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.