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 – 08 – Moonlit Banquet

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.

Undead Murder Farce – 07 – Trojan Head

When the vault begins to flood, Holmes realizes he did exactly what Lupin hoped by telling him he could pick any lock. By shooting the vaults locks, Holmes ensured no one could leave, while Lupin ensured the water from the moat wouldn’t be enough to completely flood the vault, only to separate everyone from the heavy silver safe.

By the time Fatima blasts through the vault doors to free everyone and the water level falls, the safe is gone. As everyone warms up and dries off in Fogg’s study, Sherlock asks Ganimard for his handcuffs, then cuffs him with them, accusing him of being Lupin, only in a better disguise than the one he showed them before.

It is indeed Lupin, but while they have him, they don’t have the diamond. That’s where he’s wrong: the safe that the Phantom pulled out of the vault through the air vent with a rope lowered in by the pressure of the moat water doesn’t contain the diamond. Instead, it’s in Watson’s coat pocket…or it was, until Lupin realized it was there, snatched it, threw a smoke bomb, and fled.

In Fogg’s arboretum Lupin meets up with Phantom, who has the safe. But to both their shocks, the safe contains none other than Rindou Aya. Once the safe door opens, she calls for Tsaguru, who arrives bang on time while reciting the rakugo story “The Pot Thief”, along with Shizuku.

Reynold has seen enough, and decides that he’ll execute Lupin, Phantom, Tsugaru, and Aya one by one and recover the diamond. But he is interrupted by another blast that Lupin swears wasn’t him. It isn’t him. It’s Moriarty and his merry band of famous supernatural and occult figures.

Along with Moriarty himself there’s a hulking Victor (Frankenstein), the sultry vampiress Carmilla, Jack the Ripper, and Aleister Crowley. After effortlessly slaughtering all of the guards and cops in the main hall, the group splits up to find the diamond, while Aleister and Carmilla create a diversion.

While there’s a mention of over twenty deaths, the quick and dirty execution and the fact most of the victims are identical faceless guards dulls the gravity of the bloodshed.

Exceptions to this are the one guard who got concasse’d at the bridge, and the poor huddled maid who gets drained by Carmella.

When Reynold charges Lupin, he slips out of the way, and Tsugaru also dodges at the last second, so Reynold’s strike cleanly halves a nearby statue.

Meanwhile, Fatima has Phantom cornered, ditches her cloak, and shows off her prowess with double crossbows (i.e. Doubledarts), shooting one into his shoulder (and it looks like she has two more mounted on her hips). Phantom continues to not make much an impression here.

With Tsugaru and Reynold having run outside to chase Lupin (who still has the diamond), Aya asks Sherlock and Watson to take her with them as they investigate the supernatural intruders. They encounter Crowley first, and while he seems able to wield magic, he’s actually merely a talented illusionist.

Lestrade looks like he’s doomed to be Carmilla’s next meal, but Shizuku kicks her across the room and prepares to depart. Carmilla is insulted, and demands satisfaction, so Shizuku tells Lestrade to beat it and whips out her silver gunblade.

Outside, the three men chasing each other and fighting for possession of the diamond are briefly silhouetted by the full moon, their cartoonish cats-and-mouse game lending more credence by the minute to Aya’s assessment of this as one big farce.

Tsugaru is the last to have the diamond, and he prepares to swallow it for safekeeping, but Reynold kicks him and he spits it out, and it rolls to the altar of a chapel. This episode lives up to its title, “Free for All”, as after Lupin is unmasked all hell breaks loose, with Moriarty and his crew only adding more chaos and bloodshed to the proceedings.

While it’s packed with colorful characters, smart detective work, and inventive action, and Aya and Tsugaru are a delight as always, I can’t score this any higher than I did simply because the production values too often groan under the weight of the show’s ambitions. Also, at some point all the mustachioed characters kinda blended together. That said, I’m still looking forward to how this resolves.

To Aru Majutsu no Index III – 26 (Fin) – Grasping Rays of Light, Holding Them Tight

Accelerator’s technobabble solution to saving Last Order works, and she wakes up to her guardian’s warm embrace. But it doesn’t last long, as Accelerator leaves her in Worst’s care (worst babysitter ever?), literally spreads his newly-formed angel wings, and heads to the Star to eliminate another threat to his charge.

