#ajiro... i love you dude

[sparklyjojos]

another Cosmic update cause things continue to Happen and we finally get some more Tsukumo Juku

The investigation continues. Kirika and Hikimiya visit Dakushoin’s twin sister Nagisa and discover that the manuscript has a secret message in it, which can only be cracked by using one of Dakushoin’s book title as a key. The resulting message is “I am the one writing” -- they assume this means Dakushoin really did write the manuscript.

(As an aside, there’s a meta joke where Kirika hears the phrase ‘流水の中の清涼’ -- ‘the coolness inside flowing water’, a pun on the name Ryusui ( 流水) Seiryo( 清涼)-”in”( 中) -- and gets a weird feeling that she already heard it somewhere.)

--

Meanwhile, Ajiro discusses the manuscript with two important detectives we hadn’t met yet. One is Yaiba “Jin” Somahito, 35yo, whose reasoning is based on examining different polarizing ‘theses and antitheses’, which he calls ‘synthesis’, and the Japanese loan-word for it is where his nickname comes from (JINteizei). He’s the president of the first JDC group, with Juku being the vice-president. (Ajiro’s boss status lies outside the seven groups, as the representative and overseer).

The other detective is an old man called Shiranui Zenzou, who was Ajiro’s mentor. Shiranui once worked alongside Ajiro’s grandfather, Soujin. When Soujin was killed during the Saimon case, Shiranui was solving another case abroad, and still blames himself for not being able to save his friend. Shiranui became something of a paternal figure to Ajiro, who notes that it’s the only person (aside from Juku) that he feels he can drop his guard in front of. To quote, For Ajiro, who had lost his grandfather, wife and son in heinous crimes, Shiranui and Juku were like family members who truly understood and cared about him, and whose presence gave him warmth.

--

Speaking of Juku: we finally see what’s going on in London. First we learn about DOLL, an international detective organization that all the individual organizations (JDC included) are grouped under. DOLL ranks all the detectives on the scale from A (best) to K (worst), with a special category of S reserved for the very best. Currently there’s only 7 S-rank detectives in the world, and two of them are Ajiro Souji and Tsukumo Juku. At 20 years old, Juku’s the youngest person to get the S-rank.

It’s 9th January and the Jackie the Ripper case has been ongoing since Christmas. The murderer always cuts the victims’ bodies to pieces, which are then put in a pile with the head on top, the number of the victim written on the forehead. (That’s the similarity to the Locked Room Lord case, I assume.)

After an investigation meeting, Juku’s talking with a woman called Tousen Yomiko, who’s assisting him on the investigation trip to England. Aside from being a (not-JDC) private detective specializing in criminal psychology, Yomiko was also Juku’s childhood friend, and his ex fiancée. They later shortly discuss things with Lonely Queen, an American S-detective, but all that comes out of it is that they don’t know who the murderer is yet.

--

Meanwhile, JDC gets another delivery: extremely old copies of the Heian and Edo stories, which could mean they’re historical documents, and even that these ancient Locked Room Lord incidents might have really happened. Carbon-dating confirms that the copies are from their respective eras. But these ultra old documents are signed by Dakushoin Ryusui, the modern writer, so what the hell is going on here?

Faced with the possibility of a supernatural murderer, Ajiro is pretty damn depressed again, thinks a lot about his dead wife and son, and dreads not being able to solve the case. He calls Juku and tells him about the old stories. Juku’s actually pretty scared hearing about them, and asks if he can get them delivered to England. Ajiro agrees and they discuss sending Kirika and Nemu there too.

We get a little explanation about Juku’s reasoning method, Jintsuuriki (神通理気): when the necessary data is gathered, Juku gets ‘englightened’, as if he suddenly felt a reasoning ‘flowing down from God’ (hence the name Jintsuuriki, the kanji are kinda a mishmash of ‘god-passed-reason-feeling’, and if you write it down as 神通力 it means ‘supernatural/divine power’). Ajiro compares it to being able to see the entire image out of a bunch of puzzle pieces. Anyway, Juku’s reasoning currently tells him (’whispers to him’) as follows: the culprit in the Jackie the Ripper case is the very same as in the famous Jack the Ripper case from over 100 years ago, and the same culprit is responsible for the Locked Room Lord murders. (Which sounds weird, but hey, if allegedly hundreds of years old paranormal guys are running around...) They talk for a while more and Ajiro jokes that he’d like to see a case that Juku couldn’t solve.

