Collar x Malice – Kageyuki Shiraishi

Shiraishi (CV: Kimura Ryouhei) is a forensics scientist investigator who specializes in profiling criminals. He likes to tease and analyze those around him and no one can ever tell what he’s thinking or what his real intentions are. He also loves cats hence why he has a cat ear clip for his hair.

Ichika decides to investigate a likely spy within the police. She can’t help but suspect Shiraishi because of his strange attitude. He’s part of the police in the profiling department and likes cats. And despite his attitude and constant interest in others, he is in fact good at what he does. Thanks to his profiling ability, he was able to stop the assassination of the prime minister two years ago.

So when Ichika tells Shiraishi she wants to inestigate for a spy among the police, he already knows she suspects him but it can’t be helped since she knows nothing about him. Anyway, Shiraishi knows she’d be caught if she investigated by herself, so he offers to help her if she helps him investigate the September and October cases. They tell everyone at the detective office, and on their way back, Shiraishi takes Ichika to an alleyway where there’s a few stray cats he named No. 1 and No. 2. He names them by numbers since its easiest to keep track of all the ones he’s found and can’t come up with names lol.

The next day both Ichika and Shiraishi investigate the September case by talking to one of the teachers (named Takeuchi) of the school that the victims attended, Satomi Takeuchi, She doesn’t reveal much but Shiraishi tries to pull info out of her and it ends up making her leave. Of course, Ichika doesn’t agree with Shiraishi’s way of questioning people since he’s too forceful. Not only that but apparently he can’t even bother to remember people’s names. After that she gets a text from Mukui to go drinking with her and Sakuragawa.

They meet up at that same tavern they go to a lot and have their own “hate on Shiraishi” club where they bash on all the things about Shiraishi that bother them. Suddenly, they Shiraishi and the gang are at the bar too. Ichika then ends up accidently drinking Shiraishi’s strong alcoholic drink and completely blacks out. When she wakes up, ahe’s on Shiraishi’s lap as he strokes her head like a cat lmao. He also pretended that he gave her a hickey so the girls wouldn’t see her collar lol.

So the next day Ichika gets sweets from Shiraishi as a gift. When Mukai and Sakuragawa find out about that and the so called hickey on her neck, they literally interrogate her for answers and ask if she’s going out with Shiraishi. She denies it but then Mukai wants to find out more about Shiraishi and sets her up to have her cook dinner at his place. He’s surprisingly fine with it so she buys ingredients and heads over to his place with him. So while he waits in the other room, Ichika takes that chance to look around his room. Shiraishi finds out though, and kabedon’s her to the wall saying things like she’s naive and gullible. And if he were a traitor, he’d easily be able to kill her there. But he won’t because he still has use for her. He finally lets go of her and she tells him he’s a heartless person who treats people like toys. She says she’s not his toy and he’s like a mindless puppet before running out the door being completely done with his shit.

A week passes without her contacting Shiraishi at all. She turns to Aiji and asks him why he’s so hard to deal with. But apparently he’s always been that way even sjnce Aiji met him. He says he’s actually pretty awkward and bad at expressing sincerity. So they both feel bad so they decide to make up. Shiraishi asks the first step though and buys her animal cookies since she’s always eating cute-looking bentos. She gets him a macaroon and they finally make up and he even calls her by her name after deciding not to remember it like everyone else he talks to.

So he walks to the detective office with her and on the way they use a gashapon machine and Ichika gets a black cat strap while Shiraishi gets a white cat strap. He gives the white cat to her since she asked for it and she gives him the black cat strap she got. They discuss about the October and November case and the counselor, Uno Yuri was driven to suicide and even abusing her children. Although are still unable to get Takeuchi to talk about it, but plans to talk with her the following day with Shiraishi.

Next day Mochida talks about how he bought a Christmas present for his wife and how Saeki should spend Christmas with Ichika since she’ll be spending it by herself. Its then Shiraishi intervenes and says she’ll be spending Christmas with him instead. He starts wondering why the heck he even cares in the first place but he doesn’t understand these feels he’s having at all. Nevertheless, due to that, they are seemingly close and her co-workers even start wondering if they’re dating now.

