Part 8: Day 5, Part 1
We've been getting off-topic, but I have to say that the preceding discussion has made me kind of glad I never read farther than the first Ring novel.Also, regarding the five-song sampler from iTunes, it's got the normal version of the song, the glitched-out version, a sort of plinky, almost music-boxy version, a more upbeat eight-bit arrangement, and a version played on a recorder. No orchestral version, though.
Well, then, onwards to...
[Nanto University, Professor Ohyama's Office]
Ohyama: The president, Mr. Yutani, is dead.
The composer, Louise Noma; the designer, Sawamura Hisashi; the programmer, Nagira Norimitsu -- these three people were all named on the Utasoft employee list, but they've all vanished and their current whereabouts are unknown.
The disharmony within the company may have contributed to the company's downfall, but the real cause must have been all these disappearances.
Erika: Yeah, I imagine it's pretty hard to make video games when all your employees are missing or dead.
Ohyama: But the director, Ikuta Ushio, seems to have escaped the fate of the others, and there's a good chance that he's still alive.
Ohyama: You know, you've really exceeded my expectations.
Erika: I have?
Ohyama: You've found out the structure of -- no, the method for dealing with the curse faster than I would have thought possible.
...
...
...
Erika: Professor, please stop staring at me like that, it's kind of creepy.
Ohyama: ... Erika.
It seems certain that the game that the cursed game used as a source was created by Utasoft. But why was that particular game chosen to bear the curse? Just what did Mr. Ikuta do? That's what's been weighing on my mind.
Erika: So how do you propose to find out?
Ohyama: The employee register also listed Mr. Ikuta's address. I don't know if he's still living there or not, but... there might be something there worth checking out.
Erika: Okay, then, let's go.
Ohyama: While you do that, I'm going to examine Odaka's TS one more time before I have to take it back to the police station. I'm sorry, but I shall have to ask you to visit Mr. Ikuta's home by yourself.
Erika:... I should have seen that one coming.
[Ikuta Ushio's Residence]
Erika: So this is Ikuta's place... could someone really be living here?
Video #19: The Ikuta Residence
Video #20: Daddy's Girl
Video #21: Skeletons in the Closet
Next time on Let's Play Nanashi no Game, things get bad.
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Ohyama's e-mail posted:
I found out something I hadn't foreseen: Mr. Ikuta's house has been foreclosed on and is currently up for auction. So he can't be living there now. It seems that since the company he worked for dissolved, he couldn't pay off his loans. Poor guy...
By the way, have you noticed? Ikuta's name comes up a number of times in the game. Maybe he's already...
Fun facts:
- On the outside of Ikuta's house, along with the boards over the doors and windows, you can see some slips of paper which I believe are protective talismans meant to keep out evil spirits. Much like Odaka's holy water, it doesn't seem to have worked too well.
- Everything the little girl says is written in katakana, which is one of the Japanese phonetic alphabets and is usually used either to indicate a foreign loan word or for emphasis (the way we might use italics or, well, capslock). In written dialogue it can sometimes be used to imply that someone has an accent or otherwise sounds funny. Here it might be meant to suggest a young child who's not very good at writing yet (think of it as if she's printing in block capitals because she hasn't quite mastered the idea of lowercase). Or it might just be meant to make her stand out, who knows.
- The Japanese(/Chinese) character you can sometimes see in the game's graphic glitches means "death". (Much like the number four! Okay, I'm done with that running joke.)