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Mraagvpeine posted:Has Kindaichi done any detective work? So far he's been observing the situation and listening to testimony. Huh, that's true. He seems to be happy to leave that to the police and just hear their reports--he has a much more cooperative/trusting relationship with the police than, say, Christie's Poirot.
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Oct 20, 2019 11:29
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ivantod posted:Huh, that's true. He seems to be happy to leave that to the police and just hear their reports--he has a much more cooperative/trusting relationship with the police than, say, Christie's Poirot. I’m not sure about that, especially since Poirot was a policeman when he was younger and often wrote Japp or other local authorities for information they’d be able to retrieve. Maybe specific police, but as a rule I never got the same contention that some fictional detectives have.
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Oct 21, 2019 18:36
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CuppaGodot posted:I’m not sure about that, especially since Poirot was a policeman when he was younger and often wrote Japp or other local authorities for information they’d be able to retrieve. Maybe specific police, but as a rule I never got the same contention that some fictional detectives have. To be honest, maybe my memory is playing tricks with me, but at least from the TV show, I recall there being a definite level of antagonism betwen Poirot and Japp. It's been too long since I've read any of the books, so it might be that it's less pronounced there. I should learn to not make such generalised statements without checking properly! 
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Oct 21, 2019 19:10
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The Suchet show often put Japp where he wasn’t present at all, amongst other changes for the sake of either just changing things or surprising the audience not sure which. There was one incident I can recall off the top of my head where he didn’t cooperate with police but for good reason.
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Oct 21, 2019 19:48
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After all the revelations from Matsuko, in the last episode, we spent most of the time figuring out what everybody was doing at the time of the murder. In the end, however, the loud priest came in a dropped another bombshell that came out of his examination of documents from that old chest--namely, that Tamayo is actually a real granddaughter of Inugami. To tell the truth, it's pretty much what we all expected to happen at some point or other, so... In any case, after a long day, Kindaichi is finally back in his hotel for a short breather.   Well, right off the bat, we have a newspaper to read, why not! (Actually there's going to be another one later in this update!)  Newspaper Obtained: The Bright Sun (27th November 1949) "Suketomo is strangled" Again, not like we're busy, so there's always time for these. I believe that, apart from the two newspapers in this update, there is only two more left before the end of the game. Anyway, let's see what we have in this one.  (Click on the picture to see it bigger.) First of all, as most of the time, a short recap of the game's events.  "Suketomo is strangled" The second victim in the Inugami family. Around noon, on the 26th, Inugami Suketomo was found dead in the former Inugami residence in Toyohata village. Suketomo was found tied to a chair in one of the bedrooms of the house where the Inugami family used to live. The cause of death is seen to be suffocation as a result of neck strangulation with a rope. Suketomo's neck was wrapped with a harp string, which was added after the murder, and which the Nasu police is considering to be some kind of a message from the killer. On the scene of the crime, footprints belonging to a man in military clothes have been discovered and the police is searching for this person. Right, so definitely nothing here that we didn't already know. Let's see if there's going to be anything interesting in the articles from daily life...  "Skepticism about the school system reform" Due to chaotic situation in schools, the criticsms mount. The new 6-3-3-4 style school system has beguin in earnest this year, but the criticsm continues to mount from various directions. In some newly co-ed high schools, the number of male and female students is extemely imbalanced, and the number of students who are dropping out is increasing. Although the new school system was introduced to improve the education and resolve the defficiencies in many students' reading, writing and arithimetic abilities, many are worried about its future, due to the chaos it is currently causing. Ok, so, for those who don't know, the 6-3-3-4 school system means: six years of elementary school, three years of middle school, three years of high school and four years of a higher learning institution, such as a university. This was introduced (read: forced) in Japan by the allied occupying forces after the war (including other reforms, such as the introduction of co-ed schools), and as you can read in the article there were definitely some teething problems! Among some of the issues was the mess caused by "mapping" the studends from the old system (6-5-3-3) into the new and exactly where everyone was supposed to fit in the new system!  "Changes afoot in the agricultural community" Practical items instead of luxury products. Acording to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries data the economy of farmers has become more difficult due to an improved food situation and recently there has been a strong trend towards saving instead of buying luxury goods. In the past, there was abundant purchases of luxury products such as liquor or tobacco in the rural areas, but recently the farmers have often been turning to spending on practical goods like cotton due to the ongoing recession. This is one of the few articles which is so non-specific that I really don't have a whole lot to say, except to note that in addition to a school system reform, Japan was also going through a land ownership reform in this same time period, also under the guidance of allied GHQ. Well then, let's go back to our story, where Kindaichi has a visitor!   Can we make it to four people killed in this update? Keep reading and find out!     Well, that all depends on whether you catch the murderer(s) or not, doesn't it now?      Or, to put it another way:  Thus ends yet another scene where Kindaichi and Furudate sit around and complain to each other about making no progress. And so, what with one thing or another, three weeks passed. 