Cuticle Tantei Inaba

The half human-half wolf detective Inaba Hiroshi is famous for solving cases by tasting people's hair. He has a private detective agency with two assistants and sometimes works with his former partner, Inspector Ogino Kuniharu. He quit his detective work with the police when his younger brother disappeared two years ago. Besides Hiroshi's ability with hair, he can transform into a wolf-like form and use attacks depending on the color of hair he's using. 

Hiroshi and Ogino

Hiroshi and Ogino will have to work together once more as they try to apprehend the mafia leader Don Valentino. Notorious for literally eating money and making counterfeit bills to replace those he ate, the goat Don Valentino is surrounded by an extremely loyal assistant, a crazed hitwoman, and a equally mad scientist.

Lorenzo and the mafia boss Don Valentino

Chaos starts when Hiroshi's younger brother, Haruka, shows up with the rest of NORA. Now Hiroshi not only has to deal with the troublesome goat but with his brother and his father Soumei, whose current host is a doll. 

From left Ogino, Hiroshi, and assistants Yuta and Nozaki

Front, sitting: Hiroshi with brother Haruka

This 12-episode series, as expected, has more funny scenes than detective work. Don Valentino's near-invincible status and his antics are hilarious. Although nearly untouchable, he is still the butt of jokes even if he is the leader.

The action scenes are like everything else; at one point you'd start to think they'd get serious then one of the characters screws up. Hiroshi's infamous detective abilities mostly just add to the comedy. Sometimes he'd act more like a dog than a wolf with his shiny eyes, wagging tail, and begging posture. There was one scene where someone said "sit" and Hiroshi obeyed.

The opening theme was done by Hiroshi's voice actor (Junichi Suwabe) and the ending theme by Don Valentino (Toru Okawa). I'd have to say Valentino's cracked me up.

When you see a goat for an antagonist, it's hard to assume that the series would have a serious plot. The underlying story of Hiroshi, Haruka and their father Soumei is still there however. If you're looking for some awesome detective series, you won't find it here but when you need a fun series to watch, Cuticle Tantei Inaba delivers. It was fun to watch Valentino and Hiroshi's group trying to outwit each other. 

Rating: 7 out of 10