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Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok Vol 1
Norse mythology meets Japanese culture: sounds like an interesting idea. That's the premise behind Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, a boy detective series with the young detective being none other than the Norse god of mischief. The only problem is that so far the only things they've taken from Scandinavian tales are the names of the characters. Their personalities, abilities and talents are no where to be found. To make matters worse the characters are very dull and the stories aren't that exciting either.
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 nay 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.
I had a lot of problems getting into this series. It just didn't do anything for me. The main problem I had was the fact that the characters are not interesting in the least. Loki doesn't talk much, and the only power he seems to have is the ability to "sense evil." Oh yeah. That's really helpful. They mention something about his child form not sapping some of his abilities. (The other Norse gods in the series appear as teenagers and it doesn't seem to effect them.) He does so little that it's hard to like him.
Mayura is a typical over-energetic anime girl, almost a caricature of all the other female anime sidekicks. The thing about her is that she's really into unexplained phenomenon and pseudo-science but doesn't realize that she's paling around with an honest-to-god (no pun intended) enigma. She comes across as really stupid, though I thing the creators were trying to make her funny. It didn't work.
The only person I have any symnpathy for is Thor. He's using the name Narugami (why? Loki uses his real name.) and just trying to make ends meet here on Earth. In addition to going to school (Why?) he works a series of part time jobs, most of them with disastrous results.
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:
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, and an interview with the Japanese voice actors Yuriko Fuchizaki (Loki) and Takehito Koyasu (Frey - ironically he doesn't appear in these episodes.) This was originally on the second volume of the Japanese release. The actors chat about the show, but don't really give too much background information.
Final Thoughts:
If you were hoping that this series would involve Norse mythology, you'll be sorely disappointed. The only thing in common these characters have with their Scandinavian forerunners are their names. That isn't a fatal flaw, but the fact that this series doesn't have any interesting characters is. Add to that the fact that the stories are really lame and filled with endings that don't make a lot of sense and you've got a series that should best be avoided. Skip it.
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