History Fridge / NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors

* The Safe Ending finishes with the time limit being hit and ''Zero'' being announced as the loser, after telling Junpei that he took the wrong route. Going through the True Ending, we find out that Zero is Akane and that she is using Junpei as her "transmitter", using the morphogenetic fields to see what he's seeing and escape the game. As we also find out, the reason she does this is because she winds up trapped in the incinerator and needs Junpei's help to solve the last puzzle and survive. Because Junpei took the last route, he didn't make it to the last puzzle on time. Thus, he was not able to help Akane solve it. Thus, [[NightmareFuel Akane either drowned or burned to death]].
** Thankfully due to the nature of the TimeyWimeyBall that future never happened and in fact it was a part of her plans.
*** Actually, due to the nature of timelines explained in the sequel, ''all the endings are canon''. Safe was a colossal failure to save Kanny, but the information that was gathered from it was needed to be transmitted to the Junpei of the True timeline. This actually means that she not only experiences her theoretical death in the incinerator (depending on the idea of that was an idea incepted into Seven, Clover and Snake), she experiences death through Junpei at least three times.

* Junpei's "misunderstanding" conversation with June at the elevator is hilarious... until you realize it's pretty unlikely that June's description of drowning would've been "heard from people who have experienced it", as she claims. Instead, in this context she's probably describing her own experience of drowning in an alternate timeline.
** It's not so far-fetched that she has met or read about someone who was narrowly saved from drowning. But considering she describes the fuzzy, free-floating feeling right after saying "I'll go to Heaven," there might be something to this.
*** Chances that Akane actually drowned are pretty much [[StealthPun zero. Considering her fevers mean that young Akane is being burned in the incinerator, and the present game actually takes place in Building Q, she would have never had the opportunity to drown - unless, of course, you count her feeling it from Junpei's experience in the Sub ending.]]
*** In the sequel, whenever the main character dies, he describes the free-floating in a void feeling each time. So we can pretty much conclude that this was what Akane was describing. If that is the case, then she is describing a very general after death experience that she could have experienced many times.
*** Two of the ways that Junpei can die involve drowning: the Sub ending where, after getting stabbed in the back and falling into the moon pool, and the iOS exclusive Syringe ending, where Clover (thinking Junpei killed Snake) injects him with Ace's Soporil and shoves him into D Deck's flooded staircase face down. This matters because Akane watches things through Junpei's eyes for most of the game, sharing his experiences.

** Totally what I thought too. The same thing probably happens to him in the knife and axe ending because no one took the note.
*** Unless Clover takes an axe to the coffin when she hears someone in there.
*** Even worse, if she chopped the coffin open and found out Snake was still alive, not only did she kill everyone for no reason, but the two of them can't even escape because the final exit door is actually a q.
*** Just imagine what would happen if this DID happen. If she doesn't kill him before knowing who he is, she'll certainly, dare I say it, become even MORE of a maniac. I mean, she killed everyone out of revenge for him, and then killed him in what could kind of be considered an accident. Most likely, this would end in suicide. And if she doesn't kill him, and merely hacks the coffin open to see her very much alive brother, what then? I can't even imagine [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone her reaction. And then Snake's reaction to finding out she killed everyone! Who knows how that one would end! Thankfully, it never happened.]]
*** It did happen, though. We just never saw it. The sequel shows that every timeline is canon, and that, in at least one of those timelines, each of these things happened.

** Worse, the Safe Ending ends with Junpei back in the chapel, implying that the "DoorToBefore" is accessible to the large-door group right away. This means that even if the Sun Door had already been unlocked, the small-door group would have no way of returning to take the alternate route off of the ship.
*** Not necessarily. After all, both #9 doors were used in that ending, so the puzzles beyond the small door had to be solved anyway. Presumably Ace took the Uranus Keycard from Clover's dead body.

