Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
fh1478
We Are More Than Pretty Faces
Pretty Boy Detective Club is a story about how pants makes boy pretty, and without stripe pants, you'll not have pretty boys.
A girl with eyes to kill for, surrounded by pretty boys who have a good use, and mystery to solved that are outland, it's a fun time.
They is that normal story stuff, like finding the place you belong to, and people who respect you for who you are, and all that good stuff, but what you really here for are the, pretty boys with they striped pants.
Are the characters deep? no, they are what they seem like on the surface, but we are here for the aesthetics, and they are pretty.
One look at the anime, and you can see that it is made by Shaft studio, the vibrant colors and the stylish way of constantly using angles, and all the ways the…
Read at the sourcePetalsYuriCorner
Pretty Boy Detective Club is a series that rarely gets talked about among Shaft’s catalog of cult classics. Despite what the title might suggest, Pretty Boy Detective Club does not excel as a mystery story, you’re not meant to piece together a complex puzzle. Instead it’s a heartfelt, surreal tale of adolescence. It’s about the people we meet, the dreams we fail to achieve and the new ones we discover, the path to discovering oneself and learning to love who you were and who you’ll become. It’s a celebration of youth and everything that makes it so transient and beautiful. The series itself embodies this, a playfulness infused in every aspect of its identity. From the bright saturated colors, sarcastic yet absurd dialogue, and unrealistic scenarios right out of a child’s wild imagination.…
Read at the sourceTeramol
Be pretty, be a boy, be a detective. Fulfilling these conditions might earn you a ticket to a mysterious and exclusive school club in a certain middle school. However, a certain girl finds herself lost chasing an unrealistic dream and ends up crossing paths with said club, befriending these attractive boys. And thus we have Mayumi's journey to find her true calling.
At its core, Pretty Boy Detective club is mostly an episodic mystery show but it does go deeper than that with an actually developing main character and through her, a vibrant supporting cast ready to take on whatever mundane mystery happens to the be talk of the day.
Most episodes are two parter mini arcs that present a mystery for the club to solve that ends with resolutions of varying conclusiveness. Some mysteries definit…
Read at the sourceComprehensiveDog
Many children around me seem to find growing up a virtue, and often desire to reach adulthood more quickly. However, just as there are some benefits to be gained by becoming and adult, there are also qualities that are lost when we let go of our sense of childlike wonder. This bring us to Pretty Boy Detective Club, a show about a 14 year old girl who is told that she must face reality, something all children are eventually told. On the night where she supposedly has to become an adult, she meets the members of the Pretty Boy detective club. Events transpire, and while she still has to give up on her childhood dream, she discovers that giving up on something does not mean giving up altogether, and she finds it within herself to dream again. Every arc that follows is thematically similar, a…
Read at the sourceCurlybrace101
One common argument made in favor of Pretty Boy Detective Club is that, because it is by the author of the Monogatari series, one must be a Monogatari fan to enjoy it. For two reasons, that's bullshit:
1) One should not have to enjoy a completely unrelated work of fiction to enjoy something.
2) Whether you are a Monogatari fan or not does not change the fact that the plot of this show is absolute nonsense.
I cannot express to you how much this anime lacks any amount of reason or sense. Don't get me wrong, I am very good at suspending my disbelief, and a lot of my favorite anime are the stereotypical "confusing" anime (Lain, Utena, Baccano!, etc), and not even that can save this show for me. The plot is just one random, absurd, and unrelated event after the next without any reason for any…
Read at the sourceKirbyCoded
Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor? I’m sure you have, even if just in passing, but just in case, it means that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. It’s a writing tool to help stories from being contrived and difficult to follow, and it’s especially useful in mysteries and detective fiction so your audience can solve the mysteries along with the characters.
The writers of Pretty Boy Detective Club didn’t seem to get the memo.
PBDC is one of the most baffling anime I’ve ever watched in my entire life. Not a single plot point in this makes any sense. I felt like I was being pranked the entire time I watched it. Like, am *I* the stupid one? Do you just need a very high IQ to understand the epic highs and lows of PBDC? It’s all random bullshit happening with no rhyme or re…
Read at the sourceiridi
This show squandered all of its potential. It started off strong, with an interesting premise, beautiful art, and a colorful cast of harem archetypes that would no doubt get fleshed out into full people along the way. The opening is also a banger.
So you know what it did?
