5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A STEAMing pile for a plot, no mysteries to DETECT, but the artwork was effecTIVE., March 29, 2006
This review is from: Steam Detectives THP Complete Collection (DVD)
I sadly have to give this show the 2 star treatment. The animation is crisp, and visually, it had some good ideas when it came to the retro astro-boy/cyborg 009 clothing style and the early 20th century background layouts, from the vine covered detective agency to the European look of the buildings, streets and rivers of Steam City.
Every episode followed a formula: A villan destroys, steals, or takes over a part of Steam City, and then our heroes, Narutaki the detective and Ling-Ling his nurse/assistant fight the injustice with the help of Goriki, an Iron Giant modeled look-alike robot. There is often a mystery involved, but all of the mysteries must have been meant for a young audience, because most of them have an outcome so obvious that I often second guessed it thinking "It can't be that simple." But it was, and the absence of thought weighed heavy when you knew the answers and the episode still has fifteen minutes to go.
There is so much I didn't like about this show, including the music, the five minute long opening sequence and ending sequence, the characters, plots, so on and so forth, but the anime's only redeeming quality is the artwork. The animation itself is slightly choppy and lacks action in most scenes, but the artwork is beautiful. Anyway, as an animation fan, Japanese or otherwise, this is a completely overlookable set that should only be purchased for curiousity and the exceptionally cheap price for 26 episodes.
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