Undead Murder Farce – 09 – The Howling Village

In a flashback, a scared little girl is riding on the back of a werewolf fleeing an angry mob. The wolf and girl seek refuge in a watchtower but the mob burns it to the ground. Eight years later, Tsugaru, Aya, and Shizuku have arrived in Heulendorf, in the German Alps, seeking the Forest of Fangs.

They first encounter the village doctor, Heinemann. Apparently, even in this remote village he’s heard of the Cage User, and begs them to take on a troubling case of village girls being taken in the night and later found torn to bits. It’s been happening every four months.

The villagers are understandably uneasy, and Gustav, father of Louise, the latest girl to be taken, even shoves a shotgun in Aya’s face when he first sees her. Aya tells him she’ll leave if he wants, but she believes she can determine who is behind the abductions, and he lowers the gun.

Aya has a good look around the scene of the kidnapping, and determines that a werewolf entered down through the chimney in wolf form, turned into a werewolf and tossed the room to make it seem like it was insane, then wrapped Louise (who must use a wheelchair to get around) in a bag and escaped through the now-broken window.

Aya is able to also rule out a copycat, as the bite marks on items in the recent scene match those from other incidents. While Aya tells Gustav he’s unlikely to see Louise “alive” again, she is still going to do her utmost to discover her kidnapper.

Aya, Tsugaru, and Shizuku then pay a visit to the elderly, bedridden mayor, who fears the village is done for. When he learns that they’re looking for the Forest of Fangs, he says it’s a place “that doesn’t exist in this world”, but can only be accessed by finding the forbidden werewolf village.

The mayor is loath to tell Aya where the village is or how to use the diamond, but when she bets she’ll be able to name the culprit behind the kidnappings within two days, he agrees to tell her. No sooner is this deal struck than two new cowboy-themed Royce agents arrive on the train.

Like the first episodes of the other arcs, this is mostly about setting the stage and introducing the players. Since I’m not the best detective I don’t have any ideas about who the culprit, other than perhaps the girl in the flashback. If she survived the fire, she may now be taking her revenge on the village that killed her mother and family.

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.

Golden Kamuy – 49 (S4 Fin) – Two Sides of the Coin

Spring has sprung in Hokkaido, and Asirpa as always proves a valuable font of Ainu knowledge when it comes to the usefulness of the various woods in the forest. Back in Sapporo, Usami is still hard at work on a different kind of wood, continuing to jack it as he rants about Ogata having killed his own brother for his father’s love.

When he didn’t get it, he killed his father so he’d get Tsurumi’s love. Usami, being both infatuated with and extremely possessive of the lieutenant, got into it with Ogata while he was still in the hospital, but Ogata got the final word: hitting Usami in the face with his bedpan and calling him “the cheapest” of Tsurumi’s pawns.

Ogata’s practice shooting lefty is paying off; he’s able to kill fowl for Hijikata’s crew. But he won’t call himself a sniper until he’s shot a human. We don’t get any Sapporo standoff this week, but you can bet Ogata and Usami will be facing off for all the marbles at some point, and Usami better bring more than cum to a gunfight!

Already pre-convinced that Sugimoto will leave her if they find the gold, and wondering if they should really find it at all or simply remain together forever, she finally tries to ask him directly, only for him to be distracted by strange marks on the trees. When one is felled, others fall like dominoes around them, trapping them under branches.

Back in town, Tsukishima and Koito catch a glimpse of Sofia, someone they identify only as someone to look out for. Indeed, Sofia is looking for revenge against Koito, but is biding her time until Asirpa is found.

Under the fallen tree, both Sugimoto and Asirpa are wounded but otherwise fine (Asirpa probably has a concussion). She asks him again what he’ll do with the gold, and he tells her about Umeko, to whom he was betrothed but couldn’t marry when his family died of TB. Ume-chan married their mutual childhood friend Toraji instead, but Toraji died in battle.

Sugimoto tells Asirpa he promised Toraji he’d return home to give Umeko the money. Asirpa is relieved his reason is “the Sugimoto she knows”. He also says he’ll remain her partner until she’s “satisfied with how things have turned out”. She notes it’s not the reply she wanted, but that means it’s ultimately her choice when, or even if he leaves.

Shiraishi manages to find them just as they’re in agreement he should know that Asirpa knows how to crack the code; his staying with her at Karafuto while Sugimoto was gone proves he’s trustworthy enough. We know Shiraishi is a convicted criminal and a greedy motherfucker, but I like to think his time with Asirpa and Sugimoto has at convinced him that betraying them is not in his best interest.

Now free of the fallen trees, Asirpa and Sugimoto survey the deforested field, and Asirpa says the Ainu chop trees and kill animals too, because they need to, but they take care not to take too much, and to leave a little behind. Sugimoto hopes that future generations will remember the kamuy who protect the Ainu.