Shiraishi even overhears Mukai and Sakuragawa interrogating Ichika about her feelings for Shiraishi. She doesn’t talk bad about him, but says her relationship with him was on a whim. She then goes after Shiraishi and grabs him by the hem of his coat telling hkm to listen to what she has to say. He figured she always hated anyway so he doesn’t care either way. But she tells him in a confession fashion that she doesn’t hate him. He finds it amusing she’d say that but also admits he “likes” her but doesn’t really say in a romantic sense.

Anyway, during her lunch break while Shiraishi decides to steal her food, they discuss the incident with a diagram. Basically, Takeuchi and Uno were friends. But according to Takeuchi, Uno’s suicide was because of the stress of childcare. And not long after, Takeuchi retired. Hachisuka was one of Takeuichi’s favored students. The one who killed Hachisuka was Sunamori, who was classmates with Hachisuka in the same school Takeuichi taught. They didn’t have a bad relationship in school though and were pretty close so Shiraishi suspects Sunamori had a personality disorder. Apparently Hachisuka’s mother was an actress and made a large donations to the school as well so they wouldn’t have been able to go against Hachisuka. Regardless of what he did, the school would cover it up so they could continue to gain money. Hachisuka also had feelings for Uno, but she couldn’t accept them because she was married. And thanks to this, girls who liked Hachisuka, started to harass Uno. Not only that, but Hachisuka was probably pissed after being rejected and wanted to get revenge. They believe that Hachisuka and Sunamori most likely collaborated in hurting Uno mentally which drove her to her suicide.

So Shiraishi comes to somesort of revelation and leaves to be alone for a while. He then has a complete switch and tells Ichika the next day he’s lost interest in her and doesn’t care what she does anymore. Plus him saying he likes her was a joke anyway and cause her childish for believing it before walking off. Hoshino just stands there in disbelief but decides to continue her investigation. First, she tries to get in contact with one of the school’s former students who also harassed Uno named Yoshitani. Ichika couldn’t get in contact with her. So she went to Shiraishi’s place in order to discuss about the incident. She then gets a call from Sakuragawa that Takeuichi voluntarily went to the police to confess Shiraishi tells Ichika its due to her guilt that she decided to give in and its thanks to Ichika since her guilt hit her more and more each time she visited.

She says she’s going to talk with Takeuichi and wants Shiraishi to come with her, but he says he’s not interested in the case anymore and this is goodbye for them. Ichika then gets pissed and asks why he’s saying all this shit when he looks all depressed about it. She asks how he really feels and he sayd that its her fault and he’s been trying to throw away his feelings by distancing himself from her but clearly can’t lol. But Ichika says she likes the current him. Shiraishi finally admits defeat and admits he has fun with her but is scared it will all come to an end. Ichika promises they’ll face that future together and Shiraishi agrees to go with her to visit Takeuchi.

So they head to the interrogation room and speak to Takeuchi there. She says her and the counselor Uno were close but when the situation with Hachisuka occured, she wouldn’t talk about it. Hachisuka was pissed at Uno for rejecting him so he collaberated with Sunamori and made him tell Uno that Hachisuka is depressed and if he kills himself it’ll be her fault. Takeuichi found out what was happening and wanted to help but because Hachisuka’s mom donated to the school they couldn’t touch her son. So thanks to Yoshitani lying her mom complained about Uno abusing her children and should be fired because of it. So this drove Uno to her mental meltdown and Takeuchi felt like shit for not supporting her friend and just running away instead. So 10 years later, Takeuchi comes in contact with Adonis and she agrees for them to act on revenge and persuade Sunamori to murder Hachisuka then himself. But they manage to make Takeuichi tell them that this is a cover-up for Uno’s children, Suzune and Shion (the twin kids that Ichika met a few times) who were the actual culprits. Takeuichi wants to save them since after she told them the truth of her mother when they turned 18, they had murderous intent.

