Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace

After what appears to be just another ordinary day, middle school student Yoshio Kobayashi wakes up in his classroom to make a terrifying discovery: his teacher has been mutilated, and Yoshio happens to be holding the weapon used to commit the crime.

Despite the initial shock of finding himself in this predicament, the curious and detached Yoshio can't help but be secretly thrilled about this attempt to frame him. His put-upon friend Souji Hashiba is turned into a willing accomplice, and together, they are determined to prove Yoshio's innocence. Additionally, Kogorou Akechi, a genius high school detective, has come to the scene of the crime in order to investigate the case and when Kogorou meets the young man found guilty, an intense mutual interest sparks between the two of them. Kobayashi wishes to enter Akechi's world of crime solving as his assistant, and Akechi is determined to see if the enthusiastic boy is up to the challenge.

Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace is a surreal mystery and horror anime that contains brutal and bizarre crimes, loosely based on stories written by Ranpo Edogawa, who is famous for his influence on Japanese fiction.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kobayashi, Yoshio Main

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Akechi, Kogorou Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Hashiba, Souji Main

Yamashita, Daiki Japanese

Kage Otoko Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Namikoshi Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Minami Supporting

Fujita, Saki Japanese

Kagami, Keisuke Supporting

Konishi, Katsuyuki Japanese

Black Lizard Supporting

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Hanabishi Supporting

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Kagami, Tokiko Supporting

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Higa, Yuuji Producer

Matsumoto, Miho Producer

Mori, Akitoshi Producer

Reviews

Jun 16, 2023

Tulipfera

Recommended

Gonna try to tip the scales here.

To those reading the reviews to see if you are going to watch it or not, do NOT listen to the negative reviews, just see for yourself.

I read the reviews before watching and they were mostly negative. I stopped reading them so I didnt persuade my brain to expect it to be bad.

I ended up really enjoying it, like a lot. I laughed, I gasped, and teared up, I enjoyed the music, and the characters, and the storytelling. Ive seen some truly bad shows, but this one wasn't bad at all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jul 23, 2024

LilyVarbik

Mixed Feelings

Content Warnings: Severe child abuse; child sex abuse; broken society; serial killers; piss; mannequins; suicide

I am giving mixed feelings review in respect to understanding shows flaws and abstractness, and other peoples thoughts. If you have no issue with the introduction of episode 1 and the opening, and like mystery/suspense, (and fine with "R" animes) I think you will like this as I did. In my opinion the show has a lot of 10/10 masterpiece traits with story, characters, et cetera, but clearly I did not rate it that.

Content: mash of episodic and main stories. As it is in honor of works made by someone who ... died 50 years prior, it apparently makes references to that. This does not reduce my own enjoyment, but it may be radically better if familiar. Who the culprit is, after first 2 episodes, is often obvious. Relatable MC who just wants to have fun and be challenged.

Style: The 3 people who are neurodivergent to the general populace, will have people not of interest in unique but basic styles. Lots of gruesome/gorry, disturbing or perverted stuff our main characters have to deal with. People talking in stage-like thought bubble things where stuff apparently is also actually going on.

Non-plot spoiler: We never get explained why the very clearly female MC, is "seen" as a male. Body, voice, uniform, other things, all female, but MC is male without explanation.

Hope this review helps!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 27, 2018

Cogs0fWar

Not Recommended

So first a disclaimer. I really wanted to like this show, hence my rating is probably a bit higher than it actually should be. It takes/has a lot of elements from (in my opinion) two of the greatest crime shows to ever exist. Hannibal and Psycho-Pass. The first half of the show (and the style throughout) leaning more towards Hannibal, and the second half being very Psycho-Pass-esque with elements of the plot as well as the feel. So you may ask yourself, with emulation of such great works, how could they screw it up so bad?
First lets get the good parts out of the ... way. Unfortunately... It won't take long.

Sound: 8/10 The sound is great. Nothing mind breaking, but definitely memorable. The music all fit enough to set emotional tones during scenes, it never felt too out of place. Will definitely listen to a few of them again. The opening and closing where both very artistically pleasing, and the music was great and fit the tone of the show. When I still had high hopes for the show, they were definitely something I looked forward to.

