Your tone has become a lot more refined, Homura-san.
Going to flute classes made practising long tones and scales more fun.
Atta girl.
I'm doing my best!
You've got guts, if nothing else.
"Nothing else"?! You know that's not true!
Surround her! Don't let her escape!
How dare you get violent with an innocent girl? Have you no shame?!
I'll take you to court!
That's rich, coming from an illegal trespasser!
What's the big deal?
I'm gonna join this school next month, anyway!
What is this trainwreck?
Hey, concert band! Help me out here!
Concert band?
Don't worry.
This guy is Hinohara-san, our student council president.
Is that a Sakuragaoka Junior High uniform?
Yeah...
That's a trombone, right?
Judging from its size, a bass trombone?
That's right!
Could you be Kamijou Haruta-san?
Yeah, why?
I'm Gotou Akari!
There's a mystery I want you to solve!
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BLOSSOM
That's a cool invention.
You get it?
Of course!
Hey...
They still need a lot of work.
Inventions like those would make Alexander Graham Bell cry!
S-Sir!
Please forgive us!
We'll get right to it!
That's enough. You're being an eyesore.
Let's go, Suguru.
We should head back and resume the Snake Robot Mk2's launch experiments.
Don't make anything stupid!
Who were that miserable duo?
The Hagimoto brothers, from the inventor club.
Two of the top ten students on the student council blacklist.
The top ten on the blacklist?
If I said Nagoe from the drama club was among that number,
would that help you get what kind of list it is?
Oh...
So, how'd you know about me?
You're famous among the members of our concert band.
Because he was living at school as the biology club's pet?
Living at school?
Of course not! She's kidding!
Quit running your mouth, Chika-chan.
Gotou-san, what exactly are they saying about Haruta?
That he's a detective of sorts who solves all kinds of mysteries.
Wow.
Are you going to join the concert band in high school too?
That's the plan.
Hooray! You're part of our family already.
Shall I play a bit?
Such a pretty tone.
It's not easy to tongue the bass trombone correctly.
I guess you have a talent for it.
No, no.
But last year,
I made our band pick Benny Goodman's Medley as our free-choice piece with my skills!
Doesn't it have a trombone solo?
It was no big deal.
I left the audience at the competition venue speechless.
I think I have a decent grasp of your skills and personality now.
You figured it out?
That's Detective Kamijou-senpai for you!
Well, I'm sure Detective Haruta will be happy to help you out.
It's your job to solve absurd problems like the ones Princess Kaguya gave her suitors.
So what's this mystery?
Um...
What colour is Elephant's Breath?
THE ELEPHANT'S BREATH
Shizuoka City Kiyomizu Central Library
This dictionary has more than seven thousand colour samples.
But it only has the name "Elephant's Breath". No sample.
I didn't know there was a colour with such a funny name.
Apparently the term was first introduced around 1884.
Looking at your own breath isn't going to help.
Why do you want to know about it?
That jerk... He said he saw Elephant's Breath.
All my life, I'd been told that my grandfather was dead.
But we found out that he was actually alive.
S T O P P I N G
I don't want to admit he's my grandfather, so let me refer to him as "that jerk".
He and my grandmother promised to marry a long time ago.
But that jerk wanted to study art,
so he used the money they'd both saved up and went to America.
My grandmother later found out that she was pregnant with his child,
but she didn't want to worry that jerk, so she never informed him.
She waited for him, believing that he'd return after a year as promised.
But she never heard from him after that.
Spring Ephemeral
It was only when a friend got in touch last year
that we found that jerk was here.
Grandma!
Meet the high schoolers I told you about yesterday.
Thank you for taking care of my granddaughter.
Come in.
Wow.
Did your grandfather paint all these?
That's right.
Oh, my granddaughter.
Good of you to come.
This is my grandfather. Technically.
Hello.
Um, we are—
Oh? High school girls these days sure have long legs.
Stop staring, you perverted geezer!
Apparently he's got amnesia.
He has next to no memory of his time in America.
The only thing he does remember
is that he saw Elephant's Breath.
Elephant's Breath?
Knock it off!
Try asking him about his time there.
He might remember something.
Got it.
There isn't anything for me to remember.
Looks like he really can't remember anything.
Do you know when he left for the States?
Uh...
He left for San Francisco in the year Showa 41.
1966, huh?
Such a beautiful painting.
This is pointillism, right?
Seurat.
Grande Jatte.
Surer... Grand Chat?
Seurat was a painter, Chika-chan.
He's responsible for many unique works of pointillism.
One of his paintings, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte",
is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Am I the only ignorant one here?
