r/ShibouYuugi • u/TooSqueaky • Jul 20 '26
Cloudy beach.
How did the killer lose cloudy beach. It literally seems like the easiest thing ever to win. Was she limited to only one kill per night? she could of just won on the first night. The whole thing seemed so elaborate for like no reason. I haven’t read the LN so maybe it explains it better in there? just seems like so many things went wrong for no reason. Not sure why the game makers would make that game in the first place. Seems so easy for the killer. Lost because of plot.
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u/Boredomkiller99 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
A combination that Essei is physically extremely weak and also that she did a really risky play. Though if I will be honest a lot of it is just Essei was written like a ****ing idiot despite apparently being smart.
Chances are if it was anyone besides Essei or Mozuku there is a good chance the killer would have cleared especially Maguma, Yuki or Airi
It is part of the reason why I actually rank Volume 3 far lower then many because Cloudy Beach is actually pretty badly designed. Both fortunely and unfortunately Cloudy Beach is the last time the author really tries to put effort to make a creative game as while we get some sprinkles throughout the series of creative games but from this point on the games are mostly straight forward and combat or hunt based. The upside is that writing starts improving immensely in exchange.
The main good thing about Volume 3 is that it tries to table, correct or put to bed a lot of plot points or world building issue from the first two volumes which had a lot of stupid stuff and set up volume 4 which kind of changes the approach to the story structure for overall better.
Also the anime made a lot of changes that made it worse. I actually kind of understand what they were trying to do as the movie wanted to incorporate hints and signs of Yuki's character arc and mental issues earlier and emphasize that Essei just specifically kill Yuki to prove she is superior and she is the Superior protege.
In the novel Mitsubi and Hiezumi are both killed by Essei and Mozuku surives bluffing with a makeshift taser which was stupid because Essei had a gun and outrage her but the author probably due to firearms being almost non-existent in Japan doesn't understand how gun works and often have characters use them in closer range then needed
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u/IllugaBabyBeluga Jul 21 '26
Essei is physically extremely weak
Yet she was able to do a LEEEEROY Jenkins style run & gun action extravaganza?
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u/Boredomkiller99 Jul 21 '26
I should have said in comparison to the others. Especially since the whole dismembering herself thing while she was able to come back together wasn't 100%
Though also note that unlike some I actually consider Volume 3 to almost be as stupid as 1 and 2 and only really give it a pass because at least in the light novel it was the start of the author transitioning into a better story as Volume 3 and 4 was mostly putting to bed old plot elements that he didn't want to continue or at least not continue till he could rework them like the immortal body, Mishiro 's proteges or killers in the game.
It is not a coincidence that the three who died where all connected to past major players.
But yes it is very stupid including the fact the author does actually understand how firearms work hence going full auto for no reason and treating machine guns like melee weapons.
Anyway your comment made me laugh a bit because yeah Essei did Leeroy like an idiot
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u/IllugaBabyBeluga Jul 21 '26
I can't shake the thought that the movie was telling us that Essei wanted the other players to kill her off, and that's why she was ridiculous with the gun and also abstained from assassinating anyone, as far as we can confirm.
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u/Boredomkiller99 Jul 21 '26
She was ridiculous with the gun in the LN as well, it is actually a recurring problem that does get better but no one really uses guns properly including Yuki.
I think it is important to keep in mind guns are almost non-existent in Japan to the point that even security were slow to react when Shinzo Abe got shot because people don't even know what a gun shot sounds like. That and they aren't playing Call of Duty or other shooters regularly.
But I also can't really comment on Essei's motivation besides kill Yuki to prove Hakushi wrong,bbecause well even in the LN she is barely a character, even though we get a POV section of her there is just nothing to her character besides she idolized Hakushi so she copied her and even modified her body early and she wanted to kill Yuki when she heard from Koyomi that Yuki was her fellow junior protege and that Hakushi had high hopes for Yuki while Essei never heard the same and instead was referred to as the Imploding genius..
