Chapter 19

Chapter 19 is the nineteenth chapter of the Dead Mount Death Play manga.

Short Summary
In the hours following Phantom Solitaire's escape, Tsubaki Iwanome re-briefs Comps-3 on Solitaire's criminal start and some of the most notable crimes of Solitaire's criminal career leading up to Solitaire's arrest at Iwanome's hands. After the briefing, Fumiyo Yamada beckons Iwanome and his colleagues over to a televised news broadcast that, despite the police's gag order on the subject, is covering Solitaire's prison breakout.

Corpse God shows off his new antique radio to Takumi Kuruya, Misaki Sakimiya, and Miyabi Hosorogi before tuning it to a random news channel, which reports that a male suspected of arson died en route to a police station when the two police cars escorting him spontaneously combusted. The deceased suspect is Know, who set fire to the Shinoyama manor.

The radio segment changes to a breaking news story on Solitaire's escape and with it the female announcer to a male announcer—who, as the Comps-3 officers realize via the televised coverage, is none other than Solitaire himself, looking like a new man with his updated haircut and wardrobe. Solitaire announces that his comeback performance will be in a week's time. Iwanome and Kōzaburō Arase speculate that The Grocer assisted Solitaire by buying broadcasting rights across Japan.

When night falls, Solitaire enjoys its starry sky from one of Shinjuku's many rooftops—one which he 'happens' to share with Fire-breathing Bug.

Summary
Tsubaki Iwanome arranges an emergency meeting of Materials Compiling Group No.3 in the wake of Tena Sorimura's escape from the Tokyo penitentiary, which occurred earlier that day at 5:30 PM. After clarifying that Sorimura vanished right in front of his and Arase's eyes, he goes over Sorimura's criminal history.

Sorimura's first crime occurred three years ago: when he stole a painting from the museum and left it in front of Studio Alta, placing the painting in a covered, air-conditioned case so as to protect it from damage. His self-professed motive was to give Shinjuku's YouTubers juicy material to cover, which Iwanome dismisses as baloney.

One of Sorimura's most striking tricks was to make onlookers believe the government office building had completely vanished, an illusion he accomplished by painting the building exterior to look like the sky and surrounding cityscape in a single night. His self-professed reason: to show residents that the Tokyo sky was larger than they gave it credit for, which Iwanome dismisses as nonsense.

Iwanome brings up the Jumbo Jet Teleport and Shinjuku Imperial Garden Dream Fireworks cases as examples of more Sorimura-attributable crimes, but moves on to the case that made Sorimura a worldwide name: the kidnapping of prime minister Yumenosuke. Over the course of one day, Sorimura had subsequently kidnapped the leaders of all opposing parties—stating in a live broadcast that his motives and actions are not political. When the prime minister was released that night, he said he came to his senses in a manga café, finding himself reading the manga "Gogo! Pudding Empire."

Finally, he recounts how Sorimura eventually turned himself in to police custody. Solitaire, despite all the worldwide attention he had drawn, acted despondent over the lack of attention from "real deal" magicians and supernatural entities—i.e. they whose interest he had hoped to attract with all his tricks and sleights of hand. All he has ever wanted, he had claimed, was to prove the realness of real illusions, and to be accepted by the 'real deal' as "one of their own."

In other words—Iwanome's—Solitaire was a career criminal for the sake of a "middle-school fantasy," which Solitaire had more than agreed with. Yes: everything he had done was so that he could make the dreams of the "imaginary middle-school student" in his heart come true. Iwanome had then put him under arrest, though Solitaire's lack of actual resistance had made it obvious Solitaire wanted to be incarcerated.

Even now, admits Iwanome, how much of what Sorimura has said is true, and what is false, remains uncertain. He warns his colleagues that Sorimura's above-average skills and physical prowess are not the troublemaker's most dangerous qualities.

In the Abandoned Building, the Corpse God, who now has ¥18,000 to his name, shows Takumi Kuruya and Misaki Sakimiya an antique 2000-yen radio he bought for information collection purposes. Takumi laments that the original ¥20,000 could have been spent on a cheap tablet instead, but Corpse God explains he would rather avoid devices that require regular fees until he has a regular income with which to afford them. 'Regular income' in this case does not include what spending money Rozan Shinoyama is providing, which Corpse God wants to reserve for emergencies rather than spend his way into Rozan's debt. Miyabi Hosorogi approves. When Takumi is no less underwhelmed by Polka Shinoyama's flip phone, Hosorogi remarks that an otherworlder is probably better off being acclimated to technology by starting with so-called 'outdated' tech. Takumi simply concludes that the Corpse God acts rather like a child for someone over a hundred years old.

