I haven’t mentioned it yet, but in the parlence of our times, the music in Undead Murder Farce fuckin’ slaps. The music is by Yamaguchi Yuma, who has only done the music for a handful of anime, none of which I’ve seen other than this. But the mood for each of the many battles that takes place simultaneously this week is set perfectly by Yamaguchi’s punchy combination of orchestral, jazz, and electronic themes.
Lupin suggests a truce with Tsugaru so they can deal with the powerful Reynold, and end up dropping an organ on him. Fatima is wounded by Phantom, who has used his years underground to become the master of acoustics. Shizuku looks well matched against Carmilla, until she starts feeling the effects of the vampire’s aphrodisiac venom.
There’s a lot going on, and all of it is fun. Holmes and Watson’s fight with Aleister Crowley is interrupted by the arrival of Moriarty, whom Sherlock had presumed died eight years ago, and his attendant Victor. Even when Moriarty proceeds to provide an infodump of how he’s built a small army of monsters, it’s still kept visually interesting.
His crown jewel is Jack the Ripper, who like Tsugaru is an artificially created hybrid. Tsugaru is a human-oni hybrid, but Jack also has the offensive and defensive prowess of a vampire baked into his DNA. I’m not sure quite what you call what he does to poor doomed Fatima (scalloping? filleting?) but goddamn is it brutal.
Moriarty happens to be the person who stole Aya’s body, and he’s been using it for research; Jack also has a touch of her immortality baked in. He and his troupe of baddies, named Banquet, want Fogg’s diamond so they can locate the last missing piece for his chimeric masterpiece: werewolves. Needless to say, Moriarty is in no hurry to return Aya’s body to her. His research and the discoveries it will reveal have only just begun for him.
Tsugaru might be able to tell he’s got one tough opponent in Jack, who has a lot more going on in his bloodwork than just oni. Jack also recognizes him as the only test subject to escape Moriarty’s dungeon-lab. Tsugaru gives it the college try, but Jack bests him, then deems him unworthy of even being finished off. Jack then fires a flare to signal to the other Banquet members that the diamond has been secured.
He doesn’t know it, but in doing so, he saved Shizuku’s life. Under the woozy sexy spell of Carmilla’s venom, Carmilla is about to slowly have her way with her when Carmilla finds Lestrade’s silver cross and stabs the vampire in the hip. Carm is about to go medieval on Shizuku, but the flare stops her, and she withdraws along with Moriarty and the others.
Aya, Sherlock, Holmes, Fogg, and the other detectives gather back in Fogg’s study to commiserate being well and truly beaten this night, and are joined by a still…amorous Shizuku. While Tsugaru fought Jack, Lupin fled with Phantom, and they presume they took the silver safe with them, as with everything going on Aya completely forgot about it.
As for the Penultimate Night…well, Jack is about to show it to Moriarty and the others when he realizes the pocket he put it in has a hole in it—a hole made by the sticky-fingered Tsugaru while they were tussling. I got a big dopamine kick when Tsugaru cheekily produces the diamond, which he ultimately kept out of both Lupin and Banquet’s hands.
Aya has already translated the writing carved within the diamond, and suggests they hold it up to an arc streetlamp. The UV light emanating from the lamp turns the Europium within the diamond a glowing red, creating a theretofore hidden word: Fangzahnewald, or Forest of Fangs, the location of the werewolves everyone seems to be searching for.
Needless to say, and to quote Sherlock, the game is afoot. Aya isn’t just going to let Moriarty keep her body. She wants it back! Nor does she want him to gain the power to dominate the world. If he did that, she wouldn’t be able to solve fun mysteries with Tsugaru and Shizuku by her side! So Moriarty and his merry band of weirdoes are the logical next target. Until then, this was a superbly fun supernatural crowd-pleaser.
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