This week Bones opens up a bit to Asian culture. Note, I’m using the term “culture” very loosely. Booth is asked by a Japanese detective friend Ken, to help him find his sister who has been living in America. Sadly, she turns up dead. Only her head is found in a swampy marsh wearing an anime mask. Now in the lab, the brother brings in a Japanese forensic scientist to work with the group. Once again, Bones goes Emo and the Japanese scientist, Dr Tinaka has random piercing, blue highlights and is totally androgynous.

The victim was pursuing modeling. The photographer sends them to a Japanese tea house which then leads them to an escort agency. Booth’s Japanese detective friend is his right hand man on the investigation. Obviously this leads to many altercations as he discovers the seedy world his sister has been living in. After questioning the pimp, we find out that the victim’s roommate, not the victim, was working as an escort.

Aside from the usual forensic jargon, the crew spends most of their time trying to guess Dr Tinaka’s gender. Its silly and immature, but that’s Bones.

Eventually, Booth finds the missing roommate. The murderer intended his gruesome crime to be a signal of warning. The terrified roommate leads them back to the pimp, but the suspected murder weapon turns up clean. The pimp did decapitate her, but the murder was caused by drowning. The pimp offers to point Booth to the murderer if he gets immunity. Finally, the investigation ends with the pimp going free, and the rough escort agency customer is in custody for the killing.

This was an excellent episode of Bones over all. The plot was tight and not overwrought. Most importantly, the Japanese guest stars where excellent (if a little too stereotypical) and were actually helpful in moving the plot in a good direction.