Recap / The Kindaichi Case Files Doll Island Murder Case

"Doll Island Murder Case" (aka "Hitogata Island Murder Case") is the eighth case arc in "The Kindaichi Case Files R" series of The Kindaichi Case Files.

After Kindaichi helps a teacher decipher a code said teacher presents to him, the teacher invites Kindaichi and Miyuki to visit Hitogata Island, an isolated island that is located on the Izu Peninsula and well-known for the annual doll ceremony rites. Unbeknownst to them, a murder is about to occur...

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Tropes include:

• Angsty Surviving Twin: Makoto had a twin sister, but she died in a tragic traffic accident where she got run over by a truck. His father subsequently made Makoto dress like a girl and having him Raised as the Opposite Gender as well, until Makoto's mother got a divorce and took him to Hitogata Island, where they have lived on ever since. He's still uneasy talking about his twin sister in the present time, though (part of) the reason might be due to the belief that is shared among the inhabitants of the island that her death (and the deaths of some others) is believed to have been the result of neglecting to perform the annual doll ceremony rites.
• Catapult Nightmare: Kindaichi sees Miyuki and Makoto together and seemingly becoming more intimate with each other at one point, so he rushes out to stop them, only to find out from their Face-Revealing Turn that they have become dolls. The next scene has Kindaichi waking up with a scream before realizing that it was All Just a Dream.
• Chainsaw Good: The culprit, after killing the writer, chops up the body with a chainsaw.
• Connected All Along:
  • A string of tragic incidents that lead to the murder case turns out to link several people who are otherwise unrelated to each other. Makoto's twin sister was killed in a traffic accident 12 years ago, back when Makoto himself was 5. Afterwards, the person who was responsible for the death of Makoto's twin sister lost his wealth due to having to pay for compensation because of the tragic traffic accident while also under pressure of supporting his wife and daughter, and he eventually turned to robbery, culminating in one that resulted in the murder of a woman, who was the mother of one of the visitors. The robbery-cum-murder case became the source material for a writer, but the ensuing media scrutiny caused the criminal's wife and daughter to be Driven to Suicide. After the suicides took place, the writer had a My God, What Have I Done? reaction and stopped writing for a while, before resurfacing with Invented Individual (two, in fact) as part of the writer group "Persona Doll" that always disguised themselves in an attempt to draw distance from said writer's previous identity. The writer arrived on Hitogata Island with the intention of erasing the group's existence, only for the culprit, who is the criminal's sister-in-law, to have gotten wind of the plan to commit the murder of said writer.
  • Moreover, the police officer who arrested the culprit in the robbery-cum-murder case was none other than Kenmochi himself, who is also among the visitors on the island where the murder case arc takes place. The man had taken a doll that belonged to the woman he killed in the robbery, and the police offered to return the doll after his wife and daughter were Driven to Suicide, but her husband refused, resulting in the doll being again in the hands of Kenmochi, who has visited the island several times for the doll ceremony — at the time of the murder case arc, he's visiting the island for the fifth time for this purpose.
• Continuity Nod: As the case arc draws to its end, Itsuki has a brief conversation with Kindaichi and Miyuki over the similarity the culprit in this murder case shares with his own adopted daughter — namely, the fact that both the culprit and Itsuki's adopted daughter received a kidney in a transplant from someone who got involved in a host of trouble, as his adopted daughter received her kidney from her biological father, who was a major contributor in an earlier mystery case that got Kindaichi, Miyuki, and Itsuki involved.
• Creepy Doll: Kindaichi's Catapult Nightmare involves him seeing Miyuki and Makoto as moving human-sized dolls.
• Dragged by the Collar: Kindaichi gets this treatment from Miyuki when Miyuki drags him to see the teacher catching him Asleep in Class yet again.
