One of the most wonderful things about anime is that a story told in animated form need not constrain itself within the boundaries of reality. Anime can take you to far universes and unthinkable futures, and sometimes, anime can play with reality in new ways.
For mystery anime, one of their very favorite ways to play is to tell supernatural mystery tales steeped in urban legends and scary stories, bringing those old tales to real life for the characters.
And then sometimes they can use that expectation to subvert expectations by making the supernatural mystery just have a normal, real solution anyway.
These mystery anime that seem supernatural, but actually aren’t, are a perfect twist to what we’ve come to expect. We know that urban legends that seem supernatural probably have some real cause, but we usually don’t know what it is. These series rip the mask off Scooby Doo-style and show you the real, boring, unimpressive villains behind every reality-defying mystery.
Mystery Anime That Seems Supernatural But Isn’t
Hyouka
If there were a noble hierarchy for this mystery trope where a mystery seems supernatural, but actually isn’t, Hyouka would be the king of it.
Anime is overflowing with supernatural mystery series where teens go to school and find their school, town, and great-nan’s bathroom absolutely overrun with ghosts and ghouls—and Hyouka knows it. So, it takes that set up, and has a very apathetic young man walk through the very real explanations for the supernatural-seeming mysteries that his energetic club member-slash-love interest brings to him.
While listening to a monotone kid talk through why something supernatural didn’t happen might not seem like the most compelling thing to watch, but Hyouka shines through its characters and their interactions together. Its well-thought out mysteries were perhaps meant to be the star, only for a wild Chitanda to steal the show.
Shoshimin
Created by the same author as Hyouka, Shoshimin seems, at first, like it is following Hyouka’s formula to the letter. It follows two teens that find themselves involved in small, sometimes supernatural-seeming mysteries that have mundane, real explanations.
However, unlike Hyouka that works very hard to make you think at least one mystery has some origin in the supernatural, Shoshimin does the opposite. It unnerves you with its stoic, emotionless dual detectives, almost tricking you into thinking that they—not the mysteries—are the supernatural ones, observing causal human normalcy with a disinterest that makes your skin crawl.
Ameku MD
Not all mystery anime need to be murder mysteries, the opposite end of the spectrum, the medical mystery about saving lives, can be just as compelling. Ameku MD attempts to shake up the standard medical mystery formula by making its brilliant little female Dr. House solve medical mysteries that, often, really seem like they couldn’t be real.
Similar to Black Jack that uses real medical knowledge and techniques, but definitely stretches the truth with its sci-fi elements, Ameku MD uses real medical diagnoses to explain away things like spontaneous human combustion, bleeding blue blood, or other maladies that shouldn’t be possible.
Pretty Boy Detective Club
The Pretty Boy Detective Club is the cute, often overlooked little brother of Nisio Ishin’s many fine mystery works that have made it to anime. Unlike the Monogatari series where it is extremely obvious right from the weightless falling lady that something is supernatural is going on or Kubikiri Cycle where its just a brutal murder mystery on an island of extraordinary geniuses, Pretty Boy Detectives likes to keep you guessing whether it is normal or not.
In Pretty Boy Detectives, you follow—you guessed it—a pretty girl, cross-dressing as a boy who is trying to solve her own vague mystery of finding a star she once saw. She is drafted into a secret club of beautiful men in her middle school known as the Pretty Boy Detective Club to solve a wide variety of little mysteries.
Interestingly enough, the unique visual style in which Pretty Boy Detective Club is presented really makes the series seem, not so much supernatural, but a little magic-laced. Yet, if you are listening to its long-winded and verbose narrative, they really nail it home that anything extra to reality in this series is the stuff of imagination.
Box of Goblins
Like Pretty Boy Detective Club, Box of Goblins hides its reality under supernatural visuals, keeping you guessing as to whether this is just a normal murder mystery, or something more.
Box of Goblins follows a group of men who are all, together or in their own way, looking into a series of brutal incidents in which a young girl’s dismembered body is placed in ornate boxes and left all over town.
As Box of Goblins is told non-linearly, enjoys its long-winded, meandering conversations and melancholy, reality-defying visuals, both of which it makes the series seem supernatural.
However, Box of Goblins is not a supernatural mystery anime, it is very much a psychological mystery anime, where it is the mind of the characters that is bending reality, not the writing itself.
Mononoke Lecture Logs
Mononoke Lecture Logs is a bit of a prequel spin-off to Box of Goblins mentioned above. It works with the younger versions of some characters above and crafts a more teen-friendly series of mysteries.
That doesn’t mean Mononoke Lecture Logs is full of child-like mysteries. No, it can be just as tragic and brutal, but not the same “finding a dead girl’s body parts in boxes” levels of brutal that Box of Goblins employs.
Regardless, Mononoke Lecture Logs follows its more mature sequel’s lead in crafting mysteries that do seem supernatural, but have solutions steeped in sad reality. Unlike Box of Goblins, Mononoke Lecture Logs covers multiple mysteries that touch on old Japanese urban legends, and then offer real explanations for the events.
Woodpecker Detective’s Office
There is a charming thing about Mononoke Lecture Logs, set in early Post-war Shouwa Era Japan, where they investigate common Japanese urban legends and explain sort of how that perception of those legends would come to be from its real causes.
Woodpecker Detective’s Office does that, but goes back even further in time to Meiji Era Japan where belief in the supernatural was still very real because they lacked the ability to prove it was not.
Working heavily with this, Woodpecker Detective’s Office, which follows two fictionalized versions of real figures figures from the time period working as detectives, delves into heavily supernatural-seeming mysteries, and has those detectives point out the real causes for them to the normal, demon-fearing people of the time.
Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Detectives
Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions isn’t strictly non-supernatural, but it inches close enough that it merits a mention.
The titular detective in this series does have one teeny-tiny little superpower—the ability to tell murderers to go kill themselves and have them obey. It was an ability implanted in him and has ruined his career as a master detective.
Why this doesn’t completely disqualify Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions from this list is that while he may have that one, not-so-useful ability, all the cases are steeped in viable reality. They seem supernatural and reality-defying, but each of them has a real culprit and they walk you through the real ways it went down.
Do you have more mystery anime that seemed supernatural only to have real, logical conclusions at the end? Let fans know in the comments section below.
