Episode Title:
The Holy Warrior.
Episode Description:
Ikari and Maniwa interrogate the boy known as Lil' Slugger, who turns out to be an eighth-grade student named Makoto Kozuka. Kozuka admits to the attacks, but he believes that the world around him is a medieval fantasy-style role playing game. Kozuka believes that in attacking people, he is liberating them from a villain named Gohma who has possessed them. Kozuka retells the chronology of attacks from his game-based perspective, and Ikari and Maniwa follow along in a narrative device quite reminiscent of the director's Millennium Actress: Maniwa, taking an emic point of view, especially gets caught up in Kozuka's role playing. Various characters appear in different guises: Kawazu as a stepped-on frog, Kozuka as a warrior, and Maria as an evil butterfly woman. Maniwa cleverly pretends to be a minstrel who must record all the heroic details. The detectives see that the details of his story correspond to all of the attacks — with the notable exception of the case of Tsukiko Sagi. However, Kozuka points the detectives to someone who he believes can help him take the game to the next level, and who the detectives believe may be an important witness to the initial attack.
