Ryoko’s Case Files 4: Yay For An Anti-Climactic Ending

Ryoko’s sad because after all that nothing happened.

Summary:

Somwhere in a laboratory, crowded around a computer screen a scientist surrounded by his colleagues claims the cell fusion is a success. In another time and place, Ryoko’s telling Izumida directions to a place in Musashino. Meanwhile, police discover a man’s body stripped of most of its organs in Inogashira park, whilst a woman with a baby carriage walks by the scene, singing a soft lullaby to her baby.

Ryoko decides that they should just barge in on the house of the person she’s looking for, Katsuragawa Heizou. He’s chairman of the DK Pharmaceutical Company, a leading figure of the Minsei Political Party and a former Minister of Health Labour and Welfare. While the two continue on to his house, the woman in the park is shadowed closely by a shady looking man who reaches into his coat pocket…

As Ryoko and Izumida draw closer to the house, Ryoko tells him that she really intends to barge right in, hits the accelerator and speeds towards the gates. She’s stopped by another black car just in time, which turns out to be Yukiko; she and Kishimoto have been assigned to guard Katsuragawa from “dangerous elements”.

We see in the house that Katsuragawa is informed by someone that “they’ve failed again”. Ryoko heads into the house( but accompanied by two policemen, Yukiko and Kishimoto)  and confronts Katsuragawa. He dismisses her a until she mentions “54121”, and then allows her to talk with him in the office (along with Izumida but dismissing Yukiko). Within the office, it’s revealed that eight years ago a non-human skeletal structure was dug up in Romania that was divvied up among the G8; this lead a certain part to fall under Japan and the DK Pharmaceutical company. It turms out they actually performed experiments on animal cells with cells from the skeleton. Ryoko wishes for JACES company to take over all of the research and material from DK Pharmaceutical’s Case 54121, and pretty much threatens to inform the G8 of the experimentation. Surprisingly, Katsuragawa just gives in and decides to hand everything over.

In a cafe, Izumida tells Ryoko of how Katsuragawa has connections to the Ginseikai of the Yakuza, who coincidentally had four underlings die recently, all in Inogashira park. At the same time, Ryoko discovers that one Yamagishi Yuuichi was responsible for the research conducted within DK and heads over to his house just in time to stop a Yakuza thug from killing him. While there, they discover that Katsuragawa has now disappeared and learn the truth of 54121 from Yamagishi. The research department had inseminated a cell from the skeletal structure with an artificially created zygote and had created something far from human. The woman who provided the ovum escaped with the creature; it turns out that this is the same woman who was walking in the park with the baby carriage and who Katsuragawa had been trying to kill through the Yakuza (along with Yamagishi), but consistently failing; after all, if this got out, what would happen to his own reputation? Katsuragawa meets the woman, Kimura Keiko, in person, to plead with her to hand over the creature. But Kimura thinks of it as her child, and slowly reveals it to Katsuragawa…

Ryoko and Izumida deduce where Kimura is and arrive at Inogashira Park to see her walking with the bloody corpse of Katsuragawa in her baby carriage. Ryoko says that it’s the end, but Kimura claims that this is just the beginning; at that moment, the creature bursts from Katsuragawa’s stomach. Ryoko points a gun at it  and doesn’t shoot but Izumida pulls out his own gun and we move away from the scene to hear a gunshot. The next day, we discover that neither if them shot the being, as they were told by Yamagishi that it would die soon anyway and decided to leave it rather than killing it. It and it’s mother sit alone on a train heading who knows where in an obscure location.

Next Time:

Loli tiem.

Thoughts:

This episode was disappointing mostly because of its rushed conclusion. It seemed like it tried to cover the whole message about the nature of life and do we have a right to judge something due to the way it’s created or what it is, but if I was supposed to I couldn’t empathise with the creature in any sort of way due to the fact it burrowed into people’s stomachs and harvested their organs; I do understand it was for self-preservation/protecting its mother but the nature of what it did was simply disturbing. It was an Alien, though, that’s for sure, as it just jumped out of Katsuragawa’s abdomen. The writers should have stretched this case out through two episodes easy (though it may have been like this in the manga, I don’t know). There wasn’t enough developement of any of the characters, either. Kimura just seemd crazy, Katsuragawa a selfish bastard and Yamagishi a spineless wimp who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty even though he’s the creature’s biological father. Hell, even though Izumida mentioned that Kishimoto and Yukiko were looking deeper into the bodyguard job they accepted, nothing happened with them. They’re severely underutilised so far, and I hope they turn into something other than characters to make fun of.

On the other hand the episode did have some good points. We’re shown that Izumida isn’t just someone for Ryoko to step all over, he’s actually learning from her; she tells him to be more concise in his summaries as well as giving him hints about things rather than telling him the answer straight, so he can think about it himself. And we also saw that this case got to Ryoko for some reason (though we’ll probably never know why as Izumida said that Ryoko would never mention it again).

It’s a real shame that the episode ended up the way it did. Deeper character developement and a more detailed storyline (for example, what’s with the random shot of the doll in the first few minutes of the episode?) would’ve done wonders for it. The next episode does look interesting with a loli actress, though (at least, I think the loli’s the actress) and it seems like Kishimoto’s going to get a greater role this time.

They should’ve made the doll the antagonist.

Then no-one would’ve had a problem shooting it.

I HAET DOLLS.