Ayumu Narumi is a loner, high-school freshman, living forever in the shadow of his older brother, who disappeared several years earlier leaving only the cryptic clue: “Blade Children”. Ayumu lives with his sister-in-law, a police detective who has never given up the hunt for her missing husband. Mysterious deaths start happening around Ayumu’s school, and they seem to involve the Blade Children.

Ayumu uses his top-notch reasoning abilities (of course, his brother was better) to solve these murders, but never seems to get closer to the Blade Children. But the Blade Children are coming after him.

Along the way Ayumu picks up his Dr. Watson, the nosy editor of the school paper, and together they do stuff. Ayumu, being the loner, not-friendly type, doesn’t really bother explaining anything to his Watson until the end of the show.

Ayumu is also a world-class pianist (of course, his brother was better) who has given up the piano because he just isn’t good enough. I don’t know if this will factor into the story later on or if it is just a point to show that Ayumu doesn’t believe in himself and as long as he doesn’t believe in himself he will always be a loser.

As a detective series, Spiral is of interest. They have some nifty locked-room type murders to solve and the first disk didn’t leave any blatant clues sitting around. And there was a fair amount of humor with the sister-in-law. I’m not sure what is going on with the Blade Children, at least they should keep Ayumu on his feet. It would be nice to find out why everyone who knows about the Blade Children wants to kill them. The ones that know always seems to die before they can tell Ayumu what it is all about.

Overall I will give this series a 7 out of 10.