Cuticle Detective Inaba Episode 9 – Across Time

Summary: This is a continuation of Soumei’s possession of Ogino’s body. When confronted by Hiroshi, they fight with the power of the mind. Haruka shows up with poison and shots Ogino to kill him, and Soumei returns to Yataro’s body. Hiroshi is forced to let Haruka go in favour of saving Ogino with a white hair. Part two of the episode deals with a date between Soumei/Yataro and Noa.

Impressions:
Though Ogino and Soumei are still at odds, I feel that Soumei has come to terms to his situation as a spirit wolf. There is an over-arching theme between the two parts of the episode, and both deal with Soumei.

Soumei and Ogino…I think the need to kill Ogino was to get rid of the guilt in regards to Ogino’s ancestor. The whole issue was not resolved, as Soumei is still without a body, and Ogino is expected to survive his poisoning. Haruka is clearly not interested in anyone outside of his immediate “family” (in this case, I think this only applies to Hiroshi), and promptly tries to kill Ogino in a painful way. Then again, this is the show that doesn’t even take headshots seriously, so yeah…
After escaping from Hiroshi, there is an encounter between Noa and Yataro that causes them to go on a date. However, the date aspect was initated by Soumei…and Yataro is forced to follow through.

I feel this is unfair towards Yataro. It was a really cute to see them together, but it was really weird to see people taking a “date” so seriously. The line between what is “real” and “not real” in Cuticle Detective is really hard to separate. With all the side stories and jokes, what is the actual part, the relevant part, is really hard to pin down, but that is the overall draw.

Noa’s reaction to discovering that Yataro was a wolf was rather extreme, slapping him after Yuuta forces Soumei out of the body. Soumei is definitely different in personality in Yataro, but both have a strong sense of responsibility. The date doesn’t lead anywhere, but Soumei puts the challenge out to Noa to find and resurrect Soumei’s frozen body…even if it means that his body might not be around anymore. 30 years is a long time…Soumei is pretty weird, but I think he’s starting to grow on me. YATAROOOOOO TT___TT