It’s time to finally wrap things up in Chapter 12 of Emio: The Smiling Man. We’ve tracked down the hopeful location of our man, and we just need to pull the trigger and bring him in.
Looking for a walkthrough for the previous chapter? You can find a link to that here: Emio: The Smiling Man Chapter 11 Walkthrough.
If you’re looking for a guide for the next chapter, follow this link: Emio: The Smiling Man Chapter 12 Walkthrough.
Table of Contents
Chapter 12 – Yamanba Pass
After learning about where the Driver and the Foreman dropped off Makoto/Minoru in the last chapter, we figured we should visit this spot. It’s very remote and would take quite a while to walk to the city from here. We note that there are no houses or homes near this location.
Look/Examine the area around you. You’ll discover a small path in front of you, and you’ll receive the option to Travel it. Select the follow tracks option. The main character will mention that they are nervous, especially since it’s starting to get dark out already.
Chapter 12 – Inside the Woods
As you continue into the woods, you’ll mention that things are rough. It’s basically like mountain climbing at this point. Look/Examine everything around you. You’ll notice a set of footprints in the mud ahead of you. You’ll note that this is important to track, as it could be used to get us to where we need to go. You’ll now have the option to Travel and follow the footprints. Do this.
Chapter 12 – Following the Footprints
We’ll find ourselves in a field, surrounded by flora. Look/Examine at the area around you. You’ll notice that there is some Trampled Thicket, meaning that someone has been walking through this area fairly heavily recently. Select the Travel option and continue following the tracks and trail.
Chapter 12 – A Fork in the Trail
You’ll arrive at a fork in the road, with two winding paths. Look/Examine the area, and you’ll discover the following:
- The left trail has a ton of footprints
- The right trail has tracks, but they’re very sparse
You’ll need to pick which way you want to go. Travel the left path. If you choose the right, you’ll just walk in a circle and end up at the last place you just were. Save yourself the embarrassment and go to the left right away.
Chapter 12 – A Stream in the Mountains
While this location may be chilling, we can’t deny that it’s beautiful. We’ll find ourselves at a stream on the mountain, so we should Look/Examine at our area. We’ll notice a tied ribbon that serves as a marker, likely belonging to our suspect. Select Travel and follow the landmark.
Chapter 12 – Another Fork in the Road
You’ll find yourself at another fork in the road once you cross the stream. Look/Examine at your area to get your bearings, but pay extra attention to the two signs in this area. You’ll have two choices:
- Go left past the handwritten sign
- Go right past the official sign
In this situation, you’ll want to go to the left once again. Select Travel and take this path.
Chapter 12 – The Shed in the Distance
After choosing the left path, you’ll find yourself in another patch of thicket. Select Look/Examine and select the Shed in the back-right of the area. You’ll note that while it’s old, it’s worth investigating to see what’s going on here. Select Travel and head toward the shed.
You’ll learn that it seems to be just an old shed, and it’s not the murder house that you thought it may be. However, Look/Examine the Jizo Statue near the bottom right, and you’ll discover tracks leading behind it. Select Travel and head behind the Jizo Statue.
Chapter 12 – Abandoned Village
After finally getting out of the woods, you’ll find yourself in an abandoned village. Look/Examine the buildings around you. You’ll discover that all of the houses have no signs of life, nor do they appear habitable. Look/Examine your Surroundings, and then Think about the current situation twice.
You’ll then receive a prompt to Travel inside the Abandoned Village. Do this.
Before you can do this, however, a hand reaches out and grabs your arm, stopping you in your tracks. It’s Detective Kuze, and thankfully nobody worse. She’ll ask us what we’re doing here, and we’ll tell her that we think that Minoru is here and we’re investigating.
We can Ask/Listen about a few different options:
- About Kuze
- About Tsuzuki
- Observations
Anything we ask Kuze here, she’ll be increasingly hostile about. If we Ask/Listen about Kuze and Tsuzuki, she’ll mention that she doesn’t have to tell us anything. Look/Examine Kuze, and you’ll note that she’s normally calm and collected, but she isn’t right now. Does she know something we don’t?
We’ll need to bring out the big guns. Show Detective Kuze the Sketch of Makoto, and you’ll inform her that two people have identified him as Tsuzuki. Select Ask/Listen again to progress the story along. Makoto will ask us to leave the scene. Think about what she just said, and Ask/Listen about Kuze.
You’ll point out that she came here by herself and that she can’t be thinking of going in there alone. She’ll mention that she called Kamihara for backup and that she’ll be fine. If we Ask/Listen again, she’ll threaten to have us arrested for impeding her investigation. Think about what she said.
