Recap / The Kindaichi Case Files Game House Murder Case

"Game House Murder Case" is the fourteenth, and the final, case arc in the New Series of The Kindaichi Case Files.

After receiving six tickets for an amusement park in a lottery, Hajime invites Miyuki and four others in their year to said amusement park for fun. Kindaichi and Miyuki become separated from others while they're in the amusement park and waves down a bus on their way back to their hotel. The bus ride, however, takes them to an abandoned psychiatric hospital, where those who are taken inside are also greeted by someone who claims to be the "Game Master", who forces the participants to play a series of "games"... with their own lives on the line. Who's the "Game Master" behind this setup and, more urgently, who will (or won't) make it out alive?

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Tropes include:

• Abandoned Hospital: The "games" are all set within a psychiatric hospital that has long fallen into disuse before the case arc begins.
• Alliterative Name: Three names in this case arc have their first and last names both starting with the same letter: "K" for Kozue Kikukawa, "M" for Mika Mugibayashi, and "Shi" for Shiho Shimomura.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • Early in the case arc, one of Kindaichi and Miyuki's peers suggests to the other three the idea of leaving Hajime and Miyuki on their own in order for them to develop romantic feeling towards each other, with the others agreeing, though Sota is more hesitant about the proposal. While the separation does achieve the intended purpose, it also results in Kindaichi and Miyuki becoming unintentionally involved in a serial murder case.
  • While Hajime and Miyuki watch a not-scary performance, Hajime decides to try stealthily to hold Miyuki's hand in the hope of fostering some romantic advancement with her. Unfortunately for Hajime, the keyword is "try", because he, in his attempt to be stealthy about the attempt, ends up holding onto the hand of a female stranger by mistake, who has a boyfriend of her own, with said boyfriend expressing angry outrage at him for his stunt, which prompts Hajime to grab hold of Miyuki's hand and flee the scene in panic. Though he DOES get to hold Miyuki's hand, the occasion is not as romantic as he had hoped it would be.
• Camping a Crapper: Shiho's son is killed by the Death Trap the culprit had set up in the washroom.
• Continuity Nod: Among the teenagers Hajime invites for the amusement park rides, Souta was a participant in the Jail Gate Cram School Murder Case (and several short files) and the other boy was involved in the Graveyard Island Murder Case (with a note being pointed to the respective boy for clarifying reminder, at that).
• Deadly Game: Each of the "games" the culprit sets up results in death to whomever that runs afoul of its trap.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Near the end of the case arc, the culprit confesses to have impersonated another person who had long been Dead All Along.
• Dramatic Thunder: Right as Hajime waves down a bus, a lightning flashes down from the sky, with a roaring thunder following along. Kindaichi reveals during Summation Gathering that the bus driver at the moment was actually the "Game Master" in disguise, making the thunderous introduction to something that turns out to be sinister, even though he and Miyuki didn't realize at the time.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Shortly after Hajime and Miyuki enter the bus and sit down, the driver pulls out a gas mask and puts it on. Immediately afterward, the driver turns on the nearby gas canister and releases gas, causing Kindaichi and Miyuki (and every other passenger as well, even if it's not shown explicitly) to fall asleep, further establishing the driver, who's later revealed as the culprit in this case arc, in a sinister angle due to the culprit effectively abducting everyone in the bus.
• Flaw Exploitation: The second Deadly Game requires the participant to do puzzle-solving in order to escape while the room itself is slowing burning. As Hajime remarks during Summation Gathering, this is the first one with the intended aim of killing Shiho's son, who actually stated in panic that he was never any good at puzzle-solving, and the only reason he made it out alive was because Kindaichi himself solved it for him.
• Four Is Death: There are a grand total of four deadly games that the participants in this murder case are forced to undergo, with Shiho being killed in the first one and her son the fourth. As Hajime reveals in The Summation, the culprit had already targeted them in advance, before the murder case even began, and those four "games" were simply the means to the goal.
