Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind - TV Tropes

^{Click for the Famicom Disk System covers}

Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind is the second entry in the Famicom Detective Club series. Developed by Nintendo and released only in Japan for the Famicom Disk System, the game was split across two volumes in 1989: Volume 1 released on May 23, while Volume 2 released June 30.

Taking place two years before the events of The Missing Heir, the game covers one of the protagonist's first cases as an assistant at the Utsugi Detective Agency. While his boss is busy with a different murder case, the protagonist is tasked with handling the murder of schoolgirl Yoko Kojima. As he looks into the matter with aid of Yoko's friends Ayumi Tachbana and Hitomi Kawaii, it soon becomes clear that her death is somehow connected to an investigation the late Yoko herself was doing before her untimely demise; uncovering the truth behind the local ghost story, The Girl Who Stands Behind.

While The Girl Who Stands Behind would see a Super Famicom remake exclusively for the "Nintendo Power" rewriteable cartridge service in April 1998, and it and The Missing Heir would see re-releases on several Nintendo systems afterward, the duology would not see its international debut until both titles received remakes for the Nintendo Switch co-developed by MAGES., which released on May 14, 2021.

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This visual novel contains examples of:

• Accidental Murder: Urabe accidentally hit Shinobu with his car when she was escaping from the scene of Genjiro's murder, killing her.
• Actionized Sequel: Compared to the first game where the protagonist can only ask around after the murders have occured, there's quite a few running scenes as the protagonist aims to prevent the case from escalating.
• Adapted Out: The female tennis player with a hideous face was excised from the Nintendo Switch remake and is replaced with a fat but mature male student who does not hold any sort of crush.
• Adventure Rebuff: The protagonist increasingly gets worried about Ayumi putting her own life into jeopardy like Yoko once did from researching the Girl Who Stands Behind and the Kaneda Case, so he tries to convince her to not overstep her bounds even if it hurts her feelings while she's in her fragile mental state. He eventually forces her hand by slipping sleeping pills into some coffee she gives to the protagonist, so that she can go after Mr. Tazaki, despite fully knowing that he may or may not be the culprit.
• Artistic License – Biology: As cool as the final reveal is of the true location of Shinobu's corpse during the game's climax, it is impossible that nobody noticed it before. Decaying corpses give off an incredibly powerful and putrid odor and it obviously wasn't behind a thick enough barrier to block it since breaking the mirror it's hiding behind causes the body to come tumbling out. Students are shown walking right up to the mirror and not commenting on it. But everyone forgives this because let's be honest… it's just that cool.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Genjiro Kaneda, the murder victim in the second case, is described by a plainclothes police officer as a "master con-artist", swindling peoples' livelihoods and (in the case of Uchida) forcing them to declare bankruptcy if they can't pay him back. His body is left with multiple, savage stab wounds, signifying the murderer's genuine hatred for the man.
  • While some people feel sorry for them, nobody mourns Goro Kaneda after they are murdered.
• Bad Guy Bar: When Genjiro Kaneda was alive, in addition to his Loan Shark activities, his bar was described as a hang out for those who were delinquents and hoodlums.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible:
  • Downplayed with Mr. Komada, the art teacher. He starts out sharing any and all information he knows about the school and the incidents that took place, but as the game goes on, he becomes upset and more reluctant to talk due to realizing that the player believes the principal could be a major suspect.
  • Ms. Hamaya and Mr. Tazaki both share dark secrets that they don't want anyone else to know regarding their part in the story and end up hindering your efforts; while Hamaya will eventually talk to you so long as no one else is around, you literally have to corner Tazaki at the edge of a cliff before he's willing to say anything of substance.
  • Mr. Kato staunchly refuses to talk about his clients or answer any questions, on account of the protagonist being a minor. He only opens up once the protagonist gets Hitomi's wig and glasses to fall off, at which point he realizes you're friends with the neighborhood kid he used to look after.
• Berserk Button:
  • For certain members of the staff at Ushimitsu High School, insinuating that Principal Urabe might be the killer is this, as some directly owe their livelihoods to him, since he was willing to overlook any past mistakes or dark secrets they may have held.
  • The protagonist himself is a pretty calm-collected, ordinary every-man... but insulting his mother is one way to get him to act physical, as the Weird Kid pestering him would have found out if not for Ayumi's sudden appearance.
• Bowdlerise:
  • In the Japanese version, repeatedly examining Ayumi's chest at the start of Chapter 8 after she jokes about you two being all alone and you check your surroundings to see that no one is coming, will cause her to become uncomfortable and start backing away from you in fear until Tazaki stumbles onto the scene and stops you, culminating in everyone expressing anger and disappointment at you sexually harassing her and you losing your job. In the English version, Ayumi ends up attacked by a bee and everyone else is simply angry at you for not killing it, leading to the exact same end-result. Though it's quickly subverted in both cases as the protagonist having an intrusive thought.

