Bishounen Tanteidan

First anime I watch of this writer. The art style, animation and everything else is amazing. The character designs are creative and attractive. I found the story to be really terrible though. It was really long winded and boring at times. Things that could be told in a more clear way were explained in really weird and complex ways for no reason. It is obvious that is how this writer likes to narrate their stories. The story also doesn't seem to have any plot. It's literally episodic, in each episode they deal with something for no apparent reason, nor final objective. The story ends with ... nothing but some kind of weird bonds between the characters. As if nothing happened, there was nothing this story wanted to tell, nothing that it wanted me to feel.

I find that the characters are quite peculiar. I came to appreciate them at the end, but I also find that most of the guys (except Manabu Sotoin and Hyouta) and the protagonist, Mayumi, do not reflect their ages at all. I know age means nothing in anime, but here it was clear and appalling as Manabu was the only one that actually sometimes showed childlike behaviour. The other all acted as if they were highschoolers, while they only are in middle school. Manabu still being in elementary/primary school. I kind of appreciated the more mature ways of some of the characters, but it was also weird as they were still children, but thinking like adults.

I've seen fans of this show say they hate when people compare it to Ouran High School Host Club, and I completely understand why. Aside from a crossdressing female protagonist and a club of pretty boys, there really aren't many similarities. They're very different shows, and if you like one of them there's no guarantee you'll like the other. I won't lie, I'm a huge Ouran fan and that premise is exactly why I took interest in this show in the first place, but I won't hold it up against Ouran as a judgement of its quality.

Pretty Boy Detective Club's fatal flaw is that ... it takes itself too seriously. When the twist of the first arc was revealed in the second episode, I had to pause multiple times because I was laughing so hard. And that's not a bad thing! It was so stupid and over the top that I thought it HAD to be self aware. The show HAD to know that this was a terrible twist, that it was completely nonsensical and no one could ever take it seriously. I was so entertained by it that I was telling people about it for days, and I couldn't wait for the next episode to come out.

Sadly, I was mistaken. The show has absolutely no self awareness. The cast of characters navigates their way through nonsensical mysteries, arriving at batshit insane conclusions with no reasoning behind them, with essentially no plot connecting each arc. They hint at something more going on behind the scenes, with a secret society and a rival student body president from another middle school, but these plot threads never go anywhere. I was really disappointed as the show went on, and worse, bored. The mysteries were stupid enough that they didn't make sense, but weren't so over the top dumb that they looped back around to so-bad-it's-good territory. It felt like the show still wanted to be taken seriously, like it was unwilling to just be a silly, low stakes series of mysteries.

I might as well mention the cast here. Not a single character has any sort of arc or purpose for existing. They are all given a single personality trait, a name, and a quirk, and then spend the rest of the show doing nothing. When I watched the first episode, I was excited to see what role each of the characters would play in the story. They all seemed to have a decent starting point for some fun character interactions, but they never moved past those starting points. In the last arc, the protagonist and the red hair boy had a couple scenes together where they demonstrated pretty good chemistry. Would've been interesting to explore, in, say, a twelve episode TV anime series.

Some of the characters are better than others. The red hair boy I mentioned before comes pretty close to having a personality. The main detective boy, the one with the blue hair, is honestly so grating that I was tempted to skip forward a few times so I wouldn't have to listen to him speak any longer. The only character who has any sort of development (and I use that term very generously) is the student council president, the one with silver hair. His development happens through a different character who exists for one arc, long enough to make us suffer through another nonsensical mystery, and then never comes back. Any development that he went through is instantly scrapped in the next arc and is never brought up again.

This show's one saving grace is its visuals. At a certain point, I was only watching for the backgrounds and barely reading the subtitles. The art in this show is absolutely gorgeous, it's honestly worth watching the first couple episodes just to drool over the visuals. I bumped up my overall rating by a full point just because of this.

Overall, I'm really disappointed by this show. It's confusing at best and boring at worst, and there is absolutely no depth to the characters. You're better off saving your time and watching something better.

