“Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot and Marple” – Poirot goes anime

Okay, I’ve just laughed myself stupid this evening, and it’s because I’ve finally watched some of that Poirot/Marple anime series that originally came out in 2004-2005. The series adapts a number of Poirot and Marple stories and sort of blends them together through this primary character of a 16-year-old girl who is Miss Marple’s grand-niece, Maybelle West. She becomes a Poirot fangirl and desperately aspires to be (and becomes) the detective’s “junior assistant,” eventually sharing house with Miss Lemon and tagging along with Poirot and Hastings on their expeditions.

And she has a pet duck named Oliver.

Does this sound like the classic makings of a Mary Sue fanfic? Why yes, yes it does!

When you see the theme opening, you’d be excused for thinking that you’ve shown up to the wrong party. The focus is almost entirely on this Maybelle West character and her faithful duck companion, with Christie’s detectives appearing almost incidental . And the theme song is, well… you really do have to hear it to believe it. I daren’t give away all the glories that await you, but here’s a tiny sample.  🙂

I may sound critical, but it’s got a few cute things going for it. The stories, except for all things connected with the insertion/wish-fulfillment style of character that Maybelle resembles, are at least fairly close to Christie’s originals. The attempt to blend the Poirot/Marple universes together through an external, unifying character is a valiant one. And it turns out that Anime!Hastings is kind of hot.

I say that Maybelle is Mary Sue-esque, but she doesn’t have a huge range of super-skills or anything like that (however, sometimes she is annoyingly quick to hit on certain clues that prove vital to the solving of the case). There are many, many moments in this series of “what is this, I can’t even.” She’s trying to “find herself” and Miss Marple gives her tremendously cheesy advice and… there’s the recurring duck…

You have to laugh.  😀  If your interest is piqued, you can watch “The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan” here.