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Fridge Brilliance

  • The red strands of Aiba's hair make a lot more sense if you see them as a representation of the ocular muscles.
  • As usual for an Uchikoshi game, there's a lot of wordplay that sometimes hints at major reveals.
    • The model of Date's car is never discussed in game, and Word of God only clarified that it was an Australian make of car. Examining it with this in mind reveals it's an '89 Ford Falcon.
    • Date's real name is Hayato Yagyu. With Kanji in mind, Hayato means "falcon" and Yagyu can be broken down to "8" and "9". Quite the Prophetic Name.
  • Latent Egyptian Mythology references. It's subtle, but LINE is Bland-Name Product-ed into NILE, the lifeline of Ancient Egypt.
    • You can get Iris note  to tell the story of Horus and Seth, even though it seems unrelated to anything...until you connect Horus to Date. Horus had a falcon head and one of his lost eyes became known as Wadjet. The one who healed it, the god Thoth of knowledge, writing and the moon, can be vaguely connected to Pewter. And Seth? Saito.
    • The Kabasaki district's name is written with the word for hippo, the animal both gods turned into during one of their many fights.
    • Even Aiba's choice of "Alice" for the mysterious frozen corpse makes sense for the Egyptian theming if you consider the last time this was used for a mythical Egyptian woman.
  • Another loose mythology reference. Polish mythology has it that there exist creatures called Nightmares who cause people bad dreams at night by visiting their subconscious. They are normal people by daylight except with one oddity: their eyes do not match color. Our Psyncers might be a benevolent spin on the myth.
  • The very last Psync has something that is not explained but makes sense once you think about it, namely the time mechanics being the near inverse of the normal: static when moving around, only losing time (sometimes, in bouts of 60 seconds) when interacting with items. This is the very first time that you are being Psynced instead of the reverse. Of course time works in the reverse way.
  • Some possible brilliance once you realize that Date has spent the whole game in Saito's body. Saito's brain is wired to feel pleasure at murder (and presumably, violence in general). This might retroactively explain the Running Gag of dirty magazines being involved in most of the action sequences. Aiba might not be telling the truth about them being used to boost Date's reaction time - instead, they're being used to make Date associate the feelings of pleasure with the porn, rather than the violence; so he doesn't end up becoming a psychopath like Saito.
    • This may also explain the Non Sequitur, *Thud* about the cabaret club Date has after shooting the killer in Mizuki's Route; he's feeling the pleasure of killing from Saito's messed-up brain while Aiba is damaged and unable to provide oxytocin.
  • Uchikoshi has said that the Iris Route is the bad end of the game, and that's the reason it curves inwards in the flowchart. This might be surprising since the Annihilation Route is generally thought to be the worst end of the game, as it ends with a total defeat of the protagonists. But the Iris Route is a narrative dead end. The Annihilation Route unravels all remaining mysteries by revealing the identity of the Big Bad, the motive, and the method. But in the Iris Ending, the story goes nowhere because you've decided to believe the conspiracy ramblings of a girl with a terminal brain tumor. So the Iris Route curves inward because it makes the plot go nowhere.
    • Also, for all of its tragedy, the Annihilation Route still ends with Saito in police custody and unable to kill anyone; as a result, Date still saved all of Saito's potential future victims and solved the mystery, with the potential to heal from what was the nadir of his life. With the Iris Ending, Saito has likely gotten far away and Date is delusional.
  • In Hitomi's Somnium, the only way to progress at one point involves Aiba yelling about Date's infatuation with Hitomi. Much to both their shock, this catches the attention of the Hitomi that's in the Somnium. This interaction gains additional significance when you discover that Date and Hitomi were lovers back before the former lost his memory and changed bodies. Although Hitomi only ever knew him by the name "Falco", the game points out that dreams are made up of multiple overlapping subconscious memories and responses to multiple different actions, making it likely that Hitomi subconsciously drew a connection between the two.
  • When Date first enters the Kumakura Office (in either route), he refuses to believe that Moma is the chairman, insisting that Rohan is. At first this seems odd - since Moma took over six years ago, which is when Date lost his memory, it seems like Moma should be the only Kumakura chairman Date remembers. But eventually, we learn that Date (as Falco) spent years working as an assassin for the Kumakuras under Chairman Rohan, so it makes sense that he subconsciously still thinks of Rohan as the chairman. That and prior to meeting Moma he is unaware of Rohan's "suicide".

Fridge Horror

  • On Mizuki's Route, Iris is said to make a full recovery from her surgery after So Sejima is killed. That's great! ...and then you reach the Annihilation Route's ending and realize that Iris is already dead, given that Saito swapped her mind into Renju's body before killing him, and that "Iris" is really So's mind in her body due to Saito switching with him afterwards. Then you find out something else from the Resolution Route - namely, that Iris is suffering from terminal brain cancer, so her body is doomed anyway.
  • Ota's Route for similar reasons, but even worse: while Saito is killed while within So's body at the climax of Mizuki's route, here he has already moved on to his next body, evidenced by the discovery of So's dismembered corpse. If the Annihilation Route is any indication, the Boss that Date is talking to during The Stinger is actually Saito and the real Boss is dead, with the branch heading full-tilt towards a bad ending.
  • In the joke ending, Date convinces the Lemniscate receptionist to move to Atami with him, yanking Aiba out of his eye socket so she can't stop him. You later learn that Date's current brain (which was originally Saito's) has a deficiency which makes it unable to naturally secrete oxytocin, the hormone responsible for feelings of love, and one of Aiba's functions was to compensate for this by giving him a supplementary dose. Saito was unable to feel love due to this, and without Aiba, a similar fate probably awaits Date.
  • Iris's debut single Invincible Rainbow Arrow becomes incredibly dark once you consider the context of her brain tumor - considering she became an idol to find her long-lost Uncle, the lyrics sound like a cry for help against her incoming death.note 
Even with the devils of time against you,
[Later in the song]
Never let this merciless world erase you!
  • Fridge Horror/Hilarity: In both Ota Route and Mizuki Route, So is still in Iris's body as Saito's attempt was stopped. So Ota is expecting to have Iris wake up and get into a relationship with her, unaware that Iris is already dead and her body is inhabited by an old man - who happens to be her father.
  • In the Annihilation ending, Saito reveals that he, while in Rohan Kumakura's body, swapped with Shoko Nadami over a year earlier. Shoko has been Dead All Along and an imposter was using her body to spy on Date with no one the wiser, not even her ex-husband or her daughter.
  • When Saito explains why he'd been desiring to get his old body back, he points out that the lack of ecstasy from killing people made him miserable. Saito is fully aware that his love for murder stems from his brain's unique neurochemistry and the endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine he receives from killing things. Yet Saito inhabits several bodies throughout the game that don't possess that same unique wiring and it doesn't stop him from being obsessed with murder. Instead of partaking in previously unknown pleasures, he continues to be a hopeless addict to murder, highlighting how truly far gone Saito himself was.

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