The Movie Murder that No One Noticed

Before the start of the Kamiyama High School Festival, the Classics Club is summoned by Class 2-F's Fuyumi Irisu to review an amateur film created by her class for the event. What seems like an exclusive preview to a film rife with awkward acting, poor script and a non-existent ending becomes a test of Houtarou Oreki's character as an "energy-saving" person and a talented member of the Classic Literature Club.

Background
In preparation for the upcoming Kamiyama High School Festival, Class 2-F decided to make an amateur movie shot in a nondescript location during summer vacation. The script was written by Mayu Hongou, and the story involves a group of five teenagers traveling into an abandoned theater building, where one of them would be murdered in a mysterious fashion. For details beyond the control of the staff of the film, the movie's script was left incomplete.

During a conversation in the school's own BBS website, Fuyumi Irisu, who became the supervisor for the movie project, found out about the case involving the Hyouka anthology (see The Origins of Hyouka) and this becomes the impetus for Irisu to invite the Classics Club to be involved in another case through its president, Eru Chitanda.

The Exclusive Pre-Screening
The Classics Club agrees to attend the exclusive pre-screening for Class 2-F's movie, and they are welcomed by Fuyumi Irisu, who prepares the showing before leaving momentarily. Although Houtarou Oreki voiced out his lack of interest in watching a film that is impossible to redo after having its flaws noticed, he pushed through.

The movie stars Midori Yamanishi, Mamiko Senoue, Takeo Katsuta, Yuri Kounosu and Takeo Kaitou, and it tells of a group of teenagers who ended up taking refuge in an abandoned theater building. During their search for a viable place to rest, the five split up and searched in different parts of the building. Minutes later, they regroup, only to find out that Kaitou hasn't returned. Upon retracing his steps, they find the motionless corpse of Kaitou inside a room at the far end of the theater's right wing, with his dismembered hand nearby. The movie ends abruptly with the only window in the room opened to revealed a grassy field and the passageway to the stage blocked off by debris.

After the movie ends, Fuyumi asks for the opinions of the Classics Club about the film. As she expected, the movie is panned for lacking polish and a proper ending. According to Fuyumi, despite being able to follow the filming schedule, the film had problems with the script due to the scriptwriter Mayu Hongou falling ill, cutting the script short. However, she expects that the mystery in the film can be solved since she thinks that Mayu followed the basic guidelines on writing a mystery (see Knox's Commandments, Raymond Chandler's Laws of Mystery, and the Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories by S.S. Van Dine). That said, when pushed for the culprit in the story, the club turns to Houtarou, who quickly showed disinterest in solving the case.

Fuyumi took no effort in persuading the Classics Club to take on the challenge, and this troubles Eru, who refuses to leave the movie without a sound conclusion. Houtarou also understands Eru's worries, but he does not want to lead the case as detectives to the case. Irisu agrees on a compromise; the Classics Club will serve only as "observers" while "amateur detectives" from the class will handle the case. Houtarou eventually gives in to her offer.

Meeting the Amateur Detectives
The day after that, The Classics Club met Eba Kurako, Hongou's best friend who escorted them to the classroom where they meet the three amateur detectives that Fuyumi mentioned before. The first one was Nakajou Junya, the assistant director of the movie project. He theorized that the culprit entered the locked room from outside through the window and escaped from there too. And, to explain why there were no traces of anyone used the window, Hongou inspected the house in May where there weren't any summer grass near the window and she must've believed it was still possible to use the trick unlike in the movie where summer grass grow near the window. But, Houtarou noticed the contradiction within Nakajou's theory. From the culprit's perspective, the trick would've risked the culprit to being seen by the other characters. After that, Houtarou asked Eba to bring a copy of Hongou's script.

The next one was the propmaster, Haba Tomohiro. Haba stated that Hongou is a beginner in mystery genre and she was only able to read Sherlock Holmes' books in one night for materials. Eru found two slips of notes from the books' pages. The notes were filled with titles of Sherlock Holmes' stories marked with either X's or O's which makes Houtarou believed them to be lists of ideas for usable tricks. Haba explained his theory that the murder wasn't planned but the culprit took advantage of the circumstances to commit the crime. In addition, Hongou asked him to prepare a rope which makes him believed Kounosu, a member of the Rock Climbing Club to be the culprit. She used the rope to climb down from the second floor window to enter the room from the window and climbed back up after killing him. Houtarou then asked him whether Hongou asked for something else besides the rope. And Haba mentioned she also asked for a small supply of fake blood and Haba even prepared more than she asked. Satoshi and Mayaka seems to agree with Haba's theory but Eru and Houtarou strongly denied it. Haba haven't watched the video, so his theory contradicted with the video. The window can't be opened easily, so the culprit wouldn't be able to enter the room easily to kill Kaitou. After that, Eba gave them a copy of Hongou's script which confirmed that she followed everything that they've deduced so far.

