Jan 27 2011 07:03 PM Shinrei Tantei or rather Psychic Detective Yakumo is a show that started off with some really good potential. A deep mystery show that drew on the smallest possible details to bring a mystery all together. Unfortunately, the series barely progressed from that stand point onwards. While the character development of Yakumo, Haruka, and Goto are all very solid, the plot itself was very lackluster. While true that we found out the reason behind Yakumo's mothers action, why Yakumo is the way he is, as well as answers to various other plot points, the finale didn't feel much like a finale nor did it feel much like a sequel would be done. While "he" (i.e. the ghost impersonation of Yakumo's biological father) is still "alive" and driven by the human sins in the world and that "his" objective have not changed, a sequel for this show seems improper.
Despite having published 8 novel volumes, the finale of the series simply left no interesting points to be developed and thus the potential of a sequel seems grim. Not to mention, the interesting portions of the plot really died down after episode 9 where basically all that was necessary about the show was revealed. We found out what happened to Yakumo's mother in that arc, Haruka's connection, who Yakumo is/was, and who the mysterious girl working with "him" was.
The animation quality of this show was up an down. Like Killer_Ossi pointed out, Haruka's clothes, let alone most of the other cast wore the same clothes EVERY SINGLE EPISODE! It's not like this show took place in the same day with all these events and I doubt someone like Haruka would not have different clothes. Goto, Isshi, and Makoto I can understand, as well as Yakumo to some extent but Haruka and Nao wearing the same clothes seems too unrealistic even for a supernatural series. The upside really occurred in 2 episodes: Episode 1 and episode 9. The animation quality was superb to the extent that body motions and actions all seemed realistic/3D for numerous scenes. This went way beyond my expectations of Bee Train.
Music was really solid for this show. Really enjoyed the 3 phases of the OP theme as well as the ED theme. The bgms were also very good despite being altered instrumentals of the OP/ED themes.
Enjoyment? Well I liked the first episode, but then got really bored until around episode 5 or 6 when the "true story" of this show began to finally take shape. Unsurprisingly, episode 7 was the "shocker" episode though it wasn't much of a shocker considering I was expecting something by episode 7 for this kind of show. If it didn't happen I'm pretty sure my impression for this show would have went down. After that arc, episodes 10 through 13 were really average at best. Isshin's death was not a surprise since they were hinting at it quite early on in that arc if not earlier on in the series. The ending was more or less predictable and the fact as to who the culprit was became incredibly obvious as soon as they mentioned that the girl was the doctor's daughter early on in that arc. I mean we already knew for a long time that ghosts could not hold physical objects and that "he" was definitely a ghost from various implications throughout the series. The revelation in the final episode thus felt very anti-climatic when they tried to make it sound as if it would be a shock.
Overall, I had my doubts about this show and I'm glad I did since I was weary when Bee Train was animating this. Prior to Phantom last year, their last moderately successful series was Tsubasa Chronicle, but that was a collaboration, and so their actual last successful solo work was arguably Noir in 2001. Coming from the same director and storyboard composer for Phantom in 2009, I had expected much more from Tomoyuki Kurokawa since I finally thought he may have gotten his act together to bring another successful series. While the formula for Shinrei Tantei Yakumo is quite similar, the largest difference between the 2 is not just the pacing, but rather the plot development. As I stated, Shinrei Tantei Yakumo lacked proper plot development. There was great character development, but the show lacked a proper direction that involved Yakumo being "used" to solve murder cases or mystery cases. While the show was by no means bad, it was far from spectacular.
Preliminary Score: 7/10 Final Score: 7/10 