Later Juku is walking to Scotland Yard to tell the police about their findings, and thinks about that last thing Ajiro told him. There is, in fact, a mystery he still can’t solve, and it’s the mystery of himself. He knows he developed Jintsuuriki when he was 6, around the time of the Saimon Family Murder Case, but has no idea how it happened, or what this power really is. In fact, he doesn’t really remember anything that happened before the Case. [Trauma will do that to you, buddy.] Is there any way to solve this mystery?

As if on command, an around 15-year-old boy stands in his way. It’s the grandson of the only survivor of another famous case that murdered an entire family: a young ‘wandering detective’ called Inugami Yasha. Apparently him and Juku hold a sort of detective rivalry since last year, but never really met. While Juku doesn’t know the details of Yasha’s reasoning method, he recognizes the boy’s genius that may even surpass his own and Ajiro’s. (Btw, the killer of Juku’s family was called the White Demon, Shiroyasha,  so Juku’s a bit on edge hearing a similar name). Yasha claims that he can help Juku with solving ‘the case of himself’, and seems to know about the connection of the cases happening in England and Japan. He demands to be allowed to cooperate with Juku on the case, and Juku agrees, under one condition: Yasha won’t be trying to become just Juku’s assistant, but will become his full-fledged detective partner. (Which is a big deal, hearing it from an S-rank detective and all, and Yasha is pretty excited about it.)

#sparkly reads cosmic #maijo and jdc stuff #long post #ajiro... i love you dude

[sparklyjojos]

CARNIVAL EVE recap

Or: way too many characters to remember, Ryusui sending people weird stories YET AGAIN, an ominous prophecy, and horses and deers and cats, oh my!

[This is a sequel to Cosmic and Joker, please check these out first if you haven’t]

[tw: mentioned suicide]

---

This book is more of an introduction to Carnival than its own thing (although Seriyoin claims in the author’s note that it’s a separate whole, so YMMV). It’s set in August 1996 – 2,5 years after the Locked Room Lord case – and so we have to catch up on what the characters have been up to.

Because of the sheer amount of old and new characters, I’m doing what Seiryoin does and bolding names that you Really Should Remember For Later.

THE ‘CATCHING UP WITH CHARACTERS’ PART:

Hikimiya Yuuya, the statistics expert of JDC, is going through a rough patch. He’s so concerned with the vague Internet rumour about the worldwide “Crime Olympics” coming soon that his work performance suffered and landed him back in the Second Group of JDC. Cue imposter syndrome. Hikimiya is also afraid that were the worldwide crime event to really occur, his sweetheart Ryuuguu Otohime (the older sister of Ryuuguu Jounosuke) would have trouble surviving because of her disability. Right now Hikimiya’s leaving for France, where he will assist / learn under one of the seven S-rank detectives in the world, nicknamed Deus Ex Machina.

Yaiba Somahito, the leader of JDC's First Group, recently had to be hospitalized after he’d collapsed from stress. He’s worried that the stress brought on by the Crime Olympics -- will they occur -- could finally trigger his (still unclarified) hereditary psychiatric disorder. In the hospital he befriends a young boy, Amano, who with his prematurely white hair looks a lot like Yaiba’s brother Amato (who committed suicide years ago because of the aforementioned hereditary disorder). Amano was given only a few months to live.

While Yaiba’s hospitalized, Kirika Mai takes over his duty as the First Group’s leader. While people seem to like her in this position, she considers herself a temporary replacement. Since the last time we saw her she cut her hair short and has started dating a forensics expert Hazama [who showed up briefly in Joker]. She’s still confused about whether or not she has/had A Thing for Juku or was it just deep respect or what, and she certainly feels a pang of jealousy whenever she thinks about him surrounded by other people but not her.

