English Dub Review: Case File nº221: Kabukicho Take Back Your Melon Heart

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Fuyuto just hasn’t been the same since Maki died…but was also revealed to be serial killer with a wang. He hasn’t been sleeping, bathing, or eating right, so Watson decides to take him to the hospital to recover. But a new case arrives soon after, as a hospital kid named Futaro comes asking to save his friend Ranpo from another world. They lived at the Melon Memorial Hospital (where Fuyuto is staying conveniently), but one night Futaro awoke to find him and Ranpo in a fantasy world. But he later woke up and found his friend was gone, leading him to assume Ranpo is still in the other world. Naturally no one believes him, but Sherlock takes the case.

At the hospital, they meet the director, Yokomizo, Ranpo’s father, and the secretary, Matsumoto, who is also a longtime friend of the despondent Fuyuto. As kids they and another kid named Ango planned to be doctors, though Ango died and neither of them ever quite got there. But after some pranking from Sherlock and some encouragement from Matsumoto, Fuyuto is back in the detective game. Eventually they learn that Matsumoto has been luring Ranpo out and the “other world” was simply a VR game. Matsumoto is actually Yokomizo’s other son, but grew jealous of the fact that his father was grooming Ranpo to run the hospital, so he’s holding him ransom for control. Fuyuto stops him, and so finds himself back as a detective.

Meanwhile in prison, someone takes Moriarty’s food only to die from poisoning. Someone must be targeting him.

OUR TAKE

The peaceful transition period between story arcs continues as we put out a whole episode just to get Fuyuto back on his feet! Honestly, I’m not entirely sure if that was a very good use of time since it’s not like he’s been out of it all that long, so I can’t say I really missed him. Maybe this could have waited until close to the end of the season when they need a pinch hitter? Would give us a lot more time to feel his absence is the show did that right, I think. I can certainly understand why the stuff with Maki kind of broke his brain for a little bit but I don’t really buy that he would fully recover after this long.

And to add to that, the mystery isn’t really a good one. It probably doesn’t say much good that I took one look at Matsumoto and immediately knew he’d be the culprit. I had no idea HOW that would turn out to be the case, but my hunch was dead on. Not that it really helped learning exactly what his plan was because it didn’t feel very clever or interesting at all. That’s not exactly a rarity for this show, but it’s not common either, and so it’s a shame whenever it happens. The hook was pretty neat of having a kid sneak out of a hospital to ask for the case, but…then it kinda kept on adding the conveniences until I felt my brain just check out. It just ended up turning out to be a pretty sloppy outing for the series overall. That’s more excusable at this period when things are still waiting to ramp up again than it would near the end, but I still can’t say I enjoyed watching it very much.

The most interesting thing about this episode was probably the ending, which took as back to Moriarty’s perspective. Looks like he’s still being targeted within the prison, with him only escaping being poisoned by some bully taking his food. If I had to guess, it might be Moran pulling this, as Albert seems like the kind of guy to just beat people to death or mortal injury, like he and his goons did to Isshiki. Maybe next episode will offer some answers or maybe it’ll be another side story. I hope it’s the former because I am beyond ready for another major plot to start up already. Then again there are still some characters who haven’t gotten their own episode spotlights yet, so I could stand to see some of those in the meantime.