Ryoko’s Case Files 2: Cheesy, In A Good Way

For once, I’d actually like to see someone fall in this situation.

Summary:

Taking off from last episode, Ryoko knows that the woman, Mizoroki Kinuko, was going to try and poison her, but it seems the assasin hadn’t placed it in that drink. As Izumida arrives, Ryoko motions to him that she could see the reflection of the poison in the glass on the other side of the bar, and that’s how she knew that there was no poison in the drink she had. When questioned, Kinuko opts for the “suicide before capture” option, shouting about how it is all for the sake of an experiment, and kills herself with the poison.

Later, the police arrive on the scene as well as Soga himself, playing the ignorant leader to the actions of his subordinates who kidnapped Kishimoto and attacked Izumida; in fact, Kishimoto says he was knocked out by them and saved by Soga. Saying that she’ll eventually reveal his true identity, Ryoko leaves with Izumida. They realise that the Tsukuyomi party may try to obtain informatiion by “contacting” Professor Tatsumi. Unfortunately, at the same time, we see that Professer Tatsumi is confonted by the mysterious white-haired woman from the previous episode who leaves with a suitcase. They meet up with another of Ryoko’s subordinates, Nonagase, this time from her father’s security company, JACES, an extremely powerful and rich company. While they are being ferried to Tatsumi’s lab, Ryoko tries to contact him, only obtaining a busy signal the whole time. When they finally arrive…

They obtain information from JACES that Soga is an executive of the Tsukuyomi party, and is using the food imported by the QTR to experiment with whatever they are using and know that if any problems were to occur, the exporting countries would be blamed. At this point, Ryoko decides that it’s time to fight.

She and Izumida return to the Ginza building. Izumida expresses his concern for his boss’ well being, only for Ryoko to say that she “won’t die yet” and that, at times like these, subordinates should say things like “I won’t let you die”. Afer this brief, passionately charged encounter, they proceed to infiltrate the facility (knocking out guards in the process with ninja/martial arts skills of course). They capture one of the guards and Ryoko uses some painful “persuasion” techniques to get him to hand over all the information on the QTR imports. An officer, Maki, arrives to take him away.

Izumida and Ryoko proceed to raid the laboratory for the mummification chemical, even though they already have all the evidence they need. Izumida says he feels like a thief in the middle of a fire, which gives Ryoko a nasty glint in her eye…

We then see Soga praising Tsukuyomi in an experimental chamber with a forest at the bottom, in which there seems to be a GIANT SNAKE. Ryoko and Izumida arrive and it is revealed that the party is trying to create an “Ochimizu”, basically a water fabled in poetry to grant eternal life. The chemicals they have created somehow cause exponential growth in reptiles, which is completely useless, but does explain the random giant snake. Soga tries to shoot them but Ryoko takes out a crossbow and knocks the gun out of his hands. While standing well over 100 feet away. Hmm. Anyway, Soga threatens them by revealing he has Professor Tatsumi and they should let Soga go for the Prof’s safety. When he discovers that Ryoko’s literally set fire to the rest of the lab and he can no longer make the poison, he releases Tatsumi, who runs towards the two agents. But Ryoko then kicks a knife out of his hand, and through Ryoko’s deductive reasoning, it is revealed the Prof was behind it all along. He manages to tackle Izumida, steal the poison and run away, backed up by his subordinates who are shooting at Izumida and Ryoko. The attackers mistakenly trigger the bridge mechanism which Tatsumi(sama) is on, and he is lowered into the den of the giant snake…

He and the poison are eaten by the snake, which proceeds to “grow exponentially”, destroying the underground lab. Ryoko and Izumida escape to the rooftop, with Ryoko calling a helicopter to aid them as the building is collapsing. It arrives late, and though Izumida manages to grap the rope ladder, Ryoko is left on a piece of rubble. She puts all her faith in Izumida and the fact that he “won’t let her die” (See what they did there, with the converstion about ten minutes ago? Mmmmmm, cheesey) and, of course, he catches her.

In the aftermath in the morning, the police and fire department arrive and everyone surveys the scene. This is when a bunch of witty analogies are made that I don’t really understand and we see that the snake has died from growing so quickly. Yukiko, Ryoko’s rival, arrives and Ryoko proceeds to place all the administrtive procedures on her and walks away. As she does this Izumida refers to her as the “Oryo who walks through even Dracula” and I have absolutely no idea what that means.

Next Time:

Ryoko gets hammered and Izumida raeps takes care of her.

Thoughts:

Though confusing and cheesy at times, I feel this was a good episode. Some things, like the “I won’t die” avenue, have been used many times before, but it wasn’t done in too bad a way. I do feel a sense of conclusiveness to the case, though there was quite a lot of information in here and I think it would have been better if they stretched it out a bit longer. It’s obvious which route Izumida and Ryoko’s relationship is going to take, but it’ll be interesting to see how that develops. Some of the reasoning behind Ryoko’s actions took a while to figure out, and though it was just about logical, her reasons for knowing that Tatsumi was the one behind the whole thing is really far-fetched. I mean, there was something about the ring and hiw they were attacke straight after they contacted him, but the second reason could have easily been coincedence and the first, I didn’t even understand. Speaking of which, I thought we had a lot longer for the old Prof, but I guess they needed to give at least one WTF moment, so they got rid of a person that most would believe to be a major ally for a while.

We still haven’t been given an explanation on the actions of the white-haired woman, but she seems to have taken all of the information pertaining to the case that Tatsumi had; however, we only see that she took a suitcase from him. It’s contents remain unknown though I believe they may be more of the poison chemical. Most of the other characters seem two-dimensional so far, so it would be nice to have some developement on them, especially officer Maki who just appeared out of nowhere to take the guard away., and Ryoko’s rival who seems like she’s just going to be the token character who’s being made fun of. Something bothers me about Kishimoto’s idiocy though; he who plays the fool could be the most scheming of them all. Or he’s just an imbecile, but I like to think things always go deeper. Not sure why the giant snake was there, or even the fact that the poison made reptiles grow, the whole thing seemed completely pointless except for thefact it destroyed the “Tower of Babel”. But I was entertained and don’t feel like it was a mistake sticking with this show “except for  the fact barely wnyone watches it) and I’ll be looking forward to the next episode.

Okay, Izumida is now officially Ryoko’s bitch.