Layton Mystery Tanteisha: Katri no Nazotoki File

The Layton Detective Agency, a business that helps its clients solve unusual mysteries, is run by Katrielle Layton—daughter of the world-renowned archaeology professor Hershel Layton. Together with her assistant Noah Montoir and talking dog Sherl, Katrielle finds herself unraveling cases involving a newly purchased cursed house, a dress imbued with a "demon's curse," and the zombie of a client's deceased spouse, just to name a few.

Aside from her more quirky cases, Katrielle has been working on another unsolved problem: the disappearance of her father. Founding the agency was only the first step in her attempt to uncover the truth behind his vanishing. As she continues to take on client after client, each with wackier and stranger issues to tackle, Katrielle steadily closes in on the answer to the biggest mystery of her life.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Layton, Katrielle Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Montoir, Noah Main

Ikeda, Kyousuke Japanese

Royer, Geraldine Main

Yamamura, Hibiku Japanese

Sherl Main

Kosugi, Juurouta Japanese

Layton, Hershel Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Triton, Luke Supporting

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Triton, Marina Supporting

Seto, Asami Japanese

Freud, Anne Supporting

Ise, Mariya Japanese

Aldebaran, Rufus Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Darjeeling, Aspoiro Supporting

Tadano, Youhei Japanese

Hara, Hirokazu Producer

Hino, Akihiro Director, Original Creator, Series Composition

Mitsunaka, Susumu Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Tanaka, Ryou Sound Director

Reviews

Apr 6, 2019

BluePikmin11

Recommended

As someone that has closely followed the Layton games for several years, the idea of a Layton anime series excited me. Though, I was a bit skeptical about watching it at first because I was mixed about 3DS Katrielle Layton game and its lack of proper closure to the main story. I watched and closely followed the series in the second half of 2018. The Katrielle Layton anime slowly became a source of happiness as I binged more of the episodes, eventually following the series week-by-week. This review is written from the perspective of a Layton fan, so some of the things I say might ... confuse you a bit.

Layton Mystery Detective Agency definitely was a fun anime throughout its whole run. The anime is basically an episodic mystery anime throughout its run, with occasionally focusing on the bigger mysteries. Katrielle's lovable personality was the main draw of the anime for me. Kana Hanazawa and Katrielle meld together to create a very entertaining anime. Her performance in the Layton anime is probably the most expressive I have ever heard out of all the anime characters she has played. It almost feels like Kana was given free reign, almost as if Kana was actively participating in the production of Layton anime alongside Level-5 to bring out the fullest extent of her blissfully good voice talents. Kana's defining voice for all of anime belongs to Katrielle in my opinion. Kana Hanazawa is Katrielle Layton.

There is also its unique aspect of making me as a viewer participate in the episodic mysteries. The show is carefully constructed in a way that makes me actively want to solve the mystery as the episode delves into its mystery more. There are a few episodic mysteries that felt jarringly illogical or poorly executed, but 80% of them were generally good. There is a frequent tendency to make me as a viewer cry when it comes to the resolutions, and that can be an issue sometimes. Some mysteries work well with the crying moments when the mystery/narrative are cohesively well-constructed, others are not so much.

As for my thoughts on the main story, it is pretty good. The main story is not so much a main focus, but I did not mind it personally because Katrielle Layton alone entertained me enough to keep watching each episode. The grand mystery felt more like an extra dessert, while the episodic mysteries were the main course. I was pretty surprised that the grand mystery was well-crafted and well-thought out. I think the story-based episodes could have slowed down the pacing so that I could be given time to form my own conclusions on the mysteries. It is not a big issue though.

As for other thoughts on the anime, I definitely wanted to see more of those kinds of episodes where it is focused on side-characters like Emiliana, Ernest, and the Inspector, the fun kind that extracts the wholesome, hilarious moments. The episodes that focused on Emiliana and Sherl singlehandedly made me like the characters on a whole new level. Surprisingly, more of the mysteries focus on the lesser side characters like the farm boy, the seven wealthy people, and the swirly hair genius. I think out of all minor character casts in the Layton series, they felt the most fleshed out. Some of the NPCs in Layton games, while they have charming designs, are pretty forgettable. I felt more closely connected to these "NPCs" (minor characters) and welcomed their reappearance when they returned for another episodic mystery. There is a good sense of world-building in that aspect that made me more invested. It makes me wish that the 3DS game had the complete story with these character explorations.

