A new year, a new anime season – the wheel turns as ever, and we kick off Winter 2025. Double premieres have become something of a fad in anime recently (and stuff like Vinland Saga and Oshi no Ko had four). On balance it’s probably not a bad way to make a stronger case right out of the gate. But the flipside of that is that the product has to be pretty good or else you risk the audience getting bored and tuning out.
Ameku Takao no Suiri Karte was not one of the series I previewed, but a couple of LiA readers recommended it so I thought I’d check in on it at least. It does have some points in its favor. It’s based on a novel, a route which has a pretty good batting average in producing good anime. It’s a story about working adults. Apart from that I didn’t know a whole lot about it except that House seemed to get mentioned a lot when people were talking about it.
Having watched these first two episodes I can definitely see why. To be honest it plays more or less as a House ripoff (the Lupus bit suggests the author is well aware of it), except with a lolified adult in the Hugh Laurie role. The titular Dr. Ameko Takao is the head of pathology (like house) at the family hospital her grandfather founded. She’s a diagnostic genius of the highest order (like House), and has youngsters working under her (like House). She has zero social skills and pisses off everyone she works with, and treats the loyal ones like crap (like House). You get the gist.
That’s not all bad – I mean, I liked House. But this ain’t House. Not bad, mind you, but nothing special so far. I’m not that nuts for Sakura Ayane in the Takao role, though it’s obvious what they were going for. None of the orbital characters stand out much, though it’s always great to hear Hirata Hiroaki in a major role. Here he’s playing the head of the police homicide division who’s an obvious – OK, we’ll be charitable and call it an homage – to Peter Falk as Columbo. If there’s a difference with House I think it’s that the focus will be less on actual medical practice here and more on Takao being cute and abrasive solving crimes. There was only about two minutes of actual medical practice here.
As for the first case, it falls about under that same “not bad” umbrella. It involves a murdered yakuza whose blood has turned blue and whose leg appears to have been bitten off by a huge carnivore. It’s more silly than anything but there are some amusing moments along the way. I would have liked to have seen more medical stuff here but that’s just me. I could see Ameku M.D. turning into an enjoyable diversion if the cases are up to it, but nothing much in the premiere suggests there’s more here than that.
Casey W
January 4, 2025 at 1:53 amI didn’t think the premiere was anything amazing as anime goes, but I also know I’m going to watch every episode. What was clear from the premiere is that this show is explicitly trying to be a cozy mystery show, in the U.S. tradition of (say) Columbo, or Murder, She Wrote. Even the House stuff is kind of a feint, because House episodes usually veer into melodrama and pathos; this show sure doesn’t look like a tearjerker so far. I love cozy mysteries, and while anime has lots of mysteries and lots of cozy shows, it doesn’t have many shows like The Rockford Files. (To be fair, American TV doesn’t make shows like that anymore, either.)
About the two-episode premiere: I appreciated getting to watch both parts back-to-back, because after that first episode, it wasn’t clear whether the show was going to take a hard turn into the supernatural — if I’d spent a week expecting a show with reanimated dinosaurs, it might have been disappointing when everything came back down to earth. Besides, the kind of show that this is imitating relies on a longer running time (an hour or two hours, with commercials). They really would have had to rush things along to introduce the cast *and* present a self-contained mystery in a single episode. After this two-parter, I think everyone should know whether the show is for them or not.
Nicc
January 10, 2025 at 9:03 amOkay, it’s the first post of the new year for me. I hope that everybody here enjoyed the holiday season as we enter a new year. I will say that things have not been going well for me so far as the calendar turned over. I’ve been getting whipped by the tail of the Dragon as it makes its way out… Still, there’s no need to throw a hissy fit; it’s just the Year of the Snake. It’s a zodiac I’m very familiar with as I’m the only one in the family who isn’t a Snake. Now, here we go…
Right, I did hear a lot of “House” comparisons too. It’s not a show I watched that often, but the beats are familiar. We’ve got our main character, Dr. Takao Ameku who’s the head of a department in the hospital that’s focused on medical mysteries, like whether it’s lupus or not. We’re also introduced to Yuu Takanashi and Mai Kounoike, who also work in that department as well. There are a few other Amekus’ in the hospital as it’s a family-run place. She didn’t get there due to nepotism, though. We’ll see later that her skills are the real deal, though we don’t see a lot of it from the medical department. She’s in a hurry to watch “Jurassic Park” as part of her research and so she quickly diagnoses two cases that her subordinates are having trouble with.
The first one is a kid was has been taking too much Vitamin A. Yep, too much of anything isn’t good for you. One of my uncles got kidney stones from taking too much calcium supplements. Problem solved. Another patient is suffering from stomach pains. Ah, he got a parasite from eating right-from-the-hook sashimi. Yep, that’s just asking for trouble. That got me thinking about a crossover with “Negaposi Angler”… I wonder how she would size up Hiro with one look. Yuu has apparently never watched “Jurassic Park” before, but a call comes in.
It’s something that it’s in the alley of this department. It’s a mysterious death in which the victim seems to have a part of his leg bitten off and he’s bleeding blue blood. He’s not a peer and so something is afoot… From here on out, it’s just Takao and Yuu. It looks like Mai will be one of the supporting characters instead of a power trio along with Takao and Yuu. The “Brilliant Detective with Beleaguered Assistant” isn’t exactly a new formula, but the addition of a Japanese-style “Columbo” is indeed amusing. I always wondered if Steve Jobs copied “One more thing…” from Columbo. Two two docs and two detectives eventually solve the case (The victim is a member of a gang that got shot in the leg. He goes to a doctor who has worked with the yakuza, but the doc messes up and the victim dies on his watch. The severed leg was from using a T-rex skull to bite down. It’s the first meal the T-rex has had in millions of years. The blue blood was from some kind of medication). Well, it’s all good and now it’s time to watch “Jurassic Park”, except Takao’s sister shows up and drags her away.
Oh yeah, I didn’t get to mention that she’s got her own home on the roof of the hospital. That reminded me of Wakamiya’s little hut (From “Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai”, your silver medalist for AOTY) in his palace. Crows are probably an issue while living on the rooftop. I think I’ll give it at least a 3rd episode as it was entertaining enough, though I too would like to see more actual medical mysteries being handled.