English Dub Review: Case File nº221: Kabukicho “First Moonlit Night”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After Mycroft stops by Sherlock’s apartment to snoop a bit more for Moran, a new case turns up at the rowhouse to take everyone’s minds off Moriarty’s imprisonment. A man named Kohada is looking for someone to find his missing brother and believes that his brother’s friend might be the culprit. Sherlock recognizes some of this as something similar to a Rakugo performance called “The Living Keheiji” and decides to take the case. Mycroft takes this opportunity to explain how Sherlock ended up at the Detective’s Rowhouse. Sherlock was an odd but easily bored child and one day wandered to Kabukicho, becoming enamored with rakugo and also meeting Mrs. Hudson. He trained in rakugo for five years but was told that he only ever did imitations and got booted. He then went to practicing in the park, which is where he first met Moriarty, who related to how both of them were trying to find their “missing pieces” through some other means. Soon, Moriarty got him to become a detective and to use rakugo during his deductions. The rest is history.

Moriarty, meanwhile, isn’t doing great in prison, being beat up on the regular. The main threat being a prisoner named Albert Trevor, who has a big Prince Zuko scar on his left eye. But at least he has a friend, Isshiki, who cares for Moriarty even though his sentence is up in a week. Moriarty also shares his own backstory. His mother and sister Alex were the only things that kept him happy back then, but his mother died and Alex was bedridden, while his father rejected him for his odd behavior. One day, his sister told him to explore Kabukicho, which is where he met Sherlock. Soon after, Alex was killed by Jack the Ripper, and then eventually, Moriarty killed Jack and wound up here.

Back at the rowhouse, Sherlock deduces that Kohada killed his brother and came here to solidify an alibi, which turns out to be true. Watson wonders if there was a connection between Sherlock meeting Moriarty and Mycroft working for Moran, Moriarty’s father, but Mycroft denies it. And in prison, while Isshiki is released early, he’s been terribly injured by Albert and Moriarty is alone again.

OUR TAKE

We seem to still be in a transitionary period between plotlines as we get another light-hearted episode to take a breather from the serious stuff and fill in the blanks on some backstories. We had gotten quite a bit on Moriarty in the past few episodes, but it was still good to learn a bit more and get some further emphasis on the circumstances that have forced him down this dark path. Losing the people he cared about most in his family, making what seemed like a new one amongst the detectives and irregulars, then losing that too, at least for now. Now, feeling isolated and cut off with even his only friend in that space being hurt and leaving him, this might be the beginning of rather dark times for Moriarty. With almost a dozen episodes left in the season and Moran still in power, we could be seeing some descent into evil for our boy before the show ends.

Sherlock, in contrast, hasn’t actually had a whole lot of info regarding his background since the show start, just glimpses here and there. With this episode, we finally learn about where his love of rakugo first originated and how he integrated it into his detective work, which was inspired by Moriarty. Just as in many adaptations, the two are entwined as kindred spirits, though as I’ve said, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen in it in this sort of “Smallville” kind of way where they were friends first. It’ll certainly make for an emotional conflict if they end up having to come to blows…although there is the possibility that making him the villain will be SO obvious that they go a roundabout way with it.

Oh, and we got an updated OP and a brand new ED to go with this half of the season. The ED continues the more solemn and poignant theme that the previous one did but doesn’t look like it’s hinting at anything coming up. It’s just reflecting the theme of friendship and comradery that the last one did, which isn’t exactly a bad thing, just that I wish they would bother to experiment a bit more with what might be there last go of things. The OP is virtually the same (which is also a shame) but the main differences I could point out include the addition of Albert Trevor and some unnamed minister to some of the character appearances, implying that they’ll be important down the road. We shall see as the mystery continues.