13 DECEMBER 1949 This particular morning starts with the hotel maid barging into Kindaichi's room!   Clearly, there's something important going on as she's all flustered. But really that shouldn't stop us from sitting down to read the paper first, right?  Newspaper Obtained: The Nasu Times (13th December 1949) "Tamayo-san is Sahei's granddaughter" This is a bit weird, because why would they be reporting about this three weeks after the fact? Oh well, it is what it is.  (Click on the picture to see it bigger.) In this one, there is only one extra article, so let's see.  "Tamayo-san is Sahei's granddaughter" Sahei's secret is brough to light. The testimony that Nonomiya Tamayo is the granddaughter or Inugami Sahei has come to light from a person involved with the family. According to Ooyama-san, the priest of Nasu shrine, who has a long standing association with the Inugami family, Sahei had an affair with Nonomiya Haruyo, the wife of his benefactor Daini; their daugther, Noriko-san is the mother of Tamayo-san. Furthermore, Daini consented to all of this. Based on the contects of a love letter, Sahei and Haruyo were struggling with this strange relationship. The letter describes the deep feelings of Sahei, who was not in a position to be able to acknowledge Haruyo-san and Noriko-san as his wife and daughter, respectively. Sahei is said to have had a cold relationship with his three mistresses and their daughters, because of his fear of having his love for Haruyo and Noriko fade out; he is believe to have given favour to his granddaugher Tamayo-san instead, for this reason. Incidentally, Ooyama-san has mentioned that this and other facts he intends to publish in a real biography of Inugami Sahei. This one was actually a bit more interesting that a typical recap article as it actually mentions stuff that wasn't said in the conversations, in addition to reinforcing the idea about Ooyama being, as expected, a total creep and an opportunist. All right, let's see, one more article for today.  "The dangers of illegal liquor" The police calls for caution. The police have decided to increase the crackdown in illegally brewed black market liquor, saying that some of the "bomb" shochu is made from diluted methyl alcohol, which is toxic to the human body. The police have cautioned to never drink methyl alcohol as it can cause blindness and death from poisoning. Again, not much to add here, but I'll mention that shochu is a Japanese drink similar to Korean soju, and "bomb" (bakudan in Japanese) here refers to a mixture of liquor (in this case shochu) and a lower alcohol content drink, such as beer. I guess it's a bit like what you would call a chaser.    Could it be... that the last brother, Sukekiyo, has also been "taken care of" by our murderer?   Well, nothing else to do, but to go there and find out! We find ourselves back on that terrace that overlooks the lake.    Oops. I can see why they don't know yet who it is!  Unsurprising, I guess. Although also a little disappointing that the killer managed to get all three in the end.        But suddenly, Chief Tachibana turns to somebody off-screen and shouts...  Oh, I guess they are taking the corpse out of the lake then. Let's have a look then!  Welp. That does look like a severely injured face, and we only know one person who looks like that! In the meantime, here is Dr. Kusuda whom we can talk to about the corpse and the cause of death and all that interesting stuff!     But, there is another visitor. For a crime scene, this place sure gets a lot of traffic right now!    O.M.G. Just let her speak!         Dr. Kusuda leaves.   And she leaves, as well. On a side note, unless she knows all of this because she is the culprit somehow, perhaps she should have been the detective here? In a revolving door of people coming and going here, next one is Furudate-san.   Well, we're not going to find out unless we go there, so...     Oh hey, we were just looking for a missing button! Note again the chrysanthemum design, also.    Then Umeko appears and joins our conversation. We seem to have a lot of people coming and going this time around?         We'll do that, but I am actually wondering how exactly did they find this button and where? Well, perhaps we'll find out.            Unfortunately, the game wants us, the player, to answer that question! And the answer is "Inugami Sukekiyo", because this time it's just a virtual axe, materialised only through some (a bit strained) wordplay!    The explanation will involve some shenanigans with the Japanese text; rather that explaining in the text, I'll put the translation next to the screenshot so you can follow nicely (of course I will have to still explain it at the end, but...) We have, to select a keyword again here, so we'll go with "the other way around". Kindaichi will now explain.    And again, we have to answer a prompt here. This time, the answer is "the hidden head". I swear it will be clear in just a moment!   All right, how does this work. After we've turned the paper upside down and removed the (now) bottom half, we are left with "YOKI" being written. And as you may remember from a few times that it's been mention, YOKI is one of the words that can mean AXE in Japanese. So there's our axe. It may sound like a stretch (and even the characters will be slightly skeptical of it), but this scene is definitely taken directly from the book, without any changes at all, so it's not been invented by the game's authors or anything like that. In any case, we'll see if it leads anywere or not!    THE END OF CHAPTER SEVEN Ok then, the happenings are really starting to accelerate, aren't they! It seems we may have lost the third brother now, too (although let's not forget the comments from Tamayo), so hopefully we may get a bit of a breather for a moment now--let me just check what's coming next... Next time on "The Inugami Family": Introducing Aonuma Kikuno ... Oh. Guess that's that plan down the drain then.
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Oct 27, 2019 20:25
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Well, I did wonder how we'd get a creative kill with an axe. I can say that is very creative and I could've never seen it coming.
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Oct 27, 2019 22:01
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Annoyed that they turned it upside down rather than just writing it in reverse order, which would actually make the letters make sense. Also good lord these time skips. What was happening in those three weeks?? Was Kindaichi just sitting around???