So Ichika and Shiraishi go to the apartment where Uno committed suicide and find Yoshitani’s 2-month old dead body there. They realize that the twins will probably try and kill themselves next since theu carried out their revenge and no longer have a reason to live. Ichika and Shiraishi head to the park to stop them and they find both Suzune and Shion there. Shion starts shooting and says they didn’t do anything wrong, they were just taking out the trash lol. So Ichika manages to shoot the gun out of Shion’s hand and asks what really happened. So Suzune gives Ichika her diary and tells her its a written diary for her second personality that was created the day their mother committed suicide.

Cut to a flash back, Shion and Suzune are happily living with their mom (Uno the counsellor) and their dad. Although Uno comes home on days and starts crying and says she’d be better off dead. Shion and Suzune try to cheer her up, nevertheless one day she comes home and says they’d continue to be sad if she’s stuck in this state so they should all die together. She grabs a knife and attempts to kill Shion and Suzune but their dad intervenes and gets killed instead. Suzune develops another personality and Shion tells her to keep track of what she does in a diary so she won’t lose sight of herself. Unfortunately, they can no longer find a home where they belong because they’re the children of murderers.

So the two of them ask for Ichika to kill them since they no longer have any meaning in this rotten world but Shiraishi tells them if they really wanted to die, they would’ve killed themselves sooner and the truth is, they’re afraid to die. So Shiraishi asks why they didn’t kill Takeuichi for not telling them the truth until 10 years later. Apparently they wanted to free her from her guilt and their family issues. But not only that, she was the only one who genuinely cared about them and treated them like family while everyone else treated them poorly. So they take them to the police station to speak with Takeuchi. They tell her to stop atoning for their sins but she says she has to since she sees them as her own children. They seem like they’re about to cry, but not for long! Adonis pulls a fast one and erases their memory with a chip implanted in them.

So since Ichika is kinda down over what happened, Shiraishi tries to get her to cheer up by inviting her over to his place and make her dinner. He gives her a change of clothes that are too big and tells her to go relax and take a bath lol. When she gets out he he some burnt fried eggs for her. He tells her not to eat them since they’re burnt but she does anyway since she appreciates his feelings. She notices he’s being really nice to her so she tells him he really is a kind person.They start talking for a bit but then Ichika falls asleep on his couch.

When she wakes up she finds him in bed with her 😏. Unfortunately for Shiraishi, nothing happened though. Its then Ichika realizes that she’s actually in love with Shiraishi. She then makes omurice in the shape of a cat because Shiraishi obviously likes cats. Shiraishi says he’d like for her to make this food for him all the time and he says she can make food like this from time to time because being with him is fun for her. She’s about to leave to clean the dishes but Shiraishi stops her and asks if she really feels that way. She says she does and he tells her that makes him really happy to hear and thanks her.

So Shiraishi suggests they go on a “date” but his version of a date is observing cats all day lmao. After that Ichika is about to leave but decides to head back to Shiraishi’s place instead. He’s thrilled about this and they hold hands on their way back. He tells her its thanks to her he’s changed and he doesn’t want to let go of her like before. When they get back, the collar starts speaking to Ichika. It starts saying she’s qualified to join Adonis after solving the case and she must join them in 3 days on the 23rd if December at 6 pm. Shiraishi suggests she stay at the detective office for her own safety with her brother since its possible he could be held hostage too.

So Shiraishi suggests they have a Christmas party with Aiji and co. And the next day, Kazuki stays at the detective office for his protection from Adonis. So next day Ichika gets an invite from the girls to hang out thanks to Shiraishi asking them to hang out with her to cheer her up. She admits to them she has feelings for Shiraishi and makes them promise to confess on Christmas. After that they head back to the detective office and Ichika stays the night there.