• He Knows Too Much: Averted/Subverted. As Kindaichi reveals in The Summation, he and Miyuki were "enlisted" into the culprit's Deadly Game series because the Dramatic Thunder flashed right as the bus stopped, which made the culprit posing as the bus driver realize that they might have seen the culprit's face, but they were ultimately spared because they showed no signs of recognition toward the culprit, who was always among the participants. This is also implied to account for everyone else who got on the ride, as all who weren't forced to play the "games" were all then abandoned but unharmed and alive along with the bus, to be discovered by the police the next day, as Kenmochi discloses, while the other Deadly Game participants that the culprit never intended to kill showed no recognition to the culprit as the bus driver at the time and were spared after the games had run their course.
• Hypocritical Humor: After the murder case concludes, Kindaichi and Miyuki discuss briefly about money and happiness. Hajime waxes philosophical about the concept... only to imagine what he could do if he were to get hold of some of Shiho's estate.
  Kindaichi: Well, with money, there's only a chance you achieve happiness. After all, in the end, happiness isn't based on how much money you have. [thinking privately] That said, I don't even need all of Shiho's estate; just ten thousand yen. And if I didn't get involved in this incident, I wouldn't have had to cheap out on lodgings and could have spent more time with Miyuki. I could have gotten some games, too.
• Inheritance Murder: The motive behind the serial murder in this case arc turns out to be because the culprit wishes to claim the entire estate that Shiho and her son possess. As Akechi discloses to Kindaichi, who then reveals in The Summation, the wealth Shiho has accumulated after her husband's demise would be passed onto her son in her passing, and said wealth would belong to the Japanese government should Shiho's son have no one to pass the estate to — but that's only assuming Shiho's late husband had no illegitimate offspring, because there IS one in this situation; under this circumstance, Shiho's late husband's illegitimate offspring could become the new owner of the estate, should the death sequence happen to Shiho's husband, and then to Shiho, and finally to Shiho's son. Therefore, the culprit has exacted the murders with the aim of enabling Shiho's son's half-sibling to become the new owner of the wealth Shiho has accrued.
• Jerkass: Shiho's son starts with being outraged at Hajime over his mother's death after she offered to let Hajime go first in the first Deadly Game, dismissing Kindaichi's recount of her potentially self-sacrificing move by claiming that Kindaichi lied, and then follows up with claiming he's dead when he's the only one who has yet to emerge from the second Deadly Game and that he's got what's coming to him for abandoning Shiho earlier, going so far as to dismiss Hajime helping him in the second one (which he outright admitted to not being good at solving and survived only due to Hajime's help), which results in Miyuki angrily slapping him in the face — and she would have done it more than once had Kindaichi not emerged in time to motivate Miyuki to stop.
• Mystery Magnet: Kindaichi's unfortunate tendency to get involved in murder mysteries is pointed out YET AGAIN.
  • Upon the boys remembering their past murder-mystery-related experiences with Hajime, one of the girls asks Kindaichi whether he's really cursed, which annoys Hajime.
    Kindaichi: Leave me alone!
  • Akechi makes one such remark when he talks to Hajime over the phone as the investigation is ongoing, much to the latter's annoyance.
    Akechi: Glad that you're doing well, Mr. Kindaichi. When I heard that you went missing at the amusement park, I wasn't particularly shocked at you getting involved in a new case.
    Kindaichi: [thinking privately] Leave me alone.
  • The case arc ends with Kindaichi and Miyuki rejoining their peers, one of whom declaring that Hajime really IS cursed, which he doesn't appreciate.
    Kindaichi: Shut up!
• Never Suicide: As the culprit's confession goes, the dead body of the cosmetic surgeon who was murdered for trying to Blackmail the culprit was placed in the same sea of forest where the culprit found the Dead All Along person the culprit would then impersonate and placed in the hanging style to make it look as though he hanged himself.
• Not the First Victim: The culprit confesses to have already killed two people prior to the present-day serial murder case.
  • The first victim was a scammer the culprit got involved with and eventually killed by accident.
  • The second one was a cosmetic surgeon who tried to extort more money out of the culprit, in addition to the monetary cost for the cosmetic surgery the culprit took in order to impersonate someone who had already been long gone, via Blackmail.
• Posthumous Character: Shiho's husband died sometime before the case arc began. That being said, his demise — or, rather, the publication of it — helped to get the case arc going once the culprit became aware of it.