I am going to miss the anime series. I am dying for more Katrielle. I want the Layton anime to return so that Kana Hanazawa can voice her again. If another season of Layton comes, I hope the staff can improve in crafting episodic mysteries, while also integrating interesting character explorations for characters like Emiliana, Sherl and the Inspector. Katrielle and Ernest are pretty much fleshed out now as of this season, and now there is room to flesh out the other characters. Personally, I am more excited about the prospect of another season of Katrielle episodic mysteries than the idea of a Layton anime based on the six Layton games (A.K.A. what Ace Attorney is currently doing right now with its anime adaptation). Should the six game anime happen though, I hope Hino considers the idea of fleshing out Luke, Flora, Emmy, and Layton more than just doing a simple copy and paste. Give them some substantial character arcs.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 9, 2019

hariskhwaja

Recommended

As a child I played through all of the Professor Layton games and as you can imagine my overall reaction to finding this series would be the same as any returning Layton fan.

Personally i believe this series does more than justice to the charm and delight of the Layton games.

The art remains the same, keeping the beautiful hand-drawn effect and the soundtrack keeps the same essence as the old but with touches of new aspects, enough to keep the ost from sounding boring and a staright rip from the games.

The plot similar to the Layton games themselves doesnt focus on a in-depth story, in in ... my opinion the development of the characters is something much more interesting than the plot itself.

For an anime based solely around the daughter of a detective Layton Mystery Tanteisha doesn't revolve around Murder or gore based cases, more like childish acts enlarged.

Overall Layton Mystery Tanteisha is highly underrated, and returning Layton fans or those looking for a more relaxing series should definetly give this series a shot.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 13, 2025

Curlybrace101

Mixed Feelings

If this anime does anything right, it's that it gives people absolutely no reason to ever play the game it's based on. Not only does it actually answer the biggest question the game left hanging (and the only question fans actually wanted to see answered), but it also fleshes out the original game's adapted storyline. It's kind of crazy how much more depth and complexity it adds to their versions of the game's cases, considering they're about 40 minutes shorter than their originals.

And...that's about it.

For what it's worth, Hershel Layton becoming a father feels like a very natural next step for his character, and seeing ... his daughter become a detective seems like an amazing concept, but then they just do so...little with it.

They propose this grand, overarching mystery about The Professor, saying he (and Luke) went missing years ago, and it will be up to Katrielle to find them. That sounds awesome, naturally. But in the meantime, she spends the other 44 episodes meandering around doing fuck all.

Okay, that's mean. She solves her own mysteries. But the mysteries she solves are boring, dull, and sometimes downright stupid. However, worst of all, they never mean anything. Nothing of consequence happens in this show. Nothing ever changes. When characters do bad things, they never face ANY sort of punishment, because this series thinks that low-stakes shows are never allowed to change the status quo.

A lot of the mysteries had me laughing at just how stupid they were. I know it's a kids show, but so many times I was saying "really?" It's also laughable that it presents itself as a fairplay type of mystery when it really is not. Halfway through each episode Ernest will look right at the camera and say "well kids? Can you solve it? Here are the clues so far" and then Katrielle will solve it with information the audience was not privy to.

One of the biggest problems though, in my opinion, is Katrielle herself.

Good characters can save a bad plot. And Katrielle is...

Okay. Listen. I want to like her. She's Professor Layton's daughter, and absolutely adorable, mind you. But I find her to be absolutely egotistical and selfish. And the problem is that the writers think it's charming. She proudly hypes up how great she is and then says pretty mean things about the other characters, even though she tends to be rather lazy and gets distracted from her responsibilities by food or shopping. Like many great detectives, she really only seems interested in helping people for the personal fun of solving a mystery, but unlike other great detectives it's never acknowledged as a character flaw.

