Crystal Blaze Episode 1

The S&A Detective Agency is run by the cool womaniser Shu with his younger brother Akira, taking on all sorts of cases. Whilst Shu is off having sex, their two female assistants Manami and Ayaka take a request from the world’s worst transvestite to monitor the pickup of some cargo from a truck. This, however, turns into a deadly shootout, and the cargo eventually reveals itself to be a mysterious woman apparently made of glass who exhibits superhuman speed. An evil power-suited woman tries to capture said Glass Maiden (the alternative title for the show), but Shu shows up in the nick of time and drives her to safety - but who is this woman, why was she wearing a strange choker, and what does she have to do with the recent deaths of five girls who were all found turned to glass after bursting into flame?

Crystal Blaze seems to be unable to decide exactly what kind of show it wants to be. One minute we have little girls screeching about rescuing turtles and how cool it would be to see a murder, then they’re cowering in complete catatonia, and then about five minutes later they’re back to screeching. In the meantime, we have a presumably hard-boiled detective and a heroine in peril, all because of a cross-dresser that would put Emily Howard to shame. The variation in tone makes the show slightly odd; interesting, maybe, but odd.

Alas, even though I’m actually mildly interested to see where Crystal Blaze goes in the long run, I doubt I’ll continue to watch it. It’s fine, but it’s just…there. Like so many anime, there’s nothing particularly bad about it, but it’s done nothing to really grab my attention and when there are so many shows at the moment with something that sets them apart from the pack (whether in a good aor a bad way) that I can’t see myself even remembering about it in the future. If you’ve got nothing better to do I don’t think it’s a bad bet, but otherwise I have to damn the show with faint praise by deeming Crystal Blaze “solid”.

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