A man is only as serious as his hat.

I'm inclined to say I don't fully understand why fans of JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Stardust Crusaders like it so much, but I think maybe I actually do. There's a certain childlike appeal to the show and its preposterous, burly heroes. Perhaps watching the show invokes the kind of imagination-fueled fun viewers likely enjoyed as young boys while playing with action figures.

Hajime:Miyuki::Seki::Yokoi.

I'm watching three shows about detectives this season: Detective Conan, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns, and Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin. All three are pretty good, but I'm most pleased with how Nanana is progressing.

I hope one of Nanana's treasures is a Buster Machine.

Of these three, Nanana is my clear favorite this season, largely thanks to its master detective. This is fortunate, because my original reason for watching the show appears determined to spend all of her eternal damnation playing video games. I guess ghost hands can't cramp up. Between Detective Conan and Kindaichi Returns, I definitely enjoy Conan more. However, I'm not sure if that's due to the strength of the show itself, because of my pre-established familiarity with the characters, or because I just happened to discover Meitantei Conan before I learned Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo even existed.

It helps that Juugo is sort of a punk.

I've basically been on board with Nanana as a matter of principle since I heard about its premise. There's no Ghost Girlfriend Clause, but perhaps there ought to be. It's also not a exactly a detective show, although there's a detective in it. Through four episodes, she's stealing the show. I'd be pretty okay with her as the lead instead of Juugo.1

She probably swiped through all of your pictures, too.

I am exceptionally pleased with the character Ikkyuu Tensai, a self-described master detective with a ridiculous name. Specifically, I'm astonished she actually is a master detective, and apparently stays that way the entire time, not just when the plot requires it. It's too early in the year to know who's going to win, but I think it's pretty likely Tensai will at least get a nomination for the title of 2014 Girl of the Year.

Ran has better hair than Miyuki.

I'm putatively watching Detective Conan this season, but actually following it will depend on whether or not the current episodes get fansubbed. The usual suspects are falling quite behind again, or they've taken their work to the Dark Web. Yes, that insidious DARK WEB which you have surely heard about from a television news special report. The DARK WEB which teems with pornography and hacktivism and unofficially imported family-friendly cartoons STRAIGHT FROM JAPAN. Actually, there's probably still that one dude on YouTube who's subbing Detective Conan as a goof. I haven't fully embraced streaming video yet when it comes to anime distribution, though. No, really.

Ran bends over again.

Luckily, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns has, well, returned from an extended absence with this season's aptly named show. I was wholly ignorant about this franchise, but its description reveals a lot of similarities with Detective Conan. Based on what the Wikipedia tells me, the Kindaichi manga actually predates the Detective Conan manga. I don't know if Meitantei Conan copied the Kindaichi formula, but there are a lot of similarities, at least based on the few Kindaichi episodes I've watched so far. Detective Conan isn't a total ripoff, though. At a minimum, it made the Kindachi elements more accessible by (eventually) toning down the crimes (even though someone still dies in some horrific manner basically every week) and by making it less realistic via reverse-aging formulas, implausible techno gadgets, Ran's youthful lack of lower-back problems, and Professor Agasa's amazing ability to periodically cram five neighborhood children into his wheezing Type 1 Volkswagen Beetle and drive them into the wilderness without attracting any attention.

Ah, now I see.

Even though Kindaichi may have come first, Detective Conan is clearly the better established leader in the high school detective genre and probably better known to all but the most ardent Kindaichi fans. The similarities are undeniable: Teenage master detectives solve crimes the police cannot. Loyal aerodynamic childhood friends serve as putative love interests. Perhaps as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Detective Conan, the first episode of Kindaichi Returns features a man trying to flag down Miyuki by calling her "Ran" during a moment of mistaken identity.

Note 1: I've seen others accuse the male lead of being too generic, but that's patently unfair. In my view, "too generic" should refer to cretins with zero distinguishing positive characteristics such as Junichi from Amagami SS and all the various harem comedy leads who spend every waking hour trying to become the leading chickenshit stupid asshole champion ever since the last dude scorched off his balls by clumsily handling the Chickenship Stupid Asshole Torch. Tragically, there's at least one important objective distinction that immediately separates Juugo from Potato-kun: He's not afraid of touching girls—not even dead ones. It's tragic that this simple quality is now sufficient to segregate worthless members of the Otaku Virtues congregation from the increasingly less common non-craven punks, but that's a separate blog post altogether. I was going to write about detectives.

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!

selector infected WIXOSS is the very model of the Ayako Doctrine at work. There was basically no chance I would even consider watching this show were it not for her presence in the cast. As a reminder, the Ayako Doctrine does not claim that any anime featuring Kawasumi Ayako will be good. Rather, it only purports that any show she is in will be better than it would have been without her presence.