To give an example of her behavior, there's this one episode where she sees her assistant, Ernest, on what appears to be a date, and she interrupts it to yell at him because he's eating a dessert that she hasn't gotten to eat yet and she wanted to try it first, because she's also something of a glutton. And that's supposed to be...cute? funny?

She's honestly pretty mean to Ernest, and not even in a teasing way. Like, she'll do things like just...call him useless for no reason? And I get that she doesn't return his crush on her but like. Damn!

Now, having a protagonist be kind of an asshole can certainly work. It can even work for comedy. But there's an art to making it work. For example, Layton's sister series: Ace Attorney. Ace Attorney protagonists tend to be rather judgmental and snide, however it works a lot better for them because their rude comments are usually teasing or banter, meaning they tend to be very clever and witty, not meant to be taken seriously, and intended to be (and usually are) met back with comments of equal snark. It works because they're joking around in a series where launching sick burns at each other is the norm.

But Katrielle...

Katrielle is kind of a self-absorbed bully who is right all of them time and everything always goes her way and everyone marvels at how cool she is in spite of her behavior. The mean things she says and does aren't clever or funny teasing, and she never gets any of that treatment in return. I could probably be more forgiving of it if she were a teenager, as she acts, but she is a fully grown twenty one years of age.

The rest of the characters aren't anything special either. Ernest is rather mediocre (even in spite of getting his own arc), and his crush on Katrielle can get pretty annoying. He's a total simp, and it's like. Come on man. They actually do focus on his character near the end of the show, but it's pretty poorly built up and in the end means nothing because, as I said before, nothing of consequence happens in this show and everything always goes back to status quo.

The tritagonist is a talking dog, Sherl (you'll never guess who he's named after) who is also mediocre. Although, I'm a bit offended by the fact, the dog joined the detective agency so Katrielle could solve the mystery of his identity and then they never solve it. What? Why would you propose a mystery and then never solve it?

Well, Sherl is easily the most tolerable of the three characters, so I guess I can't complain that much.

And finally, this show is just a barrel of missed opportunities.

At the end of the show, we briefly see a young man on screen for a few seconds in a nonspeaking cameo. Who is he? Why, Katrielle's brother of course!

Oh, you don't know that Hershel Layton has another kid? Yeah I don't blame you.

Not only is not including him (his name's Alfendi btw) a huge, HUGE missed opportunity, but it actively makes the story make less sense. There's also the mystery of where Flora has been all this time, which is also the world's biggest missed opportunity. But Level-5 hates Flora I guess so they're going to prioritize that over writing that makes sense and is fleshed out and well rounded.

There are six episodes of this 50 episode TV anime worth watching. I do recommend that six episodes, very much so, the res of them? They are dull, boring, and stupid, because this show is so afraid of breaking status quo none of the plot events actually mean anything. And to top it all off, the characters are mediocre and unpleasant.

I know it's a show for children, but children deserve good shows.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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	Poll: Layton Mystery Tanteisha: Katri no Nazotoki File Episode 13 Discussion Fayrin - Aug 10, 2018	2 replies	by SmartGuyyy »» Oct 31, 2024 6:06 AM
	Poll: Layton Mystery Tanteisha: Katri no Nazotoki File Episode 50 Discussion RyuukiBeat - Apr 5, 2019	3 replies	by Actomino »» Sep 25, 2024 9:58 AM
	Poll: Layton Mystery Tanteisha: Katri no Nazotoki File Episode 35 Discussion Fayrin - Dec 10, 2018	3 replies	by Destroyer31 »» Oct 2, 2023 9:43 PM
	Poll: Layton Mystery Tanteisha: Katri no Nazotoki File Episode 31 Discussion wolfwing - Nov 19, 2018	3 replies	by Destroyer31 »» Oct 2, 2023 7:44 PM
	Poll: Layton Mystery Tanteisha: Katri no Nazotoki File Episode 32 Discussion Fayrin - Nov 20, 2018	2 replies	by Destroyer31 »» Oct 2, 2023 7:42 PM