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This Week in Anime
The Head-Spinning Mysteries in Undead Murder Farce
by Nicholas Dupree & Monique Thomas,
Kaguya-sama alum Mamoru Hatakeyama spins supernatural tales of intrigue, but the biggest boon of the series is the lead characters' chemistry.
Undead Murder Farce is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network. Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
Nick
Nicky, I think this column will be a cut above the rest. It's gonna make heads turn. When people check out the show we've got for them today, no-body will be left wanting. And yes, it will be filled with as many puns as I can think of that Steve didn't already get to in his reviews.
Nicky
Well, if a title like Undead Girl Murder Farce wasn't enough to raise some eyebrows—oh, excuse me, I forgot the localization went with the inferior Undead Murder Farce, then how about the fact that it's a Victorian-era gothic murder mystery with monsters and ghoulies and the star detective being an undead girl's talking head? Still no? What if I said it was directed by the same guy who directed the anime Kaguya-sama: Love is War?
I was sold the moment I erroneously read the title as Undead Murderface, but adding in one of the most visually inventive directors working in TV anime is still an excellent way to get me to watch your monster murder mystery.
Putting Monster, Murder Mysteries, and Mamoru Hatakeyama together feels like if you decided to put some of my favorite things on a piece of paper and pull them out of a hat, and so far, it's a pretty good combo!
We also got another undeniably visually inventive OP out of it, backed by the dubstep-heavy sounds of [Crackle-Crack-Crackle] by Classy.
It's a compelling setup, even if you don't recognize Hatakeyama or his previous work. I remember watching the opening minutes of the premiere and being hit with how stylish and effortless the presentation was. Especially when I was in the Preview Guide doldrums, seeing a show that perfectly knew what made it appealing and how to immediately show it off had me hooked.
I had seen a bit about the series from an old Spring Manga Guide, but that is an adaption of the novel by Yugo Aosaki. I was surprised to see the series start in Meiji-era Japan rather than the more steampunk Western setting as advertised. Still, I was pleased because we got a cool exploration of yokai and other Japanese legends and the more universal pictures fair than I expected. The first episode spotlights Tsugaru, who is a half-oni experiment making a living off of freakshow cage fights against other demons before he is introduced to his head(less) master, Miss Aya.
From what I gather, the original novels start in media res, establishing Tsugaru and Rindo through their opening mystery and fleshing out (ba-dum-tish) their backstories later. The anime, however, decides to establish the pair immediately, and it works well. However, much of that is owed to the direction making a highly talkative episode fascinating.
It also made me understand why Hatakeyama was the pick for this since the first episode establishes a lot of classic Japanese theater and storyteller-isms that follow throughout the rest of the show, including the significant chemistry of Aya and Tsugaru as a comedic duo with Aya being the serious intellect and Tsugaru playing coy in response. They're an interesting couple. And I do mean couple, as the only way for Tsugaru to stay alive is to kiss Miss Severed Head. (According to said miss, this is the best way to go about this.)
That's the bit that told me exactly why Hatakeyama was on-board with this. The man's roots are in directing the hell out of a show about a guy banging a (consenting) zombie, and it's that morbid yet romantic flair that makes our leads such a compelling duo. Well, that and all the puns.
The first episode also made Tsuguru come off as a better character, as his role is to be more of a brawny Watson to Aya's beautiful Sherlock. He's the face and arguably the point of view, but he's there to keep the audience caged out of Aya's head to keep the mystery mysterious. He's a twisted shitbag, but he's more expressive and easy to read than Aya, and that's good because it gives us, and the other suspects, more to react to as he attempts to get a rise out of them. Not to mention, Tsuguru and Aya are united by the same quest to take revenge on the old bastard with a cane who did this to them.
I love Tsugaru, honestly. He may be a half-oni, but the dude is a full-blooded troll of the internet variety. He is constantly playing the fool in just such a way to annoy the piss out of anyone he wants to, sometimes to distract them, other times just for fun.
You have to WORK to make your face that punchable, and Tsugaru has never clocked out early.
He's like a good version of Monogatari's Araragi, showing the SHAFT influence there. His joker act is more endearing than annoying, and I think it plays off better than if he just did everything Aya said without question since she already has a maid that does that (who's also good, FWIW).
It would be easy and acceptable to have an everyman Watson analog. Still, here he gets to not only rile up the emotional sides of the mysteries they solve but shamelessly flirt with his "Master" in a way that makes every other person in the room gag on their own tongue.
Aya is more straightforward in that she's business-like and refined, but she's got her dry wit about her in between bouts of exposition, most of which involve her predicament. There's also a good bit where she calls Sherlock Holmes out as a weirdo, which the cast list tells me might be more than just a cameo, so looking forward to that.
