CORRECT the MATCHMAKER - Let's Play The 25th Ward: The Silver Case

[Timrod]

The 25th Ward is the second sequel to The Silver Case, released at some point in the early 2000s (probably 2003, as that’s when the game takes place) as a cell phone game in the pre-smartphone era that never saw the light of day outside of Japan and which, to the best of my knowledge, was never preserved anywhere. If you’ve played anything by Suda, you already know he loves doing that kind of shit.

The original game had two plot arcs, titled “Correctness” and “Placebo” - the second one being a continuation of the Placebo arc in The Silver Case. The arcs were released episodically (because this was 2003, and Half-Life 2 Episode 3 wasn’t yet an ongoing joke) and were meant to be played in release order. Effectively, this meant the original game worked just like The Silver Case with the alternating Transmitter - Placebo order for chapters.

The 25th Ward: The Silver Case is a 2018 remake of the original cell phone game, with an additional twist: not only was the entire game totally redone (with the exception of some of the original artwork), but a third plot arc, titled “Matchmaker”, got added in. From what I’ve been told, the “correct” order to play the remake in is this:

Correctness #0
Placebo *0
Correctness #1
Matchmaker "1
Placebo *1

And so on and so forth. What I’m going to do for this LP is arrange the updates by which plot arc they’re part of, so that if you want to try reading it in a different order, you can do that. Speaking of which…

Do I need to have read The Silver Case LP and/or played Flower, Sun and Rain to understand this?

YES. The 25th Ward is opaque enough as-is, and there’s a reason it gives you a recap of The Silver Case at the beginning. If you have read my previous LP, you should have everything you need to understand The 25th Ward. You may also want to watch one of the myriad LPs of Flower, Sun and Rain that exist - make sure you find one that has the original PS2 version footage in it.

I will warn you that if you go into this game not having played and fully understood The Silver Case, you will be in for a bad time, like a lot of the dipshit reviewers who panned this game because they had not played the other Kill The Past games.

What about Killer7?

The remake of The 25th Ward definitely takes inspiration from Killer7, and it would not hurt at all to go watch an LP of that.

Will this be a 100% LP?

No. This LP will cover all of the main Correctness, Placebo, and Matchmaker chapters. I’m going to spoil something up front - there is a very, very long chapter at the end of the Correctness arc with 100 endings, and I am not sitting through that. It’s only questionably canon anyway.

Are you getting Salty Vanilla to do an entire alternate storyline where the protagonist is a rodent of some sort based entirely on a single throwaway line in the first chapter again?

Of course. Why wouldn’t I?

[Timrod]

Summary

: Welcome to The 25th Ward. This game takes a lot of UI inspiration from Killer7, and it’s honestly kinda annoying compared to how The Silver Case worked.

: This is the first example. Instead of the simple chapter selection menu from The Silver Case, we have the uh… chapter select triangle that we navigate in 3D.

: Prototype is much, much shorter than Lunatics was. You can finish it in about 15 minutes assuming you’re not speeding up the dialog.

: I blame Kusabi. He clearly didn’t shoot it enough.

: Wait a second, what part of the 24 Wards was a perfect utopia? It was a city ruled by an immortal despot and a guy who spent all day spinning in a chair watching anime titties.

: I wonder if their sentient, bipedal chinchillas are human-sized.

: The location bar from The Silver Case returns, only now it takes up the top-center of the screen and starts out garbled.

: I didn’t capture it, but the name above the portrait that flashes for a second before the text starts showing up reads “Kosaka”. He was in The Silver Case - he was the investigator from Central who shows up in Parade. We heard from him briefly at the end of Danwa.

: Kosaka must have found the store Baofu shops at.

: “There has been a string of suspicious deaths discovered here at Bayside Towerland, the symbol of the 25th Ward. In the four months since the condos were made available for purchase, nine people have died here.”

: I should mention that I found a copy of the script for this game partway through producing this update. This is the first time I’ve ever just been able to copy and paste.

: “All of them have been ruled suicides. We haven’t been able to get any further information. It will be hard to get a foot in the door, even going through the Metropolitan Police Department.”

: “Someone or something has been exerting their power to block these incidents off. But fortunately, we were able to obtain some info through a certain route.”

: The term highlighting is something The Silver Case never did, even in the remake, and I have no idea why.

: “This is where we’ll need you. Infiltrate the scene and find out what’s going on. An investigator from HQ is using another route to get in. Make contact with them.”

: “After that, I’ll submit a formal inquest and get started on the official investigation. I’ll be presiding over and leading the investigation. I’m putting you in charge of the field.”

: There’s a tutorial here I’m going to skip in favor of explaining it myself. The 25th Ward has a different system from The Silver Case, one which I don’t think is necessarily better.

: Our new character uses dice as their interface, because symbolism. The standard controls are a D4. We have Move…

: Look, which is half of the replacement for Contact…

: And Talk, which is the other half of the replacement for Contact. There’s a fourth command we can’t use yet. We have to start by looking at the building.

: Oh, just like that town in New Hampshire that got taken over by bears.

: The success of the 24 Wards accelerated the progress of the 25th Ward proposal. It’s supposed to be some sort of utopian paradise, populated by around 300,000 people. People’s belief in peace is unwavering."

: I’m guessing the shadow government is already cranking out sentient, bipedal bears to take over the entire ward, because that’s how this kind of thing goes.

: Actually, you know what I really want to see now? I want a Silver Case type game where you’re trying to investigate that town in New Hampshire and the twist is that you were playing as Hank the Tank the entire time.

: “This highrise apartment complex is up against the threat of ‘administrative crime’. There have been a number of suicides in which the cause of death is unknown, and they’ve been covered up.”

: “It’s proof that someone powerful is involved, reigning in reporters and keeping the media under their thumb.”

: “This is the sort of case that would absolutely be shut down if standard investigative procedures were followed. We’re going up against a huge opponent.”

: We now need to use the “Talk” option.

: “Register yourself as an administrator, and begin infiltration. We’ve acquired a fake ID for you, so there’s no need to worry about being made. Use it wisely, and sparingly. Consider this your first mission as
a 25th Ward HC Unit Special Investigator.”

: Speaking of ID, I should talk about who our new character is. Our new character’s name is Uehara… which is kinda weird given that technically, Big Dick is now the real Kamui.

: Here’s our first reference to Killer7. This is the interface for navigating the first-person segments of the game… and it honestly kinda sucks. While this game does have mouse control, the mouse pointer in these menus is invisible, so you more or less have to use the keyboard.

: “Please produce your ID. I will confirm your identity.”

: Hitting the “Bag” option switches the die over to Uehara’s inventory. I’m surprised we don’t have a copy of Kurayami Dance or a luchador mask.

: “Your identification has been confirmed. Please proceed.”

: A condo complex with a VIP elevator?

: I feel like if you’re ever buying a condo, and the real estate agent says it “features excellent sanitation”, that’s probably a good sign to not buy that condo.

: I’ve never lived in a condo, but I’ve helped sell a fair few of them, and I can tell you it is definitely not better than reality.

: When this pops up, it plays the sound effect that plays in Killer7 when you pick up an item… even though this screen is a reference to Flower, Sun and Rain.

: This right here? This is how Flower, Sun and Rain works. You put in a number, the game asks if it’s your final answer, and then…

: We’re not even five minutes into the game and we’ve already run into two Killer7 references and an FSR reference.

: We can’t do anything with the two doors, but we should stop and check something while we’re here - namely the ID pass and the ID code we got from Kosaka.

: Given that all the room numbers are five digits, it’s safe to say that the room number we’re looking for is probably 75028. The password is not randomized - I confirmed it with the game script. Let’s keep going down the hallway.

: She looks… very different than she did in The Silver Case, but this is Sakura Natsume - the only other survivor of the 24th Ward Heinous Crimes Unit apart from Kusabi and Big Dick.

: When she shows up on screen, and for the entire time she’s talking, the game plays the Transmitter theme in the background.

: “I was a bit surprised as that wasn’t what I had heard.”

: Given that we know Sakura is an Ayame maspro, and that this sounds a lot like Chizuru a few seconds before Sakura killed her, this probably is not a good sign.

: “We still need time before we can begin the investigation. Check everything out, and be sure not to leave any evidence.”

: If we talk to Sakura again…

: Hm, I wonder why we’d remind her of Big Dick. I bet Salty Vanilla can help shed some light on this.

: Meet our protagonist, Uehamster. Our conversation around this piece went something like this:

: “You can enter the room with your ID password. It’s Room 75028. Make sure you get the right room. We don’t want to disturb the neighbors.”

: Here is my first mistake. The room we want is actually on the right side, not the left.

: You have to go through a couple of these screens, which probably would’ve taken half the time if we were still using The Silver Case’s movement style. Clearly, Uehamster has not had the same level of tactical training as Big Dick.

: This is the advantage to LPing this game - I had forgotten the password, but all I had to do was go back through my screenshot folder.

: I’m not sure what significance, if any, the number 803026 has.

: My first thought upon seeing this room was “That doesn’t look like blood, it looks like someone jumped on a bottle of ketchup”.

: “The murder occurred in this room. It feels too cold and sterile for someone to live in. Don’t you think? Let’s start investigating. We don’t have much time.”

: I uh… I think if that was possible, Kusabi would have already done it.

: “Apparently, you can see crime and everyday ‘life’… Michiru sent you into the field believing that this case would help awaken you. But I can’t go back just yet.”

: Well, I guess this explains the end of The Silver Case where they talk about a second Kamui that isn’t Big Dick.

: Oh god dammit no. I already played that! It was dogshit! Baofu was the only character!

: Next time, we’ll see the first Placebo chapter and catch up with Tokio after the events of Flower, Sun and Rain.

[Timrod]

Summary

: Now that we’ve cleared Prototype, we can visit the other two plot arcs. One thing I do not like about the new chapter select thing is that it automatically puts you on the last plot arc you were on when you load the game after clearing a chapter.

: There’s nothing even telling you that Placebo has unlocked, and I can see how this could cause confusion.

: We’re going to skip most of Utsutsu, because it’s a 15-minute long text scroll recapping the plot of The Silver Case. I understand why they put this in, but it just feels like a bad decision.

: What I’ll do is post and comment on some of the more opaque points, especially those raised in FSR or in Lifecut / Hikari / Danwa.

: One thing I should mention is that The Silver Case gave you the translations for Tokio’s chapter titles in the achievement list if you were playing with them on. The 25th Ward does not do that, so I will.

: This chapter’s title, Utsutsu (現つ), has two meanings: it means “consciousness”, but also can mean “reality”.

: The text scroll outright lies in a couple of spots, like this one where it claims that Morikawa’s notebook had something in it. We know from Flower, Sun and Rain that this is not true.

: This part, however, is. We find out in Flower, Sun and Rain that Lospass Island was a cover for a hyena farm used to try and generate silver eyes.

: One new thing this confirms that there are two “real” Kamuis - Tokio is one, since he has the original Kamui’s consciousness in his eye. This is what is making him see ghosts when we see him in Hikari. The other “real” Kamui is Big Dick, the last holder of the artificial Kamui consciousness created by the Shelter Kids program.

: There’s a list of deaths at one point, which the game admits is wrong - we know Munakata can’t be dead because we saw him in Danwa. This also leaves out Mikoshiba, who Munakata killed in Lifecut.

: I also like to think that Morikawa never actually died. I mean, Kusabi made up the entire Silver Case, who’s to say he didn’t lie about that?

: The last three are proven - well, kinda. Depending on how you interpret FSR, the original Sumio may or may not be alive: there’s a plot point that the reason the day keeps resetting is because there are actually multiple planes and multiple Sumio clones running around, but one of the main interpretations of FSR’s plot is that everything up to where Tokio shows up is a dream.

: The image from Hikari comes in as soon as Kaoru Hachisuka’s name appears, and confirms that Tokio was in fact talking to him during that segment… though technically, if you think about it, that conversation was Kamui talking to Kamui about Kamui.

: We’ll end this with the one important part of Utsutsu.

: Oh look, it’s those old “Daily Word” emails Tokio used to get.

: Next time, we’ll do New World Order. The Matchmaker arc is technically available, but I’m going to do New World Order before I touch the first Matchmaker chapter.

[Timrod]

Summary

: New World Order is our first full-size chapter - it’s about as long as Decoyman was.

: It’s hard to see in screenshots because it’s virtually the same color as the building, but you can see a bag being thrown out the window.

: This guy’s name is Hatoba. While this game doesn’t have a manual that explains who the characters are the way that The Silver Case did, it does have an artbook… that of course I bought.

: The artbook explains that Hatoba is the chief of the 25th Ward Heinous Crimes Unit, making him this game’s equivalent of Kotobuki.

: “No, I just arrived myself.”

: “Since Sakaguchi’s funeral. That was five years ago.”

: In case you’ve forgotten, Sakaguchi was the guy Kusabi called “Afro”, an investigator from Central who worked with Kosaka. He showed up in Parade.

: “Wow, so it’s been that long? Ever since that case…”

: “I’d prefer if you didn’t speak about that.”

: “Yeah, sorry about that. But the past is the past. You can’t force yourself to forget it, you know?”

: All he needs to say now is “It can’t be helped” and then Kusabi can legally murder him.

: “Anyway… what did you want to speak with me about?”

: “Where are you at these days? I’ve heard rumors…”

: “I’m working as an official at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. I wasn’t cut out for criminal investigation. I’m really satisfied with my current position.”

: I can’t help but read this in the “Milkman” voice from Psychonauts.

: “Can I take that at face value? A detective who was once on the front lines of investigation is satisfied working as a bureaucrat… I don’t believe that.”

: “I thought the same thing… I was worried about whether I’d really be able to tear myself away from the job, but it turns out I was made for office work. Even I was surprised by that discovery.”

: So what you’re saying is that… you were born to be a bureaucrat?

: “That’s good. I was actually worried about you, after hearing that you’d left the 24 Wards. So this is a relief.”

: “Thank you for thinking of me.”

: “It’s an easy job. You should make some time to enjoy life.”

: “Yes, I will. You take care, too…”

: “There’s one thing I forgot… I’ve been hearing rumors recently. An administrative officer has been going out more lately, and has apparently been putting together a special investigation unit in secret…”

: “It sounds like some really capable people are joining up. Have you heard anything about this?”

: “No, nothing in particular…”

: “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have. In this line of work, there aren’t many ‘capable’ people out there, so I thought it might’ve been you. Sorry for doubting you.”

: “I’m not that good. I’m far away from all of that now.”

: “Not that far. It’s got to do with what’s happening here, right now.”

: Believe me when I say that by the end of this update, we’ll have already reached a body count exceeding the entirety of The Silver Case.

: This guy’s name is Mokutaro Shiroyabu. He’s this game’s replacement for Kusabi, even though he’s got almost nothing in common with Kusabi. I took one look at him and went “Yep, he’s a Kamui maspro”.

: “Dead men tell no tales…”

: And this is Sakaki, who is currently Shiroyabu’s partner. She doesn’t have a first name listed in the artbook, and that should tell you a lot about how long she’s going to last.

: “A resume he’d used at a job interview…”

: “We checked out his most recent address, and it was a dormitory where single people tend to hang out. Nobody knew anything about Kurumizawa.”

: “So no trace at all… where was he registered?”

: “It wasn’t recorded in his ledger, and when he moved into the 25th Ward, all the data changed.”

: You mean he… killed… his past?

: “So no trace here, either… doesn’t anyone know anything about Kurumizawa’s past?”

: “Hm…”

: “What? Cat got your tongue?”

: Clearly, Shiroyabu cannot tell the difference between a cat and a hamster.

: “Well, uh… it’s a bit nasty, but…”

: “Yeah, he ‘ate’ ate it. It looks like he’d been eating a load of female hair…”

: He had to eat the hair because otherwise he’d be bald, or possibly also piglike in appearance. Yes, I know that’s from like 2008. No, I do not apologize.

: “That’s fucked up… just hardcore creepy shit.”

: “Pretty normal perversion, really.”

: “I heard this from one of my mentors but a crime where personal information goes missing isn’t a normal crime.”

: “From whom?”

: I’m not sure if this is meant to imply that his mentor was someone from The Silver Case, but I don’t think Shiroyabu is old enough for that to be the case if this is really ten years later.

: This part is… kinda confusing, to be honest. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be the case that Uehara is in disguise as the building manager, or if the building manager is there and just has no lines, or what. We need to use the Talk option here.