Kirika mentions getting an author manuscript of a book describing the Locked Room Lord case. Every detective concerned gets a copy so they can approve the scenes they show up in. The book is written by a mysterious writer using the nickname Seiryoin Ryusui and is called Cosmic. It seems Seiryoin is already working on another book, Joker, this one about the Geneijo case. [WE META NOW, WE META HARD]

Tsukumo Nemu is there, but doesn’t really do anything in this book. Aside from instilling JDC representative Ajiro Souji’s “stupid parental feelings” and indirectly making him remember his dead son Souya, that is. [Have I ever mentioned that my favourite JDC AU is the one in which Ajiro inexplicably becomes the dad to Juku, Nemu, and the Ryuuguu siblings in addition to his own son? Just the 30-something Ajiro and a bunch of quirky genius kids he’s dadding over. Perfect.]

Amagi Hyouma is distraught after his work partner Yakuma Suzume was arrested for drug possession. Yakuma was a JDC detective whose reasoning ability was at its height when he subjected himself to risky activities like bungee jumping. Adrenaline and all. Nicknamed “Akuma”, or demon.

Later Hyouma is entrusted by Ajiro to take a bottle of alcohol to Yaiba as a get-well-soon gift, but predictably drinks it all right there in JDC’s lobby – his own meta-reasoning method relies on him getting drunk and, well, it didn't have the best influence on his life. Hyouma thinks a lot about his mysterious past: he can’t remember his parents, and all that his early childhood left him are vague memories of a terrifying fire and burn marks he usually hides under his bandana. He still dearly remembers his dead girlfriend Takabe Yuu (the one who died in Cosmic) and always wears a locket with her picture.

Later in the hospital Hyouma spends some time playing UNO with a fairly new detective Suzukaze Unomaru. Unomaru talks and dresses like a samurai completely with a wooden sword strapped to his back. His reasoning power increases when he’s playing card games (any and all, though UNO is his favorite), and in fact he got hospitalized because he’d somehow fucked up his hands due to too intense card game playing.

Later Hyouma is given a lift back to JDC by Kasumi Fuyuka (whose D-name, that is her “detective nickname”, is Fuyuu Kasumi), who’s similar in looks to Kirika and reasons better while she’s sleeping. (I'm starting to think they just pick someone's characteristic at random and call it a reasoning method.). The two were an item once, but nowadays Kasumi is more into someone else.

That someone else is Christmas Mizuno, a girly young man wearing all red except for the white shirt. People often call him Joya (“New Year’s Eve”) as he was born on 31st December. He’s the younger brother of the late meta-detective Pyramid Mizuno (who was ironically the one born on Christmas), and has a baby sister simply called JDC (born on the anniversary of the establishment of JDC). He was once Ajiro Souya’s friend in school, and sort of became a detective inspired by him. As of recently, Christmas became Ryuuguu Jounosuke’s assistant. His reasoning, sometimes called “anti-reasoning”, is kinda… searching for the truth via randomly wandering around or rambling to eventually stumble into the right thing. It doesn’t help that he has zero sense of direction. He’s trying his best, but can clearly see the barrier of talent between him and the big name detectives. Really wants a stuffed Catbus.

Ryuuguu Jounosuke hasn't changed much – still wears the same black clothes everyday, loves word plays, has autistic traits out the wazoo, is as aroace as they come (yay!), and is affectionately known as “JDC’s greatest weirdo”, or sometimes “the black-wearing Joker” because of his cheerful disposition. He’s horrible around machines and WILL break your laptop or phone if you let him as much as touch it, which is in a way really impressive. Ryuuguu lately feels exasperated because of one of JDC’s new detectives…

... Somedaring Amagoi [or Same Darling Amagoi? It's romanized differently on the cover and in the annex]. She's pretty much the teenage female version of Ryuuguu (that is, a walking pun hell), except she dresses like a shrine maiden. Her D-name is Amagoi Samidaare? (yes, with the question mark), but most people call her Ittai-chan because of how often she says “ittai” (“what the hell”). She considers Ryuuguu her teacher and constantly challenges him to riddle battles. Even Ryuuguu is a little done with it at this point.

