What They Say:
Uniformed police offices are being attacked on the street and Ogino has gone undercover. Kei has been kidnapped but the tables are turned when it’s the kidnappers that need saving.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the show having been a bit more amusing as its gone on, and the previous episode making me smile more than I expected based off of the first time, I’m not exactly dreading this show anymore. It wasn’t one that I looked forward to based on what it did, but as it goes on and things settle out a bit, it’s definitely proving to be more enjoyable. The slow growth of things and the shift to the half episode stories definitely works to its advantage since it’s not just going on an on with various gags but feels a bit more defined.
With this episode, the show works a few different things. The initial plot point is that Hiroshi is searching for his younger brother Haruka that has gone missing. The picture may be a bit out of date, but he’d distinctive since he’s a white haired young man with red eyes with an adorable look. Of course, the twist is that he’s grown up since then and has some grand plans, including spending some time with Don Valentine where he lays out his goal of getting rid of the lazy and inefficient police and replacing them with his own private police force. Even more amusing is that he intends to make Don the villain that he wants to keep around to deal with, a devil you know kind of angle. There’s some amusing bits in how it’s presented with the way the potential NORA group is introduced.
What Valentino ends up doing is essentially creating a giant roach motel that will allow him to capture police officers to get them out of the way. To make matters worse, one of the first ones that they capture is Hiroshi, which brings him into contact with his brother. It’s amusing to see the way the two have a love/hate relationship that Hiroshi wasn’t even aware of as Haruka holds a whole lot of hate. There’s a lot of fun with this in general, even in the second half when it shifts to Haruka’s new plan to screw with his brother by kidnapping Kei and using him as bait to deal with him. It gets a bit surreal with the way he accomplishes it, using the cat theme, Haruka’s the main draw to the episode and he’s fun to watch here as he does his best to manipulate the situation with a different kind of style than everyone else. It may be rather traditional overall for him, but it’s a lot of fun.
In Summary:
Cuticle Detective Inaba has some decent fun here as it introduces Hiroshi’s younger brother, Haruka. Haruka definitely has a plan to what he wants to do with his life in terms of dealing with his younger brother and he’ll use whatever means that he can. Haruka’s character is one that I’ll admit I wouldn’t normally care for, especially in how he’s initially presented, but as it goes on he’s a lot of fun since he ends up in Valentino’s group a bit and provides some different kind of prodding for events there. The series is still one that I’m really, really on the fence about, but it’s growing on me slowly but surely and this episode is no exception.
Grade: C+
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.
