes, but apparently it's really good. Death God's doing like the can-can across the stage. Apparently it's really, really good. So, a lot of, um, and the interesting thing about this is, as we've mentioned many times before, our most successful anime and manga have Japanese musicals, have stage shows. So, I've seen the Naruto one, which I had the best time ever watching the Shippuden musical, and I, I was living for it. It was actually quite astounding. Thank you. Um, and they're about, like, those ones. This is different because it actually is, was meant to open on Broadway. So, it has West, like, it's one of those things where, like, not to say the other ones aren't legit, but in terms of, like, musical theater prestige, it was like up there, which is very weird. Anyway, so I love that now it's getting a run in London, and I, it's amazing. Can't wait to see the footage of that. Transnationalism, cultural diaspora, which I'm all about. That's [ __ ] sick. Yeah. Anyway, so that's happened. And back to the show part. Coming, Charlie. So, I was going to say, do you consider Death Note a detective show? Yes. Okay. Yes. So, but the thing is, yes, because it's like a cat and mouse chase thing. One of the lead characters, he, so this teenager who finds a notebook after the death of God was born, who the [ __ ] is? If you write the name of someone, you have to know their face and their name, correct? And if you write it in the notebook, they die. Um, if you can specify a time and a day, if you just don't specify how they die, they die within, how long is it? 40 seconds. 40 seconds of a heart attack. That is the general premise. Uh, basically, he starts thinking that he can just kill off all the criminals. So, this kid's decided that there's too much evil in the world, and honestly, he's just sick of how lax the justice system is. He thinks he can take his own hands. This kid is also not your everyday kid. Unlike the Netflix Death Note one, where there's made it some rando kid, and I was like, you've got to have someone who's like particularly impressively smart. Like, are they not once showed that kid being smart? I was like, child prodigy, what child prodigy? Number one student in Japan. His father is the head of the police bureau in Tokyo. So, he's got connections to the crib, like, you know, the justice system, and he thinks that it is too lenient. So, he decides that he is going to take his own hands and effectively cleanse the world of evil, inherently making himself a god of the new world. And his nickname that he's given himself is Kira, which is a derivation of the word killer. But, yeah, so Kira is Light's alter ego. He draws the attention because he thinks he's not going to get caught because they're dying of heart attacks, you know, in this world. Um, although they're Shinigami, it's not known to the people of the world that this is, that's the most supernatural part of it. No one knows they exist. Yes. So, after he's done all this, basically, someone catches on. People start catching on that they assume that it's like a higher power, like a god or something. But this, uh, very, very high up, very elusive, very, um, smart, calculative detective gets onto the case and realizes that something must be missing, that it must be a person that is doing this. And so starts Death Note's entire storyline, which is the detective's name is L, who uses just a symbol of L, and no one knows their face. So, therefore, they actually can't be killed by Kira. At the start, anyway. They don't know that, though. There's a really cool sequence how they figure that all out. Anyway, it's great fun. The show is classic. It's 2000s. It's a classic. It's an emo, just dream. The Shinigami look like, and like the angsty music, Light's haircut is like, you know, it's everything about it is just like beautiful 2000s emo aesthetic, and it's great. And it's a classic show for a reason because it's actually really good. And one of my favorite characters is L, the detective. He's like, you're, I think out of all the texts we've talked about, he's the most like, similar, like Sherlock Holmes, in a way, where he's like, eccentric detective, genius, eccentric detective, which is an absolute stereotype that you have in so many things. You've got, I'm trying to think of who's like Monk, you know, like those characters. [Music] Exactly correct. You're not wrong. But what the [ __ ]? Because absolutely alongside Death Note, yeah, look, I would say that most of those, you know, genius detective characters are neurodivergent coded, no question. Like that is in Criminal Intent. Yeah, a very character trope thing as well. And so is L, you know, L is quite possibly, oh, no, it's not even a question. He is in my top three anime characters of all time. It's not even close. It's great. He's such a wonderful character. And like, you got me in him. Look, it's what this show is. It's definitely the cat and mouse game, as you mentioned before, but it's very much a nemesis conflict. That's the cornerstone of this whole show. Now, it also brings up very existential questions about, you know, it's a great debate between Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, which comes back to the famous French existentialists, supposed World War II. They had a one, a huge debate where they actually fell out, where they were writing letters back and forth to each other. And the classic question is, is it okay to kill a thousand people for a million people to live? Right? That's a classic philosophical premise, right? And Sartre was like, [ __ ] yes, of course it is. It's logical. Why would you not? Like, who gives a [ __ ]? A thousand people, a million people live. Yeah, it's that simple. Do it. Whereas Camus was like, no, no, you can't. As soon as you do that, you commit philosophical death. Therefore, if you are choosing people's lives, it shouldn't be within humans' realms a possibility to choose who lives and who dies. The second we make those choices, then we are not human anymore. So, this is exactly what this show