REVIEW: ‘Pretty Boy Detective Club,’ Episode 11 — “The Pretty Boy on D. Hill (Part 2)”

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Last time with the Pretty Boys, we started our finale case with the Pretty Boys. This time, the mystery focused on the upcoming student elections. An election which has left female student, and vice-president, Wana Naganawa, in bad shape after a hit and run. It’s up to Mayumi the Seer to unravel this tangled mystery… by entering the elections herself. Now in Pretty Boy Detective Club Episode 11, we’re back in the thick of it with election fever and a lot of twists and turns!

Episode 11 is the second part from last week, dropping us right back into election season at Yubiwa Academy. It’s in full swing, too, as the school newspaper hypes up the students. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunate, Mayumi has somehow ended up in third place. Will she win? Who knows? However, before that… we get some unexpected, unwanted fanservice. This comes in the form of Mayumi getting a massage. It’s clear, in this case, that she is presenting as she, rather than presenting male. This is largely because of the camera’s position, towel, and at times, how the camera “censors” her body. It’s… unnecessary in a scene that does a fair amount of table setting for the rest of this arc—definitely a ding.

Thankfully, the scene doesn’t last long. We’re almost immediately back to the mystery at hand. Namely, the hit and runs at D Hill. While walking with Michiru, our redheaded cook, the twosome discuss the case. Only… Michiru isn’t so sure that these are actually hit and runs. He thinks that they’re arranged cases. Worse, he thinks they’re absolute shams, which immediately throws the mystery into disarray. Now that doubt has been seeded, Mayumi has to untangle an even more confusing case. All while running for student council president and hopefully helping Wana Naganawa out.

Oh yeah, and without letting Nagahiro catch on.

The bulk of Pretty Boy Detective Club Episode 11 is spent setting up the finale, which will close our time with Pretty Boy Detective Club, and will finish this arc. It’s all plotty tidbits that are necessary to complete the series. That said, there are lots of little character growth moments that flesh out the characters, including the leader -and youngest member- Manabu Sotoin. We also get to meet another Sotoin family member, which brings up more questions than answers. Then again, viewers can’t expect everything to wrap up this week. There’s still the finale!

One thing that stuck out to me during my watch of this episode was the music. The sound design in Pretty Boy Detective Club Episode 11 is sublime, mixing high, bright sounds with the klaxon of alarms and rhythmic synths, and smooth r&b beats. It’s neat how the music gets played within this series, creating an opulent atmosphere that doesn’t feel too unrealistic. That said, it’s unfortunately marred by that fanservice scene, which felt soo out of left field. And that’s saying something when you have a show hyper-focused on a boy’s legs half the time. 

Next week marks the final episode of Pretty Boy Detective Club. How it will end is a bit of mystery, if only because that’s part of the show’s fun. I won’t speculate, though. Instead, I’m going to let myself go on an adventure with this series, as I have week to week thus far. After all, Pretty Boy Detective Club is almost always at its best when I let my expectations go and allow the show to just be fun. I plan to do that until the very end, especially with Pretty Boy Detective Club Episode 11’s cliffhanger. Here’s to the finale! I hope we go out with an opulent, super-duper extra bang!

Pretty Boy Detective Club is now streaming on Funimation.