Ayatsuri Sakon is an anime about a shy boy named Sakon, and his loudmouth puppet Ukon. Sakon travels around to train and enhance his skills of puppetry. But everywhere he goes, mysteries appear, and people get murdered! Sakon likes to solve mysteries on the side, and is often very good at them. On occasion, his detective aunt Kaoroku, or his photographer friend Zenkichi, join up with him to help.
Sakon goes around solving murders, and making new friends along the way.
Ayatsuri Sakon was a nice anime, I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't call it a favorite, but the anime really allows you to get attached to some of the characters (Most notably, the characters Sakon befriends.) I was really looking for a murder mystery, where you could actually figure out who was the killer.
(I had previously watched Neuro, and as much as I enjoyed it, I really wanted to watch an anime where you had a chance to figure out who the killer was. Where as in Neuro, the killer is like the only new character introduced, and they don't show what happened.)
The anime has a nice calm feeling to it, the mysteries get very interesting, and some of the characters are very fun, and interesting! Overall I really liked it, and it's exactly what I was looking for.
Slight spoiler, but it's not a spoiler kind of spoiler. But I was really glad to see all of the friends Sakon made in each mystery, come to see him perform in one of his plays!
Note: I have also posted this review on Anime Planet.
Himitsu the Revelation, also known as "Himitsu - Top Secret" is a mystery, sci fi and psychological anime that was made in 2008.
It takes place 50 years in the future, and stars a guy named "Aoki". Who has just gotten a new job in the government called Section 9.
The division is equipped with a machine that is able to look at the memories of the dearly departed, they use this machine to find the killer through the victims eyes. The only catch is that they have 48 hours to do so, this is because, after the 48 hour mark, the brain just stops working completely, and no one can read from it anymore.
It took me a while to get into Himitsu, at first I wasn't that thrilled about it and didn't have much of an urge to watch it. I have a schedule for myself, I watch a certain anime on a certain day, Himitsu is my current Monday anime. Sometimes I just did not want to watch it, I just wasn't getting into it as much.
But once I got the biggest urge to watch it back to back, that was when I really got into it. I probably watched 8 episodes in the proximity of 4 days.
The thing with this anime is that it's slow in the beginning, and there are lot's of characters introduced from the start. For me, it was a guessing game on who is who, and the only people I knew from the start was Aoki, the director Maki and the main female character Amachi. The other characters took me a while to figure out who they were, and what their names were. There's only one other girl character, so that's obviously not difficult. However, there are three other male characters that don't always get to be in the spotlight, and I thought two of them were the same person for a while! lol (They have like the same colored suit). The other one looks like a movie star if you ask me, and if you watch the anime, you'll know who I am talking about!
Or, just watch the intro theme!
The intro, unfortunately I couldn't find one with english subtitles.
The original reason for getting into this anime, was for the fact that it looks kind of like a yaoi. I know that was one of my reasons; but also because I like to delve into mystery anime every now and again.
It's not a yaoi, but there are certain parts that seem yaoi-ish.. such as the ending theme...
But there's also the fact that Aoki reminds Maki of his deceased best friend, and automatically cares about him greatly from the start. They actually cover the story about Maki's best friend and that episode seemed a bit yaoi to me.
Unfortunately for any yaoi fan, it's not a yaoi anime.. but anyone can dream right?
The anime is a mystery, and they really get creative as the episodes go on. Some episodes, the victim never saw the killer, and the team has to figure out if there is any connection to the killer in the dead persons memories. There is even an episode where the killer is seen in the victim's eyes, but the brain of the deceased is in a remote location and they can't get the brain out of the area because everything bad that could happen, happens!
The show has no problem having episodes with homosexual characters, which I find interesting. In one of the early episodes, there is a victim who they find out had homosexual feelings for another man.
In the middle of the series, there is a murder that takes place because two women wanted to be together.
Although Japan is behind the times when it comes to LGBT characters, the group at Himitsu had no problem putting some in here and there. As I write this, I am only on episode 16, so I have no idea what they do next. So maybe my yaoi hopes come true! Although I will most likely hold onto this review until I finish it, so my hopes could be shattered of Aoki and Maki having a thing for each other.
You have to be warned however, as some of the episodes do get a little bit graphic, some of them are filled with gore, especially one episode where they find out about a serial killer who skinned his victims alive. But other than that, it doesn't get too crazy. If you've ever seen Law & Order, or CSI and can handle those shows, then you should be fine.
++++Vague Spoilers+++
There are plenty of twists and turns in the show, one of the main characters actually dies! Which I was upset about because I read on a review that one of them dies, and then I was on wikipedia and I was just looking at the episodes and it says who dies, so even though I am on episode 16, I know who dies, and I am annoyed about that because I wanted to be surprised and shocked! I was also playing a guessing game on who it could be. So if you DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED!! Don't look at any of the episodes that you aren't on or haven't finished already.
+++Vague Spoilers end here+++
One of the things I think is cool, is that they actually add some Supernatural aspects into the show. Notthing too crazy, like Supernatural monsters shooting fireballs. I mean Supernatural elements that are in the real world, you know like psychic powers. Amachi, is a psychic and there are parts in the anime where she is able to find out something because of her powers, she was even able to talk to the victim of the episode in order to find something out.
There is one thing that has been bugging me though, it has nothing to do with the anime itself. BUT! Episodes 14-15 on any subtitle site have been very hard to watch because the animation and the voices aren't matching, and I don't know why that has happened. It would actually be really easy to fix, as all you have to do is go on a video editing program, and make a copy of the sound and video, match them up, and then re-add the subtitles. But for those episodes, the voices and subtitles are talking about one thing when the scene is completely different.
For example, in episode 15, there is a scene where Maki is talking to a robber. While he is talking, and the subtitles are appearing at the bottom, the scene is of Aoki, and Amachi riding around in a car in the city.
Both episodes are about 1 minute behind when it comes to the voices and subtitles, and it was very hard to watch and figure out what was going on with it like that.
Overall, I think Himitsu is a little bit rocky, but it's a good anime once you get into it. If you like Mystery anime, you'll definitely like Himitsu! The music is very calm and collected, it's very nice and fitting for the anime.
Here's the ending theme with the yaoi-ish pictures!
