Story So Far: Kansei

So, have you learned anything today? If not, here’s a lesson for you!

Never Google anything. It might inadvertently give JP an idea, so juts avoid it. What am I talking about? Well it turns out that VNs Now was among the answers Google have to the following query: ‘kansei full story’. Now me being me my first response was, ‘Well nothing to worry about there. Surely by now some intrepid Sake-fan has gone to Wikipedia and uploaded the full story for the masses. This means I don’t have to-WHAT IN THE TEN THOUSAND THUNDERING TY (rambles)’

…So many conversations in my head start like that…

Long story short, if you read Kansei’s Wikipedia page expecting a full sense of what happened in the game, you will be sorely disappointed. But then again, this is VNs Now! And if that’s what you wanted, all you had to do was ask! So, this is how it’s going to go. I will be following along the True Path of Kansei while mixing in other elements from other paths so you can have the full story. Yes, that means there will be spoilers ahead. So, if that concerns you maybe before you go to the comments and complain about what I’ve done, maybe you should…I don’t know…BUY THE DAMN GAME. It won 2011 EVN of the Year for a reason, you know. Seriously, here’s the link to buy it. Do it now.

For the rest of you who did the right thing in the eyes of both God and Man and bought Kansei when it came out, let’s get started.

Twenty-four hours after our nameless hero’s investigation assisted in the arrest of Jennifer Bergstrom for the murder of Sara Blackmoore, our young detective is slumming it with the Mizutani Twins and their quiet companion, Li Mei. Their reasons for this are actually quite legally sound as Miss Bergstrom can recant at any time; therefore it’s in the police’s best interests to keep him on a tight leash. There’s a joke about Aki’s brainpower there because she’s the one who comes up with the rationale but there are so many Aki jokes coming, why waste time on the easy ones?

After some banter back and forth the quartet piles into Aki’s economically friendly shoebox AKA her car and head off to the home of William Auten: CEO of Auten Engineering. It seems that Mr. Auten hired the Mizutanis to retrieve the data Blackmoore stole from his company in the first game and now he wants a report of exactly what happened. Along the way, he and Aki trade the following bits of dialogue:

• Aki and Naoki earned the trust of the police by stopping the murder of a foreign dignitary. It was Naoki who spotted the assassin’s pattern and was able to get his sister to help stop the kill. This one is vital for later, please remember it!
• Our nameless hero is originally from Edgewater and has been gone for three years; most likely living in Los Angeles. He tries to convince Aki he’s originally from LA, but Gurski figured him out when he told him the same story.
• Kansei (TITLE DROP!) is what Aki refers to their abilities as. Roughly translated it means ‘strong emotions’. This leads to our nameless hero’s new name given to him by Aki: Kangai. Okay people she named a cat ‘Stubtail’. You can have practical or awesome: not both.
•  Li Mei ‘s kansei allows her to experience the emotions of everyone around her: leading to the loss of her own emotional state. This is interesting and has consequences in both Kansei and its sequel, Yousei. BUT that’s for another time.
• As to the fake name, Kangai’s concerned with telling her his real one. This is also very important!

The group eventually arrives at the Auten Estate. They are greeted by Sophia Millerson: Auten’s personal assistant. Sophia is not impressed and has every right not to be, but they’re on the schedule so they get let into the house to wait for their meeting along with one Detective Mikolaj (here pronounced Mee-ko-lodge) Gurski (here pronounced Gurski) and WOW this is the last person Aki wants to see. The two throw a few verbal jabs at one another before Sophia steps in and forces them both into their respective corners. There is literally no way that there isn’t some kind of history there. Spoiler Alert: Yeah there is and it’s complicated.

While waiting for Auten to see them Aki and Naoki run off to ‘explore’ (ignore the sound of expense stuff breaking), leaving Gurski and Kan to themselves. At this time we get the introduction of our next new character: Marissa Klein of a pop magazine called Modern Trends. She confuses Kangai for Liam Auten and flirts with Gurski…yeah Gurski. It goes about as well as you’d expect flirting between a hyper-active reporter and a straight-laced, by the book detective can go. For what it’s worth, I laughed.

Sophia arrives on the scene to spare our virgin eyes this travesty of lust-induced nonsense and proceeds to read Marissa the Riot Act. By the by, Sophia is one of my favorite Jisei Murder Mystery characters: just thought I’d put it out there. Eventually, Marissa wears Sophia down for an interview with Mr. Auten and the two once again leave Gurski and Kan to themselves. Gurski apologizes for leaving him with the Mizutanis and Li Mei because they are property of the government…Wait WHAT?!