Aya is a lot of fun, too, even as she shoulde—Er, even as she balances being the detective on the top of her cranium. I appreciate the anime starting with the pair's introduction because it gives us a solid idea of who she is outside of the Scooby Doo mysteries. She's efficient because she's originally searching for Tsugaru so he can perma-kill her rather than live on as just a head. Yet she's also got a playful side, throwing out jokes and taunts to match his own.
It immediately establishes a lively dynamic between them, which carries over into the story.
Having characters you can engage with sure helps because many people criticize mysteries for being too dry on their own. The best one is about the underlying tension of finding out whodunit, and being able to have little asides keeps it from getting too serious. Anyway, for our first case, Aya is assigned to solve the murder of the friendly neighborhood vampire estate's wife and mother, Hannah.
Note that they are not working for Dracula. That dude got it before the story even started, like the Transylvanian scrub he is.
It sucks to (blood-)suck.
Yes, this is a completely peaceful and well-established family of vampires who are allied with humanity and only feast on animal blood while living in their big fancy secluded mansion. The show is good at investing in its world-building instead of just playing on classics. Some of the tensions come from the vampire family's political situation as genuinely respectable, but some humans are still looking for ways to demonize them, to the point that no one else would take their case seriously.
It's a cool way to abstract the period. The Meiji and Victorian eras represent massive shifts in their respective cultures—westernization in Japan, industrialization in Europe, and Murder Farce leans into that with the shift in Monster/Human relations. There are formalized extermination and attempted diplomacy, which all mix into the larger picture behind our opening murder.
Besides the mystery aspect, the show does have some excellent action sequences when the occasion demands. Lest you'd believe this show would be all talk and no play.
The fights are cool, especially when Tsugaru goes full wrestling heel mode. He's a showman at heart and cannot resist hamming it up, even when his only audience is the person he's about to kill.
I just realized it looks like he's t-bagging somebody in that last image, and I wouldn't put it past him.
It says a lot when this guy is strong enough to strike fear in the heart of heckin' vampires, despite how shitty and smug he looks. (aka GOOD)
It's such an insult to injury. Imagine getting your ass kicked by a circus clown while his goth girlfriend cheered him on right after exposing your entire murder plan—total humiliation.
Though that fight caps off what is honestly a really solid mystery, I've sat through a looooooot of bad mystery anime, and I was so goddamn happy to see that this one was focused on building deductions from actually apparent information. With all the supernatural elements, they could easily have gone the route of Lord El Melloi II's Case Files and fudged the whole thing with magic or monster powers.
Oh god yeah, I think mysteries are one of my favorite genres, but only because it takes a lot of skill to pull off. Explain too long, and you start losing the audience; too simple, and the suspense is killed; and withholding too many cards, and there's nothing to draw people in. A mystery's job isn't just puzzling observers; it's about seeming complex to hook people into seeing how it gets solved. There's some supernatural logic at play, but most are common, like vampires being weak to silver, holy water, daylight, or otherwise well-established by the story itself. I was surprised at how well the banter played into the actual solution of the mystery. I think we've had a good bunch of mystery-focused shows in the past couple of years with stuff like Moriarty the Patriot and In/Spectre Season 2, or even the recent outings by Ryohgo Narita. Undead Murder Farce feels like it fits right in. It helps to be stylish, to boot.
Episode 4 wraps up this particular tale, and I got to see it nearly a month ago via a screener. Watching the story arc again, I was impressed by how much of the final answer was established in plain sight but always mixed in with more immediately compelling details, so they were easy to slip your mind. It's a cool sleight of hand, and the show is self-aware and confident enough to have fun with it.
I sure wish I could summon a non-diegetic spotlight to shine behind me when I figure out where I left my car keys or who ate the last ice cream cup in the freezer.
Spotlight for whenever someone in your house didn't flush the toilet.
My favorite part of the whole mystery is how insufferably cute our lead couple is. Every time they snicker at each other's bad jokes or egg the other one on in the middle of a conversation, they feel exactly like those intolerably in-love couples that make your eyes roll out of your skull.
I agree that the characters are good enough that they could carry even if I didn't already enjoy the mystery and thought it was well-produced. It's a good sign because we can't guarantee that all future mysteries will be as engaging. Even some of my favorite series, like Ace Attorney, have some cases that are flat duds, but I stick around because I enjoy the characters solving them. The hook of the revenge plot is worth sticking around for. But mostly, I think it's a nice show to hear a bit of amusing back and forth. Every other factor is just adding to the overall entertainment value.
It's just a rock-solid production on nearly every front. It looks great, sounds great—I could listen to Tomoyo Kurosawa banter all day—and this opening act has shown it can tell a mechanically intriguing mystery with a metric truckload of atmosphere. It's supremely watchable television with the bonus of helping me convince people also to watch Sankarea: Undying Love.
All in all, I think we could say that Undead Murder Farce is off to a great headstart!
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