your tags on the lady layton anime poll tell me you didn't exactly enjoy watching it
Personally, i can only agree and i have my reasons for it, but I'm still curious as to why you dislike it?
I don't like it mainly because it's so... obviously made for little kids. In every part of it.
No culprit is actually bad, but rather 99% of them were doing a bad thing for a good reason, which is fine once in a while, but this is the case in literally every single episode, and it gets old quickly. They made a detective/mystery anime with no actual crimes depicted. I mean come on.
On top of that, the episodes are so painfully formulaic. The mysteries themselves are interesting enough though, which is probably the only reason why i managed to suffer through it to the end.
I also just generally dislike Layton becoming a father. I don't doubt he'd be good at it, but he just doesn't seem like the kind of person who would just adopt a whole ass child. I'm also generally not a fan of "popular character becomes a parent, so their child can continue their legacy". I just hate that trope in general. Children are not their parents and it's unrealistic to expect them to be.
And I'm also not a big fan of the main characters. I could probably write more if i seriously thought about it, but as a whole i can say that i just find them grating.
Katrielle is supposedly an "english lady", but we rarely see her acting actually ladylike in the anime. Her interest in sweets is fine enough, but it's so overblown that it's just not believable anymore and instead turns into her only character trait, completely overshadowing her supposed interest in mysteries, which just seems like bad writing.
And while the main plot, so to speak, of the whole show is her finding the professor, the only times that even comes up is in the episodes that are exclusively about that. Katrielle isn't really shown to be missing him at all, not even in private, which makes it seem more like she's searching for him out of obligation rather than because she actually wants to.
The moments shown of Katrielle and Layton in the past are so few, it just seems like they wanted to do their own thing with the show, but had to slap the Layton brand name onto it for the brand recognition, and i wouldn't be surprised if that was the truth tbh.
Noah, or as the english subs called him, "Ernest" (for whatever reason), is probably my least favourite kind of character. I don't know, maybe it's his character design that makes me dislike him so much. I hate how he's such a huge scaredy cat and that being his one and only sole character trait. Seriously, what other character traits does he have? If you know any, please tell me, because i legit cannot think of any.
Well, he does have this one other character trait of having a huge crush on Katrielle, but is unable or unwilling to actually ever act on it, which is a trope that I'm just so tired of. Like, either grow some balls and make a move instead of being passive aggressive to every other potential partner that approaches her, or give up on your crush and grow a personality! I don't care about how "realistic" this kind of thing is supposed to be, it makes for a terrible character.
That coupled with his general demeanor just makes him boring as hell. If he was replaced by a lapdog that got carried around in a small purse, i doubt the anime would be much different.
His only backstory we get is his two-episode backstory thing, but the whole thing hinges on an initial misunderstanding, or rather, it hinges on everyone else deliberately keeping Noah in the dark. He shows character traits in those episodes that could actually lead to him becoming interesting, but as soon as those are over, he's back to his normal, boring self, which is a huge shame.
Sherl the dog is the classic (and literal, in this case) example of "all bark, no bite". It's never explained why only Katrielle and Noah can understand him, and this fact doesn't matter either, because it's rarely, if ever, called out by other characters. He doesn't have the sense of smell like a typical dog, effectively making him useless.
His role is the animal mascott of the agency and anime, the third character to make a trio, and to be the comic relief. That last one is a shame though, because he's not funny at all. Or maybe the whole "yelling at ridiculous character for being ridiculous" thing is just not my thing.
These are my main reasons. There are a few more things I don't like, but those are more nitpicks.
So I know why I don't the anime (and now so do you), but I'm curious as to why you don't like it. Same reasons as me? Completely different?
your reasons are really valid criticisms and i agree with most but mine are actually pretty different
my reasons are probably going to be more based on bias rather than the overall quality of the show bc to be completely honest with you i hate both mystery room & lady layton and think both attempts to “reboot” layton was lazy, uninspired and unnecessary
and if a lot of this makes me sound like an old ass man its bc i am when it comes to layton. my 7 year old ass was playing CV on its release week in the US. im an OG snob to the bone so honestly you should take my beef with LMDA with a grain of salt when it comes to presenting legit critique bc while i do hav legit critique, above all else i have “i just hate this shit”
hino ignored “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” and for that i never intended to give either spin-off a chance and im not ashamed to admit that this point. i knew i wasnt going to like mystery room when it was announced, but it was so obviously a spin-off that it was very easy to ignore and safely assume it was just an AU type deal
but then shit got personal when i found out LMJ was going to be professor layton’s successor. back in the day when all that hoopla was occurring i always had to back up my complaints by emphasizing its not bc i don’t like the change, its bc of x and bc of y.
but the truth is there was nothing wrong with LMJ in regards to the game they were trying to make. LMJ and by extension LMDA is for kids, marketed towards kids. thats why the puzzles are piss easy. they’re not badly made, they’re for children. the plot isn’t sterile and corny and safe, its for kids.
if LMJ/LMDA were a spinoff i wouldnt have had such a problem with it. but it wasnt. it was supposed to be a successor to layton, but its not a successor, its a total replacement that fails its source material in every possible way
and thats my problem with it. professor layton didn’t need to be remade. it didn’t need to be remade for children. children could stomach the original perfectly fine. the unwound future trauma beat my 8 yr old ass and i came out just fine
there is nothing wrong with LMJ/LMDA if it stayed in its fucking lane. instead hino attempted to replace a franchise with it that was totally and utterly different in every aspect which totally alienated OG fans and completely failed to capture new ones
and i hate LMDA more strongly bc the relic stone arc is such a failure of a professor layton story. it steps all over hershel’s character and makes him such a prideful deadbeat who gladly sends himself and luke to their possible demise for NO fucking reason. if layton knew they were going to get captured by rufus aldebaran’s stupid cult then why the FUCK did he let luke come with him. jesus fucking christ. he would not let that boy walk to his death
..or maybe he would bc of what happened in azran legacy. fuck me. i swear to god everything thats wrong with LMDA i can trace back to azran legacys writing somehow
hershel aside it also shat on any of the impact that we would’ve gotten seeing luke’s growth. LMDA just throws a fucking eeeve stone at him and even then we learn almost fucking nothing about him or his wife or how they met. marina is the only character i found even a little bit interesting due to how fucking hardass it was that she indoctrinated herself into the cult that froze her man for 10 yrs JUST so she could one day save him. but ofc the fandom shat on her when LMDA was airing bc she wasnt luke’s husband (which she is btw. sorry some of u werent woke enough to see that)
hino obv knows by now that the reboot failed in nwos is any indication. and i don’t want to rip on hino bc at the end of the day after azran legacy blew fat stank ass in sales, he was just trying to bring bag back to professor layton. this just wasnt it and hopefully the hype around nwos has showed him the actual way forward for the franchise and if hes swagful enough he’ll just start giving LMJ the flora treatment
but yea this is such my brainshit of thoughts for why i personally hate LMJ/LMDA. hopefully it was even a little bit coherent and ty for giving me a chance to ramble and sharing your own thoughts 💖