The Corpse God plugs in his radio and tunes into a random news channel just in time to hear its female announcer switch from a story on 'body recovery' at a ruins site to an event that occurred in the afternoon: two police cars had spontaneously combusted while transporting a male suspect to a station, resulting in the suspect's death. Curiously, that suspect was arrested on suspicion of arson.

Takumi confirms everyone's own suspicions: this was the man who caused the fire at the Shinoyama estate. Misaki asks if the Corpse God can summon his spirit to ask what happened, but the Corpse God explains that tracking down wandering spirits is harder than it is with earthbound spirits. They and the announcer are interrupted by the latter's own announcement of breaking news on Tena Sorimura.

Over at Shinjuku's police station, Fumiyo Yamada beckons Iwanome and others to the television: the local news is discussing Sorimura's escape despite the police issuing a gag order on the media, much to Iwanome's flabbergasted outrage.

The television-cum-radio broadcasts speak so admiringly of Sorimura that Hosorogi calls the news piece a commercial in disguise. Takumi explains to the five years-out-of-touch Hosorogi that Sorimura, who started out as a Shinjuku-based urban legend like Lemmings, is now so famous that few Japanese people; that said, urban legends typically do not receive this level of mass media coverage. Misaki draws their attention back to the news announcer, whose voice has changed from a woman's to a man's.

Iwanome demands the name of the broadcasting station, which proves irrelevant: not only are all the television channels showing the same footage, all the radio channels are broadcasting the announcer's voice. Glaring at the screen—from Phantom Solitaire looks back from a news desk, his hair slicked back, his attire svelte—Iwanome exclaims, "...that prick. You've really done it this time, Solitaire!"

Sorimura announces his return as "The Phantom Solitaire," declaring to the police that they have a grace period of one week before he commences his comeback performance. His own 'performance' as Solitaire takes on a villainous air when, with fiendish aplomb, Solitaire invites the police to enjoy what is left of their lives—but the overall atmosphere is undermined as he flubs his signature parting phrase. He assures the audience he will decide on an appropriate parting phrase "by next time" before signing off with a plain "good night!"

After a moment of static, the regular news program resumes—its bewildered presenters apologizing for 'technical difficulties'. Arase is surprised that Sorimura is apparently capable of hijacking the signal, but Iwanome is sure that was the work of "The Grocer," whom he suspects "bought" the broadcasting rights for the city of Tokyo at minimum. Arase points out that "The Grocer" was in his cell that afternoon, to which Iwanome counters that walls are immaterial to him.

In the Grocer's cell, the exterior of which resembles that of a street newsstand, the Grocer mumbles, "Thank you, and come again."

Iwanome opines that this only further demonstrates how "big a handful" Sorimura is, and that he and Lisa Kuraki are of the same ilk. People to whom troublemakers instinctively flock, they who would not associate with each other otherwise.

On a rooftop, Sorimura surveys the cityscape and marvels over how a "new opportunity" presented itself to him while he was in prison—the very place he had gone in despair of having not found 'real' magic. He muses that life is a 'puzzle' and asks the Fire-breathing Bug if they concur.

Trivia

 * Yen Press, despite translating Sorimura's moniker as "Mystery Solitaire" in previous chapters, translates it as "Phantom Solitaire" in this chapter's individual release. Phantom Solitaire is retained in this chapter's volume edition, and has remained the moniker's preferred interpretation since. individual chapter individual chapter, and translates Sorimura's moniker as "Phantom Solitaire," despite having translated it as "Mystery Solitaire" in previous chapters.

Referbacks

 * The "body recovery" effort regarding a ruins site mentioned in passing on the radio will be brought up again in Chapter 89, seventy chapters on. Therein, the phenomenon is described as a popular trend where youths have been partaking in "corpse searches" among the ruins of derelict suburban buildings in Shinjuku. According to Takumi, over thirty people have actually gone missing from these buildings over the course of just six months. The chapter sets up Corpse God's likely investigation of these corpse hunts in chapters that follow.