English Dub Review: The Detective is Already Dead “Attention Passengers: Is There A Detective on Board? Commence Adolescent Romantic Comedy”

Overview:

Kimihiko Kimizuka has found himself inadvertently entangled in various crimes more times than he can remember, referring to himself as a magnet for trouble. One day, as if it was nothing out of the ordinary, a group of unknown men kidnaps him, forcing him to board a flight—where he also encounters a hijacking. Amid the resulting chaos, however, Kimizuka meets a stunning silver-haired beauty, going by the codename Siesta, who then saves the day.

Our Take:

The first episode is an hour-long?! Alright, that works for me! Let’s get into it. When it comes to The Detective is Already Dead we got a bit of a mixed bag. Definitely, a solid first episode, and I want to see more but if you go in expecting a mystery then you might be disappointed.

There is a terrorist organization called SPES that has androids but also people who have android parts? It wasn’t super clear because the first person that they fought seemed to be mostly human other than the parasite coming out of his ear. Definitely intrigued to learn more about them. The reason I bring them up is the main mystery of the show without knowing anything would probably be “How did the detective die?”. But I feel pretty certain that SPES will be the reason when all is said and done.

Kimizuka is just your typical middle schooler… wait.. middle schooler?! That can’t be right I mean how could… oh right this is anime, never mind moving on. Okay, it is a little weird that he is just a middle schooler I mean I have a hard enough time wrapping my head around high schoolers in anime doing what they do but a middle schooler? I’m really moving on now.

Kimizuka gets swept up in a hostage situation on a plane and gets roped into becoming an ace detective’s sidekick. That detective is the beautiful Siesta. She seems to know how things will happen before they happen. If I was a betting man I would say she used to be a part of SPES and that is why she is against them.

I can’t touch on our main duo without mentioning their VA’s. For Kimizuka we have Austin Tindle, and for Siesta we have Xanthe Huynh. I was really impressed with them in this first episode. I could definitely tell it was Austin but he sounded a bit gruffer and more mature. This is odd cause of the whole middle schooler thing but I really felt it fit what I had in mind for Kimizuka’s voice. Xanthe also steps out of her comfort zone a bit by playing the super down-to-business Siesta. I really hope to hear more from her but with Siesta being ya know… dead, I’m not too sure.

As I said if you are looking for mystery you might want to look somewhere else. Not that there won’t be ANY of that but just that it might be few and far between. This has the feeling of a full-on battle-shounen-type show. Not that, that is a bad thing just given the title and premise you might be expecting something else. I haven’t seen much from the studio ENGI but if the fight scene on the airplane is anything to go by, we are in for a treat in the animation department.