Kindaichi Case Files Returns Episode 6
What They Say:
Kindaichi is on a treasure-hunting reality show with the goal to find a hidden ton of gold bullion, but he and the other contestants and staff don’t realize they’re being stalked by a murderous masked figure who may be an alchemist! Making matters worse is the fact that they’re trapped on an isolated island with no means of communication!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a fun little standalone episode previously that awkwardly threw new viewers into the kind of relationship that Kindaichi has with Reika, the show moves on to a different direction here. This time around, Kindiachi’s off to win a four hundred million yen prize by going to Renkin Island as part of a TV show challenge along with a few other people. It’s a pretty fun setup as they take the boat to the island, but the complications arise when we see that Reika is the on-air talent for this treasure hunting show, which makes Kindaichi happy. Less happy is Ran, who is still upset about the previous story involving Reika, and she’s managed to join the show as an assistant of some sort to be a part of the storyline.
With the group setting up at a Western style house on the cliffside of the island, all the expected visuals fall into place as we meet more of the people involved, from the other contestants to the production team and even Reika’s manager. Interestingly, the prize is set as a big stack of gold bars, which lends itself to its own problems, but it provides an opportunity for those participating to talk about the gold, alchemy and its roots in magic since it has a connection to this place. The personalities of those involved come up easily enough and we get an additional touch with it since the other big thing they have to do in order to set up the story is to get everyone in different rooms so they can settle in before full on filming begins. And that means the fun of room assignments that requires you to really remember where everyone is because once the bodies start dropping, it’s going to be important. Which is why it’s easier to just let the story wash over you in some regards.
While we get a lot of this getting to know you material over the first evening, things turn bad in the middle of the night unbeknownst to others as one of those involved ends up being murdered – though he thought he was being punk’d at first. To make matters worse, the group as a whole ends up stranded on the island now that they discover that the boat has been set on fire. All the trademarks of a good mystery come into play slowly but surely as it progresses – all captured on film of course – and the slow panic sets in as the group realizes that things simply are not going as planned. When they discover that there is someone cloaked moving about in the night that they found on the cameras that’s wearing a mask and carrying a big sword, it raises the tensions even more as they figure out that someone is either among them that’s causing the trouble or there’s an uninvited guest here that could be just as dangerous.
In Summary:
The start of this new story arc works about as you’d expect, especially if you’re a fan of the Kindaichi manga and long-form mystery anime series that we’ve had in the past, as we get the setup and a relaxed approach to it for much of the first half of the episode. Once we’re settled into the basics of the characters and setting, things start to turn and the realizations hit, slowly but surely, that things aren’t right. We get a fairly traditional setup here in terms of location and characters, though the cast hasn’t been gone into in much detail yet, but it has that edge of the familiar that works for it. I almost feel like this would have been a better series start than the Hong Kong adventure in a way, but either way we’re in for a good mystery and possibly a few more bodies dropping along the way.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.