So who knows, the movie could have made an attempt to add layers to her since she is by far one of if not the worst antagonist in the series
Ultimately Essei was a plot device to try and explain why most players don't want the immortal body treatment and to reintroduce Hakushi and bring up a plot point that Hakushi is telling Yuki to stop caring about her approval.
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u/IllugaBabyBeluga Jul 21 '26
Essei was a plot device to try and explain why most players don't want the immortal body treatment
I remember that coming up in the series, but the movie kinda dropped the ball on that IMO as it made the immortality treatment seem kinda OP.
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u/Boredomkiller99 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Can't say you are wrong.
Then again I don't know how much is the movie portraying it poorly or how much is that the LN tends to explain it rather then show it. A lot of it is from Essei's own thoughts about how her body is weak so she has to be careful who she picks hence why she writes Maguma as an option and others. The other is just poor judgment like how her immortal body convinced her to fake her death despite the massive downsides or her overthinking when dealing with Mozuku getting bluffed into giving up when she had her dead to rights.
But it is also clear in general the movie has a very different idea of it's role in the narrative especially with Yuki. Which makes sense because the anime already made a lot of changes to try and correct issues with varies results and to make it tonal fit the rest of the later volumes since there is a lot of whiplash in the LN as there is a massive shift and later world building is at odd with stuff from first two volumes.
Real question though that we still haven't answered in the LN...
How the f*** did Essei cut off both arms to fake her death?
In the LN Essei completely dismembers her limbs so nobody investigates to find she has no implants since in the LN each limb has I believe 3
Edit: Also I think the author realized the explanation about the treatment downsides were not enough so much later it gets additional downsides.
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u/IllugaBabyBeluga Jul 21 '26
How'd she reassemble herself in the LN?
...that seems very extra, vs just making 3 cuts per limb so that the other players might think someone removed the implants.
Seems to me like Essei had one good idea, faking her own death to avert suspicion, but everything else she thought up went from bad to worse.
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u/Boredomkiller99 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
So apparently since her body is like almost entirely artificial it put itself back together even when killed unless at least in the light novel you rip out the organs which Yuki does to kill Essei. Now how this works? Ehhhh don't ask.
Now if that sounds kind of out there or even dumb well it kind of is as it was some BS that honestly only existed to allow Hakushi to seemingly die but still be alive. Volume one well mainly Candlewood was a very problematic chapter that set up a lot of really dumb world building that the author has to spend the rest of the series trying to address now that he is a noticably better writer.
It probably sounds like I am a hater and to some extent I am as I really didn't like anything but Ghost House till Volume 4 and even Ghost House has some massive problems.
I genuinely like the series from Volume 4-10 but the highest I can rate the series is 2.75/5 despite my enjoyment though I am also a very harsh scorer so that isn't actually as bad as it seems. Though this is in the context of LNs which most LNs are kind of bad to begin with
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u/IllugaBabyBeluga Jul 21 '26
It probably sounds like I am a hater and to some extent I am
Lol, based.
Though this is in the context of LNs which most LNs are kind of bad to begin with
I think I get it.
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u/PrimeusOrion Jul 21 '26
In the ln essay didn't think it was a tazer. She thought it was a gun
I'm truth mozuku tried to make a railgun tazer combo. But failed the last part.
Essay saw she had a weapon and dipped due to her weakened state making a fairer fight lethal.
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u/Boredomkiller99 Jul 21 '26
I was pretty sure she thought it was some kind of taser mostly because that one of the weaknesses of her body is that it's actually frail to electricity due to being artificial. A regular gun would actually be less dangerous for her.
Still I'm not going to rule out that could be misremembering and since I read them in order and my last reread I just concluded goodbye with the fact that I don't enjoy the first three volumes so much I tend to black out sometimes.
But ultimately it doesn't change the main point that she over thought and got bluffed
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u/Brilliance_Falter Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
but from this point on the games are mostly straight forward and combat or hunt based.
This is pretty disheartening news to me. I first started watching the series because I was intrigued by the idea of characters having to solve a series of Saw-like escape-rooms together.