Well, I lived in Chicago for a while.
You went from San Francisco to Chicago?
I'm starting to think I did,
my granddaughter.
Take this seriously!
There, there.
Those are your paintings too, aren't they?
That's right.
Elephant Sleeping in the Light of Dawn
Do you mind if I take a look?
Elephant Sleeping in the Light of Dawn
They're not worth looking at.
What's the big deal?
Only the colour of the sky is different, huh?
Yellow, orange, black...
One does look like dawn,
but the other two seem to be dusk and night.
You returned to Japan in 1976, right?
Hmm... I don't know.
That's right.
So these were painted immediately after his return?
The elephant's breath doesn't seem to be painted.
I'm a little tired.
I guess a young girl's legs were too dazzling for my weary eyes.
There you go dodging the topic again, you fraud!
Sorry, but could you let him rest?
Of course. We'll be leaving now.
Excuse us.
I can't forgive him.
He left my grandma alone for all those years,
and yet he hasn't even apologised.
He didn't seem to be a bad guy, though.
He's a selfish fraud!
Despite hurting my grandma so much,
he showed up the moment he fell ill...
He's taking advantage of her kindness to have her take care of him.
Have a bite. Calm down.
I don't know if he really doesn't remember, or if he's just faking it,
but I'm definitely going to make him regret his actions and apologise for them!
Didn't he say anything about Elephant's Breath?
I repeatedly grilled him on what he did in America.
I saw Elephant's Breath.
What's that supposed to mean?
Kipling.
Kipling...
Rudyard Kipling, maybe?
A painter?
A novelist, Chika-chan.
In a land far, far away, there was an elephant that escaped from human captivity.
Because he reeked of humans, and had a broken chain dangling noisily from his back leg,
every herd he met was too wary of him to let him join.
In despair, the elephant came to hate humans and attacked their villages,
trampling them beneath his feet.
But one day, he met a baby elephant that had been separated from its herd.
He raised the innocent and trusting child as his own.
Eventually, the baby elephant grew up and asked him,
"Father, what is this chain?"
The elephant answered,
"This is my sorrow... The curse I have been burdened with."
And then, the grown-up baby elephant used his trunk to destroy the old elephant's chain.
How does this have anything to do with Elephant's Breath?
Any ideas, Haruta?
Nope.
All we know now is that in 1966,
he went to San Francisco in the United States,
and later saw Seurat's painting in Chicago, maybe?
And in 1976, he returned to Japan and painted those three paintings.
What were his paintings like?
Here you go.
Where could he have seen this elephant?
Chicago has the Lincoln Park Zoo.
The only difference between these three paintings is the colour of the sky.
That's been bothering me too.
Yellow, orange, black...
Don't pry any further into these paintings.
Am I clear?
BLOSSOM
Kusakabe-sensei had an unusually scary look on his face back there.
What could those paintings mean?
I want to know...
What do we do?
We can't do anything. Not after Sensei told us to back off.
I'll look into it some more.
If he's bound by any chains, we should take them off for him.
You've got a point there.
Yeah.
Then how about we invite Gotou-san and go see an elephant's breath?
An elephant's breath isn't very visible...
Yeah.
Did you ask your grandfather about the paintings?
I grilled him nice and good.
But he dodged the question again.
That jerk's trying to take his silence to the grave.
Is he that sick?
Apparently he's got a bunch of illnesses and doesn't have long left.
So I have to hurry up and make him remember what he did to my grandma,
give him a good lecture, and make him kowtow to her in apology.
Okay. Time to eat, don't you think?
I made lunch.
Okay!
Ta-dah!
Whoa!
You can cook, huh, Homura-san?
I can only make fried egg!
Call me a cute chef, if you please.
Chika-chan's a good cook, if nothing else.
Give it back!
You don't deserve to eat my food!
Are you two dating?
Here you go, Maren.
Thanks.
You two as well?
Could this be a double date?
Th-That aside, did you see an elephant's breath?
Not at all.
Your grandfather went to the States in 1966, right?
Back then, there was a big rebellion opposing the discrimination against African-Americans.
The Watts rebellion?
What started as riots in Los Angeles
spread to San Francisco, and later even Chicago,
claiming many lives.
San Francisco to Chicago?
Isn't that the route your grandfather took?
Even Japanese-Americans and international students got dragged into those riots.
So that jerk got dragged into it too?
Maybe he lost his job and all his money due to the riots.
It's also possible he slept in a zoo.
Lincoln Park has no entry fee.
A lot of people used to sneak in and sleep there.
So he experienced a morning at the zoo and painted the elephant he saw then?
