Did my eyes deceive me, or did things just work out for Rinne in the end?

It’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, but I think there’s a kind of commonality between Kyoukai no Rinne and Jitsu wa Watash wa.  While the style of humor could hardly be more different, both series definitely approach comedy with the “don’t give a fuck” mentality – they just have really dumb stuff happen and mine gold from the reactions of the characters.  I think it’s a pretty fearless kind of writing, actually, and it’s easier to explain with Rinne because Takahashi Rumiko is so successful and so rich that she really doesn’t need to give a fuck.

This time around we have a comedy of errors resulting from an extremely unlikely chain of events involving angels, demons, mythical beasts,. shirushigami and duralumin (you just don’t hear that word enough these days) briefcases.  And of course, it seems to leave Rinne screwed as usual – unjustly accused of a crime he didn’t commit and forced to pretend to be working with Masato (I don’t want to say Masato is an idiot, but when Ageha calls you dumb…).

Poor Rinne – he’s such a binboujin that even looking at a big pile of money makes him nauseous.  He comes into possession of this one because Kain has been incautious withe duralumin case of bonus money he’s supposed to deliver to shiroshigami headquarters, Masato has ripped off a fireworks shop owner, and Pegasus‘ freak out when their ass is burned by a firecracker.  Kain mistakes the “M” on Masato’s briefcase for his “Mortal Census Bureau” M and takes the wrong case – but the real cracker here is that Masato is so dumb his “M” doesn’t even stand for “Masato” -it’s akuMa“…

It just so happens that in this one instance Masato is actually telling Rinne the truth – he didn’t steal the money to frame Rinne, he honestly thought he was leaving him a case with a party cracker in it.  But that doesn’t stop him from trying to take advantage of the situation, and given that Kain would be a gold medalist if jumping to conclusions was an Olympic event, he’s only too happy to believe Rinne stole the money.  He even storyboards the events as he imagines they happened, which only serves to highlight just how delusional this guy is.

The really weird thing about all this is…  Rinne seems to actually come out ahead.  Not only does he recover the money and establish the truth of what happened (with the help of a Yorishiro, a talisman which turns Kain’s case into a Kami) so unequivocally that not even Kain can deny it, but he claims a ¥10000 note “for his trouble”.  No one ever deserved a reward more, but my fear based on the preview is that this tiny window of affluence is going to slam shut on Rinne’s fingers pretty hard in next week’s Christmas episode.