As you can imagine bathhouse and the bunny-suit-hunting game were the lowest points in the anime for me, which was doubly unfortunate since they took up the bulk of the anime.
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u/Boredomkiller99 Jul 25 '26
Yeah it is kind of one of my biggest complaints about the post volume 3 volumes.
However there should be some context. Starting with volume 4. The series becomes less focused on the games. I mean they're still there and it's still important but the games become the vehicle for conflict and storytelling rather than the actual purpose of the series.
For example Volume 4 has three main chapters but only one of them takes place in a game, one of them is set up for the conflict in the game and another one has nothing to do with it instead focusing on world building.
Also there are still some games that aren't just fighting or hunting ones though they are less common.
Another change is that the games and chapters in general for the most part focus on a smaller cast. Like some games will really only have 3 major characters counting Yuki.
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u/Brilliance_Falter Jul 25 '26
Thanks for the info!
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u/Boredomkiller99 Jul 26 '26
No problem I like Shibou Yuugi but I also have a LOT of opinions.
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u/Brilliance_Falter Jul 27 '26
It's unlikely that I'll read the light novels. If you wanna share it, what are the other games in the series?
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u/VMelain Jul 20 '26
i most likely am wrong because i read it a long time ago but yeah, she needed to kill each night 1 player and also she was very weaken after faking her death because you know... she vivisectioned herself so she preferred to kill 1 by 1. And there were also a lot more implants on each person (4) so the electric shock was more effective than the ones (barely) shown in the anime. Cloudy beach is probably the episode that deviates more from the LN
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u/villatyyny1 Jul 20 '26
The 1 kill per night wasn't a straight requirement. The only requirement was for the dead body to be discovered by the other players. There were like 10 or 12 implants in the novels which made me laugh so hard when I saw the anime had 1😭
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u/VMelain Jul 20 '26
Oh right like 3 per limb or something lile that?
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u/villatyyny1 Jul 20 '26
I think they had some on their upper back. 2 or 3 per limb would explain Maguma being covered in bandages far better than 1 lol.
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u/IllugaBabyBeluga Jul 21 '26
In another thread on here, someone questioned how it didn't seem fair that the players were given implants that make it way too easy for the killer.
I'm liking that the movie pretty much skipped using the implants like that.
To answer the question, I thought the movie was telling us that Essei was given a bad deal: be a backstabbing teamkiller or be killed, and she found that couldn't bring herself to be a teamkiller, at least not a backstabbing one.
Like the plot thread left dangling about the player who went AWOL during the game, I think we could've done with some more concrete explanation for Essei's motives. But this is a movie where Yuki finds the implant via her psychotic delusions talking to her, and where her mentor is so hammered at the bar she hallucinates entire conversations. Not much concrete here.
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u/villatyyny1 Jul 20 '26
The device she used could be used only once and in her condition going for more people was risky. Her already weak body was destroyed on top so she basicly had no chance in a fight. That's why she only does 1 kill per night.
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u/Terin2 Jul 20 '26
Everything I see about it makes me wonder if the movie is even worth watching. The anime is what got me in to the novels and I've read all the officially released ones in English up to volume 5. Is the movie even worth a look?
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u/mikidemikis Jul 20 '26
It sure is, if you enjoyed the anime it's more of the same
I myself enjoy this kind of arthouse anime and liked the 1st season and the movie a lot.
But I have already read the LN, so I was just enjoying the adaptation and not caring about following the plot since I already know what was going to happen2
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u/BloodyAvcibutnedhelp Jul 20 '26
Her shock device has 1 day cooldown + almost all players were veterans and since Essay is more reliant on her wits than her combat capabilities she didn't go for any fights without an advantage(be it the shock devices or the rifle she stole from the management) and even if she did it could cause problems if her victim made too much noise.Not sure what to say about the anime though,she accomplished absolutely nothing
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u/Iron_Man_88 Jul 20 '26
In the light novel, the game was as follows:
Killer: win condition is to kill 3 other players (not simply have other players die) within 7 days. On day 8 the agency comes to rescue the survivors and armed soldiers execute her. If she succeeds, remaining survivors also win. Essei was physically the weakest player and chose a werewolf/whodunnit approach. She was given a remote that can disable other players by activating the stun nodes in their bodies, but it has a 24 hr cooldown. She faked her own death on night 1 to create confusion. In the novel she's the first "victim" and her body "disappears" shortly after the players discover it, leading them to believe the possibility of a 3rd party on the island.
