Yakumo of Psychic Detective Yakumo can see dead people. It’s also trite, lazy and stupid. Some disjointed observations after the jump.

– My first gut reaction to PDY was that it reminded me of Ghost Hunt, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen that anime so I won’t attempt any extensive comparisons. I’ll just note that Yakumo is a psychic, a real jerk, and (not surprisingly) a genius. They are always geniuses in these anime. But above all, they are always jerks.

He kinda resembles Light in his character design, with the obvious difference being his red, ghost-seeing eye. Then again, when do the male leads of these shows not look similar to each other?

Unlike Mr. Light, Yakumo’s personality is just plain dull. He’s nothing but monotone for the first three episodes, and while the creator probably thinks Yakumo is dropping some wicked bon mots on the rest of the cast, his sarcasm is nothing you haven’t seen before. Everyone he insults in the anime takes it all in stride though. We love our assholes.

– And who loves assholes more than stupid anime female? Psychic detective he may be, his co-star Haruka is definitely no Watson. In fact, she’s kinda useless. In three episodes, she has been rescued no less than three times. This isn’t the “princess is in another castle,” but rather “the dumbass princess got herself into trouble yet again.”

Her character design is what they would call “matchy matchy:” some purple shade of hair, another purple shade for eyes, and a familiar purple shade for clothes. In other words, tacky.

Her personality is utterly indiscernible. Yakumo acts like a dick to her through and through, but since she’s the designated damsel in distress, she has nothing better to do but develop a crush on the guy. Even Mai of Ghost Hunt had some sort of psychic abilities. Haruka, as of the third episode, can’t do anything but get into trouble.

One of Haruka’s other roles in the anime is to engage in banal banter with Yakumo’s uncle about Yakumo’s past and personality traits because the anime can’t be bothered to put in the effort. Haruka’s other job is to unquestioningly stand behind Yakumo, someone she barely knows — someone who, in her very own words, “has a foul mouth” and “enrages people with his presence….”

Y’know, in the very first episode, Haruka lost three friends while another classmate found herself bedridden in a hospital. This was quickly forgotten. Forget friends! Lemme just idly chat with my co-worker about how I–… I mean, my friend has a total obsession with some asshole at school.

– No subtlety in this anime would be an understatement. The evil spirits resemble Pokemons more than they do anything remotely unnerving.

Okay, so it’s more of a detective anime than a horror anime, but despite the word “detective” in the title, you won’t find suspense here either. Yakumo solves every mystery in every episode by just plain telling the audience everything.

Ah, hmm, Mr. Takaoka said something very odd. Let’s go down this dirt path– what’s that?! Footprints off into the bushes! And if we dig here… instant evidence!

Nakahara acted strange when he saw the photograph of the ghost boy. Yakumo is suspicious! He spells out his suspicions to his police contact, who then fortuitously hears of a confession from another suspect just mere moments later that perfectly confirms Yakumo’s suspicion. Eureka!

– Every episode feels rushed as hell. In the first episode, Haruka leaves the clubroom to go to the restroom. At some point, Yakumo steps outside and notices that Haruka’s bag and its content are strewn across the floor, implying foul play.

We cut to Haruka. It appears she has just woken up. She’s in fact tied to a chair in the abandoned building. We also cut to Yakumo running, presumably from the university grounds to the abandoned building. The way these events are put together seems to imply that Yakumo doesn’t quite discover Haruka’s handbag until several events have taken place.

First, Mr. Takaoka has to attack a suspecting girl (she clearly saw a stranger standing in the distance), not an unsuspecting one. Presumably, seeing some weird person in the shadows would give Haruka the hint to run away, thus lengthening the amount of time Mr. Takaoka requires to subdue her. That’s what I would assume, anyhow. Maybe I’m wrong! After all, I’m not an anime damsel in distress. Next, Mr. Takaoka would need to knock her out, carry her all the way to the abandoned building and tie her up. Maybe Mr. Takaoka is crazy strong. Let’s ballpark Haruka’s weight around 90 to 110 lbs. It still doesn’t strike me as a small feat… but let’s keep going. Finally, we have to give Haruka time to wake up from whatever knocked her out (blunt trauma? chloroform?). Maybe she’s good at waking up, whatever that means.

What does this all seem to add up to? It seems very odd to me that the self-appointed bodyguard, the brilliant genius of the anime, wouldn’t notice that something was awry with the person he was supposed to protect until Mr. Takaoka was able to attack a grown woman without the element of surprise, render her unconscious, carry her to an abandoned building on a dirt path, and finally, tie the poor girl up.

In before “you are nitpicking.”

– Bizarre internal logic:

“Because the spirits of the dead are no more than feelings left behind,”

“…they cannot effect physical phenomena?”

Yet we clearly see spirits possessing human bodies in both the first and third episode. It’s weird that spirits can control corporeal bodies but nothing else. Whatever floats your boat…

– How can feelings even negotiate? How can one parley with something that, according to the genius of the anime, is merely epiphenomenal?

To sum everything up, Psychic Detective Yakumo is a stupid anime about yet another dark and brooding asshole who is just so much more complicated than you think GOSH YOU JUST CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE DEPTHS OF HIS HEART IT’S LIKE HIS WOUNDS WILL NEVER HEAL