* Besides Ace/Hongou in the new Nonary game, it ""could"" seem arbitrary which of the other Nonary Project leaders filled the other "victim" roles of 9th man/Mr. X/Captain. However, there's enough evidence to suggest that at least two of the were deliberately chosen. [[note]]Besides being the only way to save Akane.[[/note]]

* [[http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/617FB3UyQVL._SL500_AA300_.jpg The Japanese cover shows the title inside nine boxes]], which looks like a sudoku grid.
* Why was it so difficult for past Akane to solve something as simple as a sudoku puzzle, considering most of the puzzles up to that point had been considerably more complicated? It makes a lot more sense when you factor in three things:
** 1. Sudoku was nowhere near as commonplace back in the time of the original Nonary Game as it is today; it would have been utterly foreign to most ''adults'', much less a small child.
** 2. Past Akane was never given the rules of the puzzle; all of the other puzzles up to that point were either self-explanatory or had some kind of clue hidden in the room.
** 3. Being only 12 years old and under the pressure of impending incineration, past Akane deducing the rules on her own would have been practically impossible.
** Flash forward to 9 years later, when sudoku had long exploded in popularity and virtually everyone knew how to solve it, and a task that was utterly insurmountable for past Akane is now mere child's play for Junpei. In other words, the feeling of "A sudoku? Seriously, that's it?" is ''100% intentional'', because that's probably ''precisely'' what Junpei is thinking.

*** Two of the ways that Junpei can die involve drowning: the Sub ending where, after getting stabbed in the back and falling into the moon pool, and the IOS exclusive Syringe ending, where Clover (thinking Junpei killed Snake) injects him with Ace's Soporil and shoves him into D Deck's flooded staircase face down. This matters because Akane watches things through Junpei's eyes for most of the game, sharing his experiences.

* In the axe ending Young Akane says thatClover is surrounded by light. Where is this light coming from? The fire from the incinerator that she's trapped in.

** This makes sense because the original design of the (first) game was for everyone to get through the doors. Split up into a group of five and a group of four for the first two doors and the number 9 doors, then three groups of three for the other two sets. Because of how digital roots work, there is always at least one combination of the nine people that can and will work. The only reason there were problems as early as the 3, 7, 8 doors this time was because the number 1 and 2 bracelets were incapacitated in various ways.

* When Santa finds the perfect panty shot angle in room 6, why does he tell Junpei to go get Clover, when June is actually ''in the room'' with them? Turns out June is his sister, and the two of them orchestrated the whole game.

* When Santa finds the perfect PantyShot angle in room 6, why does he tell Junpei to go get Clover, when June is actually ''in the room'' with them? Turns out June is his sister, and the two of them orchestrated the whole game.

* Morphogenetic connections can only be formed between two people who love each other (familially, as between Clover and Snake, or romantically), the same person in different periods of time, or two people who are in a very similar situation (like Past Akane and Junpei). So, who was so important to William Stead that the 'echoes' of their death on the Titanic rippled BACK to him before the event even happened? How much of his loved one's agony did he see? This one is explained further in the sequels, although not directly: Stead was a shifter. He's also a real person who actually died on the Titanic. He simply shifted back after getting killed and described it.

* Besides Ace/Hongou in the new Nonary game, it could seem arbitrary which of the other Nonary Project leaders filled the other "victim" roles of 9th man/Mr. X/Captain. However, even with Word of God stating that Gentou was chosen to be the 9th man (Being a coward would have either made him suffer, confess, or get himself killed, all "positive" outcomes), there's evidence in the game that Nijisaki was deliberately chosen as Mr. X. Looking at the picture of him, he's a somewhat tall, slender man, with roughly shoulder length hair. And what about the shape of his face, does he look similar to anyone else? He should do, because it's the man he replaced- Snake. Even if Ace, with his severe face blindness didn't find it odd that Snake was suddenly far shorter or fatter, it'd take a dangerously large (and loud) explosive to hide the evidence from the others. That just left Musashidou to be the captain (And even then, his wealth may have made him a more attractive "confessor" to stream)

* The entire game is narrated both from Junpei's point of view and in third person. As it turn out, it's Past!Akane looking through Junpei's eyes.[[note]]The compilation rerelease does this a different way: "Adventure Mode" (the equivalent of the DS's top screen) is revealed to the "Junpei Vision", while "Novel Mode" (the equivalent of the bottom screen, with no textboxes) is revealed to be "Akane Vision".[[/note]] This gives some of the bottom screen's exposition dialogue new context:

* Everyone remembers Akane as dead, even in the true ending when she never died. Why? She planted the thought in their heads. The morphogenetic field is used both to implant ideas in the heads of others as well as to receive ideas yourself, remember, and Akane is clearly very, very good at accessing the field, and is a stronger 'transmitter' than 'receiver.' She also knew, upon exiting the incinerator, that she needed to have died in order to survive, and so she overrides everyone's memories of the event with the event that never happened, that of her being burned alive, resulting in false memories for all involved. This might also explain why June doesn't seem to know much more than anyone else about what the true path is - when young!Akane changed the perception of the events in the field she changed her own perception of events as well, which left her hazy on the details of what decisions led to what end.

* The fact that there's a mirror in the 3rd Class Cabin happens to be very important in hindsight, as is the reason why there's an important item taped to it. It's so that Past!Akane can see who she's reaching out to and realize it's Junpei.

* Why was it so difficult for past!Akane to solve something as simple as a sudoku puzzle, considering most of the puzzles up to that point had been considerably more complicated? It makes a lot more sense when you factor in three things:

** 2. Past!Akane was never given the rules of the puzzle; all of the other puzzles up to that point were either self-explanatory or had some kind of clue hidden in the room.
** 3. Being only 12 years old and under the pressure of impending incineration, past!Akane deducing the rules on her own would have been practically impossible.
** Flash forward to 9 years later, when sudoku had long exploded in popularity and virtually everyone knew how to solve it, and a task that was utterly insurmountable for past!Akane is now mere child's play for Junpei. In other words, the feeling of "A sudoku? Seriously, that's it?" is ''100% intentional'', because that's probably ''precisely'' what Junpei is thinking.

* This exchange takes [[BlackComedy a whole new meaning]] if you consider what happened to Young!Akane originally:

*** Just imagine what would happen if this DID happen. If she doesn't kill him before knowing who he is, she'll certainly, dare I say it, become even MORE of a maniac. I mean, she killed everyone out of revenge for him, and then killed him in what could kind of be considered an accident. Most likely, this would end in suicide. And if she doesn't kill him, and merely hacks the coffin open to see her very much alive brother, what then? I can't even imagine [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone her reaction. And then Snake's reaction to finding out she killed everyone!!! Who knows how that one would end! Thankfully, it never happened.]]

* Morphogenetic connections can only be formed between two people who love each other (familially, as between Clover and Snake, or romantically), the same person in different periods of time, or two people who are in a very similar situation (like Past!Akane and Junpei). So, who was so important to William Stead that the 'echoes' of their death on the Titanic rippled BACK to him before the event even happened? How much of his loved one's agony did he see? This one is explained further in the sequels, although not directly: Stead was a shifter. He's also a real person who actually died on the Titanic. He simply shifted back after getting killed and described it.

** 2. Akane was never given the rules of the puzzle; all of the other puzzles up to that point were either self-explanatory or had some kind of clue hidden in the room.
** 3. Being only 12 years old and under the pressure of impending incineration, Akane deducing the rules on her own would have been practically impossible.
** Flash forward to 9 years later, after sudoku had exploded in popularity and virtually everyone knew how to solve it, and a task that was utterly insurmountable for past!Akane has become mere child's play for Junpei. In other words, the feeling of "A sudoku? Seriously, that's it?" is ''100% intentional'', because that's probably ''precisely'' what Junpei was feeling.

** The narration sometimes briefly breaks third person before the major WhamLine: when Lotus beats up Junpei for saying her sign is the woman symbol with devil horns, the narration says "Such violence..." Much more notable however, is a moment at the very beginning of the game: when Junpei recalls his encounter with Zero, the narration describes the state of Junpei's apartment, including the open window. The narration then says "Huh. That's weird... Did I leave that open...?". In-game, this line has no quotation marks, meaning that this is past Akane, while looking into Junpei's recollection of his kidnapping, wondering if her future self left the window open when she entered the apartment to capture Junpei and set up the future Nonary Game.