The main character will think about what is going on and mention that he shouldn’t be trying to work alongside Kuze during this time. She’ll tell you that your investigation is done here, so select the Save/Quit Investigation option.
You’ll echo that you want her to stay safe here and tell her that you’ll leave.
Chapter 12 – On the Trail
You’ll leave the scene, dejected about what happened. However, while you’re leaving, you’ll hear a gunshot back in the abandoned village and decide to turn back around, ignoring what Detective Kuze said.
Chapter 12 – Back Into the Abandoned Village
We head back into the Abandoned Village and see that Kuze is nowhere to be found. We go deeper inside and hear another gunshot as we panic and try to discover where she may be. We run in deeper to discover Junko covered in blood and a body lying on the floor.
Select Ask/Listen to discover that the dead man is Minoru Tsuzuki, the man responsible for the murders 18 years ago, and also the man who killed Eisuke Sasaki. He approached Junko, and she took a shot but missed. Tsuzuki took the pistol from her hands, tossed it to the side, and began to try and strangle her. She escaped his grasp. She then hit him on the head with a machete and split him wide open.
Look/Examine the Fallen Man. Ask/Listen again to confirm that it’s Minoru Tsuzuki, to which Kuze will confirm that it’s him. Think about the story that she had told you about, and about the fact that there were two gunshots and no machete in sight.
Select Look/Examine and select Surroundings. You’ll confirm that you do not see any machete around, but you dropped your cell phone when you ran into the room. You’ll bend over to pick it up, eager to call Kamihara to let him know what happened, when you’ll stop in your tracks. We’ll discover that we’re out of range and have no service, which also doesn’t add up with Kuze’s story from earlier.
We’ll look back up to see Junko pointing a revolver in our face. She’ll ask why we didn’t just leave and why we had to stick around. She apologizes and tells us that we have to die. Before this, however, she tells us about something that happened 18 years ago.
She begins to tell us about how she had run out of the house, sitting by the side of the road crying. Someone pulled over by the memorial shrine that she would sit by and got out of their car, and she saw him. The Smiling Man. She was too scared to move and too scared to speak.
The man got down on her level and said the name “Emiko” to her. She couldn’t do anything besides scream and scream, but she mentioned she could see his eyes. They looked sad. He then grabbed her by the neck. Makoto had come out to save her and attacked the man at that point.
The Smiling Man started strangling Makoto at this point, pinning him to the ground while Junko watched him die. She tried to help and do something, but The Smiling Man just brushed her off. She grabbed the Paper Bag off of his head and saw Minoru Tsuzuki. But something was wrong with his face.
His face appeared skinned and looked just as it did on the bag. Before Tsuzuki left, however, he grabbed Makoto and shoved him into the trunk of his car. She returned home and told her grandparents that she didn’t know what happened, even though she witnessed the whole thing. She says that nothing she experienced that night was as awful as knowing that her brother was gone because of her.
She recalls the horrible things she said to Makoto before she ran away, and blames herself entirely for the situation. She wishes it was her instead of him, and she still feels that way. The police then came to her home and questioned her about what had happened, but all she would say was “I don’t know anything.”
After this, she recalls that a young detective came into her home and said that he would find her brother, and he asked if she was sure she didn’t know anything about his disappearance. The man was Mr. Utsugi. She couldn’t answer because he could see through her lies, and he knew that she would never see Makoto again.
When asked if she killed Tsuzuki, she says she did because he ruined their lives. We then see a recap of what happened before we came into the room. Tszuki approached Junko and removed his face mask. Kuze takes a shot at him and misses, while Tsuzuki asks if she’s not Emiko, who is she?
You’ll learn that before anything happened, however, Makoto had come into the house. She’ll talk to Makoto, but he doesn’t know who she is. She shows him the flower bookmark and tells him to wait for her at the Koufuku Station. Makoto seems bewildered by the situation, as we can only assume he either has PTSD or amnesia from his traumatic experience with The Smiling Man.
This explains the first gunshot that we had heard. It was given as a warning shot to get Makoto to leave. The scene comes back to Kuze and the protagonist once again, with her still pointing the revolver at our heads. She feels regret and sadness that her brother had to live like this for 20 years.
Detective Kuze drops to her knees, sobbing that she “still can’t do it.” She wants to allow Makoto to live free and be on his own, but she can’t kill us. Just then, Makoto will burst out of the back room, brandishing the Machete that Junko claimed to have used on Minoru Tsuzuki, screaming to stop making Junko cry before charging at us with it.
