Ranpo kitan is a weird anime. It starts promising, a mystery and gore combined, with a detective work to be done. But the illusion is soon dispersed. There is barely any crime solving, and the answers are given to the audience plainly.The main character (?) Kobayashi, often serves no purpose but to be a trap flavour. Now I don't have a problem with traps, cross-dressing or boy love, but he simply is redundant in the series. The real character is Akechi -- he has a backstory and an actual personality. That of a typical conflicted prodigy, but a personality nonetheless. The show's strength are its secondary characters - the Shadow Man and the Black Lizard were one of the more enjoyable parts apart from the introductions of the crimes.Ah, the crimes - they are pretty to look at. Gruesome, true, but pretty at the same time. Too bad that the show makes them irrelevant by terrible pacing. Most of the crimes are pictured in one or two episodes, including travel, dialogue, interjections, backgrounds, etc. Again, the investigations are non-existent. The first arc was quite captivating, and the introduction of the 20faces was interesting, but terribly executed, with clunky narration, omission of crucial details in the present narration (the policeman's sister...) and rushed ending. I do have to admit that even though everything was rushed I was able to produce an emotional response to the second, the concrete arc, as well as to the main victim of the police part the 20faces arc. Weirdly enough, we get a filler episode after that, and then there is an introductory episode to the Islands arc, which develops the 20faces plot. Now this crime scene I find the prettiest. The animation and execution of the mannequins is splendid. That is as far as anything of value in the arc. The next one starts a plot about Akechi's past, which turns out to be one of the most senseless series of plot twists I have ever witnessed. The transformation of the medical assistant into a second class villain is, well, uncalled for and pointless.As for the science involved, the producers throw the chaos theory and the Laplace's demon around as if the audience has every knowledge on the subject. It is a part of noitaminA, yes, but this is just another example of senseless rushing through the series (which has a filler episode!). It, as far as I know, is never explained how exactly a program with calculations influences reality. It's simply said that it does. Well, that's an explanation on the level of "It's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit". I find it to be extremely badly done.All in all, with a redundant, fanservice protagonist, horrible issues with pacing, meaningless investigation process and lack of mystery in mystery anime, I still find the series to be really pretty, and technically absolutely greatly done. The music is on par with the animation, too, opening, ending, and ost alike. If only the anime had been directed in a different way, it would be a much better show. As it is now, it's a huge disappointment with a terrible and anticlimatic finale.