What about the changes in the sky's colour?
Maybe it's a metaphor for his mental state in America changing from hope to despair.
But would Kusakabe-sensei have stopped us so vehemently if that were the case?
This doesn't look a zoo, though.
If I had to say, it's more like a jungle?
A safari park?
No way.
I don't think Chicago has one.
I understand.
I'll go ask him now.
Spring Ephemeral
Were you unable to come back because you got dragged into the riots?
You lived in a zoo in Chicago like some hobo,
and these paintings are of an elephant you saw there one morning, right?
Tell me about school instead, my granddaughter.
You're running away again!
People are seriously trying to help you, you know!
Apologise to Grandma and my seniors!
Calm down, Gotou-san.
Stop it, Akari.
How long are you going to keep this up?
Liars and frauds get the chance to own up for what they did in life at the very end.
But you're different.
Stop right there.
Somebody has to free you from the chains shackling you.
Please leave.
You haven't been able to sleep in peace, have you?
Even after you returned to Japan.
That's right.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD for short.
People who are exposed to severe psychological shock
sometimes become incapable of processing their memories.
And you've been tormented by nightmares and flashbacks for forty years.
Does that mean you got sick because of the riots,
and that's why you couldn't come back?
Yeah...
That's it.
He got caught up in the riots as soon as he got to America,
lost the money he needed to study,
and when he tried to get back on his feet in Chicago, he lost everything in the riots there.
"Elephant's Breath..."
I wasn't referring to the colour, but to the breath of a sleeping elephant.
Elephants are wary creatures, so they can only sleep in places where they feel safe.
You saw yourself in the lonely elephant at the zoo?
A peaceful resting place isn't something you find yourself,
but something that's offered to you by others.
I realised that far too late.
All right. Let's stop here for today.
Thank you very much!
Be sure to collect your spring break practice schedules.
Spring break, huh?
I'm gonna be a third-year.
You'll have entrance exams soon.
Don't say it! Let us remain second-years for a bit longer!
Not leaving, Haruta?
Haruta?
What's wrong? You're acting kinda weird.
You all go ahead.
Sensei.
About those paintings the other day...
You looked it up, didn't you?
I'm sorry.
Didn't we already solve the case?
Haruta?
Knowing what those three paintings mean
might be too heavy a burden to carry alone.
Tell us, Haruta.
Normally, zoo elephants sleep inside their shelters.
Visitors don't get to see them sleeping.
What do you mean?
He was able to see an elephant sleep from close by...
in a jungle like the one in those paintings.
He was looking for a safe place in the middle of hell on Earth.
He wasn't in America?
He was drafted into the Vietnam War.
No way!
I could see foreigners with permanent residency getting conscripted, but...
Apparently a lot of young Japanese citizens studying in America went to Vietnam.
It didn't matter if they had a resident or tourist visa.
I intended to ask him directly that day, but I couldn't.
The grandmother probably knows already.
Those weren't the painted colours of dawn, dusk, and night.
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
The Deadly Sins
of Biochemical Weapons
What's that?
Agent Blue, Agent Orange, and Agent White.
While it was called blue,
the solution was actually yellow in colour.
Agent Orange was orange,
and Agent White referred to a black solution.
Yellow, orange, black...
They match the colours of the sky.
Not the sky.
They're the colours of the defoliants.
Defoliants are sprayed early in the morning, when the temps are low and the winds calm.
The morning sky would've been dyed either yellow, orange, or black then.
In Vietnam, Gotou-san's grandfather
might've had the chance to approach an elephant used for manual labour.
Maybe the defoliant was sprayed then, and—
Gotou-san?!
How much of that did you hear?
Pretty much all of it.
So he went to war...
and killed people?
That's not... I don't know.
Wars are brutal, merciless, and foolish endeavours.
Even so, your grandfather returned from one alive.
Is that why my grandfather can't sleep at night?
Is that why he doesn't say anything, even when I badmouth him?
You still have time.
Isn't it your job to destroy the elephant's cursed chain?
The baby elephant grew up and asked him, "Father, what is this chain?"
"This is my sorrow... The curse I have been burdened with."
And then, the grown-up baby elephant used his trunk to destroy the old elephant's chain.
Why don't you play the trombone for your grandfather?
Okay!
Gotou-san, you forgot this!
I'll come show it to you some other time!
Will she be okay?
I don't think there's any chain that could stand up to Gotou-san.
Yeah.
Boys! We want boys!
I like how shameless you are.
I don't want your stupid sympathy.
That student is a spring illusion.
SPRINGRAPHY