That was certainly an interesting finale for- wait, what? It’s not over? I guess not – but don’t think I didn’t have to double-check the episode count here. My feeling at this moment is that if this wasn’t the final episode of Housekishou Richard-shi no Nazo Kantei, it probably should have been, because they’re going to have a hard time coming up with something that feels more like a coda than that. But who knows, maybe the series will surprise me.
Lest I give you the wrong impression, this certainly wasn’t a problem-free conclusion to the inheritance arc for me. A couple of things were kind of unclear, not least of which why Seigi had the idea that Richard’s fiancee had been a man. I could have sworn Richard had explicitly said it was a woman but even if I misremembered, I mean- why did Seigi come to that conclusion? It’s not totally outlandish and perhaps says more about Seigi than Richard, bit it would have nice to see how he got from point A to point B there.
Mainly though, I just thought the whole thing with the will and the “diamond” ended up being pretty silly. I find it hard to believe that this family would have spent years and years tearing themselves apart over this supposed £300 million diamond without someone making sure it was, you know, actually a diamond. It was never professionally appraised – was never insured? Despite being a professional gemologist the man in line to inherit it never examined it? I mean, a white sapphire is more beautiful anyway – though that’s hardly the point here.
I also thought the will itself and the conditions therein were on the ludicrous side, not that there are any lack of racists in the British leisure class. If we’re honest, though, this was really a pretext to get Richard and Seigi tied up in a rather dramatic chain of events. From Richard slipping Seigi a coded message at the British Museum to Seigi collapsing in his arms like a damsel-in-distress (and then seemingly being fine as soon as he wakes up, conveniently) to Jeffrey sneaking a phone into Seigi’s bag, it’s all very Merchant Ivory. And while things are once more left open to interpretation, the ruse Seigi perpetrates certainly leads to some fanservice moments.
I will say this – it’s very Seigi to try and throw himself on the grenade and save Richard, and to ignore the fact that Richard would have been miserable seeing Seigi take the fall for him. If things reconcile a little too neatly between Richard and Jeffrey (and Harry) given all that’s transpired, their relationship isn’t really the point and it needed to have closure and be shuttle to the sidelines. I thought the exchanging of the gemstones – each family heirlooms with a checkered history – was a nice symbolic way of linking Richard and Seigi without acknowledging anything overtly.
My question now, really, ties back to the opening sentence – what exactly does Housekishou do in the final two episodes? There was something very poetic and even elegiac about that whole gemstone exchange, and it doesn’t really seem to leave much space for subsequent stories to fill in. I’d have to see that very nice final sequence undercut by more prosaic interactions between Seigi and Richard in the final two episodes, but maybe the series has something up its sleeve that I’m not picking up on the radar. Let’s hope so.
Merea
March 14, 2020 at 12:50 amRichard always used gender neutral terms to refer to his ex, which is normal in Japanese but not in English so the subbers used “she”
Also, in a scene the anime skipped, Homura planted into Seigi’s mind that Richard liked him romantically and that’s one of the reasons Seigi went all the way to London, to find out if that’s true. These last two episodes were a whole volume in the novel and they skipped a HUGE amount of stuff. Let me know if you have more questions.
Say
March 14, 2020 at 5:10 amI read that the writer thought the 4th book (where this episode belongs to) could had been the last she was allowed to publish, so she came up with this sort of closure.
I feel the same about the sapphire that was never evaluated before. Besides I am curious to find out what induced the staff to rush though the material in order to include the “case” in the last two episodes.
Guardian Enzo
March 14, 2020 at 11:02 amThat would make a lot of sense.
Summer
March 16, 2020 at 7:50 pmAh, people have already commented what I wanted to say – that your questions are due to all the skipped content in the novels. So is the not-checking of the white sapphire to make sure it was a diamond either; from what I remember reading of book 4, the existence of this supposed diamond wasn’t even known to the Claremont family until the person entrusted with the diamond (one of the butlers, I think) died recently and that was how they found out, and then Richard goes on the run. The current butler in charge of it was instructed to never take it out until the heir and his marriage candidate appear, and the guy took his job very seriously. (I suppose you could make a case for why no one pressured the butler to check the diamond, though.)
As for the relationship between the Claremont children: I think that was what the childhood photos and flashbacks wanted to illustrate. The three of them were close as children, and had the diamond not appear, they would probably have remained close too. Richard probably still loved both of them as brothers, and that’s why he’s starting to forgive them.
I’m with you for the episodes – I also thought that shuffling the episodes around and end the season on this would make sense too, and this is coming from someone who does know what episodes 11 and 12 will cover. I don’t think 12 can end better than 10 will, unless they really are setting up the possibility of season two (which I think is extremely unlikely to occur). The only thing I can say for now is that 11 and 12 won’t be fillers at least, just so people are rest assured.
(As an aside, I’ll like to add that I live in a region where Crunchyroll doesn’t have rights to this anime, and my local translator has kept the gender-neutral terms, like lover, when referring to Richard’s ex the whole time, so it wasn’t a strange thing to me. I hadn’t even known Crunchy used she until someone told me, in fact.)
Guardian Enzo
March 16, 2020 at 7:55 pmSubtitles as spoilers…
I suppose I’ll reserve judgment until we see what they actually end on, but it really is hard to imagine a more “ending” ending than what we just got. Thanks very much for the informative comment.
tutu89
March 17, 2020 at 5:59 amI liked this post! heh, I was also wondering with same topics as you:)
How or/and where do you other guys read the manga? Or if you have bought it where have you bought it from?