Sohei Saikawa is a promising young scientist, and a member of the Saikawa Research lab. One day, his kohai Moe Nishinosono gets involved with a mysterious genius named Shiki Magata, who infamously murdered her parents when she was 14, and has been locked up in her own secluded laboratory ever since. Moe drags Sohei to visit Dr. Magata on her island, only to find that the doctor has been murdered! While initially only coming along as a friend and spectator, Sohei has been presented with not only the seemingly impossible locked room murder of Dr. Magata, but another murder happening on the roof of her research building shortly afterwards. As pressure mounts, and news of the unsolved murder threatens to reach the public, can Sohei and Moe figure out how this tragedy occurred, and who is truly behind it, before they run out of time?

The Perfect Insider is based on a Japanese novel that came out in the mid-nineties, and while it has been adapted before, this is the first time it has taken the form of an anime, with production duties being placed in the very capable hands of A1 pictures, who pulled it off very well, at least for the most part. This is a very dialogue heavy show, meaning there is a lot of material that involves characters just talking to each other, and while the animators could have gotten away with being a lot more lazy about it, they did an admirable job of occasionally cutting to different angles in conversation, or keeping everything on frame looking interesting and eye catching, to keep any shot from looking too stale. Still, I do feel as though they could have done better at this, in fact, this might be one of those titles that could have used a touch of Akiyuki Shinbou, you know, the Monogatari guy? I’m normally not a fan of his work in general, but this is the kind of turd he’s made a career out of polishing, so his constant use of auteurist distractions could have gone a long way here.

Still, when there is animation in screen, it is solid. Character movements are articulate and graceful, and there are a lot of highly impressive 3D effects throughout, even if they’re primarily only relegated to a handful of scenes, like in Sohei’s mind when he’s figuring out details of the mystery, or in the weird dreamscape machine that shows up halfway through the series and primarily exists as a contrived excuse to put Moe in a bikini for a couple of episodes. I can’t say I’m a fan of the character designs themselves, though, because while they do look mostly anatomically correct, and the characters do look believably Japanese, which is a surprising rarity in the anime medium, they also look really boring... And like, that very much includes the main characters, who barely manage to stand out against a background of faces so forgettable that they almost seem to bleed into each other despite not actually looking anything like each other. It is a pretty spooky anime, though, so the usage of light and shadow does help sell the tone now and again.

The director of this project was Mamoru Kanbe, though, and despite how prolific and promising A1 pictures has been over the years... They are probably one of the most consistently good anime production companies on the market today, which is a good thing, because the fact that they named themselves A1 would be a huge joke otherwise... Mamoru Kanbe hasn’t come nearly as close to proving himself as they have, and while the visuals of Perfect Insider aren’t terrible by any means, they do come off as a bit on the bland side. My favorite thing about it, purely from a visual standpoint, is the video side of the opening theme, which features a rotoscope animation of three actors representing the three main characters... Sohei, Moe, and Dr. Magata... Interacting, running around and dancing with each other, presented in a very sketchy aesthetic, and while the artistry of it is nice, I get the vibe from their body language that all three actors they used were theater kids. It’s a pretty unskippable opening, if nothing else.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of this anime, we need to establish what this anime even is. There are a few labels that apply to Perfect Insider, and those labels are going to go a long way towards preparing you for the material. First off, it’s an anime based off of a written novel... Not a light novel, or a graphic novel, but an actual Japanese novel, and a pretty well-regarded one at that. I’ve never read it myself, but due to that element of its background, you can safely assume there’s going to be a LOT of talking, and the director is going to have to do a lot of busy adaptive work figuring out how to present a ton of exposition and inner monologue and transition it into a more visually engaging presentation... IE, taking a lot of Tell and transitioning it into Show. Again, I’ve personally never read the source material, but it would appear that they did a mostly good job with this? Dr. Magata’s backstory is fed to us occasionally through flashbacks, and while I don’t know if it was like that in the book, that feels like a solution most directors would have leaned on. There are, however, way too many repetitive conversations and soliloquies, I didn’t need to constantly hear Moe and Sohei talking to each other and themselves about how impossible the case was.

Another important detail about this anime is that it’s a mystery story, which of course comes with baggage of its own... You need a detective, a crime, and some outstanding circumstance that brings the two together. For this title, you technically have two detectives, and they’re playing basically the exact roles you think they would play... Sohei is playing the role of Sherlock Holmes, and Moe is playing his Watson, and unlike the BBC version, you’re actually SUPPOSED to ship them. Joking aside, Moe becomes entangled in Dr. Magata’s world, which brings the three parties together, and just like that, you’ve set up the foundation for a strong mystery story, with Dr. Magata’s shocking and unforgettably gruesome murder tempting Holmes and Watson, as well as all the viewers at home, to ask any number of questions that feel impossible to answer at first, but over time, the answers to which become more and more clear, setting up a potentially heart-stopping resolution that will change everything.

Of course, things don’t exactly play out that way. First off, Sohei is a poor excuse for Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is easily one of the most fascinating, intriguing and charismatic characters in the history of fiction. Countless stories have been told about him, especially after he entered the public domain, and at least from what I’ve seen, no mystery he ever had to solve has ever upstaged him as the star of the story. Sohei is fucking boring. Not only is his personality completely forgettable, but he doesn’t even take an interest in the mystery, even as it’s going on around him, until late in the game. He doesn’t drive the story, Moe does. He is actually the worst possible kind of character to play a Holmes role... He’s a self insert anime protagonist. He’s some cool, cold-demeanor hipster with thick pseudo-intellectual glasses who smokes a lot, and is also a whiz at any computer system he touches. He’s only a striped shirt and a beret away from being a stereotypical condescending frenchman.

