It’s that time of the week again. I’m excited to see more of Ranpo getting himself into bad situations with no proper plan to get out of them. Or perhaps he’s grown since the last time and he now knows what he’s doing. I’m doubtful, but we’re here to find out. Let’s get to it then.
Seeing the opening play once more with all of the characters instead of just Ranpo and Fukuzawa definitely increases my excitement for this season. I’ve missed some of these characters. There’s also a coffin there, which I’m sure isn’t there for no reason. We see Chuuya and Ango from a previous season as well. It looks like a lot is on the line this time around.
We get a quick recap of what’s happened while Poe tries to find a clue to help Ranpo. What a good friend and rival. Poe is scared by his own phone, which instantly makes it the most relatable character in the series. We jump back to Ranpo figuring everything out with ease. At this point he’s let his passenger in on the fact that he’s aware of what’s going on, and not just some random kid taking the same taxi.
It turns out Ranpo was the one who called Poe, and the police heard everything that was going on. Both the murderer and the getaway driver will be arrested. Except that’s not what’s going to happen. These guys are professionals. Ranpo left his phone in the car though because he still had a plan. You can’t outwit Ranpo. My early guess is that Ranpo uploaded the story to his phone and made him read that or something? It turns out I’m right. To be fair, that wasn’t hard to guess, we’ve just seen Poe with the script on him. Every week I watch this anime, I want to go back and watch it from the start again, or perhaps read the manga. It’s so good. Ranpo says he’ll have the guy turn himself in though, we’ll see how he does that.
Here’s the big reveal. Yokomizo wasn’t killed by our perpetrator. He committed suicide. It was assisted suicide, but it was part of the plan all along. That’s pretty hardcore. I’d rather not live out the things that happen in my stories. Although I am currently working on one that’s pretty peaceful, that might be fun, but some of the others just feel stressful. Putting that aside, Ranpo is pretty smart to figure this out, but we knew that already. It was a mystery that leaks into the real world. Of course there’s more to the story. The author was terminally ill and asked his only friend to kill him as part of the story. Again, that’s pretty hardcore. And I’m guessing what Poe saw were tears. He didn’t want to kill his friend so he cried afterwards.
And with a proper amount of manipulation from Ranpo, the perpetrator gives in. But on his way to being detained, his car gets attacked by a stranger calling himself Nikolai. He’s obviously one of Five’s members and it’s not looking great for our murderer. No loose ends allowed. What a terrible ending to such a great episode. At least he managed to get a message across to Ranpo. Things are heating up fast and I’m just excited to be here for it. I’m guessing the huge job they’re about to get is to deal with Five, and that’s not going to go well. I wonder if we’ll see some serious losses on the side of the agency this season? So far they seem to be mostly scott free, but the author has shown before that he’s willing to kill off important characters when the story calls for it, so who knows. Anyway, I hope to see you all here again next week for the sixth episode. The title is called Tragic Sunday and I’m happy to inform you that I recognize the kanji for “day” now. My Duolingo practice is paying off. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 