This anime was pure trash. It was so trash that repeatedly, like a theme of the anime, they would introduce arcs and foreshadow events that never came or had no bearing on anything. For example: (MILD SPOILERS AHEAD): The heroes foil an underground casino, which seems to trigger the guy who runs it to want to directly challenge the president of the Pretty Boy Detective Club. But...then he does nothing. The angle just dies. They play up an angle where this little girl is supposed to be excessively mean, with the goal of the MC becoming her friend. Only, she never does. ... You never see the girl again after the misunderstanding is cleared up. Most egregious was the last villain. A guy who is WAY too extreme for this kind of anime, he just comes from out of nowhere, like he wandered out of Psycho Pass or something...but this dude goes entirely too far to try and win a school election, and they never tell you why. Because he's ordinary and people are ordinary and will vote for him...what? The whole anime they just drop stuff right from the start or never explain anything. Why are Mayumi's eyes like that? Who the heck is Manabu and why do these guys listen to him?

The anime is pure shallow drivel meant to do nothing more than showcase pretty bishonen designs. The characters are all as thin as a piece of paper. Literally they can be described as: "Delinquent, Quiet One, Femboy Jock, Smart One and Goofy Leader.". I mean, they don't even use common sense. They make the whole anime about forging strong bonds as a team, but keep reminding us that they have nothing to do with each other outside of the club. Do they not realize that one angle cheapens the other? The characters themselves were so cliche it was almost painful to have to listen to them drone on. Whether it was Manabu's pointless speeches about beauty, or the White haired one giving his snobbish and long-winded expositions, they were just irritating to even listen to.

I didn't enjoy this anime much at all and it was a slog I sped through to get to the end of. I would pass on this, as there are many better anime to watch.

This show squandered all of its potential. It started off strong, with an interesting premise, beautiful art, and a colorful cast of harem archetypes that would no doubt get fleshed out into full people along the way. The opening is also a banger.

So you know what it did?

Immediately threw out the premise, kept each character locked to their singular core trait, and straight up did not show the most important parts of each episode. The show cuts to black to avoid having to depict anything more complicated than characters talking to each other and more than once resorts to still drawings (especially in later ... episodes). The MC also acts wildly out of character at random points. I'd praise her for being able to be more than a singular trait, but it instead just comes off as bad/inconsistent writing.

The show has roughly 5 cases that the Pretty Boy Detective Club investigates, with each lasting 2 or 3 episodes each. The investigations are all nonsensical with the kids proposing insane or supernatural causes and more than one of them go completely off the rails. That would be fine if the show wanted to go a supernatural or absurdist route, but it doesn't. It follows real life rules and conclusions of each case are largely mundane (if incredibly stupid) while also trying to wax poetic through a heavy helping of cheesy monologues. It takes itself too seriously. It does not actually describe how large portions of each storyline get resolved, instead skipping the climax and going directly to the epilogue. And nothing that happens in previous episodes has any weight on later ones save for a "sentimental" flashback sequence in the finale.

Don't worry, though: it also has a nice healthy dose of anime pedophilia. 12 year old who exists solely to sexualize his legs. 10 year old with a temu Hatsune Miku crossplay flirting with adult kidnappers. Middle school girl forced to wear a playboy bunny outfit "to go undercover". 15 year old betrothed to 8 year old so they can have a running lolicon gag. Scenes of middle school girl getting a nude massage and a bath. Bisexual pedophiles rejoice at the gender diversity!

There is no pay off to any of this. Like... there's multiple massive conspiracies introduced that could be really exciting to explore but they are all promptly ignored. Loose ends are never tied. I stuck it out on the assumption that surely even with the flaws in its story, its flat characters, and the uncomfortable elements there would be SOMETHING by the end that would make it all worth it. I willingly consume dogwater anime and can usually find something under L'Essence du Shít that is redeemable. Instead, I came away from the finale wishing I'd watched a One Piece Filler-Only compilation.

Save yourself time and skip this.

One common argument made in favor of Pretty Boy Detective Club is that, because it is by the author of the Monogatari series, one must be a Monogatari fan to enjoy it. For two reasons, that's bullshit:

1) One should not have to enjoy a completely unrelated work of fiction to enjoy something.
2) Whether you are a Monogatari fan or not does not change the fact that the plot of this show is absolute nonsense.

