It was a assassin exchange plan. Sasha would kill Watson in Japan, Asougi would kill Gregson in England and they would take advantage of Japan-England treaty.

What I don't get is why Japan agreed to this assassin trade and how they benefit from it. Vortex benefits by cutting loose ends that knew about the dirty deeds he did to get to where he is now, but why would the Jp Government wanna go through with this?

I don't think it's a matter of the Japanese government agreeing with it. After the very first trial, Jezail asks if she can 'have a word with the judge'. It's very likely she spoke to Jigoku in secret about who told her to kill Watson and why. With that, Jigoku could arrange for the treaty loophole. It is, after all, just that: a sort of loophole in law-enforcement.

That makes a lot more sense, I've forgotten a lot of the small bits in DGS1.

Also bit funny thinking that a government assassin part of the Deathbringer circle was killed by a random journalist now that I think about it.

Hah! Jezail would've gotten away with everything if she'd just been a little nicer to Mamemomi.

What Meowzy said, and Vortex was blackmailing Jigoku over him killing Genshin.



Mamemomi, the unsung hero!

It's interesting the direction they took with Asogi. In the first game he was basically the good guy mentor figure/freind character. The one that inspired Ryūnosuke but in this game he is a lot more anti-hero and having moments where he does bad things/is morally questionable. In this game he did morally ambitious things and felt the urge to kill Gregson. Instead of becoming a defence attorney again he decides to train under Barok as a Prosecutor and gives Ryunosuke - Karuma back

So in the end, none of the assassins and killers realised they had no problem they couldn't fix--or at least just cover up--by offing Vortex.

why would they do that?

Jezail was probably very much in cahoots with Vortex. She wasn't being blackmailed by him, I think, because she had no involvement in the Professor case that we know of. Asougi didn't know Vortex was behind it, because he was being directed by Jigoku.

Now, Jigoku and/or Gregson? That's a different story. They could've offed Vortex. Jigoku in particular. He'd already directly stained his hands with blood- the blood of his friend- so at that point he could've harbored enough spite to want to see Vortex dead. Gregson wasn't a direct assassin, but as part of the Reaper's Curse he has indirectly stained his hands. All those years he knew what Vortex was up to and he didn't really...... do anything about it. That's just disappointing.

The part I'm confused about is Gregson not knowing he was betrayed for a few months, I guess he didn't hear Watson was murdered or knew about the names on the disc?

But then when Asougi's mission failed, Vortex just thought "well whatever I guess I'm not killing Gregson anymore" and kept using him as part of the Reaper's Curse, sending him to kill Jigoku.

Meanwhile Jigoku by chance decides he'll finish the job for Gregson, no prompting from Vortex I think to make up for Asougi's failure, so Gregson and Jigoku both meet each other with the intention to kill one another? Gregson with Asougi of course but then he bailed out in France or something, so why Gregson continued to meet Jigoku is a mystery to me.

Would you say Barok and Asougi are the most improved charcters from DGS1 to DGS2

How on earth did Sherlock get himself on that ship in time to 'stop Asougi'? Watson was murdered on November 19, with the trial on November 22. Mikotoba sent a letter to Sherlock about this event and also mentioned Asougi's trip abroad. It would have taken a while for the letter to even reach Sherlock, because it's not like you could use expedited shipping. I doubt mail-carrying vessels would be so fast between London and Japan. Let's say... mid December is when the letter arrived. So then Sherlock magically teleports himself to Japan so he can board the ship. We know Asougi and Ryuu have already been on board for a while on January 9th. (A week? I forget) so the ship left around the end of December. It takes like a month to get to Japan from England.

Furthermore, when the incident happened, Sherlock stupidly assumed that Asougi was Russian and that he was murdered by a Russian revolutionary comrade??? Unless that was all bullshit??? If he just believed Ryuunosuke had been the assassin sent to murder Asougi, that would've made sense, but then he could've just said that out loud as part of his reasoning.

one question

---

I don't know myself, but I think no music would fit.

---

There isn't any music playing during the actual breakdown itself, I believe.

---

---

---

WHY are you guys using spoilers? It's the OPEN SPOILER thread.

SPEAKING OF MUSIC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRzQrmZrZGA

Fell in love with it the moment I heard it.

---

I really, really love Viridian's theme.

---

From what I've read, Gregson actually did believe Genshin was "The Professor" - or at least, the one who murdered Klimt (whom he was close friends with, as seen in his picture with the van Zieks), so he probably willingly joined forces with Vortex to frame the guy. As for the Death Bringer stuff, maybe he thought he was doing the van Zieks a favor by doing that.

As for Jigoku...yeah. Maybe he just didn't wanna risk getting away with killing the Lord Chief Justice?



He explains that his intentions were to get Ryuunosuke in the exchange program to prevent Asougi from getting to London (in an official capacity, at least), so I suppose he crafted the fake murder scenario to get Ryuu to prove himself to everyone that he can actually do the job (remember, Ryuu's an English major, not a law student).

