Kyoto Teramachi Sanjo no Holmes remains an odd sort of show, a mix of disparate elements that retain their distinction even as the episodes pass from one to the other.  It’s like one of those multi-flavor soft ice cream cones the Japanese love to much, where you can see where the matcha ends and the vanilla begins.  One is going to enjoy that cone a lot more if they like all the flavors of course, and fortunately that’s the case for me with this series.  But they don’t always taste as good on their own as they did in this episode.

I rank all the major components highly this week – mystery, travelogue, romance.  The bonus is that the canon plot seems to have gone to another level too, on a couple of fronts.  I like how a kind of Baker Street Irregulars is forming around Kiyotaka-san at Kura.  Rikyu, superb at brewing tea and protective/jealous over Holmes.  Akihito-san, who seems to have decided unilaterally he and Kiyotaka are best buds.  And of course our Watson, Aoi – possessed of a keen mind and talent for spotting fakes in her own right.  Something beyond that is brewing between them of course, and maybe that’s a distinction from Holmes and Watson (though that’s a matter of some historical debate).

The MacGuffin this week is a birthday party being held by Owner’s contemporary Yanigahara-san, one which Kiyotaka attends in his grandfather’s absence.  Aoi was always going (duh), but Akihito invites himself too, as he feels a debt to the man for his help after his father’s passing.  Yanigahara’s comment that Aoi is “normal” doesn’t sit well (either with me or her), but soon enough the party livens up with a “appraiser game” (no real appraisers allowed), which Akihito crashes out of in the first round but Aoi goes on to win.  His eye may already have been caught, but if not this certainly caught Kiyotaka’s eye like every counterfeit caught Aoi’s.  It’s almost as if the old man set this up as a way to matchmake the two of them (suspicion deepens when he reveals that the prize is a pair of tickets to a resort).

The game is truly afoot, though, when Yanigahara plays his trump card – a painting he asks Kiyotaka to appraise.  It’s Our English Coasts (‘Strayed Sheep’) by William Holman Hunt.  At first this seems like it might be an interesting test for Kiyotaka given that it’s foreign art, not Japanese – but he spots the counterfeit gene quickly enough.  His hesitation comes as a result of his suspicion over the source of the painting – and when the old man tells him it was given to him by a dealer called “Moria” those suspicions are confirmed.

We have our irregulars, but of course every Holmes needs his Moriarty, and that’s the role Enshou has taken on for himself.  And thus the other supporting pillar of Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou no Holmes – the Kyoto travelogue – kicks in.  This time it’s Genko-an, where Enshou has relocated.  This is a temple I know of (both the windows and ceiling are famous) but I’m pretty sure I’ve yet to visit (at some point it gets hard to be certain), an oversight I plan to correct to be sure.  It’s round and square “straying” windows are hidden in the clue he’s left for Holmes and the work he’s chosen to counterfeit.

Enshou is a piece of work, I’ll give him that.  He knew Kiyotaka would spot the fake, and come to him – it’s exactly what he wanted, no matter what he says.  And I tell you what, Kiyotaka – like that other Holmes – definitely has a dark side, which makes him that much more interesting.  He has anger in him, and he can be genuinely scary when it flashes – and his Moriarty has realized that being the spark gives him great pleasure.  But Kiyotaka is also a romantic at heart despite having forsworn romance, and it’s hard not to conclude he was about to make it formal with Aoi when Akihito interrupted them so cloddishly.  What made Sherlock Holmes so iconic was not just the man himself, but that and those which surrounded him – and the more the larger picture of this series fills in, the more fascinating it becomes.