I cannot express to you how much this anime lacks any amount of reason or sense. Don't get me wrong, I am very good at suspending my disbelief, and a lot of ... my favorite anime are the stereotypical "confusing" anime (Lain, Utena, Baccano!, etc), and not even that can save this show for me. The plot is just one random, absurd, and unrelated event after the next without any reason for any of them to be happening or any logical pathing to get us from point a to point b. Things just kind of happen. Once you think you're on track, something comes so far out of left field it has you baffled by how random it is, because there was no build up to its insanity or reason for it to happen.

The characters leave little to be desired as well. They're all middle schoolers, which...fine, whatever. That's not the problem. It's a bit ridiculous, but I can suspend my disbelief enough for that. The problem is that they're all boring, one-note, annoying, or confusing.

One of the main characters has nothing going on outside of showing off his sexy legs. He's 12. Another character is in an arranged marriage with a first grader so we get treated to jokes about him being a lolicon. Wow, this is so funny. Someone get the writer of this a late night show.

The main character is a girl crossdressing as a boy to join the club, which is...fine, I guess, but they never treat her like she's a boy nor is she really putting on an act for anyone outside the club (not to mention the male lead frequently crossdressing as a girl for no reason that actually holds up or makes sense) so I really don't get what the point is. And when it comes to her actual character...well, I'm not going to spoil it, but it's just bizarre. The male lead is...honestly too young——he's in elementary school——and exists to just do random things and act very smart in an attempt to make the show come off as smart. Spoiler alert: neither are actually smart.

There are two other characters I haven't mentioned but they're also pretty one-note and not worth mentioning. One's an artist and the other cooks.

It's just 12 episodes of nonsensical bullshit that thinks it's smart when in reality it's just saying random things and acting like they connect.

No, man, I don't want to have to watch Monogatari to ''get'' this, ok? That's a lame excuse from fans to convience people this has ''deep meaning'' cause it comes from ''deep author''.

This anime fails in every aspect for me. It's boring, the stories are overly complex (and stupid) just for the sake of it. I didn't get anything from watching this.

Yes, yes, ok, maybe not my kind of show, ok? but even for a casual this is 0% watchable and that's my main complain about this series.

The visuals and shots are the only thing that's quality here, the rest? plain boring.

I can't even write ... a proper review cause I didn't get anything from watching it, seriously... but I wanted to say something for those +8 reviews spitting all kind of ''Monogatari'' or ''Nisio Isin''stuff.

And no, this is no my first show of that author, I actually like Katanagatari a lot and I didn't have problems with it (chapters are 40 min lengh and all...).

If you like this series, good for you, but DO NOT RECOMMEND JUST BECAUSE YOU LIKED IT because not every anime is for everyone.

I repeat DO NOT WATCH THIS if you are not actually interested in any aspect it may offer, this is NOT a casual watch. This is not the kind of animes to go for blinded, otherwise you'll find yourself bored like me most probably.

Well to speak plainly this anime will leave you confused. Even though the art is magnificent and full of color the plot not so much.
While watching it I found most of the characters annoying to the point that I couldn't stand hearing them speak.
The plot while not fantasy in the classic meaning is so unrealistic that I was actually surprised.
The story tries to make itself seem different, mature and grown up by simply throwing complex meanings and ideas from characters who if this was a different anime would be spending their days studying, playing and not knowing any of this stuff.
Also ... the main character has the only super eyes in the world strong enough to see things others can't? This is NOT a super power anime!!!
Lastly why does the protagonist keeps cross-dressing as a boy after the second episode?!!
While it wasn't my cup of tea, perhaps others will like it. Not recommending it to anyone though.

I didn't like the storyline. The pacing of the show is very poor and writing is dry. It seemed like it was trying to be like Ouran high school host club but with a twist and it wasn't hitting. The only thing I enjoyed was the opening. I would have given it a 1 or zero but since the opening was great it earned it's self a two.

The sexualizing of the characters is weird. They're children. All of these characters are middle school students ,but look like they should be in a high school. The characters themselves feel very bland even though their ... designs despite looking aged up are very interesting. I feel like the whole show could have gone on without it being mentioned they're in middle school because it seems irrelevant. It obviously doesn't matter since they own helicopters and can transport kitchen material wherever they want.

Sorry to say I just didn't like it. It was very hard to even get through the first episode ,but that was mostly because of the writing.

After first episode, I had mixed feelings, but decided to continue. Second episode caught my interest and created some expectations just for the rest of this show to disappoint me completely.

