English Dub Review: Pretty Boy Detective Club “The Pretty Boy Traveling with the Brocade Portrait(Part 2)”

Overview

The reason for Kodaki’s strange behavior remains unclear, but her family background and an incident that occurred in the past between her and the Pretty Boy Detective Club becomes apparent. Nagahiro finally decides to make a long-overdue important decision… What will be the fate between the girl known as the devil and the titular Pretty Boy Detective Club?



Our Take

I wouldn’t have suspected Kodaki was actually in love with Manabu, and that the revelation of her circumstances would humanize her so much, but we finally get to understand more about Kodaki thanks to Nagahiro. Kodaki’s backstory is sad though, the antiquated concepts of “Nobility and Status” are shitty things rich people tend to cling to for the sake of relevance…

The art direction, color palettes, and framing remain consistently bright and colorful despite how fast-paced this episode felt. And for this being “Part 2” of a previous storyline, the writing itself was the most straightforward and relied heavily on the overuse of monologuing and with characters that weren’t super-deep either, and a fancy art style can’t do much to change that.

Overall, I still enjoyed the conclusion and the plethora of twists this episode unleashed. I also really liked how this implicitly confirms there won’t ever be any romantic drama in the series. It just wouldn’t feel right given the lighthearted & wacky mood otherwise. And after what’s happened, I think Kodaki and Mayumi are gonna be great friends and with 3 episodes to go for this season, What direction could the show possibly go next?