Holmes of Kyoto

Episode 3

It's difficult to deny that this week's mystery would have been easier for us to solve alongside Kiyotaka had it had better visuals. The coded messages left the sons of a recently deceased author is very reliant on not only the interpretation of classic Japanese art, but also on the way the sons look, so the fact that there are a surprising amount of off-model shots is a definite issue. Luckily if you're really paying attention, it isn't impossible to see the physical differences between the youngest brother and the older two, but one major clue is a bit tricky to spot. Of course, you also have to know specifically what you're looking for, so maybe this is more an issue of aesthetics – some of those scenes of Kiyotaka and Aoi walking are really awkward.

I'd say that this third episode cements this series as more of a cozy than anything more devoted to Japanese antiquities. It feels like a short story brought to animated life – Kiyotaka and Aoi go on a trip to hike Mt. Kurama and wander into a mystery they have to solve. The case is who burned the wall scrolls left to the aforementioned three sons, and it seems to be more a matter of curiosity than anything, because they were cheap reproductions rather than valuable originals. We, of course, know immediately who did the deed because of the opening scene; the actual question here is why she did it.

There's an attempt to confuse the issue with a decent red herring: middle son Akihito didn't go to college, but rather left home to become an actor. He's clearly the kid on the outs with the rest of the family, at least in his perception of things, and his personality is brash and perhaps a bit impulsive. This makes him look like the perfect candidate for criminal on paper, but there are hints that we're being led astray if you pay attention. The major clue to what's really going on lies in the way the mother and the secretary interact with each other. The boys all gather together around the table when Kiyotaka comes in, but Mom immediately plants herself by the secretary's side. Throughout the interviews with the boys, the two of them exchange glances, and it she never takes her eyes from him when he tells the story of how he came to hold his position. It's not a far jump to the fact that Kid #3 is their child, not the son of the wife with her husband.

This makes her explanation of why she burned the scrolls feel somewhat suspect. She claims not to have realized that each scroll had a message for the specific son it was left to, and to have burned them out of anger at not being left anything beyond a ring with a semi-precious stone. But if she already knew that the scrolls were worthless, her ring was clearly the more valuable inheritance, so this explanation really doesn't hold water. Although Kiyotaka and Aoi don't say anything about it, it's clear that she did understand what her late husband was getting at, and that she was deliberately trying to hide the truth from her sons. Therefore the mystery is really about a family secret, not the crime of the burnt scrolls, something visually denoted by the blank faces of Kiyotaka and Aoi at the end of the crime-solving portion of the episode.

This may not be quite a return to what made episode one so interesting, but it is definitely closer than episode two was. This is largely because it's Kiyotaka's knowledge of the symbolism of the artworks that informs the central mystery rather than a kind of cheesy mean-girl fight, so this may bring some viewers disappointed with episode two back to the show for a bit. But it is still following the low-stakes cozy formula, albeit not quite to the degree of books with titles like Knit One, Kill Two. The calm chemistry between the leads makes this work, but if you're not here for this sort of episodic storytelling, this may not be the show for you.

Rating: B-

Holmes of Kyoto is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.