Review of Kagi no Kakatta Heya Ep 7

The opening sequence starts with our Kagi trio in a traditional house at night and the surroundings looking rather eerie. Enomoto talks about how people tend to have two different types of views when it comes to things they can't explain i.e. one attributing it to supernatural forces and the other insisting that everything can be explained with science. This suggests that the case we have on hand looks like it's something which looks unexplainable by science but there is definitely more than meets the eye...

On their way to the law firm, Serizawa tells Aoto that he's going to take a short vacation to Monaco to watch the F1 race even though he can only spare four days (inclusive of the weekend). Aoto marvels at how he can squeeze in a holiday to such a far away place within such a short period. At the reception, they are surprised by the presence of Endo, a man from Nagano who had previously asked to meet Serizawa to solve a closed-room mystery case involving his buddy Nishino whose daughter Manami was found dead at home. As Nishino was the first person to discover the body and that the body had found no other suspects at the moment, Nishino is still in custody even though the murder took place a couple of days ago.

Serizawa is extremely reluctant to take on this case as he is going on holiday soon and that this case may not bring him any tangible benefits. However, Aoto tries to persuade him to listen to Endo at least, just to find out what the case is all about.

During the discussion, Endo describes how Manami was supposed to return home after school that afternoon but her father found that the door was still locked at the time she was supposed to be at home. He was aghast to find his daughter lying dead on the floor and was in a spaced-out state when Endo sent Nishino's younger daughter Asuka back to the Nishino residence. Although the police failed to find any other suspects, Endo strongly feels that the only person who was capable of killing Manami should have been Nishino's eldest son cum Manami's elder brother, Takeru who was missing since running away from the police when he was caught for assault.

After agreeing to take on the case and sending Endo off, Serizawa tells Aoto to work on this together with Enomoto. Aoto asks if Serizawa is really not joining them this time but the latter insists that he has to go on his vacation and would not give it up for this case. Moreover, he doesn't like to go to the countryside since he prefers city life. Despite Aoto trying hard to sell Nagano as a better vacation spot than Monaco, Serizawa is not convinced and even tries to scare Aoto that she might run into supernatural things there. This makes her feel rather uneasy but she tries to brush off these nagging thoughts and proceeds to contact Enomoto to go to Nagano with her.

However, Aoto fails to find Enomoto at his office and finds out that he's actually on leave to find an ancient lock somewhere. Aoto is disappointed to know this because this means that Enomoto won't be able to go to Nagano with her. When she asks out of curiousity where Enomoto is, she is pleasantly surprised to hear that he's already in Nagano and tells him to stay put there as she scrambles to meet up with him.

Endo brings Aoto and Enomoto to the Nishino residence which was built more than 100 years ago. Enomoto is curious about the sophisticated lock at the entrance which is quite unusual in the countryside where people tend not to lock their houses. Endo explains that Nishino installed the lock a few years back which coincided with the time when Takeru disappeared. Endo explains that the police concluded that Manami was killed in a closed room because only Nishino and Manami had the keys to the door and that the latter's keys were in the house. Moreover, it was impossible for anyone to lock the house without the keys. In addition, Endo said that a woman who was working in a nearby apple orchard had been facing Nishino's entrance that day and testified that she saw nobody else approaching that entrance other than Manami, Nishino, Endo and Asuka. Endo also mentions that a friend of Manami told the police that they were on the phone when the latter entered her house and the call was abruptly ended when she suddenly exclaimed "who is that?".

In the Nishino residence, the only escape route looks to be the open window on the first floor but Enomoto inspects the surroundings and concludes that it's impossible for the murderer to leave the house without leaving any footprints on the wet ground. That night, Aoto and Enomoto continue to inspect the Nishino residence to find more clues when Aoto happens to see a blue light at the toilet and this freaks her out. In addition, they hear from Endo that there were people who saw Takeru in the village the previous night before Manami died which seems to lend more credibility to the assumption that Takeru is the culprit.

