Hen na E - Vol. 3 Ch. 9 - The Art Teacher's Final Drawing

[MangaDex]

 

[biologist]

Huh? How could I not realize that there is a easy way to do this in manga format.

 

[alfirizkyr]

Oooh, a classic criminal mystery now.

 

[Wolf_Kz]

So we back at the years 1995 now eh? The years of the story on the first volume is 2014 and the second vol. is maybe around 2015-2016 so we back about 20 years ago. The old dude from previous chapter and this Kumai guy is likely to be the same person so "the crime you have committed" that Takeshi mentioned in his blog might related to this somehow

 

[aaaaa8]

Thought the hot guy with glasses who was a friend of the murder victim was Kurihara for a moment, lol
anyway, an interesting setup for the new plot line. I have zero speculation at this point beyond that maybe the murderer was someone the teacher knew since he was so widely hated, and since apparently people commonly knew about his yearly trips.

 

[Tsama0]

So we back at the years 1995 now eh? The years of the story on the first volume is 2014 and the second vol. is maybe around 2015-2016 so we back about 20 years ago. The old dude from previous chapter and this Kumai guy is likely to be the same person so "the crime you have committed" that Takeshi mentioned in his blog might related to this somehow

This is a quick timeline of events where the dates (or at least years) are confirmed in some way.
1992 - Miura murdered
1995 - Iwata investigates murder
2007 - Yuki/Takeshi marry
2009 - Yuki gives birth to Yuuta, Yuki dies
2010 - Granny's last (or second-last) visit to Yuki's grave
2012 - Yuuta/Takeshi visit Yuki's grave, Takeshi's last blog post, Takeshi dies
2014 - Sasaki/Kurihara investigate Ren's blog
2015 - Yuuta discovers birth mother, granny/stalker incident

 

[Mitsu13]

Is the killer the Granny from the previous arc? Maybe that’s the reason Kumai stalked her.

Wait, maybe the granny is this victim's wife. They also had a son, so the son is Takeshi. The age seems like it will match.

 

[Zreth]

Yay new case, while I was pretty off base on the last one I think I got close a couple times; it was a bit rough to follow cause there wasn't really a clear goal, this one on the other hand seems alot more straightforward so excited to see how it pans out. While I have some thoughts on how this opens and how it may link to the overarching B plot.

Here are on what I think is possibly relevant signals or just straight up clues.

Police info on the case: Gives us the time he was out for the camping trip as well as how he was killed by stabbing and also had signs of being beaten.

Testimony 1: Points out where his body is found specifically as well as his age. Repeat info but maybe the person who found it will be important later?

Rest of the Testimonies as well as new MC's "Testimony": Lays out his personality pretty well, with the key takeaways being while good intentioned or morally upright was found to have a very abrasive personality by pretty much everyone around him even his family.

Death Scene: We get what I think is the scene of him dying, and in it we see that he is drawing the picture evidence in his last moments with a mental quote of "Must draw this picture for the sake of..."

Small mountain landscape drawing: So the primary picture puzzle of this case appears to be this. It has a bunch of weird things about it so I'm gonna shoot them off bullet point style.

- The drawing is on a very small piece of paper, with it size relative to the wallet they found. This could be a scrap piece of paper like a receipt or something. Simultaneously if this is just a receipt it's a weird detailed drawing for someone to be drawing in the midst of like dying, cause it would be way easier just to write something if it was a final message? So, maybe he started drawing this prior to being injured and for some reason was compelled to finish it when he was dying?

- The piece of paper is folded in a very distinct way that left behind a bunch of symmetrical squares that formed a grid on the paper. If this was a receipt it wouldn't be weird for it to be folded however it would be weird for it to be folded in the way it was. Especially, to get as grid like you see on the paper you would need to fold it more than once or twice but actually have to fold it and then refold it in a different way to get that grid. So there has to be a specific purpose to folding out a grid.

- May be irrelevant but during the death scene it is clearly night time so he wouldn't have been able to see the landscape of the mountain which he drew? Although, maybe he just remembered it but that wouldn't match up with the next point.

- In the opening when it describes his hobby of drawing in the mountains we get to see the area where he draws, distinctly all the fence posts are standing straight there, but one is specifically crooked in the picture.

- Also, I can't really tell where he is drawing in the death scene? Like where on the drawing he is drawing on specifically? Like maybe there is another picture?

- When he draws the mountain range alot of the lines crossover, which I think for a experienced artist it should be easy to not do that? Then again he also appears to be dying atm so who knows.

 

[Zreth]

Oh also just gonna throw it in there, we never got a first name for the new MC so maybe he is linked to the overarching story as well, like how the grandma was.

 

[arkvin]

My speculation so far.

• Yuki is Miura’s student and the girl who murdered her mom from ch1. She developed PTSD from her past which led her to kill her teacher. If I remember correctly Yuki is older than Takeshi so given that Miura’s son is still a child in this chapter the timeline matches.
• Takeshi eventually marries Yuki.
• The grandmother discovers Yuki’s past and makes a plan to kill her( she advises a normal delivery instead of a cesarean)
• Yuki feels like her mother in law is trying to kill her and leaves cryptic pictures to Takeshi. She didn’t try to resist because she is feeling guilty of what she did in the past.
• The plan succeeds and Yuki dies giving birth. But Takeshi decipher the pictures and confront his mom.
• After he learned about Yuki’s past he stopped writing the blog.
• The grandma takes custody of the child while impersonating Yuki.( probably because the councilor on ch1 constantly checking on her)
• The grandmother’s stalker is probably the reporter investigating her or Sasaki?

Also the paper that Miura’s leave is not a landscape picture but a dying letter. Probably if folded several times the name will appear.