Last one is Sawakiguchi Misaki, the publicity manager. From her, they found out that the script was decided with majority votes. Sawakiguchi has a perspective that mystery movies are ones that blended horror theme to its story. So, she believed that there's supposed to be a seventh character since Hongou was looking for another actor besides the other six. The seventh character would be a mysterious supernatural killer that will continuously kill the whole cast and after a certain amount of people have been killed, the remaining survivors would kill the killer at the climax and the movie ended with a happy ending. Houtarou and Eru once again denied Sawakiguchi's theory because Hongou didn't requested props for horror settings and Hongou asked Haba to prepare a small amount of fake blood which means she didn't planned for a large amount of death.

After that, Houtarou met Fuyumi on his way home and she invited him for some tea. She then asked about the amateur detectives' theories and Houtarou replied that none of the them worked. Houtarou then explained all the contradictions of each theories which is rejected by Houtarou. She expected Houtarou to do so. She knew from the start that those three can't solve the mystery. She revealed that she knew about Houtarou's amazing deductive reasoning skill from Eru, someone outside the school, and Tougaito Masashi. So, she enlisted The Classics Club's help to get Houtarou's help. She believed Houtarou is talented and asked him once again to help them with the movie. Houtarou denied of having a talent and he's just being lucky. And then, Fuyumi told him about a small story of a bench member of the Track team who always work hard to join the regular team. No matter how hard they worked, they can never join the regulars due to there are other members of the team who are much talented and skilled than them. One of them even gained a MVP Medal for their contribution to the team and when asked during an interview how they were able to do it, they just said " I was just lucky". Fuyumi asked Houtarou how would the bench member feel when hearing that comment. And then, she stated that every individual must be aware of themselves, if not, those who watch them would feel like fools.

And the next day, The Classics Club (except Eru who was absent because of being drunk of Whiskey Bon Bon yesterday) reviewed the video. Satoshi was dragged out of the clubroom since he needs to take supplemental lessons for failing the midterm exams. Before that, he gave his notebook to Houtarou. And after that, Mayaka also leave for library committee duty. After a moment of thinking and reviewing at the video and Satoshi's notes, Houtarou figured it out. Houtarou then called Fuyumi and started explaining his deduction.

He deduced that the culprit is a seventh character which is the cameraman. At a certain time, the scene fade to black right after the other characters left the lobby. In other words, The cameraman waited until everyone left the lobby, stopped the camera, then took the master key at the office and killed Kaitou. After that, they used the master key to locked the room and then waited for everyone to return to the lobby. Also, despite the trick technically has a flaw due to the building structure would make the culprit being seen by others, it doesn't matter as long as the movie can excite the audience and since the culprit is obvious, there is no detective in the story at all.

And it doesn't matter if anyone saw who exactly did it due to the building's structure creates a flaw to the trick as long as the movie could excited the audience and make them think about the mystery which is also why there's no detective in the story because the culprit was obvious. Fuyumi accepted Houtarou's theory and complimented his skills. Fuyumi even allowed Houtarou to give the movie a title. Houtarou suggested "What No One Noticed" which Fuyumi commented to be a good title.

Conclusion of One
After the premiere of the movie, Mayaka then confronted Houtarou and noticed that they didn't used any rope in the story. Houtarou is surprised hearing that but he argued that the rope isn't necessary. However, Mayaka replied Hongou was very insistent about the rope which means it has to be necessary. But, looking at Houtarou, she doesn't want to complicate things and said she liked his idea although it just doesn't matched the clues they have before she left.

Houtarou was then confronted by Satoshi. Satoshi then said that the movie isn't how Hongou wanted it to be. Satoshi then explained that Houtarou's theory uses narrative tricks, a technique used to trick the readers from how the story is presented. But, Hongou who is a beginner in mystery only read Sherlock Holmes' stories that doesn't use narrative tricks at all, so she can't possibly write a script using narrative tricks. Narrative tricks became more common at the age of Agatha Christie and Satoshi believed Hongou isn't a fan of Agatha Christie. But, Houtarou argued that Hongou could've read a book that uses narrative tricks or watched a movie with the same trick. Then, Satoshi asked him if he really think so. Satoshi then with a disappointed face said if he really think so then he is okay with it before he went home.

