「混戦遊戯」 (Konsen Yūgi)
“Free for All”

I apologize for the lateness and brevity- this week is going to be a bare bones post. I moved to Japan in the past few days and I’m still a bit discombobulated from the excitement, but wanted to put something out as soon as I could.

Ah, the lengths one would go to be a gentleman and the degree Lupin and Holmes take it is adorably ridiculous, between Lupin’s news announcement and Holmes insisting on keeping the diamond with him to stick to his word. Holmes’ flaw is his arrogance- if he’d just kept quiet about the diamond instead of announcing it to Lupin, the diamond would have been safe. He was practically begging Lupin to steal it- you don’t show your hand to anyone, not least Lupin.

Substituting Aya’s head into the safe was a clever trick- a perfect example of using one’s height to one’s advantage (or as Aya put it “sticking her neck out”). Shinuchi and Aya’s knack for turning detective work into a whole song and dance routine never ceases to be amusing. I’m guessing the story Shinuchi quotes is from a kabuki play (there is at least one about Ishikawa Goemon), but I don’t know for sure, so don’t quote me on that. As expected, Tsugaru lost on purpose- now Lupin gets a taste of his own medicine in getting tricked.

One of my favorite moments was Lupin getting ghosted by the Phantom of the Opera, right as he was about to pitch a “my freaky dude is better than yours” fight. The Phantom was smart- there’d be no winning that one for him. Unfortunately for him, he ran into the dual crossbow-wielding Doubledarts.

The other nuisance in the bunch is the Royce group- unlike the others, their focus is on eradicating the supernaturals, so they end up becoming a bit of a distraction to the detectives and thieves alike who now have a common enemy. The Royce crew is still an unknown- we know they hate the supernaturals, and are fighting experts, but we don’t know much beyond that.

Our professor and his monster crew are finally on the scene, making an already messy confrontation between Shinuchi and Lupin even messier- but hey, that’s where the fun is. Aleister’s fire snapping power (Roy Mustang, anyone?) and Camilla’s vampiric slice and dice are interesting talents to throw in the mix. Camilla will be the perfect opponent for Shizuku, both of them being blade wielders.

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