Amun is up for this episode of “Case Files of Jeweler Richard”. As hinted last week, my excitement for this show plummeted after the stellar first episode. Can episode 3 get us back on track? Let’s find out!
First of all, credit where credit is due. I thought this episode’s random customer was much better than last week. The little kid acted perfectly believable; I thought his insults to his father and then instant defense when someone else agreed was spot on. I also like the development of the gem show – that gives me something to look forward to.
Now. While this episode was better than two, it still doesn’t live up to the first. So strap on, because complaining Amun is here to break down the problems facing our gem bois.
First of all, let’s talk about the things episode one did right that the following two have failed on. “Jewels are mirror’s for their owners” is somewhat of a tagline for this show. In episode one, the jewel reflected upon Seigi and had a believable tale to resolve a family mystery. Even the English translation of the title is “Case Files” – mysteries, right? The following two episodes have dealt with current inter-personal problems…but more importantly, strangers’ inter-personal problems. And that’s a major issues here: both episodes have a person unknown to either Richard or Seigi randomly barge in and receive life help. That’s not the format this show signed up for – that’s hard to make interesting. The format is also grating on me: stranger walks in and acts all mysterious before the break; afterwards, their counterpart arrives and everything’s resolved. That’s not good writing.
Problem Two is a technical one. The first episode had a road-trip and some varied scenery. The last two episodes have been spent primarily in the office. Now that would be fine if the office wasn’t so unspeakably generic. This show is about gems – sparkly, pretty, valuable, colorful. At least have some posters of gems or something in the office – it’s literally someone’s entrance room. I guess there are limitations to what the 3D studio can do, but this is a key element, don’t skimp here. The staff simply needs to spend more time on the primary location – even some still shots between the action would go a long ways to helping.
Secondly, this episode featured a lot of unset stones – what? Who would give their kid an unset stone worth that much? Plus the pacing and direction so far has been a bit rushed (for a show that should have a very laid-back feel) – I’m getting concerned about the effort put in here. It seems they have a budget of one or two 3D gems per week – apparently rings or necklaces are more difficult.
Finally, I flat out think the characters are poorly done. The first episode masked that well since Seigi was the customer – he was put into a more natural position than as an employee. I have never met a Japanese person who is so outwardly meddlesome and annoyingly assertive. The show tries to explain that away because of his name – yeah, no way. This person would have been ostracized and had his spirit beaten to the ground by this point in his life by the homogeneous society he’s supposedly fighting.
This brings me to the second oddity of this show: Seigi is being used to represent the Japanese standpoint and corrected by Richard – except he acts in the most un-Japanese way ever. Also, Richard has done absolutely nothing but correct Seigi – his largest character development to date is muttering he likes pudding. Come on. Richard should be using his knowledge of gems to gain insight into the situation, but so far, he’s just remembered a customer he had – his knowledge of gems was utterly useless in resolving the situation (he got to sound smart in the post-mortum. Yipee)
So far this show has me on the ropes. I think I’ll wait for the mineral show and hope that can salvage this season. I was expecting better – what we’re getting is Sparkly Holmes of Kyoto (which, if anyone ever says anything about “Naughty” Kyoto boys, I get profoundly triggered). While this was better than episode two, I’m starting to get the feeling this will be a poorly constructed, dragged out affair with a particularly annoying ending where everything goes back to being the same.