On the day most of Carnival Eve is happening, Ryuuguu is giving a welcome to a new detective who has recently passed the hellishly difficult JDC entry exam. It’s Hoshino Tae, the very same person that survived the Geneijo case. Tae accepts a D-name that Ryuuguu created for her: Fuumonji Jouka, which honors the memory of Tae’s brother known under his pen name of Fuumonji Kousei.

Another future detective is Yuiga Dokuson. For now we’re just told that he was Hyouma’s school friend. Emphasis on “was”. Dokuson is a self-proclaimed narcissist (his reasoning method apparently relying on that) who claims to be thousands of years old, and rumour has it that he once drove a man to suicide simply by talking to him. If Tsukumo Juku’s beauty could be described as godly, Dokuson’s unusual good looks (fortunately not to the point of making others faint) feel like the demonic equivalent. Hyouma doesn’t have the highest opinion of the guy, and is pretty pissed off that Ajiro let the dude come anywhere near JDC.

As for other JDC detectives we haven’t met yet, there are two we need to mention:

Ushiwaka Gigolo (that’s her D-name, not real name) usually dresses in traditionally male clothing, and while she may seem brash and bold at first sight, she’s actually very amiable. Her reasoning abilities rise whenever she falls head over heels for someone, but as soon as the case at hand is solved the feelings for the partner fizzle out completely, which understandably leads to Problems. While she feels attraction to any gender, it seems she likes other ladies the most. It’s mentioned that a lot of female JDC employees certainly like her a lot. Think of that what you will. [...I don’t think I have to point out that having your bi/pan character be the one who’s defined by changing partners like socks is uhhhh not good.]

Kakuusan Kanke (this D-name being a pun on a relationship triangle) is a talkative woman with round glasses and okappa hair which gave her a nickname “Kappa”. Her reasoning ability soars whenever she’s jealous about something (a relationship, talent, fame…). Before JDC she worked as a DJ. She’s also an amateur hypnotist, weirdly enough. Kakuusan and Ushiwaka worked in a trio with another female detective, who unfortunately was murdered fairly recently.

While we’re looking at JDC, we should mention that Ajiro Souji’s usual secretary Hanto Maimu had to recently take maternity leave. (She already named her yet unborn kid Hanto Kuraimu. 'Crime Hunt'. That’s metal.) The new secretary is Mito Muramasa, a young office worker guy with low levels of self-confidence who’s fairly anxious all the time, described as evoking maternal instincts in everyone, and who basically isn’t sure how to adult properly and feels completely out of place. Relatable.

For reasons that will only come into play much, much later, we also have to mention one of JDC’s security guards called Nakamoto Hiroya, whose secret dream is to become a writer.

--

As for the God of Detectives Tsukumo Juku, he’s taken a paid leave -- which he never does, mind you -- to return to Shunkashuutou, the Tsukumo family’s residence in Shimane Prefecture. He invited two people along.

One is Tousen Yomiko, a private detective specializing in criminal psychology who was Juku's childhood friend and at one point in life his fiancée. Yomiko previously showed up in Cosmic helping others solve the Jackie the Ripper case. Just like Juku, Yomiko has the atmosphere of being an extremely loving and understanding person to the point that it kinda wraps around to feeling uncanny. Yomiko’s father Yomi was good friends with Juku’s father, and in fact was the one to built Shunkashuutou.

The other invited person is Inugami Yasha, now around 17-year-old private detective who helped JDC during Cosmic. Walking to Shunkashuutou, Yasha accidentally remembers that time he saw Juku’s eyes and faints (hfjsjkhf), and while he’s unconscious the black cat he brought along goes missing. The cat had been entrusted to Yasha by a randomly met dying man who introduced himself as Kanai Hidetaka, or Employee D who once worked in Geneijo. [Kanai Hidetaka is our world's Seiryoin's real name, btw.] The cat is called Kanaihidetaka ( Yasha says you’re not supposed to split that name, so I write it together). Apparently it’s connected to something called “the last case of humanity” that also has to do with a mysterious "Shinrui” (Yasha has no clue what it is, but thinks it should be written with the kanji meaning “God's tear”).