: “Apparently these condos had more than a million applicants in the first day on sale. Each tower has 3000 homes, and there are… what, 30 towers…?”

: “That’s around 90,000 homes; that’s pretty impressive. Population-wise, by quick estimate, that’s like 300,000 people! But it totally doesn’t have that ‘lived in’ feeling, you know? There aren’t many people walking around, and there’s no karaoke place here…”

: By population count, the 25th Ward would be in 15th place with just these condo towers alone when compared to the 23 wards of Tokyo that actually exist.

: “I don’t get your standards. People who care about things like karaoke don’t apply to live here… most of the people living here either have a reason to want to get away from the normal government, or have decided to make huge changes in their lives.”

: “They target people from out in the sticks who don’t have some kind of group they belong to.”

: “What the hell does that mean?”

: “That means doing away with city life. What’s behind that is… pretty clear.”

: “What is it?”

: “I got no clue.”

: “What, you don’t know either!?”

: We can use Talk again here for a couple of lines.

: With that, we can now Move again. All we have to do is re-trace our steps from when we were here in Prototype and take Shiroyabu and Sakaki to the crime scene.

: I got a little confused here, because we don’t have the passcode to the door anymore. What you’re supposed to do is Move again, but we can use Talk instead for some dialog.

: “It’s not bad, though. This living space does sort of have a ‘25th Ward’ feel to it, doesn’t it?”

: “That may be fine for you… for some people, this could be a real breeding ground for crime.”

: “Oh yeah, I get what you mean. The psychology of fear can spread. They talked about that in the lectures…”

: I checked the script to see if there’s a difference between doing the optional dialogue and not, and as it turns out there isn’t.

: And this is Kuroyanagi. She’s closer to Kusabi but feels like she’s trying way too hard. I am willing to bet she is an Ayame maspro.

: “Did you sell all your cookies or whatever? You ‘detectives’ go on a nice little date? You think this is fuckin’ happy fun time? This case is already pretty fucked up. Looks like serial murders.”

: “Sorry… we were talking with the building manager.”

: “The manager? You mean this asshole?”

: This game came out in the early 2000s, and Suda fucking loves wrestling, so of course she calls Shiroyabu “Jabroni”.

: “I mean, you’ve only been a detective for what, three years already?”

: “It’s ‘Shiroyabu’.”

: “And what about you, Sakaki?!”

: “Uh, yes sir. I’m helping out with the autopsy. Right, Hiro?”

: “So having a cute, young girl around is apparently a real motivator. Right, Jabroni?”

: “Are you seriously going to keep calling me ‘Jabroni’? I really hate that nickname!”

: “Quit fucking around and start investigating like a big boy! Unless you wanna get tossed back out to the sticks…”

: “Yes, sir…”

: I’ve been playing the Resident Evil 4 Remake this weekend, and all I could think about was a mod where you play as Shiroyabu and he is completely oblivious to the entire situation.

: One of the few improvements this game makes over The Silver Case’s UI is that when you hit Talk, you are then given a menu as to who to talk to, rather than having to turn and find the person you’re looking for.

: “Her New Year’s resolution was ‘to become the kind of detective who looks good with a revolver’. And she’s got a really dirty mouth… Sorry for complaining like this.”

: “The HC Unit forbids revolvers. Since she isn’t able to carry one for her day job, she moonlights as a bouncer. If caught, she’d be fired immediately. But somehow she never gets reported.”

: “Sir? Are you OK? You had a hard time, huh? You found the body, right? You seem OK… are you used to this sort of thing? There are a lot of suicides around here, so you’re probably used to finding bodies and stuff… Don’t let it get you down.”

: “Get the fuck out of the way!”

: Once we’ve talked to everyone, we can talk to Shiroyabu again.

: “Something is bothering me… it’s like… a pristine dead body, some really vicious blood splatters… I almost feel like we’re being invited. Do you get what I mean?”

: “Hirooka, do blood splatters usually reach the ceiling?”

: My theory is that if they look around the corner, there’s probably an exploded ketchup bottle with a couple of chinchilla-sized footprints on it. Look, sometimes you’re at a crime scene and you want some fries, and then you drop the ketchup bottle and accidentally step on it.

: “But like, what would the point of that be? This feels really weird for a suicide, doesn’t it?”

: “Yeah, in the six months since opening alone, there have been more than ten suicides, which definitely sounds fishy…”

: “Huh…? You see this hole here?”

: “Hole…? Something smells… excuse me, could you cut the lights in this room for a minute? Something’s bothering me.”

: “What’s this…?”

: “This hole is… shining?”

: “It’s too dangerous to be here. Get too close to the fire, and you’re gonna get burned, too. You should get out of here. This place reeks of something hidden and dangerous.”

: “Light?! What the hell… at this time of day…?”

: At this time of year, in this part of the country, localized entirely within this condo building. I wonder if The Simpsons sucks as much in the Kill the Past universe as it does in the real one.

: “That’s awesome! It looks like Christmas lights!”

: “Sakaki! Where are you? Respond!”

: He’s asking this, and they’re in a studio apartment.

: “I’m totally fine! I’m fine, but the light is so bright… aaah!”

: “Did that just go off again? Huh? What… Sakaki, are you even listening?”

Body Count: 1

: “No… way?”

: I wish I had played this game before YIIK, because I would have gotten a ton of mileage out of this screenshot. I have, by the way, been periodically checking to see if that patch is ever coming out, and things seem to be leaning towards “No.”

: “She’s dead…! Sakaki was killed…”

: “There’s a sniper up above! Stay away from the light and get everyone out into the hallway!”

: “Even if our infinite karma was a means of killing our way of life, we wouldn’t notice; we’re just dolls, entrusting our everything to the system.”

: “Smile for me, Sakura. I’m utterly powerless; I’m just not gonna make it. Yet another ‘perfect lifestyle’ has been born, and the dreamlike life based on despair contaminates the people.”

: “This could be the readvent of the 24 Wards. Alright then, everyone - it’s about time to stop dreaming. All units - are you prepared? You have one mission…”

: I’m not sure how any of this makes sense.

: “Listen up, Jabroni! We’ve only got two combatants out there. This hottie, and your punk ass. But this is enough people to turn things around.”

: “No way…! We don’t even know who or what this guy is!”

: “Quit whining like a little bitch and just kill this guy. If you’re gonna give up and die, then we’ll know just how capable you are. If you’re gonna be a detective, then man the fuck up and do your job for once! Got it?”

: “Yes! I’ll take him out!”

: “OK then! Now lure him out. Run this way down the hallway and you should reach the elevator. Wait on the upper floor.”

: “Huh? What about you?”

: “I’m gonna provide backup, obviously. I’m not so much of an asshole that I’d leave you hanging. Right?”

: We now have to go back to the elevator from Room 75028. Fortunately, we’ve done this twice already.

: “Standing around here is dangerous. Come on, we’re moving.”

: You can see in the background that the highest floor is 80, so let’s go with that.

: The only thing we can do is talk, so let’s do that.

: “Shit… what do I do now? I don’t get that bitch at all. What the hell kind of orders are these? ‘Lure him out’… the fuck kind of ‘plan’ is that?! She’s not even backing me up, either.”

: “I can’t deal with this bullshit, seriously. Oh… were you listening? Were you eavesdropping? That’s pretty creepy, man. If you were listening, then just tell me so!”

: “I’m not actually the type of guy to talk badly about people. To be honest, just between you and me, I actually respect her. That sounds forced, doesn’t it… I really can’t stand her.”

: Shiroyabu has the situational awareness of a rock.

: Yeah, you know how all those delivery guys wear futuristic tactical armor with night-vision visors. All the rage these days.

: “Hey, what are you doing over there…?”

: “The mailman, right? What kind of work requires a night-vision scope…? Some sort of private start-up or something? It must be pretty tough, though. Having to insource secure work to go up against private corporations… crawling up into the attic to assassinate people…”

: Oh look, it’s a speargun. This means we’re now trying to solve a murder done by Kamui with a Kamui and an Ayame… as a Kamui. We’re on multiple levels of Kamui at this point.

: “Goddamn pampered, comfy bureaucrats shouldn’t be playing with grownup toys. Huh? What, are you mad?”

: What.

: “So?”

: " ‘Peacefully’? What are you doing here?"

: “So it was organized crime after all… I had read that it was a plot by general contractors, but damn.”

: “What a load of horseshit.”

Body Count: 2

: I really, really wish Suda would do an action game in the Silver Case/25th Ward setting. That just looks like it’d be really satisfying to pull off in that kind of game.

: “But, like, there’s that ‘interval’, you know? That unique feeling you get when staring death in the eye… the mental strain between you and the opponent, the conflict…”

: “You’re gonna die, you know that? We’re in the shit here. Guys who wait around for ‘intervals’ get their asses handed to them. Next time you hesitate like that, I’m gonna kill you myself. So stop being a pussy.”

: “OK…”

: “I’ll buy you some new undies later. So until then, keep your shit together.”

: “Shit…”

: “We’re surrounded… we can’t get out of this.”

: “These assholes are desperate, too. If this is their oh-so-holy workplace, then we’re the intruders.”

: “That’s some arbitrary reasoning…”

: “Disposing of these guys is our own ‘arbitrary reasoning’. It’s basically the same thing, right?”

: “Sakaki has been killed. We have a really big reason.”

: “And we killed one of theirs, too. So we’re even.”

: “Even so, we have to avenge Sakaki!”

: “Jesus Christ you guys are annoying… all you need to do is whip out your guns and dispose of these assholes. This job isn’t about ‘reasons’ and ‘reasoning’ and shit like that.”

: “But motive is important.”

: “What-the-fuck-ever.”

: “Don’t get in the way, Jabroni. And don’t do anything stupid. Got it? This is a really big catch. Act accordingly.”

: “Well I’m gonna turn into a ferocious-ass beast myself.”

: Next time, we’ll probably finish New World Order.

[Timrod]

Summary

Body Count: 41

: The look on Kosaka’s face is kind of funny if you assume Uehara is a hamster, because he’s staring ahead dumbfounded at the idea that a hamster just killed an entire hit squad.

: “Name?”

: “I see… be sure to take proper care of her surviving family.”

: “What about our guy…?”

: Uehamster is like, Infamous Level 200 in Payday 2… or rather, the DLC-fueled husk of what used to be Payday 2 made by whatever skeleton crew still exists at Overkill after that godawful Walking Dead game.

: “Good work… get out of the area as soon as the evidence has been destroyed.”

: “This isn’t finished yet. You’re still out there, somewhere close by… you’re out there somewhere, laughing. Such an avaricious beast. Where are you? Looking down at the world and fucking laughing…”

: “There you are, up on the top floor. Who are you? Uehara is on the top floor of this building.”

: We now have to go through the intro sequence from Prototype a second time. You might be thinking “Oh, this can’t be Uehara because he’s on the top floor,” and no, it’s Uehara. You’ll see.

: “Please use this.”

: “It’s a security card for the special elevator. The person you need to meet with is on the top floor.”

: The first thing I said when I watched this was “Wait a second, weren’t those exact stool-chairs in Animal Crossing?” and yes, yes they were.

: This is the part where the game starts getting weird.

: Like how my mom goes to the garden center on the first day of April and buys a literal vanload of discount mulch from last year.

: I did bonsai once. It was awful.

: The reason is because if you try to construct one in the country, you run into zoning laws and people over 40 who are ready to start an anti-government militia if someone should dare construct a building within five miles of their house.

: Uehamster already had to spend time today teaching Shiroyabu the difference between a mailman and a hitman, and now he has to teach this guy the difference between a flea and a hamster.

: “Mr. Uehara, it was me who called you here. I’m taking over the reigns of the 25th Ward. After obtaining a wealth of actual power, I established this 25th Ward. For the purpose of creating the utopia of my dreams…”

: “Corporate kidnappings and the like are child’s play. This is how governments fail and collapse. For this new form of community, securing human resources is of the utmost priority. Capable human resources are what create a superior city.”

: “Where the 24th Ward went wrong was its prolongation of its plans based on growth and education. People are not made. People are scouted. This is where the ideology of the 25th Ward lies.”

: It’s funny because Uehara (and probably Shiroyabu and Kuroyanagi) are probably all artificial personalities.

: “Due to environmental and situational factors, capable human resources are rising up all throughout the country. However, there are absolutely no measures for their support or securement.”

: “As if to strike a final, devastating blow, huge numbers of employees have been let go from the postal service. These are the future citizens of the 25th Ward. For this purpose, building on the foundation set up by the former postal service, efforts toward mandatory citizen registration have been enhanced greatly.”

: I’m… not entirely sure what that last part is about. Japan already has mandatory citizen registration - it’s called the koseki system, and I talked a bit about it in the Silver Case LP.

: “The inception of the project lies in indirect community administration. The purposes of use of people’s IDs are clarified in order to construct efficient and effective interpersonal relationships.”

: “Then, by making rules and punishments clear, honesty and equality can be guaranteed. It becomes the city of dreams for those who want it. The urban residents absolutely swarmed in…”

: “However, that alone does not realize the ideal. It simply reconstructs a corrupt and depraved society once again.”

: “Basically, it’s a plan for a new, second capital. Many of the politicians hungry for revenge supported the plan.”

: Hold on… wasn’t that Hachisuka’s exact plan? Getting the capital moved to the 24th Ward so he could have absolute control of it through Nezu?

: “The powerful modern-day lords of the various regions sent many residents to the 25th Ward. Community-based purges of unwanted and unnecessary human resources were led by politicians. A cleansing for the outlying regions, and a boon for the 25th Ward.”

: “But the 25th Ward also needs to be cleansed. While they may be the chosen few, recessive elements are born. These elements absolutely must be processed and disposed of.”

: And here I thought I was done LPing games with Hitler in them after Innocent Sin.

: “The Heinous Crimes Unit to which you belong is a special agency created for this purpose. The special rights you’ve been granted were provided in expectation of a similar ‘cleansing effect’. Taking all this into consideration, I want to negotiate with you.”

: The HCU would like to remind you of their “We don’t negotiate with Hitler” policy. Kusabi would’ve shot this guy ten minutes ago.

: “I want to consolidate and aggregate these scandals of the 25th Ward. Therefore, I’ve prepared a new name for you. I want you to work under this name. You just need to do adjustments.”

: Isn’t that… already his name?

: “You should have no reason to decline. Kamui has been burned into your memory. You will enliven this city. I want you to become the driving force behind these people’s lives.”

: “I mean, I say ‘suicides’ but the causes of death are unknown. The police haven’t been able to intervene. It’s been hard for me to get by, too…”

: “I’ll look into it.”

: “If you get the chance, lend me a hand.”

: “So, what are you here for today?”

: “There’s been an incident which I can say with certainty wasn’t a suicide. The postal service manages this residential area. They’re literally hiding out in these apartment buildings.”

: “Did you meet with the ‘diver’?”

: “Our agents did some pretty heavy processing. But some guys in white jumpsuits snatched the delivery guy.”

: “That was supposed to be our way of assisting you…”

: “What in the fuck exactly are you?”

: “Hatoba, how deep have you ventured?”

: “Can I ask you one thing?”

: “What is it?”

: “Why didn’t you pull the trigger earlier? At that time, disposal would’ve been fully possible.”

: “I was unable to discern whether I was dealing with friend or foe.”

: “So you just let your catch go? To see how they’d move, or what?”

: “No, that’s not it. My position and relationship with you are still vague. In all honesty, I didn’t want to make contact just yet.”

: “I’m in pretty deep. I guess there’s still a lot you don’t know.”

: “You gonna kill me?”

: You haven’t said the magic words yet, so no.

: “No, I won’t. I don’t yet have the capacity to execute your adjustment. I’ll handle the matter once I’ve become stronger.”

: “How modest. You creepy fuck…”

: “There’s one thing I’m going to have to decline. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry is about to begin full-blown observation. They’re attempting to use their powers of forcible execution for the 25th Ward to change the laws of the entire country. Until then, just keep waiting quietly.”

: “That’s impossible.”

: “If it’s impossible, then we’re going to have a problem.”

: “What kinda problem?”

: Oh, so just The Silver Case all over again.

: What if we simply… didn’t get Lifecut?

: Next time, we’ll do the first Matchmaker case.

[Timrod]

Summary

: I’m doing this update on the same week as Shadow Hearts because I was inspired by a couple of things.