Aki and the others return just before Kan can get Gurski to explain just what in the Hell he’s talking about and the group goes up to see Auten. Using a CCTV camera, Auten (voiced by the freakin’ AWESOME R. Bruce Elliot) proceeds to freak out upon seeing Kangai: leading to Sophia shepherding them back down the stairs. There the group meets professional douche and sleeveless hoodie enthusiast Liam Auten. Auten confuses Naoki for a girl (and seriously, he’s not the first) and Aki decides now is a great time to do some sleuthing. She yanks Liam away to show her ‘the rest of the house’ and uses her kansei to instruct the others to begin looking around.

From there the group splits up and Kan once again runs into intrepid something or other Marissa Klein. Kan reveals that he is a private investigator for William Auten which leads to an agreement on the two to share information on the Auten Family. Apparently, the Modern Trends interview was just a ruse to get into the house and Klein has something else she wants to prove, but she’s still playing things close to the chest. Kan regroups with Li Mei and Naoki and immediately his kansei begins to go wonky which means one thing in this universe: someone’s about to die. The group tries to get into Auten’s study but the super, high-tech fortress Auten has built himself is keeping them out. From there one of two things can happen:

• Kangai can go and switch the power on and off because Naoki’s spine is made out of yellow paint. By the time you get back to the top floor, Mr. Auten is dead. This is the non-canon path, but it leads to some information that supports a story we’re going to get on the canon path.
• You can tell Naoki to man up and GIT R’ DONE. He doesn’t seem too pleased with the Larry the Cable Guy reference or the suggestion, but he runs his narrow backside downstairs and gets the job done. You go in with Gurski and Sophia to discover that Mr. Auten has died. Sophia tries to revive him and Kan inadvertently touches him, leading to Mr. Auten’s final moments. Like everyone with a God Complex (possibly just me in this context), he final thoughts are filled with regret for letting ‘him’ get so close to ‘her’. Possibly expecting his final moments to be seen by someone, he begs for the Vault to be protected.

Gurski suspects poisoning so declares the room (and home for that matter) a crime scene. Aki is not happy for several reasons; chief among them that Gurski told Kan that they’re government owned. For all her huffing and puffing about it, Li Mei confirms that the Mizutanis (as well as herself) are all convicts and Gurski’s their handler. Kan is stunned and we’re about to find out why.

Apparently, Kangai was once on the side of the angels. Gurski recalls being told stories of our snarky hero and his now-deceased sister when he joined the Edgewater PD. Apparently the two made quite the cold case duo and helped out the EPD before the sister’s murder; shortly after which Kangai…ran. Okay it’s a bit of a coward move but let’s try to remember something here. At the time, Kangai was fifteen. How many stupid decisions have we all made when we were fifteen that we regret? Enough said. Anyway Miko continues to chews out Kan, pointing out that a woman named Schulz is aware that he’s back as well, before agreeing to drop the subject at least until they can investigate Auten’s murder.

Kangai begins to question the people in the house which now includes one Kevin Nealy: Auten’s tech expert who was able to override the lockdown with the Master Code. Kevin is not surprised with Auten’s demise; pointing out that Auten was a raging alcoholic before ducking into his tech bunker. Melissa, however, is a bit more surprised. With Auten dead, Melissa finally puts all her cards on the table. She reveals that she’s actually an activist and was hoping to investigate rumors surrounding William Auten and a sleep study he conducted on the government’s behalf nearly twenty years prior on unborn children. It was to test an experimental drug that, according to Sophia who confirms all of this later on, was supposed to augment their mental abilities. To cut a long scientific explanation short, this is basically the genesis of the kansei ability.  The price of the experiment, however, wasn’t seen until years later when the women who participated realized they were barren; with some having miscarriages as a result of the experiments. What brings Marissa to the Auten Estate is the story of a woman who died because the drug caused complications during the birth of her children. Let’s just stick a pin right there and move onto Liam.

While not nearly ruthless or intelligent as the old man, Liam Auten has found a fair bit of trouble himself. The icing on the cake is a recent arrest for dogfighting. Sophia later confirms that this was enough for Mr. Auten to begin legal maneuvering to take his nephew out of his will. Yeah, you heard me: nephew. Apparently Liam’s full name is Liam Auten Guan: the son of William Auten’s sister and Shen Guan, his partner in the ‘sleep study’. After the death of his parents, William took custody of the boy. Well, that’s one mystery solved. The woman William Auten talked about has to be his sister and the ‘him’ is Shen Guan. It also begins our suspect list, since now that William Auten is dead and couldn’t change his will in time his wealth will be legally transferred to Liam.

