YMMV / Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace

• Ho Yay: Kobayashi and Hashiba. Kobayashi has no problem with giving Hashiba his clothes to hold onto when he's changing. In the same scene, Hashiba freaks out when he handed him his boxers and again when he comes out wearing a dress. The final episode has Hashiba saving Kobayashi from jumping off a clock tower, tearfully telling him he doesn't want him to die and how much he means to him, and it was also revealed that Hashiba had a Friendless Background until he met Kobayashi.
  • Akechi and Namikoshi. The entire episode dedicated to their backstory played like a tragic love story. The two were each other's only friends in junior high. Akechi would frequently beat off the people bullying Namikoshi, and Namikoshi found strength in Akechi's presence to continue working on their formula. Akechi even told Namikoshi he had a great smile, and when Akechi told Namikoshi to stop working on the formula Namikoshi was heartbroken, believing Akechi had rejected him like everyone else in his life. And then there's Last Days, which has very romantic lyrics, and which the viewer gradually comes to understand is meant to be about Akechi and Namikoshi.
• Magnificent Bastard: The original Twenty-Faces, Namikoshi, pioneered the Serial-Killer Killer phenomenon after he spent his childhood bullied by his classmates and abused by his parents, before making friends with the brilliant Kogoro Akechi, together creating the "Dark Star" formula. Accelerating the coding of the formula as the abuse he suffered worsened, the Dark Star was set to murder both his abusers and those in society who take advantage of their power. When Akechi realizes their formula is lethally unstable, Twenty-Faces fakes his own death, then teams up with a medical examiner who works with Akechi to avenge the death of her brother. Kidnapping Akechi's assistant, Twenty-Faces takes him and ten children to the top of a clock-tower, planning to murder them all by having them jump in five-minute intervals. While he may be ruthlessly unfettered in his goals, Twenty-Faces truly believes his doings will be what creates a just and fair society.
• Nightmare Fuel: The very first episode begins with Kobayashi waking up in a classroom splattered with blood and seeing his teacher mutilated in a really gross way.
  • Watanuki in general, kidnapping young girls from families is already scary on its own, but what he does to punish the girls is another thing...
  • The final episode has Namikoshi positioning 10 children at a clock tower and have each of them jump off one by one every 5 minutes.
• Tear Jerker: The climax of episode 3, Shadow-man infiltrates Watanuki's hideout, only to find out Sachiko is not with the other girls eating dinner. He does find her, but as a wall decoration, making it clear that she's dead.
  • The fate of Keisuke's sister, and his following breakdown inside his now empty house.
  • Namikoshi's death at the final episode.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Kobayashi.

---