Just finished: Toshi Densetsu no Onna

This fell a little short of being recommended. It's funny and interesting (and the subtitles were fantastic!) but too often the solutions to the crime didn't quite make sense.

But perhaps that's just me rewatching it and noticing stuff that I didn't see first time. Certainly, if you're only interested in a light-hearted murder mystery, but not bothered if a couple of clues don't add up, then this should be right up your street.

Nagasawa Masami seems to have a lot of fun as the over-excitable police detective with a fixation on urban legends. I have to commend her ability at finding new ways of expressing delight each time she encounters a possible myth. Meanwhile, Takenaka Naoto is great in the role of her boss who grows increasingly frustrated at her crazy theories. And Mizobata Junpei is funny as the unrequited love interest. But special mention has to go to Takuma Takayuki who plays the "villain", Gohara. He convincingly takes his character from unsympathetic opponent of the main characters, to someone who is also confused by/caught up in Otonashi's ideas.

The urban myths were cleverly written into the murder cases, so that they seemed like an actual part of the crime rather than just added on as an afterthought. Episode seven, though, was a bit odd since it included a genuine supernatural event, but Officer Otonashi didn't seem too excited about it.

In short, this is another in a long line of somewhat-supernatural crime thrillers, such as Galileo and Trick, which doesn't take itself too seriously and is all the better for it.