    Protagonist: I was imagining something awful...

  • A couple of suggestive lines were toned down, with characters such as the coroner or art student still calling out the player for perverted actions, but instead just insisting that he stop rather than directly calling him a pervert.
• Butterface: In the Super Famicom remake, a female tennis player you come across at the high school is initially talked to from a considerable distance. This confuses the protagonist, and so when he asks her to come closer after thinking she must be cute… she turns out to have an extremely ugly and weaselly face, and is also implied to have a crush on the protagonist, which horrifies him.
• Call-Forward: The post-credits scene is a Time Skip to the day that the protagonist received a phone call from Zenzou Tanabe of Myojin Village to investigate a potential murder case, leading directly into the events of The Missing Heir with a To Be Continued.
• Chick Magnet: Goro Kaneda, Genjiro's son, was quite popular with the ladies at Ushimitsu High School, often taking them to his father's bar and his mansion for parties.
• Cliffhanger: The original Famicom Disk System version has Disc A end on the moment where Ayumi drugs the protagonist, which serves as the end of Chapter 5 in the remakes.
• Company Cameo: In one chapter, when turning on the living room TV in the home of a woman you're interviewing, you catch the end of a baseball game, after which Nintendo is stated to be one of the sponsors.
• Disposing of a Body: After accidentally hitting Shinobu with his car, Principal Urabe walled her corpse up behind a mirror in the school. 15 years later, after Hibino strangled Yoko to death, Urabe attempted a similar cover up by removing her body from the school and dumping it in the river.
• Dude Magnet: Ayumi Tachibana, who, according to a passing male student, has apparently captured the hearts of the male student body at her school, at least regarding her fellow first-year students. It's occasionally hinted that the protagonist is also developing a crush on her, and the game even ranks your affinity with her at the end.
• Dramatic Thunder: Thunder sounds in the background during The Reveal that Hibino is the culprit.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Uchida, the man believed to be the main suspect in the Kaneda murder from years prior, killed himself before the police had a chance to interrogate him.
  • Principal Urabe later kills himself out of shame in his office, after having written a message that (falsely) incriminates himself as the killer behind all the murders to protect Hibino, who was the one behind all the killings other than Shinobu's, which was an accidental vehicular homicide Urabe committed when racing over to stop Hibino from killing Kaneda.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness:
  • Ayumi Tachibana has these as her default expression for the first half of the game. Considering that Yoko Kojima, the murder victim, was her best friend, it makes perfect sense.
  • Yoko's homeroom teacher Tatsuya Hibino also has these as well. Though in his case, it's later revealed to be just an act.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Shinobu, Hibino, Ryoko, Sayaka, Ms. Hayama and Goro all went to Ushimitsu High School 15 years ago, with Urabe still acting as principal at the time. It's even revealed that Shinobu and Hibino (known as "Tatsuya Uchida" at the time) were close friends.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Sometime after Tazaki has calmed down, the protagonist asks him about whether anyone could conceivably have used his tools for tearing down a wall with no training, like the one he had plastered on the old school building 15 years ago. He explains that it's possible, if the wall was freshly made, though he otherwise believes that he's the only one who used them that night. Then he remembers that his tools did get tampered with shortly after he had used them.
• Fatal Flaw: Urabe's desire to protect Hibino. 15 years ago, when Hibino called Urabe and said that he was planning to kill Genjiro, Urabe sped over in his car to try and stop the boy from ruining his life by committing murder. Not only did he arrive too late, but he also accidentally hit and killed Shinobu, another of his students. 15 years later, when Hibino strangled Yoko to death, Urabe stepped in and disposed of the girl's body to try and protect Hibino once again. The shame and guilt over what he'd done ultimately caused Urabe to commit suicide, but not before crafting a fake confession to try and keep Hibino safe one last time.
