Hyouka Episode 17 Discussion

Three years too late, but here goes (MASSIVE SPOILERS AHOY!):

Here is the basis behind the whole "prank" by "Juumoji (The Ten Characters)":

The previous year (when Oreki, Satoshi, and Mayaka were all 3rd year junior-high school), a group of three Kamiyama High 2nd years banded together to write a manga: Haruna Anjou, Tanabe Jiro, and Muneyoshi Kugayama. They adopted a pen name with the starting syllable in their names: A-Ji-Mu Ta-Ku-Ha. Anjou worked on the story, Kugayama on the main art, and Tanabe on the backgrounds.

The manga was a critical success, and outshone even published works from professionals. It was a big hit and a "masterpiece" to hear Mayaka tell it. The group decided to start work on a new piece called "Kudryavka's Order" which would be based on an Agatha Christie novel: The ABC Murders (where a killer murders people whose names start with "A" in a town whose name starts with "A", then "B", and so on). However, Kugayama bowed out. He wasn't interested in pursuing art as anything more than an idle hobby and didn't want to spend time to work on a new piece. For him, "Yuube ni wa Mukuro ni" ("A Corpse By Evening") was a one-time deal.

Tanabe and Anjou were crushed. Anjou worked so hard on a great story and Jiro wanted to see it brought to life with Kugayama's art, but Kugayama still refused. So, almost a year later, Tanabe wanted to guilt trip him at the Kanya Festival, and make him remember the broken promise of the year before. He hatched a plan similar to the plot of the manga Kugayama refused to draw for (which was itself based off of the ABC Murders).

Tanabe began by taking an item from a club where the first syllable in the name starts with the same initial the club's name starts with. Instead of doing all 50 Japanese syllables, he just did the first ten: a-i-u-e-o-ka-ki-ku-ke-ko in that order. He left a note which said "From the <club name>, the <item> has been lost" and signed his name "The Ten Characters". He also left the brochure open to the club names and the card next to Kugayama Muneyoshi's name (the target of the "prank") and Tanabe Jiro's name (the perpetrator).

He took the items from the clubs:
A_pple Juice from A_capella Club,
I_shi (stone) from the I_go Club (Go Club),
U_nmei no Wa (Wheel of Fortune) from the U_ranai Club (Fortunetelling Club),
E_ikei 47 (AK-47) from the E_ngei Club (Gardening Club),
O_tama (Ladle) from the O_ryouri Ken (Cooking Club),
Ka_ta- Naifu (Utility Knife) from the Ka_be Shinbun Club (Wall Newspaper Club),
Ki_yanderu (Candle) from the Ki_jutsu Club (Magic Club),
Ku - SKIPPED! (see below),
Ge(Ke)_n (A string) from the Ke_ion Club (Light Music Club) - In Japanese games like Shiritori, the voiced equivalent can often substitute for a syllable (e.g."Ge" instead of "Ke"),
Ko_uryou Genkou (Proofread Manuscript) from the Ko_ten Club (Classic Literature Club)

Notice that "Ku" was missing. Jiro wanted to send a message to Ku_gayama that "Ku_dryavka's Order" had been lost (because Kugayama refused to work on it). That's also why Tanabe didn't say "stolen" in the cards, because he wanted to convey the meaning of the chance and a wonderful piece of work being lost forever.

Oreki figured out most of the puzzle, but his conclusion was that Kugayama lost the manuscript, but Tanabe corrected him, that everything was ready to go, it was just that Kugayama didn't really care about drawing, and it was just a lark (yet that "lark" produced a masterpiece better than most professionals could muster).

Oreki figures this out because "A Corpse by Evening" fell into his hands, and he noticed the same pattern described in the forward (relating to the ABC Murders by Christie), and he gets corrected on the name "Ajimu Takuha," and he also gets told the names of two of the participants: Anjou Haruna (from Mayaka) and Kugayama Muneyoshi (from Chitanda, with Satoshi supplying the correct reading of the mane (the kanji for "Kuga" is usually read as "riku")). So, a person who is close with Kugayama whose name starts with "Ta" and "Ji" who had control over the layout of the brochure and access to all of the clubs... Tanabe Jiro-senpai.

Then Oreki basically tells Tanabe that he'd like to help complete the prank, but that a) Tanabe has to target Kotenbu and "lose" the Proofread Manuscript and b) He has to buy 30 anthologies to sell on the school website, so a bit of blackmail, yes, but more in the nature of a "win-win" "negotiated transaction". Oreki tells Satoshi the whole thing and the two of them pair up to help Tanabe by lacing the manuscript with sodium (which reacts violently with water) and distracting everyone with Satoshi's phone.

The plan goes off without a hitch and the manuscript is "lost. Juumoji completes his mission and finishes his message. Only... the message is never acknowledged. Kudryavka's Order will never become a reality, and such brilliant artistic talent will be left to waste away in the cruel, foggy evening of the monochrome and mechanical, assembly-line culture of the Japanese economy...

To top it all off, Satoshi realizes that Oreki figured this all out when Satoshi never could, from a field of thousands of people, by sheer deduction. Satoshi realizes how outclassed he is, and tells Mayaka that telling someone you have "expectations of them" is used only when someone has given up all hope of attaining that level themselves.

As an aside, Haruna's friend, Ayako Kouchi, also worked on a manga: "Body Talk" whose level was under "A Corpse by Evening", and she had similar feelings of inferiority with Haruna that Satoshi has with Oreki (and Mayaka has for her senpai). Mayaka talks with Kouchi about it and she realizes, finally, why Kouchi refuses to acknowledge masterpieces, and why she refuses to read "A Corpse by Evening": because that would affirm her own inferiority, and she doesn't want to feel that way towards a friend.

It is true that all that remains of samurai are withered flowers...