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I finished The Silver Case in about a month, and... what a game. Such a weird, twisted, difficult to deal with, difficult to play game is going to stick with me for a while. I'm glad it got translated a few years ago finally (...although... the translator really should've kept away from the "r-word" and even worse once because otherwise it's well done), because no offense to SUDA51, but No More Heroes isn't really up my alley. Mystery visual novels/ADV games are though, and while I've seen people refer to most of SUDA51's work under the umbrella of a larger "Kill The Past"-verse, I think I'll stick to games I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy more. I've got my 3DS all set to emulate Flower, Sun, and Rain, the Silver Case sequel that somehow got translated back in 2009, because my computer sucks ass at emulation and physical copies are so pricey :P.

Sumio and Kusabi's relationship is very fascinating to me. At first impressions, they just seem like a grumpy older detective and a calmer fresh face on the force who argue a lot because they have opposite personalities, but as you play through the game you can observe their unique relationship. First of all, it turns out Sumio isn't really the calm guy he comes off as, from as mild and getting suddenly angry to as strong as having been planning murderous revenge for 20 years under a calm facade. A lot of this art piece is focused on "Parade" because a lot of the interesting stuff comes from that chapter. Sumio's hidden tragic past is revealed slowly until you happen upon confidential documents that directly tie him to the incident that you, him, and Kusabi were investigating. Kusabi, as a veteran of the Heinous Crimes unit who are supposed to wipe out crime in the deliberately crime-less 24th Ward, won't condone a murderer, but after he learns about Sumio's past, he decides to take you to accompany Sumio to be a witness to his final plan to "kill the past". Sumio has a somewhat similar attitude, but it's more along the lines of cynical bitterness that to be the hero of his tragic story, he has to become a murderer. Sumio finally kills his past by bombing his hometown where the worst tragedies of his life occurred, but he doesn't kill it off entirely. The end of "Parade" is a flashback to when Sumio and Kusabi first met, and then a very brief conversation between Sumio and Kusabi recalling that time, which seems to like something at least Sumio didn't want to kill off. In "kamuidrome" there's several vignettes of conversations between Sumio and Kusabi (both having an ambiguous fate after "Parade" which later turns out to be being jailed and going AWOL from the HC Unit respectively). One conversation I was reminded of after playing has Sumio ramble on about how the past had to be killed, but specific mentions in the metaphor that a "wedge" had to be driven in to start/cause this (Kusabi's name in Japanese is spelled with the kanji for wedge 楔). The end of "kamuidrome" shows Kusabi fantasizing about talking to a Sumio who isn't there, and is noticeably despondent when you encounter him in the "Placebo" chapters that take place after Sumio is put in jail. I've played Flower, Sun, and Rain and there's a Sumio and Kusabi connected in that game, too (although it's as of now unclear how the characters are directly related to The Silver Case). No matter if they're pettily bickering or deathly seriously opposed in some way, Sumio and Kusabi's bond can never be fully severed, and I'm still thinking about it after finishing the game.

This piece is smashed together from a bunch of chapters of The Silver Case. I included a lot of elements in this, so I want to detail them all. The text in the background is from two New Order songs referenced in the "Transmitter" chapters ("The Perfect Kiss" for Kamuidrome and "Regret" for Parade). The lyrics chosen are meant to apply to Sumio and/or Kusabi. The alternating lines between them have dialogue taken from the "Parade" chapter (formatted backwards) that includes the scene where Sumio references the reoccurring phrase in the game "[to] Kill the past". The dialogue in its original Japanese is also layered faintly onto the background. The shapes and general layout of the background is based on the visual aesthetic of the "Parade" chapter as well. The top images of Sumio and Kusabi pointing guns in each other's faces furiously and the two sharing a cigarette is supposed to portray their tense but seemingly close(?) relationship. The glowing/not glowing dashed line in the background spells out "aishiteru" in wabun (Japanese morse code) for that reason too (but that part's more self-indulgent haha). The flash of light from the cigarettes being lit is supposed to resemble the explosion of Mikumo 77. Sumio and Kusabi both have patches of blood on themselves because they both kill people over the course of the game, and the stark black and white visual style is based on how the scene art for "Parade" looked. Morikawa, Hachisuka, and Nakategawa appearing as they were at their deaths at the bottom of the piece goes along with the love/hate life/death kind of theme I was drawing from (and always because it looked cool as well).