The next day there’s another Adonis incident and they killed a police officer this time. She heads to work and the last thing Shiraishi tells her is to “continue to be herself” before departing. After she investigates the scene, she heads back to work and sees Shiraishi nearby but he doesn’t notice her. After work, she tries to meet up with him but apparently he just suddenly left without saying where he went and when she tried calling him there was no answer. Later, Mukai calls to tell her that the son of the prime minister, Mikuni Rei was murdered and through security cameras they found out the culprit was Shiraishi. They then get a visit from Minegishi and he tells them they’ll find Shiraishi eventually so they better fess up if they’re hiding something. They still find it strange that Shiraishi would do something like that and try to investigate the footage further.

The next day everyone prepares for Adonis to attack and then a bomb goes off in the detective office. They all try to escape but the floors are covered in smoke. Ichika ends up falling unconscious due to the smoke and losing track of the others. When she wakes up, she’s being carried by Shiraishi to a cathedral. He says he’s no longer playing the role of “Shiraishi Kageyuki” and he was the one who set the explosives off. He’s a spy from Adonis and was given the name “Shiraishi Kageyuki” 10 years ago and now he says he’s served his role as the one closest to her. Zero starts speaking through Ichika’s collar and says that Shiraishi is really known as #14 and is just a mere pawn of Adonis.

He tells her to kill him since he also murdered her friends and family. She doesn’t believe he killed them though. And with Zero’s orders, he makes Ichika put her gun to his head so she’ll kill him. Ichika says she doesn’t know #14, and Shiraishi is the person important to her and refuses to kill him. He tells her if she does kill him, Zero will let her join Adonis and remove the collar from her neck. But she still refuses and knows the time they spent together was real. Zero commands Shiraishi to pull the trigger to kill himself. He somehow manages to break free of his brainwashing and tells Ichika to run.

They manage to temporarily outrun Zero but Shiraishi tells Ichika he can’t go with her because he really did kill Mikuni Rei and would be wanted as a murder. He didn’t kill Aiji and the others though and that was just a way for Zero to try to convince her to kill him. She asks why he did what he did and he says it was all for her sake so she could be free from her collar. Its true he was always part of Adonis, but it was Ichika who changed his mind. Soon Zero arrives and tries messing with Shiraishi’s brain again. Ichika then pulls the trigger and shoots Zero straight in the heart. At that moment through poison is extracted from the collar into Ichika. She falls into a deep coma and Shiraishi takes care of her under ground since he can’t leave because he’d be arrested and separated from Ichika. When she finally wakes up though, she has no memory of Shiraishi. He’s in utter shock but decides to say he’s her doctor who’s been taking care of her.

In the epilogue, its almost been a whole year since Ichika lost her memory and Shiraishi has been helping take care of her. One day, he tells her that she should be okay to go outside now. So when she finally does, they visit Aiji and the others and have a Christmas party since its Christmas. Shiraishi introduces everyone to her since she doesn’t remember them and tells her how she used to know them. She starts having flashbacks of certain events but doesn’t fully remember yet. They go to the rooftop together and he tells her how he was part of Adonis and he actually killed someone. He caused so much sadness and knows she should’ve hated him. He starts crying and says he loves her and wants to spend his life with her but he can’t because he must atone for his sins and this is actually his farewell to her. He says he’s glad that she’s continued to be herself and thats what triggers Ichika’s memory. He said the same thing to her before he went missing, and it’s that phrase that makes her regain her memory. She tells him to stop being so selfish and she’ll wait for him for as long as it takes and confesses she loves him. He stands there in shock then he says he loves her too and she’s the most important person to him. He promises he’ll come back for her and they kiss under the sunset.

In the tragic end, Ichika is essentially turned into a doll by Zero after he tortures her by poisoning her with the collar. She’s killed all of her friends and Shiraishi has become her “pet” (in sort of a literal sense) and starts crying because he couldn’t save her from becoming Zero’s puppet.

Thoughts: WTF OTOMATE? Why would you do this!? Talk about an open ending. If this doesn’t give them a reason to make a FD, then I don’t know what would. It certainly made for an interesting ending though, but I do want to see their happy end. I seriously thought Shiraishi was going to be that typical generic flirt but I was wrong.  But holy crap that bad end was so depressing and reminded me of Dramatical Murder lol.