My Home Hero

Episode 9

Likely, everyone is familiar with the "Who done it?" style of mystery through cultural osmosis, if nothing else. Part of the fun of these stories is taking all the evidence and various character testimonies and trying to solve the mystery before the detective character can put it all together. In general, "My Home Hero" is a different kind of mystery. We know who did it, so it's more of a "How will they get away with it?" than anything else. However, when it comes to this specific episode, it breaks the series' usual pattern and becomes not a "Who done it?" but a "How done it?"

While at first, this episode appears to be closely following Tetsuo as usual, it's following the yakuza—Majima, most specifically. When Tetsuo is out of earshot of Majima, we don't get to see what he says or does (beyond the first few seconds anyway). While it may not be obvious at first, this is a kind of directorial trick designed to keep the audience in the dark—and in doing so, create a major moment of revelation later. In this case, the revelation is built around the fact that, somehow, Nobuto's bones have been placed in Majima's home safe. This is the "How done it?" we are tasked with solving.

And as far as "How done it?" mysteries go, this is a good one. We are well familiar with both the location and the safe. Heck, it was only last episode that Tetsuo failed to enter the apartment, let alone crack the safe. Moreover, while Majima did open his safe in Tetsuo's presence, we saw that Tetsuo was looking in the other direction and thus didn't know the combination or the contents.

We're given a few hints near the end of the episode to get us speculating. We see some of what Tetsuo has been doing on his side—how he's manipulated Majima into thinking Takeda is setting him up and Takeda into thinking Majima is behind Nobuto's murder (with the unsolved robbery serving as the motive for the crime). However, the key to everything—the planting of the evidence—remains almost a total mystery.

Of course, the one thing we do know is the “Who done it?”—which brings us to everyone's favorite “average housewife,” Kasen. Though we get only a few scant seconds of her in this episode, they tell volumes. Kasen nonchalantly stretching before rappelling off a rooftop and getting to some good old breaking is not only great dark humor, but also an important character beat. Just as with her walking in on the murder in the first episode, she seems to be emotionally in control to an almost scary degree. It's as if committing a major crime is no different to her than dealing with some minor household crisis or another. While Tetsuo is excited and thrilled by being a part of a real-life mystery story with himself as the culprit, Kasen isn't even fazed by her situation. She has a task that needs to be done for her family, and all other concerns simply fall by the wayside. It makes her seem both a bit crazy and badass. I can't wait till next week to see how she sets everything up.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Tetsuo goes stone-faced to an out-of-character degree this episode—though it's unlikely the yakuza noticed.

• I wonder if Tetsuo did some things in the apartment off-screen to help Kasen—like unlocking a window while Majima was cooking for him.

• While Tetsuo does fabricate a motive for Majima killing Nobuto, the fact that it comes from a random email is super suspicious and makes it seem like Majima is being set up (which he is).

• Interesting. So the motive behind Nobuto getting close to Reika was to get her family's money. Though, as Tetsuo seems to be a normal, mid-level employee, I'm guessing it's Kasen's parents who are rich. However, given what we've seen of what happened when the two fell in love, I'm getting the feeling that they are estranged, so I'm not sure the yakuza's plan ever had any chance of working to start with.

My Home Hero is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.