explores. And it is, because I know a lot of people who've watched Death Note, who are big Light stans, who are just like, I mean, look, for me, Light loses his way when he starts doing, he's, you know, he starts off with like noble intent. Again, it depends on where you want to look at, like, he's killing anybody. Okay, that's a bigger question. But if you're like, well, he kills bad people, but who gets to decide who's bad and who's good, etcetera? These are the moral quandaries that this show keeps bringing up all the time. But at the end of the day, without spoiling too much, he starts killing people coming after him, right? Because he's a kid, he's a teenager. So, once he starts doing that, he does lose his moral superiority. And L happens to sit on a very high moral standpoint. And it is a battle of philosophies. In fact, it's very much Camus versus Sartre in many, many ways. And I just think it's such a good show. And yes, again, a bit like Psycho-Pass, a bit like Ghost in the Shell, a bit like a lot of anime, it's very earnest. Therefore, yes, sometimes it does disappear up its own ass a little bit. But at the same time, I kind of love a bit of earnestness. And Death Note is full of it, and I love it for it. You know, it's so on the nose. I'm not even surprised that you love earnest. You're like, that's like the least surprising thing. But sometimes you've ever said. Uh, no, I, I love Death Note because I love the cat and mouse. I also just love how over the top it is, and how it's unashamably anime. And there's some, just like, you want to see some great writing in a notebook, animation, the soundtrack. Light becomes kind of irredeemable. I mean, he was already irredeemable because I hate when people think that they're better than everyone. That's what I can't stand. I'm like, you think this kid, think you're [ __ ] better than everyone? Like, privilege or [ __ ]? Like, who are you killing? Like, you know, like, who do you even know? Like, how? Like, anyway, whatever. Like, people. Anyway, sorry, that's just my. I would give him a slap. No, I wouldn't. I'm going to get arrested because he's a child. The greatest murderer humanity's ever seen. You probably get away with it. I'll wait. All the time. The time skip. I'll slap it. Oh, I'll wait. And there's an issue where you have people that are told that they're the best all their life, which he is. And anyway, again, but it is classic thing of like, the elite get to choose the fate of humanity. Yeah, and they get to choose what is right and wrong. And when you get people who get to manipulate legal systems and whatnot, and he sits there going, oh, all the bad people are getting away with it. It's like, yeah, but the rich get to manipulate a legal system to their, to their whims all the goddamn time. You see Donald Trump do it all the time. You're sitting under the, you see Sir Clive Palmer in Australia doing it right now, suing Australia is ludicrous. And while in many ways, you can see where Light's coming from, this is the good thing about it is that like, it's not black and white. What's great about the show is that there are shades of gray, and you do sometimes cross in between. L is still very dogmatic in his belief structure, which is his weakness. But this is what's cool about the show, and it's just, it's actually very smart. It's a very smart. I think, um, my favorite moment, I'm just going to say it, but if you don't want to be spoiled, maybe skip a minute ahead. I feel like if you haven't watched Death Note by now, just, just do it, and then come back and listen to this episode because it's just one of those classics. Or read it. The manga is great as well. Different ending, interesting. I also mentioned in our fourth episode, so like, come on. Yeah, basically, L has narrowed it down. He knows that Kira is in Japan. He knows that they must be connected to the FBI. What are they called? The, whatever the Japanese police is called, the federal police. Um, so he's narrowed it down. He's got some FBI agents tailing certain people. So, Light is being tailed by one of them. And it is that interaction with, not so much the FBI agent, which he does, which he does things which are not great with, but it's Raye Penber's, Beyonce. Yeah, and that sequence. And what I love the most is that she figured it all out. She was smarter than everyone, basically knew it. And like, when, and it just, there's just a moment where, oh, it's so good, where he's dealing with her when they're walking to the, uh, she's going to basically report what she, she's figured out. And and it's just, it's so good and it's so awful. It's a really great episode where they're like spending a lot of time just walking, and he's trying to catch her out because, uh, he, you know, and he thinks that he's, he's actually panicking for the first time because he thinks he's just got everything under control, then he's realized that he's not the smartest. He's, he needs to like, yeah, anyway, he does eventually, unfortunately, does get her. And it's like, it's awful. It's a brilliant moment. It's a brilliant moment. And also my favorite being also when you watch Death Note, watch the first two episodes, sort of that older style of anime, when basically pilots used to run over two episodes. It was a big thing in the early 2000s, mid-2000s anime, where the pilot very much ran over two episodes. And this one does that as well, because again, it's like Light thinks he's got everything sorted, and then of course, L, which I've already spoken about, figures it out in a very dramatic fashion, and it's really well executed. And again, very over the top, very, very on the nose, but it is a wonderful show. And I just think this is what Japan does with detective shows. It's different, right? It is cerebral. And don't get me wrong, this main science of the Lambs, extraordinarily cerebral, like, uh, Red Dragon, all that sort of, uh, there's, you know, so many Western movies and shows where we get dive deep into the psychological cat and mouse game between detective and

