I could use many words to describe Undead Girl Murder Farce (and have), but “intoxicating” would be another good one. This is a heady mix of adrenaline, violence, rakugo, and pop-culture fanservice. The vampire arc in France was so tonally different from this batshit crazy one – measured and restrained, a classic murder mystery in structure. The fact that UGMF can execute both so artfully is testament to just how good the people behind it – the director and the author primarily – really are.
Titanic clashes are playing out across the Fogg estate like a “Battle of the Network Stars” (where’s Howard Cosell when you need him?) for Victorian icons. Lupin calls for a truce with Tsugaru to take on Reinhold (which leads to Lupin dropping a church pew on him), but that soon becomes moot when Jack the Ripper arrives on the scene. He promptly reveals himself to be the biggest badass in the room with the possible exception of Tsugaru himself, and Lupin being no fool realizes this pretty quickly and makes like a tree (Erick in tow). Alas for poor Fatima Doubledarts, getting a church pew dropped on them was far from the worst thing to happen to a Royce agent this day. RIP…
Shizuku, meanwhile, has way too much Carmilla on her hands to worry about the Phantom. Shizuku has silver bullets, but that’s not going to cut it against Carmilla for reasons that will become clear later. Carmilla’s aphrodisiac venom works its magic on Shizuku after a brush of hand to lips, and Carmilla sets about doing what she loves at leisure. Shizuku retains enough of herself to wound the vampire with a silver cross, but that probably didn’t cut as deeply as that comment about her prowess in the sexual arts – a comment which also revealed quite a bit about Shizuku’s relationship with Aya.
Holmes, meanwhile, hoists Aleister Crowley on his own petard, but doesn’t haver time to crow on that before Moriarty himself arrives with Victor in tow. He refers to his last meeting with Sherlock being at Reichenbach Falls (Google it if necessary), and Sherlock seems surprised he’s not dead. This is rather a momentous, er- moment, as Aya in back in the presence of the man who stole her body. Moriarty (who later refers to his new organization as “Banquet”, an original name as far as I know) helpfully fills in some gaps as far as what he’s been up to.
Jack is the product of transplanted oni and immortal cells. The latter are from Aya and the former from an experiment he carried out using captured Japanese oni, an experiment from which Tsugaru (“#9”) was an escapee and apart from Jack, the only survivor. There are vamp cells in there too, making Jack something close to a perfect Chimaera, but if werewolf cells can be added to the mix too, why not? Moriarty basically seems to be keen on creating a chimaera army to do his bidding, so the information in the Penultimate Night is of obvious use to him.
Here, though, Tsugaru has the last laugh (or does he?) He’s managed to use the lessons of a misspent youth to snatch the diamond from Jack. And Aya has figured out how to interpret the inscription – by unlocking the real one using ultraviolet light. That tells her that the werewolves are in Fangzahnewald, the “Forest of Fangs” – in Germany presumably. But given that Tsugaru notes that he saw Jack hold the diamond up to the light just as Holmes did, it seems likely that Banquet knows where to go, too. In which case one might well ask why they care about the diamond at all, since that was its only obvious source of usefullness for them…
Nicc
August 25, 2023 at 8:44 amThis episode sure packed a lot in 5 minutes again, eh? The fighting comes to a close in this eposide, but there are plenty of fireworks before then. In the last episode, it looked like Doubledarts had the Phantom cornered. This time, it was the other way around as his mastery over sounds made it difficult to track him down. Down below, Lupin proposes a truce with Tsugaru to take down Reynold. Being a great storyteller, Tsugaru stalls him long enough for Lupin to drop what appears to be an organ on Reynold. That’s a Looney Tunesp-style gag. As Lupin said, it’s not enough to take him out, but Reynold is bloodied (It shows that the Royce agents aren’t exactly normal humans either).
We don’t know what happened up there, but Fatima and the Phantom also drop in, both looking worn. However, their entrance is overshadowed when Jack the Ripper enters the fray and lets out a menacing aura. Lupin knows that he’s overmatched and gets out of Dodge along with the Phantom. Their night is over, but Lupin is surely going to be stewing about it, having to give up the diamond. Jack lives up to his name as he literally tears Fatima apart. Reynold is lucky as he simply gets K.O.ed in one hit. Now, it’s just Jack vs Tsugaru. They both look similiar, but we’ll learn later that it’s not an equal match.
Elsewhere, Shizuku seems to be holding her own against Carmilla. Jigen-Lestrade is laying low somewhere. If there’s a next time for him, he should bring along some sliver bullets like Shizuku. Like you said, the aphrodisiac blood kicks in and it has an immediate effect on the normally stoic Shizuku, but she fought it enough to land a good hit.
Moving on to Holmes and company, shooting it out with Aleister isn’t working and so Holmes decides to use some baritsu. In the meantime, Aleister is having a pleasant enough time to make some talk with Aya and that’s when she learns they have her body. Holmes manages to turn the tables on Aleister and that’s when Moriarty makes his big entrance. Now, it’s storytime with Moriarty… Like Tsugaru, Jack is one his experiments, but also includes vampire cells and Aya’s cells along with the oni cells. We see Tsugaru having a difficult battle with Jack because of those extra abilities, though he’s still able to injure Jack with his oni powers. They even remember each other, but there’s no brotherhood there. The professor wants to throw in werewolf cells to create something even better because, like you said, why not?
Right, he wants to create an army of Jacks. I found it amusing that he’s talking about chimeras while he’s got Frankenstein’s monster as a servant. Tsugaru is beat, but Jack doesn’t find him worth killing. That always a bad call, eh? Declaring victory, he lets everybody know that it’s time to head back. There’s certainly going to be a Round 2 for everybody later. Moriarty lets it be known that they’re called “Banquet”. Banquet goes to celebrate their victory while the others lick their wounds. Banquet is about to toast to their success, but something is missing. Yep, Tsugaru lost the battle, but got the diamond. Having extra powers still doesn’t teach sleight-of-hand. With the diamond, they know their next destination. Like you said, Banquet knows that as well too and it is kind of weird that the diamond would be reduced to a MacGuffin. I’m also guessing that means Holmes joins Team Aya as everybody brushes up on German. Imperial Germany is certainly a rare setting for anime or manga works, but considering that it’s in a forest, it probably won’t get much play here. I wonder if that’s where his cour is going to finish.