A week ago or so, I finished watching Master Keaton. It’s a 1998 series from smack in the middle of the golden age of late night, airing on Mondays after midnight on Nihon TV. The series is loosely based around a 30-something professional investigating insurance claims, doing historical research, combating terrorists, or occasionally just being in the general vicinity of someone doing something halfway important. And it’s pretty damn near perfect at it – aside from the 2-part finale, each episode basically starts from scratch in a completely different context and builds a story that is, at worst, unique and engaging. That’s a feat which isn’t too difficult to do once, but gets a lot harder when it has to happen 38 times in a row. I just wanted to spend a little more time thinking about it after finishing the whole thing, so I decided to rank the episodes of the show from 38th (still solid) to 1st (glorious):

38. Into the Sky…

37. Strange Tale of Lasagna

36. Interview Day

35. Devil like an Angel

34. The Scent is the Key

33. A Mansion of Roses

32. Special Menu

31. Journey with a Lady

30. Memories of Summer Pudding

29. Little Giant

28. Man in a Maze

27. The Day the Op Was Born

26. No Way Out

25. Love in May

24. The Back Street

23. The Highlands in Your Eyes

22. Family

21. A Case for Ladies

20. Charlie

19. Hunting Season

18. White Goddess

17. Immortal Man

16. Chateau Lajonchee 1944

15. The Coward’s Island

14. Paris Under the Roof

13. Blue Friday

12. Wall in One’s Heart

11. The Forbidden Fruit

10. A Message from Alexeyev

9. The Red Wind

8. A Peaceful Death

7. Negotiator’s Rule

6. Kalihman of the Desert

5. Long Hot Day

4. The Agate Color of Time

3. The Elm Tree Forever

2. Faker’s Miscalculation

1. The Thistle Emblem

And that’s that. One of these days I won’t give an Urasawa Naoki series a perfect score. I just don’t know when that is, and I’m sort of running out of options.