Things I have watched lately: Mr. Brain

"Hey, sensei... am I the only one with a professional haircut?"

Tsukumo Ryuusuke is a neuroscientist who solves crime. Before that, he was a host, but then a wall fell on him and the resulting brain damage turned him into a genius. He works for the unbelievably advanced and well-funded Institute for Police Science.

Things that the IPS can do:

• Extract fingerprints from fuzzy security-camera images.
  
• Determine the age, place of birth, height, and face shape from someone's voice.

You can probably already tell that there's very little "science" in the Institute of Police Science. It reminds me of a less serious and less plausible version of CSI: New York. There's no way to enjoy this without suspending your disbelief - without nailing your disbelief to the wall in a closet, and then shutting the door and locking it.

I did enjoy it, although the characters are all pretty one-dimensional so far. There's the "cute" quirky genius, the shy assistant, the hard-boiled cop and his earnest young partner... Tsukumo is an annoying archetype, but tolerable. I hope that his assistant gets more depth, because she's kind of cute.

Bonus: I actually was pleasantly surprised by the solution to the mystery.

In episode two, Gackt shows up as a sociopathic murderer on death row, which I haven't watched yet because I'm still waiting for the subtitles. I do wonder how he found eyeliner and hair spray on death row - maybe that's the mystery Tsukumo is called in to solve? I'm looking forward to it.

("He must have used his left brain and his right brain in concert, giving him twice the mental power of an ordinary man! Who knows what he could do!")