So now that I’m venturing more into anime topics I thought I’d take the time to review my first series.  B the Beginning is about a detective Keith Flick who is trying to solve a series of murders caused by someone known as Killer B only to find that there’s a mysterious third party in play that’s trying to set the stage to complete a legacy left behind by an ancient prophecy.  I just finished watching B The Beginning and I wound up having quite a few thoughts regarding how I felt about the series so I’m going to just jump right into the review.

I really loved the acting in this show.  I can honestly say there wasn’t a single character that I disliked which is hard for most shows to accomplish and because each character was likable it made the season as a whole more interesting and captivating.  The show got a really great cast including Kyle Mccarly and Ray Chase as two of the show leads which lead to a phenomenal performance.

The story was really interesting, while not perfect I loved the story from start to finish.  I enjoyed how I had to piece together all the information as little bits and details were provided and they were not very giving with said details around the beginning of the season.  This is where I take issue with the show.  Towards the middle of the season we get so much detail that I was honestly shocked to get so much information at one time.  Furthermore the main detective Keith Flick seemed to be figuring out a lot of the details as he went along only to be the one that dished out most of the information in the big revelations towards the middle of the season.  I started to wonder how much he actually figured out during the show and how much he just knew the entire time and just faked the audience out.

We find out really quickly what Killer B’s motives are and most of his back story and we also find out the third party and its intentions so by the middle of the season we know almost every major character and how they are involved with the series of puzzles Keith Flick is trying to unravel; however, this also sets the tone for more battles towards the end of the season and the big reveal of who the main enemy pulling the strings was, but after the enemy is stopped it feels like the season just ends very abruptly which was a little disappointing as I was expecting a lot of mysteries to come unraveled right at the end of the show only for that to be dwindled down to one big reveal in the end.

On a side note, without spoiling anything, I’m really surprised one character that shows up on the side of the road at the end of the last episode wasn’t arrested.  Overall the story was intriguing and it was fun seeing all the puzzles set for our characters.

The animation was another huge plus to this show as all of the characters were beautifully drawn and animated. While most of the show had dark tones which really set the theme nicely, the moments that required bright vibrant colors were really well done and I found myself loving the details you could see in each character and each action.  One of the things I really liked was how Koku’s eye was drawn and I found it quite mesmerizing.

Overall the story was good, but had some moments where it felt like we got so much at once but it did do a nice job to transition into more combat elements of the plot without having to reveal too many story points.  I found this show in particular is difficult to explain because it started off as a traditional detective story with some fantasy elements but makes a huge shift in the middle of the season to more of an action story and more focus on those fantasy elements.  The transition was shocking and a little disappointing as I was hoping for more mysteries throughout the show rather than just a couple saved at the end but other than that I have no major complaints about the series.