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Oct 27, 2019 22:30
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Akumu posted:Also good lord these time skips. What was happening in those three weeks?? Was Kindaichi just sitting around??? Yeah, they're weird, and they really could have been just a couple of days and it wouldn't have made a difference at all. But I can tell you that this is another thing which is directly from the book "as is"--the book makes a point of using specific dates for all the major events, and they are the same ones you see here in the game, so... 
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Oct 27, 2019 23:08
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Somehow this death managed to get spoiled to me by a Figma release of Sukekiyo, of all things.
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Oct 27, 2019 23:21
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So the game's in mid-december now, when did this start? Summertime?
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Oct 28, 2019 03:33
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Akumu posted:Also good lord these time skips. What was happening in those three weeks?? Was Kindaichi just sitting around??? He was grinding up his Social Links to ensure he has the power to solve the mystery
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Oct 28, 2019 14:12
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Ibblebibble posted:Somehow this death managed to get spoiled to me by a Figma release of Sukekiyo, of all things. I'm definitely not going to be buying this since it costs like $100 (not just the legs, but the whole set), but I can at least file it under the TIL category. tomanton posted:So the game's in mid-december now, when did this start? Summertime?
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Oct 28, 2019 18:08
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SSNeoman posted:He was grinding up his Social Links to ensure he has the power to solve the mystery  : Kindaichi! Take this pistol, we need to go kill god!: Use the power of all your friends, like that detective guy! And the lawyer, I guess! Also maybe the Butler? I don't know. : So, we doing this or what. : And my Axe!
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Oct 28, 2019 18:35
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ivantod posted:This is amazing! There is actually a posable figure of Sukekiyo, I had no idea! And not only do you get the actual figure when you buy it, but it even includes a pair of posable legs sticking upwards, exactly as a reenactment of this particular scene: Yeah, I was just browsing the online storefront because I wanted to pre-order another figurine, and saw Sukekiyo up for preorder and decided to have a look. Whoops.
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Oct 28, 2019 23:33
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Previously on The Inugami Family, the dead body of Sukekiyo, the last brother, was discovered in the lake, albeit in a slightly unusual pose. The main question is, now that all three brothers are apparently dead, what should we do. Well, the answer is, as I hinted last time, we'll just have a nice relaxing chat with Aonuma Kikuno. I mean, what else, right? So, let's get going with the eighth chapter! Note that this episode is a bit longer than usual since there was not a good stopping point.  Chapter Eight: "An unfortunate mother and son"  THE SAME DAY, AROUND 9 P.M.  Kindaichi's expression is just the same as the weather... miserable. Those deep thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of the Inugami family maid. Neither she, nor our friend from the hotel are ever given a name.       Interesting. Could it possibly be somebody whom we have already met under a different name? I can already see there's going to be some reshuffling on our relationship chart!   And then... So the game is going to delay the big reveal for just a few more moments...    Well, there you go. In case you were wondering why that harp teacher keeps hanging around with not really a big reason to be in the story, now you know. In fact, most of this episode will consist of one long conversation with Kikuno (although there is still room for a couple more bombshells at the end, so make sure you don't leave early!). Feel free to stop being so amazed at any point and start asking questions.     Newspaper Obtained: The Bright Sun (13th December 1949, Evening Edition) "Mysterious death of Sukekiyo in the lake" Well, if this is not one of the more awkward newspaper moments in the game, I don't know what is! But nevertheless, the rule is that if we receive a newspaper, it must be read immediately! So let's get to it quickly and then we'll talk to Kikuno.  (Click on the picture to see it bigger.) Today we again only have two articles, so let's get to it, because, let's face it, we all want to hear what Kikuno has to say!  "Mysterious death of Sukekiyo in the lake" A third victim in the Inugami family On the morning of the 13th, the dead body of Sukekiyo was discovered by the Inugami family gardener and reported to the Nasu police station. Sukekiyo was found in the frozen lake, sticking upside down, as if doing a handstand. There are traces of strangulation on his neck, and the cause of death seems to be suffocation due to it. The Nasu police station is treating it as a crime committed by the same offender as the murder of Suketake on the 16th of the last month and also the killing of Suketomo on the 26th. The station continues to investigate a war veteran going under the name of Yamada, who has been seen around the area and is hurrying to identify any persons who might hold a grudge against the family. After this incident, all three grandchildren who had a claim on the inheritance have now been murdered, in just two months after the reading of Sahei's will in October. That's a nice and concise summary of recent events. Let's see the second article from contemporary life.  "Further increase in the number of births" The statistics released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare According to the demographics statistics for 1948, released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the number of births in the last year was around 2.68 million, exceeding the 2.5 million reached in 1947. The Ministry is expecting that the number of births this year will again exceed 2.6 million, and according to a published report, the number of marriages seems to continue to increase rapidly. Like many other countries, Japan too experienced a population boom after the end of the war and these figures mentioned in the article are real. Unfortunately, a few years later, the number of births went into a decline, and apart from a brief spike in early 1970s, it's continued to decrease, with the rate of decrease increasing especially in recent years. In 2018, the number of births in Japan was only around 960,000, which means that at present, Japan is losing around half a million people each year, due to a low birth rate. Incidentally, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is the predecessor of today's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which we already had a chance to be introduced to in the Batista game. Anyway, now that we're done with this, let's finally get to the part we all came here for today!       