Art: 8/10 The art style reminds me of Danganronpa, the animation is pretty smooth. What stood out to me, was the stylistic choices, which really made me want to like this show. I'll have to bring up the comparison to Hannibal here. Many of the murders that take place throughout the show (and in Hannibal as well) are framed to look artistic, or the victim was actually made into something to resemble art, or their death was a retribution for a crime they committed. The first killer, for example, makes their victim into a human chair. Its grotesque, a bit over the top, but it fits the tone of the show. The art really shines here, genuinely making something you'd see in a rather twisted art show out of the carnage. Additionally, there are artistic representations of the characters thought processes, which I always enjoy in an anime, as well as moments where we are shown different characters' perceptions of the world (i.e. characters that feel isolated, like they don't fit in, see others as things rather than people). I would love to have seen how the animators could have used this style with a show that had a better script. Alas...

Characters 3/10 The characters... It's really a matter of opinion here I guess, a lot of cliche characters. Regardless, nothing outstanding or memorable. The main character is supposed to be this borderline naive, apathetic individual (a comparison could be made to Gon of HxH , but don't expect any character development, depth, or growth here). Who is also a guy... but looks incredibly like a girl. To the point multiple characters get embarrassed or infatuated with him when he acts like a girl (YES ITS A TRAP). Its out of place a bit in the show at first, till we meet the rest of the cast of rather zany characters, almost as if to say "hey if you thought that was weird check this out". His sidekick/voice of reason is normal anime protagonist #4. Hes just as bland, wants to protect his friends, blah blah. He just kind of exists to say how bad an idea everything is. You know the type. The detective, Akechi, who this show centers around is sort of more interesting, at face value anyway. Think of a young Kogami from Psycho-Pass. He can fight, hes distant, he is a super genius... But wait there's more! Oh wait, no there isn't. Like I said, expect 0 depth. There is also a master thief who can disguise himself as anyone. Wow... what a surprise. I ended up liking him the most out of all the characters besides the superintendent of the police. There is also some lady who can control the city from her prison cell. She's a sadist... except for when it comes to Akechi then shes a masochist who will do anything if he just talks down to her. No one stood out really, and only one or two characters got any real development. And at some points the characters could be downright annoying.

Story 3/10 Now I'm usually very forgiving of attempts to be new and innovative with a story. As long as plot devices aren't extremely shallow, or used to beat me over the head (MCGUFFIN MCGUFFIN MCGUFFIN), I'm fairly forgiving. But this plot... Just no. The grand plot actually starts to move about halfway. Prior to this, I might have given the show a 7, as it was intriguing enough that I wanted to follow along to see what was in-store. Without spoiling too much, the author probably read a Wikipedia article on Laplace's demon, and doesn't really show any understanding of the concept beyond that. Basically in the show it comes down to "with this I can influence all events, nothing more needs to be said, explained, or expanded upon". Without getting too deep into it, its sort of like someone is handed the key to the universe and infinite knowledge of the present and future. And what they do with it... its akin to then only using that key to unlock their front door after they forgot their keys. Its so uninspiring what they do with something so incredibly powerful, that no amount of domino or butterfly imagery can save it, though it sure doesn't stop them from trying (hmmm what do you thing that is a metaphor for? I wonder... WE GET IT BUTTERFLY EFFECT). All in all its a mess. Nothing pulled me in, it barely kept in a straight line. It tried to be deep by throwing out the concept of Laplace's demon, but then didn't explore it in any depth at all. Additionally there is a theme of punishing criminals that escape justice, but any message they were attempting to put forth was lost in the absurdity of which they presented it. The show basically showed almost every single criminal and serial killer being released back on the street for various reasons. Instead of criminals slipping through the cracks, it was more like you'd have to be a very unlucky criminal to face punishment at all. I assume the intent of this was to make you sympathize with certain views, but all it did was bring enough disbelief in that I couldn't suspend it. My last critique on the story (though I won't subtract any points for this) is that it seems to almost market itself as a mystery show, when in reality its more of a thriller. There isn't really any solving of the cases that the audience can go along with. Sad really, because I love the Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie style mysteries, that would have really won points for me.

Enjoyment 6/10 Now after that rant, how can I give the show a 6/10 for enjoyment? Simple. It had a lot of cool stuff to look at, it sounded good, and if you shut your brain off completely it might even be a bit of fun. This is more of a personal rating. As I said, it resonated with me because it had a lot of shared elements with two shows I loved. So while objectively, this show is pretty bad, subjectively I sort of almost liked it. Sort of.

Overall 4/10 If you really like shows that are shallow and look pretty, you might really like this. I see people either hate this show or love it. I recommend you watch the first episode, then decide if its your cup of tea... albeit a partially steeped one at best. Also keep in mind that its all downhill from the first half.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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