Detective School Q is an anime that ran on Animax in the 2000s.
I'm one of many that saw the original run during that time and liked it, but the anime stops right when the main story kicks off in the manga so I never got adequate closure to this little story. It's been more than a decade since then.
Finally in 2018, I was able to read the ending of this story thanks to Irregular scans. Thank you so much for completing translating this little gem, guys. Thank you so very much.
Detective School Q is a fun murder mystery show that’s aimed at kids and teens. The murders are gruesome, but the logic isn’t really ruthlessly consistent as they might be in mangas such as Liar Game, or Kaiji or other serious logic-focused stories where the intelligence is absolutely top notch.
For a teen/kids show, though, it was really fun. If you liked any of the mysteries in the Phoenix Wright games, it’s as fun as those. The atmosphere is similar too.
It has an oldies-manga kind of feel where you can get easily lost inside the world. The dialogue can get very goofy and very silly, but the story has heart.
The characters have simple motivations and goals and nothing complex happens theme-wise.
But they’re easy enough to get attached to. It’s light and laid back mostly.
Only Kyu, Ryu, Megumi and Detective Dan get any character development. The rest of the cast get only a case or two that showcase their personal lives and nothing else.
So character growth isn’t very strong, and the focus is mostly on the mystery behind each case. Those can get very interesting, and the author does explore a diverse bunch of mysteries. He hits a nice balance between small mysteries and overarching mysteries for 172 chapters, so it’s a nice little package.
The plot revolves around murder of the week stuff until the main, criminal syndicate/overall evil force of the story appears.
The primary villain force is cheesy, over the top, with attitudes belonging to any 90s children cartoon show. The story treats them seriously, which is even goofier, but the mysteries they present don’t get worse because of them, so it’s okay.
There is minimal romance that doesn’t interfere with the plot at all, but it’s there. The closure is sweet, though.
This is a really sweet little manga that deserves more attention. Even though the entire ride was so damn cheesy, the ending was very satisfying and tragic and happy. So many mangas have cop out/terrible endings, the fact the author managed to wrap everything up in one goofy ride legit puts the author over many others that over-promise but fail completely at the end. He promises a consistently cheesy ride from beginning to end with interesting mysteries and delivers exactly on what he promised. The entire thing was so damn endearing.
I’ll genuinely miss it now that it’s gone.