Woodpecker Detective's Office

Episode 3

This episode may mark the end of the Red Light District cases, because next week's advertises the case that makes the plot summary of the original novel this series is based on. That does make a degree of sense – we could view episode one as establishing Ishikawa's methodology and the his and Kyousuke's personalities while episodes two and three give us a basic format for the rest of the series to follow: a crime occurs and we get multiple theories of what happened and whodunit until the truth is revealed, with the added bonus of introducing more writers to fill out the cast. The solution to Otaki's death also reminds us that not everyone acts responsibly or intelligently all the time and that Kyousuke's rosy memories of Ishikawa may be leaving some things out, such as that time he let him go to jail for a “murder” Ishikawa perfectly well knew was actually a suicide.

That the case is solved by Hirai Taro is a lovely little bonus like having Agatha Christie show up in the Spanish soap opera Gran Hotel, where she's inspired to begin writing a mystery novel, because you may know the character better by his penname: Edogawa Ranpo. As an added delight, Ishikawa gives aspiring author Hirai a two-sen copper coin, which, coincidentally, is the title of his first published story in 1923. I kind of wish this hadn't been spoon-fed to us at the end of the episode, where we see the title written on Hirai's paper, but it's still a great moment for mystery fans. It also lets us know that the show is playing around with dates a little bit, because Ishikawa died in 1912, making this 1902…and Hirai would have been all of eight years old, and “The Two-Sen Copper Coin” wasn't published until 1923. (Ishikawa would have been 16 in 1902, which is also too young for the story.) That's a minor thing, however, and only worth noting because the story does appear to adhere to history decently well otherwise, and certainly better than other shows using the same roster of authors as cast members.

In any event, given that Tarai is also considered the father of the Japanese mystery genre – and the only author in the story to write so-called orthodox mysteries – it's a nice touch that he's the one to figure out Ishikawa's game, while also conveniently showing us that the man in the cap we saw repeatedly during episode two was, in fact, Tarai following the other two and therefore something of a red herring. The true solution to the case lies with Ishikawa and Otaki, the woman who died. Here the show proves itself to be a fair play mystery because all of the clues were in fact presented to us, barring one that gave motive: Otaki, a woman from Hokkaido with a bear charm on her hairpin, did indeed meet Kyousuke when he was there studying the Ainu language, and came to Tokyo specifically to see him. Kyousuke did leave his coat in Otaki's room, and, more importantly, all of the images we saw of Kyousuke, Ishikawa, and Otaki lighting matches were very significant, because they spoke to the characters' handedness – with Otaki being left-handed while the other two were right. These are all the clues that Tarai used along with the fact that he'd seen Otaki at the apartment building two nights previous in order to figure out that Otaki, who was indeed consumptive, killed herself, meaning that Ishikawa was either wrong or framed his friend.

This is where Woodpecker Detective's Office takes things a step further. The reveal that Ishikawa has been trying to get Kyousuke to visit the Red Light District since we met him comes down to him being aware that Otaki is there and wants to see the teacher rather than any sort of driving need to unburden his friend of his virginity. He's willing to let Kyousuke go down for the crime (at least temporarily) because he's frustrated: he knows Otaki is dying and he feels he can't say anything about it, and he's irritated that Kyousuke is so resistant to the idea of going to a brothel…and then once he finally gets him there, the man stubbornly sticks to his guns and won't even give Otaki the memory she's seeking. It doesn't matter that Kyousuke has no way of knowing any of this; Ishikawa's emotions overwhelm him. They still are – when he begins laughing at the restaurant, we get a shot of his hand clenched beneath the table, which gives the clear impression that if he doesn't laugh, he'll scream. That doesn't excuse what he did, nor does it change the fact that he was trying to make Kyousuke do something he wasn't interested in doing (have sex with a woman) out of a lack of understanding of his friend, but it does explain it, even if we don't agree with what he did.

How this episode will color the men's relationship remains to be seen. I hope that it's not just left in the past as the story moves forward.

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Woodpecker Detective's Office is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.