The Blue Geranium (Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple)

The Blue Geranium (青いゼラニウム - Aoi Zeraniumu) is a Japanese anime television adaptation produced by Oriental Light and Magic for NHK television. The film was Episode 15 of NHK's anime series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple. The adaptation was written by Masashi Sogo, directed by Yoshitaka Makino and Naohito Takahashi and first broadcast on 17 October 2004. It was an adaptation of the Agatha Christie short story of the same name.

Synopsis
Miss Marple and Mabel West are asked to help solve the mystery of the death of Mrs Mary Pritchard.

Comparison with Original Story
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) The way the murder was done is the same as in the original but the fairly similar storyline is narrated differently since there is no Tuesday Night Club.

Miss Marple and Mabel are in the garden when two maids arrive. They come from the household of Mr Pritchard and are very troubled about recent events and want her help. The four of them then take a taxi to Pritchard's house, which in this adaptation, is in a village near St. Mary Mead.

At the house, Miss Marple is greeted by Constable Hearst, who was seen in previous episodes. He is the St. Mary Mead village constable but he tells Miss Marple he has jurisdiction here. Hearst has gathered all the people concerned with the case in the living room: George Pritchard, Nurse Carstairs, Nurse Copling, Jean Instow, and there is a non-canonical Docter Radkin.

George Pritchard describes what had happened over the last four weeks which is very similar to what occured in the original story:
 * Mary asked Nurse Carstairs to leave. The two of them had been using Tarot cards. Carstairs drew a Death card. Mary got frightened and wanted her to leave. She does so willingly as, she tells George, she also believed in Tarot.
 * Mary wants a former nurse, Copling, brought back.
 * Mdm Zarida pays a visit and warns of blue primroses, blue hollyhocks and blue geraniums. Also the night of the full moon was evil.
 * Over the next three nights of the full moons, the three signs occur, culminating in the last with Mary being found dead.

Dr Radkin had been summoned and had examined the body. He is certain death was by natural causes due to heart attack. When Miss Marple asked if there was anything unusual, he said there was a faint whiff of gas in the room.

Hearst then adds that lately there had been rumours that Pritchard killed his wife. This was because on the day of his wife's death, he had been mixing some weedkiller for use in the garden.

After listening to all this, Miss Marple says she needs to go outside to clear her thoughts. While in the garden, she notices a wasp nest. The two maids followed her outside and she asks them about it. They say they used insecticide to kill the wasps some time ago,

Miss Marple comes back in and immediately declares that the murderer is Nurse Copling. She explains how she did the murder, which is basically the same strategy used in the original story. After hearing this accusation, she breaks down and confesses. She tells George she did it for him because she could not stand to see him suffer because of his wife. Hearst takes Copling away.

The plot element of George and Jean Instow suspecting each other is not present. Given the short length of the episode, there probably was no time to dramatise this. She does not in fact get to say or do much except to say that she could not believe that George would have committed the murder.

Back at St. Mary Mead, Mabel tells Miss Marple that she sensed that it wasn't only Nurse Copling who was in love with George. She thought Jean was also. Miss Marple agrees and praises her for becoming good at observing and studying people.

Characters/Voice talents
Most of the voice talents for the characters are not credited
 * Masako Jô as Oliver
 * Fumiko Orikasa as Mabel
 * Kaoru Yachigusa as Miss Marple
 * Mary Pritchard
 * George Pritchard
 * Nurse Copling
 * Nurse Carstairs
 * Jean Instow
 * Dr Radkin
 * Constable Hearst
 * Two unnamed maids from the Pritchard household