Finally, Houtarou met Eru in front of the school entrance and she told him while walking together that the movie was wrong and so Houtarou ask her why. After they sit near a river, Eru explained that she believed Hongou had an ending for the script in the beginning but she didn't tell anyone about it. If she really was too sick to tell anyone, her best friend, Eba wouldn't forgive the others for making Hongou very ill due to their project or even volunteer to escort them before. And, in her opinion, Hongou's classmates are good people and so no one would criticize her script if that's how she wanted it to be. But, she didn't which makes her believes that there's something that drive her into a corner that she couldn't talk about it.

Houtarou became very frustrated that not only he is wrong completely, he disregarded Hongou's feelings for her script and replaced it with his false theory. But he still can't figured out what did he get wrong. At his room, he decided to forget it since the movie is finished and it would be a waste of energy to think about it. But, Houtarou still can't get it out of his mind. He started reading a book about tarot cards and remembered that Satoshi talked about tarot cards in one of the Classics Club's previous conversations. From there, Houtarou looked at the Strength that represent him as someone who showcases his full potentials when controlled by women which is a mockery from Satoshi. After a moment thinking about that fact, Houtarou figured it out.

The next day, Houtarou confronted Fuyumi. He declined her invitation to the movie club's celebration party for the movie's premiere and instead asked to have a talk with her privately. They then went to the same tea shop they went to before. Houtarou stated that the last time they were there, Fuyumi told him that he has a talent and then asked her what was it. Fuyumi was about to answer deductive reasoning skill but Houtarou stopped her and replied she's wrong. Houtarou then stated that he wasn't the detective but the mystery writer. Fuyumi asked him how did he figured it out.

Houtarou then explained that Hongou made a list of Sherlock Holmes stories marked with either O's for stories where the characters lives or X's for stories where the characters dead and also entered a vote for zero death in the class' poll for the movie's plot. This indicated that she didn't care about the trick and wanted to write a script with a happy ending particularly where no one died. But, Hongou wasn't able to come during the shooting. And so, the class went out of control and even ad-libbed the script a lot including Kaitou being dead despite her script never implied that Kaitou actually died.

Houtarou then said that what he's going to say from now on is a speculation with no proofs. Hongou saw the unfinished movie wasn't how she wanted it to be. But, she can't bring herself to ask the other to re-film it since she felt guilty for writing a script that ignored the poll result. Fuyumi seeing her like that, asked her to feign illness and leave the script unfinished. And then, she asked her friends for their theories to complete Hongou's script but the truth is they are writing a new script. Since their theories wouldn't work at all, she asked The Classics Club to complete Hongou's script by figuring out the culprit and the trick in the story. In other words, Fuyumi changed everyone's perspectives of writing a whole new script into completing Hongou's unfinished script by making a logical solution for the mystery instead of how Hongou wanted the story to be. As a result, she used Houtarou's theory to replace Hongou's script without hurting her feelings.

Conclusions
One day at the clubroom, Houtarou is spacing out at the window until Eru asked him what was Hongou's original script supposed to be. Then, he explained that the culprit would be Kounosu and since she is a member of the rock climbing club, she would use a rope to climb down from the second floor into a window from one of the empty room at the right side of the first floor. Once she climbed down, she would attack Kaitou but it won't kill him. And then, she would climb back to the second floor and meet up with the others at the lobby. But Eru wonders about the seventh actor Hongou was looking for. Houtarou answered that the seventh actor already appeared in the incomplete movie as the narrator. Eru then asked why Kaitou's room was locked. Houtarou believed he entered the room himself and locked the room with his key but he doesn't know why.

But then, Eru seems to have a better understanding of Hongou and knew what really happened. She believed after Kounosu attacked Kaitou, Kaitou then asked her reason for attacking him after that he would cover for her by hiding in a room and collapsed there. But she can't figured out how he would explain his injury and then Houtarou added that there's broken glass in the room and explained that he could say that he fell and cut himself. Houtarou claimed that they'll never know why Kounosu attacked Kaitou and why he forgave her unless Hongou reveals it. Eru agreed with him and said it can't be helped despite how curious she is. Houtarou then asked curiously why did Eru strongly rejected all the theories of the amateur detectives from the movie club previously which isn't like her at all. Eru then simply replied that she doesn't like stories where people died just like Hongou is. Houtarou then commented that it 's so like her to be like that.