Kimizuka Kimihiko is a magnet for bad events. He constantly gets caught up in everything from witnessing drug deals to getting kidnapped. This time, he was forced to carry an unknown package on a flight by criminals, which leads him to an encounter with the legendary detective, Siesta. After helping this beautiful girl unravel a case surrounding a mysterious organization she is hunting, he becomes her assistant. Fast-forward four years later and Kimizuka attends school aimlessly. After four years of international adventure, he is without purpose now that Siesta is dead. However, after meeting a girl that received Siesta’s heart from an organ transplant, this leads him right back to his mystery-solving days.
Well, good on this series for veering off into a direction I did not expect. I thought it would be ghosts! Anyway, if you are looking for more anime recommendations like The Detective is Already Dead, head on down below.
Anime Like The Detective is Already Dead
For Fans of a Detective and Their Assistant
Gosick
Kujou Kazuya is a transfer student to the elite Saint Marguerite Academy in the Southern European country of Sauville. However, because of his Japanese descent, he is shunned by the other students. One day in the library of the school, he ends up following a long blonde hair to a beautiful doll-like girl call Victorique de Blois who can predict the future, including their own currently entwined one. Together, the pair begin to solve the mysteries that are beginning to plague their surroundings.
While different in setting, both series are about female detectives that coerce some guy into being their assistant. Of course they develop feelings for each other too. Gosick does have the more interesting mysteries, though.
Beautiful Bones – Sakurako’s Investigation
Initially, high schooler Shoutaro is suspicious of Sakurako Kujo, a cool beauty in her twenties, for the disappearances in his neighborhood. However, he soon learns her true talent is analyzing bones as an osteologist. Accompanying her on her outings, he finds himself embroiled in a number of mysteries.
This series is another mystery solver where a beautiful girl charms some guy into being her assistant. However, Beautiful Bones is obviously much more grounded by being about an actual forensic science rather than the more grand and sweeping mysteries in The Detective is Already Dead.
Heaven’s Memo Pad
Narumi Fujishima doesn’t really fit in at school, but still craves friends. When another misfit introduces him to a strange NEET girl that lives above a ramen shop, he is drafted into her ultra elite private detective agency.
Both series feature loners who end up the assistant to a rather eccentric, but lovely female detective. They also have a similar passion for more grand mysteries that seem beyond the scope of such young people.
For Fans of Unique Mystery Solvers
Blast of Tempest
Hakaze Kusaribe is a sorceress tasked with protecting the Tree of Origins. However, when a rival member of her family seeking to revive the Tree of World’s End catches her, she is stuffed into a barrel and banished to an island. From there, Hakaze sends a message out to sea, one received by Mahiro Fuwa. In agreement to help Hakaze off the island, he asks that she use her magic to help find his sister’s killer.
Both series are about solving mysteries, but there is also something more going on. What makes these two most similar is that they aren’t your average mystery solvers because there is something grander and more complicated going on that you unravel as you watch.
Hyouka
After his sister’s nagging, energy-conservative Oreki joins the Classic Literature Club. However, he gets more than he bargained for when he is dragged into a 45-year-old mystery that surrounds their club room by the endlessly curious and intriguingly cute Chitanda. Alongside his club mates, he also finds himself dragged into a host of other cases by Chitanda’s curiosity, using his keen mind to come to logical solutions.
If you enjoy your mystery anime with a big side helping of romance and super cute girls, then Hyouka and the Detective is Already Dead have that in common. Hyouka is definitely the more grounded mystery solver, despite the touches of the supernatural.
Bungou Stray Dogs
The orphanage that Atsushi Nakajima has been living at has been recently plagued by a tiger that only he can see. Blaming him for the incident, they kick him out. Now homeless, he wanders the streets until he meets the eccentric Osamu Dazai and saves him from drowning. As it turns out, Dazai is a supernatural detective and agrees to help him solve the mystery.
Both shows start off about detectives, but Bungou Stray Dogs has a bigger emphasis on supernatural events and eventually goes full shounen battler and kind of forgets that it was a detective show.
Un-Go
Known at the Defeated Detective, Shinjuurou Yuuki solves mysteries with his associate Inga in dystopian Tokyo. While Yuuki’s insight and ingenuity help him solve many cases, his assistant appears to have other motives for pushing him forward.
Both shows are about solving mysteries, but there is also something else going on that you begin to understand more as you watch. However, whereas The Detective is Already Dead is more of an upbeat show, Un-Go leans more sinister.
For Fans of Complicated Romances
Charlotte
Yuu Otosaka has the ability to slip into other people’s mind and control them for five seconds at a time. He has been using it to get good grades, but after he is caught by the enigmatic Nao Tomori, he is forced to transfer to a special school to safeguard children with these powers from discovery. At this supernatural new school, he is forced to join the Student Council where he uses his powers to hunt down other young people who are using and abusing their own powers.
Both series have the fact that you can look at them, and they will end up much different than what you expect in common. In Charlotte, it starts off happy and very much a school slice of life before becoming much darker and complicated. The Detective is Already Dead has a twist, but plays that hand much earlier.
In/spectre
At a young age, Kotoko Iwanaga was abducted by yokai and asked to become their Goddess of Wisdom to act as a mediator between spiritual and human issues. She agreed and lost her right eye and left leg in the agreement. Meanwhile, Kotoko meets Kuro Sakuragawa, a man who just broke up with his girlfriend after a kappa fled before him. Kotoko makes her move to not only lock him down as a boyfriend, but to have him help her settle various disputes with spirits.
In both series, you basically have a guy pulled into solving problems with a unique girl that he comes to appreciate despite not being particularly enthused by at first. While The Detective is Already Dead dips into the supernatural, In/Spectre dives head first into it.
Beyond the Boundary
As the last surviving member of her clan of spirit warriors, Mirai Kuriyama must use her special power of fighting using her blood in order to subdue Youmu, creatures that are the manifestation of negative human emotions. One day at school she happens across Akihito, a rare half-breed Youmu in human form. Immediately trying to kill him, she finds out he is an immortal being and the two strike up an impromptu friendship.
Both series are about rather aimless male main characters that are pulled into a mystery solving/monster slaying business by cute girls one day. While the Detective is Already Dead has its twists, Beyond the Boundary is a more straightforward show, but it has similar sort of dynamics going on.
Do you have more anime recommendations like The Detective is Already Dead? Let fans know in the comments section below.
