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

  71/100
  Pleasure to meet you, Kyouko-san

  
  This review is of the first 5 out of currently 14 volumes of Nisio Isin's Boukyaku Tantei (Forgetful Detective) series. ~~(The fan TLs currently go up to volume 5)~~ <- (Not anymore) Thankfully, I am not biting off way more than I can chew trying to review 5 novels at once, because this is a fairly simple series that's easy to sum up what it's about, and the review itself is gonna be fairly brief. 
  
  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. The narrator of the first novel Kakushidate Yakusuke, a regular customer of the Forgetful Detective who does re appear as the narrator of the fourth novel (and some of the ones that aren't translated yet), but the database is just flat out wrong including him as a main character for every single entry. 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. She is a bubbly, playful character who doesn't fully remember why she does what she does, though volume 5 hints at a darker side to her personality. Her memory limitation causes her to be really surprised by how far technology has passed in all the years shes forgotten, and it's often played for comedy in many of the chapters. She also 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! 
  
  The constant change in narrators, as well as the fact that all the cases have to be solved in at most, a day allows for the Boukyaku Tantei series to have a decidedly different feel from other Nisio mystery novels like Zaregoto or Sekai. In fact, when I was reading this I was honestly surprised by how... normal this series is. The dialogue isn't as random, it's not super horny, and despite having literal amnesia, the main character is still not as mentally fucked up as Ii, Samatoki, Choushi, or Araragi. It is graphic sometimes, and the twists can still be nonsensical, but I could comfortably recommend the Boukyaku Tantei series to a sane human being and they would probably like it, which is not something I could say about Zaregoto or Sekai... which is also part of why *I* don't like it *as* much as those. :P
  
  The format of all the novels tends to switch between short story collections (volumes 1, 3, and 5) and longer mystery stories than span a whole novel (volumes 2 and 4), I definitely tend to prefer the ones that are the latter. My favorite volume is basically a toss up between 2 and 3, because the first chapter of 3 is like, my favorite part of the entire series thus far, but I don't like the other two chapters nearly as much, whereas 2 is just a really good mystery story the whole way through with a great setting. It's kinda like being unable to decide whether my favorite album is the one that has a few of my favorite songs ever on it, or whether it's one that I thoroughly enjoy listening to the entire way through. The only book I don't really care for is volume 5, because I just thought all of the short stories there were pretty weak.  
  
  This series isn't some amazing masterpiece, and I don't feel the same emotional attachment to it as I do with other series Nisio has written, but it doesn't have to be or do any of those things. Because what it succeeds at is being a good mystery series that's easy to read, with nigh endless potential for new stories to tell. I really hope we do get to learn more about Okitegami Kyouko's origin story eventually, and I really hope the translations don't stop at volume 5 because reading the synopsis of volume 6 honestly has me very intrigued. I would go more in detail about specific parts of this series that I really liked, but I think it would be better if you just read it yourself instead.
  
  If you are someone who absolutely refuses to read books, but are still interested in this series, there is a tv drama adaptation you can watch, which I hear is actually quite good, and I am going to watch it soon. It's a shame there is no anime, because I think this series would be very conducive to an anime adaptation, which is also not something I can say about other Nisio mystery novels, which would be much harder to adapt properly (Just look at Zaregoto as an example).
  
  Farewell (for now) Kyouko-san
  
  **Addendum:**
  
  Well well well, here we are again, a whole lot has changed in the 5 months since I reviewed the only available English translations of the Forgetful Detective series, because now SEVEN more volumes have been translated, within the span of like 3 months I might add. That was the last thing I was ever expecting back when I wrote that review, I thought this series was going to lay dormant and I was never going to be able to experience most of it **(unless I was to finally stop being lazy with learning Japanese)**, but no, here it is, I've now read almost all of it. Some people have accused the translator **(Waifutime)** of using AI to translate these novels considering how fast they've been coming out, but the truth is that most of the work had already been done, he just didn't get a chance to release it, and when he did, he decided to space the releases out in a way where they don't all come out at once. I just needed to clear that up right away so hopefully people will stop saying that.
  
  Truthfully I don't have that much more to add that I didn't say before, I just want to give publicity to the translators work because he deserves it. It's ultimately just more Forgetful Detective, and it's pretty good. To give my brief thoughts on the subsequent volumes V6 is my new favorite in the series, V7 is in the words of the translator "too meta for it's own good", V8, 9 and 10 are all pretty good, V11 is boring, and V12 is almost as good as V6. The few people **(one person)**, I know who has actually read volume 13 has given it a 10/10, so I really hope it gets translated. Nobody I know has read 14, so I'm very curious to check it out too.
  
  Before I end this, I would also like to add that for some god forsaken reason I never mentioned the manga when intiially reviewing this. The main reason I'm talking about the manga is simply because I want to drum up interest in this series, and introducing another way to experience it is a way to do that. It seems like a pretty solid adaptation of volumes 1-8 __(though they skipped 7 because it was just that mid)__. I've only actually skimmed through it, I don't really care to read the whole thing, which is why I'm not technically "reviewing" it, just dedicating a brief section to talk about it. It's very faithful to the novels unlike the TV drama which takes more liberties, it's also not very long, and the art is quite good. For some reason it sexualizes Kyouko more, which I'm not a huge fan of as someone who sees her as a cute and fashionable character and not as a sexy character, but it's whatever. 
  
  __Slightly NSFW:__
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  <img width='' src='https://i.imgur.com/zCIPaYD.png'>
  <img width='' src='https://i.imgur.com/wGmqRbj.png'>
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  Fanservice! What a way to end the review. Anyways, check out this series please, whether it be in novel, manga, or drama form, there's no excuse not to, especially if you're a Nisio Isin fan.

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