I’m amazed. I’ve now seen most of the second episodes of the major series that aired this season, apart from Kaiba, Toshokan Sensou, Nijuu Mensou no Musume and Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, and without a doubt Himitsu has been the best series of the season so far, and Kaiba is going to have to be really good in order to top it, but even RD, Kurenai, xxxHolic and Amatsuki didn’t match up to the awesomeness that have been the first two episodes of Himitsu.

The storytelling in this series is absolutely amazing. We first get a bit of background on the main character. He’s clearly a rookie (he still lives with his sister and parents), and he still needs to get used to the idea that he’s invading the privacy of the people he investigates. We then switch to the investigation of the murder of the president of America. The only clue (we don’t even get to see the face of the murderer) is a strange picture he shreds, just as he’s about to die. What is this picture, and why didn’t he want anybody to see it?

The irony is of course obvious: it’s the only clue that the investigation-department has, and they’re basically trying to find something that the president wanted to keep secret at all costs, even after his death. The rest of the episode explores this guy’s life as the investigation department tries to find the moment in his life where he got the picture. I think this post by Iwa ni Hana sums up why I love this series so much:

“That, ladies and gentlemen, is the typical pattern that Shimizu-sensei’s stories will follow. The first half typically presents the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and in the second half the action accelerates faster than you can react, and finally the story is brought to a climax and ends like a bang on a forceful note.”

It really makes me wonder why it’s taken this long for one of the artist’s mangas to get an adaptation. Especially considering how she (he?)’s been writing for decades now. You can also really hear that the music has been done by the same guy who worked on the music of Death Note. I’ve said it before, but it’s great to see so much great soundtracks this season.

Before this season started, I expected that my favourite animation-studio of this season would end up being Production IG, but now that I’ve seen every new show, I realize how wrong I was: this really is THE season for Madhouse. They made a great move to transfer all of their bad staff to Kamen no Maid Guy, because their other series really shine so far (okay, perhaps Chi’s Sweet Home shines a bit less than the others, but even that one turned out better than I expected). Before the season started, I was a bit angry at Madhouse because they kept screwing up their adaptations. Claymore’s ending got screwed up, Shigurui missed its entire final chapters in the anime, Dennou Coil’s ending was rather rushed, Saiunkoku Monogatari ran into budget problems for its final episodes, Kaiji disappointed, and let’s not start with Nougami Neuro and Devil May Cry.

But with this season, they really have the potential to redeem themselves. It first started when Mokke suddenly delivered an awesome ending. With Himitsu and Chi’s Sweet home being concepts where you can’t screw up the ending, and the director of Mokke working on Allison to Lillia, the only real fear for a screwed up ending remains in Kaiba.

I’m really surprised with this series. At first look, it sounds more like a rather childish series with adult themes, but if you take a closer look, you’ll realize that this series is much more than that. I’m really surprised at how genuine this series has turned out, and I especially love the subtle chemistry between the characters. To be honest, I had my doubts about this series when I first saw the character-designs on the website, but this yet another example where you shouldn’t judge a series by its character-designs.

As a mystery-fan, I’m really glad at the large selection of mystery-series that 2008 has offered so far. I’ve said before that 2007 was rather disappointing in terms of mystery (the only series with really good mystery in my opinion were Dennou Coil and Bokura no, but these two turned out great because of other reasons than their mystery, especially compared to 2006, with Ergo Proxy, the first season of Higurashi and Night Head Genesis). That’s why I’ve got high hopes for Himitsu, Crystal Blaze and Kaiba, and Persona is getting better and better as well.

This episode of Crystal Blaze showed me how well it’s developing its mystery at the moment. This episode was an aftermath, and we hardly get any new information apart from a second glass girl, but this episode was mostly meant for the characters to catch up to all the questions that were raised in the previous episode, like how dangerous the enemies of this series are, and what kind of a strange woman Sara is, due to a constantly high body temperature of 42 degrees.

One thing I also like about this series is how the characters have a plausible reason to be involved in this story. We basically have a private investigation service that gets its jobs from a transvestite, and one of these jobs turns out to be a dangerous one. At the investigation-service, there’s one ambitious but naive intern, so obviously when she realizes that there’s an exciting job, she doesn’t want to abandon it and causes a huge scene (although I feel that nobody of the foursome is really willing to abandon Sara). It’s much better than all of those series that focus on teenagers who just happen to be on the wrong place at the wrong time by coincidence of have certain hidden powers that are just meant to get them involved in the series.

On a side-note: I feel pity for that voice-actor doing the dog’s voice, but he must be having the time of his life. :P