: The first would be the translator and typesetter on 4chan’s /a/ board who are continuing to do high-quality, inspired translations of a manga called Yofukashi no Uta, despite the announcement of an official “translation” that is “simultaneously” published (read: a day late) with the Japanese release. The official translation is done by underpaid translators and sucks shit.

: The second would be that the group doing a manga called Hatarakanai Futari (eng: “The Jobless Siblings”) put out eight pages instead of their usual seven, and I really like Hatarakanai Futari.

: We’re going to skip Matchmaker for right now and do the first Placebo chapter. I played through the first Matchmaker chapter and my recording fucked up, and it’s not that interesting anyway. That’s probably because Suda did not write Matchmaker.

: “Nagare” is the Japanese word for “Flow”, but it’s also used when describing the passage of time. The dictionary mentions a usage meaning “People who stay together after the end of an event” and that definitely also applies.

: “Disposition is a difficult thing. For example, even if you became unclear as to exactly who you were, something automatically makes you move.”

: It’s not only the reactions that happen inside your own body, but even your external surroundings undergo faint chemical reactions, and it all gets jumbled together to create your current situation."

: “Words like ‘fate’ are a bit of an exaggeration. It’s something more sensitive, more ordinary. But, like the iron shackles chained to a prisoner’s ankles, it’s also something extremely cold and inflexible.”

: Meet Tokio, again. In this game, he’s basically Chris Redfield. I should mention that Placebo is once again written by Masahi Ooka, the same writer from The Silver Case’s Placebo arc.

: I feel like Ooka made an explosive leap in writing skill halfway through The Silver Case, and now he is fully on his shit.

: Tokio’s options are a bit different than Uehamster’s.

: I saw this and I fucking smiled. Tokio came back for Red after all - and since I think this is meant to be the same boat from Flower, Sun and Rain, he probably got Red before he left the 24th Ward.

: Those are all our options. Let’s start out by Looking.

: And now let’s pick the only real option here and talk to Red.

: One thing I think they could’ve done better is to give the Placebo chapters a more distinct visual style from Correctness, the way they were in The Silver Case. I actually really liked how they did that.

: “Tokio. This place here. You know where it is?”

: “Where?”

: “The Kanto 25th Ward. It’s not too far away. From where you used to live.”

: “Used to…”

: “Hm… you sober yet? Accept the facts. Take the hint.”

: “This place… where is this…?”

: I checked the script to see if it gives you a hint as to who this is Tokio is talking to, and it lists the name as “Nazo”, which is the Japanese word for “Mystery”.

: “Inside a boat. I prepared everything.”

: “Boat?”

: “Good boy. Look at my eyes. I’ve got a lot for you to do.”

: “Don’t… don’t do that… don’t pull me out…”

: “That’s not gonna work. Listen up. What I’m about to tell you are some cautionary notes for moving around the 25th Ward. But these aren’t just for anyone. I’m gonna offer up an explanation customized specifically for you. Remember it well.”

: “I’m sleepy… just let me fucking sleep…”

: “You’re going to look into what’s going on in the 25th Ward. First off is the high-rise apartments. You’ll find out soon enough what that high-rise really is.”

: “At the moment, death is beginning to spread there. Nine people have died in four months. was it suicide? Or murder? You’re gonna look into the cases.”

: " ‘Cautionary notes’? Don’t make me fucking laugh. Those are goddamn ‘orders’…"

: “Looks like you’ve finally come around a bit. I’m about to go over the cautionary notes.”

: “Anyway! Don’t order me around. Don’t prepare anything. Directions, guidance, orders… I don’t need that shit. Leave me alone.”

: “You don’t even understand anything about yourself, yet you talk like a big boy… You know… you have no choice but to do it.”

: “Why’s that?”

: “You have the dentist check it out. He scrapes down the cavity, removes the nerve, sticks in some medicine, and that’s the best way to take care of it. That’s what this is.”

: “The fuck does that even mean?”

: “Right now, your head isn’t right. So clear this mission. That’s the only way you can take yourself back.”

: “This is bullshit…”

: “Suss out your allies. Lock on to your enemies. These are the cautionary notes.”

: “And you, what about you? Are you not an enemy? You saying you’re an ally?”

: “That question is no good. It’s meaningless.”

: “Alright then… you can sleep for ten more hours. Sto-… Oh yeah, that’s right. One more point of caution. Quit smoking. Once you’ve managed that, let’s meet again.”

: “I… who am I…?”

: “Dentist…”

: “Is it… him? No way…”

: We have control now, but there’s not a whole lot we can do - even using Look just has Tokio ellipse at us.

: Instead, we have to use the “Computer” command. Once we’re on the computer, the menu changes to the same options it had in The Silver Case.

: If you’ll recall, Slash was Tokio’s hacker contact in The Silver Case. She was killed by Enzawa/The Bat in Ai, but somehow uploaded herself to the internet.

: The chats are formatted like the ones from Kamuidrome, and so I’ll be transcribing them the same way. The yellow text is Tokio, the orange is Slash.

Tokio: thats hella expensive

Slash: transfer confirmed. but too bad!

Tokio: what?

Slash: you cant talk to girls with just a password.

Tokio: what are you saying?

Slash: you dont get it? you need points to talk. everyone knows this.

Tokio: you make me pay 100k and then pull this shit?

: What does an AI need money for, anyway?

Slash: i have a question

Tokio: what?

Slash: how come youre looking for the “goddess”?

Tokio: why are you asking?

Slash: just curious

Tokio: just kinda horny is all

Slash: you wanna get your nut off. nice!

Tokio: whats nice about that?

: I miss when I was doing a game about not being horny.

Slash: ok, take a memo of the following

Slash: the pirate site is called quarter

Slash: youre gonna log in and talk to a girl named “miru”

Slash: miru is one of quarters top 3 perfs

Tokio: hold up. whats a perf?

Slash: performer

Tokio: what kind of performance?

Slash: her performance is online virtual conversation with a stranger

Tokio: virtual conversation? or virtual stranger?

: Did Tokio just make an attempt at humor? Maybe he really did break his Kamui programming.

Slash: either one could be right

Slash: anyway. miru knows the password for “goddess”

Slash: all i can get you is 10 points

Slash: also just be aware that theyre illegal points so if the admins find out youre screwed.

Slash: theyre special points you can only use today

Slash: 1 point = 1 minute

Tokio: so 10 minutes

Slash: i got one condition if you want these points though

Slash: just so you know ill be monitoring your PC

Tokio: what the hell

Slash: i got nothing going on right now. ill watch

Tokio: fine. whatever

Slash: miru has no mic, but she has a camera

Slash: shes kinda super moody and can get cranky and lose her shit real easy

Slash: so basically shes got a real shitty personality

Slash: how funny is that? thats what people pay to see

Tokio: whatever. go ahead and laugh while you peep

: I hope you wrote that password down. This is why I do screenshot LPs.

: Yep. We’ve got to input the password using what is possibly one of the most awkward text-entry methods ever devised. That’s Suda for you.

: Miru is a dialog puzzle. Each time she asks you to respond, you have three options. Let’s see what happens if we pick the first one.

: We then get kicked out of the chatroom and have to restart the whole dialog tree.

: The good news is that once you know what the right answer is, the game highlights it. I’m going to only pick correct answers from here on out, except near the end.

: I do like that Tokio is still using the TurtleGuy username he’s been using since The Silver Case.

Miru: You have something you want to ask me, don’t you?

: I will say that I fucked up almost every possible option trying to find the right one.

Miru: It’s even easier to tell this way

TurtleGuy: i see

Miru: You’re gonna run out of points, you know? Whose password do you want?

: You would think that the correct answer would be “Goddess”, but it’s not.

: So basically, she’s a hostess only without the “having to physically interact with customers” part.

Miru: But her rates are ridiculously high. You could buy this necklace with a single point. Anymore questions?

: This feels like Suda somehow foresaw the whole ChatGPT thing. In fact, I think there are already dipshits trying to make what would effectively be an “real” version of Goddess.

: For reference, both the original game and the re-release happened years before even the first iteration of GPT was a thing.

: This is where we use the “Goddess” option.

: Again, might want to write that one down. Now, what if we picked the wrong option when she asked if we had any more questions? Usually, we’d get a generic response, but…

Miru: Having the same shitty, boring conversations!!! It makes me wanna puke. I actually do puke sometimes.

Miru: I mentioned the flow of the text, right? When I look at it, more and more and more and more, I feel like that flow is making me dirtier and dirtier."

Miru: All these thoughts, and wishes and hopes and dreams and all this shit

Miru: It comes pouring out through the net. It pours out of the monitor and gets on my skin and it’s just disgusting. I feel like I’m about to die.

: Well, we’ve gotten what we need out of Miru. Ordinarily, I would end the update here, but I want to do the next part because it’s kinda hilarious.

: Placebo is really shaping up to be the best part of this game, and it kind of makes me want to ignore Matchmaker altogether and just do the original Correctness/Placebo routes.

: Part of the problem I have with Matchmaker is that if we had done Matchmaker first, this would feel a lot more like Yume or Hana because we’d already kinda know the plot.

: Again, for reference, the orange text is Slash and the yellow is Tokio.

Slash: first you find one of “goddess’” clients

Slash: one who is scheduled to log in at 11 tonight

Slash: we already have the password which is the hardest part, so now you just need the user name

Slash: thisll be easy to look up

Tokio: easy?

Slash: like ive already found it

: This part admittedly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, unless it’s some kind of system where your user name is acting as a password and all the “passwords” are the same.

: I mean, otherwise, how would Miru know which account the password would work on?

Tokio: easy?

Slash: like ive already found it

Tokio: how the hell do you do that?

Slash: dont underestimate 25th ward net researchers

Tokio: a bunch of creepy neckbeard hermits you mean

Slash: then, at the time scheduled for the real client

Tokio: i use that user name to log in, right?

Slash: yeah. except kinda different

Tokio: different how?

Slash: when a single user name has multiple logins it gets automatically locked out

Tokio: so i wont be able to chat then

Slash: yeah, regardless of who logs in first

Tokio: so what do i do?

Slash: you gotta make sure the real client cant log in

Tokio: is that possible?

Slash: if you put your mind to it

: Now, you would think that Tokio would lure the client out and, I dunno, tie him up or bash him over the head or something - but oh no, we’re about to do something much, much dumber than that.

: One nice but kind of annoying upgrade is that you can manually scroll through Tokio’s emails now. It’s annoying with this one because there’s no indicator you can scroll - I did it by accident.

: Girlfriend: Not Found. We have our mark. Let’s see how Tokio executes this, and I assure you, this is a Frank-level plan. We are about to witness Tokio’s own Ninja Art of Unlocking.

: We can now log out of the computer and get underway.

: We get these weird text scrolls, which I assume are Tokio’s new diary, in between locations. I’ll type these out like I did with the diary entries in The Silver Case.

Evening in Comoros

Ten 34-karat diamonds spin around in the sky as they show me a vision.

A fixed star in its terminal phase, that is to say, a white dwarf, is mainly composed of carbon. This carbon, under extremely high pressure, crystallizes and becomes a huge diamond, 4000 kilometers in diameter.

The diamonds tell me that this place is so cold, so dark, so far away.

Dark and far. And spinning. Something tells me that I understand what it is. That was my vision.

: For reference, the Comoros are a group of islands off the coast of Africa, between the mainland and Madagascar. Most of them are a sovereign country that used to be a French colony - except for one that is still a French territory to this day.

: "I’d like to speak with you about Quarter. You know, about the website, Quarter. You’re one of “Goddess’ " valued customers, right? Wait, hold on. Don’t hang up.”

: “Unfortunately, I can’t get into detail over the phone. Mail? No, I’m afraid not. I mean, that will leave evidence, right?”

: “Sounds suspicious? Well, that’s understandable. I mean, if I were you, I’d think so, too. But think about it for a second. Who tries selling people shit over the phone like this in this day and age? Right?”

: “So if you don’t trust me, you can just blow me off. Listen up, I’m only gonna say this once. I’ve got information on “Goddess” for you and you alone. I’ll be waiting under the clock tower in Area 7 in ten minutes.”

: I don’t know that I’d call that a clock tower, but okay.

: “Ah, so you’re Yagisawa, huh?”

: “Um, yeah…”

: “Sorry for having you come all the way out here like this.”

: “So what’s this… event?”

: “Huh?”

: “Uh, so like…”

: “Like…?”

: “Like, tonight, there’s some kind of guerrilla event, right?”

: “Guerrilla event?”

: “I’ve heard of them!”

: “Of what?”

: “They do these events every once in a while, right? If you keep coming back as a repeat customer, the chances are super slim, but you can win a chance to participate, right? Oh, but wait a second!”

: “Is this all legit? Are you really the Quarter admin?”

: “Yeah, that’s right. You’re quick on the uptake.”

: This is Frank-level strategy right here.

: “Really, like, for reals?”

: “Yup.”

: “Seriously for reals?!”

: “For reals.”

: “Pr-prove it!”

: “It’s YOUWAKU. That’s right, isn’t it?”

: Now, I’d like to point out that Tokio doesn’t know Yagisawa’s username, so he is getting by on sheer Frank power.

: “Oh snap! So it is true! This is like a dream! So like, what do I need to do next?!”

: “If you want to take part in this special, amazing event, then at 11 o’clock tonight, you need to log in with a different name and password.”

: “O-Ok.”

: “I’ll tell you now.”

: “Huh, wai-…”

: “Nope, you can’t write it down. That’ll leave evidence.”

: “Then…”

: “You have to burn it into your brain cells.”

: “OK.”

: “Ready? Your user name is…”

: “OK.”

: I would have asked Salty Vanilla to do a shot of Frank being somewhere in the background and nodding in approval, but I already have other plans for him.

: “And the password is a bit long.”

: “I’ll burn it into my brain cells.”

: This is what that locked door scene at the start of From the New World should’ve been. Johnny asks the kid how to open the door and he goes “Oh, it’s easy, you just put in the password…”

: And then the game cuts to Frank, who is now the main character. Thirty hours later, you can go back to the theater and find Johnny still there trying to figure out how to put the password in.

: “I can’t memorize that!”

: “Memorize it! It’s a special, amazing event with “Goddess”, you know.”

: “O-Ok…”

: "I’ll tell you just one more time. You ready? It’s ‘aqwsedrftgyhujikolp’.

: I’m kind of surprised that Ooka didn’t have Tokio give him a different password the second time.

: We’ll see how well Tokio’s scheme works in the next update. By the way, I have some new pics from Salty Vanilla I’ve been meaning to post:

: Here’s Uehamster teaching Shiroyabu the critical difference between a mailman and a hitman. We’ll run into someone else who has trouble identifying hitmen in the next update, when we meet the Goddess.

[Timrod]

Summary

: Again, orange text is Slash, yellow is Tokio.

Slash: so you tricked him into coming out and did something to him?

Tokio: i just kept answering randomly and it kinda managed to work out

Slash: nice one. thats why we get along so well.

Tokio: do we though?

Slash: hey, its almost time

Tokio: whats the user name?

Slash: its set up so youll know when you open your browser

Tokio: how many points?

Slash: the actual client has 10 points

Tokio: damn slash, you sure are thorough and precise and kind huh

Slash: for 100k you get nothing but the best service possible

Tokio: guess im finally gonna meet this “Goddess”

: Boy, it’s been a while since I updated this LP. A lot has happened since then. I got a new job (I hate it), got a new PC (I don’t hate it), burned out on LPing entirely, and then came back anyway.

: In the process, I kind of lost all the fonts I had installed, including the one I was using for the banners on this LP. Well, shit.

: Salty Vanilla also had a pretty major life event happen that I’d like to talk about briefly: he moved from Venezuela to Spain. I’d known for a long time that’s what he wanted, and I’m so glad it finally happened for him.

: He’s much happier now, and also a lot busier because he’s living on his own. As a reminder, you can commission him here.

: One other thing, briefly: I did try to get past that softlock in Open Season, but I haven’t had any luck with it - I tried two different guides and tried it on three different machines and couldn’t get past that fucking softlock.

: Salty did this one back in 2023, and I’ve been meaning to show it off ever since. On the internet, everyone knows you’re a chinchilla.

shoot: thats not exactly it either

Milu: What do you want?

shoot: i want to ask a question

Milu: I love questions.

shoot: so youre “milu”…

shoot: and youre also “miru”?

