In/Spectre Season 2

Episode 21

You can't accuse KOTOKO of not enjoying herself. It isn't even part of her assignment, yet somewhere between her daydreams of getting fingerbanged in the bathtub, she coaxes attempted murder confessions out of two rich jerks. She's a regular Columbo. She'd be utterly terrifying if she were at the beck and call of actual law enforcement, so maybe it's for the best that she's preoccupied with problems of the paranormal variety.

In fact, that's likely why she's visibly annoyed at having to deal with the current case. While it's ultimately for the benefit of her yokai buddies, most of what she's doing here is corralling a bunch of uptight bluebloods in a way that appeases their family patriarch. It's not surprising, then, that this episode veers so far away from that primary goal. In/Spectre's tales are always prone to tangents—that's either their appeal or their poison, depending on your opinion of the series. Here, though, I have to wonder how much of this stems from KOTOKO trying to amuse herself in a job she can't get out of. That's something we can all relate to, even if we've never had to concern ourselves with faking a solution to a cold case.

Ostensibly, this episode lays the groundwork so the three heirs gathered can get to the work of drafting their solution to Goichi's mystery. We see them hash out the matter of inheritance independent of their father's will and outline what they were doing on the day of the murder, so they have a complete picture of how their alibis must factor into their story. However, what In/Spectre is actually doing here is giving us a more rounded portrait of the Otonashi family. In the previous episode, we only had the elder Goichi's word to go on. There are any number of details he could have omitted, forgotten, or not known. Having Susumu, Koya, and Rion participate gives us a glimpse into these three branches of the family, and more importantly, into how all three of them plotted to murder their mother.

This is a deliciously wry turn of events too. Goichi's whole reason for putting this song and dance together was to teach his kids that murder is bad and wrong. Unfortunately, that's a lesson most people try to instill in their offspring at an earlier age, and in this case, it looks like he's a tad too late. They all already tried to kill their mom! Everyone, including Goichi, is so detached about it too. The crime is far enough removed from the present that this isn't entirely surprising, but I wonder if this isn't In/Spectre commenting on the baseline sociopathy of the ruling class. While Rion is the only person who gets loudly upset, it's hard to say whether she's more disturbed by what she's hearing or more perturbed at KOTOKO for putting her in this position.

There's also the possibility that Goichi knew about his children's murder plots beforehand. He could have arranged this little get-together with the intent of airing their dirty laundry. Maybe he wanted his kids to experience their own dose of atonement, or maybe he has more nefarious motivations. It's also entirely possible that he arranged for his wife's murder in order to beat his kids to the punch (or to the stabbing, as it were). If he got wind that all three of them were aiming to off her at the same time, then perhaps he dirtied his own hands to spare theirs, in a twisted display of fatherly protection. Whatever the circumstances, it only becomes increasingly obvious that there were any number of ways to solve their crappy mom problem that weren't premeditated murder.

In a twisted sense, though, one could also argue that conspiring to kill their matriarch is the one event that managed to unite a family fractured by internal power struggles. Two warring brothers managed to set aside their differences. A married couple put total trust in each other. Rion is the odd person out here, so whatever the resolution of this arc will be, I suspect it will revolve around her. She is, perhaps, the generation that Goichi is most concerned about getting “the message,” so her revulsion toward the entire proceedings might be the final point. Wherever this story goes next, this episode did a bang-up job layering nefarious complications over an already convoluted setup. It's peak rich people drama. If I were KOTOKO, I'd be listening to this, kicking back, and eating grapes off the vine like a Greek deity too.

Rating:

Bonus Japanese lesson: You didn't think I'd let you go without another quick explanation of KOTOKO's potty mouth, did you? This week, she oh-so subtly hints that Kuro should feel free to “wash his hands” in her vagina, but interestingly, she doesn't say that precise phrase in Japanese. The wording she uses instead is 壺洗い (tsubo arai), which combines the word 壺, meaning “jar” or “pot,” with 洗い, the verb for “washing.” However, as you might imagine, this doesn't literally refer to washing pots. Instead, it's slang for a service at Soaplands where patrons can do, well, exactly what the English translation went with. And I think that was the right call on the translator's part. The point of her little speech is that she's being extremely crude in polite company (what else is new?), so using the crass figurative meaning gets that point across most directly and hilariously. The more you know!

In/Spectre Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Steve is on Twitter while it lasts. Please send him any good pictures of KOTOKO in funny hats that you find. Otherwise, catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.