originally posted at https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/163172...
@anarcha-catgirlism may have insight into the whole “‘existence’“ vs. “existence” thing:
on the quesiton of existence vs ‘existence’ I have never played these games, and certainly not in japanese but I would hazard a guess that the distinction that might be being drawn is between 存在する (the common way to say “to exist” but that is perhaps more literally “to have [a] presence”) vs 実在する (“to exist” as opposed to being a myth. “to exist in fact” if you will)
That makes a lot of sense to me. If I found the script, it might be possible to confirm it.
It’s 6am on October 5 1986. The chapter is called ‘Halloween’.
We begin with Kinzo, waking up at 6am (as he apparently always does) and noticing the light of dawn in his study, i.e., he has survived the night. He wonders whether it was the wards on his study, or just luck. He suppresses the ‘human’ urge to check for signs outside the door, and the narration suggests this rejection of ‘human desire’ was the key to his success. Questionable.
Startlingly, Kinzo seems to be aware - unlike the others - of the time loop. He says he will not ‘shame’ himself ‘like last time’. So he remembers? :O
We start seeing who’s still alive. Last time, the first to die were Gohda, Shannon, Rosa, Rudolf, Kyrie and Krauss. This time, we quickly learn Gohda and Shannon made it this far. Genji and Kanon are also alive.
Shannon goes into the dining room and finds it empty. Well, we know the adults went to the chapel to see a demonstration of some kind from Beatrice. Someone has left a note saying only ‘chapel’.
Genji wakes up Rosa in the guest house. So we know she made it too. He says something has happened at the chapel. He doesn’t seem super agitated though. The narration is cagey about what happened: Genji whispers to Rosa, and we don’t hear what he whispers, just the implication that it was strange.
We learn the chapel is not attached to the mansion, but some distance away. It’s… ridiculously extravagant? Like, bigger than chapels at Cambridge colleges, which serve hundreds of students?
Like apart from the fact that the windows on the inside don’t seem to match the outside at all, this could easily be a town’s church.
Anyway, all the servants except Kumasawa are outside the chapel.
Once again, the Seventh Pentragram of the Sun is once again painted in what’s probably blood. So we can predict that all the parent group except Rosa are the first sacrifices this time around.
Rosa notes the handwriting on the note isn’t one of her siblings’ writing.
This time there’s an extra bit of writing: “Happy HALLOWEEN for MARIA” written in English. Rosa remembers that Beatrice said the same to Maria the day before.
The servants note that they couldn’t find any of the adults except Maria. I wonder why.
Genji says there’s only one key that can open the chapel, and it’s been taken from the key box. They’d have to break a window to get in. Rosa suddenly remembers the letter Beatrice gave Maria.
She goes and sneaks into the kids’ room and gets the letter out of Maria’s handbag. It has… a key inside it! Which it evidently didn’t before.
Sounds like magic! But to be fair, if Rosa can sneak in without waking Maria, it’s not implausible that someone else could come in and switch the envelopes.
So anyway, to make a long story short, Beatrice has set out a table covered in sweets for a halloween party, murdered the six adults apart from Rosa, and set their corpses up around the table as if they’re eating.
She’s specifically cut their stomachs open and made it seem like the candies have spilled out. Gross. The narrator spends some time describing gory stuff, which I will spare you.
As before: Rosa instructs the servants to call the police and talk to Kinzo. That will probably go about as well as last time.
Cut to the cousins, in the mansion, unaware of what’s happened. Battler has some recollection of Rosa taking Maria’s letter. Maria is, naturally, quite upset.
Gohda and Kanon show up and summon Nanjo. Naturally, the kids follow. We basically get a repeat of that scene in the first episode where they first discover the bodies and scream a lot.
And now we cut to meta!Battler. He’s pissed off with meta!Beatrice.
Beatrice is like, hey, this time I left their faces intact as a favour to you!
She explains that this eliminates the possibility that one of the corpses is fake, and one of the known people is responsible for the murders. OK, sure, but haven’t we already rendered that unlikely by having Beatrice show up in person on the island? She’s the natural culprit, but it doesn’t mean she’s a witch.
Beatrice taunts Battler, telling him to examine the corpses to satisfy himself that they’re dead. We get another ahaha.wav overlaid with Beatrice’s voice acting.
Back in the narrative, Battler drops his DAME DA ZEN ZEN DAME DA catchphrase:
Glands.
As we expected, the police are unreachable by phone or radio.
Jessica runs out to go confront Beatrice as the obvious culprit. Rosa sends the servants to stop her.
Maria this time doesn’t hesitate to explain that Beatrice is a witch, carrying out the ritual sacrifices described in the epitaph. She states it’s Halloween, but that’s not true since it’s not 31 Oct? As they say in the game, Halloween is apparently barely celebrated in Japan (more of a cosplay festival than trick-or-treating) and it’s kind of controversial, but I see no mention of it being on a different day.
In any case, they find a letter from Beatrice on the pile of bloodstained sweets. It’s marked ‘to those who remain’. (Recalling ‘those who remain will tear apart the two who are close’…)
It’s not encouraging people to tear apart George and Sayo. It’s in fact the same letter that was read out at dinner in the previous episode, announcing Beatrice’s collection of interest on the gold, and stipulating the get-out clause of solving the riddle and finding the gold.
Speaking of gold… this time Beatrice has put three gold bars among the sweets, which they initially mistook for candy boxes (apparently gold bar shaped candy boxes are a thing?). George quickly assesses the value as about 60 million yen.
The chapter ends with Maria saying she doesn’t think anyone can solve the riddle. The next one is about Jessica and Kanon.
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