Fuuto Tantei ep 4: Goddess Henshin

Seriously, the anime keeps entertaining me in multiple ways! This time, they did it with a giant Symphogear reference (or just Mahou Shoujo in general). This shows that not only Kamen Riders and Dopants can pull of an amazing “Henshin” in this series!

The trope “that one nerdy girl is actually a gorgeous beauty” has been used forever, and it still works (mostly for boys lol)! Holy moly, here I thought I have seen enough Anime to instantly identify the hidden beauty, I was deeply wrong. The transformation was so satisfying that it shocked not only the fans but also Shoutarou and Akiko. Not gonna lie, they got us in the first half. Although the series got our hopes up about finding a programming gamer girl that can pull off one of the most impressive glow-ups ever. Also the studio really knows how to make blushing faces. From Tokime to Megu, their facial expressions are spot on!

Considering a number of old Symphogear staff members are working on this project, no wonder the henshin part works smoothly like a smoothie. With that said, when there is an idol, you can’t forget about the music that comes along with her. And the performance was fantastic. It remind me of idol performances in Macross and Symphogear – and as mentioned before, the same staff seems to be following the winning formula.

The movement felt like 2D hand-drawn but the backgrounds and camera are definitely 3D-CGI. While I respect that the 3D-CGI can save some parts of the budget, the fact that Kazamatsuri Megu’s movement still retains the feel of hand-drawn animation makes me respect more for the staffs.

The action for W still looks just as good. If you can ignore some small faults (which are the inherent disadvantage of hand-drawn style animation in general) then you would find no problem in the quality.

The plot, while still has some of the “monster of the week” characteristically, which in this case of Fuuto PI, “case of the fortnight”, you could still feel its continuous advancement in the plot. The build-up for the villain is decent, but I still need some more episodes for the verdict. They’ve been hinting at Aurora being a big bad and he has a very special interest in Tokime.

The star that makes this episode a turning point for the fans is blood, actual blood has been shed. Normally, in Kamen Rider’s live-action film, you can not see that much blood or wound, the usual place where you can see blood on the character’s body is the face. Fuuto PI letting Shoutarou has that much wound is a great artistic choice. I do prefer the wound more visible when the characters were harmed so that you could sympathize more with the characters. Tokime got a huge shock in this episode after she made a mistake (although it didn’t seem like it was intentional). The conflict between Phillip and Tokime is quite an interesting aspect since we’re used to there only be 2 partners only and the ships were quite strong. But now a new contender has appeared and turned Shotaro’s heart upside down for quite a long time, unlike his previous interests.

Next episode: the return of the White Fang?