I mentioned this in my Shadows House review but I’m not sure how many of you will read both so here we go again. I did a poll on Twitter asking people if I should review Shadows House, Pretty Boy Detective Club or both. And Pretty Boy Detective Club won in a landslide. Which was surprising to me and says something about the people who follow me on Twitter. That they all have excellent taste for one!
I ended up watching Shadows House and really loving it so I settled on two short reviews instead of just picking a single show. And right now, just minutes after having finished the first episode of Pretty Boy Detective Club, I’m very happy with my choice. In fact, the only problem I am anticipating is that I’m going to have a very tough time limiting my screencaps. You see the words are just there to fill up the space between the pictures.
First thing I noticed about Pretty Boys Detective Club is that it looked peculiar but also quite good. It’s only afterwards that I saw that it’s being made by Shaft. Shaft does interesting looking anime in general and so far, Pretty Boy Detective Club is no exception. I’m writing that tittle a lot. I just really like it.
This show has a tagline. Actually it was part f the dialogue in this first episode, and it was delivered all serious. Very fight club like. There are only three things you absolutely need to be a member of the pretty boy detective club: 1- you need to be pretty; 2- you need to be a boy and 3 – you need to be a detective. This should tell you what you need to know about this show.
To me, this first episode was very reminiscent of Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!, the first season, just more stylish and a with a little more bite. What I mean by this is that Pretty Boy Detective Club is a silly title that’s suppose to be silly. This show is entirely a parody. And a pretty fun one even if it occasionally strays into less than lovely poking fun. There’s a bit of bite to it and the show knows exactly what it’s doing.
This said, I still enjoyed it. I like sarcasm and I like a bit of an edge to my comedy. And it never got so mean as to make me feel bad for enjoying the shows it was parodying. So I guess you could say that so far, Pretty Boy Detective Club strikes the right balance. Episode 1 had the pretty boys in questions proclaiming their own beauty and accepting a job to find a star. Love it!
I do see some potential pitfalls with the show. First of all, like all parodies it’s got a somewhat limited range. I honestly don’t know how it would play to someone not familiar with the tropes and genres it’s making fun of. Or if someone was actually taking the experience at face value. That might be loads of fun too. But I also don’t know if the joke can sustain itself over an entire season. But I hope so because I had a great time with this first episode.
Have you guys watched Pretty Boy Detective Club? Did you like it?