Immediately threw out the premise, kept each character locked to their singular core trait, and straight up did not show the most important parts of each episode. The show cuts to black to avoid having to depict anything more complicated than characters talking to each other and more than once resorts to still drawings (especially in later episodes). The MC also acts wildly out of character at random points. I'd praise her for being able to be more than a singular trait, but it instead just comes off as bad/inconsisten…
Read at the sourceSuperAdventure
It's been a while since I watched a Shaft anime. DO YOU like black and white stripes? Or black and white tile? Do you like 2D collage backgrounds in eye-gouging gumball colors?
Is a school that looks like the inside of Versailles Palace when Marie Antoinette lived there your idea of good taste?
Do you prefer prettyboys over girls in your anime? If you answered yes to ALL of those questions this is for you. If not, you'll be disappointed.
Shaft is known for a certain, uh, STYLE. IT'S NOT WHAT YOU'D CALL QUIET!!! It's LOUD. It assaults your eyeballs.
The designs of the characters are really sharp, all of them look great- although the primary color coding seemed a bit hokey. My favorite was Hyouta, who wears a shorts uniform and well I design nearly all of my own characters with bare legs o…
Read at the sourcejus7aguy
Initial impression after 3 episodes, then a further impression at the end. This is so if your initial does not mesh similarly with mine and you don't like it, you should stop. But if you do mesh and are unsure if you should continue, you can make an informed decision.
I don't understand why I'm liking this.
I was initially pissed off at it. It opens with a "quote" from Voltaire that he never actually said. (It was a forward comment written by the person who did a compilation of his stuff I believe, and then was mis-attributed to him and "went viral" as it were). It has an over-the-top animation style and dramatic posing, the Crunchyroll Subs I watched seemed to be missing bits from time to time too in the first few episodes. However there is some sort of draw to the show. It sucks you in…
Read at the sourceMichiko_Pinku
I really wanted to enjoy more this anime, I really wished I could like it more and tried my best to but I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted.
First, the base story is too weird for me, I know that we can have weird dreams especially when as young as Mayumi (14 yo) but, looking for a star? Really? Like, I mean, there is billion of billion of stars in the sky girl, how can you be looking for one especially? I may lack of poetry but, sorry, the base story is really stupid to me.
The other thing I disliked is the lack of romance, I saw "reverse harem" in the tags, where is the reversed harem? I get it, Mayumi is a girl and the others main characters are boys, and so? It doesn't make it into a reverse harem. I wish there was more romantic moments, I had strongs hopes when in the first epis…
Read at the sourceChoripan007_
This anime has one of the best art styles and production I've seen in a while without being a triple A anime. I could say that Bishonen Tanteidan is at the level of Top Tier animes on production. My favorite opening ever, Godly OST. Amazing Animation, cheers to my lads the animators and musicians.
The characters and the story are pretty average, average++ I'd say, some characters are much better than others, the main character is a 6.8. While others like the little president are a 7.5.
Pretty enjoyable, I didn't enjoy it that much cause it happened that I saw it after a masterpiece like Vinland Saga.
Read at the sourceInjenss
This anime was pure trash. It was so trash that repeatedly, like a theme of the anime, they would introduce arcs and foreshadow events that never came or had no bearing on anything. For example: (MILD SPOILERS AHEAD): The heroes foil an underground casino, which seems to trigger the guy who runs it to want to directly challenge the president of the Pretty Boy Detective Club. But...then he does nothing. The angle just dies. They play up an angle where this little girl is supposed to be excessively mean, with the goal of the MC becoming her friend. Only, she never does. You never see the girl again after the misunderstanding is cleared up. Most egregious was the last villain. A guy who is WAY too extreme for this kind of anime, he just comes from out of nowhere, like he wandered out of Psych…
Read at the sourcebusybinging
This was good. I really liked it. The art is absolutely gorgeous and the boys are fking pretty bruh like what even.
It's not BL or anything, in case anyone is wondering. The main girl does cross dress but as the viewer you already know she's a girl so yeah. They're not trying to bait or trap you or anything nefarious lmao. One of the guys also cross dress but it only happened like three times for certain reasons.
The boys don't fawn and simp over her but they do care about her a lot and do pamper her at times which is really cute to me.
I actually didn't really like the main girl cos she just sounds like she's trying to be quirky but by the end, she grew on me and I feel like she's a good addition.
The plot and story is a little slow and the way they talk in roundabout ways does grate…
Read at the sourceWyattWordWeaver
Bursting with Shaft visual flair, this show delivers witty NisiOisin dialogue in a low stakes fun loving show about childhood excitement.