Turns out he and Touma never cross paths in this finale. The telesma overload turns out not to be as powerful as Fiamma hoped for, and all he gets for all his planning and scheming is a devastating haymaker from Touma that leaves a fist-sized crater in his cheek.

In his generosity (and unwillingness to kill, even a supervillain) Touma gives the sufficiently cowed Fiamma the last escape pod off the Star. When Misaka finally arrives to rescue him in a fighter jet (sadly without exclaiming “It’s not like I wanted to save you!”), he refuses her outstretched hand.

He’s thankful she came all the way out her to help him in his time of need, but he’s not ready to leave the Star yet; not without locating Index’s remote control, which Fiamma dropped and which Touma finds almost too easily.

A projection of the awakening Index appears before him, and he confesses to having kept her true nature a secret all this time. Of course, Index doesn’t particularly care about and perceived wrongs he may have perpetrated against her; she’s just glad to see him and wants him to come home safe.

Touma’s final heroic acts of both the arc and the season involve smashing three specific points in the Star in order to ditch it somewhere no one will be harmed: the Arctic Ocean. He even manages to collide with an out -of-control Gabriel/Sasha, driving her into the icy depths before punching her in the face. Yes, Archangel Puncher is another possible title for that right arm. I also must applaud Touma’s ability to survive in near-freezing waters as long as he does.

The new ITEM is quickly surrounded by Academy City forces, led by…Celty Sturluson’s sister? I honestly don’t know, but she’s there to take Takitsubo away to further augment her. Hamazura turns the tables thanks to the arrival of villagers he helped earlier, who kill all of not-Celty’s pals and enable him to ask the masked stranger about the “Parameter List” she mentioned.

Accelerator is also captured by Academy City, but either tricks them into turning his switch on, or he just isn’t governed by that switch anymore. He’s not going back to compromise or negotiate, but to issue demands and then make sure they’re carried out. A “triumphant return”, in his words. The time of the City forcing him to work in the underworld, and using the Sisters or Last Order for their bidding, are over. To which I say Amen, brother!

We’re then treated to a very rare cameo by Mr. Aleister Crowley himself, delivering some poetic justice to Fiamma by claiming his arm while chiding him for scratching the surface of something he didn’t adequately understand. Always neat to see Al in action; he’s more like Aiwass than a human in his speed and movements.

Misaka searches for Touma in the frigid sea, but all she can find is his Gekota strap. While “it’s not as if she’s worried or cares what happened to him!”, she’s obviously worried and cares what happened to him. I presume she’ll just have to wait for Index IV. We, meanwhile, get a sneak peek at his fate: he’s rescued up by another character I didn’t recognize, and had to consult the forum to identify: Leivinia Birdway.

I didn’t dive into who she is or what group she’s with, since that’s also a matter for Index IV, whenever it should rear its magical head. While a bit dense and meandering in its second half with the final waves of exposition, in all it was an entertaining wrap-up.

To Aru Majutsu no Index III – 17 – Angelic Gibberish

Two former Aztec comrades come to kill Etzali, apparently independent of anything else going on in this episode. Thankfully this tangent doesn’t drag on too long, since I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be about or why. Like last time with Xochitl, Etzali seems to hang around the fringes of the show only to be suddenly confronted by old comrades who want to kill him, but always end up failing.

Moving on! Kinuhata uses a bottle of nitrogen she always keeps on her person in case someone tries to neutralize her powers by filling the combat space with flames, as Stephanie Goofyname does. The nitro enables Kinuhata to rush at Steph and punch her in the face, thus defeating her (?) and allowing Hamazura to escape with Takitsubo.

But Kinuhata is immediately arrested by SWAT under the command of the Girl in the Dress. She informs Kinuhata that the chase isn’t over for Hammy, as apparently all of Academy City’s forces are after him. He’s an unpredictable element that Aleister Crowley would rather eliminate than worry about mucking up his carefully-laid plans (whatever they are).

Next Up: Accelerator. His fight with Koga doesn’t last long, since whatever clever trick Koga tried on him ended up getting flipped around by another clever trick by Accelerator involving his electrode and walking cane.

I won’t get into the technical details because frankly I forgot what they were, but suffice it to say, as expected, Mr. Random Smoking Dude is not the one to do in everyone’s favorite unhinged Index antihero.

