The Show:
The second volume of Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok is doesn't
really improve on the first disc, which is unfortunate since the premier
volume was pretty bad. This boy detective series tries to add an
original twist of having the main character be a Norse god, but the stories
are nonsensical and the characters just aren't that interesting.
You'd think they'd be able to write an interesting tale about the Norse
god of mischief.
Series synopsis:
The Norse god Loki has been kicked out of Asgard and exiled to Midgard
(Earth.) To make matters worse, he's been trapped inside the body
of a young boy. What is a displaced god going to do? Why open
up a detective agency of course! He starts the Enjaku Detective Agency
with his companion Yamino, but since his offices are in a residential neighborhood,
he doesn't get any business. That is until a young girl named Mayura
Daidoji stops by in the first episode. She's always been fascinated
by detectives and sort of forces her way into the agency. Together
the three of them take on some pretty strange cases.
Mysteries aren't the only thing they have to worry about though.
Loki made a few enemies before Odin kicked him out of Asgard, and some
of them aren't satisfied with mere exile...they've come to kill him.
Foremost among these is the god Heimdall, who can't defeat Loki by attacking
him head on, so he comes up with some elaborate schemes to destroy his
foe.
The comic relief of the series comes in the form of the god Thor.
He's using the name Narugami (why? Loki uses his real name.) just
trying to make ends meet here on Earth. In addition to going to school
(again, why?) he works a series of part time jobs, most of them with disastrous
results.
This volume:
A mystery thief is about, causing trouble and perplexing the police.
This villain announces his crimes in advance and still manages to steal
the objects of his threats even though the police are guarding them.
Mayura wants to solve the crimes and capture the criminal, but Loki couldn't
care less. Until the thief announces that he's going
to steal the Brising necklace, a piece of jewelry that belongs to the Norse
god Freya. The mystery thief realizes how important this necklace
is, since he's a god himself.
The necklace is the key to this series of episodes. Next up Loki
takes the case of a young girl who has lost her memory. Loki is perplexed
when he talks to her though because this little girl who calls herself
Reiya is actually the goddess Freya. Why she is in the form of a
little girl and what happened to her memory are a mystery.
Of course all of these happenings have been orchestrated by Heimdall
in another Machiavellian plot to kill his enemy Loki.
The final episode on the disc is a stand alone episode where Loki gets
kidnaped after seeing a robbery. He decides to let Mayura and Yomino
solve the case in his place and rescue him. This was the best episode
so far, with a surprising revelation about Yomino at the end.
This Case Closed rip off is pretty lame overall. The child
detective who is really an adult trapped in a youngster's body isn't a
plot that is ripe for mining, and the creators of this series (that started
out as a manga) shouldn't have even bothered. This show is hard to
get into since none of the main characters are interesting or engaging.
Loki is a cipher, he doesn't have a goal or purpose to drive the plot,
and they've seen fit to give him a bland personality.
The episodes aren't really mysteries that viewers can try to solve,
they are more strange adventures with that have a supernatural bent.
This wouldn't be bad, but the show does a bad job of setting things up,
so viewers aren't really sure of where the plot is going. Things
seem to happen at random, with the plot meandering around until it eventually
draws several strings together and calls them a conclusion.
The biggest question mark though is Heimdall. He has the ability
to control people's minds, yet he can't figure out how to kill Loki?
Seems like it would be pretty simple. Have a cop shoot him.
Okay, so the characters aren't engaging, maybe this is a plot based
series. Well, not really. The four episodes on this disc serve
to introduce the main characters, so maybe the stories are hampered by
that, but they aren't that entertaining either. The mysteries that
they are involved with all involve other-worldly powers, so there really
aren't any rules that determine what needs to be done. A lot of the
solutions are deus ex machina endings that were just pulled out of a hat.
Being terrorized by an evil doll, put on a bracelet. Yeah, that'll
make things better. Most of the time I was left scratching my head
wondering where they came up with the lame ending.
This series is touted as being based on Norse Mythology, but it really
isn't. Aside from the names, nothing is the same. Loki himself
is supposed to be at least partially evil and have the ability to take
on different shapes. Hemidall, who show up in the third episode,
is nothing like the God in mythology. In the series he has vowed
to kill Loki for stealing his eye and has the ability to control people's
minds. Where are they getting this stuff from?? Not from any Norse
legends that I've run across.
The Norse mythology is very rich and has a lot of wonderful characters.
I would love to see the Japanese take on this pantheon, but I'll have to
wait for another series. This one has nothing in common with it aside
from the names.
The DVD:
This volume presents episodes 5-8 on a single sided DVD that comes in
a clear keepcase with a two-sided cover.
Audio:
This disc offers a choice between the original Japanese stereo soundtrack
and a 5.1 English dub. I alternated between tracks, switching every
episode, and preferred the original language though the English dub is
fine. Both tracks were clear and sounded very good. There were
no dropouts or other defects worth noting.
Video:
This show is presented in full frame, and the image quality looks pretty
good. There was some minor aliasing, but the lines were tight and
the image was clean. A solid looking show.
Extras:
This disc contains the standard clean opening and closing, a character
art gallery, as well as a warning that appeared before the Japanese broadcast
of the show. There is also the second part of the interview with
the Japanese voice actors Yuriko Fuchizaki (Loki) and Takehito Koyasu (Frey.)
The actors chat about the show, but don't really give too much background
information.
Final Thoughts:
I wasn't impressed with the first disc in this series, and this volume
hasn't done much to win me over. The last episode was mildly entertaining,
but the three episode Frey/Reiya/Freya storyline was a muddled mess.
Things just seemed to happen for no reason and the story didn't hang together
at all. Even my nine year old son, someone that the show is aimed
at, found it dull. Skip it.
Buy: