In this post I'll be going over what the Tokyo Barls Collection (EP943) does and I'll also be reviewing it, regardless of how good or bad it ends up being as it's important for an evolving writer to understand writing styles from the perspective of a watcher.
Episode 943: Tokyo Barls Collection opens up with Conan wondering about Kogoro acting weirdly in the Mouri Detective Agency. For some reason Kogoro feels like he's hiding something as he's taking nose hair's out. Conan picks up a letter and "investigates" what it contains. It appears that Kogoro has gotten an invitation from a woman he's never met before - the woman claims to be Kogoro's fan and she'd even sent him a photo of herself in the invitation (she wants to meet Kogoro).
The female, Toyoko, who'd invited Kogoro tells in her letter that she wants her "beloved Mouri Kogoro-sensei to come visit her restaurant, the Toyoko's monja restaurant, which resides in Tsukishima. Conan asks Kogoro if he really trims his nose hairs just to go eat but Kogoro admits that he has perverted tendencies towards this fan like all other women so Conan decides to tell him that he also wants to eat some monja (see more on this Japanese dish here).
As Kogoro and Conan arrive at Tsukishima through underground railways, we get to see some really nice city landscape of Tsukishima (which is in the Tokyo prefecture). I really love the atmosphere of these casual case starters with just our main characters hanging out with some nice soundtrack playing in the background. The character art in the series for the anime originals is sometimes less than ideal but this case looks good, so there's no problem with art.
Conan decides to ask Kogoro for the deluxe gizzard and garlic monja with cheese. Kogoro just tells him that because monja is a simple food it's not supposed to be eaten in deluxe ways but he still gives up to Conan this once.
The duo heads down an alleyway where the restaurant is supposed to be only to notice an older lady dance in the streets right next to the entrance. The woman then comes to Kogoro and asks if he's Mouri Kogoro after seeing the letter. The woman runs inside the restaurant while laughing (but not in a crazy way), telling them to wait. Conan and Kogoro soon head in regardless to meet the woman who called Kogoro to the restaurant, but there is instantly something odd about her as she seems to be doing something. Regardless she then turns over and winks, but then her face starts to break as if it was made of weak porcelain, revealing the older lady from beneath.
The old woman then starts to talk about romantic lines with the Great Detective and the Sumida River. After the woman leaves, Conan tells Kogoro what she said and Kogoro thinks that him turning her down might mean that she's going to jump down the river. The duo goes to the nearby river to see the woman just dancing there. She says that she used to be a dancer in a big theater in Ginza. Kogoro thinks that he remembers what she's talking about (the theater, I mean).
The three of them go back to the restaurant to finally eat monja. Conan looks at a poster on the wall to see Tokyo Barls Collection on it. Then the woman starts to have hard time breathing all of a sudden and barfs out a tough piece of cabbage until she manages to breathe again. The woman then claims that someone tried to kill him by putting the cabbage in the monja and she claims to know who the culprit is. Conan and Kogoro try to tell the woman to calm down but she goes on about her old classmates she used to be in a group with. Her group was known as the Bufu'usu of Tsukishima.
Conan and Kogoro wonder what Bufu'usu of Tsukishima means and the woman, Toyoko, explains:
Busujima Toyoko (75) forms the Bu in the group name.
Fuda Eiko (75) forms the Fu in the group name.
Ugajin Kyoko (74) forms the U in the group name.
Suo Yuko (75) forms the Su.
The four of them have been friends since childhood and use to talk about the good old times. Toyoko assumes that one of the three friends of her might be the culprit. Kogoro tells her that it must be her age saying that but Conan just ponders about how age doesn't make anyone say anything. Toyoko asks Kogoro to investigate the case and puts an envelope full of money in Kogoro's pocket. Needless to say, Kogoro is all for investigating the case now.
The first person Conan and Kogoro will investigate is Eiko Fuda. They decided to wait for Eiko at the Tokyo bullet train platform and the Fu of Tsukishima, Eiko, quickly arrives. Kogoro runs behind her and talks with her about how Toyoko is still alive and Eiko claims that she "of course" hates Toyoko because Eiko used to date a ping pong team captain in middle school and Toyoko forced her boyfriend to break up with Eiko. We get a flashback of the events and see Toyoko when she was young.
The next person to be investigated is Ugaji Kyoko, the U of Tsukishima. Her work is to butcher tuna at Toyonaka Market, so Conan and Kogoro head there next. Kyoko arrives while recklessly driving something in-doors. We get straight to point and Kyoko claims to also hate Toyoko because in middle school she used to date a baseball team captain named Fuji. We get to see another flashback where Toyoko forces the boyfriend of Kyoko to break up with Kyoko.
The final person, suspect #3, is Suo Yuko, the Su of Tsukishima. Outdoors Kogoro and Conan meet up with her and Kogoro immediately asks if she was dating with a basketball team captain in her middle school days, and perhaps Toyoko stole him from Yuko. Yuko corrects him that she was dating a judo team captain named Ban. We see a flashback about Ban using some "anti-itch lotion" and Toyoko appearing and telling him that if he doesn't break up with Yuko, she might tell everyone about what she'd seen (Ban "do embarassing things").
After investigating the three, Conan, who is standing next to a large bridge, ponders about how odd this whole thing is. Everyone resents Toyoko for stealing their old boyfriends away by blackmailing. Kogoro then comes to the conclusion that all three of them must've planned to put the cabbage in Toyoko's food together. Kogoro and Conan go to the restaurant to explain everything. Toyoko asks Kogoro to talk to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and leaves to get more beer for Kogoro. Conan looks up at the wall where the poster is and realizes what's going on.
After Toyoko comes back with the beer, the Sleeping Kogoro is waiting for her to give her an explanation of what he's deduces.
Sleeping Kogoro explains that when you make monja, the fine dish of Toyoko's restaurant, you use two spatulas to finely chop ingredients spread over a hot plate. What that means is that even if a cabbage core were mixed in with the ingredients, it should've been chopped to small pieces. There's no way for it to realistically get stuck to someone's throat. What that means is that the cabbage core must've been put into the monja after Toyoko finished chopping it. Furthermore, if the cabbage core had been carelessly thrown into the monja's ingredients, Kogoro or Conan also would've possibly choked on it. It's not realistic to assume that the cabbage core was put there by an outsider to kill Toyoko.
Sleeping Kogoro comes to the conclusion that all four of the elderly women must've worked together to involve the police and Kogoro in this case. Thus, this whole thing was a fake set-up by the women. However after explaining that Conan looks around the restaurant to notice that Toyoko isn't even in the restaurant to listen to Sleeping Kogoro's deduction speech.
Conan goes to the riverside again to see all of the four women, Toyoko, Eiko, Kyoko and Yuko, laughing together. Conan overhears the four talking about how if the famous Mouri Kogoro along with the Metropolitan Police Department all started to investigate the case, it'd be a huge story in the media. The women's true goal was to make people talk about the Tokyo Barls Collection, that this group of women used to be a part of, again. They know that they might get arrested for it but only plan for that part later, and don't care - they would naturally have to make even a public apology when they get caught, but it's alright as more and more people will be talking about the Barls Collection. The scene ends with Conan looking at the four women and imagining them laughing together as they were in their teenage years.
Conan returns back to the restaurant to see Kogoro with a phone on his hand as he talks talks to Inspector Megure. Kogoro is planning to ask the Metropolitan Police Department to help to catch the women, and he's playing right into Toyoko's trap as Conan didn't want the police to get involved.
After the ending song of the episode finished we see in the epilogue of the story Inspector Megure and Kogoro back at the restaurant along with huge amount of media reporters. The women got caught in their ploy by the police. The four women make their planned public apology and market the Tokyo Barls Collection in every place they are at to make it more present and talked about in the media.
Conan looks at the explosive popularity growth of the Tokyo Barls Collection in the streets and the episode ends with some nice jam music (this ending soundtrack is used as Kogoro's theme often and there's a 'sad' version of it as well).
Review portion
The Tokyo Barls Collection tells a story about four elderly women who act as youthfully as in their prime. The case is one episode long and very simplistic, there are not much clues to go on, you just go with common sense as much as possible (with the motives of the three suspects) and the attempted murder weapon, the cabbage core, is also something you just use your common sense with to come to the right conclusion.
I can't say the case was good in any form - it's a very lackluster Anime Original in the mystery aspect and many other aspects. At the beginning, at around 14 minutes mark and at the end I noticed some '07 versions of older tracks which always elevate the experience as Conan's older soundtracks are absolutely god-like and fit cases very well. In this case there was no dead body or anything really substantial so I guess the episode would have been pretty crappy without the soundtracks.
The animation was, as I've mentioned in the overview, fine. The artwork was not bad and the background art sometimes in this series with the city landscape is nice to look at - provided that you get that Ran no Theme or something like in this episode jamming in the backgrounds.
Why did I review this episode then if it's nothing to talk home about? Honestly I can't say I liked this episode. I didn't hate it either but objectively looking at it there's no point to put it above 4/10. The story seemed pretty low-tier even for an Anime Original, although of course the events in the episode are not that unbelievable and the case does have some meaning behind it with how one is perceived, and meanings of liveliness and friendship. Just the presentation was lackluster. I thought the clay face of Toyoko at the beginning of the story foreshadowed her being the 4 together alone but that would've been awful for a twist as well so I guess it's better it didn't go that way.
The reason why I overviewed and now reviewed this episode was because of simplicity. It's very tiring to simply read complex and long stories all the time. The Detective Conan canon is not simplistic in the way that you could just enjoy Conan and Kogoro or Conan and Haibara on their cases anymore. The series is more heavily focused on having a lot of overarching characters take part in these stories more often than not. I heard of this Tokyo Barls Collection (EP 943) from another Detective Conan fan because it contained a '07 remix of a soundtrack from the first 5 movies, which is what motivated me to check this episode out. However the moment I saw this being just a one-episode case with nothing more than Conan and Kogoro on their way to a restaurant? I was good to go.
The next anime original episode after this seems to be a two-parter and a bit more interesting in the mystery aspect, along with a somewhat similar theme to this case with the media attention aspect. I kind of want to check it out but I want to watch at least five other highly respected anime original cases before that first.
No comments:
Post a Comment