Hi! I'd like to hear your opinion on STY's anime. Mine's probably very biased since I read the source material first, tho aside from how they made the cases very simple and pretty much skipped everything, the way they portrayed the characters was probably what bothered me most. ESPECIALLY Yakumo and Haruka. Yakumo barely made any expression throughout the episodes although in the light novel he does smile, even laughs (sometimes outbursts XD). Regardless, I'd like to hear your opinion.
I didn't read the source material prior to watching it but I read the manga first (this was at a time when the anime was still pretty recent and the manga storyline hasn't gone very far, so the anime was my exposure to the start of the novel storyline's escalation at volume 5-6). I did rewatch it at some point but my memory of it is pretty hazy so my opinion is also probably both biased and somewhat unreliable 🤷♂️ (admittedly I'm at a point where I'm not reliant on official materials to maintain interest in the series so I'm sure some of you revisit it more often than I do).
I think I mostly have the same opinion as you. It was lacking in a lot of aspects including what you've mentioned, and when recommending the series I always advise against watching it as one's first introduction to the series.
The problem with way they portrayed the characters I think is that they were trying to emulate Oda-sensei's style and depiction of the characters especially with lead characters like Yakumo and Haruka, but were too focused on making them look a certain way that they fall short in making the characters look more expressive. I think that's a fairly common trap when it comes to drawing characters in manga/anime style though (it's honestly one of my biggest worry with my own art too; I value faithful characterization pretty highly).
Honestly if we were to talk about the show's content itself the main (perhaps sole) highlight of the anime to me would be Daisuke Ono's performance...All else aside, I'm glad they actually managed to get a notable VA for Yakumo.
At the end of the day, an adaptation is an adaptation. Every medium has its own strengths and limitations which meant not everything from the source material will always be adaptable from one medium to another. Add in other constraints like budget, project timeline, executive decisions, manpower and number of episodes, then perhaps they had done all they could even if the end product leaves much to be desired. Hence to me, the adaptation's shortfall doesn't feel like ones that are unique to the series but rather common with anime adaptations in particular. This reasoning is simply how I made peace with the adaptation. Even the way it was, it still helped introduce people to the series and bring their attention to the manga and original novel as well.
Will we ever get a reboot? Honestly, I don't really expect one, although I always appreciate new official JP content in any form as a sign the series is alive and well! The novels are doing well enough in Japan that it allowed Kaminaga-sensei to write more for the series (in fact, they just announced the official start date of the sequel and complete edition today). However, I've been feeling that the type of audience the series primarily attracted in Japan doesn't necessarily overlap with anime and/or manga audiences...I don't know how else to describe it and it could very well be my own hunch but that's just how I feel. We'll just have to wait and see.