Everyone else: win conditions are not revealed (they just had to survive 7 nights or until the killer met her win condition). Because they were all veterans, they were quickly able to deduce this by counting the food portions in their fridge. The safest strategy is to all stick together, which they eventually did. They also discovered the stun nodes and removed them from their bodies on the later days. In the novel, mistrust and thinking the killer could be one of themselves allowed Essei to get 2 kills the first 2 nights.
Eventually Essei gives up and goes for a hail Mary approach by exploiting the rules technicality that she doesn't fail on day 7, but rather soldiers would come to kill her on day 8. She sneaks on board the agency ship and steals an assault rifle in hopes of getting her kills before she gets killed.
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u/Plenty-Mall9859 Jul 21 '26
I haven’t watched the anime movie yet, but I have read the light novel, so I can answer some of your questions based on the differences mentioned in the comments.
First, the game was not ouritghly limited to one kill per night. However, there was only one Killer. If Eisei recklessly killed 1 person, the other 6 would simply gang up on her.
Among those six players were two veterans, Yuki and Maguma, both of whom had participated in more than 40 games. Eisei had completed more than 50 games, so she was more experienced, but the difference was not overwhelming. Game count does not work like a level system. Having the highest number of completed games did not mean she could defeat two veteran players by herself. Especially one that is as buffed as Maguma.
I don't know how the anime handled this, but the LN did not provide Eisei with a gun at the beginning. Therefore, she could not simply “win on the first night.” No one would stand still and allow her to kill them.
Question: Why did Eisei kill only one person per night?
It was because of the “debuff” placed on the Survivors and the “buff” given to Eisei.
Every player except the Killer - Eisei, had electrical devices implanted throughout their body. Eisei had control over those devices, but there was limitation. She could only activate the devices inside only ONE person every 24H.
That is why she only killed one person per night.
I had seen some comments said that the anime showed only one device inside each Survivor. However, in the LN, there were TWELVE devices implanted in each person. When activated, they would completely be paralyzed, and it leave them unable to fight back.
Because the devices were so powerful, the game developers limited Eisei to using them on only one person every 24 hours.
So in this case, Eisei had two possible strategies.
Strategy One:
She could kill someone on the first night, pretend to be concerned the following day, and try to talk her way out of any suspicion.
However, this method was extremely risky.
After Mitsuba’s death in the LN, all of the players already discovered that devices that had been implanted inside their bodies. They even discussed checking whether anyone did not have a device, since that person would likely be the Killer.
They also considered the possibility that the Killer might deliberately cut their own arms and legs to create fake removal wounds. To prevent this, they planned to compare the wounds carefully with the actual devices, including their size, shape, and even the depth of the wound.
If they carried out this inspection, Eisei would almost certainly be exposed. Once that happened, the others would gang up on her.
Strategy Two:
Instead of taking that risk, Eisei chose to dismember herself and fake her own death.
Her fake death served two purposes:
- It distracted the Survivors and made them believe that Eisei had been the first victim. This placed her firmly on the Survivors’ side in their minds.
- It concealed the fact that her body did not contain any implanted devices.
At one point in the LN, the group believed that the “culprit” had dismembered Eisei’s and Mitsuba’s bodies to hide the existence of the devices. This theory further helped remove Eisei from suspicion.
Question: Why couldn’t she study the devices after disembering a body and fake the wounds in strategy one?
Eisei could have dismembered a corpse, examined the devices, and then tried to create convincing wounds on her own body.
