Holmes of Kyoto

Episode 6

Even as light mysteries go, this episode of Holmes of Kyoto feels like it was just phoning it in. In some ways, I wonder if the storyline even needed the addition of a mystery component in order to make its point – the plot this week revolves around the fact that Kiyotaka's grandfather once refused to lie about a celebrity's antique on an “Antiques Roadshow”-style TV program. Friends of the celebrity in question felt that Owner (as Aoi calls him) deliberately set out to make their beloved stage magician look bad by claiming that his Jeong vase was a fake, and so they set up a very silly locked-room style mystery involving Owner's (real) antique celadon vase in order to…get revenge? Scare him? Make it known that they're still holding a grudge years later? There honestly doesn't seem to be much point.

On the plus side, we can solve along with Kiyotaka this week. The fact that several television stars are present at an antiques appraiser's birthday party is a major clue that something weird is going on, and the producer of the show Owner appeared on and one member of the comedy duo who staged the “crime” look suspiciously similar, something which hasn't been an issue despite a general deterioration in production quality. Aoi being handed the key to the treasure room is another sledgehammer of a hint, as is the mere focus on the celadon vase as the most valuable piece in the collection. But perhaps the most glaring hint is the fact that there are in no way enough pieces of pottery on the pedestal to have made up a vase of the size of the one we saw earlier in the episode. I mean, maybe I'm at an unfair advantage having a father who throws pots, but I suspect that even the uninitiated could figure out that there's something fishy about the few shards being all that's left.

All of these details add up to an episode that feels a little underbaked. The point that it's all getting at, that an appraiser can't afford to risk his credibility on a lie, not even to save someone's pride on national television, is a valid one, and doubtless something at the heart of the battle of wits between Kiyotaka and Ensho. Ensho wants Kiyotaka to screw up and lose his credibility over one of Ensho's counterfeits, which would in turn elevate Ensho's work to a whole new level of perfection in imitation. That's what their rivalry hangs on, and Owner's role this week is to make it clear just why that's such a big deal, because if he's willing to throw someone's pride under the bus on TV rather than compromise himself, this is serious business. I definitely appreciate this attempt at showing rather than telling such important-to-the-plot information. But it feels so poorly constructed that its message is almost lost, even simply in the fact that it is an important one downplayed by less-than-stellar episode construction.

But hey, at least we get to meet two more of the people in the opening theme! The Wayne lookalike is Rikyu, the son of Owner's girlfriend who used to work at Kuse, and the woman sitting with Owner at the counter is his mother, a woman rather older than she looks. (Although still thirty years younger than her boyfriend.) Rikyu seems a bit annoying in the way he fawns over “Kiyo-nii,” but he appears to be mostly teasing Aoi in his own mean Kyoto boy way rather than actually being jealous of her. What's more impressive is the way that the thirty-year age gap between his mom and Kiyotaka's granddad is handled – people are surprised, mostly because she looks so young, but then everyone just says something along the lines of “Well, she's over forty, so whatever.” Possibly this is meant to imply that forty is ancient, but I'd prefer to interpret it as “she's an adult, let her live her life.” (Interestingly enough, we don't hear any approbatory comments directed at Owner for snagging a hot younger lady.)

In the hit-or-miss nature of this show, this episode lands more on the “miss” side. That's because it doesn't feel like it quite respects its mystery and just tosses us a map to the case rather than even partially obscuring the clues, and the point really could have been made in a more subtle way. Be that as it may, this is still more of a fluff show than anything, and if you're shipping Aoi and Kiyotaka, the moment when he's surprised to see her all dressed up makes up for a lot of other ills.

Rating: C+

Holmes of Kyoto is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.