---

I remember from one of the live blogs that while yes, Gregson did believe that Genshin killed Klimt (true) and was the Professor (false), he wasn't immediately on board with faking evidence for Genshin's conviction without some convincing on Vortex's end.

tl;dr warning:

Oh, I know Gregson believed Genshin was the Professor. That's not the problem. What bothers me is Gregson's behavior after that. Apparently not long after Genshin's execution, the Grim Reaper's curse first began. And it kept going for ten years. That's ten whole years in which Vortex basically told Gregson "Hey I need you to orchestrate another murder for me". Going by the same logic as what applied to Genshin, Gregson might've 'believed that these defendants who got a not-guilty were, in fact, guilty and needed to die'. Or is that just a lie that Gregson kept telling himself in order to justify that he was teaming up with a literal assassin to murder people who could very well have been innocent? If there's no concrete evidence to convict these people in court or prove without a doubt that jurors were bribed, how could Gregson be 100% sure that the Grim Reaper's targets were justified and that Vortex wasn't the one who needed to be exposed as the one pulling the strings? Did he seriously believe that Jigoku was such a guilty, heartless accomplice of Genshin's that even ten years later, he was doing good by going after this guy?

The game made a failed attempt to elaborate by having Gregson tell Gina: "Don't worry, the Reaper only goes after bad people," but these words are undermined by his actions. Gregson is going to France and is taking Gina with him. This implies he was afraid- afraid that Gina would become the target of the Reaper, or at the very least that she'd get caught up in Gregson's little 'part-time job'. If he had a fear like that, it means he didn't trust Vortex and once that trust is absent, why is he still collaborating with him? All this could've been solved with one implication that Gregson was beginning to backpedal from the Reaper's actions, only to be threatened by Vortex. (and it would also explain why Vortex needed Gregson assassinated, as he would've become a liability.) Unfortunately, that implication is never given, so it's only me dreaming of what could've been.

But I have a similar problem with Holmes. Why is it that Holmes never outright says things that are important until the plot demands that it's revealed as a twist? It would've been SO easy for Holmes to go up to Gregson and discuss the four names. After all, they were already played in court so it's not as if he'd be admitting to eavesdropping on confidential info on his own accord. Instead, Holmes goes out of his way to have Gregson transferred to France half a year after forming the initial hypothesis that the guy's on an assassin hit list, without ever sitting the guy in question, a fellow inspector, down for a talk about it. Had Gregson known that he was possiby on a hit list- one that he'd likely been ordered to retrieve by Vortex himself in 1-5- things would've played out very differently for him.


But would Holmes have known, the second he walked into the crime scene and saw a 'dead' assassin target on the floor, that the person hiding inside the closet would've been a suitable exchange program student? It's true that the Randst Magazine episode implies Holmes knew about Naruhodou hiding in the closet, but those were never canon. Besides, how would he have known that the closet kid is the one who tripped Jezail up in court?

Taking many dull pieces of a puzzle and glueing it together with a whole bunch of hypothesis, I can only assume it went like this:
> Holmes hears about Watson's murder and the kid who defended himself from Mikotoba. Holmes also hears about Asougi going abroad and knows that's one more person on the Name List. He assumes the Name List is a list of targets and stows away on board only to... bide his time and keep an eye on Asougi without actually doing anything. I guess he found out about Naruhodou either way? Eavesdropped, maybe?
> When that whole thing with Nikomina happens and Asougi seriously could've died, Holmes was not around to stop it nor even witness it due to being drugged. Once everyone regains consciousness, the crew discovers the crime scene and Holmes immediately invites himself into the room (presumably also notices that Asougi is still alive at that point despite the other Detective, Hosonaga, not seeing it).
> He proceeds to open the closet, frame an innocent English major for murder with some half-assed story about Russian revolutionaries, resuscitates Asougi (whose fate at this point was uncertain because Holmes admits that if he'd been any later, the guy seriously would've died) once everyone's distracted, spurs Naruhodou on to do some investigating, does his own investigating into what happened because at this point he doesn't know...
> Never at any point does he tell ANYONE "oh hey, this kid is still alive. Just send him back home, he's in no state to do any studenting". He's still rolling with the convoluted scheme of 'maybe this stowaway did the MURDER'. He accuses a SNAKE of POISONING a guy who was only unconscious and I honestly don't know whether he was dead serious about that hypothesis.
> They find out it was all just some accident, not actual assassination. Naruhodou is freed of all charges and encouraged to continue as defense attorney.
> Again, at this point Asougi is suffering from amnesia and perhaps constantly drifting off into unconsciousness (it's said that Asougi 'awoke' by the time they get to Hong Kong) and in no state to continue onward to England. If Holmes had insisted they send this poor guy back home to get the care he needs, everyone would've accepted it.

Honestly, it just reeks of retconning because Asougi was surprisingly popular. Don't get me wrong, I love DGS2 and I love the plotholes it filled, but as a writer and roleplayer I'm trained to pick at character motivations and stories. Some things aren't adding up in a way they should. Granted, AA5 had a similar problem. I could go on for hours about how the Phantom's motivations and actions, once you take them out of context and view them chronologically, don't make a lick of sense.

A bit late, but here's a video of all the breakdowns with the original game audio. Video quality isn't the best though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SkBtYSCx-I

This one includes one that wasn't in the other compilation: Everyday Mittlemont/Hugh Boone. It seems like he functions as the "villain" of Case 4 despite not being a murderer.

---