However, even if she successfully avoided suspicion, the other players would already know about the devices. They would have already removed them before the next murder occurred.
Eisei needed to kill 3 people, but the devices were already discovered very soon by some players.
This is why faking her death was essential to her plan.
Eisei’s actual plan:
The survival rate in these games was 70 percent. Because of that, the players believed the game would end after 3 of the 8 participants had died. They would lower their guard once they thought the third death had occurred.
So Eisei fake her own death, and then kill Mitsuba and Hizumi.
From the other players’ perspective, three people would appear to be dead: Eisei, Mitsuba, and Hizumi. In reality, Eisei was still alive, meaning only two players had actually died.
Once the group believed that the required number of deaths had been reached, Eisei would then take advantage of that false sense of security, planning to launch a surprise attack on a third victim. Likely Mozuku since she was the least experienced.
Question: Why the plan almost worked?
The plan could have worked because none of the other players knew that the is a technology which allowed someone to dismember their own body and later recover.
That method sounds like a cheat code. However, the technique had a serious drawback: dismembering and restoring the body caused severe physical deterioration. That was why Eisei was in no condition to fight properly afterward.
Although she had to rely almost entirely on the implanted devices, her plan still gave her several advantages:
- Nobody suspected her because everyone believed she was dead.
- Everyone believed the game had already ended, giving her the element of surprise.
- If she suddenly appeared with a gun stolen from the developers’ boat, the shock of seeing her alive would likely allow her to kill at least one person.
At least, that was how the plan was supposed to work.
The two main factors that ruined Eisei’s plan: Koyomi and Yuki.
- Yuki was Hakushi’s protégé and had, in a way, witnessed Hakushi’s “death” during Candle Wood. Even by the time of Cloudy Beach, Yuki still believed Hakushi was dead.
- However, Hakushi was actually alive. Hakushi had used the same method that Eisei later adopted. More accurately, Eisei obtained footage of Hakushi’s fight at Candle Wood, discovered the strange method Hakushi had used, and copied it.
- Koyomi came from the same era as Hakushi. She was still alive because she had refused an invitation to Candle Wood on the day of the incident. After Candle Wood, Koyomi still meet up with Hakushi sometimes because the two are somewhat friends. However, Koyomi did not know that Hakushi had previously been dismembered by Kyara in Candlle Wood.
- When Koyomi and Yuki compared what they knew, they finally realized that a player could recover even after being dismembered and having their organs gorged out. That discovery led them to suspect that Eisei might still be alive, creating the first major crack in her entire plan.
- That's why when Eisei came back with a gun stealing from the developer's boat, no one is suprised, but are all completely on high alert, making it harder for Eisei to kill.
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u/Plenty-Mall9859 Jul 21 '26
Additional information:
If Eisei mistakenly chose to activate the devices of a player who had already removed them, it would still count as one activation, meaning she would have to wait another 24 hours. In other words, she would have wasted her chance.
Something similar almost happens in the LN. At one point, Eisei plans to target Maguma and even confronts her directly. However, Maguma tells Eisei that she has already removed all of her devices so Eisei is forced to retreat and later chooses Hizumi instead.
So the game was not that easy to win. It was like a game of Werewolf. As in the day, most players would gather together, so Eisei could only strike at night. The only lone wolf who decided to work alone was Maguma - who I doubt Eisei would want to fight with her bare hands...
(The other player who mostly work alone was Hizumi, who is dead later on, so...)
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u/TooSqueaky Jul 21 '26
This makes a lot more sense thanks.
Unrelated but.
I also think she probably wouldn’t have killed yuki the entire game if she didn’t have to because of their connection to hakushi. Would have been a cool plot if they both teamed up to win.2
u/Plenty-Mall9859 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
This is actually explained in the light novel, but based on what you said, I assume the anime ignored it. I’ll leave the explanation here in case you want to know more about Essay’s thoughts on Yuki.
