Massage Tantei Joe

Completely goofy (at times downright wacky) , teenage, manga-style and unrealistic detective comedy, in a sort of a Sherlock Holmes traditional set-up (useless cops, sidekick, esoteric hero etc) . Massage is elevated to some sort of kung-fu mastery of all truths, the humour is japanese therefore quite slapstick. Endearing and really fun if I'm honest. I am quite enjoying it. The episodes are short and require little concentration ; also there is a mysterious red line plot unfolding throughout the (unrelated) episodes , and the characters are interesting and amusing. Not taxing viewing.

And that's too bad. Because it's pretty darn funny, weird, and warm-hearted all at the same time. It takes a certain kind of mind to create a socially anxious detective who ferrets out the guilty party by giving all of the suspects a massage. Each episode has a "pressure point identified" and "mysteries are unraveled" by the timid Joe who takes on a whole different persona when doing his work. The interesting thing is that Joe is actually the "straight man". Everyone else around him provides the comedy. There's his overzealous female co-worker who kind of plays Watson to his Sherlock, two additional (and odd) therapists, their mysterious boss, and a couple of cops who would give Abbott and Costello a run for their money. I'm not confident in its universal appeal but I enjoyed this series very much.