Undead Murder Farce – 13 (Fin) – Crime Dog

For its finale, UMF eschews both OP and ED, instead beginning with a bunch of kinetic battles in the werewolf village. Kyle is defeated when Tsugaru uses his own chain against him (and Victor, in another temporary alliance with Tsugaru, uses his own severed arm as a projectile).

Alice is a crack shot as expected, but ends up falling for Aleister’s magic tricks, shooting his double and getting nicked in the back with some kind of fatal poison. Shizuku clashes with Carmilla once again, and not only accidentally flashes her with what I’ll call Chekhov’s Going Commando, but ends up surrounded by naked werewolf women when Carmilla flees.

With those battles ended, Shizuku lifts Aya high over her head so she can address the remnants of the two battling villages, so she can finally reveal the true culprit of all the murders: It’s Louise, AKA Nora…AKA Jutte. She’s the golden wolf.

Aya’s deductions surrounding Jutte’s multi-layered plot are extremely complex and detailed, and at least to my non-detective mind, moreso than previous cases. I suppose that makes sense, as this is the last case of the season.

Brass tacks: Jutte survived the tower fire that claimed her mother Rosa (and a random fox whose skeleton people mistook for Jutte’s). She then began living a double life as both Nora and Louise, having kidnapped the real Louise and hidden her in the cave for eighteen months (hence the tally marks).

Through it all, Jutte mentions how she and Louise had “a strange relationship”; Louise having been almost abandoned by her parents, and knowing what the villagers did to Rosa, made her believe Jutte was justified, even allowing Jutte to murder her so she could use her corpse not once but twice as both Louise and Nora to keep the wolves and humans guessing.

But with all the body-swapping, corpse tampering, and scent manipulation, in the end the one thing Jutte didn’t count on was a genius immortal detective like Rindo Aya to come to the villages. That said, once Aya reveals Jutte’s plot, nothing stops Jutte from simply transforming into a golden wolf and skedaddling…

…Except that she heads straight to the underground cave, where Aya has Tsugaru there waiting for capture her (with the chain he took from Kyle). Tsugaru thinks Jutte could stand to look a little more joyful in her villainy, but Jutte would prefer if he just let her go.

He doesn’t, as he has a job to do given to him by Aya. Jutte’s howl blows the candles out and she proceeds to start killing Tsugaru with a thousand little cuts and bites. He interrupts this process by bopping her on the nose, sending her splashing into the underground lake. In the moments she stops to shake off the water, she’s completely defenseless, like all dogs.

That’s when Tsugaru trusses her up like a turkey. However, when Shizuku arrives with Aya, Aya tells Tsugaru to let her go free. After all, Aya was wrong in a key part of her deductions: Jutte wasn’t doing this for revenge. She killed three human girls, but passed off their defaced corpses as the werewolf priestess girls.

In truth, she liberated them from a life of procreation, the boss wolf lady’s goal of creating the ultimate werewolf. In effect, Jutte/Nora and the three girls were being held in cages. Aya can relate, and because of that and the fact she was off in her deductions, Jutte is free to go and live her life how she sees fit.

With this final murder farce of the season thus solved, it stands to reason the focus of a (yet-to-be-announced) second season would be recovering Aya’s body. Tsugaru has it on Victor’s authority that the body is in one piece, stored by Moriarty in their hideout in London.

That said, if Master Detective Rindo Aya, her trusty Oni Slayer assistant, and her loyal and honorable maid have to solve a few more murder farces along the way, so be it! Until then, I’ll miss Kurosawa Tomoyo’s wonderfully aloof, sarcastic, sardonic vocal performance. If only she and Kitou Akari could face off as Aya and Kotoko in an Undead-In/Spectre crossover…

Undead Murder Farce – 12 – Man’s Best Frenemy

An apparent ambush by Victor turns out to be…something else, as he merely acted to separate Aya and Tsugaru from the Royce Agents, their mutual foe. He lets them go off on their way in exchange for the direction of the Werewolf Village and the diamond as collateral in case they’re lying.

Vera is waiting for Aya and Tsugaru when they arrive, and she and Kaya reunite them with Shizuku, who actually praises Tsugaru for “being useful for once.” But since the male wolves are on high alert, they have to free Shizuku another time. Tsaguru returns her recovered clothes…save her underwear.

Rather, Tsugaru and Aya slip out of the jail and continue the investigation. With Tsugaru’s diligent aid as her arms and legs, Aya inspects the spot where Nora’s body was found and discovers the entry to a secret underground passage just before the bro-wolves show up.

There, they not only find the site where Nora and other girls were murdered by the culprit, but also Alma’s human corpse in human form, along with a campsite featuring a wall with 550 tally marks carved into it. Despite these seeming complexities, Aya insists that the solution to the case is fairly cut and dried, but for another clue or two.

The tunnels eventually lead to the ruins of the tower, meaning the werewolves who were trapped there by the villagers all those years ago might not have died after all. When they come upon the doctor, who is acting kind of shady just beforehand, they learn that Louise’s corpse has been found.