Junko will jump in front of us, pointing the gun at Makoto with lethal intent. She begs him to stop. She takes a shot, dropping Makoto where he stands. The scene then cuts to black, and we’re back at the Utsugi Detective Agency.
Chapter 12 – Utsugi Detective Agency
Ayumi will enter the room, greeting the main character. You’ll learn that Makoto is still alive. It was a non-lethal shot due to Detective Kamihara arriving on the scene and being a terrible shot. We’ll then receive a flashback of what happened.
Kamihara mentioned that Kuze had been acting strange lately and that she decided to perform a one-person raid on Minoru Tsuzuki’s hideout without telling anyone else about it. Kamihara knew about the tie and the motorcycle, so he started paying attention to how she was acting recently. He knew that she was going into the village, but he was delayed due to being called into the station.
He’s been acting in unauthorized manners too, such as meeting up with us for drinks, all to learn more information on how to protect Detective Kuze. He knew that she was going to try to do something like this.
You’ll also confirm that it was, in fact, Makoto who had killed Minoru Tsuzuki. Makoto must have either been in the building, following Tsuzuki on his own or had been living in one of the abandoned houses at the time that Junko had found The Smiling Man.
Now, for the ultimate twist of this tale: Eisuke Saski committed suicide after all. Kuze was driving by when she noticed a young boy at the side of the road near the pumping station on his bicycle, and she didn’t pay it any mind. She let curiosity get the best of her and turned around to find Eisuke dead with his tie hooked to the bars of the pumping station.
Kuze tried to resuscitate Eisuke, but he was already gone. She went to get her cell phone out of her bag to report the situation and remembered that she had something else in the bag. The paper bag from The Smiling Man that she had retrieved from her grandmother’s house before it was set to be demolished.
She had the idea to take the tie, place the bag on Eisuke’s head, and leave the scene. She then called in the next morning and posted an anonymous tip to reopen the investigation into the murders that happened 18 years ago. She was hoping that Makoto would see the news about the investigation, acting as a sign for him to come back.
The case was noticed by both Minoru Tsuzuki and Makoto Kuze. The Smiling Man returned, just as she had hoped, but she regrets what she did. She also took Eisuke’s suicide note, which was addressed to Megumi. It read as follows:
- “To Megumi. I’ve had a lot of fun with you. Thank you. I’m sorry. Bye-bye!”
Mr. Fukuyama told Megumi and Kohei about the suicide note and what it said. Kohei said that it sounded just like Eisuke, and that is something that he would say. He then broke down in tears, alongside Megumi.
After a further recap of the events, Mr. Utsugi will return to the office. He’ll commend the protagonist and Ayumi for their skills during this investigation. We ask how his investigation went and say that we’d love to hear about it, but he mentions that he’s starving. He’ll invite Ayumi to go out to lunch, leaving the protagonist alone in the office. Our phone then rings. It’s Kamihara. Ayumi will jokingly tease us before leaving for lunch with Mr. Utsugi.
Shortly after this all transpires, we receive a note from Detective Kuze. It reads as follows:
“To everyone at the Utsugi Detective Agency. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience I may have brought to your lives. My actions are unforgivable. I am ashamed of my selfishness, and I intend to atone for my sins. I have resigned my position with the police to focus on supporting my brother as we move forward. Makoto’s memory has returned, but it will be some time before he can walk again. He wants to be able to live on his own someday, so he spends his days doing hard physical rehabilitation. To stand by and support my brother is my atonement. I will keep living with that thought in my heart. Our family of three wishes you all the best in your endeavors. Signed: Junko Kamihara”
We then cut to a scene of Yoshie in the nursing home, looking at the eggplant bookmark and smiling because her family is back together. This closes out Chapter 12 of Emio: The Smiling Man and brings a close to this story.
Or … does it?
Chapter 12 – Post Credits Scenes
We’ll receive a phone call from Mr. Utsugi apologizing for bothering us this late in the day. He mentions that many mysteries remain unanswered. There are some additional details that we need to learn about Tsuzuki’s life, and it’s pretty gruesome and dark stuff. He’ll ask that we give him a call when we’re ready to take on this challenge. This will change the title of the game from Emio: The Smiling Man to Minoru, and we’ll have a new mission unlocked by calling Utsugi.
Emio: The Smiling Man is available to play now on Nintendo Switch.
Published: Sep 6, 2024 03:21 pm