Finding the gold is sure to determine the odds of that happening, and once Botaro is welcomed into the fold, he provides the vital next piece of the puzzle: a coin with an Ainu symbol of unity he found at the bottom of a lake. This coin convinces Asirpa that her father wasn’t responsible for killing the Ainu, but as he told Sofia, he wanted to unite all of the oppressed ethnic minorities far east Asia.

Asirpa is now certain what she has to do for the Ainu. She doesn’t share that with us, but with the post-credits announcement that the fifth and final season of Golden Kamuy is greenlit, we will find out for sure in due time. The bombshells left to be dropped and battles left to be fought are sure to be mixed with more Ainu lore, gross-out comedy, and, of course, generously marbled beefcake.

Golden Kamuy – 48 – Jacking the Ripper

Not five minutes pass after forging an alliance, Botaro the Pirate happens upon Sugimoto’s backpack and the evidence they’ve been looking for him. He distracts Sugimoto on the deck so his partner can pull a gun on him from behind, but Asirpa jams the revolver with a perfectly shot arrow. When the ship captain steers into some branches, Sugimoto and Botaro are tossed overboard.

Botaro is a high endurance diver who is as at home underwater as Michael Phelps, while Sugimoto…is not, so I knew this was going to be a tough fight. Hilariously, Shiraishi dives under to be an oxygen-giving guardian angel, only to be scorned by Sugimoto when he’s a little overzealous about giving mouth-to-mouth. Sugimoto is bailed out by a school of sturgeons, of all things, and when Botaro’s long hair is caught in the paddle wheel, Sugimoto saves him, and the truce continues.

Since the ship can’t dock due to wheel damage, the group takes a smaller boat, and on the way Asirpa not only sharpens a spear but kills herself a giant sturgeon. Thus we get the first “Hinna, hinna” culinary scene in a good long while, with Botaro the new variable in the equation. Every time he inquires as to the precise relationship of Sugimoto and Asirpa, they are both evasive, and Asirpa’s ears turn red. Meanwhile, we see Sofia is in Otaru. What could she be planning?

We then dash over to Sapporo, where Usami and Kikuta are investigating the serial killings. Usami does so with his rather unique special power: he’s a sperm detective, fapping in order to get into the killer’s state of mind.

His dick turns out to be correct that the killer will return that very night, and he and the killer end up in a fapping duel, Matrixing away from one anothers’ loads while Kikuta, the audience surrogate, continually asks what the hell is going on.

Kikuta manages to hop on the killer’s getaway horse and puts his pistol to his head, but the killer once again fires away, and a disgusted Kikuta is thrown from the horse…but not before getting a good look at his face.

The next day we see that Hijikata’s group is spread throughout the public areas of Sapporo disguised as merchants and beggars. Among them is Private Ariko, with whom Kikuta has a chat about allegiances. Ariko laments that neither Tsurumi nor Nagakura trust him, which I guess makes him an unfit double agent.

The newspaper publisher Ishikawa determines from the occupation of the victims and the timing of the murders that the killer is a Jack the Ripper wannabe, or possible fanboy. Jack is only credited with five murders before disappearing and the final murder came 40 days after the previous one.

Of course, this Jack copycat isn’t the only thing they have to contend with: there’s also Ueji Keiji, the creepy guy with the face tattoos capturing children. Sugimoto, Asirpa, and Shiraishi are arriving at Sapporo when it is quite the happening tinderbox. I’m sure we’ll be in for some serious (or possibly hilariously gross) fireworks in the season 4 finale.

Kabukichou Sherlock – 12 – One for the Cats

As one could have reliably predicted, Sherlock ends it’s first half by following up its most serious, hard-hitting, emotional episodes with one of its weakest, a calm after the storm, if you will. All of the detectives are feeling down since Moriarty was hauled away for murder, but Mrs. Hudson has a new case for them: Pipe the Cat is missing and possibly catnapped. The reactions of the detectives mirror my own enthusiasm for the case.

Don’t get me wrong, I love cats, especially comically huge ones like Pipe, but watching the detectives chase after him wasn’t particularly thrilling, nor is Sherlock’s innovative solution to catching him: a trail of strawberries. The detectives and Irregulars celebrate the retun of Pipe with a big party that raises everyone’s spirits somewhat, and while Irene leaves Sherlock’s life, Watson becomes his official assistant. With Jack gone, I wonder what overarching case will occupy the second half—and if Moriarty ever gets out of prison.

