I’m on a post naming roll with this show!
Ladies and gentlemen for today’s post I will be testing the capabilities of Google docs dictation functionalities while I put together some waffles fresh fruit and very yummy whipped cream for brunch. It looks absolutely fabulous I wish you were here to share it with me. I used to dictate my post quite often but I stopped and I no longer have that professional dictation software available. In any case I’m going to try it again with Google and see if this results in less typos than usual. Wish me luck.
Okay so episode 6 of Woodpecker Detective’s Office. We’re now halfway through the season and unfortunately, at least for me, I think it was another fairly forgettable episode. There were a few moments but it was kind of meh in general. Ishikawa and Kyosoke are still separated and at such most of the action focused on Ishi solving a murder by himself with the health of new associate, or rather first-time associate: Kisumu??? okay I’m going to have to type this name out: Isamu Yoiishi.
Yoiishi is possibly the most romantic out of all of them. This makes him a generally a good foil for Ishi as they have fairly different personalities. One being hopeful hard-working and earnest, the other being cynical and a bit of a trickster. These two archetypes work well together and their dynamic is pretty good.
The actual premise this week is a bit out there. The premise is a murder where a doll is actually accused of being the culprit. Seems a popular actor has been stabbed to death by a doll. Wait let me explain, this isn’t exactly a Chucky situation. The actor has unhealthy obsession with dolls, and by unhealthy I mean, you know brown chicken brown cow. It seemed he had a particular love for a life sized replica of a murderess believed to be possessed by a demon. Naturally when he was found dead with the doll by his side rumours started to spread fast and the public just ate it up. However any sensible person, including the authorities can’t be satisfied with that explanation, and soon another actor comes forth to confess to the crime. Oh my, how convenient!
Turns out this culprit is someone we’ve all seen before. Kiku, the waitress that everybody’s in love with, is in fact n love with him. Was she always this beautiful? I get why she’s so popular. I mean we’ll get to it, her personality may leave a tiny bit to be desired but looks-wise, yeah definitely a keeper! So the supposed killer is her fiance or lover but she, like any love struck women is out to prove his innocence and asks for the help of our favourite poets turned investigators. What ensues is a run of the mill little investigation that involves sexy dolls and a women scorned… That old story!
It was ok but I’m probably going to forget about it instantly. I did really like the visuals however and I thought it was one of the prettiest episodes so far. I like the doll designs and the colours were gorgeous as usual. I mean you’ll see it in the screencaps.
One thing that stood out is that for once the victim is a man. I say for once because last week one of my readers and I should probably say the only reader that follows my Woodpecker posts, mentioned that he was getting tired of this show using murders of women to generate drama. At the time I completely shared the sentiment. However this week I looked it over to write this post and so fair there have been more men murdered in this season of Woodpecker Detective’s Office than women. A lot of episodes had both men and women killed, usually one as revenge for the other. Still overall more men have died and just as dramatically. So why did both of us have the impression that only women get picked off? maybe because of the second victim since we saw that same murder happen 8 times or so, it made it seem like it was more times. Not sure. It just struck me as odd so I figured I would mention it.
Something I have been meaning to bring up since pretty much the first episode but always forget is that I really really love me and OP and ED of Woodpecker Detective’s Office. I think it’s a super fun OP where the funny visuals kind of give away the pretty boy nature of the show by portraying our main characters in various shoujo tropes and hot boy outfit with a nice little jazzy song. Meanwhile the ED has one of my favourite songs at the moment. It has this idol pop sensibilities mixed with traditional Japanese music. It starts out very slow then drops the beat and turns into this bop of a song that makes you wanna dance! I just really like it honestly I can’t say enough good things about the song I’ve downloaded it and enjoy just listening to it out of context. Whereas the visuals for the OP are funnier, the ED features these breezy pencil drawn images that I think are just so pretty.
In many ways the visuals of Woodpecker Detective’s Office are understated but thought out, balanced and very good looking. It’s unfortunate the Woodpecker doesn’t have a better or more consistent narrative, or at least the type of material that is more popular with anime fans. If it did, I believe the visuals would get praised a lot more.
Okay I think this is just about as far as I can get. This has been my most stream-of-consciousness post ever. I’m going to see how long is going to take me to edit down this post. If it’s worth doing this again in the future I’ll let you guys know…
ED this turned out tragic. It was complete word soup. I’m t sure if Google had trouble with my accent or something but it took me way longer trying to figure out what each sentence meant and rewriting the whole thing that it would have been to just write it from the start…
Heh, you called it last week: the womam was the murderer. The moment I caught on to this? When Kiku walked through the door in this episode. A little later than you.
The thing isn’t that it’s always a woman who gets killed: the thing is if you’re a woman and you appear in this show you have an above-real-life chance of meeting a cruel end. Honestly, even Kiku in this episode qualifies. She basically gets assaulted by a doll-freak because she’s got a glass eye; I’m not quite sure if she killed him in self-defence or out of rage or disgust. And you know why I’m not sure? Because the show doesn’t seem to care, and focuses more on a poet’s heartbreak. That’s what’s so annoying about the show. Kiku doesn’t matter as much in this episode as she should. As a thought experiment: re-write this a noir thriller á la John Huston and see how much more empathy the show would have for Kiku as the police leads her off. Here we get the poet saying, well there are more women, only so he could finish the episode being unable to forget her. Dollification complete.
It doesn’t ruin the show for me, but it does mean the show has a ceiling that’s a lot lower than its potential.
As it is, I’ve watched this episode ages ago, it seems, and I already barely remember it.
I still remember it. Dolls are scary
Whatever that old dictation software was, sue the manufacturer!!! I can’t believe the difference with [lack of] the typos! Astounding! Honestly, I just figured (based largely on your tales of your mobile childhood) that English was about your 30th language and that your job needed you for your professional knowledge, not your spelling capabilities. Burn the old software, and any personal computer that it might have tainted!
As for the brunch, it sounds delicious. . .
It was delicious!