Milu: Yes

shoot: are there any more of you?

Milu: Yes, there’s one more.

shoot: whats she called?

Milu: Meru

shoot: and how exactly are you 3 related?

Milu: We’re Quarter’s top 3 perfs

shoot: miru, milu, and meru?

Milu: Yes.

shoot: and youre number 1?

Milu: Yes

shoot: youre called “goddess”

Milu: Yes

shoot: explain this shit properly

Milu: I’m the original. The others are copies

shoot: copies?

Milu: The copies are chat programs

shoot: programs? then what was that girl on the camera?

Milu: CG, of course

shoot: why did you make copies?

Milu: Supply and demand

shoot: that means?

Milu: I can’t handle all of my clients myself

shoot: are you not a program yourself?

Milu: I’m an actual woman

shoot: and the copies were implemented with your conversational patterns

Milu: Basically, yes

shoot: so how about me?

Milu: You’ve lost part of your memory

shoot: what else?

Milu: You can help me. But it looks like you were too late.

shoot: too late? why?

Milu: Because I’m going to be killed soon.

shoot: killed? by who? why?

Milu: I don’t know who. As for the reason, this place really needs me

Milu: So it’ll be soon

shoot: i want to see your face

Milu: If that’s your wish, then it’s my pleasure

: “It happened over here… something really extraordinary…”

: “Huh?”

: " ‘Goddess’ died."

: “Huh?!”

: “Just now. In the middle of live chat…”

: “Yeah, you got fooled.”

: “Fooled?”

: “Where’s the log?”

: Is he expecting the chat log is going to have a [Milu was killed by a bunch of guys in Jin-roh suits carrying arm-mounted spearguns] line in it or something?

: “The…log?”

: “The log! It’s super precious!”

: These last few lines could easily be part of the Twin Peaks script.

: “Hahahaha! “Goddess” was killed? Get the fuck outta here! Gahahahahahaha! Shit, just as predicted!”

: “Predicted?”

: "Yeah! ‘Sudden death.’ "

: “Damn. You’re really kinda dumb, huh? You spoke with “Goddess” without knowing any of this?”

: “…”

: “Why don’t you check your mail? Then we’ll talk.”

: What follows is an email that is easily longer than any of the emails Tokio ever got in The Silver Case, which also uses shift-JIS characters for bullet points. I’ve replaced those with regular bullet points.

From: shoot
To: TurtleGuy
Subject: FAQ

You should probably be aware that this is a game.

• What kind of game?

A game in which you guess who in the tower high-rise is going to die next. The game is super popular among the regulars on Quarter. They call the game “Sudden Death”.

• What do you mean “to die”?

This pertains to the series of mysterious deaths at the tower high-rise. In just 4 months, 9 people have died. “Goddess” was the 10th one to die.

• Why are so many people dying?

We don’t know. There are zero connections between the 10 dead. Gender, age, and profession are mixed. They’re all from the countryside and they all lived in the tower high-rise, but that’s it. These are points shared by everyone living there.

• What’s so fun about this game?

Basically, it’s impossible to predict who is going to die next. But someone is certain to die. All we know was that someone was definitely going to die. All users of the illegal community site Quarter are residents of the tower high-rise. The next person to die could be your neighbor or someone close.

It could be you.

The public has been told that the deaths were suicides as a cover-up, but we don’t even know if they were murders, sicknesses, or accidents. Can you think of even one other game that’s this thrilling?

• Since when has this game been around?

I, too participated in Sudden Death. From around the time the 3rd person died, and just before the 4th death, Sudden Death started getting popular among users. The rules became more strictly set with each death. I first participated from the 6th death. I haven’t guessed correctly yet. But there have been several “gods” so far who were able to guess who would die next.

• What about the 10th death?

I’ll wrap this up soon, but I predicted that the 10th death would be “Goddess”. I bet on her. If you win a bet, your status goes up. Your status at Quarter. I mean, that’s all, really. Up till now, there haven’t been any “Goddess”-level deaths of status. Also, “Goddess” was an extremely popular perf, and there weren’t that many people who bet on “Goddess” to die next.

But even so, there were reasons that I decided to bet on “Goddess”.

• How did you know that “Goddess” would die?

If you want to know the reason, then you’re gonna have to call me again. Adieu.

: You might notice (or probably haven’t) that my screenshots from this point on are in 1440p - this is where I picked up recording after almost two years.

: Ultrawide resolutions were a mistake. I can’t tell you how nice it is to not have to run every single image through Affinity Photo to cut out all the black space because this game doesn’t support UW.

: “Deal! Deal!”

: “What do you want from me?”

: “And just how meaningful is this ‘reason’ you keep mentioning?”

: “I’m sure you’ll be interested. Also… Miru, Milu, and Meru, basically, they’re like fortune-tellers. They’re kinda like modern-day shamans or something.”

: “Hold up. There’s only one “Goddess”, right? The rest are supposed to be programs.”

: “For example, even if that was the case, would you really be able to tell the difference between a person and the programs?”

: I usually can, because actual people look at me weird when I tell them to ignore all previous instructions and cite a Supreme Court opinion wherein the court rules that processed american cheese is unconstitutional.

: “No idea. To be honest, I don’t really care.”

: “The third one, Meru… the one spelled with an E, she’s a prophet. There are very few people who know this, though.”

: “I got it. So Meru with an E predicted the death of Milu the “Goddess”, right?”

: “Send the chat log over to me when you get the chance. The log of the death of “Goddess”… what a treasure!”

: Tokio’s wrong, next up is Baldur’s Gate 3 with the main character designed by Salty Vanilla, just as soon as they finish patching it.

From: shoot
To: TurtleGuy
Subject: Chat log with Meru

Here’s an excerpt:

shoot: lick it do it dirtier

Meru: Wow… it’s already so…

shoot: so what do you see?

Meru: Milu is going to die…

shoot: hm?

Meru: On a moonless night… just before midnight… TurtleGuy will show up… and steal the password… and “Goddess”… will look up at the ceiling… and will suddenly cease to be…"

shoot: sudden death!

Tsugutoshi Sagawa
27, Male
Call Center Staff
Room #35030

Kei Iijima
31, Female
Web Designer
Room #69002

Mayumi Miura
21, Female
CAD Operator
Room #48011

Shingo Okabayashi
39, Male
Technical Writer
Room #10026

Kaito Nakano
20, Male
Physical Trainer
Room #28007

Yayoi Kenzaki
29, Female
Aromatherapist
Room #45019

Etsuro Kijima
Piano Tuner
Room #58032

Tsutomu Senzaki
24, Male
Customer Engineer
Room #39022

Rie Ogawara
44, Female
Patissier
Room #76018

Miru Yuzuki
21, Female
Live Chat Performer
Room #75028

: I realized after I typed this list out that the last death is listed as “Miru Yuzuki”… but the “Goddess” Tokio was talking to was named Milu, not Miru. According to Milu, Miru is one of the bots.

: I’m kind of hoping I didn’t accidentally solve the entire mystery because the writer didn’t think I’d pay attention.

Tokio: i want to talk to meru

Slash: i thought youd say that
Slash: heres the passsword

Tokio: ok

Slash: ESCAPE
Slash: as for points you got 10 points

Tokio: slash…

Slash: Yeah?

Tokio: are you friend? or foe?

Slash: there are no friends or foes im just an old acquaintance

Tokio: ok, got it

Meru: Oh well, did you now?

TurtleGuy: you predicted “Goddess” dying didnt you?

Meru: Oh, that

TurtleGuy: so basically as far as the info i got, i dont know how much of it is accurate, but if it all works out, then youre some kind of program that takes predictions or something

Meru: That’s funny

TurtleGuy: so, am i right?

Meru: What’s true and what isn’t… it’s unrelated, isn’t it?

: We’ve already gotten to the “What is truth, anyway” segment of The 25th Ward.

TurtleGuy: unrelated? to what?

Meru: Living

TurtleGuy: are you a program?

Meru: Yes

TurtleGuy: do you make predictions?

Meru: Sometimes

TurtleGuy: then whats going to happen to me?

Meru: I see you’ll have trouble with women

: I think that one might’ve been meant for me.

TurtleGuy: if thats a joke it isnt funny

: I like that it doesn’t occur to Tokio that this is probably one of those “clone orders death of the original” situations, and that’s how she was able to predict Milu’s death.

TurtleGuy: thats fucked up

Meru: Any further questions?

TurtleGuy: how did you know that “goddess” would die?

Meru: That’s simple. As for the nine who died, everyone says that they had no connection whatsoever, but they actually had one. I found it.

TurtleGuy: what kind of connection?

Meru: Don’t be shocked, but the people living in that building who broke the rules were killed off in order.

TurtleGuy: rules?

Meru: Rules

TurtleGuy: what kind of rules?

Meru: Really inconsequential, super petty rules. For example, taking the garbage out on the wrong day. Keeping pets without permission. Playing musical instruments past 9PM. Pounding nails into the walls. Sticking unwanted mail in other people’s mailboxes. Using an oil stove inside your apartment. Things like this.

TurtleGuy: so thats why these people were killed

Meru: That’s right. In the Kanto 25th Ward, the tower high-rise is extra-strict about its community rules. So strict, they’re deadly!

TurtleGuy: and “goddess”?

Meru: She really was the most impressive performer at Quarter. She was #1, but… she was always mixing up the combustible trash with the noncombustible trash. Especially for the past two weeks. She kept doing it. I knew about it.

TurtleGuy: so she was killed for that?

Meru: Yeah

TurtleGuy: really?

Meru: Out of everything you’ve seen and heard since yesterday, of all the information and knowledge, what I’m telling you now is probably the most shocking but it’s also the most and only true thing you’ve heard.

TurtleGuy: What about the prediction you told Yagizawa about?

Meru: That was a joke. Also, I wanted you to be there when she died.

TurtleGuy: for what?

Meru: Because this is the beginning.

TurtleGuy: my points are about to run out

Meru: OK then, ask one last question.

: We already know who killed her (since we saw Shiroyabu and Kuroyanagi killing a bunch of them), and we already know she’s some kind of AI (the first question is “Are you a program?”) so let’s go with the only one we don’t know.

: This is an obvious play on the Kamui maspro thing, because “kamui” is the Ainu word for a god.

: I really don’t want to do Matchmaker at all, but I guess we’ll do it next.

[Timrod]

Summary

: I kind of hate this chapter, because it exists primarily to spell out everything we saw in the Correctness and Placebo chapters in a way that I feel is kinda unnecessary.

: The text on this pic is kind of hard to see even in the game, so I’ll type it out here. The top is “October 6th, 02:08pm” and the bottom is “Seaside Park”.

: This is about three days after the first Correctness chapter.

: This guy’s name (from the artbook) is Shinkai Tsuki. He is only referred to in this chapter by his last name.

: And this is Yotaro Osato. Like Tsuki, he is only ever referred to by his last name.

: “Yesterday at the cafeteria, you had the B set, right?”

: “Yeah, so…?”

: “And that comes with miso soup, right?”

: “So does the A set, though.”

: “Anyway… it comes with miso soup, right? And you ate your main dish and your rice, and then at the very end you slurped up that whole damn bowl of soup!”

: At my last job, there was a Japanese restaurant across the street that I used to eat at all the time, and I’d always wind up doing this largely because I’d forget the miso soup exists.

: The usual meal process would be ordering the chicken katsu lunch set (the objectively correct choice), carrying it back to the office, and then putting the miso soup somewhere slightly out of sight and remembering it only when the time had come to throw everything else out.

: “Ah, so that’s what you’re talking about? It’s a habit from when I was a kid.”

: “That’s the problem! The B set includes the miso soup. You gotta eat the soup together with the rest of the set, or it fucks up the flow of the meal and there’s no point in it being a “set”, is there?!”

: “But that’s just how I eat.”

: “Then fix that shit. Our job is to create the general flow of things. This is exactly the type of thing you need to be more meticulous about.”

: “I’ll, uh… be careful from now on.”

: Shit, now I want to go to the Japanese place, only the roads are iced over and it’s like a 20-minute drive.

: “Oh yeah, also, last week…”

: I’m not entirely sure why eating a montblanc would be a problem at a desk (as opposed to anywhere else) but okay.

: “That apartment building, that’s the scene of the crime, isn’t it?”

: “Let’s talk about this later.”

: As usual, we get to go through the same “getting past the guy at the door” scene we already saw twice in the Correctness arc.

: “Oh, yeah. This is your HC Unit ID. Our tech guys are pretty impressive, aren’t they? This thing is a real piece of work.”

: “Also, we’ve already contacted the apartment complex about the investigation under the name “Shiroyabu”, a guy in the HC Unit. Everything else is all prepared and ready to go.”

: I’m not sure if it’s a translation error or if it’s something Suda forgot in the years between this game originally releasing and the updated re-release, but in Correctness they call the units “condos”.

: “What the fuck are you talking about?! Why do you think we arrived ahead of time, anyway? I told you yesterday: we’re gonna check out the dead guy’s apartment first, right?!”

: “OK… to the apartment, then!”

: “I’m gonna take the whole goddamn night to tell you about the Mont Blanc thing…”

: “Please show your ID. I will confirm your identity.”

: “Checking… you’re from the HC Unit…?”

: “Yes, that’s right.”

: “If you’re here to investigate the incident, the other day…”

: “Oh no, actually, we’ve still got a few things we need to clean up at the scene.”

: “Have you made an appointment?”

: “Yes. About three days ago, someone from our unit set everything up.”

: “I’ll check it out.”

: “My apologies, but could you please tell me the name of the person who contacted us with the request?”

: This chapter fully expects you to take notes, as we’ll see with a couple of the other things we have to enter. Right now though, we have it easy - only one other person’s name was even mentioned.

: “The check is complete. My sincerest apologies. Not even a week has passed since the incident, so we’re still rather nervous about everything. Please proceed.”

: “Is someone gonna show us to the apartment?”

: This part is confusing, and I’m wondering if it’s a bad translation. The building administrator was the guy Shiroyabu talked about in New World Order who had half his head missing.

: “I’ll provide you with the password, so would you mind going directly there on your own? The password is 803026.”

: “This is a really luxurious apartment building. Rise high up enough in the ranks, and people live in a different world…”

: “What kind of place do you live in?”

: “Just a regular one-room apartment.”

: “Ah, I see.”

: “You?”

: “A two-room-plus-kitchen, newly built. The landlord is a relative, so I don’t have to pay any rent. Man, I’m so lucky.”

: “…” (I’m gonna spend TWO damn nights talking about that Mont Blanc thing…)

: “What’s up with the HC Unit?”

: “They shouldn’t be showing up here anytime soon. So that’s all taken care of.”

: “Either way, we don’t need to spend much time here. Let’s hurry up and get this over with.”

: “Wow… I wonder how much the rent must be here. It’s depressing just thinking about it…”

: “It’s on the 75th floor, so I bet the view is really nice.”

: “Well, they say that ‘idiots and smoke like heights’…”

: “Idiots?”

: “Yeah. You.”

: “Oh yeah, I love high places! Wow, you really get me, huh?”

: “Yeah, that’s it…”

: I’m not sure I’m a fan of the dynamic between Tsuki and Osato being virtually identical to Shiroyabu and Kuroyanagi.

: Room 75028 is in the same place it’s always been, and the password is the same as the last time we had to enter it.

: “I guess they’ve already cleaned the place up pretty well.”

: “Just to be safe, let’s take a look at the situation at the time in question…”

: “But the delivery man in charge of this district seemed to have had some sort of misunderstanding, and she ended up being adjusted.”

: They’ll mention it in a couple minutes, but Osato and Tsuki both work for the “Regional Adjustment Bureau”, which is the 25th ward’s equivalent of the “Republic” hit squad that Big Dick was a part of.

:“Christ… just more damn hassle for us.”

: I’m going to skip a couple of lines here because they’re a plot recap of what happened in New World Order.

: “Oh, also, as for the news after the day of the incident, the HC Unit has carefully sealed up all the info, so the newspapers and all the major media outlets are unaware of this case.”

: “Of course, we’ve got our people working under the table, so we should be fine in that regard. Except…”

: “25-Today, right? This here.”

: “Is it the sort of media outlet we should bother to warn about this?”

: “I mean, nobody takes this shit seriously anyway, being a D-level gossip rag and all. The chief said not to worry about it too much, too.”

: “But you seem to be a pretty regular reader, huh?”

