The Case File of Jeweler Richard Episode 1 Review

Slow and Steady

After Irina suggested looking into this anime and doing a bit of reading about it, I was looking forward to this first episode. While it isn’t disappointing it also didn’t do a lot to sell itself in the first episode and while there’s plenty to build on there’s also the potential for this series to go nowhere fast. The episode begins with a flashback to Seigi finding a ring in his grandmother’s drawer and her shoving it away and then we jump to the present where Seigi comes across a man being harassed on the street and saves him by scaring off the attackers. And so Seigi meets Richard.

Richard1b — *Not his reaction when meeting Richard but still a good self-introduction.*

Seigi takes Richard’s card, realises that Richard can tell him about the ring his grandmother left behind and so hires him. Turns out Seigi knew the ring was stolen and wanted to return it. However there’s no real mystery here as Richard does any investigation off-screen, though it turns out he knows the family of the original owner so it doesn’t seem like a lot of investigation was really needed. What that leaves us with is the anime having a faint hope that these characters and the emotional outpouring after Seigi meets the original owner will carry the episode.

The problem so far is that every interaction is so formal we’re not really getting more than a vague sense of who each of these characters are. Seigi, whose name means justice, has a strong sense of justice. He’s a nice guy who has issues with his mother because of conflict between her and his grandmother. But that’s literally all we know about him from this first episode. We get less of an impression of Richard who facilitates the events but feels very removed from them.

Affiliate Link – Playmat

I do however appreciate the OP. Not the music so much as the visuals. The use of jewels throughout the sequence and some of the imagery was absolutely lovely. The song was fairly forgettable, but visually it was the strongest part of the episode and I really liked watching it. So much so I watched it twice. Then again, maybe I just really like shiny things.

Richard1e — What are they lighting that stone with and is it suspended in air by nothing?

I didn’t dislike this first episode but felt it took a lot of time to do very little and given it is tagged as a mystery there wasn’t much in this first episode that really felt like it was mysterious. Hopefully now that we’ve established the characters and contrived a reason for Richard to hire Seigi next episode gives us more of a sense of who they are. And in case it feels like I’m complaining about this one, I’m really not. It kind of had a relaxed air about it. However the first episode just doesn’t leave a strong impression either good or bad.