serial killer and one no there's countless of them, but Japan always takes some of that little bit, either sci-fi or Fantastical or fantasy style Fantastical. So I just think it's pretty interesting. Even Detective Conan, like even though yes, there's a drug which turns into a kid, that's that's sort of fantasy in many ways. Still blown away by that. Yeah.

I another thing that like the anime just gets to do is like quite literal things, like you know, like with Ellen light playing a tennis match, just that kind of thing. Or like, you know, often you'll play things where there's like, often you'll see things where there's like a chess board will come up and someone's like they do like very literal kind of. And it's really fun. I think it's just a medium that can really lean into that detective work. Like I think things like Sherlock have done it with mind palaces and that kind of yeah, like it's sort of Hannibal does it a bit. Yeah.

There's so many of these. Like a big one for me is a show called ID invaded. I'm not going to dive too deep into it, but basically again, very futuristic, very cyberpunk, where basically people dive into mem, like certain people get the ability. Very much Inception kind of or Source Code kind of vibes where people get to dive into memory wells. When they get into the worlds, their memory wipes and they're basically in a serial killer's mind or a victim's mind. And it's all very subconsciously, it's all very stylistic kind of inceptionally as I mentioned, sort of things that you're not quite sure what's going on. And the detective has to go on peace, but they they wake up knowing that they're a detective, but nothing else. And they have to piece everything together. And it's very complex, very interesting. But it's also like Psychopaths is an anime original, only one season, and I loved it. Also Kendra suda, one of my favorite voice actors of all, probably the best voice actor in Japan. He voices the lead character. And also the little character, a little bit like Kogami in Psychopath has a dark past, things have gone wrong for him and he's ended up in the place that he's in. I won't spoil too much, but ID invaded, very, very cool, very Inception, very Source Code, very cerebral, but sci-fi, excellent show.

Another great one, no gun's life. I mentioned before, gun for a head. I mean, what else is there? There's also a lot of like comedy, silly, like billionaires detectives club, or even, you know, just like shows that are kind of on the more fun side. Another fantasy one is Bungo's Stray Dogs, which is about a detective agency, but they all have supernatural abilities. Yeah, they're based on famous literary characters, but you know, one guy turns into a white tiger. Like there's a bunch of stuff there. There's this really great show that we should have mentioned about a detective that has a butt for a face, um, butt detective. And I'm honestly just going to read out the synopsis because I've never watched it, but when I was looking up animes to do detective or life, okay, I had to really put my foot down. That's a dangerous goal as well. Detective. Is it dangerous? Google it. It's such a simple, beautiful synopsis. Is a polite and meticulous super sleuth. No one is the butt detective. Solves a myriad of baffling mysteries, blowing raspberries in the face of crime. Great. Apparently you can watch that on Netflix. So I don't know. Anyway, but to tell about that, just like what is the first thing that came up and I went, of course, like I was like, anime was a bad idea once again, but by all accounts, it looks somewhat awesome. I don't know if anyone can do it. It's a butt for gun for hand in the butt for ahead. I mean, come on, man. You know, someone had to do it. They say there's no originality in the media anymore. You haven't watched enough anime, people. Yeah.

There's so many different ones. Moriarty the Patriots, of course, also by Production IG. Yeah, yeah, that is literally like Sherlock Holmes, but for Sherlock Holmes, but through anime. Look, I thought it was fine. It was fine. It was all right. The manga is really good. I talked most about detectives, but obviously crime. Um, yeah, because we can talk about Lupin the Third, um, you know, the great Pretender. Yeah, all of those kind of like crime ones or you follow people doing the crimes and then the detectives are like, oh boy. The highway to hell. Yeah, just AC DC. Who's your favorite anime detective? Oh, oh, butt detective. Out there. So look, this is a very dense topic. So much to talk about. And again, we retreated some old ground because we felt we needed to. But also like, once again, I guess the side of that thing is that we are called Gateway to Anime. And like all three of these are absolutely killer gateways to anime. Now, even if you're past that stage and you've been with us on the journey, like the detective genre, I just find it so fascinating. And there's just so much of it in so many different ways. So that is a detective anime episode. Thank you so much for listening. We always appreciate it. Now you can find us on www.gatewayanime.com. You can also find us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. You're probably watching us on YouTube. Hopefully you are. Otherwise, you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you really like what we do, you can join our Patreon, which is www.patreon.com forward slash Gateway at anime. Where obviously a small operation, but we're trying to work hard to get the best content we can out to you. And if you want to help us out, do so. But if you don't want to do that, and again, it's a whole commitment, you can always buy a shirt. You can buy a shirt. The right Instagram shop or through our website. And that is 35. None of us are wearing them right now. Great. Up. Great. It's really cold in here. We don't have jumpers yet. Other shirts, but again, all these little things are going to help us. So thank you so much. Follow us on social media. Hit us up with your favorite detective shows. We'd love to hear about them. I'd love to talk. We'll always talk to you guys on Instagram and TikTok and whatnot. So hit us up. Thanks again, Charlie and Graham. Always a pleasure. Detectives, let's go get sleuthing. We'll see you soon.