After I finished episode 26, I just could not leave it as is. So, before I moved it from my harddrive to burned disc, I watched the whole series again in reverse order (yes, I did, literally).
By doing so, the story itself become sooooo much more clearer. So many things in early episodes (especially the first 5) are making sense now. This series is definately better watched in reverse of the broadcast order.
Having said that, I have to say, they did insert some information in early episodes as an attempt to try to make things less confusing. But, that early in the series, I have no clue what to watch out for. So most of which I would have caught if I know a little more about the story, have just gone wasted first time through watching the series.
In my opinion, they tried to play something very smart and to make it very interesting. But instead, they completely messed it up. Unlike
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which is short and simple enough for people to catch what's going on,
Touka Gettan's
story itself is already very complicated. And to play the "chase the answer" game with it made it almost impossible to understand. They would have done much better with this kind of scheme if the story itself is less complicated and shorter. As the current story goes, it requires way too many
complete recalls from earlier episodes in order for audiance to stay in track to get a grasp of the whole picture.
If anybody would like to watch the series, I would
STRONGLY RECOMMEND you to watch it in reverse of the broadcast order; that is, start from episode 26 counting backwards, but skip episode 25 and 19. Episode 25 and 19 are "information" episodes. They're really just the bi-product of telling the story backwards, and won't be necessary at all while watching the series in reverse of the broadcast order. I would recommend to cut them out all together or watch it after you have finished episode 1 and don't consider them as part of the series.
So, the ideal order for
Touka Gettan would be: 26, 24-20, 18-1, (25, 19)
If you really really want to watch it in the broadcast order, you better have a photographic memory that is enough to hold the first 20 episodes. Otherwise, you'll be end up watching it again in the order I just described after the first time through.
