First thought on seeing this episode: "Is that Yui I hear?" A quick look says that, yes, Toyosaki Aki plays the part of Zenna Rie, the energetic, somewhat selfish, elder sister.
With that out of the way, we review
Scooby Doo and the Ghost of Room Seven. And it pretty much plays out like a Scooby Doo mystery . . . i.e. something supernatural that turns out to be something mundane done to either conceal, or facilitate, the commissioning of a crime. Only instead of Fred, Wilma, Daphne, Shaggy, and Courage, the Cowardly Dog; we have
Mycroft Houtarou,
Daphne Mayaka,
THE HYPNOTOAD Chitanda, and Yui Hirasawa . . . because Satoshi spends virtually the entire episode in the baths.
As it turns out, the whole hot springs thing was Chitanda's idea. Not Houtarou's because . . . well, Houtarou gets carsick. Also, whenever he gives all glory to the HYPNOTOAD in the hot spring, bad things happen.
We learn that Chitanda longs for siblings. We also find that the characterization of Houtarou as Mycroft Holmes may have some merit when he describes his "oddball genius" sister (a genius and a pugilist . . . I wonder if she's travelling Europe with a medical student/doctor-cum-Afghanistan war vet . . .
) We also find that the animators are all Itsuki for Houtarou (seriously, all the fanservice this episode is all Houtarou.) They also love their HoutarouXEru shiptease (silly Chitanda,
of course it's a gender-segregated bath!)
The presentation of the mystery this episode is good, and the mystery itself is much better than last episode's (insofar as it's much more of a mystery in the traditional literary sense of the word.) The mystery gives it a bonus point over last week's episode for me.
Eight mini Yuis out of ten.