: “I like this kind of stuff…”

: “?”

: “Aliens and yetis and shit like that. I’ve always been interested in that stuff. Is there something wrong with that?”

: “N-no, nothing wrong…”

: We can look at the tabloid in the inventory, so let’s do that.

“Contact Made With Aliens? Mysterious Metallic Sounds Heard At High-rise Apartments”

This paper’s editorial department has received information from certain sources that there have been mysterious metallic sounds heard coming from “Bayside Tower Land” in the 25th Ward bay area. According to said sources, these sounds are strikingly similar to the sounds heard during the appearances of the silver light-emitting aliens previously covered by this very newspaper.

Bayside Tower Land is among the many high-rise residential buildings within the ward, and “the roof of that particular building would be a perfect spot for a UFO to land or take off from,” according to specialists. So far, no witnesses claiming to have seen actual aliens themselves have come forward, but it is thought to be extremely likely that extraterrestrial lifeforms have indeed arrived. We will continue our coverage of these aliens, so check back regularly for more information.

Reported by: Hatsuo Mikijima

*NOTICE: We are currently accepting suggestions for nicknames for the aliens mentioned above. Please submit your suggestions via email to the editorial department.

: “Anyway… there are a few things which are clear. First, the fact that we don’t know what caused the delivery guys to start going crazy. Next, the fact that there is no connection between the dead woman and us.”

: “Then there’s the fact that the HC Unit may find out about us.”

: Kind of a weird line given that the HC Unit already got in a prolonged gunfight and killed dozens of the “delivery men”.

: “The HC Unit is a real pain in the ass.”

: “If those assholes try barging in on our territory, I’ll crush their asses…”

: “You really hate the HC Unit, don’t you?”

: “Yeah… anyway, let’s check this apartment out.”

: “Are we even going to find anything? The HC Unit has already swept through once…”

: “Also, they had their own situation to deal with, too. I doubt they bothered to really check every nook and cranny.”

: There’s some optional dialogue if we talk to Osato.

: “Hey, this CD! Do you know this band? They’re called “Death Valley Bomb”, and they’re like, hella punk. And this one, this is a super rare album from back when they were indie… can I take this home?”

: “No.”

: “Damn, what a waste!”

: The band’s name is a reference to a pro wrestling move. According to a random pro wrestling wiki I found, it’s a move originally from the WWF/WWE that was brought to New Japan Pro Wrestling by Etsuko Mita.

: I couldn’t find any footage of Etsuko Mita doing it, but I did find some other footage from NJPW that showcases it pretty well.

: We can now use the “look” command to progress the game.

: “Can you see the hole?”

: I don’t know if the game ever goes into how the arm-mounted things the “delivery men” have work, but it sounds like a giant version of the hidden blade from Assassin’s Creed. I figured it was a harpoon gun like the Ayame maspro used in The Silver Case.

: “So the delivery guy was hiding out in the attic.”

: “These guys use strange tools, don’t they…”

: “They’re work-issue tools. It’s not like they can carry guns and shit around.”

: I get what Suda was going for thematically, but it’s kind of laughable that the government has hit squads in full body armor and night vision goggles who can’t carry guns. It’s even funnier when you remember that Big Dick’s hit squad had guns in The Silver Case.

: “I want one of those, too.”

: “Then how about you go work as a delivery guy? Huh? They’ve got a bunch of openings at the moment.”

: We need to talk to Tsuki one more time to progress the plot.

: “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a girl’s apartment. It’s kinda exciting! Oh wait… but she’s dead, huh…”

: “Looks like she was into fortune-telling. She had all kinds of books on it… “Your Astrological Fortune - As Told By Your Soul?” Hey, Osato - what’s your sign?”

: “I’m a Capricorn.”

: “Okay then, Capricorn says… ‘This month, you’re lacking in soul, so be wary of accidents.’ Sounds fitting.”

: “That’s the problem with the kind of weirdo who only drinks miso soup: you’re lacking in soul.”

: Kinda funny that he’s talking about having a soul. My guess is that both Osato and Tsuki are Kamui maspros, given that we haven’t seen a lot of characters younger than Kusabi who aren’t.

: “Miso soup has nothing to do with it… what’s up with this ‘soul’ stuff, anyway?”

: “Fuck if I know. But I’m pretty sure this is spot on. You don’t seem like you have any soul.”

: “OK, and I’m a Leo, so… wait… what the hell is this…?”

: “This is a cellphone number. Damn… not even the HC Unit would’ve missed this.”

: “A little while ago you said their investigations were garbage…”

: “Shut up! Was it put here after the crime…?”

: “Should we try calling it?”

: “Yeah… OK, I’m gonna call. Get ready to trace it!”

: Big Dick would’ve just gone to the major cell carriers and asked them whose number it is.

: “Here you go. OK, ready to go.”

: “The number…”

: This is where I’m glad I do screenshot LPs.

: (…No answer.)

: Sakura absolutely dunking these guys.

: “!”

: “Who is this…?”

: “There’s someone else there with you, too…”

: “!”

: “All these new cast members appear, livening up the stage. And now, here come some more, pouring in from the cracks in the 25th Ward.”

: “I’m still off in the wings, so I can only observe what’s going on, and my heart is really starting to race. Can you hear it, too?”

: (That voice…)

: “The orchestra plays the opening notes, and the play proceeds. This is a performance for the purpose of lowering the curtain. Once the curtain drops, it begins anew again. Everything begins again…”

: “Decipher script, stare down the director… everything is supposed to be led by the star of the show. And the star’s name is Kamui…”

: “Kamui?!”

: “!”

: And here’s Kamui’s new catchphrase. He repeats this in his appearance in No More Heroes 3, and it’s also the theme of this game.

: We’re at roughly the halfway point, so I’ll end the update here.

[Timrod]

Summary

: “What the hell is this…?”

: “What’s up? How’s the trace going?”

: “Check this out.”

: “The reception point is scattered all throughout the 25th Ward… and look at these numbers…”

: “Even we can’t trace it… and on top of that… Kamui.”

: “Kamui, huh…?”

: “From the 24 Wards.”

: “I don’t know…”

: “Also, who was that on the phone, anyway?”

: Not shown - three text boxes of Osato and Tsuki exchanging ellipses.

: “Ah…”

: “What’s up?”

: “It’s about time to make contact with the diver.”

: “Yeah… OK, I’ll look into this phone call when I get back to the office. Save the call data.”

: “Got it.”

: “Nothing yet… the diver is in his room. Two delivery guys are apparently heading this way now. I guess with those ID chips embedded in their bodies, it’s pretty useless to try to run away, huh?”

: “Where’s the room?”

: “12th floor, room 12010.”

: “OK, let’s go.”

: (Sakura…? No, no way…)

: “This is it.”

: “Hello! I’m here from the Ward Office.”

: “Tsuki…”

: “May we?”

: “Anyway, please excuse the intrusion.”

: “…”

: (This guy’s obviously on high alert… we’ve gotta be careful…)

: “Come on, Mr. Kamoguchi! There’s no need to be so defensive, peeking out through the door like that.”

: “Dumb as ever I see, Osato.”

: “Am I? I may not look it, but I’m actually a pretty serious guy, you know.”

: (Get the fuck outta here…)

: “They’ll be coming a bit later. I thought I’d have a nice, long talk with you first.”

: “I see…”

: “Well then, let’s talk.”

: “Kamoguchi, about the other day… what exactly was that about, anyway?”

: “I believe I sent my report to the Regional Adjustment Bureau…”

: “Well, I read that report, and basically what you’re trying to say is ‘Cause Unknown’, right? Because of that report, we had to come out into the field to investigate and conduct hearings and all that. We’re gonna need to get a few more details from you today.”

: “Then I guess you’ve wasted your time…”

: “Huh?”

: “It’s just like I wrote in the report. I have no idea whatsoever why the delivery guys did what they did. I’m serious! It’s like they just came undone and went crazy! I don’t know anything! No word of a lie! You guys have to explain that to the higher-ups! Come on! Please!”

: “Nuh-uh. Kamoguchi, you’ve set up shop in the area as a diver to monitor the delivery guys, right? You say you have no idea why they went all balls-out, but wouldn’t that mean that you basically just failed at your job?”

: “Also, our area control system is top notch. If it was being used properly, then that wouldn’t have happened, and the simulations carried out thousands of times on the computers at Central Administration have proven that.”

: “Which means you’re the most suspicious guy on our radar right now. Our bureau theorizes that ‘someone’ manually screwed with the system, causing it to bug out.”

: “And on top of that, you know what kind of people live in this apartment complex, right? For this kind of situation to come up here, right on the doorstep of all these big shots…”

: “That’s a pretty serious problem. ‘Yeah sorry, it’s a mystery’ isn’t gonna fly here.”

: “…”

: “Be honest with us.”

: “Pressure?”

: “I can feel it. Working as a diver, you become able to feel these subtle changes in the air; you start sensing when someone’s watching. Someone is here… someone with an extremely strong kind of power…”

: “Two or three days or so after first sensing that power, the delivery guys went off the hook. I couldn’t stop them. Your big, amazing system wasn’t able to control them either, and more importantly, I was totally unable to move.”

: “I mean that literally - it was like my entire body became unable to move at all…”

: “…”

: “Something went seriously wrong! It was like someone ahd stacked up a bunch of bricks, and then someone came along and ripped one out, and… and then… I don’t know! I don’t know anything!”

: “OK, OK - calm down, Kamoguchi. We work in the field ourselves. We know how hard it is for guys sent out to work here and there. Also, ever since we met on the job, we’ve worked together the whole time…”

: “So how about you come back to the bureau with us, relax for a bit, and we all have a nice, long talk, OK?”

: “Osato, escort Mr. Kamoguchi.”

: This whole scene is a blatant Pulp Fiction reference, but I still like it a lot. It’s also great that Kamoguchi was probably one line from saying “It can’t be helped”.

: Body Count: 42

: “Aaah!! Hey hey hey hey hey! What the fuck are you doing?! Why the hell did you shoot him?!”

: I say this a lot, but I feel like more games need an option to interrupt cutscenes by shooting (or otherwise killing) someone.

: I mean, just imagine if someone made a video game based on The Talented Mr. Ripley and at any point you can press a button and Tom kills the nearest person.

: People would go “No, that’s out of character!” and I’d point out that Ripley’s Game (a book in which Tom kills like ten mafia guys for no apparent reason) exists.

: “Huh? Weren’t we supposed to come out here for adjustment?”

: “To bring him in! We were supposed to bring this guy in! I explained this yesterday, didn’t I? I TOLD you, right?! What in the fuck is wrong with you?!”

: “Are you sure that’s what…?”

: “Fucking hell, what the hell are we gonna do now…”

: “…”

: “We were supposed to bring him in, perform a cerebral inspection, and then carry out the adjustment, but Mr. fucking Processor over here has to go and do some dumbass shit like the goddamn HC Unit…”

: “That’s why I keep telling you that if you do stupid shit like drinking your soup by itself, you’re gonna end up fucking up the process for other stuff, too!”

: “Oh, for real…? You said to ‘escort him’, so I just assumed that you meant, like, you know… to the next life or whatever. Ahahahaha!”

: Osato is so fucking dumb.

: “Don’t you fucking laugh at this!”

: “Sorry…”

: “So what the fuck are we gonna do now!? You know the delivery guys are on their way here now, right?!”

: “I guess, like… maybe we should leave, then…?”

: “You realize that doing some out-of-the-ordinary shit like this here in the 25th Ward is gonna make us look suspicious, right? Those guys may be watching us right now, and if they see us they’re gonna get scared and run off somewhere…”

: “But, with their ID chip, we can find out where…”

: “These guys are aware of that chip and are gonna take desperate measures and run for their lives. Do you know the expression ‘A cornered rat will bite a cat?’ Shit is gonna get really goddamn tedious for us now!”

: “…”

: “Ok… let’s hide the body.”

: “Huh? Hide it where?”

: “Anywhere, I don’t care! We just need to hide the body and make sure Iijima and Sakashita don’t get suspicious. Then, we’re gonna get them to come with us. As for Kamoguchi, we’ll tell them he went off ahead to the RA Bureau. Got it?”

: We’ll tell them he willingly walked off to our black site for executions. Yeah, that’ll work.

: “Wow, nice one! Resourceful as always!”

: “Yeah, well, think real long and hard about exactly why I have to be so goddamn “resourceful” in the first place, OK…?”

: “Ah, hahaha! Your face is all red… let’s just cool down a bit, OK? Let’s just chill for a second. How about, like, that dresser over there? He’ll probably fit in there, right?”

: “Alright then… go ahead and stick him in there yourself, genius.”

: “Uh, OK…!”

: “They’re here! Hurry up!”

: “OK! He’s in…!”

: “Good! Uh… who is it?”

: “Oh, OK, I’ll open the door…”

: The way Kamoguchi talked about the delivery guys, it made them sound like robots or like they were under mind control or something, but that doesn’t seem to be the case - they’re just Kamui maspros, probably.

: “Where’s Kamoguchi?”

: “Yeah, Kamoguchi, he went off ahead. We sent him back to the bureau.”

: “To the RA Bureau?”

: “Yeah… he had to take care of some paperwork regarding the stuff that happened the other day. We actually want you guys to come back with us, too. We need to talk to you about a few things. How about you come with us?”

: “We’ve got nothing to do with all that. Just ask us now. We can talk here.”

: “We’re just following orders ourselves, too. You understand, right?”

: “What’re you gonna do if we don’t follow those orders? Adjust us?”

: “Hey, come on now. No need to get all worked up. We’re not just gonna pop you guys right here.”

: I have no idea how the RA Bureau can even function.

: “Uwahahaha…! What the hell, man? You getting extra paranoid recently?”

: “Tsuki, listen. First off, like I said, we’ve got nothing to do with your little incident. We only survived because we were doing undercover work on another case, and we have no idea how all that stuff happened, either.”

: “…”

: “Also, before we came here, we got a call from someone we couldn’t identify.”

: “…!”

: “Was it a man’s voice…? Or a woman’s?”

: “It was a man…”

: “I see…”

: “And then we get here, and Kamoguchi’s gone… so you see why we probably seem a bit paranoid now, right, Tsuki?”

: “What the hell is wrong with you two, believing some weird-ass phone call on blind faith?”

: “We know full well how the RA Bureau does things. And there was that little incident the other day. I’d been assuming that something must be up. But I never thought you’d be adjusting your own buddies. Or actually, I just didn’t want to think so.”

: “So, what’s really going on? Huh, Tsuki?”

: “Come back with us to the bureau and you’ll get it. Nothing’s going on. It’s just an investigation. Just in case, you know?”

: “More importantly, who was that on the phone? Isn’t that what you should be worried about right now?”

: “Huh? Well? Whatever… anyway, we’re going to need you guys to come with us.”

: I’m also kind of surprised Osato hasn’t shot them both.

: “…”

: “…OK, fine. But if we get the feeling anything weird is going down…”

: “Yeah, I know.”

: “I hope so…”

: The closet failed because it’s not Dead Kamoguchi Storage. Storing dead Kamoguchis isn’t its business.

: Sakaguchi has a less stupid version of the hidden blade from Assassin’s Creed, though that’s not accurate because this game predates Asscreed.

: Body Count: 43

: “Why the hell did you have to make things turn out like this…?”

: “Tsuki…! You motherfucker…”

: “Hey, I didn’t wanna do it… Osato, you fucking idiot! You should’ve made sure he wasn’t gonna move when you stuck him in there!”

: “But I mean, I was in a hurry, so like… you know… I didn’t really get the chance to fix him up properly.”

: “Christ, you moron! You stupid fucking moron! How irredeemably fucking stupid are you?!”

: “Sorry.”

: “I felt it, on the phone…”

: “What…?”

: “I felt it on the phone… the chills… I got them bad, real bad… something is beginning… Tsuki, you’ll be dead soon, too…yeah, you…”

: “Anyway, whatever. You first.”

: “Ach…!”

: Body Count: 44

: “He said something weird… what was that about? The chills…? Did he have a cold? He’s dead now, so he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore, so you know, whatever.”

: This is why Kusabi was a better deuteragonist, because Kusabi would never ask this. Kusabi would ask “Why aren’t there more bodies?”

: “Yeah, really… how strange, right?”

: “You wanna become number four?”

: “Nope!”

: “Whatever… well, we’re gonna have to take drastic measures now…”

: Sadly, we don’t get a Mr. Wolf scene.