And here, with our first keyword, we get into the meat of things. I've already mentioned a little bit before, but this is the first time you really have to be careful in the dialogue. There will be a total of 11 keywords (!) to talk about (although usually not more than two at one time), and rather than the game stopping and letting you choose (like it does most of the time), in this case, they are all timed: meaning that you have certain intervals of time during the dialogue where you can interrupt and choose another topic. If you don't do it in time, the dialogue may move on and you have lost one chance to ask a question. In some cases, the game will actually give you a hint that you should ask something else "now" before the dialogue moves on, but not always. So the bottom line is that unless you do it exactly right, you simply won't be able to ask all questions. Luckily for all of us here, I was able to do it, so we should be able to see all of it.  It's time to use our first keyword! So let's see about "hiding the true lineage".    So this is what I meant when I said that the game will sometimes give you a hint when it's the right time to ask the next question. Let's do it then, let's find out about the husband.      You might remember the story from a couple of episodes ago about her relatives, the Tsuda family in Toyama, who took care of Shizuma, but were eventually killed in an air raid. So let's get onto that topic immediately and use the keyword we just got!  Reminder: in Japan, when kids refer to somebody as "aunt" it doesn't imply a blood relation.       Although we didn't get any hints here really, we will bring up our next keyword, the one we just got.   I'm actually going to jump in here and explain a bit... as it will turn out shortly, she is not actually completely blind, but just has a very poor eyesight. This was not made very clear in the game, so I'm just mentioning it here. I guess it's what we would today call "legally blind".            All right, that was interesting, but we need to move on to our next topic, which is that comment about Shizuma not returning from the war.        Let's bring that up immediately and continue the conversation thread. So, yeah, as you can see, the game does guide you a little bit, but you can still mess this up as it's not always 100% obvious.      Our next topic is "the year before last". As you can see, this conversation goes on for quite some time--we still have a few things to discuss before the we are done!      Next, we'll ask about Kikuno having taken over the teaching duties.       This is kind of an interesting moment with Tachibana, because if you haven't done it right so far, then around this time, he'll instead say something along the lines of "well, I guess that's enough for now", and the conversation basically ends without you being able to talk about the remaining topics. However, we haven't messed up yet, so our next topic is: "the continued misfortune" of the Inugami family.   Right. That time when she supposedly injured her finger.    But she could somehow notice properly before Sukekiyo's face? I don't know.  The game is giving us a hint, and anyway we only have one keyword to use, so let's just bring this straight back up. Don't worry, we're almost done--there is just one more left after this.     Let's finish this by talking about that!             And finally, we're done! It was quite a hard one to get the whole conversation without ending prematurely, but I guess we managed somehow! It took some effort, that's for sure--but at least with the emulator save states you can more easily play around until you get it right. Of course, it helps if you know what you're looking for, which I did, but I still had to figure out exactly where to interrupt (some are obvious, some less so, and it also helps that you never really have more than one or two keywords available). In any case, we've learned a fair bit of backstory here, and still there it the nagging question of that finger injury--but as they've already concluded, Matsuko spent the evening at home so couldn't have been at the murder site... it's all still rather foggy at the moment, including Kikuno's motives to come forward at this particular moment.      Well, before we finish for today, we do have just one more small thing to do. Because as a result of Chief Tachibana calling his office at the beginning of this episode, our resident forensics expert, Fujisaki, has arrived with the autopsy results!   Tamayo? I suppose he has some idea how to get her to finally tell us what she's been up to all this time?  This seems a bit silly because he's been waiting to hear this just recently, but as we already know, this game's engine can only handle up to three characters on screen at one time, so if Fujisaki stays, then somebody has to leave in order to make space for Tamayo. Yeah.  Seems Kindaichi is anticipating what's going to be said...                        (She leaves.)   TO BE CONTINUED... Yeah, I think we can definitely say that the pace of the story has picked up considerably in the last couple of chapters! But where will it all lead? In any case, before we finish for today, we do need to again update our relationship chart, although this time it's only a "small" adjustment, namely putting Kikuno in her correct position:  (Click to embiggen!) Well, see you next time when even more exciting things will happen!
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Nov 13, 2019 22:09
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So Sukekiyo is still alive and we have no idea who the gently caress this new guy is?
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Nov 14, 2019 00:33
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I'm betting the dead guy is the Bastard Son Whose Name Slips My Mind Right Now Even Though I Just Read The Update.
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Nov 14, 2019 01:01
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Ibblebibble posted:I'm betting the dead guy is the Bastard Son Whose Name Slips My Mind Right Now Even Though I Just Read The Update. Aonuma Shizuma. And I wonder, the fact that the fingerprints changed and Kikuno's testimony makes me think the exact opposite - the person we followed that we thought was Sukekiyo was, in fact, Shizuma, and he changed places with the actual Sukekiyo to murder him. That way, he got to be close to his targets as well as his mother.