• Race Against the Clock: The first two "games" are both timed: The first one has an explicit timer marked for five minutes, while the second one has the enclosed room continuously burning up slowly until the entire room is charred.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The culprit's motive for instigating an Inheritance Murder was to ensure that Shiho's late husband's illegitimate offspring, who had accumulated a massive amount of debt, would be debt-free. It all becomes moot after the illegitimate offspring in question ends up donating all of the fortune to the orphanage that they had grown up in in the past, which shocks the culprit during their conversation near the end of the case arc.
  Culprit: Are you kidding? How could you do something like that?
  Illegitimate Offspring: How could I accept that blood money?
• Shipper on Deck: One of Hajime and Miyuki's peers suggests early on in the case arc of leaving them two by themselves in order to help foster potential romantic advancement between them, and the other three agree, albeit slightly less enthusiastically on Souta's part.
• Shock-and-Switch Ending: After the surviving participants enter an enclosed room for a supposed fifth Deadly Game, gas suddenly starts permeating through the room and everyone soon loses consciousness (except for the culprit, who wears a gas mask). The next scene shifts to Kindaichi being woken up by Kenmochi, with accompanying police officers in tow, who informs him that he, Miyuki, and everyone else who lost consciousness in the room where they were discovered were all alive and well, with a sign on a wall with the words "GAME OVER! CONGRATS, YOU ESCAPED!" on a note being taped to the sign.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The unnamed writer of a magazine manages to fulfills this role via writing an article about Shiho's vast wealth and her son after her husband's passing, as the information from the article gave the culprit, who knows that Shiho's late husband has an illegitimate offspring, an incentive to carry out an Inheritance Murder, making said magazine article writer an Unwitting Instigator of Doom as well.
• Stalker without a Crush: As Kindaichi reveals during Summation Gathering, the culprit did a comprehensive investigation on Shiho's son with the intent of finding out as many of his behavioral pattern, preferences, and flaws as possible. Afterwards, the culprit set up each Deadly Game, starting from the second, with the aim of killing him — the only reason he managed to last as long as he did was due to external factors (he survived the second one because Hajime helped him out, which almost got Hajime himself killed in the process; his survival through the third one was because he passed the ramen -- which turned out to be poisonous -- on to someone else, who then tested it out and discovered the poison within before consuming it).
• Tampering with Food and Drink: The third Deadly Game forces every survivor to eat ramen. Panic ensues when poison is discovered due to the fish in the fish tank dying after consuming some, though everyone survives this round.
• The Teetotaler: One of the participants in this case arc is a game programmer who, after breaking up with an actress, getting drunk afterwards, and had many anger issues from the entire experience, swore off alcohol altogether and has remained alcohol-free since then.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Played for drama and horror alike. Just as the first Deadly Game is set to start, the "Game Master" appears on the TV screen in the room where everyone is trapped and warns that the game in question has the time limit of five minutes and whoever fails to escape the room when the time runs out will die, with a pirate doll on top of the TV exploding as demonstration for good measure. After all but one manage to escape the room, one of the survivors bangs on the locked door to the room, especially since the person being still trapped within it is Shiho, his mother, and the time is only five seconds away from running out. One of the other survivors tells him nonchalantly that the woman won't explode for real... and then a loud booming voice erupts, followed by the door opening up to show a bloodied woman's foot wearing the shoe that her son recognizes as hers at once.
  • When every surviving participant is gathered in a luxurious hospital room for the fourth Deadly Game, which is set up as a treasure hunt with the key out of the room being hidden somewhere within, one male participant has a Potty Emergency and uses the toilet. After he gets out of it and looks perfectly fine, Shiho's son rushes into the bathroom before anyone else can and, while washing his hands, reaches for something after having seemingly realized something, claiming that he'll win the game, only to end up falling into the culprit's Death Trap instead.
• Trapped by Gambling Debts: One of the participants in this case arc has accrued a lot of debt in online gambling, such that declaring bankruptcy is not an option to getting out of debt.
• Your Days Are Numbered: The culprit turns out to not have long to live, as illustrated by a bout of Blood from the Mouth prior to finishing the confession and allowing the police to proceed with the arrest. This is also why the culprit instigates an Inheritance Murder, knowing that time is NOT on the culprit's side.
  As you can see, the road in front of me isn't very long... I don't have to wait for the death penalty... I'll be lucky to last even six months.