Un-go – Episode 6 | .Ani-Maybe.

Un-go – Episode 6

The Code Too Simple

.Synopsis.

Shinjurou has been hired by a man named Yajima, a former friend of Rinroku Kaishou. Yajima, while in a prison, was given a book from Kaishou’s private collection. The man who gave Yajima the book got it from a secondhand store. Soon after opening the book, Yajima discovers a slip of paper with a code on it. It is written on a manuscript with Yajima’s signature at the bottom. Shinjurou is to find out how it got there.

Yajima wants Shinjurou to figure out the whole story. How his manuscript got in Kaishou’s book, who put it there, etc. Kazamori steps in and analyzes the script for finger prints. She finds Yajima’s fingerprints, along with Takako’s, his wife. Shinjurou thinks the case could be interesting if it damages Rinroku’s reputation. Shinjurou meets with Rie Kaishou at a restaurant to gather information. The code consists of three columns and eleven rows. Rie figures that the numbers refer to a certain number, in a certain column, on a certain page, spelling out a sentence. She begins to decipher it, but Shinjurou has already figured it out and saves her the trouble. She wonders who left the code in her fathers book, since they could’ve sent a text or called. Shinjurou tells her it could’ve been someone who couldn’t leave a trace, but isn’t a criminal. He then inquires about Rie’s mother, who died when she was young. Shinjurou says it has nothing to do with the code, and dismisses the subject. Their food arrives shortly after.

Rie goes to her father about the book, where he is looking around his bookshelf for the real one. The maid finds the book, and Rinroku determines the book has a counterfeit seal with his name on it. The two identical books are laying next to each other, when Rinroku notices the code sticking out of the counterfeit. He goes to grab the counterfeit, and Rie quickly picks it up so he doesn’t see the code. Rie goes to her room where the maid is brushing her hair. She asks the maid about her going to Yajima’s for errands a year ago. The maid admits to going there to deliver toys to Yajima’s children for Rinroku. There’s a back and forth where Rie learns that Yajima’s wife was there and that she was pretty. She drops the subject, and we see Rinroku standing outside of the room in the dark.

Shinjurou is updating Yajima on the case, telling him that Rinroku didn’t look worried at all that someone might have stolen his book. Shinjurou assumes that Yajima broke the code when he got the book in jail, which he had. Yajima guessed it was a note for Rinroku to meet somewhere, and that it was written by a woman. Also that there were two of the same books, so when a book was exchanged it looked like someone was borrowing a book, but the code was inside of one of them. He also figures that the book he got in jail was the very book that was inside of his house. Shinjurou begins to say who might have written the code when Yajima’s wife, Takako, enters the room. She is blind so she can not see who’s in the room. Yajima tells her that he is working and that she should rest. Shinjurou asks him about Takako’s blindness. While Yajima was in jail, his children went missing and Takako went looking for them. She was in an area where anti-government attacks were frequent and became a victim of one, losing her sight and memory of the attack. Yajima goes on to explain that soon after the attack, she sold his books and could’ve sold Rinroku’s book. Shinjurou finds a colored pencil while Yajima is talking to him. Yajima, after tip-toeing around the subject, tells Shinjurou that his wife would always snuggle up to him on his right, but he was left handed. But after she was blinded, she switched around from left to right. He came to the conclusion that Rinroku is right handed.

Outside, Kazamori is accessing a security camera, where she learns that at least six times in the past year Rinroku’s car has been parked outside of the house. Yajima jumps to the conclusion that his wife may have done something to his kids because they might have been in the way of her relationship with Rinroku. He walks back to his house, and Shinjurou tells him that he will find his children. Inga wants to ask Takako where the children are and he grapples Shinjurou. Shinjurou gets his arms in between them, holding the colored pencil in one hand. Inga grabs the pencil and acts like a child with it. Shinjurou comes to a realization, and asks Kazamori to figure out what the code was written with. Kazamori comes to the conclusion that it was written with a colored pencil. Shinjurou finds out where the nearest used book store is from Kazamori.

Shinjurou gets to the book store and is making a mess finding Yajima’s books. They aren’t there, so he asks the store clerk who bought them. The clerk isn’t allowed to reveal that information. Kazamori bites through a cable behind the counter. It is unclear to me if Shinjurou learned the name of the buyer from the clerk, or if Kazamori figured it out by biting the cable and hacking into the system. Now at Rinroku’s house, Shinjurou asks for a favor from Rie. There Shinjurou is going through Rinroku’s books. The maid learns that he is looking for secondhand books, and points him in the right direction. Once he finds them, he finds many more codes hidden within their pages. He and Rie start to decipher the codes together.

Yajima and his wife are asleep in their bed when Yajima suddenly awakes. He hears his wife talking in her sleep, apologizing to their children. Yajima straddles her and puts his hands around her neck and starts to tighten his grip, but is interrupted by the door bell. Shinjurou and Inga have brought the codes, which were written by Yajima’s children. They had been using the books and codes so Takako wouldn’t worry, since she had been acting strange at the time. The codes also tell where the children are. They go to a park, a new area that one of the children had found to play at. Shinjurou tells Yajima that there were several incidents of children getting lost there, since there were attacks in the area. Yajima sets out to find the bodies…

.Spoiler At The End.

.Impressions.

Just a warning, it would be better if you read this section after you know the ending of this episode.

I thought it was a great episode. I was a little disappointed that after all of the buildup it turned out that Rinroku was actually the good guy. All of the episodes up until now have made him look like a villain of sorts. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was hoping that he would be exposed and have to face some kind of consequence. No such luck though. But whoever wrote the episode did an outstanding job of feeding the viewer misleading clues. I didn’t consider that the kids might have written the codes until I saw the colored pencil later in the episode.

The ending is a sign of unpleasant things to come. The prisoner, the novelist, was pulling the strings of this case the entire time. It bothers me and it has also gotten me excited. We’re obviously going to see more of him, but to what extent will he be manipulating Shinjurou. It’s bad enough that Inga has Shinjurou wrapped around her finger, now there’s someone creating cases for Shinjurou to solve. I doubt that this is so, but could the prisoner have been the one to introduce Inga to Shinjurou? Ending this episode with such suspense was genius.

.Episode Preview.

The next episode is called “Daydream”. It’s based on a war story, but the clips in the preview make it seem like the setting is going to be a movie set. I also get the impression the next episode is going to be set in the past, maybe while Shinjurou was in the war.

.Spoiler.

Rinroku and Izumi pull up to the park, and it is revealed that Rinroku came to Yajima’s house because there were signs that Takako was neglecting her kids. When Takako got the news from Rinroku that the kids went missing, she realized that she was neglecting them and hit herself in the face with a rock and it blinded her. Another car pulls up and the children rush out to greet Yajima. When Rinroku bought the books, he found the codes and deciphered them. He went to the park and found the kids trapped under a turned over car. Izumi had the kids put into a child care facility so they wouldn’t go back to Takako, who would only treat them poorly again.

After the truth had been revealed, Shinjurou visits the prison and speaks to the man who gave Yajima the book in the beginning. It gets a creepy here. The prisoner calls himself a novelist. He doesn’t write with a pen, but with actions. He got the book, stamped it with Kaishou’s ownership seal, and gave it to Yajima. He knew that Yajima would go to Shinjurou and that Shinjurou would uncover the truth. He even planned for Yajima to kill his wife. The prisoner has chosen Shinjurou to be the “Last Great Detective.”