In a conversation with Yasha, Yomiko reveals that there’s something that even Juku still can’t solve -- he still can’t figure out the tricks to his father Saimon Ryuusui's “Miraculous Illusions”. The illusions in question were only ever shown once, and only to little Juku, before his father died during the Saimon Family Murder Case. The Miraculous Illusions were still unfinished at the time, but Juku thinks that if they were perfected, they could lead to some sort of an “ultimate trick”.

As for the missing cat, there’s a Shimane legend about people and animals being spirited away, so who knows if that didn’t happen to Kanaihidetaka too? But thankfully the cat is soon found by Juku, and everything's fine. (For now.)

THE ACTUAL PLOT (what little there is of it for now):

Hoshino Tae / Fuumonji Jouka brings to JDC a letter that Dakushoin Ryusui sent her a long time ago. It was sent on 26th October 1993… that is, during the Geneijo case. It contains another envelope and a curt note from Dakushoin asking the recipient not to open it until the date given (yesterday as of now). The envelope contains a short story consisting of 7 acts and called:

ANOTHER JOKER ---The Revised Detective Myth (But The Culprit Is The Same?)

[Note: Joker’s full title is Joker: Detective Myth As The Old Testament]

This short somewhat absurd story takes place in a building without an entrance or exit called Gensoukan (Phantom House? Phantom Mansion? Either way, it’s a clear riff off of Geneijo). Aside from the lead character – Ryuuguu Jounosuke – the story features only people who are already dead: Kirigirisu Tarou (apparently the owner of Gensoukan) with his wife Kano; Ajiro Souya; everyone else who died in Geneijo; as well as Kosugi the butler and his son, who both died during the Locked Room Lord case. (Incidentally, the kid’s name is now furigana’d as Katsutoshi and not Shouri like it was in Cosmic and Joker. This is never explained, but I’ll go with my Meta Instinct and assume this is an intentional change. None of the detectives reading the short story seems to notice the change. Oh, and the kid is reading a certain book called Joker. Meta intensifies.)

Another Joker’s Ryuuguu is quite confused about how he got into Gensoukan and why all the dead people he saw die in Geneijo are alive and acting like nothing happened, but he feels like he may as well go with the flow and solve the case. The victim is one Employee O, or Ousetsu Kan. The locked room he was in burned down. Witnesses heard the victim yell something like “dou, dou”. While everyone was running around and trying to break the door open, the victim must have tried to extinguish the fire by turning on water, but he was too late to save himself from burning down to a pile of bone fragments. (Ryuuguu realizes that a normal fire wouldn't be hot enough to leave only bones, but whatever, this is Gensoukan, it’s weird.) There seemed to be more bones left than just one man would have, though. The only other clue is a message carved into the floor that “the culprit is ZI”.

Murder aside, two animals held in Gensoukan's stable went missing: a man-eating horse called SIKA (“deer”) and a deer called UMA (“horse”).

Ryuuguu was apparently chosen to be in Gensoukan as Dakushoin's guest, whatever this means. Dakushoin helps the investigation by making a map of Gensoukan including everyone present's name and room location. This helps Ryuuguu eventually figure out the case and who 'the Joker' (the culprit) is. He gathers everyone in the recreation room to explain it, but the story ends just as he points and yells “You are the Joker!”

Attached to the story is a short bonanzagram (a riddle in which you substitute free spaces with letters) that prompts the reader of Another Joker to fill it in with the answers to the case.

–

The real Ryuuguu Jounosuke and Tae / Jouka solve the story's case incredibly quickly, but still have to help Christmas through his own stumbly reasoning.

The title having that But The Culprit Is The Same? part would seemingly point to whoever committed the Geneijo murders as the culprit of the story.