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Nov 14, 2019 02:23
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Blaze Dragon posted:Aonuma Shizuma. And I wonder, the fact that the fingerprints changed and Kikuno's testimony makes me think the exact opposite - the person we followed that we thought was Sukekiyo was, in fact, Shizuma, and he changed places with the actual Sukekiyo to murder him. That way, he got to be close to his targets as well as his mother. I've suspected that there was an identity swap between Sukekiyo and Shizuma for a while. Though I'm not sure whether the two were colluding and had a falling out, or if Shizuma was impersonating Sukekiyo for the sake of his revenge plot, but the real one was trying to stop him. Or Sukekiyo is the mastermind, and Shizuma is just a convenient patsy to blame the murders on.
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Nov 14, 2019 07:18
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It is, I suppose, at this point customary to declare that the game is afoot. Things have certainly gotten very interesting. My assumption originally is that there is only one murderer; I wonder if that is truly the case. The family seems messed up enough that there could be multiple killers.
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Nov 15, 2019 06:48
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I sure hope it is because honestly Kindaichi has made pretty lackluster progress so far. Like the killer has mostly accomplished the murder of the three sons and we're only now figuring out their potential motive.
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Nov 15, 2019 07:58
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So initially Tamayo was the one who first got that one guy thinking about the handprint scroll, which caused it to be used, which got people convinced that the masked man was Sukekiyo. So she's been doing some things, albeit indirectly, since near the start. She clearly has some kind of motive and goal but I can't for the life of me think what either of them are. We haven't really gotten to know her much as a person,so it's difficult to say. I mean, one might assume she doesn't want to be pressured into marriage with people I guess but I still don't know whether that's enough to murder over, or to pull the puppet strings in the investigation or... yeah. Oh also, Suke-got-strangled-in-a-chair, there was some evidence that perhaps his body had been moved right? Or otherwise tampered with after he had been found the first time? I wonder if perhaps between the time Tamayo was rescued and people were sent to find him, he was moved from the abandoned lake house to the main mansion, and over the course of her harp lesson Matsuko, during her occasional breaks outside the room, gradually strangled the guy and that's how she cut her finger? God I'm terrible at mysteries, I have no idea what's going on.
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Nov 16, 2019 03:31
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David Corbett posted:It is, I suppose, at this point customary to declare that the game is afoot. Things have certainly gotten very interesting. My assumption originally is that there is only one murderer; I wonder if that is truly the case. The family seems messed up enough that there could be multiple killers. I really think it's multiple killers settling multiple grudges all under the "well this will throw off suspicion" inheritance event e: as to who's done what, though, I have no clue Psion fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Nov 17, 2019 |
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Nov 17, 2019 21:42
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Last time, at the start of chapter eight, we finally got the chance to talk to Aonuma Kikuno, who, it turns out, has been living all this time under the name Miyakawa and working as a harp teacher! We begin this part on the following day, with Kindaichi having a bit of think in his hotel room! 14 DECEMBER 1949  Anybody feeling poetic today? Well, however it is, the game follows the book very closely--much more so than the film adaptation which I've been posting the stills from, which, despite its length of around 2.5h, still cuts out and simplifies various parts of the plot, including there the whole entire scene we'll be seeing in today's episode. The close following of the book is so close that even most of the dialogue in the game is simply taken straight from there without any changes, like for example the above ruminations! Well, those are some rather interesting words. Also, it kind of seemed that it was more Tamayo who is at the center of the whole plot, but perhaps not? We'll see. Either way, it's time to get out and about, because police has been doing stuff!    So I guess we're going with the assumption that the dead body in the lake was not Sukekiyo... but if that's the case, then, considering that we are not expecting a late game rear end-pull, there are many other options who the person in the lake might be! Yes, let's see what it is. Hopefully they've found Sukekiyo?      An aborted attempt... at what? Yeah, but who's been sitting on his behind for months here? Anyway, let's find out what that "aborted attempt" was all about.  Again? This whole business about attempts on Tamayo's life is still quite fishy to me.    I'll just mention that "Yukigamine" (雪ヶ峰) means "Snowy Peak", although here it is used as a place name, so I've left it untranslated for that reason.     First of all, in case you've forgotten, Kindaichi is wearing a more traditional style kimono, hence the question about being appropriately dressed. More importantly, Tohoku is the northernmost part of Japan's largest island ("tohoku" literally means "northeast"), and is certainly a part of Japan you'd go to if you wanted to go skiing in the mountains, so this makes sense. All right, let's go for a drive up the mountain!  I find it interesting that the steering wheel in the car is on the wrong side here, but since we saw earlier that the car was a Mercedes Benz (albeit one from the wrong decade), I suppose we can assume that it's a car imported from continetal Europe or something which by default would have the steering wheel on the left side of the car instead of right. I almost feel that in another detecive story something like this could be used as a plot point!   Yeah, I'm with you, Kindaichi. That doesn't sound at all like her. Not even a little bit. Like I said, everything about these attacks on her is very very strange. Oh, give me a break. At least the story also presents this conclusion as something that is not actually true. He's talking about the fact that he'll be skiing in a kimono! But, we have arrived, so let's see what it looks like up on the mountain...      