KAITOU JOKER

I've clearly watched a lot of kid's anime in my time, and Kaitou Joker is such a strange one. It has qualities of both average children's anime and average gag anime, making something sort of its own. Gag anime don't tend to have overarching plots, children's anime do. Children's anime tend to treat their gimmick with absolute reverence, Kaitou Joker doesn't. Additionally, unlike a majority of children's anime there's not a really clear toy that can be sold to justify its existence, you can't exactly market grand theft to eight year olds without facing backlash. Not to say they DIDN'T make toys, because they DID. (I probably have the most exhaustive archive of Kaitou Joker merch out there, so I would definitely know.) That's kind of to its benefit, since the show doesn't get bogged down with shilling new toys across its 52 episode run. That's not to say it doesn't have FLAWS either, because it definitely does. There's like 4 episodes (5 on rewatches) I genuinely recommend people skip entirely that I call the "cursed four." (If you're familiar with gag anime, you can probably assume what kind of content is in them.) To cut myself a bit short, Kaitou Joker is an odd existence, but it culminates in something that's a joy to watch with some seriously heartwarming moments and endearing characters. Just don't watch the really bad ones.