However, Christmas says that the person he suspects is not the culprit of Geneijo, but the Kosugi boy. [A statement which should give everyone who read Joker a long pause, but then again, Juku and Yaiba probably didn’t reveal the truth to anyone.] Ryuuguu and Jouka think the boy is just a red herring here.

Christmas’s next guess is the story’s rendition of Nijikawa Ryou. The map that Another Joker’s Dakushoin made has everyone’s pen name and real name. Everyone without a pen name has a note that “(Real Name Is The Same)”. However, Nijikawa Ryou has a slightly different note that “(Real Name = The Same)”, which can be read as him being called The Same, and since The Culprit Is The Same...

If a person was called 同じ, onaji (The Same), then the last name would be Ona and the first name would be Ji. Or maybe the last name would be Dou (same kanji, different reading) and the first name Ji. The syllable “ji” can be romanized as “zi”. And that’s why the victim yelled “Dou, Dou!” (the murderer’s last name!) and the dying message said that “the culprit is ZI”.

[I feel like this is a good time to remember Juku’s final observation in Joker about Dakushoin’s manuscript having a message that mina onaji, or “Everyone’s The Same”. I sense multiple meanings here.]

Since Story Nijikawa shared alibi with Story Miyama Kaoru (they were playing hanafuda in the recreation room), this means they were partners in crime, and maybe lovers. See, there’s apparently a proverb that “the one who interferes in love will die kicked by a horse”, so the two could symbolically use a horse as a murder weapon to deal with Ousetsu Kan, who threatened their relationship in some way.

Nijikawa planned to get the horse and the victim in the same room, scare the horse with fire and make it trample the victim. Things went awry and Nijikawa had to flee the now burning room. The victim locked the door in fear of Nijikawa returning and tried to extinguish the fire, but the unhinged horse ate him. The bones found at the scene belonged to the horse.

As for what happened to the deer, well, there’s this proverb that “the person who chases a deer does not see the mountain”. Yama, mountain, is also a term for a card deck. Like the hanafuda card deck Nijikawa and Miyama used. Hanafuda, which has a deer card in it. The deer called UMA was a card all along, and Nijikawa hid it inside a deck of cards in the recreation room.

[A somewhat absurd story, as I said.]

--

The filled-in bonanzagram looks something like this:

“KAN died. HANnin [culprit] ZI. UMA was brought into GORAKUshitsu [the recreation room]. DEKOI [the person used as a 'decoy' killer] was the KOSUGI boy.”

Ryuuguu and Jouka notice that there's a hidden message obtainable by making an anagram of all the filled-in letters. Poor Christmas Mizuno feels inadequate as he's not able to guess it as easily as these two did (and the reader will share his pain of being denied the knowledge of the message before the end of the book). Concerned about the message, Ryuuguu brings the story to Ajiro, who then arranges one-on-one meetings with each of the big name detectives to ask them what they personally think of it.

While this is happening, Ryuuguu thinks about a dream he had that night in which he talked to someone. He can’t actually remember anything else, but he has a vague feeling that the dream was important. What was it about...? 

–

[This chapter is called “The real short story: Cosmic Zero”]

Ryuuguu is in some empty space in which he can only hear Dakushoin's voice. Dakushoin talks about vague and weird things, about space-time curved into a Moebius strip in which the cases are recurring again and again, and the dead are coming back to live and repeating their deaths without noticing.

Ryuuguu asks about Another Joker and the manuscript from the Locked Room Lord case. Just how much does Dakushoin know if he was able to hint at future events in them? Dakushoin answers that since Ryuuguu will forget this conversation even happened (because it shouldn’t be happening in the first place), there's no harm in telling him some things.

A plan to exterminate all humanity is under way. It started back in 1979 with the Saimon Family Murder Case, one of the Four Great Tragedies. The other three are the Geneijo case, the Locked Room Lord case, and the future Twin Disappeareance case of 1999. The Crime Olympics are not included in the Four Great Tragedies, as it's a worldwide event that doesn't concern just Japan, and it's really just a preparation for the last Tragedy.

The Twin Disappearance case will be the last one. Then, on the night of the last day of the current century – 31st December 2000 – Tsukumo Juku will be murdered, and the human race will perish soon after.