Moving onto Auten’s Antique Room, we run into the diminutive Li Mei.  The two bond over their morbid powers they both exhibit: each being relatively alone despite, you know, the Twins and the law on their backs. The two continue their discussion on the murder with Li Mei using her abilities to get a feel for where everyone is emotionally (and with another jab at Aki’s questionable kansei usage) before discussing the different artifacts William Auten had collected. Li Mei, being of Chinese origin (duh), points out that they are technically safety charms. From this, Kangai is able to deduce that Auten wanted this room protected: ergo if there is a vault, it would be somewhere in that room.

Continuing his investigation Kan runs back into Aki who’s seems very chipper for no real reason. Apparently she was able to go in-depth in her investigation of Liam Auten. The two probably wrestled over the facts most of the time with Aki riding Liam for answers. Apparently Liam gave her what she wanted quickly, but Aki just wanted to keep going and going and-Okay I know half of you are in the middle of an angry comment, but the game itself pretty much jokes that Aki manipulated Liam with sex rather than her kansei. For what it’s worth, she chews Kan (and me) out for jumping to that conclusion. However, it’s still funny.

Anyway, using her ass-I MEAN HER KANSEI, Aki is able to get Liam to reveal that the Estate’s staff is not paid. Earlier in the investigation, Kevin implies this is not the case and he’s compensated well…which makes him a big, fat liar amongst big, fat liars. The truth is that Kevin’s family is in serious debt and working for Auten keeps the creditors at bay. On the other hand, Sophia’s husband a failing heart and in exchange for her services, Mr. Auten has him high on the list for one of Auten Engineering’s artificial models. With this, both are now seemingly off the suspect list, as killing Auten puts their families back in jeopardy.

Side Note: for those who have played Yousei, keep Sophia’s husband in mind when you’re on the Twins Route. More on that when I do the Story So Far for Yousei!

After convincing Liam to stay in the Estate by luring him to Melissa, Kangai confronts Kevin with this new information. Kevin reveals that his family’s debt is due to a school loan they pulled in order to fund his higher education; meaning he is feeling rather guilty on the entire matter. However, Kevin’s been doing some sleuthing of his own and dug up old news articles on the Mizutanis as well as Kangai and his sister. More on that in a bit, but for now Kevin confirms that there are cameras covering every spot of the Estate save for one in the Antique Room.

Kangai heads back to the room, realizing the empty Chinese box is what the cameras cannot see. Insert your own The Creature that Lived in the Refrigerator, Behind the Mayonnaise, Next to the Ketchup and to the Left of the Cole Slaw joke here. Li Mei says it’s a type of safe and asks for time to unlock it. While she’s doing that, we return to our old, super straight-laced friend Miko Gurski for more information on the Twins. According to him, one year after Kangai left Edgewater the Twins enter the city and started on their own con man crime spree. They managed to elude the police until Gurski, whom I have dubbed Mikolaj ‘The Black Dog’ Gurski, got on the case and apprehended Aki. Aki ended up making a deal with the authorities, most likely abusing the ever-living crap out of her kansei again, for plea deals in exchange for her and her brother’s indentured servitude. So, while young Miss Mizutani may not be an out and out liar, she is found of what Gurski calls ‘misleading truths’.

After speaking with Gurski, you return to Li Mei who has opened the box but it is empty. Li Mei confides that there’s another lock to the box where the real contents where. All Kangai has to do is find the second key that lied, ‘Where the East and West crossed’. Yeah that sounds simple enough. Hey Li Mei, you wouldn’t happen to have a hint of where to go would you? No? Alright it’s all on us then Kan.

Well, before you go out on the Great Key Mystery, there are some other interesting routes to take. First off, professional slacker and all-around despicable human being Liam Guan nee Auten decides to grace us with his presence. Kan questions Liam on the dogfighting allegations and he confirms it. Okay, dogfighting is a disgusting hobby and all, but considering William Auten’s body isn’t even cold yet just one floor above us, this may be a bit of a distraction. However Liam kind of deserves a Red Foreman-sized foot up his ass and Aki obliges us by forcing him to face plant on his way up the stairs. Nice.

Back over with Naoki, Kan can confront him over how he tends to roll over whenever Aki threatens him with a newspaper. Naoki reveals that his behavior is due to Aki being his caretaker for most of her life, since she stepped in to basically raise him after their Mother died giving birth to them. Wait…what was that thing Melissa said about a woman dying during childbirth because of the ‘sleep study’? Hmm, that’s probably not important. BUT if you’re persistent enough, he will finally fill the rest of us in on the history between his sister and Miko. Of course, he’s the female Mizutani’s arresting officer so surely there’s a bit of tension just from that. But, according to Naoki, the real problem is that, and I’m quoting here, ‘Both agree it was the worst first date ever!’