Not only that, but Aya manages to get Louise’s parents to confess that before she turned four they tried to abandon her in the forest due to her inability to walk. It was Jutte who found her, only for Louise to finger Jutte as a werewolf. Aya believes Louise did this so she could survive, as Jutte was the only one other than her who knew what her parents did.

Aya and Tsugaru return to the Werewolf Village, but on the way, they notice that Alma and the camp bed are gone; someone had been through there after them and done some cleaning. Vera frees Shizuku and gives her her rifle, while Tsugaru prepares to face off against the bro-wolves.

Carmilla is the first member of the three-person crew from Banquet to enter the village, and she helps herself to the women, including Kaya. Tsugaru shows why he’s the Oni Hunter by dispatching three elite werewolves with relative ease (and with plenty of style points, I might add).

Alice and Kyle arrive in the Werewolf Village having apparently brainwashed/hypnotized the human villagers into serving as their burning, pillaging army. After all, Royce is there to wipe out the supernaturals. After grudingly leaving Aya in Vera’s care, Shizuku rushes off to try to find Kaya, and finds her, but also finds her old friend Carmilla as well.

While Shizuku deals with Carmilla, Kyle takes on Victor, and Aleister Crowley challenges Alice,  Aya has Vera take her to a graveyard where she believes she’s found the final clue to solving this case and bringing another murder farce to a rousing conclusion.

Undead Murder Farce – 11 – In the Doghouse

Following another unsettling monochromatic flashback involving werewolves convict and execute a pregnant woman via Giant Jenga, back in the present the Royce agents report they were unable to track the golden werewolf. That said, the villagers now have their culprit in Alma, so the chief tells Aya how to find the Forest of Fangs. They’ll be accompanied by the agents.

Shizuku wakes up in bed with a naked woman and a red wolf. A third werewolf, Nora, introduces herself, and how she found Shizuku frozen from the falls, and had the other two (Kaya and Vera) warm her up. Nora doesn’t suspect her of being “the culprit” because her rifle isn’t a shotgun.

When Shizuku asks what culprit she’s referring to, she learns that the werewolf village has experienced the same number of mysterious murders of young women, each four months apart and killed in the same manner. Shizuku tells them about Aya, but Nora says she needs to leave the village immediately.

To prevent the male werewolves from finding Shizuku, Vera and Kaya try to sneak her out in a hay-filled cart, but one of the wheels breaks, and Shizuku has to improvise. Showing of her acrobatics and skill without a rifle, she manages to fight off a number of werewolves before she’s surrounded.

The same elder from the flashback, Granny Nagi, the village elder, places Shizuku on the same Jenga tower she did the pregnant woman and asks a series of questions. Every lie is a plank removed, but Nagi assumes Shizuku is lying about everything.

Then a single gunshot rings out, and they bring Shizuku with them as they investigate the source, only to find Nora, whom the elder seemed to be quite fond of and who was about to become a priestess, has been killed. Shizuku offers to help, and shows that she’s learned a thing or two about sleuthing from being around Aya.

She’s able to deduce that Nora wasn’t killed where her corpse lies (there’s no blood splatter), she was likely in the river (she’s wet) and put on her cloak (which is dry) before being killed, and there was also a second shot (but they only heard one). After that, Shizuku runs out of gas—she’s not really a detective, after all—and once more invokes the ire of her wolfy captors.

Aya and Tsuguru can’t get to her soon enough, but while on their way through the arduous Forest of Fangs, which consists of great fang-shaped mountains they must traverse, their journey is rudely interrupted by the arrival of Victor, Moriarty’s brute strength muscle. Perhaps while the Royce agents fight him Tsuguru can slink away with Aya? Shizuku isn’t going to remain un-executed forever!

Undead Murder Farce – 10 – Golden Girls

Aya’s interview with the village mayor continues, intersperced with effectively creepy flashbacks to when the three outsiders: Dr. Heinemann, Cnut, and Alma, were “tested” to ensure they weren’t werewolves. Those tests turned out not to be that torturous—making them smell a pungent flower and listening to clanking pots and pans—but convinced the mayor and the villagers that no one among them was responsible for the abductions.

Cnut, the village engineer and carpenter, is Aya’s next interviewee, as he knows more about Rosa and Jutte, the two who were chased to a tower and burned alive in last week’s episode. That happened eight years ago, after years of Rosa living peacefully with her daughter ever since she was found wounded, pregnant, and alone in the woods.

Louise, whom everyone agrees is the “guardian angel” of the village, exposed little Jutte and her mom Rosa as werewolves when Rosa mistook Louise for Jutte and told her not to reveal her ears when she smelled a strong-scented flower.

The final outsider to be interviewed is the most suspicious, at least on the surface. Alma is the newest member of the village, having moved on a whim after visiting to view and paint the nearby falls. She painted lovingly rendered portraits of the missing girls, and also draws a beautiful portrait of Aya while being interviewed.

