There was a long and meandering road here that started with thinking "man, it's been so long since I paid attention to what's happening in anime" and ended with me signing up for a free trial with Crunchyroll. Then feeling like an ancient tomb horror upon seeing all of the shows titled with all the brevity of keyword-stuffed item descriptions from sketchy webshops! But in the middle of Reincarnated as the Demon King's Slime Monster Concubine (How Did This Happen?!)!* and such, I saw a life preserver thrown to me specifically: Fuuto PI. As in the animated sequel to Kamen Rider W.

* Actually, if this were a real title I would have watched it immediately. I should write this isekai novel and put it on Kindle Unlimited.



- Shoutarou posing dramatically with his hat in front of the water, taking selfies and sending them to Akiko to prove that he's cool. Akiko would like him to stop dicking around and do his job. 10/10, perfect depiction of my favorite disaster, absolutely no notes.

- A mysterious, scantily-clad woman is now here? Shoutarou, you have been here before. She is either going to be the villain or she's going to be a client who is not interested in your pickup lines. (Or she'll be both, like the plot with Kirihiko's sister!) If this were a Delusion Diary short I'd assume she's going to turn into a velociraptor.

- HA, of course the moment she says something he construes as sexual he freaks out and leaves.

- Akiko saying one of their services is "cat matchmaking" I actually 100% believe this has happened.

- PHILIP MY LOVE. Of course he starts paying attention when Shoutarou is talking about how hot this witch they're hired to find is... because he wants to see Shoutarou get played in this obvious setup.

- You guys are mean and Shoutarou is leaving!! Why don't you support his dreams of hooking up with a hot, scantily-clad witch who shows up at very convenient times??

- Aww, we get a montage of all the Fuuto weirdos! Queen and Elizabeth! Santa! Watcherman! Shoutarou having his daily breakdown in the ramen shop!

- The witch is stealing people's clothes? Shoutarou is going over there IMMEDIATELY. Not because he wants her to steal his clothes. Of course not. That would not be cool or sexy. But he's definitely going over there to investigate.

- WHY WON'T THESE SECURITY GOONS BELIEVE THAT A SEXY WITCH TELEPORTED HIM THROUGH A HELL DIMENSION AND INTO THIS BUILDING? In Shoutarou's defense, this is a totally normal thing that probably happens daily in Fuuto.

- Oh apparently the sexy witch is also murdering and dismembering people? Maybe she secretly is a velociraptor.

- This is like the Persona 4 TV universe version of Fuuto, but with something firing a giant laser. Damn, now I want that AU.

- Not to IMPUGN your PROFESSIONALISM or anything, Shoutarou, but did you seriously TELEPORT TO THE WARHAMMER WARP without Philip? Who has luckily followed you here to help you dodge the death laser?

- I just noticed that Philip has switched to wearing metal binder clips in his hair instead of neon plastic ones. This is how you know he is a Mature Adult (tm) now.



Consensus after one episode: that was literally an animated episode of Kamen Rider W, which is exactly what I wanted from it. The only thing that could have improved it was a Terui appearance. Maybe he's spending less time at the detective agency since they started their cat matchmaking service.

And now I want to write a Persona/Kamen Rider W fusion. (Shoutarou's persona is Sam Spade. Terui's is the demon car from Devil Summoner. I don't know what anyone else's would be.)