• Face-Revealing Turn: Upon seeing Miyuki and Makoto together, Kindaichi runs out to stop them. They turn around to face him, revealing themselves to be moving, human-sized Creepy Doll. Kindaichi wakes up screaming as the result of his shock at such a scene, before realizing it was All Just a Dream all along.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Kindaichi's scrutiny towards the culprit about some details of the culprit's earlier activities and motives behind said activities late in the case arc allows him to unravel the contradiction in the culprit's claims and strengthen his assessment that the culprit had been alternating between appearing as the real self and disguising as a member of the group this whole time.
  Kindaichi: Playing two roles is by itself incredibly difficult because... the movement and the memories of the two persons will get mixed up and make you blurt out something that you shouldn't have known, like what you did just now!
• Invented Individual: Two members of the writer group "Persona Doll" are this. The core member of the group, the real writer, decided to stage a fake murder plan in order to erase their existence. However, the writer didn't know that someone used this plan in order to kill said writer.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • Some of the fellow visitors in this case arc have stories regarding their respective doll each of them brings to the island for the ceremony.
    • A visitor who brings a sculpted doll confides of a story about a crack on the back of its head that was caused when one of the workers from the neighboring city found it while cleaning a shrine dedicated to it that was ruined by a landslide and then threw it aside, with it hitting a rock as the result, right before a tree fell on said worker and caused a large wound on the back of his head, though he has survived it.
    • Another visitor bringing a doll that belonged to a lover of his who had died of leukemia states that he had seen what appeared to be tears shedding from said doll once.
  • As Makoto confides to Kindaichi, the Hitogata Island inhabitants believe that the annual doll ceremony rites must be performed no matter what, lest deadly disasters befall those who fail to do so, and he mentions some tragic deaths besides that of his twin sister, which all happened when some of the inhabitants neglected to fulfill this duty.
• Meaningful Echo: When the culprit, the sister of the woman who was Driven to Suicide alongside her daughter, confesses to the murder, part of the statements is "my sister is alive in my body" because the culprit had received a direct kidney transplant from the woman not long after the woman's husband was responsible for the traffic accident. When Kindaichi visits the culprit after uncovering some hitherto unknown information about the writer, he says the same line to the culprit as part of his attempt (which succeeds) in getting the culprit out of the Despair Event Horizon after seeing that the culprit seems to have lost the will to live.
• Never One Murder: Subverted, as the 3 corpse pieces that are found in this case actually belong to one person.
• Raised as the Opposite Gender: The backstory of Makoto Rindo, who was in Miyuki's violin class back in their kindergarten days, is a "boy raised as girl" example, though Makoto himself actually thought he was a girl until he and his mother moved to Hitogata Island, where his mother revealed to him that he was a boy being asked to dress as a girl, which surprised Makoto himself. As Kindaichi and Miyuki weren't told of this prior to their arrival at the island in question, this information is a surprise to them and the readers alike.
• Ripped from the Headlines: In-Universe. The robbery-cum-murder case was the source material of a novel.
• Stalker without a Crush: After encountering the writer's resurfaced identity as part of "Persona Doll" and seeing the similar writing style with the one who wrote the novel that was based on the robbery-cum-murder case, the culprit approached the writer and offered to help, before placing a tapping device, made duplicate keys, and investigated the writer's belongings in order to look for an opportunity to kill the writer.
• Talking with Signs: The members of the "Persona Doll" communicate by writing their words down on a small, portable dry-erase board and displaying the board for the recipients to see.
• Tears from a Stone: One of the visitors claims to have seen what appeared to be tears being shed from the doll that belonged to his deceased lover.
• Unwitting Pawn: During Kindaichi's Summation Gathering, he reveals that the people who join the writer to pose as "Persona Doll" are foreigners who are hired help for a temporary stunt before returning to their home country. This time, the culprit gets wind of this arrangement, murders the writer, poses as one member of the group, and tells the one remaining hired foreigner that the murder scene and the police are All Part of the Show so as to avoid arousing suspicion before the last hired foreigner leaves Japan and remains none the wiser.