Alma also reminices quite admiringly about spotting a “beautiful golden wolf”, something she can do since she’s on the village’s outskirts. She’s also caught in a white lie when Aya deduces that she isn’t from a family of artists nor did she receive formal art education, owing to the way she holds her charcoal.

The exchange of the week, and possibly the series thus far, is when Alma asks Aya how it feels to not be able to die, with Aya replying that it would honestly bore Alma to death.

Aya, Tsugaru and Shizuku follow Alma’s advice and take a look at the falls, which are indeed beautiful, and below which is presumably the wolf village. They also inspect the ruins of the tower. While they don’t find anything of note, it’s a gorgeous spot with the setting sun, and Tsugaru catches the glare of Aleister’s spyglass—Banquet is near.

Interestingly, he doesn’t tell Aya or Shizuku about this, but that evening while at Dr. Heinemann’s they end up in a standoff with Agents 3 and 4 from Royce: the spitfire gunslinger Alice Rapidshot, and the calm, cool Kyle Chaintail. Aya proposes a truce until she solves the case of the missing girls, which she believes will take no more than two days.

Later that night we witness Aya and Tsugaru swapping spit for the first time since they first formed their contract, though it’s clearly a routine “medical procedure” that Shizuku doesn’t enjoy watching. The night is then interrupted by commotion from outside: the village has formed a mob with torches and weapons once more.

This time, there target is Alma, who pleads with them to leave her alone, but ultimately can’t control herself from admitting that yes, she is the one who abducted and ate the girls, including Louise. She then transforms into her golden werewolf form and dashes away into the night.

Tsugaru and Shizuku pursue her while carrying Aya in her cage, and Tsugaru, flush with his infusion of Aya saliva, turns out to be more or less a match for Alma in strength. However, Alma slips away from his hold thanks to a gunshot from Alice, evades Shizuku’s gunfire, then snatches Aya’s cage in her jaws, runs to the falls, and tosses the cage in.

Shizuku, barefoot and in her nightgown but still quick as a cat, is able to catch the ring of her master’s cage with her blade and sling her safely to Tsugaru on the bank. Unfortunately, this means Shizuku lands in the water and goes over the massive falls. Despite having never heard a kind word from her, Tsugaru seems genuinely distraught.

The natural next destination for Tsugaru and Aya is the werewolf village below, but they still have to deal with Alma the golden werewolf, not to mention those pesky Royce agents and Moriarty’s clique.

Spy x Family – 05 – Loidman Saves the Princess

The Forgers seem to be encountering every omen of bad luck on their way to view the posted lists of those admitted to Eden College. And while Loid doesn’t buy into any f that superstition—even Anya stepping in poop—Anya’s name is nowhere to be found. The mission then, has failed before it could truly get off the ground, hasn’t it?

Not so fast…Henderson takes the Forgers aside and shows them that Anya happens to be at the top of the waiting list, which means once there’s a withdrawal—and there are several every year for myriad reasons—she’ll be officially admitted. Yor has to fight back designs to murder the father of a student who got in, while Henderson isn’t sure he’ll be around to teach after slugging his colleague.

The waiting list turns out to be nothing but a formality for creating extra tension leading up to the phone call that comes in announcing that Anya has indeed been admitted to Eden. Loid is ready to celebrate with a party popper in his pocket. His colleague Franky joins them for a feast, Yor gets her drink on, and Loid is backed into a corner after promising to do “anything that is doable” for Anya as a reward for getting into Eden.

That something turns out to be the family and Franky acting out an episode of her favorite TV show Spy Wars at the castle where it was filmed, which is now a theme park. Loid borrows a floatplane and pilots them there himself, making for a thrilling arrival. However, after running around the castle a little, Anya is suddenly sad, because aside from them the joint is deserted.

That’s soon remedied thanks to a call to Loid’s agency, who puts out an APB calling for every agent in the vicinity to descend upon the castle for a Rank SS mission for Twilight. Most of the agents either idolize (in the case of the younger agents) or respect (in the case of the older ones) him as one of their country’s best spies. And so the stage is set.

Franky continues to enable Anya’s increasingly ambitious plans, as Loid becomes “Loidman” who must save “Princess” Anya from Franky, AKA Baron Scruffy. Loid has to wear the mask and gloves and run through a number of obstacles complete with colorful non-lethal weapons, Hollywood-quality pyro, and last but not least, Yor’s literally drunken combat style.

Loid isn’t sure he can keep up with her, but fortunately she breaks a heel and falls asleep. With one swift knockout punch to the villain, Loidman rescues Princess Anya and receives a rousing applause from his fellow agents and a DisneyWorld-scale fireworks show to cap it all off.

You could say the plot of this Spy x Family episode pretty much ends once the Forgers get the call that Anya has gotten into Eden. But the ensuing celebration and lengths to which Loid goes make Anya happy is crucial to the Family part of the show, while the role-playing conceit makes full use of both Loid’s abilities and the resources of his agency.

There’s every indication school life at Eden is going to be tough sledding, so I’m glad Anya got to have a little…hell, a lot of fun for fun’s sake before commencing the next stage of Operation Strix.