 

[lemon-dono]

Also of note: When he's first at the mountain he's drawing with a pencil and we can see a tiny part of a large sketchpad on his lap. The closeup of the drawing at night shows a ballpoint pen and it's tiny.
The image he drew bears very little resemblance to what we see of the landscape in front of him.

 

[77BLc9JwJGpLVARkamJx]

Probably a suicide note befitting an art teacher and the murder probably some kind of sick fetish teach dude helping out someone since we know how hes seen by others, he figured he can help this particular murderer one last time genuinely?

 

[BalrogDeMorgoth]

I really wasn't expecting this level of twist and turns.

 

[Wolf_Kz]

I just realised that I haven't talked about the drawing. The drawing this time is the "badly draw of landscape" which is made by art teacher, of course he might draw that while dying but by the time he draw that picture it is shown to us that he draw it at night which is weird. I mean- if he really draw it at night, how can he see the landscape. Or maybe he just love camping at that place so much that he has been there for god know how many time to the point that he can draw it without seeing it.

 

[HoneyPopper]

My speculation so far.

• Yuki is Miura’s student and the girl who murdered her mom from ch1. She developed PTSD from her past which led her to kill her teacher. If I remember correctly Yuki is older than Takeshi so given that Miura’s son is still a child in this chapter the timeline matches.
• Takeshi eventually marries Yuki.
• The grandmother discovers Yuki’s past and makes a plan to kill her( she advises a normal delivery instead of a cesarean)
• Yuki feels like her mother in law is trying to kill her and leaves cryptic pictures to Takeshi. She didn’t try to resist because she is feeling guilty of what she did in the past.
• The plan succeeds and Yuki dies giving birth. But Takeshi decipher the pictures and confront his mom.
• After he learned about Yuki’s past he stopped writing the blog.
• The grandma takes custody of the child while impersonating Yuki.( probably because the councilor on ch1 constantly checking on her)
• The grandmother’s stalker is probably the reporter investigating her or Sasaki?

Also the paper that Miura’s leave is not a landscape picture but a dying letter. Probably if folded several times the name will appear.

same thoughts here!
I think Yuki is that long haired student that was shown in the interview.
Great take on the folding paper hidden message! I'm so tempted to print it out and fold it LOL

edit : I printed it out so far no names yet (but interesting pictures). Then again, I'm just folding randomly. I'll have to read again and see if I can find any more hints.

 

[HoneyPopper]

I printed out the drawing and started folding-unfolding like a crazy person (my husband was VERY concerned).
If it really is solved by folding, I think I got something... if not then I just wasted a piece of paper and about 40 minutes of my life.

 

[arkvin]

I printed out the drawing and started folding-unfolding like a crazy person (my husband was VERY concerned).
If it really is solved by folding, I think I got something... if not then I just wasted a piece of paper and about 40 minutes of my life.

Well I could be wrong on the meaning of the note but I tried looking for kanji for Yuki or other ways of writing her name on jp and its hard to match it up on the picture. Maybe the note is something else.

 

[HoneyPopper]

I could be wrong on the meaning of the note but I tried looking for kanji for Yuki or other ways of writing her name on jp and its hard to match it up on the picture. Maybe the note is something else.

Her name is on the gravestone on Ch 8 p 26.

It was actually fun, and no names or letters/words came up. At least not with what how I’ve been folding them.
However, something else DID show up. I have zero confidence so I’ll just sit still and wait for the reveal when the chapter is uploaded.

It’ll be super neat if I did get it right though.

 

[HoneyPopper]

Another possibility is that everything is off scale.

In flashback panels, the teacher seems to have a habit of sighting (measuring objects with his pencil).
So it could be that the grids are scale references.

 

[Zreth]

Another possibility is that everything is off scale.

In flashback panels, the teacher seems to have a habit of sighting (measuring objects with his pencil).
So it could be that the grids are scale references.

So the discussion you and arkvin had me thinking about the timeline of his death. It took you 40 minutes to fold and check the paper to see if there was something; so if there was a hidden message that would mean it wasn't meant to be found by like the authorities, if it was a death message he would probably want it to be obvious what he was saying and not super hidden.

Additionally maybe the death scene we got was a bit of the red herring? Cause running through the timeline I have in my head alot of problems keep popping up. So the timeline it sort of implies with the death scene and the info we have rn makes me think this: Miura goes from his house to K Mountain for camping trip on the 21st -> Miura stops at the 8th waystation -> assault/stabbing happens (presumably at the 8th waystation) -> Miura draws picture of mountain landscape while dying from stab wounds and beating -> Next morning on the 21st Baldie finds his body (presumably on the 8th waystation)

So the big issue here being, assuming the death scene happens at night due to the dark sky we see, we need to believe that Miura was drawing the landscape when it's too dark to see while also dying from a stab wound. Additionally, if he's been stabbed yet is safe enough/able to draw shouldn't his first priority to do something about his wounds instead or at least write a more direct message as to what happened.

So my current theory is maybe he has had an altercation during the day on the 20th and was left restrained in the morning where he did the drawing till it went dark, then the person who he had the altercation returned later and killed him. Him being restrained solves the problem as to why the drawing is so roughly drawn and him being able to see the mountains. Additionally, it also helps explain why he specifically drew something instead of write out a message, since as a artist he might have been more confident in drawing something while he was tied up then writing something legible.

Only issue I think I still have is assuming this all happened from the middle of the day of the 20th how did no one else notice anything on the mountain trail. At the very least if there is someone checking the trail in the morning then why wasn't there anyone checking the trail later in the day when it starts to get dark, like in case someone has an accident on the trail? This leads to me think maybe the Baldie is more involved in the murder?