A voice is shouting from off screen...    A few moments later, we finally meet the person in question...    And now, we have entered another timed dialogue situation! Obviously, the goal is for the police not to kill Sukekiyo, but in order to achieve that, we'll have to use a keyword at some point before it's too late! It can be quite nerve wracking with the indicator on the bottom screen slowly changing its colour from blue to orange and the hearbeat display getting more and more frantic! In any case, if you don't stop the police, then you get a somewhat interesting bad end, but in order to not interrupt the flow of the action, I'll show you that at the end.      Despite this comment from Kindaichi, we can actually keep going still for a little bit more before it's too late!  And here is the point of no return. If you don't do anything now, you've lost. As mentioned, we'll cover that at the end, but for now, let's stop this nonsense! We need to say that "he's not the criminal".     There is a sound of a gunshot...  Well, somebody has a good aim! They managed to shoot the gun out of his hand!            TO BE CONTINUED... Well, for a game which mostly consists of people standing around and talking, this was surprisingly action packed! And despite the fact that's all done with static screenshots, you could say it was even somewhat cinematic! Interestingly enough, even though this is straight from the book, no part of this whole sequence actually appears in the film version at all, which I do find a bit surprising. In any case now that we've found Sukekiyo (?), or at least someone who might be him, a whole lot of new avenues open up for our investigation! But that's for next time, for now, let's have a look at what happens if you DON'T stop the police from killing him. We'll go from the point where you miss the last chance to stop them...   *BANG*    The Inugami Family: Unsolved So, yeah, that's pretty grim. I know I haven't been showing too many of these bad endings so far, but don't worry, we'll actually have a chance to see a few more over the course of playing this game, because there is still one little gameplay related twist that I haven't mentioned yet! Well, anyway, that's all for now. See you next time! ivantod fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 23:09
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Okay, now we're getting somewhere. This guy's prob a diversion from the real culprit but he'll almost certainly have some information.
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Nov 23, 2019 01:04
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Did Tamayo do all this?
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Nov 23, 2019 04:51
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it's looking like she's at least the mastermind
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Nov 23, 2019 05:24
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I definitely get the impression that he knows who the murderer is and is insisting it's him to cover for that person. The question is, who would he want to cover for? It seems like he and Tamayo may be more involved than we were lead to believe, but I'm not sure what she'd have to gain from killing the Sukes and (likely) Shizuma, much less revealing the whole swap in the end. Marrying Sukekiyo and getting the inheritance that way would have been much simpler. I had gotten the impression that she wasn't involved in the murders, but perhaps I'm giving her too much of the benefit of the doubt. His mother is another person who comes to mind, especially since she's so hell-bent on her son getting the inheritance, and perhaps he's enough of a mommy's boy to cover for her if she's the one involved. But it's still unclear how she could have killed the second Suke, since her hidden finger injury still doesn't poke a hole in her alibi for that murder. I am curious as to whether that'll come back into play or be a red herring, however. Presumably he'd helped out the impostor, but he's dead, so it makes no sense to try and cover for him now. If it was Shizuma, he certainly had a motive for the murders given his mother's recent confession... but then, who killed him? Is there anyone else he might take the fall for? At this point, it's hard to know, especially since it's unclear how much we know the real Sukekiyo. Maybe we'll get a revelation that he's close to someone else at the last minute, and they'll be the culprit.
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Nov 24, 2019 17:05
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differentiating posted:It seems like he and Tamayo may be more involved than we were lead to believe, but I'm not sure what she'd have to gain from killing the Sukes and (likely) Shizuma, much less revealing the whole swap in the end. Marrying Sukekiyo and getting the inheritance that way would have been much simpler. I had gotten the impression that she wasn't involved in the murders, but perhaps I'm giving her too much of the benefit of the doubt. If she views Sukekiyo as a tool who is willing to die for her, I think it makes sense. Use him to commit the murders, maybe even take part herself, and have him take the fall. Revealing the swap so they know he's still alive and staging things with him after convincing him to suicide by cop means the only other person who knows about it aside from her won't ever potentially reveal what happened. You could argue that if he's that loyal that she shouldn't have to worry about him spilling the details, but she might just be coldhearted enough to be unwilling to take the chance no matter how slight.
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Nov 25, 2019 09:47
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You know how in all old mystery novels, typically at the end the detective gathers everybody in the room and explains the facts of the case? Well, you better believe that this book also ends like that! So a lot of things should soon start to become clearer, and in particular exactly what was Tamayo's role in this whole situation (since she is kind of "an involved person" about whose involvement we've really found the least about so far), In fact, we're more or less at that point in the game right now where Kindaichi will start explaining things! There is one more update left in this chapter and then pretty much the entire ninth (last) chapter will be devoted to that. Of course, even though it's the last chapter, it's not exactly the end of the game, but more on that when we get to it...
