With an episode revolving around the beach and cave exploring, the real truth is revealed – who needs bathing suits anyway?
What They Say:
Tricks of the Sun
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the series has progressed, it’s been refreshing that the villain group of the series wit Arsene and her friends aren’t in every episode as the foil to be dealt with. They’ve spent time dealing with other issues while the villains were all basically hanging around doing their day jobs or dealing with other things if seen at all. So when you have an episode like this where Holmes and her friends head off to the beach for the day and you see the thieves there, it doesn’t strain things anywhere near as much because they’re not constantly running into each other. A one-off like this every now and then is certainly far more believable.
Fun at the beach is equally believable for this group as they’re essentially kids who want to have a good time. But the first half of the episode is pretty relaxed for the most part as they go through some of the basics such as fishing for some great fresh food, making sandcastles, and smashing watermelons. With Arsene herself as the teacher spending her time relaxing on the lounge, she gets to soak things up and take some time off while getting close to the kids. But it’s part of a larger plan where she hangs out with them when they head into a cave to get away from the rain and they search for the mysterious treasure of Baskerville. Using them as a front line group in order to search out the treasure makes sense since depending on what it really is, they may be oblivious to it and the gentleman thieves can swipe it without issue.
Much of the episode has the girls running around in swimsuits through the caves, and eventually into the actual treasure place itself, so you can see easily what they were shooting for. There’s a significant amount of fanservice with this episode as the girls get silly and have fun with the situation at times, but also simply because of the amount of skin visible. One of the thieves actually notes that Arsene’s costume covers more than her usual thieving outfit this time around and yet they find her more alluring. Sometimes more is more attractive in a way, which is definitely true. As the show goes on and the girls end up getting naked, it proves once again that this isn’t a kids show and that it’s hard to tell what it really wants to achieve.
In Summary:
The whole treasure hunting aspect is just a ruse to get the girls into the cave and do some exploring in the end. There is fun to be had with some of the beach time spent here since it’s kept relatively light and fun, but once they head into the caves, get separated, and get naked, it just goes for the obvious in far too easy of a way. Some of it is fun, such as insisting that people strip down to make a rope, but for the most part, it’s a fairly pointless episode that doesn’t add much of anything to the show. Having the cast of girls work together a bit has its moments, but there’s still the whole issue of how these characters look and how sexualized they’re making them at times that simply don’t gel together well. Tantei Opera Milky Holmes sways wildly in terms of story quality with each episode, but this one left me feeling rather bland at best about it.
Grade: C
Originally Streamed By: Nico Nico
