It takes the guy you spent a whole series rolling your eyes at and quietly makes him the most human person in the room. This is Akechi's episode, not Kindaichi's. Kindaichi and Miyuki barely do anything but listen, which is the whole trick: the smug inspector who always sweeps in to claim the collar gets retold as somebody's mentor, through the eyes of a young cop named Kobayashi who saw a version of him nobody else bothered to look for. No twenty-minute deduction showcase, no locked room to crack for sport. Just a character study wearing a mystery's coat, scored like it knows exactly how much weight it's carrying, and the music does more emotional lifting in one episode than most full seasons manage. Twenty-odd minutes for a story that reframes a rival into a person, and you will not look at Akechi the same way again.

Kindaichi and Miyuki are told a story from the past about Inspector Kengo Akechi and the time he spent guiding a young policeman, Ryūtaro Kobayashi, who worked beneath him as a junior detective. The tale casts Akechi as an impressive mentor to the rookie officer. This one-hour Mystery television special belongs to The File of Young Kindaichi Returns and first aired on December 26, 2015, with Yudai Chiba voicing Kobayashi.