What makes matters even worse is that Moe can’t be a good Watson, because in order to show the audience how cool and desirable Sohei is, she has to play the most ubiquitous friend character in anime history; The female childhood friend who’s romantically obsessed with the main character and would rather die alone in an apartment full of rescue cats than ever consider porking anyone other than her sempai. Because God forbid we go two fucking shows in a row without running into THAT character again. I mean it wouldn’t be totally fair to say being in love with Sohei is her only personality trait... She’s also a math whiz whose skills even Sohei bows to, so that is a nice detail... But at least ninety percent of her character revolves around her unrequited love for him, and since the writers don’t want to move away from that aspect of their dynamic, she’ll never outright confess, and he’ll never outright reject her, it’s just a neverending cycle of romantic tension that makes you want to jump off a fucking bridge. She didn’t even meet up with Dr. Magata for her own reasons, she did it because she knew Sohei really liked Dr. Magata.

That is one of the main issues with this series, though... A huge chunk of the writing is dedicated to sucking off the main character, who is a blatant self-insert for the original creator as well as any dude in the audience who over-inflates their own intelligence and intellectual value. I mean for fuck’s sake, even Rick Sanchez has some intentional character flaws written into him to balance out this kind of bullshit. Having said all of that, though, there is one very significant underlying theme to the writing, and it’s one that you’ve definitely seen explored before, from a variety of different angles. That theme is, put simply, you can’t be truly free if you allow yourself to be tied down, and you have to sever those ties to find your freedom. It’s enlightenment through detachment. As Janis Joplin put it, Freedom’s just another word for Nothing Left to Lose. Some prominent examples of this theme can be found in Office Space, American Beauty and Bojack Horseman, among plenty of others.

This is a very tricky subject to talk about, especially with the way The Perfect Insider explores it. One of the primary differences between Sohei and Dr. Magata is that while Sohei allows himself to be tied down to one place by his position and responsibilities, Dr. Magata literally attained freedom by murdering her family, which underlines the inherent selfishness of this mindset. More often than not, it’s used as a justification for the avoidance or total abandonment of responsibility. Take the song Freebird, which is just a long-ass excuse for dumping your girlfriend because “I’ve gotta be free!” I’m not going to say this philosophy is always bullshit, but it is often used in highly pretentious ways, and despite what I just said, it never feels like The Perfect Insider is ever intentionally criticizing it as such. It almost feels like it’s on the psychotic doctor’s side, as though she’s attained some elevated consciousness because she had the courage to do what Sohei wouldn’t.

What really bugs me about this is that Dr. Magata found freedom three times in this story. The first time, she murdered her controlling family. The second time, she was on trial for murdering her family, and because she was deemed too insane to stand trial, she was just released, which we’ll talk about later. The third time… Well, I guess now’s as good a time as any to talk about the ending of this series, and yes, I’m referring to the big resolution to the big mystery. Now, you can have a long, drawn out mystery story that might get a little tedious, sure, and it won’t matter, if you can just stick the fucking landing and deliver a haymaker of an answer. Give me a final reveal that gives me goosebumps, and I will give you every possible benefit of the doubt. That does not happen here. It’s bad. It’s really bad. That’s about as far as I can go without spoilers, so here’s an explicit description of what happens, hidden under a spoiler tag. Read at your own risk.

So for those of you who read that spoiler section, you may be thinking the same thing I am; “Okay, but seriously, it was aliens, right?” It’s bad enough that this show thinks that a girl who commits a double homicide and is found not guilty by way of insanity would just immediately be released back into the public... No, she would get sent to any number of mental care facilities that can sometimes be even worse than prison... But it genuinely doesn’t feel like any thought was put into the answer to the mystery outside of how shocking it would be, and how people might react when hearing it. Never mind the fact that, when you really think about it, there isn’t any clear motive behind any of it, aside from maybe crafting a mystery to try and stump some L-level detective who might coincidentally stumble upon it. A good mystery should be better on your second viewing, because you should be able to notice all of the small details you took for granted the first time around. Perfect Insider just feels dumber and more insulting the second time around, as you realize just how pointless most of the conversations really are, and how many idiotic red herrings the writer threw at you.

With the mystery falling flat on its face, the dialogue eliciting eye rolls and snores, and the entire supporting cast either existing to have brief interactions with the main trio or just existing for no reason at all, there’s really nothing here to justify a recommendation. No wonder Sentai didn’t bother investing in an English dub.

The Perfect Insider is out of print from Sentai Filmworks. The original novel by Mori Hiroshi is available in English from Kindle in audiobook form, but a TV drama and somehow a video game are not.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once said, “‘When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” This is likely because Sir Doyle never watched The Perfect Insider, whose ultimate answer is so abysmally improbable it makes you wish there were an impossible alternative that you could cling to. It is one of the most clear and obvious examples of a writer not being nearly as smart as he thinks he is that I have ever seen. There are occasional moments where the dialogue has some genuine charm to it, but for the most part, it’s boring, insufferable, and full of naive, sophomoric social commentary that it fails to consistently support. I like the production values, but this show was definitely trying to be the smartest anime in the room, but in the end, it only stands tall as a phenomenal act of hubris.

I give The Perfect Insider a 3/10