Name: In/Spectre is a supernatural crime noire with witty dialogue wrapped in an uninspired plot.
Item: In/Spectre
Rating: 70
Author: tsugan

Waifra

In/Spectre is a supernatural crime noire with witty dialogue wrapped in an uninspired plot. · Waifora

Story

Enter into the tried and tested, yokai-infested, setting of contemporary Japan, where adolescent girls get kidnapped and become goddesses by having a leg chopped off and an eye removed. Where women see their boyfriends scare off monsters and don’t fall more in love with them — in fact, they practice judicious social distancing and f*** off. In/Spectre is unambitious with its story, and several consequential plot points aren’t properly explained, which weakens it further. Were it not for its consistently top notch dialogue, the anime would be lost in the pile of thousands of others.

In/Spectre initially presents itself as a run-of-the-mill action-adventure, yet it is undeniably a slow paced crime drama at heart. That isn’t to say no fighting occurs, this is anime after all, but what’s there is… unremarkable, perhaps a bit on the gorey side for shock value. The vast majority of the show is exposition about crimes — think of it as an anime version of the Hannibal TV series but not nearly as well written or trippy. That being said, the writing is quite engaging, if you let it take you where it wants.

The crux of In/Spectre is that the main character, Kotoko Iwanaga, becomes a (the?) goddess of wisdom for the spirits/yokai/Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost’s of Japan. She does this by getting her leg chopped off and losing her right eye, which I’m sure is very symbolically representative to wisdom in Japanese culture (it’s minimally explained in the anime, good enough for me).

What isn’t explained in the anime is, well, why is she so damn smart? She goes around investigating these crimes and intuiting the perpetrators extremely context-sensitive reasoning like a teenaged Will Graham. I understand, she often has yokai eyewitnesses and such to help her, but she’s casting outlandish theories as fact and everyone’s just like, “Yeah, I guess we voted her as Goddess of Wisdom so that’s that.” Did the limb subtracting, sensory organ losing, ritual, make her into some literal savant, or does it come down to a “woman’s intuition?” It’s never explained.

Alright, so that’s one sliiiiightly nitpicky problem down, now onto the most glaring issue I have with In/Spectre. Spoilers Below.

Spoiler, click to view

So the other two main characters are Kurou Sakuragawa and Saki Yumihara. They’re ex-lovers, portrayed as being a very good match for each other, but Saki abruptly leaves Korou because they encounter a fish man by a river. The fish man is terrified by Korou and screams out something like, “I can’t believe how terrifying humans are.” and then runs away. OK. Korou is completely unfazed by the encounter, and Saki puts together several other odd experiences she’s had with him (such as him getting his hand sliced up cooking and it insta-healing) and realizes that boy ain’t right.

My question is: who witnesses their long term partner who they were probably going to marry scare away a literal monster, and thinks, “I gotta f****** break up with this guy, pronto.” Who sees that their boyfriend can regenerate wounds spontaneously and isn’t relieved before any other emotion? Those aren’t the reactions of a soulmate-type person that they portrayed Saki to be for Korou — it makes her come off as a shallow idiot when she is clearly anything but. Also, why is she so consistently scared of the friendly yokai that Kotoko brings in, it makes sense the first few times, but Every. Single. Time? This woman’s a cop who tried to melee a steel bar wielding evil spirit, and she’s scared of an adorable cat ghost? Huh?

Character

In/Spectre is interesting solely because of Kotoko Iwanaga. Kurou Sakuragawa is the narrative equivalent of Plank from Ed, Edd, ‘n Eddy. He barely talks, rarely has anything interesting to say, and when he does, it comes out in such a monotone that one wonders why they bothered to have him voiced at all. The notion that he would be able to attract not just one, but two, attractive, intelligent, girls to his side with all the personality of beige carpet is laughable.

Kotoko, much like Raphtalia in Shield Hero, makes Kurou somewhat interesting. Her endless frustration with his complete lack of emotion or affection towards her is a constant gag that never really got old. Their one-sided relationship is the lighthouse that keeps In/Spectre entertaining throughout its 12 episodes. Without this, In/Spectre would be a miserable slog.

As noted in my spoiler section above, Saki Yumihara is the character I have most gripes with, even competing against Kurou’s Purgatorial soullessness. At least that’s somewhat explained by way of his F’ed up childhood. Saki is an undiagnosed schizophrenic. One scene, she’s a sure shot policewoman, the next, a barely hanging on hysterical mess. In the real world, a duality of personality like hers is common and interesting, but it is portrayed so clumsily here that you can’t tell if it’s meant to be a joke or if someone at the studio thinks women are manic idiots.

Art & Sound

In/Spectre’s animation is top notch. Little facial expressions on the characters (except for Kurou, he’s a necromaster’s vessel waiting to be filled) give even the banal scenes life. The action sequences are bareboned, but that was never the point of In/Spectre so I won’t judge them too harshly.

The intro has a nice song, but other than that I didn’t notice the sound at all, which in many respects is kudos to the soundFX team.

Enjoyment

Ultimately, In/Spectre is a confused final product. A generally lighthearted theme conflicts with definitely-not-funny crimes. I just don’t think a silly anime approach to a grisly crime noir setting works well. There are better anime that do similar things, like Monster or Mushishi (though Mushishi obviously isn’t noir). I don’t regret watching it, but I can’t help but come away frustrated that In/Spectre could’ve been more.