Hen na E - Vol. 3 Ch. 12 - Mountain Hike in Memoriam

[7goat]

Don't invite the murder suspect to re-enact a murder scene! What are you thinking!

Edit: I thought this case was going to be 4 chapters long just like the previous stories, but now I gotta wait some more...

 

[Hmnn]

Binging this manga in one sitting, regarding this vol/arc, I can't help questioning two things that I don't think I see mentioned in these 4 chapters:

1) Why is the discussed time of death seemingly only based on Toyokawa's testimony? We got the autopsy result, right? But why "all" the info we got from the autopsy is just the fact that "his last meal is the bento, still undigested --> he died within 3 hours after that meal." The body's stiffening & cooling down (sorry forgot the proper scientific/medical term) should give more precise time window of the murder, right? No mention of it in the autopsy result? We wouldn't even have the "Toyokawa lied and Miura still alive till the next morning" debate otherwise.

2) How about the crime scene's investigation? Blood stains in the surrounding area? Any signs of struggle, especially since it was deduced Miura's hands were tied (hence the grid picture)? Also the pic: so the murderer put the receipt back into Miura's wallet after the murder? Just because they didn't think it'd lead to them/the culprit? Why not just leave it on its original place? Or at least put it in the bag, make it more so that people wouldn't even bother to think too deeply about it?

 

[reylee]

Gonna put on my Kurihara specs and write down a theory I've been building the past few weeks.

I said above that I suspect granny is connected to every picture/murder in this story, and here's my thinking.

I still believe she's A-ko, and therefore murdered her mother, although another reader pointed out the psychologist looks around the same age as granny, which is giving me pause for thought. Makes me wonder if the psychologist is a makeup wizard, too.

As for Miura's murder, I believe the time of death was somewhat spoiled by chapter 9, it shows that he was still alive when it was dark out, so the supposed 5:00 pm time for the murder seems wrong. As another reader pointed out, his drawing seems to indicate he was alive when it was bright again, sometime early morning before he was discovered. Whatever the case, the time of death is now uncertain. Now Toyokawa and Miura's wife had alibis for early the next morning after the hike, so it seems unlikely they were the murderers (if they were, the murder would have to be around 3-4 am, too dark for Miura's drawing). But another reader had a theory that kind of appeals to me, which is that Yuki was an accomplice. Now I don't see any evidence or motive for this, but a few things do fall into place if this is true. Yuki and Miura's wife perhaps worked together to tie up Miura, the wife leaves the mountain, leaving Yuki to do the murdering, and so the wife has an alibi for the next morning (and Yuki seemingly doesn't).

As for Toyokawa, it seems suspicious that he disappeared from the trail the day of the hike, so it seems pretty plausible he was stalking Miura, too. Makes me wonder if maybe all three suspects were working together, and therefore all three of them now have dirt on each other. Toyokawa took advantage of this by making moves on the wife, she was unable to do much about it because he now had dirt on her. Makes me wonder what he's doing during the stalker incident, or if he's even still alive.

As for Yuki, I don't really know what motive she could possibly have to be a part of the murder. But the way she hangs around the surviving Miura family seems to show that Yuki and Miura's wife had some sort of prior relationship (again, please don't be an incest story...), or maybe she was forced into this situation in some way. Years later, Yuki marries Mr. Miura's son, who I strongly believe is Takeshi (and therefore Miura's wife is granny). For one thing (and another reader already pointed this out), granny's and Takeshi's ages more or less matches Miura's wife and son (actually, the son MIGHT look a bit too young...). If my estimation's correct, granny would be 31-41 at the time of Miura's murder, and Takeshi would be 11-12. Another reason is, in his blog, Takeshi implied he wasn't allowed to play freely when he was little, and perhaps had some sort of fear of father figures, which does match what was revealed in chapter 9 during the interview with Miura's wife.

Perhaps Yuki felt guilt over being an accomplice, or maybe she and granny had a falling out, and granny feared that Yuki would rat her out. To silence her, granny planned to murder Yuki. Yuki, sensing that something was happening, made the future prediction drawings to tell Takeshi what was happening, but couldn't directly tell him what happened, because if she did, she would reveal that she was an accomplice (otherwise how would she know granny's the murderer of his father?). Now I had a hard time understanding how granny could have killed her during childbirth, but after reading the blog a few times, I wonder if it has something to do with the vitamin supplements. Yuki's heart palpitations seemed to have started after she started taking supplements. Since granny was the "third person" living with Takeshi and Yuki (or so I believe), maybe granny replaced or added something into the supplements and was counting on the strain of childbirth to give her some sort of heart attack. I only think this because Yuki's heart problem to me is a pretty conspicuous detail in the blog.

Meanwhile, Kumai survived his cancer (it's been 20 years, so presumably he got treatment), but maybe it came back and, figuring he had nothing to lose as a dying man, started to stalk granny to go after the one case he couldn't solve - instead, gets stabbed.