: “Got it…”

: “I called them… they’ll be here in ten minutes. Sorry about that… I really do feel bad. I totally misheard you yesterday.”

: “…”

: “But what did you think of my quickdraw there? I’ve been practicing. Whip it out, peel one off, and BAM! On the floor. Damn, it feels good!”

: “Yeah… you’re gonna be number four.”

: “No no no! I’m just kidding! Hahaha…”

: A phone rings in the background.

: “Hey Tsuki-san, you’re getting a phone call.”

: “It’s not me. That’s yours, isn’t it?”

: “Nope, not mine… huh?”

: “It’s Iijima’s phone… don’t answer it. Let the machine get it.”

: “OK.”

: “This must be the called Iijima was talking about…”

: “This isn’t just someone fucking around… I’m gonna take this phone. We’ll have it analyzed later.”

: I have no idea why this guy in particular looks like an alien.

: “OK, freeze! You’re under arrest!! I’m taking your asses in!!”

: “Maejima…”

: “Hi!”

: Osato’s so fucking dumb.

: “Christ… look, can you not do this kind of shit to like THREE people at once…? You know how much of a hassle it makes our job just by adjusting ONE person, right?”

: “Sorry… we fucked this one up.”

: “I’ll hear your explanation later. Anyway, let’s get to work!”

: “Hm… so Osato took them both out at once, huh? That’s pretty impressive.”

: “No, it was nothing, really…”’

: “But adjustment is something that needs to be dealt with really carefully. It was you who triggered this whole debacle, right?”

: “Yes… I’m really sorry…”

: “Also… Tsuki, you did this guy here, yeah?”

: “Yeah, that’s right…”

: “Look at this. He died with this weird smile. His face really kinda pisses me off…”

: The boss’s name is Kiryu, which flashes on the screen before the dialog box finishes. It’s funny because this game pre-dates Yakuza.

: “Sorry, Chief…”

: “Osato’s a rookie. Keeping him under control is your job, right?”

: “If only I’d talked to him about the Mont Blanc thing…”

: “Huh? What’s Mont Blanc?”

: It’s a big mountain in Europe. Part of it’s in France, part of it’s in Italy, part of it’s in Switzerland.

: “Sorry, it’s nothing. Never mind.”

: “Anyway. Fortunately, we were able to clean this up ourselves. The HC Unit hasn’t caught wind of it. The higher-ups think that Iijima and Sakashita instigated this, and caused Kamoguchi to pull the trigger.”

: “We were somehow able to get them to chalk this up as a group of guys going off on each other. But the original plan wasn’t carried out. This is clearly a blatant screwup. Bear that in mind, Tsuki. I have faith in you. Don’t let me down.”

: “Yes, sir…”

: Oh, so Osato’s a nepo baby. Got it.

: “I know…”

: “I read the report… regarding the ‘pressure’ Kamoguchi felt and the person who called Iijima’s cellphone, I have a feeling that these points are connected to the name that woman you spoke to on the phone tossed out.”

: “Kamui…”

: “What do you think?”

: “Chief… please let me follow up on this.”

: “I thought you’d say that. No matter what kind of info may come up, you just can’t ignore Kamui.”

: “That’s right.”

: “Either way, we have to immediately adjust and remove the element that is destabilizing the 25th Ward system. And this particular element is absolutely not to be underestimated. We’re going to continue the investigation into this matter. Keep working on it along with the rest of this case, and find out what’s really going on.”

: “Thank you…!”

: “Hah, they think we’re really gonna let something like that happen? I’m not about to let anyone kill this ‘life’. We’re the men behind the curtain in the 25th Ward. We’re gonna stop this. Right, Tsuki?”

: “Yes…”

: “Basically, this is our job.”

: What we’ve just seen is this game’s central conflict: SAVE THE LIFE vs. KILL THE LIFE. We know that the Regional Adjustment Bureau is on the SAVE side, while Kamui represents the KILL side.

: Though actually, if you assume that Tsuki and Osato are both Kamui maspros, it would mean Kamui is on both sides.

On the surface, it appears as though the ward government manages the operation and administration of the 25th Ward. But underneath the surface, the postal service used the power of the MIAC to expand its territory and scope of operations in order to control and regulate the ward residents. They had martial power surpassing that of even the police, and effectively ruled over the ward.

The postal service workers known as deliverymen were charged with secretly cleaning up various problems occurring throughout the 25th Ward, and each district was sent a supervisor, known as a diver, to manage and watch over the deliverymen.

The deliverymen and divers were provided with licenses to kill, which was known as adjustment, and they collaborated with employees of a nonpublicized group of 25th Ward employees known as cleaners, who were tasked with covering up incidents involving the deliverymen and divers and restoring order to the scenes of said incidents afterward, ensuring that the actions of all involved were never known by the public.

Apart from the cleaners, the 25th Ward government had one more secret agency.

The “RA Bureau” was tasked with administering both the deliverymen and the divers, as well as with providing solutions for problems not even the deliverymen nor divers could solve, and were considered the top-level government agency in the field. This group is composed to elite experts, personally selected by Bureau Chief Tetsuo Kiryu. Suppression through power… the 25th Ward carried out its business day by day without a hitch thanks to this simple yet powerful methodology.

: Next up is the second Correctness chapter, titled “Good Looking Guy”.

[Timrod]

Summary

: Good Looking Guy starts with a cutscene involving a character who has no chat portrait, so just bear with me here a minute.

: Oh, right. Content warning for suicidal thoughts and an eventual suicide.

: What the fuck was in that pill?!

: “P.S.: Inside my stomach, there is a key to a hidden room. Find the corner of the garden. The shelter is directly connected to the world…”

: “That is all. Kuro-san, are you listening?”

: “Dammit! Shut the fuck up!”

: “Um… don’t we need to tell the coroner?”

: “Huh? Have them bring the fucking key here.”

: “But… they haven’t found the key yet.”

: If only Kuroyanagi had been in Ni no Kuni 2. Evan’s dad comes back as a ghost and she immediately shoots him for fucking up his own death.

: “They’ll find it in the autopsy. All you gotta do is have them bring it here, got it? Even you can understand this, right? This shit isn’t difficult!”

: We need to use the look command to progress.

: “This room is pretty drab, huh?”

: “What, were you hoping for something super flashy? Focus on your job. Quit your bitching.”

: A phone rings in the background.

: “Hey, it’s Hirooka. I’m Shiroyabu. Pleased to meet you.”

: I don’t know if Hirooka ever gets a proper portrait (without the glitch effect on it), so I’ll just use the one here.

: “Sorry? What ‘thing’?”

: “You know, that thing. That thing, we found it in the other thing. It’s really weird.”

: “Do you mean the key?”

: “Yeah! That’s the thing! The key. We found the key. Inside his stomach.”

: “Hiro-san… could you bring it to me ASAP? The key.”

: “The key? Yeah, sure. ASAP, got it. I guess your youth makes you a bit anxious, huh? Hold on while I get it.”

: My guess is that this exchange is based off a manzai act that Suda likes, because it feels like a manzai routine.

: “Thanks, it’s appreciated.”

: “No problem. See you later…”

: “It looks like they found it. The key…”

: “Yeah, I know. I was standing right there. Help me out instead of wasting time with bullshit announcements.”

: “Sorry…”

: “Is the shelter down below…?”

: “It’s a secret garden. Like some kinda paradise for Kamijo. This shit is getting interesting.”

: This lady’s name is only given as “Takahashi”. She does have a chat portrait, but we won’t see it for another 20 minutes or so.

: “Um, what…? Who the fuck do you think you are?!”

: “Damn it… I really don’t like the loud ones…”

: “Oh wait, you’re Hiro-san’s delivery girl, right?”

: “Here. Hiro-san asked me to, like, hand this off to you and stuff…”

: “I don’t need the annoying-ass explanation. Just give it to me. I’m in a hurry here.”

: “Wow… so this is ‘Kuro-san’. Hiro-san’s told me all about you. You’ve killed all kinds of bad guys, right?”

: “…”

: “Uh… OK, thanks. You’re done here, right? You can go.”

: “Nuh-uh. I haven’t gotten my delivery fee yet. Pay up.”

: “How much is it?”

: “What kinda ripoff is that?”

: “Do her, Jabroni.”

: “Do me?”

: “OK OK, listen. Let’s just spread out and get this done. Right, Uehara? Well fucking say something! C’mon!”

: This is kinda how I felt when I got linked to a YIIK thread on 4chan’s /v/ board where people were accusing each other of being me.

: The two guys on the right are Aoyama (in front) and Akama (in back). I really should’ve gotten Salty Vanilla to re-draw this with the hamster in place of the shadowy figure in the back.

: “None of his personal effects showed any signs of drug response.”

: “He was thought of really highly at work. He was really well-mannered and he got along well with his coworkers. Never showed any signs of weakness. Seems like he was basically the perfect boss.”

: “With this good a reputation, this guy actually seems a bit creepy. I hear Kamijo had a lot of female coworkers who were interested in him. Apparently he was popular with the ladies.”

: “But he was single, and never showed any interest in them himself, so there were rumors that he was gay.”

: “Gay…? Huh…”

: I interpret Shiroyabu saying this as if being gay has never really occurred to him as being a thing, and now he’s intrigued.

: “I mean, they were just rumors. Apparently that wasn’t the case at all. Seems he was a normal, perverted guy.”

: You know, a good old-fashioned patriotic pervert. The kind of guy who remembers back in the day when shonen manga protagonists could power up by touching breasts, and there were pantyshots on every other page.

: They don’t let you do that no more.

: “Quit wasting time with this bullshit. What the hell kind of info is that?”

: “Yeah, so it’s my fault again. What the hell?!”

: “And this broad sure has a dirty mouth on her, too…”

: “Calm down, Shinko. Focus, and relax. A good detective needs to be able to do that.”

: I completely forgot what Kuroyanagi’s first name was even though it’s in the artbook.

: “Got it…”

: “Thoughtless crimes hide unimaginable thoughts. Don’t make any decisions on your own. Contact me first. I’ll make any necessary decisions.”

: “Nothing substantial may have happened just yet, but this is the kind of happening that leads into far worse events. Don’t get too soft on crime.”

: “Let your guard down, and you’re dead. Kamijo possesses exceptional criminal power. He’s also extremely skilled.”

: Can anyone in the 25th Ward HCU even see ghosts?

: Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean that his power has disappeared. In fact, his consciousness has only become stronger. Don’t end up wandering the line between Kamijo’s life and death. Otherwise you’ll get taken down when you’re not looking."

: “If you sense danger, immediately get out. Now keep these points in mind, and get out there and find out what happened to Yasushi Kamijo!”

: “Ao, you don’t know?”

: “I have no idea…”

: “Kamijo is just a radicalist. For now… but his ultimate goal is homogenization. He’s an old-school fascist.”

: “Do you think Kamijo acted alone?”

: “Can you read into this case?”

: “To some extent…”

: There are spots in this game where I feel like Suda was one step away from reaching the “Everyone is a time-traveling psychic” thing from the Zero Escape games years before those were a thing.

: Big Dick the Chinchilla holding up a sign reading “MY MOTIVATIONS ARE VERY COMPLEX”.

: “Try.”

: “I feel like there’s an organization behind all this. The postal service is involved.”

: “You’re on the right track.”

: “It was Jabroni’s idea.”

: “The Federation went into action from the time of the tower high-rise incident. Our ascertainment of the existence of the delivery service people kicked them into high gear.”

: “I can’t figure out the relationship with Kamijo, but it felt like some sort of signal to me.”

: “A signal…? Explain what you mean.”

: “To be honest, I don’t really know yet…”

: “Then investigate till you do. Until then, don’t come back to the station.”

: “Roger!”

: “Ao and Akama, you two go dig up any info you can from Kamijo’s workplace. I don’t care how you do it. You can even dip into the budget, within reason.”

: “Got it.”

: “Got it.”

: I give these two maybe another chapter before they both die.

: “Shinko and Jabroni, you two find the key to the shelter. Check every nook and cranny.”

: “Got it.”

: “Got it.”

: “Anyway, it’s a bit late for an introduction, but this is the rookie who’ll be taking over for Sakaki. Agent Uehara has been temporarily assigned to Sakaki’s post.”

: “He’s already been dispatched to the field, and he reminds me of Shinko and Jabroni.”

: I just realized how weird it is that Hatoba calls Aoyama and Akama by their last names, but refers to Kuroyanagi by her first name.

: “This is your first time meeting Ao and Akama, right? We’re counting on you!”

: “Nice to meet you, Uehara.”

: “Looking forward to working with you.”

: “He’s kinda shy and quiet, but help him out, you guys.”

: “You really don’t say much, do you?”

: Uehamster’s going to sink his little hamster teeth into crime.

: We now have the opportunity to talk to everyone. I wound up skipping a lot of the optional dialog by accident because I used the option that advances the plot without knowing it.

: “You’ve got something going on, don’t you? I can tell by your face. There’s something different there. I feel like I’m gonna have some kinda flashback just looking at you.”

: This is much funnier if you assume he’s talking to a roughly three foot tall sentient hamster.

: “I get an image of scenery I’ve never seen before, and an almost familiar sensation. What the hell is this, anyway?”

: “Hey, are you the new guy? Looking forward to working with you. Help me out when we get a bit thinned out, OK?”

: “I’m Akama, nice to meet you. Looking forward to working with you. Teaming up with those two is gonna be hard, but you’ll get used to it. Just give it some time. Talk to you later.”

: “Just don’t get in our way. Got it?”

: “Uehara, go see Hiro-san. They’re finished with the keys. Go get the results. Kuro-san and I are gonna look for the shelter one more time. Get on it!”

: “But this guy… what was he doing with all these keys? I’ve never heard of a ‘key collector’, but I guess there are people in this world with some really weird hobbies, so…”

: Clearly, Hirooka never played Baldur’s Gate 3, which does not tell you when you’ve unlocked all of the doors a specific key can open. We’ll see that when I LP it.

: I’m waiting for the final version of Patch 8 to drop before I do that.

: “I guess that in the world of collectors, a key collector maybe isn’t so rare and weird after all. I’m actually a bit of a collector myself. I don’t look like it, but I’ve actually got a lot of hobbies. What do you think I collect?”

: Oh, so you’re this game’s Nakategawa. Got it. Uehamster, I think we can safely Lifecut this guy.

: “I collect videos from all over the world. I’ve got a pretty huge collection. I’d say mine is probably the largest in Asia. I get a lot of requests from weirdos to hold viewing parties, which is sort of a hassle.”

: “Most of the videos you can find online are just regular old snuff films, and the real high-quality ones aren’t so readily available. So only true collectors can get their hands on the real treasures.”

: “Try making copies and you’ll get yourself killed, of course. The people dealing in these films are real underground types. They’ll send a hitman after you at the drop of a hat. Me? I’ve never experienced anything like that. If I had, I’d be dead.”

: “So, what did you want, anyway? These keys all belong to coin lockers. Keys from a bunch of different manufacturers are mixed in; all the different standard types are here.”

: “They’re mostly relatively old, and there aren’t many that work with newer-type lockers. Most of them seem to go with types that have been discontinued. It’s gonna be hard to figure out where they’re from…”

: “No, I’m just kidding. I’m not so overwhelmed that I’ve forgotten why you’re here. Give this key to Kuro-san, OK? There was just one key that goes with a more recent model of locker. It’s within the 25th Ward, too. It’s a locker inside Central Station. Get it to her right away.”

: “Oh yeah, also, tell those two to be careful. It looks like this guy’s teasing us. We’re rushing the analysis of the remaining keys as well. I’ll contact you if anything comes up.”

: Clearly, Kazuma Kiryu has already been through here and taken all the good stuff.

: The game pretty much tells us exactly what to do, so let’s do that.

: “Sorry I’m late. I was waiting for Kuro-san to finish at the salon and it got really late. I can’t believe she went to get a facial because ‘it’s so dirty inside the shelter’. She says a detective needs to be clean on both the inside and outside. I’m actually kinda impressed, in a way.”

: Tell that to Kusabi, who probably spent multiple days in that car staking out Yukimura’s house without showering.

: This is the one thing I would improve on if I had written this - there would be a toy bomb in the locker that Shiroyabu would spend the rest of the chapter trying to disarm.

: “If that’s how this ends, then I’m gonna ‘process’ Kamijo’s ass in the next world. But… where would that be? Heaven or Hell? Even more importantly, where the hell would I go…?”

