Nobody remembers this one, which is exactly the problem. The puzzles aren't window dressing for character arcs, they ARE the character arc, each mystery a conversation between two people learning how to think together. Twelve episodes is the perfect length for this: just long enough to make you believe a partnership, short enough that it never overstays its welcome. If you've ever watched a mystery anime and felt like the solving happened to the characters instead of with them, this one fixes that. Two people staring at the same problem and arriving at completely different answers teaches you more about them than any dialogue ever could.

Kaito x Ansa is the second season of Nazotokine, a short-format mystery anime centered on puzzle solving and produced by the same creators. The earlier season trapped the company president's secretary at an advertising agency inside a conference room, where a ghostlike creature told her she could get out only by solving the mystery. This follow-up returns to the puzzle-solving concept over twelve short episodes.