All of the culprits of those giant cases – Shiroyasha, the Artist, the Locked Room Lord, Kamikakushi of the Twin Disappearance case, as well as the Billion Killer of the Crime Olympics – are nothing more than decoys. They are all controlled by a mysterious Tsukumo Jaki (九十九邪鬼), who will be the one to kill Juku. Tsukumo Jaki is apparently someone Ryuuguu knows – why, it's one of his fellow detectives!

Ryuuguu is upset, but Dakushoin points out that since he'll forget this anyway, and all is destined, there's no reason to care a lot about it now. The two have a conversation about language and writing, and Dakushoin hints at there being a root language that all others came from, and that Ryuuguu should look into it.

Finally they bid each other goodbye. Dakushoin says that he himself can only return to 'the beginning' and tread the same path over and over again, but Ryuuguu can now continue walking forward in new time.

[End of Cosmic Zero]

--

The hidden message is finally revealed:

KAN HAN ZI UMA GORAKU DEKOI KOSUGI --->

HANZAI GORIN SUGU KOKO DE KAIMAKU

“The Crime Olympics will be starting here soon.”

–

At exactly 1 PM on 10th August 1996, the Crime Olympics really do start.

With the JDC building -- and about 300 detectives inside it -- exploding.

And that's where Carnival Eve ends.

[To be continued in Carnival]

#sparkly reads carnival eve #maijo and jdc stuff #can't imagine how people waited for carnival for 2 years after that ending

[sparklyjojos]

75% into Cosmic, these really turned into mini-recaps after all huh

Nemu and Kirika fly to England to deliver the manuscript to Juku. Nemu thinks a lot about her brother, mostly about how different their personalities are. Nemu’s burning wish to Make The World Better gives her fiery determination, but also stirs up intense hatred towards bad people. Juku on the other hand is according to her infinitely merciful and understanding, ‘overflowing with love’ even, and gives the impression of being somewhat detached, as if he transcends this world or attained nirvana. Nemu is forever grateful to Juku for always supporting her, which gave her the courage to try and become a detective despite her color blindness getting in the way (it’s described as seeing in grey, so I’m guessing it’s achromatopsia). She calls Juku ‘兄さま‘ (nii-sama) -- a very respectful way.

--

Meanwhile in Japan... Amagi Hyoma is searching around the place where Ajiro and Juku have once seen the mysterious old man, sort of a delta made by rivers intersecting. He’s talking with some random lady called Yuu that I’m guessing is his girlfriend? We learn about “meta-detectives”, those whose reasoning is based on getting a ‘divine revelation’ of sorts. There are three meta-detectives in JDC: Juku with his Jintsuuriki power; Hyoma with ‘subconscious reasoning’ (ie. he drinks and sleeps a lot and gets enlightened in those states, lol); and the late Pyramid Mizuno. The way meta-detectives work is explained in a bit complicated way: if we consider the criminal to be a ‘writer’, then those detectives are able to understand ‘the intent’ of ‘the writer’.

Meanwhile in JDC... Ryuuguu and Hikimiya talk about the case. Ryuuguu’s bugged by one of the first victims having unusual writing on their back -- instead of the expected ‘locked room 9′, it’s ‘murder 9′. He even suspects that this is a dying message telling them the murders may have been in fact suicides (since ‘murder 9′ = ‘murder nine’ = ‘murder nein’ = ‘no murder’, lmao). Hikimiya’s not convinced, since how on earth would some of the victims cut off their own head and put it in a different place, and why there’s never a weapon found around? Ryuuguu also tells Hikimiya about his suspicions that Ajiro and Shiranui may have actually discovered what’s going on already, but have reasons not to share their knowledge with anyone else.