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Nov 26, 2019 18:21
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ivantod posted:Kindaichi will start explaining things! this part can't come fast enough, Kindaichi, can't come fast enough
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Nov 26, 2019 19:25
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In the last action filled episode, we managed to catch Sukekiyo on the mountain! It's not exactly clear what is his role in all of this, since he is claiming to be solely responsible for all the murders, but that seems a bit improbable. He also seems to have tried to genuinely kill Tamayo, before heading off to the mountain. Either way, it's the next day now, and it's time to go into that familiar trope of old detective novels: with everybody gathered in the room (well, obviously, we're a few people short compared to the first gathering at the beginning of the case, but...), the detective starts to slowly explain the case! 15 DECEMBER 1949   You know the rule! If there is a newspaper it must be read! Also, this is the last newspaper in this game--there is one more chapter left after this one, but there are no newspapers in it.  Newspaper Obtained: The Bright Sun (15th December 1949) "Inugami Sukekiyo Arrested"  (Click on the picture to see it bigger.) Again, there are only two articles, so let's read them!  "Inugami Sukekiyo Arrested" The identity of the murderous veteran soldier discovered Around noon on the 14th, Inugami Sukekiyo was arrested at Yukigamine as a suspect in the serial murder case. According to the announcement of the Nasu police, around midnight on the 13th, the suspect had breached Nonomiya Tamayo-san's roon in the Inugami residence and tried to strangle Tamayo-san who was resting in the room. The family's gardener had noticed something strange and came to Tamayo-san's aid upon which the suspect ran away. The Nasu police reacted immediately by creating a search cordon and as soon as the next day, the 14th, managed to restrain the suspect for the serial murders who had tried to escape to Yukigamine mountains. He fired at the police multiple times from his gun that he had hidden, and then the police stopped his attempt at suicide. Fortunately, none of the police officer have suffered injuries. Sukekiyo admits to the crimes, but nothing is known yet about the motive for killing or the identity of the person who was found dead in the lake. Ok, so that's pretty standard as always, so let's see what else we have here.  "Caution about new year's fires" The black market in Ueno appears to be recovering after a fire broke out and damaged it on the 9th. Although Tokyo Fire Department is making efforts to improve its fire-fighting capabilities, such as making 119 the dedicated phone number for fire reporting, and introducing the fire trucks with pumps, it can be said that the facilities are still insufficient. In the year when the Horyuu temple main hall was burned down in January, followed by the Tsutsuimon gate at the Matsuyama castle as a result of an arson in July, and the tower in Matsumae castle in September, this was a year where severe damage was done to important cultural assets. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency is actively cooperating with the rest of the government to make a plan to improve the fire-fighting capabilities and equipment. I haven't been able to find out what fire they are talking about that happened in Ueno at this time, but the rest are all real events that happened in 1949--the fire at Horyuu temple we already had a more detailed article near the beginning of the game, as we've learned then, it was caused by a forgotten electric heater. By Jyo81 (ja: User) - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13873128 As for the Matsuyama castle (part of which is seen above), the Tsutsuimon gate was destroyed in an arson in 1949 (after the whole castle complex was already severaly damaged in allied bombing in 1945, and previously by another large fire in 1933, and another in 1784 which was caused by a lightning strike), but was rebuilt between 1966-1969, when the whole complex was restored. Another castle complex, Matsumae (partially seen above), has had its main tower (tenshu) destroyed by fire in 1949, but it was also rebuilt in 1960. Finally, regarding the phone number 119, of course it's still in use in Japan today (and also in some other countries in the region, such as China and South Korea). Anyway, that's that for our last newspaper... just one small thing to mention, and then we can move on! Although I haven't really been mentioning them, I have been solving all the crossword puzzles/calculations in the newspapers, and now, for solving all of them, we get a reward! But the reward is simply the opening of an option in the menu that just leads to... many more crossword/calculation puzzles, so... yay? I don't think you get anything for solving those, though--but I'll check it out, just in case. Anyway, let's get back to the story, because I'm sure we all want to find out who is REALLY the killer! Looks like Tachibana has also arrived!  Reminder: the 18th of October was the day when Kindaichi arrived in Nasu and when the first victim, Wakabayashi, was killed.        While we wait for Sukekiyo to be brought in, why not have a look around the room? Here is Matsuko, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette, like nothing's happened at all.    Well, that's quite enough ruminating, since Nishimoto is just about to bring a handcuffed Sukekiyo in!  Nice touch: Sukekiyo has his right hand bandaged, becaus that's where the police shot him! I guess we can start?      All right, let's see. But I'm not expecting much, to be honest!  My Confession The murderer in the serial murder case of the Inugami Family is me, Inugami Sukekiyo. No one else other than me is involved in this incident in any way. I am confessing this just before my suicide. ---Inugami Sukekiyo. Well, that's pretty much what we've expected, and is, of coure, complete nonsense.               Now is the time to ask questions. In this particular dialogue sequence you don't have to worry too much as the game will pause to ask you to choose the next keyword, i.e. you don't have to interrupt at the right moment. Although, you will still have a limited time to make the choice. So the flow of this dialogue can be a little odd at first since there are a couple of optional questions we can ask, so we'll get those out of the way first and then move on to the main part. As you might expect, Sukekiyo will continue to say not a whole lot, so this will be mostly Kindaichi talking to himself really! From the last time, we have a keyword about "hiding in the closet", so let's start with that.   Let's follow this up with "waiting for something" immediately.     