First Impression: The Case Book of Arne

According to our narrator, in this world (a steampunk-flavored one), there are two kinds of people: Those who read comic books and perhaps even believe in nonhuman monsters, and those who do not. Enter young Louis Hartmann, who runs upstairs with this week’s installment of Wolf-Man Comics. A series of photographs tells us a story of a loving family that lost a mother to an illness. And tonight, Louis is about to receive the worst possible news. His father, a famous private detective, has become the latest victim of the “Grave-Digging Vampire.” As the name suggests, the crime scene isn’t pretty (quite the contrast with the more innocent tone so far, too), and some elements of it defy rational explanation. Seeing that even the police suspect the culprit is not a human being, the boy swears he will find the killer himself, and starts wearing his father’s Sherlock Holmes cap. After a banger of an opening, Louis visits the local tavern, where he finds a gang of kid detectives working on the case of the Grave-Digging Vampire. He is enraged, even if, as they point out, he is a kid too. In a beautiful field of silvery flowers, one of the detectives, a blond girl, convinces Louis to share info. But when he meets the group, something is off. Why is everyone seriously considering the possibility of a vampire committing the crime?

The opening salvo of The Case Book of Arne is a supernatural mystery that does many things right. It efficiently introduces us to a compelling group of kid characters in an innocent yet sinister world. It made me feel invested, as did the visuals and good sound design. The conclusion of the episode feels cathartic, too, and I felt genuine emotion watching it. At some points, I thought that this could become my favorite show of the season. Nevertheless, it makes some questionable choices that could easily end up becoming fatal flaws. I won’t comment on one complaint, since it’s a Hitchcockian spoiler. I’ll only say that the subversion made me feel deceived, and not in a good way. If episode 2 leaves things as they are now, it might just have sunk my investment in this show. The other problem is more general: The answer to the case is deduced in a rushed leap of logic that wouldn’t be out of place in Batman 66. A clear cause-and-effect chain from the clues to the culprit is pretty vital to a detective story of any sort, so this is a big point against Arne. So the jury is still out: The cool parts were still cool, and I’m willing to give it another episode in the hopes that it will pick up and stop shooting itself in the foot. We’ll see.

The Case Book of Arne can be streamed on Crunchyroll.