That's my current theory, but there are some holes. There's not much evidence to some of the stuff I said, I don't see any motive for why Yuki would be involved in her crush's murder (like I said before, perhaps she was forced to do so?), and inducing a heart attack to kill someone during childbirth seems to be a shot in the dark at best. Plus, unlike my previous theory, it doesn't explain why the hospital would give such terrible advice to Yuki regarding her breech baby. The only real reason I'm going with this is because granny seems to be involved in every major incident, and she seems to be what's tying all the stories together.

There's a very big issue with your hypothesis, which is that Miura is a family name (or surname) and so is Konno. This clearly separates the art teacher family Miura from the blogpost author family Konno. Japan is a patrilineal society meaning children inherit the family name of the father, and for females it's their maiden family name until they get married, at which point they take up the family name of the husband. So there's no way or reason for the grandma to be from Miura if she's going by Konno for official stuff like gravestone, memorial tablet of her son Takeshi, her rental apartment, her grandson registered name etc. I dunno why you thought Yuki looked like a grandma, for my Asian eyes I didn't find her depicted as old at all, though I dunno if you have conflated Yuki and the grandma at some point and confused them together. Anyway I posted my understanding of the chronology in the comments for ch. 13. Hopefully that helps you understand the events progression better.

Thanks for your TL and looking forward to the rest of the story. Btw, i think the name of Ren (used in the blogpost Nanashi no Ren) might be significant, what was the kanji used (if it was kanji)? The story just cut away from the point when the grandma was reminiscing about her son talking about coming up with Ren from his name Takeshi, but I would need the kanji to know the significance. I can understand Japanese btw.

 

[Tsama0]

There's a very big issue with your hypothesis, which is that Miura is a family name (or surname) and so is Konno. This clearly separates the art teacher family Miura from the blogpost author family Konno. Japan is a patrilineal society meaning children inherit the family name of the father, and for females it's their maiden family name until they get married, at which point they take up the family name of the husband. So there's no way or reason for the grandma to be from Miura if she's going by Konno for official stuff like gravestone, memorial tablet of her son Takeshi, her rental apartment, her grandson registered name etc. I dunno why you thought Yuki looked like a grandma, for my Asian eyes I didn't find her depicted as old at all, though I dunno if you have conflated Yuki and the grandma at some point and confused them together. Anyway I posted my understanding of the chronology in the comments for ch. 13. Hopefully that helps you understand the events progression better.

Thanks for your TL and looking forward to the rest of the story. Btw, i think the name of Ren (used in the blogpost Nanashi no Ren) might be significant, what was the kanji used (if it was kanji)? The story just cut away from the point when the grandma was reminiscing about her son talking about coming up with Ren from his name Takeshi, but I would need the kanji to know the significance. I can understand Japanese btw.

I did do research on this before. While it's true widows in Japan generally keep their married name, it's possible to revert to their maiden name after their spouse's death (quick google search tells me there's a process called 復氏届). The reason I thought granny was Miura's wife was because I believed all the separate stories were tied together somehow, and if that was true, granny being Miura's wife (and Ren/Takeshi being their son) seemed to make the most sense, seeing how Ren/Takeshi's age and granny's approximate age roughly matched the Miura family, and also why Kumai (the veteran reporter, later the stalker) seemed so interested in granny.

Spoiler for a future chapter in vol 4:

Spoiler

Miura's wife confirms in a future chapter that her and Miura's son is named Takeshi, which is the same name as granny's son.

I agree, though, a lot of my reasoning was kinda flimsy, I kind of went with one central assumption (that granny was the key to the whole story) and made a bunch of guesses based on that.

So yes, it's possible to revert to one's maiden name in Japan, but it's very unusual. It's also highly unusual to be buried under an individual tombstone (usually Japanese people are buried in a family grave). Not to mention claiming that your grandson is your son... Lotsa weirdness going on around this family.

As for Yuki, I don't believe I said she looked old, but I did say she looked a lot like granny (as in Takeshi's mother, Yuuta's grandmother). Somewhat similar haircut, similar face shape, similar build, etc. I'm not sure what to make of this similarity, but considering their relationship, it doesn't look like a coincidence, especially since granny seemed to take over Yuki's role as "mommy."

As for Ren, his name is written as 七篠レン. His real name, Takeshi, is written as 武司. You can actually read his blog here: https://nanashinoren.blog.jp/
And yes, if you can come up with any sort of explanation for how he came up with the name Ren, that would be awesome!

 

[reylee]

I did do research on this before. While it's true widows in Japan generally keep their married name, it's possible to revert to their maiden name after their spouse's death (quick google search tells me there's a process called 復氏届). The reason I thought granny was Miura's wife was because I believed all the separate stories were tied together somehow, and if that was true, granny being Miura's wife (and Ren/Takeshi being their son) seemed to make the most sense, seeing how Ren/Takeshi's age and granny's approximate age roughly matched the Miura family, and also why Kumai (the veteran reporter, later the stalker) seemed so interested in granny.