Meanwhile in Dakushoin’s house... bothered by the case, Nagisa retrieves an item from his urn that Dakushoin told her to bury with his ashes. Said item is a box containing 10 floppy disks. [...yep, it’s 1994 alright.] When the detectives check them out, they find files containing the text of the manuscript, as well as a letter from Dakushoin. In the letter, he admits that he wrote ‘The Locked Room Legend’ (that’s what’s the manuscript overall is called), that it was written for the Locked Room Lord but also that writing it wouldn’t be possible without said person, that he wants it to become as famous as Genji Monogatari in the future, and even considers the events about to happen [the case] more of a necessary ‘ritual’ than a murder. The letter is dated 24 XII 1993, which would be almost two months after Dakushoin’s death. Also, one of the ten floppy disks seems to be missing from the box, but from what they can tell no one could put their hands on the urn between the burial and now.

--

Meanwhile in England... Kirika and Nemu arrive in London, reunite with Juku and Yomiko, and meet Inugami Yasha and Lonely Queen. The last one, btw, is apparently ‘a secret child of a secret child’ of Ellery Queen, who in this universe seems to have been a real detective. Later that night, Kirika spends a lot of time thinking about very important stuff, like ‘what kind of women Juku may like’, as apparently she has a crush or something. While she realizes she’s probably wrong about it, she gets the impression that Juku may not even have ‘the lowly feelings expected to be there between men and women’ [and I’d be totally down for aroace Juku, but Kirika’s assumption is in context kinda dehumanizing and clearly meant to be the ‘he’s so pure it seems like he can’t have ~normal human desires~’ thing and I’m... uncomfortable]

Anyway, Juku and Yasha plan to spend the entire night over the manuscript. It’s not a problem for Yasha, whose reasoning is actually based on not sleeping for ridiculous amount of time (even 90h straight) to ‘get the mind clear’ -- he’s a yet unrecognized meta-detective, just like the others relying on the subconscious to solve cases. (Which apparently is very hard to practice near Juku, as his voice is so warm and calming it makes you want to go to sleep).

--

MEANWHILE in JDC (this book likes to jump around places a lot). We learn that Pyramid Mizuno’s younger brother, Christmas Mizuno (...I am so sorry about your name, dude) is planning to take the entrance test to JDC, and Ajiro hopes he could fill the meta-detective-shaped hole that Pyramid left in the organization.

Then the detectives learn about a new victim: it’s one of the policemen they were working with, who’s been on sick leave for a few days. Apparently the bed-ridden feverish man somehow went to an entirely different prefecture just to jump (fall? be pushed?) in front of a train. His corpse doesn’t have a head and the writing on his back matches that of the Locked Room Lord’s other victims.

On a meeting later, Hikimiya unleashes his statistics reasoning skills. He assesses that to find the Locked Room Lord they must search for someone who satisfies 5 conditions (has the freedom to go around killing, is intelligent enough to design the locked rooms, is strong enough to behead someone, knows his way around old documents, and is someone Dakushoin knew). Hikimiya also shows everyone his meta-analysis of the manuscript text, such as ‘how many times every character’s name is mentioned per page’. In a roundabout way this allowed him to notice that in one story there’s a phrase ‘流水の中の清涼’ [the same that Kirika remembered seeing somewhere]. This phrase, when shuffled around becomes 清涼中流水= 清涼in流水=‘Seiryoin Ryusui”, and if you assign different kanji to the sounds, you get 濁暑院溜水= ‘Dakushoin Ryusui’.

--

Meanwhile, Hyoma is after four days still hanging around the river in pouring rain, and pretty damn drunk. In this state he actually does find an old man sitting on the bank fishing, who introduces himself as Hikami Sensai and claims he’s 1000 years old. Sensai is very enigmatic, says he’s ‘fishing for time’ and a lot of other cryptic things. He admits that he is, indeed, the Locked Room Lord... but so is Hyoma, and every other human who knows about the Locked Room Lord. As he explains: since ‘cogito ergo sum’, that means an individual makes a word for himself, and is trapped in it [in his perception of the world I guess?]. The last things Sensai says before vanishing is that this mystery cannot be solved, and,

“The truth of the locked room is waiting... a waiting place. Like waiting for death.”

#sparkly reads cosmic #maijo and jdc stuff #long post #wordplays and paranormal old men and meta oh my