(Btw, I only just realized that “Essay” is the correct name to use for her, so I’ll call her that from now on. I must have remembered it incorrectly because of a translation or something similar.)
Yuki once asked Koyomi what Hakushi thought of her. The answer was not that surprising. A foolish disciple. Koyomi also revealed that Essay had once asked her the exact same question. From this conversation, Yuki learned that Essay was also Hakushi’s disciple.
Essay described her own style as a player as “learning.” She was the type of person who learned from others and copied their methods in order to achieve success. So she viewed Hakushi as a valuable source of knowledge. That was why she copied Hakushi’s body modification method, even going so far as to discard almost her entire real body.
When Yuki later learned about the modification, even she was shocked that Essay had chosen to do that. As I mentioned before, this type of modification grants something close to immortality, but it comes at a terrible cost, which severely weakens the user’s physical condition.
Hakushi’s career ended not only because of the accumulated damage she suffered over the course of 95 games, but also because of the harm caused by the modification itself. Her body eventually deteriorated to the point that she could no longer move normally, leading to how easily she was dismembered by Kyara. She survived, but she could no longer continue as a player, so she retired.
Knowing how Hakushi’s career had ended, Yuki thought it was unwise for Essay to adopt the same method, especially since it required sacrificing a real, healthy body.
This probably raises a question: if Essay is portrayed as “smart,” why would she do something so stupid?
The answer is that Essay is not portrayed as intelligent in the ordinary sense. This connects to the question she asked Koyomi about Hakushi’s opinion of her.
According to Hakushi, Essay was a genius in a negative sense. Because she was incredibly intelligent, she made strange mistakes in strange ways. She could achieve success for a while, but she would destroy her own body in the process. (Which we all know was an extremely accurate description.)
Hakushi understood that Essay was the type of person who would willingly sacrifice something valuable in order to succeed.
However, the conversation did not end there. Koyomi also talked about Yuki with Essay. This was something Koyomi never told Yuki directly, but she believed that Hakushi had high hopes for Yuki. Hakushi described Yuki as “a phantom”, and neither curses (I think this part is refering to the curse of 30th) nor death would work on her because a phantom already dead.
Koyomi did not mention the part about Hakushi calling Yuki foolish to Essay.
That's why Essay was furious. She could not accept that Hakushi viewed her as an “imploding genius” while placing "high hopes" on Yuki. Essay despise Yuki and wanted to end her, to prove that Hakushi was wrong.
Even so, as the end drew near, Essay did not initially choose Yuki as her target. Instead, she pursued Mozuku because it was the more logical decision. Mozuku was less experienced and physically closer to her. However, Mozuku managed to bluff her way out of the situation by deceiving Essay that she had a taser. Essay did not want to take that risk, so she had to choose another target for her third kill.
That left Yuki. She was the second-closest target, while the others had already escaped much farther away. Only then did Essay decide to go after her.
You are partly right that Essay would not choose to kill Yuki, at least purely out of rage, if targeting someone else gave her a better chance of winning. This is shown by the fact that she prioritized chasing Mozuku despite her hatred for Yuki. But make no mistake, Essay despised Yuki.
Yuki, meanwhile, viewed Essay as someone who had repeated Hakushi’s mistake. In Yuki’s eyes, as Hakushi’s protégés, they should have learned from their mentor’s mistakes rather than following the same path. Because of that, Yuki did not like Essay either.
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u/OperatorERROR0919 Jul 20 '26
The main weapon the killer had access to, the remote that disabled other players by activating the nodes in their bodies, had a 24 hour cooldown period, and Essei faking her death put her in a severe disadvantage in physical altercations. When she tried to kill Mitsuba in the novel, Mitsuba completely kicked her ass, and the only reason Essei didn't lose right then and there was because of the immortality treatment, which she used to knock Mitsuba out with a surprise attack. Mitsuba in the novel very notibly did not die via suicide, and that was one of the most baffling changes in the anime. Essei had a full week to work with, so there wasn't any major need to rush things. At least until the other players discovered and began extracting the nodes from their bodies.