GROUP reunites and tries to get Shiokishi to spill the beans about what DRAGON is, when DRAGON itself appears, knocking everyone out but Accelerator. Appearing as a brightly-lit angel-like being, DRAGON reveals his real name is “Aiwass”, and he’s a being that was both summoned by and mentor to Crowley.

The two are now pitted in some kind of supernatural philosophical debate about the value of people’s independent actions versus the efficiency of using people, or something to that effect. Honestly it’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo that purports to get closer to the core of what exactly Crowley is up to, but doesn’t seem to have much to do with the events of the last couple episodes, except that Crowley and Aiwass were able to observe different kinds of heroes in action.

Did I mention the show brought back Mugino, mostly so she could tell Hamazura that Kakine Teitoku is still alive too, and so could kill her again in an aircraft testing chamber. Hamazura and Takitsubo escape on a military plane headed out of Academy City, while Accelerator grabs Last Order and boards a train out of Academy City.

Accelerator is headed to Russia, where Touma has just arrived, and seems to be a bit underdressed for the climate. Perhaps Hamazura will head there too. All three guys have gals they want to protect, while all three gals are in danger of having their lives snuffed out by current events. Perhaps we’ll find more clarity and focus in Russia…or maybe Etzali will run into more friends while Aiwass speaks to them in tongues…

To Aru Majutsu no Index III – 09 – Saint v Saint

Kaori crosses swords with Acqua, whose birth name we learn to be William Orville, a former mercenary for the Anglicans but moved to the Roman Orthodox church. We also learn that Kaori, on her own, is absolutely no match for him.

His attacks have her flat on her back and spread eagle across vasts fields of rubble and debris, though to her credit she never stops getting up and dusting herself off, a resoluteness he admires even if he’s quite certain there’s nothing she or anyone else can do to keep him away from Touma.

As for Touma, he’s limping towards the battle when Misaka encounters him, and insists that he allow her to help. That might well have made the fight an easy one for him, but he declines the offer, and while she’s not happy about not being able to fight, she can understand there’s significance in him going it alone.

That’s ironic, since Kaori, who left the Amakusa church in part to protect her comrades, categorically can not stand alone and survive against Acqua; he’s just too goddamn talented and powerful, and the more beat-up she gets, the more his confidence in victory soars.

But he didn’t count on Kaori calling to Amakusa to jump down to the level of the battle and combine their powers to help her. Itsuwa was just getting done talking about how she and her group’s fighting was child’s play compared to the scale of a saint-on-saint battle (and it was), but Kaori doesn’t need them to defeat Acqua, she just needs a little help.

She gets it, and Acqua is sufficiently distracted in trying to bring the hammer down on all of them that he completely misses Touma slipping him below him, in the direct path of the attack, which Imagine Breaker nullifies in a very satisfying moment.

In Acqua’s moment of vulnerability, Itsuwa comes back at him with Saint Breakout and this time it works. The multi-pronged attack on him actually reminded me of the Avengers in one of their attempts to use teamwork and elaborate tactics to bring Thanos down on Titan. They failed, but Touma, Itsuwa, Kanzaki and Amakusa succeed: Acqua is defeated.

After a brief flashback to when William Orville left England, Touma wakes up back in the hospital, under the gentle ministrations of Itsuwa. The two get a little too close for Index’s comfort, especially considering she was by his bid longer.

Kanzaki wants to thanks Touma for his help, but is a bit squirrelly about it until Tsuchimikado breaks out a “fallen angel maid” outfit for her to wear. Unfortunately we never get to see it in all its glory, but it certainly makes an impression on Index, Itsuwa, and Touma! Glad to see the lighter side of Index closely follow the stern and serious climactic battle.

From there we’re shown the next threats to Academy City in Fiamma of the Right, apparently the leader of the Right Hand of God. While Acqua took out a pillar in the Vatican, the damage Fiamma causes attacking the Roman Pope cracks the dome like an egg. That is not going to buff out!

After Fiamma takes off with Index as his target, the Pope orders the fourth member of RHoG, the pierced-up Vento of the Front, to go after Fiamma. Of course, Vento doesn’t take orders from the Pope, but she’s going anyway.

Finally, we also get a glimpse of Mr. Academy City himself, Al Crowley, upside down in his office-cocoon thingy telling his computers to do various things relating to Imagine Breaker. Looks like we’ll have plenty of material to work through to fill the remaining sixteen weeks.