Review of Kagi no Kakatta Heya Ep 5

This episode is very different from the past four because there isn't a lock which caused the closed-room situation.The old Enomoto Kei wouldn't have been concerned with such a situation at all but he has become more "receptive" now to solving such "non-lock" mysteries. What also distinguishes this case from the rest is that instead of Aoto or Serizawa who serves as the "bridge" between Enomoto and the case, Koono, the police detective who appeared during episode 3 makes a comeback in this story as the person who asked Enomoto to take a look at the crime scene. Last but not least, there's a major revelation about Enomoto at the end of the episode which raises more questions about his mysterious background.

Enomoto is asked by Koono to visit a newly-constructed house which is also where a construction company employee Takemoto was found dead. The house belongs to a senior high school teacher Sugisaki and is meant to be his new residence with his fiancee once they get married. However, due to slipshod work done on the house, it suffered serious damages to its structure after a recent earthquake. In order to prevent the fact about substandard work done being leaked to the public, Takemoto offered to do the repairs to Sugisaki's house for free. However, he was later discovered to be dead by Sugisaki in the living room which has its exit sealed because the door was stuck in the distorted door frame. As such, despite without a lock, the room became a sealed space with no apparent way of escape for a murderer.

As Enomoto goes about his usual routine to inspect the house, viewers are treated to some constant bantering between Serizawa and Koono. Serizawa is surprised by the fact that Enomoto would take up this case at the request of Koono and seems to feel jealous about their seemingly "close" relationship. Serizawa tries to play up the fact that he's close to Enomoto but the latter snubs him in front of Koono, much to his embarrassment. Just when you think that relations between Serizawa and Enomoto are warming up, this sudden display of indifference makes Serizawa bewildered and even more eager to prove to Koono that Enomoto is on closer terms with him.

After inspecting the house, Enomoto concludes that at present, there seems to be no way of shutting that door in the living room without knocking on it several times with something like a hammer. As such, it looks likely that Takemoto could have slipped and fallen to his death by knocking his head onto the cracked floor. However, Enomoto still proceeds to the senior high school where Sugisaki works in along with Aoto and Serizawa to see if Sugisaki could have been responsible for Takemoto's case. Alas, they confirm that he was in school to train the baseball team at that time and could not have gone to his house to kill Takemoto. Just as they are about to leave the school, Enomoto notices cigarette butts in the storeroom and starts to think of something.

Enomoto and Aoto return to the scene again and he deduces that it is possible to "seal" the living room without a key or the murderer being actually in the room. In order to confirm his hypothesis, they return to Sugisaki's school and discover that there was a period of time where nobody could prove that Sugisaki was in school on the day Takemoto died. Then they discover from the students who had skipped running practice that the pitching machine was missing on that same day.

Enomoto, Aoto and Serizawa then confront Sugisaki with their findings and he finally reveals why he killed Takemoto. Apparently, Sugisaki's fiancee Iikura Kana was having second thoughts about getting married to him and she felt that the "crooked" house was a sign from Heaven that she shouldn't marry Sugisaki since she didn't love him. However, he still firmly believed that as long as the house was fixed, Kana would still marry him. When things didn't turn out that way and Takemoto mocked Sugisaki for not being able to get Kana to marry him, he got so angry that he killed Takemoto who he also saw as the "culprit" who caused Kana's change of mind with the substandard work done on his house. In order to create the illusion that Takemoto died due to an accident, Sugisaki made use of the aircon vents on his wall to fire tennis balls towards the distorted door which caused it to get caught in the door frame. To retrieve the balls strewn around the living room, Sugisaki made use of a giant plastic sheet and vacuum cleaner.

Just when you think the episode would end as per normal, it turns out that Koono has a hidden agenda to get close to Enomoto. Apparently, he sent Enomoto's fingerprints for analysis and got a report that his prints match that of a criminal in a yet-to-be revealed case! This seems to suggest that Enomoto might have been a criminal in the past!? Looks like things are looking to be more exciting as revelations about Enomoto's background are long overdue. It's high time we find out where this locks fanatic came from and what made him so fascinated by this. I have a feeling that he won't be a criminal or rather a baddie after all but this match in fingerprints with a criminal could mean that he might be treated like one by Koono who looks set to be a semi-permanent fixture in the story if he's going to dig into Enomoto's past.