English Dub Review: The Millionaire Detective – Balance: Unlimited “Love Does Much, Money Does Everything”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Kato is continuously irritated by the new guy’s methods of using the money for everything. Kato goes over to the Stop Shoplifting Campaign with Kambe trailing along and on the way back they stop by street performers. Kambe catches a whiff of a drug on one of the performers which warrant a questioning on their supplier. After the interrogations, they got a lead on a model distributing the drugs, Yuta Izezaki. They trail Izezaki to his hangouts with female models from the Millennium Entertainment along with a black-haired woman who appears to be the model’s liaison.

Kato follows the mystery woman who is revealed to be Kambe’s relative, Suzue Kambe. She worked undercover to gather the information that the drugs came from a crime syndicate, Gondawara-gumi run by Mikio Umezu, and that he’ll be at an exclusive party. Kato sneaks into the party and gets caught stealing Umezu’s phone he runs with an unlikely companion up to the rooftop. Then Kambe shows up in a helicopter and starts shooting sleeping gas to incapacitate Umezu and members of the party. Afterward, Kato argues with Kambe on his methods but storms off when Kambe brings up the reason why he was booted from the First Division. Unfortunately for Kato, he’s whisked away to Hong Kong with Kambe on their next assignment.

Our Take:

This episode was a standard set up with an inciting incident of a model overdosing on drugs to the street performers to build up to the party and the aftermath of the drug case.

There are several moments where Kato clashes with Kambe on the whole money thing especially with the street performers doing a comedy skit to their interrogations. Kambe relies on his high tech glasses to gather information along with his bank account to pay for the information while Kato’s coworker, Cho strikes from the heart using the other performer’s mother as a guilt trip. Kato’s words on the way criminals should confess from the heart which is why justice prevails is another example of his righteous ideals that we’ve seen from the first episode. Meanwhile, Kambe’s coldness in his interrogation is the same as the money he hands out.

There’s also how they investigate while leading to the same conclusions. Kato stakes out for days in his car to the point where he stinks while Kambe has Suzue and later Kato’s writer friend, Mita extracts the information about the syndicate. It’s a good way of showing how different ways can lead to similar results, but Kambe’s method does find out about the party which Kato begrudging gives him the acknowledgment. Admittedly when Suzue commented on how they could just crush the entire organization that was just the icing on the cake with how outlandish Kambe’s plans are to Kato who rejects their efficient idea.

Now Kambe’s cluelessness on the cup ramen was an interesting moment to show how out of touch he is with normal things. Even the gummy fishes that Mahoro offers him, in the beginning, attest to this. Similarly, Kato’s bewildered reactions to Kambe’s house and being buckled in on Kambe’s private plane was also a good laugh with how he’s outside his comfort zone.

There’s Suzue, Kambe’s relative who gets introduced as a mystery at first, and I couldn’t help but notice how Kambe sat in the back seat closer to the car that she was in with the model at the drug meetup. Whether that’s evidence that he’s looking out for her in his own way is definitely debatable. They appear to be close even in the opening where she’s on his lap. She’s later revealed to be good with her hands since she worked on an armored vehicle and is shown to pilot the helicopter Kambe was on while he was shooting sleeping gas at the top floors of the tower he purchased. I look forward to seeing how she assists Kambe in his side of the investigations.

In the last moments of the episode, we find out that Kato misfired at a target which led him to be demoted to Modern Crimes and without a gun. Usually, that’s something the cop partner would bring out after a moment of trust with their new ally, but Kambe subverts that expectation as he does with nearly everything. Admittedly I hope the next episode will be just as explosive with their trip to Hong Kong.