Wow. Seriously? Miko you sly, sly cradle robber you. C’mon he’s at least twenty-eight and she’s nowhere close to twenty: do the math people. Actually, to be completely fair and in line with most of Sakata’s work…the ‘date’ is probably happened before he caught her instead of after. My theory is Aki realized the heat was on and tried to…err, ‘compromise’ the one detective who was getting too close. Unfortunately for her, once The Black Dog bites he doesn’t let go. In the process of the ‘date’, Gurski was somehow able to shake off her kansei and she ended up behind bars. Again, only a theory, but it works in my head. Either way, try reading their interactions now the way you could BEFORE you found out this little tidbit. Thanks Naoki! Your gelatinous spine has finally come in handy!

Finally, if you originally went into the basement yourself, Naoki will have been by Sophia’s side the entire time. This means he would remember her security code and since Kangai has the basement code, the two are able to do some extra digging around. After shutting off the power, Kan and Naoki break into the central surveillance hub of the Estate: Kevin’s ‘fortress of solitude’. Once inside, Kan finds a hidden list of account numbers. One quick trip to Sophia later and we learn that they’re loan companies secretly owned by one William Auten. Why would anyone wish to keep those particular holdings secret? Well, so that you can help some bright students get through college and then jack up the premiums through fine print and other trickery to ensure they have nowhere else to turn but your company.

Yup, William Auten has just upgraded from totally ruthless to Magnificent Bastard.

Back over on the True Path, Kangai finds the second key in the fancy Dragon and Tiger fountain in the main lobby. The Dragon and Tiger, at least as they relate to the Chinese Zodiac, will have a large role to play in the overall story but that’s for another day. He returns to Li Mei and the two uses the key to uncover an SD Card, when the house goes into lockdown. Turns out it was Kevin Nealy all along. While you were busy looking for Auten’s vault, Aki and Gurski worked with Sophia to find a plastic bottle that was dumped in the incinerator; though it was not burned thanks to Sophia seeing it and dumping it in the recyclables. See folks? Recycling is good for something after all! On the previous night, Kevin mixes a bottle of liquid nicotine into Auten’s cognac: getting in with the Master Code. All he had to do was wait until Auten needed a sip of the good stuff and bam: the perfect crime.

At least until those meddling kids got involved anyway.

Kevin sees all of this via security cameras and tries to make a run for it through the Antique Room, where Kan and Li Mei are waiting. Kevin confesses to the crime: admitting that he couldn’t forgive himself for letting Auten take advantage of his family. Then he proceeds to be a moron and snatches Li Mei at knifepoint. Gurski and the others arrive on the scene and Aki, who hasn’t gone five seconds without using her kansei to screw with people, decides now it’s time to use her powers for good. She manages to disorient Kevin and Kangai nope. Thanks to Gurski, we now know his real name. Alex lands the mother of all haymakers onto Kevin to get Li Mei free. With Kevin caught, Liam’s brain scrambled and Melissa still wondering what the crap is going on, the four close the case and the police arrive to take Kevin into custody.

And so one truth prevails…OR DOES IT?!

If you take a few of the different paths, which you’ll have to do to get the True Ending and Epilogue anyway, here’s what happens instead:

• Going down the path that let you into the basement means that Alex and Sophia are the ones who find the plastic bottle instead, which means Li Mei is in the Antique Room by herself. The group tries again to reach them in time, unfortunately Kevin’s knife cuts into Li Mei’s face. Li Mei proceeds to enter God Mode, takes Kevin’s knife and skewers him like a large-mouth Bass. New theory: Li Mei’s the assassin Aki and Naoki stopped. Just putting that out there, although it only raises a flood of new questions about the girl. Especially considering it was so easy to make her snap.
• Going through the original route the first time through you get the SD Card but you don’t catch the killer. If you do that, then Alex keeps the SD Card and the police take over to investigate. The group deciphers the card, unlocking a file of genetic formulas and other research notes as well as a video file of…Alex?

And of course getting all of these endings gets you the Epilogue where Liam Auten has managed to evade arrest for being an asshat…and dogfighting. And who shows up now other than our favorite barista Chance. Chance berates him for only getting part of Auten’s old research files; apparently unaware of the SD card’s existence. She points out that it was the entire reason he was allowed to be adopted by William Auten and when Liam points out that Alex and the others were on the scene, Chance made it clear that he should’ve taken them out to ensure success of his mission. That’s when we learn the truth: Shen Guan is still very much alive and in all likelihood was Sara Blackmoore’s puppet master in Jisei. Now with only part of what they want and the mystery squad hot on their trail, the balls in Guan’s corner to act.

So, that was the story so far. Ready to buy Yousei yet? Well how do you intend to do that without our official review? Stay tuned: it’s on the way.