The issues they are solving just come and go as if it was nothing, there is no good conclusions, no consequences for anything happening, it's all just one big mess of ridiculous cases just so the characters had something to do. Which is really upsetting, considering the potential I saw in the plot from second episode - I thought it's going to play much bigger role? But it was never brought up again? While it ... was made into such a big deal in the first two episodes??? Really disappointing...

Thr animation and graphics are very pretty though.

Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor? I’m sure you have, even if just in passing, but just in case, it means that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. It’s a writing tool to help stories from being contrived and difficult to follow, and it’s especially useful in mysteries and detective fiction so your audience can solve the mysteries along with the characters.

The writers of Pretty Boy Detective Club didn’t seem to get the memo.

PBDC is one of the most baffling anime I’ve ever watched in my entire life. Not a single plot point in this makes any sense. I felt like I ... was being pranked the entire time I watched it. Like, am *I* the stupid one? Do you just need a very high IQ to understand the epic highs and lows of PBDC? It’s all random bullshit happening with no rhyme or reason with the show giggling to itself over how awesome and clever its plot twists are.

I won’t spoil anything because this show needs to be seen to be believed, but every “answer” raises so many more questions. The first arc alone leads to some questions like: why did Mayumi’s parents make her promise to give up her dreams if she couldn’t find one specific star amongst billions? Did they know what was really going on? Did they seriously think it would somehow prove her worthy? Did they think it was futile? Why does she have literal superpowers? Why is she expected to crossdress other than “you need to be a boy to join the club” despite the other members knowing she’s not actually a boy and never treating her like one? Why does the other lead also crossdress sometimes despite nobody telling him to do that? I sure hope you’re not expecting any answers!

A character can only be as smart as the person writing them, which means the characters don’t come off anywhere near as smart as they’re intended to. This is especially obvious when they start dropping their theories that make zero sense when you think about the mysteries they’re solving like a normal person.

Speaking of the characters, they’re… weird. They don’t have personalities, they have gimmicks. You have the student council president who they keep making loli jokes about (no they’re never funny), the quiet artist, the delinquent cook with a soft side, and the twelve year old child with sexy legs. The most interesting was the delinquent, but I have better options for shows if I really want to see that archetype. I feel zero attachment to any of these characters.

The two leads are even weirder. I don’t even know how to describe the girl, and the boy (who’s even younger than the rest of the middle school cast, for some reason) is one of the weirdest takes on a gentleman detective I’ve ever seen in my life. He just kind of says shit and you have to go along with it, because you’re watching Pretty Boy Detective Club and it runs on its own set of logic.

Speaking of its logic, the first and final mysteries are comically over the top and serious compared to everything in between–the tonal whiplash is insanely jarring. Because of this, they end up being some of the funniest, most entertaining episodes of TV I’ve ever seen because they’re just *so* over the top and silly.

On a different note, the backing tracks to a show aren’t usually something you directly notice. They either need to be exceptionally good or noticeably bad, and if you couldn’t tell, PBDC’s soundtrack (sans the actually pretty catchy OP) is bad. It sounds like stock music; everything is the most generic possible sounding song for its scene. A great example of this is the “detective” music they used in the second episode. Did you pull out the Kevin MacLeod playlist? I watched YouTube skits as a kid that exclusively used copyright free music that were less basic and obvious than this. It’s so generic it stops being generic and loops back around into hilarious.

This is one of the funniest shows I’ve watched in my entire life, and that’s the only thing keeping this from being a fully negative review. I’d imagine this would be a very, very fun drinking game if you’re into that sort of thing. Don’t watch this if you want a mystery or a show that is good, but *do* watch it if you want to try to follow the logic of a madman and have a laugh. This is a perfect watch party show.

Apparently this show makes more sense if you also watch Monogatari, but there’s no way that actually makes the insane leaps in logic make any more sense. There is not a world out there where these twists are anything but confusing and out of left field.

I’m just… in awe. Am I too stupid for this? Is this secretly genius? This is the most confusing show I’ve ever watched in my life–with shows like Lain or Evangelion, I can come up with an interpretation of the themes and messages. I have no idea what PBDC is trying to tell me other than hanging out with your friends rocks, and I have a million better choices for shows about that. What the fuck is going on?