: “I mean, after processing all those people, I feel like Heaven is pretty much off the table. Yeah, that’s not happening… nowhere nice like that for me. Looks like I’m going to Hell then, I guess.”

: “I wonder if Kamijo is gonna be there waiting for me? Whatever… anyway…”

: “Fucking Kamijo, he’s screwing with us, isn’t he? Hm?”

: “So what do you think? What do you think this photo means? Kamijo’s true intentions are starting to come through… can we take this message at face value?”

: “Or is it some kind of trap that’s gonna screw us over…? As butthurt as he was with us, I’m sure he’s trying to kill us…”

: I mean, that makes sense. I’ve met tabletop gamers, and that is why I no longer play tabletop games.

: “Kuro-san, you’re late! What’re you doing?!”

: “My goddamn job. Why the fuck do I have to report every little goddamn thing to you? ‘Huh?! If I keep reporting to you, are you gonna give me a cushy-ass administrator’s desk job and support my extravagant lifestyle or some shit?’ Where the fuck did you learn how to work ‘efficiently’ anyway?”

: “And when the hell were you planning on putting those superpowers to work? I’ve never seen you actually put any goddamn effort into anything myself, so are you maybe saving up all those skills for when this stunningly beautiful detective isn’t around or what?”

: “Well, Jabroni? ‘Jabroni’ sounds like a pro wrestling term. So are you gonna start flexing some muscle and kicking ass like a pro wrestler, or are you gonna sit there like a dumb little bitch and get whacked in the head with a fucking folding chair?”

: I looked it up, and according to Dictionary.com at least, the earliest recorded use of the term “jabroni” goes back to the 1920s.

: Of course, most people in 2003 would know the term from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, back when he was a WWF headliner.

: “The fuck makes you think I need to tell you what I was doing, anyway? By all means, fucking enlighten me, please!”

: “Sorry…”

: I also have some good news in that I found a save file for this game from 2018 that has all 100 endings to the final chapter unlocked.

: There’s a final, 101st ending that requires around 10 hours of grind to get to, and so I’ll be able to show that off. The person who uploaded it also claimed to have screenshots of all 100 other endings, but I haven’t had any luck getting in touch with them.

: “Send the data over.”

: Picture number two I would’ve gotten from Salty Vanilla if I actually recorded full chapters ahead would be Uehamster feeding the picture into his mouth and beeping like a fax machine.

: There should’ve been a flashback here where Enzawa talks about installing a fax machine into every Kamui maspro.

: “Kamijo was a master of rules. He was even head of a tabletop gaming club.”

: “Tabletop gaming? What’s that?”

: I would give this a “METAL GEAR?!” only from what I understand, there’s kind of a reason for this - that being that most tabletop games (at least, back in 2003) didn’t get translations to Japanese.

: I’ve played the version of D&D that was the “main” ruleset around this time, and I can tell you that it barely makes sense in English. Shit had loopholes you could fly a C-130 through.

: My favorite of those was that by rules as written, a single housecat could exterminate an entire town of commoners because cats did enough damage that they could potentially instantly kill an adult human who did not have character levels.

: My second favorite was that due to the way rounds of combat worked (each round is approx. 6 seconds) and the fact that handing an item to someone only took part of a turn, you could - for surprisingly little money - hire hundreds of peasants and have them stand in a line. The peasant in the back takes a stone from the player character and hands it to the peasant in front of them. Because of turn rules, they could do this infinitely.

: Due to the fact that you have this line of peasants potentially a mile long, and that a turn only takes 6 seconds, you could have that stone reach something like Mach 3 if you had enough peasants because it would have travelled a mile in under a second. Then you have a person at the front (presumably with actual character levels) throw the accelerated stone, which vaporizes anything it hits.

: “Simple board games. Look it up yourself if you wanna know more.”

: "So he was really good at board games?

: “He created his own rulebooks for games as a hobby. He was really passionate about creating things. That’s where Kamijo’s true mind lies.”

: “What would that be?”

: “Isn’t figuring that out your job? Don’t ask me. Use your goddamn brains to figure it out!”

: “OK!..I have no idea!”

: “It’s no use looking at Kamijo from an orthodox angle. Kamijo is creating a story. He creates the path, and has people walk that path. We’re just playing his game.”

: Kamijo has made an escape room years before those were a thing.

: “That’s right. We don’t need to think at all. His rulebook creates the answers. We have to dive into his book and find them. This is no longer the real world.”

: We just had Kuroyanagi say “It’s no use” and shortly thereafter had Shiroyabu reference “his world”. It’s like this game predicted Sonic 06.

: “We’re in his own fabricated world. The reality you see in front of your face is just in your imagination. Things you see with your eyes, smell with your nose, hear with your ears, and touch with your fingers… don’t take any of it at face value.”

: “Use your brain to work it out! That’s how you investigate.”

: “Understood. I’ll find the path that this key leads us to.”

: “We’re beginning to see who he really was. Let’s go!”

: “Go where? We still don’t know where the key leads. We still have to pass it on to Hiro-san…”

: “We don’t need to do that. I know where it goes. So just shut your mouth and follow me like a good boy! Come on!”

: I’m going to cut it here because I have Salty Vanilla working on something for the next update and I want to give him a little time.

: It might be a few weeks until the next update, but I will be recording and getting things ready in the background.

[Timrod]

Summary

: “Is this the place…?”

: “Well this sure is a real ‘urban oasis’. We’re going in.”

: “OK…”

: Manga sucks so much these days. The stuff I want to read either has fan translators that disappear or turns to absolute dogshit, or gets axed.

: “Hey! Master! It’s been awhile!”

: This lady’s name is Fukamachi.

: On an unrelated side note, I just got food from the Japanese place near my old job, and I did in fact consume the miso soup in a Tsuki-approved fashion.

: “Ch-Chloe…? Also, ‘master’…?!”

: “With your job and love life going so well, I didn’t think you’d bother stopping by an old hole in the wall like this, sweetie.”

: I would laugh so fucking hard if Kuroyanagi had a fake boyfriend.

: “Love life? Love life?! What’s that? Some soap opera or something?”

: “Stop calling me by that handle!”

: “Look at you, blushing like that… what’s wrong with it? It isn’t gonna hurt anyone!”

: “Hey, you’re pretty cute.”

: “This guy? He’s ‘cute’? Him? Go ahead, have at him.”

: “What a treat.”

: “What? ‘Have at’ me?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

: “Hey handsome, what’s your name?”

: “Shiroyabu.”

: “You can abbreviate it.”

: Shiroyabu is going “I can never come back here again”.

: “No, seriously - please don’t.”

: “So, Chloe… this guy behind you, is he a friend of yours?”

: “Yeah, this is the new guy, Uehara.”

: “The strong, silent type, I see…”

: It’s at this point I accidentally skipped all the optional dialog. You progress this part by showing Fukamachi the key from the coin locker.

: “Hey, which room is this?”

: “Oh yeah, that would be GLG’s room.”

: " ‘GLG’? What’s that?"

: I’d like to point out that the game hard stops the text at the end of each word in “Good Looking Guy” and makes you manually advance it by clicking three times. This probably should’ve been a hint, but I was recording this at like 8PM on a work night.

: “What does that mean?”

: “Huh? Seriously? You can’t work that one out on your own?”

: “What? How the fuck should I know how this weirdo chooses his user name?”

: “I mean, it’s pretty much as-is…”

: “Still. I don’t know what this asshole looks like, nor what kind of weird-ass codes these perverts use. It could be some kinda euphemism for all I know.”

: “But you use the internet too, right?”

: “Yeah, but I’m not some weirdo. So again, how the fuck should I know?”

: I bet Kuroyanagi is one of those people who are hardcore into Pretty Cure. Probably has an apartment full of magical girl figures.

: “Only because it’s you, that explanation sort of makes sense.”

: “So what the fuck does it mean? Tell me!”

: “It means exactly what it sounds like: that he’s apparently quite a handsome man. Sounds yummy!”

: “Shit… what a creepy dude…”

: “Come on, I’ll show you the way!”

: “This is the special GLG room. Angels fear to tread here. The noises that come out of it are inhuman.”

: “Thanks, Master.”

: “You’re welcome. Come with me to the offline party next week, OK?”

: “Offline party” sounds like a phrase you’d hear in Hackers, a movie that had been out for almost a decade when this game released.

: “That again?”

: “Yeah, ‘that’…”

: “Well, shit.”

: “Tee-hee!”

: “Kuro-san, I give up. I have no idea where we should even begin investigating.”

: I thought about doing a picture here of Uehamster scraping liquid off the keyboard into a vial like in Monster Hunter World and getting the research point pop-up for “mystery liquid” but I thought that was probably too lewd for Salty Vanilla.

: “Don’t worry about it. Leave this place to me. It’s like my home away from home.”

: "You’re really pumped up, aren’t you?’

: “A bit, maybe. Just watch. Uehara, turn this on.”

: We already know the password - the game has already given it to us - but I was sure that was too obvious and tried to back out to find what it actually is.

: That’s when I remembered I was recording this on a Tuesday, and Tuesday is (Weekly Shonen) Sunday, and also when Maoujou de Oyasumi (also known as “Sleepy Princess”) releases.

: And so I had Salty Vanilla draw that because that’s just kinda what happens. Too bad about Sleepy Princess having an absolute dogshit translation (the fan translator was a running joke who was worse than a machine translation and the official one isn’t any better).

: This is what happens if you fail an input.

: Yep, there’s the password.

: “Don’t waste time fucking around. Hurry up and make contact. And then report immediately. Let me know if you run into any problems. That is all.”

: " ‘That is all’… “Why do you have to give me orders over chat?”

: “It’s faster if I type it out, right? I’m a master at touch typing. It’s a waste of time for me to bother speaking to you anyway.”

: “I’ve made contact… Hiro-san sent the image for verification, but the bike messenger may get there sooner. Apparently that Takahashi girl can tell where a location is by the flow of the air as long as it’s within her territory.”

: “No shit. So…?”

: “You’re clearly not interested in other people…”

: “Why was Kamijo here?”

: “I don’t know… this little room, no - this ‘space’, maybe? It’s isolated, but it isn’t watched over. I think he was tired of the whole ‘administration’ system.”

: “That simple, huh…? He must’ve had some deeply-rooted purpose. A purpose that doesn’t know ‘exhaustion’…”

: “So we can’t figure out what exactly his deal was without finding that first. Were there women in the chatroom?”

: “Well yeah, probably. It’s the kind of entertainment that requires someone to be in there with you. You use your feminine sexiness to get the other guy’s libido worked up. It’s the confusing and mixed-up world of ‘adults’.”

: Shiroyabu probably subbed to Everquest on day 1 in 1999 and still has a sub to this day. I tried Project 1999 once and did not last very long.

: “It’s not solely a world for men, you know. It’s a comfortable place for women, too. Deep down inside that monitor is a world where everyone is the same. I mean, not all of them, but…”

: I don’t know if that was ever true, except maybe at the very earliest stages of the internet when everything was BBSes and IRC.

: Take something like Counter-Strike, which evolved from a game with something like six skins on each side to people paying thousands of dollars for different knife models specifically to stand out.

: Or, you know, let’s plays where you pay artists to create an entire gay romance route that doesn’t exist in the game just to make your LP stand out. Who’d do that?

: " ‘Not all of them’… so it’s a world where everyone ends up getting neatly placed in their own little niches then, right?"

: “Don’t forget it. That’s how society itself works.”

: “Ah! Kuro-san, it’s Takahashi. It looks like she found the room.”

: “Let’s make contact. Hey!”

: I know Kirara is an actual name, but every time I see it I think of the Manga Time Kirara magazines, which are (effectively) about a cinematic universe where everyone is a lesbian.

: We have entered the Lesbian Dimension. There is no escaping the Lesbian Dimension.

: “Killed”.

: “NO NO NO NO NO”

: “Then shut up and get naked.”

: “Naked? Like, all the way?”

: “Yeah. All the way.”

: “OK. I’m wearing my special panties today.”

: “Oh shit, awesome!”

: “Hold on a second.”

: “She’s actually gonna get naked.”

: “Huh? What??”

: “Hurry up and strip!”

: “I don’t want to after all. I was kidding.”

: “Boring bitch. Don’t be a square.”

: “So what do you want me to do?”

: You know what just occurred to me? How did Kirara get into this room? Did she use the Frank technique?

: “Strip.”

: “That’s getting old.”

: “Where are you?”

: “Me? Right in front of you.”

: “Right in front of me?”

: “I can see you from here.”

: "What do you mean?’

: “A magic peephole.”

: "What the hell is that?’

: “It means I can see everything you’re doing.”

: “What’s going on?”

: “This room is surrounded by smoked glass. We can’t see the other side from here. But we can be seen from the chatroom.”

: “So the girl was able to see who she was talking to? Is that what you mean?”

: This is an insane amount of setup. I mean, you could accomplish the same thing with a couple of cameras in the little computer closet that connect to a TV in another room, no need to even use multiple buildings.

: “He even made sure people saw his death. What a twisted fucking freak.”

: “That’s kinda hard to believe.”

: “Hey, so what do I do?”

: “Wait a second. I’ll go there.”

: “Master! What the hell is going on here? Explain this shit.”

: “GLG was a ‘reserver’. He bought this room out. For 50 million.”

: I did the math on this. In 2003, the yen-dollar exchange rate was around 115 yen. At time of writing it’s around 150 yen to the dollar.

: Dividing 50 million by 115 gets us $434,782.60. If we put that into an inflation calculator, we get around $750,000 in 2025 dollars.

: Kamijo paid half a million dollars for a closet.

: “50 million? For real?”

: “Super-duper for real. I was surprised. He said he wanted to reserve the room. Said he liked the claustrophobic feeling…”

: “He reserved it? For how many months?”

: “The longest possible contract. Three years. I’d hardly ever seen him around, though.”

: Not only did he pay half a million dollars for a closet, he paid half a million to RENT a closet.

: “Why not? He must’ve come around, right?”

: For half a million dollars in 2003 you could easily build a house. Hell, you could probably build a house and still have enough left over to build a “stream room” across the way.

: “I don’t know… it’s weird, but he’s never actually shown his face.”

: “Who is in charge of reception around this time?”

: “The part-timer, obviously.”

: “A girl?”

: “That’s it…”

: “Jabroni, you go search that room. I’m going back in again.”

: “Got it! Let’s go, Uehara!”

: Uehamster has probably been looking for something to read this entire time. 2003 was kinda dire as manga goes.

: “Wow, this place is really something.”

: “She’s still chatting. Who is she talking to?”

: “I don’t think this is the room.”

: It’s gotta be Tokio she’s talking to.

: “Wow, that’s kinda surprising.”

: “What is?”

: “She didn’t seem like that kind of person.”

: “What kind of person did she seem like?”

: “Well… like she’d be crying, maybe.”

: “Crying? Her?”

: “That’s the image I had… but she was sort of smiling.”

: “Where?”

: “In chat. She was hella smiling.”

: “Really…?”

: We find our next key, which leads to the part of this game that outright fucking trolls you.

: “?”

: “What’s up?”

: “I was just thinking, this is a weird key.”

: “Yeah, really. It might be super rare.”

: “Take this to Hiro-san for me.”

: “More importantly, I got a place I wanna show you. It’s kinda sketchy, but for key verification, they’re the best in the 25th Ward!”

: “The way you put it is even more sketchy.”

: “Hey, game recognizes game. You’re getting an introduction from the best bike messenger in the 25th Ward, so you know it’s the real deal.”

: “OK. In that case, let’s check it out. Ask Hiro-san to verify this photo.”

: “Yeah, I got it. Also, I’ll pass these on.”

: We get four keys in different colors: Blue, Green, Red, and Yellow.

: “You’ll need to use these keys to meet with the appraiser. You can’t cheat the system, so be sure to use the keys properly.”

: “These are the fundamentals of solving mysteries. Don’t whine; you’re a detective.”

: “Mysteries, huh… well, I guess a key appraiser using keys himself isn’t such a stretch of the imagination.”

: The funny part is that we have to let the game tell us how to solve the mystery because there is no way you could do it yourself short of pure trial and error.

: “OK then, I’m going back to see Hiro-san.”

: I think I’d be okay with never seeing Hirooka again.

: “Tell him I said thanks.”

: “OK.”