Spoiler for a future chapter in vol 4:

Spoiler

Miura's wife confirms in a future chapter that her and Miura's son is named Takeshi, which is the same name as granny's son.

I agree, though, a lot of my reasoning was kinda flimsy, I kind of went with one central assumption (that granny was the key to the whole story) and made a bunch of guesses based on that.

So yes, it's possible to revert to one's maiden name in Japan, but it's very unusual. It's also highly unusual to be buried under an individual tombstone (usually Japanese people are buried in a family grave). Not to mention claiming that your grandson is your son... Lotsa weirdness going on around this family.

As for Yuki, I don't believe I said she looked old, but I did say she looked a lot like granny (as in Takeshi's mother, Yuuta's grandmother). Somewhat similar haircut, similar face shape, similar build, etc. I'm not sure what to make of this similarity, but considering their relationship, it doesn't look like a coincidence, especially since granny seemed to take over Yuki's role as "mommy."

As for Ren, his name is written as 七篠レン. His real name, Takeshi, is written as 武司. You can actually read his blog here: https://nanashinoren.blog.jp/
And yes, if you can come up with any sort of explanation for how he came up with the name Ren, that would be awesome!

Ooh that spoiler part might mean some of my own hypothesis might be off regarding the connection of the Konnos to the Miuras, though at this point in the story (ch. 13) i still don't see convincing evidence linking the two yet.

Oh yeah the grandma does seem to be making effort to imitate Yuki in looks. And the whole thing with her going as 'mummy' to the grandson instead of her actual relationship, was also known to her son Takeshi, which he either approved of or reluctantly agreed to, which was why he instructed his son Yuuta not to bring up 'mother' in front of 'mummy'. That is certainly weird for Takeshi to go along with, and even creepier if one considers that she might have been imitating Yuki's looks even in front of Takeshi while he was still alive.

It's unfortunate that the Ren was in katakana rather than kanji. Knowing that and the actual kanji of Takeshi's name, I'm quite stumped. I'm gonna try to make some speculations on the Ren connection. The Take part, 武 (which can also be read as takeshi on its own), is similar in sound to ‘take’ 竹 meaning bamboo, which 'shino' 篠 also means bamboo. 'Nana' is JP for seven, but it might be chosen so that phonetically it becomes Nanashino which would sound same as 名無しの meaning 'anonymous'. That leaves 'Ren' which i'm unsure of how to link to 司 (which is usually read as Tsukasa on its own) yet. I'll think on it.

edit: I thought about it, and the whole meaning of 武司 actually means 'warrior servant' as 武 means 'militant/war/martial' and 司 means 'serve/servant'. This would make the name Takeshi actually be a reference to 'samurai' 侍 as samurais were quite literally the warrior servants of the feudal lords (aka daimyos). Something connected to samurai would be the bushido code, and the concept of jingi 仁義 is often associated to it. Jin 仁 itself can also be read as Ren in its Sino-Japanese reading. In fact it's the kanji I had in mind when i first heard Ren and wanted confirmation if that was indeed the kanji used.

 

[reylee]

Binging this manga in one sitting, regarding this vol/arc, I can't help questioning two things that I don't think I see mentioned in these 4 chapters:

1) Why is the discussed time of death seemingly only based on Toyokawa's testimony? We got the autopsy result, right? But why "all" the info we got from the autopsy is just the fact that "his last meal is the bento, still undigested --> he died within 3 hours after that meal." The body's stiffening & cooling down (sorry forgot the proper scientific/medical term) should give more precise time window of the murder, right? No mention of it in the autopsy result? We wouldn't even have the "Toyokawa lied and Miura still alive till the next morning" debate otherwise.

2) How about the crime scene's investigation? Blood stains in the surrounding area? Any signs of struggle, especially since it was deduced Miura's hands were tied (hence the grid picture)? Also the pic: so the murderer put the receipt back into Miura's wallet after the murder? Just because they didn't think it'd lead to them/the culprit? Why not just leave it on its original place? Or at least put it in the bag, make it more so that people wouldn't even bother to think too deeply about it?

The stiffness of body after death, known as rigor mortis, is only a temporarily phenomenon. Eventually as the body decompose further the stiffness is gone and the body relaxes back into mushy flesh. However, if he was murdered in a manner similar to what Yuki was shown doing to Iwata tied up in sleeping bag, the limbs and flesh might be so damaged as to make rigor mortis impossible to set in the first place, because rigor mortis is a process dependent on biology of the body (you can read about it in wiki article), and the damage might be so severe as to disrupt the biological process that would otherwise started rigor mortis.