Used in plot to justify the Milky Holmes' suffering. Not only do they lose their Toys from the get go they get dumber and more inept as the show moves on completely destroying whatever reputation they apparently had before.
This results in a lot of people shocked (SHOCKED!) when the Milky Holmes are actually competent in Futari wa. Such competence is the way they usually act in the PSP game, but this only blurs things given that the anime is officially billed as a "semi-Alternate Universe" to the games, making it difficult what is supposed to be canonical and what not in their characterization.
Cargo Ship: Some mix of Screw Yourself and this. Twenty is in love with a hug pillow of himself. He gets angry when Mary and Kate interrupt his "date between me and me!"
Contested Sequel: Futari wa was deeply divisive due to its attempts to change the show's status quo by introducing two new point of view characters, giving the Milky Holmes their toys and competence back and making it all much more serious. While this did actually made the medium closer to the games' continuity, as said above, it also angered people who saw it as an unnecessary change to the anime continuity. The fact that the show itself doesn't bother to explain exactly how they got their toys back and become magically competent again after two seasons of damedame didn't help either. Eventually, TD was produced as a sort of compromise to solve this situation, bringing back the humor and wackiness of the old anime series yet also keeping Futari wa's competence and plot.
Many fans dislike Futari wa Milky Holmes so much that they insist Milky Holmes TD is the real third season.
A good part of said fans would also agree that TD doesn't live up the first two seasons, and for them there's no such thing as a "third season", only the first two seasons, the movie and the OVAs/New Year's Eve specials.
Harsher in Hindsight: Marine losing her singing voice is made worse when her voice actress, Emi Nitta, had to go on hiatus due to vocal cord polyps when the anime was airing.
Hercule/Nero, Sherlock/Nero, Kokoro/Sherlock, Kokoro/Irene, Cordelia/Pretty much any girl, are all pairings that have been suggested with various degrees of explicitness within the show itself.
Let's just say that Arsene's obsession with Sherlock drives the whole story.
Futari wa: For Kazumi, it doesn't matter if the world is upside down, as long as she is with Alice, who to her is "shining, beautiful, and like a kitten".
Improved Second Attempt: After the panned Futari wa season, TD incorporates elements from it, like a new protagonist and an actual plot, mixed with some of what made the main anime series great, like humor and gags. Amusingly, it also featured an appearance by Futari wa's most disliked character being (wrongfully) arrested in the first episode.
Kazumi is definitely one from Futari wa Milky Holmes, mostly because of her incredibly childish actions as a result of her inferiority complex.
Marine from TD. Despite being a main character, she doesn't contribute anything to the show other than cheap and shallow drama scenes that really don't belong in the Milky Holmes universe. After TD, she stops appearing save for a silent cameo or two.
Take That, Scrappy!: In the first episode of TD, Milky Holmes arrests Kazumi. Actually wrongfully, but enough by itself.
Win Back the Crowd: What Milky Holmes TD is trying to do as it bring back the humor (albeit toned down) and the old running gag whilst having a plot and competent Milky Holmes.