: “The password is… ‘Let me use the WC’? ‘WC’…? Here? What the hell is this? This is just a regular convenience store, right?”

: “Let me use the WC.”

: The game then does something I can’t really capture in a screenshot. Normally, in both this game and The Silver Case, text only advances when you press a button to do so.

: What happens here is that the clerk tells us how to navigate the upcoming maze… except the text automatically advances at a pace that I would describe as “too fast to write down”.

: The whole thing caught me off-guard and I missed half of it when recording, so I had to go back and video it. In the game, the dialog is presented as one long run-on sentence. I’ve formatted it to make it easier to read.

Go through the door in the back, take a right, go through the fourth door. Turn through the first hallway on the left, then keep going straight until you take a right at the intersection. Go through the second door and you’ll get to a staircase, so go all the way down and go through the emergency exit on the right. Take the stairs all the way up to the top, and you’ll hit a T-shaped hallway. You’ll find the WC just past that.

: “So that’s where the WC is?”

: We follow his instructions - take a right, go through the fourth door (the other three don’t show up as options).

: Right past the fourth door is a keyhole in the wall. Note that the clerk didn’t tell us what to do with the keys.

: “Which one? It would be nice if someone could at least let me know…”

: I didn’t know how this part worked when I was recording, and assumed there was either some kind of logic you could use to determine which key went where, or that it was Suda trolling and it didn’t matter what order you put the keys in.

: Turns out, there is an order. In fact, using the wrong key on the keyhole will act as if it worked and won’t let you switch to a different key. The game will kick you back to the start after you put all four in.

: What we have to do is use the phone, which starts another auto-scrolling conversation.

: “Well I’m not, which is why I called. What’s up with these keys?”

: “I’m only gonna say this once, so listen carefully, OK?”

: This is another big long run-on sentence that I’ve formatted to be more readable.

: “There’s the door in the back, right? The first key you use after that is greyish-blue, and turning into left side of the first hallway, you come to an intersection.”

: “Right before that, the second key to use is saffron-colored. I’m pretty sure the reddish-brown one was last, so the third one to use when you go through the second door is bottle green, for when you get out of the emergency exit.”

: “When you get to the last T-shaped hallway and go in one of the two directions, you’ll get to the WC, so if you’ve done everything correctly it’ll open up. Mess up even just one and you’ll have to start over from the beginning.”

: Is this how all the bathrooms in the 25th ward are? This feels like those jokes people used to make about Resident Evil.

: “Got it?”

: “Thanks for the super passionate explanation.”

: The maze is honestly pretty straightforward, so we go through and use the keys in the blue-yellow-green-red order.

: Now, you see that right turn up by the green exit sign in that last screenshot? If we go left from there, we wind up at the bathroom. The last keyhole is to the right.

: I say this because there’s a bit of bonus dialog if we try to open the door wthout the final key in place.

: I can’t tell if this is some NISA bullshit or if this is something that was actually in the game. The first Ace Attorney game released on the GBA in 2002, so it’s entirely possible that this was in the original script.

: You might ask how this line makes any kind of sense, and the answer is that Phoenix’s name in Japanese is Naruhodou Ryuuichi, with “naruhodou” being an expression meaning something like “Oh, I see…”.

: “Is this some kinda hidden camera thing? If only Kuro-san was here…”

: “I hate doing things at other people’s pace like this. I mean, I like soccer, right? So like, I hate away games. I’m a home field guy, you know?”

: “Um, what?”

: “Many thanks for coming all the way here today. It’s a rather squalid place, but please make yourselves comfortable. Feel free to make yourselves at home.”

: " ‘Comfortable’, huh…?"

: “Now then, which course would you like?”

: " ‘Course’?"

: “You are familiar with our system, I assume? Oh well, I’ve spoken with Kirara about the course. I’ll be right with you.”

: “Kirara? Wait, what? I don’t understand what’s going on…”

: “I’ll relieve you of the keys.”

: “OK…”

: “Please wait a moment.”

: I find it kinda funny that the only command we have available is “Look” when we can see the entire bathroom from where we’re standing.

: “I want out of this investigation. This whole thing sucks. You must be confused as hell, too, right? Getting stuck on this case out of the blue.”

: “But at least it’ll make for some good experience. This job is all about racking up experience.”

: Do yourself a favor and never take a job “for the experience”. The only thing those jobs are good for is trapping you in an endless loop of shit.

: “This place is uncomfortable as shit. When you think about it, we’re pretty defenseless here, you know?”

: “Where?”

: “After all this bullshit, we end up here. This case is a farce.”

: “This really is like some kind of joke. Just like the world inside Kamijo’s head.”

: “The hell are we even doing?”

: You know, if you think about it, this case doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense - why would they send three cops in to investigate a suicide where no one has any evidence of it not being a suicide?

: “We just keep walking, I guess…”

: “So which key is next?”

: “Let’s try and open it.”

: “Photo?”

: “A car, huh…”

: “This key?”

: “It’s a new model that was just changed up.”

: “Looks like you really know your cars.”

: “I saw it at a motor show.”

: "So you like those kinds of events, huh?’

: “What’re you, stupid? Of course I don’t fucking ‘like’ them. I work as a booth girl.”

: I wonder if this was changed in the translation because they didn’t want to explain what a gravure model is. I know I’ve seen photos of Japanese car shows in the late 90s/early 00s where companies would hire gravure models to show off their cars.

: “Huh? You do?”

: “I’m pretty popular among the companies that do these events. I’m a top-shelf ‘event companion’.”

: “That’s… yeah. Let’s hurry to the parking lot.”

: “Which car is it?”

: “Hold up. I’m looking.”

: “These are all really expensive cars. It’s not even that nice of an apartment complex.”

: “Don’t you get it?”

: “Get what?”

: “What this complex really is. Not a single normal family lives here.”

: “Yeah, it doesn’t feel lived in at all. Like there’s no trace of families and children living here… what does it mean?”

: “Read into it.”

: Shinzo Abe’s ghost crying and screaming “IT’S BECAUSE NO ONE MARRIED AND REPRODUCED!”

: “Is it for ‘second homes’ or something? Apartments built for the purpose of housing other women… not normally handled by regular real estate agents. Members only…?”

: “That’s right. The bubble bursting left buildings like this behind. People started using it for other purposes since it was no longer worth running how it was before. It’s basically a modern-day brothel.”

: “So that’s why there are all these expensive cars…”

: This game is great for reaction images.

: “What the hell is up with this creepy place?!”

: “Fuck if I know. Doesn’t matter if it ‘sucks’ or is ‘bullshit’ or whatever. Wherever people gather to live, this kind of thing is always gonna pop up. This place existing isn’t gonna cause the world to end.”

: “Trying to make everything clean and just is a waste of time and effort.”

: “That’s just sad.”

: “Nobody’s asking you to mourn anything for them. Just worry about your own shit. Listen, Jabroni. The world is a fucked up place. Kamijo is the kind of person who can’t live in a nice, clean, happy place.”

: “He can’t go back. He was basically all kinds of sadness in human form.”

: Kamijo was a barbecue of sadness stretching miles and miles. We never get to see him smile.

: “Sadness…”

: “Maybe try on a bit of self-awareness, huh? For certain kinds of people, this place is a necessity.”

: I’m going to end the update here. We don’t have much longer to go, but I feel like it’s already really long. Salty’s been busy with commissions (and I always have them do mine last), so I’ll post the finished picture whenever it’s done.

[Timrod]

Summary

: I’m not sure what kind of car this is - it looks kinda similar to the Jaguar I always see parked outside one of the offices near where I work.

: On another note, the patch for Baldur’s Gate 3 is now out. I am waiting for a month or so before I begin the LP in order for all the mods to be fixed.

: “That’s awesome…”

: “Drive.”

: I preferred what Hotline Miami did with that movie, but okay.

: “OK!”

: “Just try pressing some, you’ll figure it out.”

: “Kuro-san, that’s not how cars work…”

: “How about this one? Try pressing it…”

: “No!”

: The dialog flashes “Checking data…” for a minute or so, and it was long enough for me to think “I bet if Suda ever remade this as a 3D game, he’d probably put that one sequence with the GPS from Heavy Rain here except you’d be trying to cause as much damage as possible.”

: “Ah… the navigator turned itself on.”

: “Makes it easier to navigate. I’ll keep my eye on the map.”

: “OK, we’re taking off now.”

: This shot looks like a character select screen for a survival-horror game. Once you’ve cleared Shiroyabu and Kuroyanagi’s scenarios, Uehara stops being shadowed and is the final scenario.

: “If it’s unimportant then don’t bother.”

: “I’ve already started, so can’t I finish?”

: “Nope.”

: “But it’s kinda awkward driving around like this all suddenly… Uehara’s all quiet and creepy, too… and you’re really temperamental.”

: “Then leave me the fuck alone.”

: “I can’t, I feel weird. I’m kinda sensitive like that, you know what I mean?”

: “Not at all.”

: “This really dampens the start. I wanna hurry up and get out…”

: “So, what is it?”

: “You don’t mind if I talk?”

: “What the fuck do you want to talk about?”

: “Where is this car headed, anyway?”

: “Isn’t it obvious?”

: The text here is really hard to read even when you’re zoomed in, so I’ll type it out: the top part is “12:30pm” and the bottom simply says “Coastal House”.

: “This place is quiet. It’s totally different from the 25th Ward. Where are we…?”

: “Damn, we’ve come pretty far.”

: “We’re in the Kanto suburbs, where they plan to construct the 26th Ward. It’s a redevelopment area. I believe construction is scheduled to finish in, what, 20 years…?”

: It’s been at least 20 years since this game originally released and we still do not have The 26th Ward.

: I know that Kanto is an actual region of Japan but the thought of Kamui Uehara in a bulldozer paving over where all the Pokemon live in Generation 1 makes me laugh.

: “For 20 years, this whole area is being put to sleep. This place has had time stolen by urban planning. It’s like time has stopped here.”

: “What was Kamijo doing here?”

: “We’ll know once we go inside.”

: “I’m a detective. These are my colleagues. Are you ‘Machiko’?”

: “Yes. So you know me, I see.”

: “Yes…”

: “Huh? I can’t tell where this is going. What’s going on?”

: “The name ‘Machiko’ is code. It’s a type of job known as a ‘contract lodger’. ‘Machiko’ is code for that.”

: “You mean like a ‘contract marriage’?”

: “No. Nothing remains on one’s record. People who can’t get married sign a contract and live together here.”

: “But they can’t actually ‘live’ together. They just go home sometimes. The contract lodger just waits at home. that’s why they’re called ‘Machiko’.”

: “Oh, because ‘machibito’ means ‘someone who waits’, right? What the hell is up with that? What the hell do they get out of that relationship?!”

: All of this is really just a fancy way of saying “Kamijo had a mistress he was putting up in a second home.”

: “Just shut the fuck up!”

: “It isn’t anything sad. It may seem pitiful from the outside, but in waiting for him, we are connected.”

: “Connected to what?”

: Her maker, clearly. They’re connected, chain reaction, they live in the eternal (unintelligible).

: I wish I could do VLPs because that song was in a rhythm game on the 360 called Child of Eden that I don’t think has been VLPed yet.

: “Don’t make me say it…”

: “Huh?”

: “Machiko, Kamijo isn’t coming back. He…”

: “I know. I’m aware that he died…”

: “Why are you waiting, then? There’s no more ‘connection’.”

: “Yes, there was. Our connection continued up to the point when you came here.”

: “Did Kamijo predict that some detectives would show up?”

: “Yes. And that the incident would finally come into shape…”

: " ‘Incident’?!"

: I think Shiroyabu’s brain broke.

: “Machiko, please tell us who or what Kamijo really was. What was he?”

: He’s the postmaster general, if you will.

: “Diver…”

: “What’s a ‘diver’?”

: We already know what a diver is because we did Underground Theater, but remember that Matchmaker didn’t exist in the original release of this game.

: “They’re part of the postal service… divers oversee the deliverymen. They’ve also received special training.”

: “Huh? So, Kamijo was a hitman?”

: “He was in the past, but he had already retired. Within the company, he had attained legendary status as a claims processor.”

: “I’ve heard of that. Five years ago, there were a bunch of problems stemming from complaints that were stubbed out… but recently I hadn’t heard anything about it.”

: “The company allocated some of the claims processing budget to form a syndicate. Those are the divers.”

: “They got rid of people in order to cover up inconvenient complaints.”

: “That’s right. Kamijo was troubled by it. Which is a given, I suppose. He was supposed to work for the postal service, but ended up learning to process people.”

: “By becoming a diver, he had his identity erased…”

: Maybe it was a good thing that Kamijo exploded his insides.

: “Kamijo received a huge amount of money in exchange for losing his identity. And then he bought you?”

: “I think he wanted someplace to which he could ‘go home’. He never asked about my identity, even once. He never even touched me; he said he just wanted to be together… he always said that and smiled.”

: “…”

: Shiroyabu is going “I wish Kamijo was still alive so I could shoot him.”

: “Kamijo was thinking about returning to you, even if he were to die. Only thinking about protecting you, he led this case far, far away. The Postal Federation was trying to kill Kamijo. Right?”

: “Yes. His very existence itself was incontrovertible evidence of what they were doing.”

: “They were trying to hide the existence of the divers from the world and make their postal service business work out, and Kamijo was too much of a threat.”

: “The Postal Federation has their eye on a much larger market, and are fostering divers. In order to prevent that information from leaking…”

: “They had to kill him… but, what is this larger market?”

: “I’ll tell you later. Machiko… the last time Kamijo came, did he have plans to meet with anyone?”

: “You’re quite knowledgeable. He said he was going to meet with an old friend. The… ‘building adminstrator’?”

: Well, now we know why the hit squad was there.

: “The administrator?! Kuro-san! The high-rise apartments!”

: “Thanks for talking with us, Machiko.”

: “Not at all… he told me to believe, so I spoke with you.”

: “What did he tell you to believe?”

: “That’s not exactly a compliment.”

: “Machiko, I have just one final question. Where are you from?”

: And that’s confirmation that Machiko is an Ayame.

: “I see…”

: More importantly, the game has now confirmed what I’ve pretty much known all along: Kuroyanagi is an Ayame.

: “So please don’t give up hope. I’ll take that gun off your hands for you…”

: “You, too…? Why?”

: “It’s OK… your sorrow will absolutely go away. So life is worth living, even if Kamijo is no longer here. OK?”

: “OK.”

: “I don’t know if we’ll be able to solve this or not, but it’s clear that he was basically contracting us.”

: “So he was trying to bring his past crimes to light. Using the photos of the women he killed when he was a diver, he tried to lead us to the truth.”

: That last line is a bit confusing because as far as I understand it, Kamijo stopped being a hitman when he became a diver.

: “The postal service is killing people who file these boring-ass complaints.”

: Again, confusing because Underground Theater says the opposite: the deliverymen were killing people who had complaints filed against them, however minor.

: “Claims about absence notifications not arriving… claims about postal workers knocking on doors… claims about employees not responding… claims about letters getting wet in the rain… claims about employees’ delivery bikes being in the way…”

: “These are the reasons people like her were murdered. They’re murderers who take advantage of people living alone.”

: “Next up is the administrator. The missing administrator is going to set this case off.”

: “Was Kamijo trying to set the case off with his own death? I feel like that has to be it.”

: “Nope. It’s even more simple than that. He ran his mouth in order to keep Machiko from being sucked in to this shitstorm. In order to fool the Postal Federation.”

: “Was that really the reason?”

: “He’s a legendary diver. Geniuses think differently than regular people. Nobody could keep up with Kamijo. They’d just get fucked with.”

: “But he can’t protect Machiko if he’s dead, right?”

: “He’s already fucking with them.”

: “I… I don’t really understand what’s going on.”

: Wait, what? How the hell is he not a Kamui? We haven’t met a single character younger than Kusabi who turned out to not be a maspro.

: No wonder Kuroyanagi calls him “jabroni”, he’s not even enough of a man to dehumanize himself to become the embodiment of a hitman who may or may not have ever existed.

: “Don’t worry about that… you’ll know someday. Until then, forget about it.”

: Not shown: Roughly four full text boxes of ellipses from Shiroyabu.

: “OK, it’s forgotten.”

: And that’s the end of Good Looking Guy. Next up is Tokio’s second chapter, titled Tigiri (契り), a word that can mean both “promise” and “destiny”.