Occam's razor? Fair enough. Agreed! I'll still wait to see, as the outcome could lead to another point of interest in the story, as a shift in perspective or focus.
Not exactly Occam’s razor, but overall you’ve grasped the essence correctly.
In my view, the author is rather superficial in the meticulousness of certain moments; on the other hand, as far as I know, MITA is a big fan of old crimes and often reads about them, as he himself has said.
As for all the theories, we’ve put forward dozens of hypotheses, and the dullest one always won — Singo’s wig was the only real surprise in the entire story.
In general, reading his previous works, you can’t say that MITA always follows one template and never flips the story with a final twist; the relatively popular manga
Scandal in Neon Tokyo isn’t really a good comparison here.
And yes, MITA is perfectly capable of delivering a fairly naïve and far-fetched outcome — “it was all a neural network” or “there are two Rikas who are twins,” and so on.
Once again, I want to share my useless opinion with you, and once again I’m waiting for your take on this 🙂
1) Rika’s phone call.
With the new arc, the author is doing everything he can to separate Rika from the “house.” One can assume this is entirely Misato’s initiative, since she made a mistake.
She allowed her younger sister to start talking about the “brothel house,” and Satsuki also stated that Misato is aware of this story.
She really has no choice but to support this line, while at the same time not giving Sousuke any reason to continue the investigation, essentially leading the thread of the search into nowhere.
However, the call itself and the way the contact is named — formal, including the surname — seems deliberately designed to show that they are not as close as we assume.
Readers, myself included, have noticed that we know nothing about Rika’s family.
And that the main figure in this whole disgusting group is not the younger Rika, but her mother, after whom she was named — Rika Miyase Sr., the matriarch of the family, so to speak.
2) The three-day period before meeting.
Many assume this is connected to Rika attempting, during Sousuke’s absence from home, to abduct Shiho or otherwise infiltrate the Yamada household.
But this doesn’t make much sense, since she could easily do this while Sousuke is at work; most likely he hasn’t changed the locks, and nothing prevents her from simply taking Shiho from school later.
Still, this timeframe was chosen by the author because of the three-act structure used in this manga — it is always maintained in the main storylines.
3) My last question for now is more conceptual.
Three weeks have passed. What is the point of this waiting, and what does Rika want?
The work hints - including through the “trap” set by Misato (although I personally tend to believe it was her own initiative, but I’ll reveal that theory after chapter 68) - that Rika’s goal is to break, subjugate, or otherwise secure her own safety.
But if we step back from that, why take such a risk?
Sousuke has no evidence; as you said, she has patrons, and if they exist, then Sousuke’s path if he tries to investigate this is literally a path to the grave. She has nothing to worry about.
Without any doubt, Rika does not tolerate disobedience and does not accept defeat — that’s the only explanation.
But if she accepts this, she would have to admit that she is not omnipotent and that Sousuke is no longer the blind idiot he once was.
But all of this is essentially sophistry.
On the other hand, we have another example - her hometown. She, or her entire family, has already fled once, just as Rika is doing now, and I think they not only disgraced themselves but also left a deep mark on all the residents, who not only don’t want to talk but are afraid to do so.
Perhaps this is about that behavioral pattern.
In the end - yes, blackmail with divorce plus compromising material is logical and fits the spirit of the manga, but if things go wrong, defeat would lead her to collapse.
If we imagine that she was the one who directed Misato to carry out this plan, then she essentially brought closer to Sousuke a person who, unlike Singo, knows much more. At the same time, Misato is a woman, which means the situation could lead to a physical confrontation with Sousuke in which she might not necessarily win.
Misato knows too much, and quite recently Rika was already betrayed by a pawn - Singo - and now she’s making the same mistake again. If this is the case, then her “intellect” has been greatly overestimated by readers.
If Rika were truly a manipulator and a woman well-versed in using her charm, she should have been softer.
Fake tears, a bit of lying, reconciliation - and later a request to move. That way she would have preserved everything.
She had three weeks for this, and after talking with her own daughter, she would have learned that Sousuke was already broken and ready for a conversation.
But no, she didn’t do that.
The first thing she should have done was to regain control over Sousuke, but instead she hands everything over to another person, once again losing control of the situation.
The only thing that comes to my mind that could explain why she might perceive a greater threat to herself - greater than what we’ve been shown - is the testimonies of Singo and Shiratori.
Testimonies that were hidden from us. Yes, maybe they’ll appear in the extra chapters of volume 6, but I strongly doubt it.
