Let's address the elephant in the room here: the key visual is misleading, as are the plot summaries on Crunchyroll and IMDB. All of The Case Book of Arne revolves around the girl Lynn first and foremost. However, the first episode is anime-exclusive, deviating from the original RPG Maker game through a new introduction and a fake main character, Louis. He's obsessed with beasts and the supernatural, and after his detective father is mysteriously murdered, Louis vows revenge, teams up with Lynn and Arne's detective crew to uncover the killer, only to meet a terrible fate at the end of the episode anyway. Viewers familiar with the original game have a right to be bewildered by how and why the anime needed to fake the audience out like this. However, I entered this show blind, and thus I beg to differ.

Even as it wades into cliche territory, the first episode does a neat little job of making you think Louis is going to be the main character. Louis is given a mystery to solve right off the bat, one that's personal to him, one we can at least identify with, and certainly enough of one that can span an entire series. Louis is also given a touch of personality with his obsession, and while he initially believes that the supernatural doesn't exist in this world, his finding out that, yes, they do, in fact, exist could have been enough to shatter his reality and, in turn, could have furthered his development. He looks like a detective too, which feels appropriately main character-y considering how Case Book of Arne is about solving mysteries. It also helps that, despite the episode's introductory tone, this episode utilizes a bit of in media res to throw the audience off. Chronologically speaking, this episode has to occur about halfway through the series—you can see Arne's zombie girl assistant holding a stuffed animal character we don't properly meet until later on. To Lynn and Arne, this is just another mystery to solve, but the audience doesn't know that yet, since the episode is so focused on Louis. It is as we're starting to get used to Louis that the show throws the curveball. The mystery behind his father's murder is solved, and Louis is abruptly killed by a golem. The character dynamic and story shifts so abruptly that it allows the show to successfully defy expectations. The story won't be about Louis after all. Not to say it comes anywhere close to achieving the same level of genius as Hitchcock (obviously), yet I can't help but be reminded of the famous rug pull from Psycho, where you think Marion Crane is going to be the main character. And then she steps into the shower and meets the same unfortunate end.

If only the rest of the series were that suspenseful. The other eleven episodes of Arne devote themselves to separate murder mysteries that often play out like dreadfully long games of Clue. The next batch of episodes is devoted to Lynn discovering Arne and then trying to solve a complicated murder mystery surrounding her father. The other batch, roughly half the series, goes off on other episodic whodunits involving mermaids, an invisible, a jewel thief, and Medusa herself. I'll admit that the mystery involving an invisible family mid-way through the series had potential, since their invisibility makes it unclear who's really who, and therefore invites some unpredictability to enter the mix. Disappointingly, this episode ends on a cliffhanger that goes unresolved. What's frustrating is that some of these mysteries are resolved through the use of shonen-style fights that pop out of nowhere in an effort to give the show some extra juice to it. Then there are the final two episodes, where the show decides to pull some serious straws by ending things on a fight with Dracula. Because reasons. The final episode of Arne even has a character posing in front of Dracula's Castle, no differently than Simon Belmont does at the start of Castlevania. It feels so lazy.

My biggest problem is that the show seems to rely too much on the premises and not enough on the characters. They just exist as cliches. Arne's a vampire private eye whose only personality trait is to be stoic and brooding. His zombie girl assistant seems to be there for pure convenience. Another character lives in mirrors, grins, and speaks in riddles like he's the Cheshire Cat, although he claims to be the Boy Who Cried Wolf. And as for our (actual) lead, Lynn, she shifts between being an indistinguishable moe-girl protag to a vampire fangirl when the occasion calls for it. We're made to believe she becomes a vampire for a brief moment, and right when you think such a transformation could provide some development, she stares into her reflection in a mirror. Guess what? She's not a vampire. Psych!

In the bits and pieces of the original game I've seen on YouTube, I've noticed that Lynn's vampire fangirlisms are definitely there, but the anime decides to crank this up a notch. She drools, shrieks, and waves glow sticks when she's in the presence of vampires, all to comic effect. I laughed at how stupid and silly it was, which, take what you want from it, what you will, it doesn't erase the fact that it's still stupid and silly. In the game, when she opens Arne's coffin, there's an eerier, more subtle feel to it, probably due to the narrative limitations of RPG Maker. In the anime, Lynn opens Arne's coffin with all the manic glee of a wacky cartoon character, and it all comes complete with exaggerated movements and comedically dull thuds. It feels tonally off. (Mildly off-topic: I've noticed that this show has a thing for inserting comic relief when it's not required. There's a gag involving rainbow vomit, for example. Another gag involving the stuffed animal character mentioned a few paragraphs ago gets the stuffing beaten out of them by neighborhood cats in a scene with cartoony onomatopoeia out the wazoo.)

One additional compliment I will give rests within the music. The OP and ED are bops with how carnival-esque they are. Even better is that Case Book of Arne has Yoshiaki Fujisawa composing the score, and yes, it's as well-orchestrated as you'd expect it to be. At least on a technical level. Some pieces give off immaculate Revue Starlight vibes, although the narrative doesn't really allow his score to really stand out here. Fujisawa's talent falls by the wayside here, his music transmogrified into background noise.

So yes, this is an anime that produces mixed-to-negative results for me. The story doesn't really go anywhere, since none of the smaller mysteries get tied into something that would make for a more meaningful narrative. The art isn't novel, and neither is the animation, although I give the latter credit for not being a slow-moving mess when it came time for the forced fight sequences. I guess when you kill off the only character with any semblance of interesting motives and personality right at the very beginning, there ain't much else you can do to make sure your story has sauce.