 |
|
|
 |
|
by Luis Reyes |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Episode 1: "The Four Signatures"
Boarding an ocean liner, Hound spies a wealthy gentleman and his daughter being followed by a duo of dastardly deviants - presumably after a jewel box hidden in the wealthy gentleman's pocket - onto the very same ship. On deck, enjoying the sea breeze, Hound encounters the renowned military surgeon Dr. Watson, returning from service in Afghanistan and who will eventually become Hound's partner in anti-crime. As they acquaint themselves, the two recognize that a Bengal pirate ship is in hot pursuit, which drives Hound to call upon the wealthy gentleman, who ends up being a reformed Bengal pirate in flight from the rest of his brood with stolen jewels.
Episode 2: "The Crown Of Mazalin"
Moriarty, at home in his swampland hideaway, plans to steal the eponymous crown, which the newspaper reports as being housed with ostensible security at the estate of Lord Samson at the behest of the British throne. When the crown goes missing, Samson's son, Dudley, is suspect, and Samson himself becomes terrified of his reputation tarnished by a potential scandal, already chagrined as he is with Dudley's plans to marry a woman of modest means. That woman approaches Hound with the case, much to the chagrin of Moriarty.
Episode 3: "A Small Client"
An infusion of counterfeit coins threatens to destabilize the British economy and Sherlock Hound's most diligent efforts have so far turned over no leads. However, the arrival of a little girl whose feline friend - and, as Hound discovers, her mechanical engineer father - has gone missing provides a vital clue to the whereabouts of Moriarty and his coin pressing operation.
Episode 4: "Mrs. Hudson is Taken Hostage"
Repeatedly confounded by Hound, Moriarty aims to eradicate his nemesis by striking at his weak point, namely the famous detective's committed loyalty to and affinity for Mrs. Hudson, his widowed housekeeper. As a ruse, the wily wolf demands that Hound steal the Mona Lisa, currently on display at the National Gallery, and exchange it for the fair, fastidious Mrs. Hudson - however Moriarty plans to tip off Scotland Yard of the crime, leaving Hound to outwit both the axis and his allies.
Episode 5: "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
Stuck in traffic, Hound and Watson, along with the rest of London's denizens, gape at the sudden appearance in the sky of a giant mechanical pterodactyl, while Professor Moriarty using the commotion to slip into a jewel store to steal the famed Blue Carbuncle (only to be robbed himself by a vulpine street urchin named Polly on the way out). The shop owner, after alarming Scotland Yard with his shrieking cry for help, retracts his official report of the robbery and, to avoid headlines, decides to take the more discreet route, namely hiring Sherlock Hound to negotiate with the thieves. Hound, a step ahead of the game, befriends the pint-sized pickpocket and stokes the ire of the peevish Professor.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Festooned with all the trimmings of a children's show - slapstick, violence and plenty of chasing - Hayao Miyazaki and crew hue close enough to the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's super sleuth mysteries to make them thoroughly enjoyable family entertainment.
This feat is made even more impressive by the fact that the series was originally made in English by the Japanese in collusion with an Italian television station. And despite the international corporate dilution, Miyazaki churned out a sincere work to rival anything in the mulch of Saturday morning fare available in this country, primarily by investing as much in character and story as in action and slapstick, the true mark of Miyazaki's genius in all of his films.
Miyazaki transmogrifies the cast into dogs, a move that only heightens our affinity for these characters. At the show's core is the touching, but rarely sentimental, relationship between Dr. Watson and Sherlock Hound, a relationship defined by perhaps an even more endearing friendship than afforded Doyle's own Watson and Holmes, whose dynamic always seemed tinged with uneasiness. At one point in Miyazaki's version, Watson places a jacket over a sleeping Hound so as to protect the famed detective from catching cold - an action less plausible between their literary counterparts. But the partnership of mutual respect, Watson more in a position to assist and chronicle the greatness of Hound than actually solve the cases (much like a fictional Boswell basking in the shadow of another brilliant man), remains intact. Also intact, the characters are intelligent, and unapologetically so. Miyazaki chooses not to de-emphasize the intellectual fortitude of the story's hero. However he does expunge many of the details about the way Holmes lives and operates (his passion for the violin, his penchant for the snuff box and various opiates, his comfortable loneliness that held even his closest friends at bay) to fit the mysteries into half hour segments.
Miyazaki does retain, though, the nuances of life in turn-of-the-century England. The episodes abound with blue-blooded socialites fretful of a blemished reputation that recoil in horror at the thought of a scandal reaching the papers - the kind of people that would shell out considerable sums to a private investigator of Holmes' stature. This kind of social texture imbues the stories with a unique flavor, setting Miyazaki's careful work aside from anime that purloins an aesthetic from historical annals without duly adopting its philosophy. An embrace these themes could, also, have precipitated from the Japanese adhesion to anglophile social mores. In "The Crown of Mazalin," Lord Samson disapproves of his son marrying a commoner, a theme perhaps more resonant in a society like Japan where arranged marriages and the burakumin (the underclass), though not prevalent, still exist.
The ethical antithesis to Hound, Professor Moriarty, also bursts from Doyle's parchments to find a counterpart in Miyazaki's canine re-visiting, but in a more belittling guise. In Sir Arthur's novels, Moriarty is a sly criminal genius that uses society's insecurities against it, cunningly outwitting the populace but not the incredible Sherlock Holmes. In Miyazaki's vision, Moriarty is more of a brutish villain, claiming to be cunning but eventually, inevitably, stampeding through the streets of London like a bull in a china shop (far more evocative of careless mecha battle than a witty application of criminal mastery).
But even Moriarty is given his due sense of humanity, especially in "Mrs. Hudson is Taken Hostage" when, awestruck by the beauty, sophistication and unconditional caring of Mrs. Hudson, he recognizes that if his life had taken a different path, he might not have turned out to be the malicious evil force that he has become, that if his childhood had not been plagued with abuse and malady, he may very well have been able to love Mrs. Hudson. Perhaps the storytellers could have gone farther in developing this, but the few seconds they do lend to this theme gives a third dimension to the campy, vaudeville-esque villain of the series. Most of the time, however, the villains, Moriarty and his henchman, clown their way through capers with all the menace of a polio-stricken child with a nerf bat.
Regardless, Sherlock Hound is a vibrant, thoughtful introduction to the world of mysteries, replete with the earnestness and sense of fun emblematic of the Miyazaki touch.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
