Introduction:

I honestly had some pretty high hopes for this series. When Bryan, Daniel, and I were selecting series to cover for the 2012-2013 winter anime season, Cuticle Tantei Inaba was my second choice. I saw something that seemed fairly interesting. Werewolf detective taking on the mafia. I thought that we were going to get a supernatural detective series from Zexcs that would provide the action that the season desperately needed. Now, I am not trying to say that a show needs action in order to be good, but I expected that when I read the first synopsis of this anime. However, what we got ended up being something that I definitely did not expect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary:

The world is a pretty corrupt place. Criminals range from petty thieves to mass murderers and the police force just can’t seem to keep up with the escalating crime rates. So the government decides that they need some new blood. Have you ever heard of super soldiers? Well, they aren’t all Captain America. The secret doberman project developed and trained a group of werewolf-type agents that would aid the police force in handling today’s crime. Things don’t seem so bad for these new recruits because fighting crime is all that they know. However, not everyone in the government is on the side of the angels. It is because of this that some of the secret dobermen refuse the life that was forced onto them. One of these former police dogs is our very own Inaba who has decided to try out the private detective life. Unfortunately, Japan is about to be exposed to criminal organizations that the police are not prepared to handle. Can Inaba really cut ties with an organization filled with old acquaintances with danger on the horizon? Technically, all of that is part of this series. Unfortunately, that serious tone may show up for about two minutes per episode on average. The story follows Inaba and his former partner Ogi as they try to stop the criminals of the area from having their way with Japan. Things get wacky because the show functions like a sketch comedy. It is because of this that the actual story can be described very simply. Inaba was tired of being a police dog and decided to go solo in order to find his brother Haruka. Even though he left, Inaba is forced back into action when the Valentino Family decides to start messing around in the wrong neighborhood. That is pretty much it. The comedic style of the series is a make or break for the fans. Either you enjoy it and the series will be a casual watch or you hate it and you can’t get through the episodes. Either way, the actual story progresses at an extremely slow rate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Characters:

The characters in this series fall into four groups. You have the detective agency gang which is led by our main character Inaba. Inaba is a secret doberman with a hair fetish. Eating different types of hair will give him different powers even though you rarely see this put into action. The guy is a kid at heart and is overly attached to his former partner Ogi. The whole secret doberman things makes Inaba act like a dog at times which fits him better than the wolf behavior that others exhibit. Having a leader as emotionally unstable as Inaba would definitely mean that he needs a good support group. Well, a cross dressing accupressure master and a straight talking cat lover are the best that he’s got. The police force tries to make up for that. Ogi is the only policeman that we see on a regular basis. He is a mature and hardworking person. Ogi is basically superhuman when it comes to his combat abilities, but the serious guy has a soft spot for his daughter. I guess you need to be tough with a dog lover as your best form of backup. The Valentino Family is a mafia organization that is led by Don Valentino. That sounds serious until you realize that he is a goat. Not some guy with a furry complex, but an actual goat that likes to eat money. They try to make him seem very wise when he handles the family, but the little goat is mentally unstable at best. I guess you would have to be crazy in order to follow a goat like that. Well, a right hand man with a sack over his head that is in love with the Don, an assassin that likes to punish boys of a specific height, and young lady that likes to experiment on healthy men sure fit the bill. Finally, you have the organization that is led by a former secret doberman with the goal of overthrowing the police force and installing a new regulating power. Revealing their members would be a spoiler, but the fact that they consist of quite a few secret dobermen is something that should be known. I honestly could not make this up. The show is full of people with crazy fetishes and a lack of mental stability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Impression:

Even though this series was not what I expected, I gave it a chance. The humor was alright and I had a few laughs, but when the jokes lost their luster, the show had nothing left. Watching Cuticle Tantei Inaba became a chore and I felt like I was wasting twenty-three minutes of my life almost every week. I have some pretty harsh words for this series, but that is because I fell on the wrong end of the spectrum when it came to the humor in this show. Even though the actual story has an intense tone to it, the series is a sketch comedy at best. When it comes to a person’s opinion regarding humor, the answers that people give you can be a different as the days are long. I did not enjoy the jokes, so I hated this series. Had I not decided to cover all of my choices for the 2012-2013 winter anime season, then I would have dropped this series pretty early on. I like to give a series three to five episodes in order to hook me, but five episodes of this series told me to run. I could honestly see some people loving this series if the enjoy the comedy because that is the bulk of what you are getting. There really isn’t a standard when it comes to things like this, but I do warn you that the series is a casual watch at best. I think that it is not worth your time unless you are completely caught up on your work and you have no other series on you watch a list. I regret using my second pick on Cuticle Tantei Inaba.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Say:

I did not like this series. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot going on so I didn’t have to strain myself while watching the anime. Like I said, if you find this show funny, then you will have a really different opinion regarding its quality. Honestly, I think that it lacks a lot of things outside of the comedy department. That statement is mostly an attack on the pacing of the story which gets outran by a sloth, but that is mostly because the characters have their own charm that could be found appealing. Who would I recommend this series to? No one that I know well enough to recommend things to. There are better comedy series out there and there are definitely better detective series out there. We could use a few more werewolf anime series, but that isn’t my biggest concern at the moment. Normally a series like this can gain some attention, but this season had way too many heavy hitters that outclassed it. If you need crazy comedy, then try Arakawa Under the Bridge or something like that.