As this is an adaptation of a NisiOisin work writing is the chief draw here. This show does not deliver the devastating character studies of something like Monogatari, but instead trades density for fun and broader appeal. Nutty characters bounce off each other with electric pizazz and short arcs keep the plot from getting bogged down. This does leave the show with a bit of a weak finale as it never sets up anything too powerful but still the view is enjoyable and its main character is a delightful take on the NisiOisin trademark self hating protagonist.
Visually the show is a riot of colors as Shaft brings in drastically changing art styles for monolo…
Read at the sourcekids11111009
Pretty decent anime. Not much going on there. It has ok characters, decent sounds, meh storyline, and fine comedy. The only gem that is good is the art style which is a very attractive thing I would say.
If you like this anime, then its fine. It’s not like it gonna affect me anyways. Same thing when it comes to disliking it as it doesn’t affect me anyways either.
It’s based on personal opinions so pls. dont get offended. If you agree or disagree, then let me know by commenting on my account and I would love to know your thoughts either about my comment or to the anime itself.
This would be higher or lower or perhaps having a same score if a second season of this comes out, hell even a third season.
But for now, I will travel to another anime to review after the experience.
Off I go
Read at the sourcePsyche-Taxi
If I had to describe this show in one word, it would be confused. It seemingly doesn't know what it wants to be. Sometimes it tries to be a light-hearted comedy, sometimes it tries to be a dramatic and intelligent mystery, sometimes it seems to want to be sexy even though the main characters are all children, and, most notably, it REALLY wants to be Ouran High School Host Club. It goes without saying that it does none of these right.
Story (3/10 - Mild spoilers)
Despite starting off relatively strong, the story of PBDC is weak at best. (If you can even call it a story to begin with.) It serves more as an anthology of a few different cases, something that isn't inherently bad as long as the cases are good. Unfortunately, with the exception of MAYBE the first case, these are not good cases.…
Read at the sourcefluffycow17
Pretty Boy Detective Club is a wonderfully weird mystery of the week anime with beautiful art, but keep expectations low.
While the it can be fun, I think the weirdness makes stuff not make much sense sometimes. Many times the solution is more "beautiful" than logical if that makes any sense. However, the solution tends to be mostly inconsequential since they just go to the next mystery. There is a small connection between the mysteries, but they are mostly independent.
Art is beautiful, especially later on. They like to change art styles for some scenes, and it's fun. There's a little goof in episode 3 when they forgot that Doujima wasn't wearing her glasses, but I think they did an overall good job.
The characters are good enough. They embody their tropes, and there isn't much character…
Read at the sourcegiraffenanime
I originally started this show because I was obsessed with the opening, not knowing what to expect from the Pretty Boy Detective anime. Let's get right into the anime basics.
Story; A young girl, Mayumi Doujima, looks up at the stars feeling depressed that the time has almost come. That time, to be exact, is to let go of her dream she's been holding on for ten years. Luckily, a pretty boy detective, Manabu Soutouin, appears in front of her to hear her case and give her a helping hand. He drags her to the official-unofficial club room where she meets all the club member. Everyone agreeing that her dream, mystery and case are pretty gives them a reason to search for a certain star that started it all. The boys bust out a helicopter, bring her to the beach that started the dream of wanting t…
Read at the sourceShadowLight13
The Pretty Boy Detective Club is...
And experience, certainly.
And here's why...
It is not realistic - it doesn't have to be either. It is set in school, but none of the characters act remotely their age. Even the least serious of them. And that's fine. Ouran Highschool did that too. All that means is that in this sense, it's not all that original. (But then, nothing is original.)
That said, the premise isn't the same as OHHC, as it involves "detective work" (read: lucky guesses leading to the revealing of mysteries because frankly, the connection between whatever clues we are given and the answer is just so ridiculously weak. The Sherlock Holmes book series and its various adaptations does this better.
The art is aesthetically pleasing though. Gorgeous, without a doubt. But it a…
Read at the sourceKanna_4869
No, man, I don't want to have to watch Monogatari to ''get'' this, ok? That's a lame excuse from fans to convience people this has ''deep meaning'' cause it comes from ''deep author''.
This anime fails in every aspect for me. It's boring, the stories are overly complex (and stupid) just for the sake of it. I didn't get anything from watching this.
Yes, yes, ok, maybe not my kind of show, ok? but even for a casual this is 0% watchable and that's my main complain about this series.
The visuals and shots are the only thing that's quality here, the rest? plain boring.
I can't even write a proper review cause I didn't get anything from watching it, seriously... but I wanted to say something for those +8 reviews spitting all kind of ''Monogatari'' or ''Nisio Isin''stuff.
And no, this is no…
Read at the source
