Here is the premise – if this doesn’t work for you, then the rest
of the story won’t work for you. Sixteen-year-old schoolboy Takeru adopts a
dog, who can communicate with Takeru when he finds the father’s pipe. It turns
out that the dog is the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, who believes that
Takeru is Watson. Takeru names his new dog Sherdog (of course he does). The dog
strongly dislikes the name of course he does).
Nobody in Takeru’s family thinks the dog is particularly smart,
until he helps solve a hit-and-run case in the first chapter, “Encounter of the
100th year.” Takeru is excited with the prospect of having a
crime-solving dog, as the entire rest of his family are current or former
police officers.
The bulk of this volume is the second tale, “The 12:20
Mystery.” A student is killed, and Sherdog knows who did it. But can he and
Takeru prove it? As the mystery unfolds, it is a surprisingly strong mystery
involving a teacher’s secret son, bullying, camera angles, distances and times.
The story was strong in this volume, in terms of both the
mystery story and the characterization of Takeru, Sherdog, and the family. The
PE teacher was very strongly characterized, as well. I don’t know enough about
manga to tell whether this is good or bad manga art. To my Western eyes, it
appears to be standard manga art. That art style, and the black-and-white
nature of the presentation, and the size of the book, all took me a little
while to get used to. But once I did, I found myself reading a very fun homage
to The Great Detective, and a pretty good story in its own right.
I can foresee myself picking up the next volume or two, to
see if this quality of story remains as the series progresses.
Source: public library
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