Housekishou Richard-shi no Nazo Kantei – 02, 03

「ルビーの真実」 (Rubii no Shinjitsu)
“The Ruby’s Truth”

So far, The Case Files of Jeweler Richard has been giving me the right mix of mystery while examining human characterisation. People’s characterisations are explored through their own personal situations, which cause them to bring in jewels for Richard to examine in the first place.

When Richard chastises Seigi and reminds him to remain open-minded, polite and tolerant to all of the customers, I expected it to come into play soon. But I didn’t expect it to be in this specific type of context. Even though there’s a lot of positive portrayal regarding yaoi and yuri in anime, I was reminded that being homosexual in Japan isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Mami heavily struggles with following through her own heart, as opposed to the expectations which her family and society at large have placed upon her. To the viewer, the choice seems obvious. While the dude comes from a rich family and really does love her, he seems really emotionally immature and stalkerish, lacking any kind of respect for her own personal space when hiring a private detective to investigate her. That’s… pretty creepy, even if he was at his wit’s end. And being totally cool with the possibility of her having an affair? I’m quite sure he simply has an NTR fetish and would have liked the idea anyway. Unfortunately for him, Mami decides that she cannot live pretending to be straight and openly rejects his proposal, embracing her homosexuality.

Sadly, there were some noticeable adaptation issues. Namely, they cut out an extremely important character in Akashi, who actually appears in the original novels. She’s a lot more free-spirited and accepting of her own homosexuality, encouraging Mami to be herself. I feel that this decision makes the episode so much worse than what it could have been, because Akashi would have been such an essential character in getting Mami to properly realise the lie she’s living. Having Seigi solve it all feels clunky – after all, he might be well-intentioned, but he’s just a straight stranger who doesn’t really understand the true gravity of what Mami’s trying to live through. Having Akashi provide input would have made the resolution a lot more natural and fluid, since she’s a woman who’s gone down the same path as Mami, and can totally understand where she’s coming from and why she’s having such a struggle pulling through the situation. That said, it does fit with Seiji’s hero of justice theme. Finally, I’m glad that Mami was able to realise what she wanted for herself. While the future is uncertain, because there’ll doubtlessly be difficult times ahead, I believe she definitely made the right choice and wish her all the best for figuring the rest out – specifically reaching out to Akashi and acknowledging the feelings she has towards her.

「キャッツアイの慧眼」 (Kyattsuai no Keigan)
“Insight of the Cat’s Eye”

I’m a massive fan of how this series has approached romance, especially how the progression feels so natural and realistic. Seigi obviously has the hots for Tanimoto yet can’t quite pluck up his courage. Just as he was kicking himself for failing to ask her out, who knew she’d be the one to grow some balls and ask him out? So that’s a date secured for our protagonist! But with that out of the way, we can now focus on client of the week: a young boy named Hajime who’s looking for a similar jewel to the yellow cat’s eye that he brings in.

Hajime comes across as an intelligent and spunky kid – albeit bratty. It was heartwarming to see him warm up to Seigi, and learn that his worries are about his cat Milk, who recently disappeared. We learn that Milk is a special cat, saving Hajime’s family from potentially life threatening situations many times. I also really enjoyed the confrontation and reconciliation that Hajime had with his father – although I found the drama surrounding this episode quite questionable where my suspension of disbelief were concerned. Firstly, no way my pet would stop my family from going on a holiday. Holidays cost money and I’d have simply moved the cat out of my way. Secondly, the way that Hajime’s father failed to be direct and forthright with his son. Hajime isn’t a stupid boy, he can understand and worry about these things, and the worst thing is that letting a friend temporarily look after the cat isn’t even some terrible thing that needs to be kept a secret! I suppose that it does happen, especially when the dad works a corporate job that seems to be extremely demanding if his arm injury is anything to go by. But I reckon a lot of trouble could have been easily avoided here.

Other than that, I really enjoy the characterisations being construcated for Seigi and Richard, not to mention their synergy together. Seigi is the emotional and involved person who can’t help but assist those in need, while Richard takes a step back to analyse and assess situations with a calm and calculated mannerism. They bounce of each other extremely well, especially when it comes to resolving a client’s issues, and their personal interactions are mostly amusing and witty. What’s more, it definitely seems like they both carry a hard chip on their shoulders – with Seigi having a flashback to himself as a child in tears when Hajime broke down and Richard murmuring that there’s a difference between love and compatability when the topic of his family fleetingly comes up. I look forwards to seeing how these promising morsels of background story flesh out our main characters. Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading my post and maybe see you next week? If not me, there might be someone else picking up this series. You’ll find out soon.