Kato is a beleaguered police officer just trying to do his job. As the story opens, he gets roped into helping lost children at an antique car festival. And then there’s a bomb plot, an attempted jewelry store robbery (heavy emphasis on “attempted”), and some guy named Kanbe Daisuke shows up acting outrageously while claiming to be police inspector? Soon Kato finds himself wrapped up in Daisuke’s antics…which consist of doing dangerous things while paying anyone and everyone so much hush money that they won’t complain about whatever he does. No wonder Kato’s in a bad mood. By the end of the episode, it seems likely that Kato and Daisuke are going to end up in some sort of cantankerous buddy cop situation.
The buddy cop show is an old story premise (albeit not one especially common for anime), and can be perfectly entertaining when done right. Balance: UNLIMITED has potential…if the story addresses how Daisuke gets away with solving every problem by throwing money at it while avoiding charges for bribery, assault, reckless driving, etc. Surely not every civil official in Tokyo is on his payroll, right? The car chase was interesting, the episode certainly kept me guessing what was going to happen next, and there’s some amusing irony in a rich dude bribing (?) his way into becoming a police inspector. There are also some fairly obvious hints that both leads have mysteries in their backgrounds. If the show can convince me that Daisuke is more than just an arrogant, irritating jerk, it might turn out to be kind of fun.
The Millionaire Detective – Balance: UNLIMITED can be streamed on Funimation.
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