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.