OKITEGAMI KYOUKO NO BIBOUROKU

DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

MANGA MysteryOkitegami Kyouko no Bibouroku
ONA SupernaturalOkitegami Kyouko no Bibouroku x Monogatari
NOVEL ComedyMazemonogatari
MANGA ComedySeishun Kijinden! Nishio Gakuen
NOVEL MysteryOkitegami Kyouko no Suisenbun

REVIEWS

• 

  Tesstarossa

  67/100
  Pleasure to meet you, Kyouko-san

  Forgetful Detective is an interesting series. As someone who's really really into Nisio Isin's mystery novels, I figured it would be something right up my alley, and it kind of is, but it also kind of isn't. It's very different from your Zaregoto's, your Sekai's, and your Monogatari's, I believe it's actually aimed at adult women, which explains a lot because this is a series I could actually recommend to a sane human being, unlike those, it's not as nonsensical, the dialogue isn't as random and unhinged, it's not super self referential, and there's little to no ecchi. However... that fact is why I personally don't like Forgetful Detective as much as those, as someone with a billion mental illnesses.

  The thing is, is that this series can actually be REALLY good, when it wants to be, among some of the best stories that Nisio has ever written in fact, but you have to sift through some not bad, but not super great stories either to get to those. Before we get too ahead of ourselves, we should probably go over what this series is even about first.

  Essentially, it stars Okitegami Kyouko, a detective whose memory resets every single time she falls asleep, and all of these novels are about her work solving various cases. One might wonder who would hire a detective with such a disadvantage, but the book explains that it is a mixture of her speed and proficiency at solving these cases because of this limitation, as well as the fact that because she forgets everything, it is GREAT for those looking for confidentiality, and a big advantage in her favor.

  Really this memory limitation is an excuse for Nisio to write short, self contained mystery stories without much of an overarching narrative. Okitegami Kyouko is actually the only recurring character throughout all of the novels, and she is always referred to in third person by whoever the narrator of the story is this time. Okitegami Kyouko as a character exudes a very mysterious aura, but each novel gives us more and more hints of what her personality is like, though it takes all the way until volume 13 to actually hear what her back story is, and why she is the way she is. Kyouko is a bubbly, playful character who doesn't fully remember why she does what she does, though she also lacks sentimentality, and can even be a bit callous, especially in the face of violent crimes. Her memory limitation also causes her to be really surprised by how far technology has passed in all the years she's forgotten, and it's often played for comedy in many of the chapters. My favorite thing about her has to be the fact that she has an AMAZING fashion sense, seriously, the way these novels describe all the different outfits she wears each day makes me so envious, I REALLY wanna look like her!

  Kakushidate Yakusuke is also a reoccurring character throughout most of the novels, being a regular customer of the Forgetful Detective, and a man who is always getting himself accused of things he didn't do, everyone is super suspicious of him for no real reason, and it's played very straight in these novels. The first 5 volumes actually had a pretty diverse selection of narrators, and I was hoping that trend would continue, but volume 6 onward mainly just consists of Yakusuke, and I found that to be a bit of wasted potential.

  The format of each novel always switches between short story collections, and one big story that spans an entire novel. I myself much prefer the latter over the former, because the more long form stories are more focused, whereas the short story collections split the focus onto multiple stories, and they all end up feeling compromised. Most of this series was actually not translated until VERY recently, which is part of why I wanted to (re)write this review, both because I wanted to bring attention to this fact for people who are potentially interested, and also because my opinion of the series has changed somewhat going into all the volumes I haven't read.

  Really I think the first six volumes, aside from volume 5 which I'm not too big on, are really strong, and are highly recommended to anyone who is interested. The first chapter of Volume 3 is absolutely my favorite short story of the entire series, and Volume 6 in particular is probably the second best overall story in the series, but then after that the volumes get significantly weaker for quite a while, but then all of the sudden out of nowhere, Volume 12 comes around, and it's almost as good as Volume 6, and then after that Nisio decides to drop the best book in the series, Volume 13, but then after that, Volume 14 comes around and it's back to being just okay, despite the fact that it's actually quite the paradigm shift for the series, given the fact that for 13 volumes, the Detective agency was located in Japan, and with the exception of volume 8, only takes place in Japan. In 14 she moves the headquarters to New York, and we get some new characters. I'm sure we could get some more great stories that take place in this new setting, but unfortunately, it's been 3 years with no new Forgetful Detective, so who knows when it will be continued. Nisio said in one of the afterwords that he plans to go all the way up to volume 24 before ending the series, but he also says that he plans to write Sekai 5 so who knows if that will happen.

  Tl;dr, my ranking would probably go something like

  13 > 6 > 12 > 2 > 4 > 3 > 1 > 9 > 8 > 10 > 14 > 5 > 7 > 11

  In many ways Forgetful Detective is flawed, it's not some amazing masterpiece. Its biggest problem is really the fact that it doesn't do much of anything exceptional to make itself stand out, despite its fairly unique premise, but for better or worse, I still am a big fan of it, and even I don't fully know why. Perhaps it's because what this series succeeds at is being simple, fun, quick read, which has it's own unique appeal.

  If you are someone who absolutely refuses to read books, but are still interested in this series there are other, possibly better, ways to experience it that are worth considering. There is a manga, which is pretty short, and quite faithful to the novels from what I have read of it, though for some reason it tends to sexualize Kyouko a bit more, which I am not in love with, but it's also not that big of a deal. There's also a live action TV drama, which is pretty good, albeit a bit low budget, and also is a lot less faithful to the novels. The main reason I'm briefly mentioning these in a review of the novels specifically is to drum up interest in this series that I think is really cool in whatever way I can, so I hope this review succeeded at doing that!

  Farewell (for now)... Kyouko-san

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