Kabukichou Sherlock – 11 – Hiding in Plain Sight

Before returning to the alley, Kabukichou Sherlock goes back to the night of poor Alex Moran’s murder. James visits her in her room, planning to help her sneak out of the house to meet his friends at the Detective House. We learn “Moriarty” is just a nickname for the East Side.

On the West Side, he’s James Moran, son of the Ward Mayor and Alex’s twin brother. James is delayed by their father (who is hosting a Christmas party), and by the time he catches up in the tunnel between West and East, Alex is already dead. From that night, James swore the murderer would pay.

Back to the alley, where Irene reveals she indeed faked her death. She, James and Sherlock get Watson caught up. When it was determined Jack wanted the USB, they let him believe Irene succumbed to her injuries, then used Watson as a “hook” to bait him.

Kyougoku Fuyuto is the one who tried to get the drive from Watson, and Sherlock intentionally frayed their friendship so that Watson would be more likely to steal it. But Kyougoku isn’t Jack, nor was he willingly working on his behalf.

For the rest of the reveal, Sherlock breaks out his rakugo routine, this time on the stage at Bar Pipecat. He doesn’t have to get far into his story before one detective after another realize how Kyougoku was compromised by love, fed Peyote, and manipulated by the real Jack, turn around to find that Maki-chan, who had been sitting at the bar, has vanished.

Sherlock continues his rakugo while he and Watson race to the spot where they believe they’ll run into Maki-chan, who is, in fact, Jack. A psychopath who murdered and took what he himself desperately wanted, but didn’t have: female reproductive organs.

Once Sherlock’s explanations make it impossible to continue his “Maki-chan” persona, Jack cracks, revealing his true voice and sick, twisted personality. Sherlock makes sure to catch his ravings on a voice recorder, wrapping up the case with a nice neat bow.

Only it seems Jack won’t get to face a trial by jury, as James can’t stop himself from slitting his throat. Mind you, Jack tries to fight the compulsion for revenge, but the final provocation from Jack was that he ate the part he cut out of Alex, as was his M.O.

By murdering Jack in cold blood, James no doubt faces criminal charges for murder himself, unless of course the assembled witnesses to the crime all agree it was a justified killing. I’m leaning towards him spending at least some time behind bars.

I honestly didn’t suspect Maki-chan in the least…until the scene of her in bed with Kyougoku. What at first looked like a virgin having his first ride was actually the effects of the Peyote, while Maki-chan’s brief smirk of satisfaction was a sign something else was afoot.

That said, it wasn’t until Sherlock’s rakugo began that I realized Kyougoku was being used by Jack, and the pieces began to fall snugly and satisfyingly into place. Very nicely done.

Kabukichou Sherlock – 10 – The War They Left for Us

John Watson is haunted by the death of Irene Adler. He’s constantly looking at his forearm which she grasped with her blood-soaked hand. The blood was washed away, but he can still feel it on his skin. She tried to tell him something, but all we heard was “Jack.”

Ever since then, Watson is visited upon by a ghost—the ghost of Irene. We see her body in the morgue, so the show is pretty insistent that she is, in fact, dead. Her ghost seems to imply Moriarty did it, and Sherlock is next, but Sherlock just wants to be alone.

We spend the whole episode all swept up in Watson’s suspicions, which might just curdle into paranoia by the time he’s openly accusing Moriarty of being Jack the Ripper. Moriarty laughs it off and then shares the joke with the whole gang, but we share Watson’s continued gut feeling that something is not quite right about Moriarty.

Even when Watson chases Moriarty, who is following Sherlock and even pulls a knife menacingly, it’s Watson whom Sherlock begins to suspect. He told Moriarty about Irene’s hideout, because he believed and still believes the kid can be trusted. Compared to him, Watson is a stranger. Still raw from the loss of Irene, Sherlock banishes Watson from his sight..

While sharing another drink at the bar (Watson drinks a lot this week, adding to his unreliability), Kyougoku Fuyuto proposes a way for Watson to get back into Holmes’ good graces: unlock the USB drive and find the proof about Jack’s identity. The first warning sign is that Fuyuto “knows someone” who can crack the password, so all Watson has to do is steal it from Sherlock and give it to him.

Perhaps sobering up a bit in the process of finding the drive (Sherlock hid it in a baggie in a can of peaches), Watson also gets cold feet about handing over the drive, but Fuyuto insists…with a knife. Turns out Fuyuto is obsessed with being the one to catch Jack, perhaps out of a need to prove to Maki that he’s worth marrying? In any case, a struggle ensues, interrupted by Moriarty and Sherlock, the latter of whom thanks Watson.

Was the whole plan to expose Fuyuto’s true colors? Is Irene really dead, or was her death faked to draw out Jack? Like Watson this week, I thought I was on to something about Moriarty, but now…I’m not so sure about anything!