Yeah, this particular bit about Saruzou returning to his room "just in time" to save Tamayo was also mentioned by Tachibana last time. In any case, not much more we can get out of him on this topic for now. So let's move on to something else and bring up the date "18th October" as we need to clear up a bit of a timeline inconsistency here. And we have to choose the next keyword again. This time we should choose "12th November", the day Yamada Sanpei apparently arrived in Hakata port on a repatriation ship from Burma. And, again we have to make the next choice, but again it's obvious, we should bring up "repatriation via Hakata". We are done with this silliness, now we're going dig deeper into things, finally.       Speaking of which, we still don't know who the last murdered person is... well, we can make a pretty good guess (cough)Shizuma(cough), but it would be nice to know for sure, no?   Obviously, the next step is to bring up "Yamada Sanpei".          Oh, hey, it's the station master! Long time no see!      A completely unrelated factoid: with its 53 platforms (!), Shinjuku station is the busiest train station in the world with over 3.5 million people passing through it every day!   Yes, this is the guy who took Kindaichi down to the hotel.  Weirdly, there is actually an error in the game text at this point, because it says November instead of December in the above line of dialogue! But we're clearly talking (as will be obvious even more in the next few minutes) about the day when the impostor Sukekiyo was murdered, which was definitely 13th of December, not November! Not the best place to have this kind of error!           All right, now this should be interesting!                      So, that was interesting. Neither the game nor the book do at this point come outright and say it, but there is a clear implication that there is a kind of a relationship between Tamayo and Sukekiyo going on (although we'll see this spelled out later when we look at our relationship diagram, though). Based on what we already have seen in our previous interactions with Tamayo, it also seems to be the implication that Sukekiyo might have already revealed himself to her at some earlier point during this case after his first arrival in Nasu.             And, well, it's up to us to say it... but we only really have one keyword that is related to a person, so here goes...     THE END OF CHAPTER EIGHT Well then, there you go. But don't worry, we still have one whole chapter to clarify exactly what happened and how! For now, let's check out our updated relationship diagram--this time we finally move Sukekiyo over to his correct spot, and also take note of that arrow which finally spells out the relationship between him and Tamayo, although you could have pretty much guessed it at this point!  (Click to embiggen!) So I'll see you in chapter nine next time, where finally we get to hear everything explained!
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Dec 10, 2019 23:04
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IT WAS THE
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Dec 11, 2019 00:50
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I mean so far Kindaichi is assuming a familial relationship as the cause of the suicide, it could be that the murderer has something else on the guy to pressure him to such an extent. Seems like a bit of a reach. Or am I missing something?
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Dec 11, 2019 01:23
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SSNeoman posted:I mean so far Kindaichi is assuming a familial relationship as the cause of the suicide, it could be that the murderer has something else on the guy to pressure him to such an extent. Seems like a bit of a reach. It had to be someone on the inside. That means that a familial relationship is the only possible answer, since the only people outside the family that would have a reason to go for the murder are Miyakawa (nearly blind, clearly nowhere near able enough, and also would've murdered the mothers, not the children) and Tamayo (proven innocent by being part of Sukekiyo's alibi). And inside the family, it'd be heavily unlikely for a mother to kill her own child, especially since those seem to be the only functional bonds in this gigantic mess of a family, so the only possible guilty party is Matsuko.
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Dec 11, 2019 03:21
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i'm just not sure what matsuko's motive was. her actual son probably would have married tamayo without any murder involved, so it looks like the inheritance didn't have anything to do with it. what's more, she certainly knew that the son she presented was fake, and even that her real son was hanging around due to the fingerprinting switcharoo.
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Dec 11, 2019 16:19
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i'm just not sure what matsuko's motive was. her actual son probably would have married tamayo without any murder involved, so it looks like the inheritance didn't have anything to do with it. what's more, she certainly knew that the son she presented was fake, and even that her real son was hanging around due to the fingerprinting switcharoo. Her motive is probably revenge against the father, and it's actually quite brilliant: not only has she wiped out the entire male line except for her own son, but her father's reputation has been wrecked by the media learning all about the craziness of the family. No matter what the family does, the direct family line will die if her son doesn't inherit/have kids, and it will always be tainted by the association with murder. Her father (probably) intended to revenge himself/his lover by making the family fight over money, so she made it so there's no one to fight over the money by killing the people in question. What isn't clear is her plan for Tamayo: did she plan on framing her? Was she trying to kill Tamayo, or was that someone else? Did she want Tamayo to inherit the money to end the family for good? It's a bit curious.
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Dec 11, 2019 21:57
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How many people knew about Tamayo's true lineage?
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Dec 11, 2019 22:08
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Aw. I was hoping Tamayo did it.
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Dec 13, 2019 11:00
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Shoeless posted:Aw. I was hoping Tamayo did it. Yeah, sorry about that! But she was constantly acting so suspiciously, that there was no way it was going to be anything but a red herring! On the other hand, she did probably hide the fact about the swap for at least some amount of time, so...
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Dec 13, 2019 18:43
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