While discussing the case with Serizawa over a videoconference, Enomoto and Aoto share their findings with him but somehow unwittingly forget about Serizawa's presence during the conversation. Serizawa feels left out and in order to conceal this, he pretends that he's enjoying life in Monaco but in actual fact, he's alone in his big and luxurious hotel room with just the TV as his companion.

The following day, Enomoto and Aoto continue their investigations which lead them to find out that someone had stolen a ladder from the apple orchard and broke into the Nishino residence's through a window on the second floor. Apparently, the lock at that window was faulty and Takeru looks like the only one who could have known abut it other than the Nishino family.

Serizawa returns from his vacation at the same time as Enomoto and Aoto who come back to Tokyo from Nagano. When they meet up at Enomoto's office, Serizawa finds out that Enomoto had no time to create a model and feels left out again when Aoto and Enomoto start imagining the layout based on what they've seen but he can't do it since he didn't go to Nagano.

Just then, they get a call from Endo saying that the police found where Takeru had been staying in Tokyo. Apparently, the alarm system at his apartment was activated and when Enomoto's company went to investigate with the police, they found Takeru missing and a gold bar from the Nishino residence there. Although this seems like Takeru is definitely involved in the theft of the gold bars and murder of Manami, Enomoto thinks that it is strange for Takeru to leave the alarm on like that and he deduces that someone who has no idea how security systems work should have broken into Takeru's apartment and planted the gold bar there. When Aoto mentions that nobody was seen at the entrance of the Nishino entrance on the day of the crime, this gives Enomoto an idea...

Everyone gathers at the Nishino residence where Enomoto explains what should have happened on the day of Manami's murder. On the previous night where Nishino and his daughters spent the night at Endo's place, Takeru broke into the Nishino residence through the window on the 2nd floor and stayed there for the night. When he was trying to search for valuables to steal, he bumped into Manami and got into an argument with her thus leading Takeru to kill her. Nishino came home and realised what happened where he was especially angry at Takeru for not repenting on what he had done. He tricked Takeru into believing that he was going to give up the gold bars to him but actually strangled him to death and buried him inside the toilet. That was why Aoto saw the blue flame there at night because that was a sign of gases released during the disintegration of the body. In order to push the blame to Takeru, Nishino opened the window to signal that Takeru escaped through there but failed to realise the absence of footprints to make his scheme more believable. In addition, he also planted the gold bar at Takeru's apartment in Tokyo so that police would believe that Takeru was responsible.

Back at Tokyo, Serizawa is annoyed that Aoto and Enomoto went ahead to solve the case without him but Aoto retorts that he was the one who said he hated going to the countryside so they didn't want to ask him along. He is slightly appeased when Aoto promises to give him the details of the resolution...

In this episode, I was actually suspecting Endo more than Nishino because he had been so actively involved in trying to prove Takeru's guilt but it turns out that Nishino who was out of sight for most of the episode turned out to be the culprit. That's a small surprise, considering that the culprits so far in this drama are very easy to identify. As for the tricks used, I think it wasn't exceptionally exciting though although I enjoyed Enomoto's explanations of the locks and security systems. Actually, this is rather dry information but somehow, Enomoto does it in such a way that even when he is putting on a straight face and talking about facts, it somehow feels rather interesting. One funny thing in this episode was to see how Serizawa tried hard to be included in the Kagi trio but kept getting left out. He appears to be a reluctant member of the Kagi trio but it is obvious that he enjoys teaming up with Aoto and Enomoto on these cases.

One grouse I have towards this drama is, they keep dropping little hints of Enomoto's background as and when they like but for the past two episodes, there isn't anything significant revealed. I would have liked to hear more about Enomoto but I guess this is likely reserved for the last few episodes and will be shown to the viewers at one go. I wouldn't mind more teasers at this stage though because there's still a number of episodes before I get to the finale but it looks like the scriptwriter is not going to make things go my way.