The Millionaire Detective – I Don’t Think They Know How Much a Million Is

Production

CloverWorks have been putting out some visually pleasing anime lately. Well, visually pleasing for me at least. I looked it up and their 2021 releases that I have watched are the second season of TPN, Horimiya, Shadows House and Wonder Egg priority. I really liked the look of all of those. Maybe I should keep an eye on the studio more!

I have to say, Millionnaire Detective is no exception. It’s the type of character design that I really like and both the animation and art consistency were really good. The only nitpick I have is that some of the CG effects didn’t mesh very well and might have looked a bit cheap in comparison with the rest. Otherwise, it was a good production.

This said it wasn’t exactly an interesting production. I did quite like the candy colours of the first episode but that palette didn’t get used for the rest of the season. So it’s more of a solid production but if you don’t like the designs, you’ll probably forget about it pretty quickly.

Story & Characters

And that’s sort of what I would have to say about the show as a whole. I found it very fun but also forgettable. I don’t have any actual complaints. I thought the characters were endearing enough, properly developed and their progression and arcs made sense. I thought the individual cases were entertaining and the comedy mostly landed for me. Sure, by the latter episodes when we finally get into Kambe’s past, it gets pretty convoluted. However, as The Millionnaire Detective clearly wasn’t taking itself seriously up until then, the convoluted aspects come off more as wacky fun than anything else.

However, I would also say it’s a show that’s likely to be very much up to personal taste. The cases are fun. They are told with humour and very good pacing and most of them include a lot of action. But that mystery label may be a bit misleading. The show inst written in a way that urges you to figure out for yourself what’s going on. It’s not littered with clues for you to follow. And so, it’s not likely to hook viewers because they want to find out the answers.

Also, the characters are somewhat archetypes with straightforward personalities. Not a ton of nuance. If you like those archetypes, then great! If you don’t, it’s going to be tedious. I have a feeling that someone who’s annoyed by either Kambe or Katou, the two leads, will quickly come to hate everything about the series. It’s two-focused and straightforward for a viewer to find something else to concentrate on.

Although, The Millionaire Detect has a 76% rating on AniList. AniList tends to be a bit harsher with the ratings usually so 76% is pretty good. And for a show with an overwhelmingly male cast that’s actually kind of great. I’m not saying this to say the show was good because it got a decent rating. Personally, I find the aggregator ratings baffling most of the time and I really don’t think they are much of an indicator for individuals to go by. But they do give me a general idea of how the wider audience felt about an anime. And it seems most people enjoyed it just like I did.

All in all, I would call The Millionaire Detective, fun but forgettable. The conceit of unlimited resources is entertaining and allows the writers to add in all these bonkers gadgets and wacky concepts but it doesn’t really stand up to any scrutiny. And generally speaking, it’s the sort of show you just have to go along with in order to enjoy. However, if you don’t mind suspending disbelief, it’s a fun ride.

You might like this anime if:

You like the character designs! You want a light crime comedy that’s not too demanding.

I save all my screencaps on my Pinterest and you can find more there if you are interested. But I still like to show you a few in the post. If you’re like me, screencaps are something that really helps you decide to watch an anime or not.