Hitman Detective Nagisa - Puzzle Time, Volumes 5 - 8

In 2013 and 2014, entertainment services company SCRAP collaborated with Matsui Yuusei and Shueisha to create a series of puzzles released across Volumes 5 to 8 of Assassination Classroom. These puzzles are linked with a story called Puzzle Time, or as I would like to call it, “The Investigations of Super Middle School Level Hitman Detective Nagisa”. This is considered canon material.

This post will feature the story along with pictures. For the puzzles, I can only provide a brief overview, because without the Volumes on-hand, they are a lot less appealing and near-impossible to solve (except the first one).

So without further ado, here’s the story of Puzzle Time.



Pictures and text: Matsui Yuusei



Puzzle Design: SCRAP



Part 1 – The Tragedy’s Opening

It’s 5:30, all the students went home after school, though because I decided to finish my homework before leaving, I alone stayed in the classroom. Korosensei earlier said he wants to eat Mediterranean food, so by now he should have flown all the way to Greece. I placed my already-completed homework on Sensei’s desk in the Staff Room, packed my belongings and prepared to go home.

Near the shoe lockers, it looked like there was someone there. Mumbling to themselves in incoherent sentences, sounding across like a mantra recited in a faint voice. I was spooked, and when I cautiously went to search for the source of the voice, its owner was already gone.

What shocked me the most, was the contents of that faint monologue. The owner of the voice definitely said this. “I’m going to kill him”.

The morning of the next day … the pitiful corpse of a student was discovered.

Part 1

(Volume 5’s Puzzle is to figure out the Victim, along with the First Witness. This is a simple deduction from a set of clues:

The Victim is male, the First Witness is female The Victim sits to the left of the First Witness The Victim sits to the front of the First Witness The Victim and First Witness’ names have 4 Kanji letters The First Witness’ sits in an equally-spaced seat (ie look diagonally, starting from the top-leftmost seat))





Part 2 – The Morning’s Witness

Maehara-kun, he was found collapsed on the road not too farfrom Class E’s Old Building. I immediately rushed forward and checked his pulse. Thank goodness, he’s not in any life threatening danger. Hayami-san said, “When I came to the school, he was already … but given Maehara-kun’s athletic sense, it’s hard to imagine he could’ve accidentally tripped and fainted.” There’s no obvious external injuries, and it doesn’t look like he was hit by some object that fell from the sky. That is to say, someone probably silently approached him from behind, and afterwards used a blunt object of some sort to ambush him…

I then remembered, the suspicious figure who appeared near the shoe lockers yesterday. That person had definitely said something like “I’m going to kill him”. It couldn’t be that one of the Class E students who had undergone assassination training, had actually directed a murderous heart towards Maehara-kun right? If that is the case, then next time Maehara-kun will surely lose his life.

I put forth my best effort and opened an investigation. The first thing to do is to check the scene, and verify the weapon that the suspect used.

Part 2

(Volume 6’s Puzzle is to figure out the weapon. A crossword puzzle is provided, and upon its completion, it refers you to another page inside the Volume. That page contains a code, and the decoder is actually hidden somewhere in Volume 6. Solving the code nets you the identity of the weapon)





Part 3 – The Scary Weapon

After carefully looking through the nearby bushes, I found a pencil and a notebook. They were probably thrown suddenly into a place like this … furthermore, I discovered chaotic footprints that were left behind when the culprit was in a hurry to retrieve them.

So that’s it, I understood why the victim’s appearance had no external injuries. Using centrifugal force, the assailant brutally slammed the victim once with the bag. This way the pencil’s design can be used to determine the assailant’s gender, and I seem to have some impression of the handwriting on the notebook. Their owner is certainly not the first witness Hayami-san. “Just leave this for me to investigate”. After leaving behind these words I departed from the Old Building, and ran to the corner of the sports field.

I arrived at the miniature playground that Karasuma-sensei personally made. If my guess is correct, the culprit should come here to train every morning. To ensure they can assassinate the target at any moment, the culprit will definitely be here to warm up before attending lessons at the classroom.

As I thought, the culprit was standing at the playground. “I did it…” (ie “I killed him”) the culprit muttered while dumbly staying still on the field.

Why … did you do such a thing? I went and attempted to draw the motive of this case from the culprit’s mouth.

Part 3

(Volume 7’s Puzzle is to figure out the motive. After solving 3 puzzles, the completed phrase will point you to another location in the Volume. There, the motive is written)





Part 4 – The Middle School Girl’s Killing Intent

After learning that Maehara-kun is not in life threatening danger, she tirelessly rushed towards me with a relieved expression on her face.

“The day before yesterday he was dating with a girl from another middle school, and yesterday he was dating a high school girl … the way he frolics across the fields is too outrageous, so I pondered on whether he should be taught a lesson.”

But she underestimated the total weight of the bag’s contents. “I didn’t think I would send him flying in one blow”, she said while making an awkward laugh.

I too have gotten too accustomed to this assassination lifestyle and neglected to consider things carefully. When she said “I’m going to kill him” yesterday, she was using “kill” the way that most people would use it normally.

“But how should put it, things like this shouldn’t be left to me to administer justice huh?” Judging from this, she herself probably isn’t clear on what her own motive actually was.

I decided to seal this secret, both the culprit’s identity and the motive. She had already repented, and decided to return to a normal, everyday life. As for her killing intent, how long until the day it blossoms?

Part 4

(Volume 8’s Puzzle is to figure out the culprit’s identity. The clues given this time include (1) a pair of phrases, and (2) a diagram with black and white dots.

The pair of phrases are actually part of a sequence, and something is missing in between. Filling in the blank will produce a phrase telling readers to go to page 121.

The diagram is a clue that points to the Volume 1 cover, and by using the cover and page 121, they will pinpoint the culprit)





http://tieba.baidu.com/p/3634322371

Answers:

Part 1 – Victim: Maehara Hiroto. First Witness: Hayami Rinka

Part 2 – Weapon: School Bag

Part 3 – Motive: Love

Part 4 – Culprit: the upcoming Character Profiles on this blog are full of girls. Perhaps it’s one of them?





About SCRAP

SCRAP is an entertainment services company in Japan that specialises in providing “puzzles”. Their most famous service is by far their Real Dasshutsu (Escape) Game events, in which participants are “trapped” in a locations like stadiums and amusement parks, and participants have to escape by finding clues and solving puzzles. These escape scenarios are often themed and collaborates with different Manga/Anime series, and Assassination Classroom is having such events now across Japan.

The San Francisco branch happens to have a website:

http://realescapegame.com