A puppeteer and his doll solve murders together, and the soundtrack does more work than the actual mystery plotting. The real hook is watching Sakon treat Ukon like a person while everyone else sees wood and cloth, then the show slowly suggests maybe they're right to wonder what Ukon actually is. By the end you're invested in their partnership more than any case they solve, which is exactly how it gets away with recycling familiar mystery beats.

Sakon Tachibana is a puppeteer and the only grandson of Saemon Tachibana, a famed Bunraku puppet master honored as a national treasure of Japan. His favorite puppet and best friend is Ukon, a child doll crafted in the early Meiji era by the celebrated female dollmaker Unosuke. Together the pair keep running into murders and work to solve them, in a mystery series with a strong streak of horror and thriller tension.