Kabukichou Sherlock – 05 – Straight and Narrow Lady Lu

After last week’s dullness I’ll admit I was prepared to drop Sherlock after this fifth episode, but I’m pleased to say the quality improved greatly, thanks in part to a refocusing of the narrative upon the Morstan sisters. Rather than be separated, Lucy took Mary and ran away, making Kabukichou their home. It was and is a tough life, and there’s never enough money, but in exchange they got to remain a family.

We learn that Lucy has a soft spot for a particular aging sumo wrestler named Omiyama, and delivers some daifuku for him as a token of her esteem. Later, Mary asks Lucy for help paying tuition for a cram school to the tune of 2 million yen (~$37,000), so she gets a loan for the amount from yakuza Boss Kaneko, who warns that if she doesn’t pay it back in two weeks, she’ll have to work at one of his red light district businesses.

On her way home to give her beloved little sister the cash, Lucy and Moriarty encounter a large man in pink robes seemingly ready to jump off a balcony. Turns out he’s her favorite sumo wrestler’s attendant, Bunmaru, who got drunk, passed out, and lost the money meant to repair their team’s headquarters. The amount? Two million yen. She has to go back to Boss Kaneko and doubles her debt.

When Omiyama and Bunmaru come to the Pipecat to offer their heartfelt thanks, Sherlock, sitting at the bar, notices something. Later, Kaneko has a chat with Watson about Lucy, and he drags her to Sherlock, begging him to lend her money to pay the boss back. But Sherlock says there’s no need: the one who took Bunmaru’s two million hasn’t spent it yet. He explains in rakugo form, but Lucy only has to hear the part about the daifuku putting you to sleep before running off to confront Omiyama.

Lucy’s regard for Omiyama goes back to the day she and Mary arrive in Kabukichou, when some bad men were about to abduct Mary, and Lucy was too small to fight them off. Mary is rescued by Omiyama, who leaves Lucy with a bit of advice: stay on the straight and narrow and you’ll do fine here.

Fast forward to the present, and Omiyama is facing demotion and retirement…so he drugged the daifuku Bunmaru ate so he could steal the two million repair fund and use it to fix matches.

Lucy tries to fight Omiyama to no avail, then exposes his crime, and he is contrite. Clearly moved by Lucy’s ability to stay on the straight and narrow all this time like he advised years ago, he accepts retirement and returns the cash to his attendant.

Lucy doesn’t take that cash back, even though it’s owed. Instead, she goes to work for Boss Kaneko. When Mary hears about this she’s distraught and busts her way into the business, but it turns out to be nothing too untoward: Lucy just had to dress up in drag and be a lot for the “Stud Farm” auction, where she’s naturally a sensation.

In the end, the “tuition” Mary wanted wasn’t for classes at all, but a beautiful dress she wanted and which she ends up wearing to the auction. In that regard, this episode doesn’t make Mary look that great (especially if Lucy ended up having to do something worse to pay back the boss), but demonstrates Lucy’s incurable weak spot for her little sister, and her fierce commitment to her happiness.

Inuyashiki – 04

Inuyashiki’s fourth episode opens with a ruthless, towering yakuza boss ordering his men to dispose of the naked body of an overdosed woman on his bed, then making another yakuza perform oral sex on him as a form of submission. So…not a good guy.

Then things switch gears completely to the diminutive but lovely Fumino and her boyfriend Satoru, who love each other deeply and agree to get married and have kids. As nice as all that is, I immediately suspected this was either a flashback, and Fumino was that body, or she’s the yakuza boss’ next victim.

The latter turns out to be the case, as Fumino is suddenly abducted while walking home, and wakes up naked on the boss’ bed. He immediately gets on top of her, telling her he’ll “make her his”, but Fumino fights back, getting away and even managing to slash the brute’s wrist with his own katana. While his men tend to his wound she slips out.

She manages to get all the way back to Satoru’s worried-sick arms, but it’s not long before the boss, named Samejima, and his henchmen break into their apartment. Satoru begs for his and Fumino’s lives, promising to pay any price, no matter what it takes, but his pleas fall on deaf ears, and Samejima picks him up by the throat and starts to choke him out.

Enter the Hero, Ichirou, who no doubt heard what has been transpiring and will not have it. After sending the henchmen flying, he puts Samejima in a bear hug, but “shuts down” when a clip is emptied in his head. When he wakes up, it’s just him and a nearly-dead Satoru.

When his magic body won’t heal him, Ichirou uses CPR to revive him, and then uses Satoru’s phone to locate Samejima, who is enjoying a meeting with other yakuza bosses at a luxurious inn.

While his initial encounter with Samejima was not fruitful, Ichirou has clearly gotten the hang of flying and forcing his way through crowds. When Samejima takes him aside, Ichirou does what he should have done the first time: sock the guy in the face.

The other yakuza respond by emptying clip after clip into Ichirou with automatic weapons, but it only stuns him. He activates his flight mode, targets everyone in the inn, and takes out all of their eyes with a fusillade of particle beams.

It’s wholesale justice; Ichirou laying down the law, and before leaving, Ichirou makes sure he properly verbalizes what he’s done: deprived all of them of the means to walk, eat, see their children’s and grandchildren’s faces, touch them ever again…or even take their own lives.

Rather than execute them, he hopes they’ll live long lives, in such a state that he hopes they one day feel remorse for the horrible things they’ve done. I for one am not that optimistic, but at least they’ll won’t hurt anyone—including his family—ever again. The cycle of dead bodies on beds has been stopped; at least with this clan. Obviously, there are many others.

After contacting those watching her with Samejima’s phone, Ichirou locates Fumino, apparently heals her of the harm done by the drugs, and flies her back to her love, Satoru.

I’ll point out that Satoru is nothing special in the looks or money department—indeed, he’s very much a young Ichirou—but love, like that yakuza scum, is blind. Satoru and Fumino have good and gentle souls, and I was bowled over with relief and joy to see them reunite.

Ichirou slinks off into the night, claiming he’s “nobody special”, but in reality, he was this couple’s savior. It’s good to see him getting better at this hero thing, especially not getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of evil in the world and the impossibility of stamping it all out. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do as much as you can, and he will.

And so, Inuyashiki continues its M.O. of putting its audience through hell before showing them a glimpse of heaven. Whether it was the intro of Ichirou as a feeble sadsack or the stunningly awful but thankfully temporary twist in Fumino’s fate, the show has no qualms about putting characters and viewers alike through the ringer, but rewards us for sticking around by delivering breathtakingly righteous justice to evildoers.

Only Shishigami Hiro has escaped retribution…so far. But the strongest yakuza boss in the world is a cakewalk compared to Hiro. If Ichirou can’t defeat him and he can’t defeat Ichirou, they’ll have to figure…something else out.