• Finally Found the Body: The game's climax involves Hoshino, who is responsible for the Kaneda murders and Shinobu's death, breaking the glass mirror in the school's hallway hallway while trying to kill the protagonist and Ayumi... causing the corpse of Shinobu to come tumbling out from behind the broken mirror, revealing where Urabe had hidden the body away the night of her death. Up until this point, her body had never been recovered and it was officially unknown whether she was still alive or not.
• Fission Mailed: There are a few different ways to make the policewoman at the local precinct cause this in Chapter 3, ranging from acting perverse to just irritating her with inane questions.
• Guide Dang It!: In the Super Famicom and Switch remakes, in addition to a personality assessment at the end that judges how you handled the investigation, the player is also given a compatibility rating with Ayumi (judged out of 20 hearts) based on how you treated her throughout the game. The amount of hearts you managed to accumulate will result in different endings where various characters comment on your relationship with Ayumi, culminating with Ayumi herself giving a Love Confession if you have max affinity. This entire system is never alluded to, and even if the player is aware of this on a subsequent playthrough, many of the actions that affect this rating aren't obvious, making it hard to get all twenty hearts without a guide.
• He Knows Too Much: The present-day murders boil down to this. It all started when Shinobu walked in on a teenage Hibino right after he'd murdered Genjiro Kaneda, causing her to flee. While running away from the house, she was accidentally hit by Principal Urabe's car after he'd arrived too late to stop Hibino from killing Genjiro. 15 years later, Yoko figured out what happened and confronted Hibino about it, which caused him to strangle her to death. Shortly after this, Genjiro's son Goro revealed that he saw Urabe driving away from the scene of the murder all those years ago, and attempted to blackmail him, forcing Hibino to kill Goro as well. After finally confessing to all of this, an unhinged Hibino attempts to kill Ayumi and the protagonist in order to further cover everything up.
• Heroic BSoD: Tatsuya Hibino and Ayumi Tachibana are this throughout much of the case following Yoko's death, to the point that the former is initially unable to answer any questions because of his mental state. Only Ayumi's is sincere.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Ushimitsu High School. Ushimitsu (丑三つ) refers to the time between 2:00 AM and 2:30 AM, which is considered the witching hour in Japanese folklore—the dead of night when supernatural forces like ghosts and yōkai are most likely to appear. Although the school uses different kanji to form "Ushimitsu" (丑美津), the name adds to the eerie atmosphere.
• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: When complaining about your insistence at trying to connect every little piece of info you get to the case, Komada says that he probably shouldn't say anything about the car he just remembered.

  Protagonist: Too late! Now you have to tell me.

• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • How the "Girl Who Stands Behind" rumor began falls under this. Ms. Hayama, a teacher at the school, started the rumor back when she herself was a student 15 years ago. Hayama claims that on the night of Kaneda's murder and Shinobu's disappearance, she saw a screaming, blood-soaked girl through a window at the school. This is seemingly explained when Hibino claims that he and Urabe taken Shinobu's body to the school after she'd been hit by the latter's car, only for it to turn out that she was only unconscious, after which he finished her off by smashing a vase over her head. However, it's revealed later on that the autopsy of Shinobu's recovered corpse showed no signs of a head wound matching Hibino's description, leaving Utsugi to conclude that she really did die during the car accident. While Hibino's claim that Shinobu had woken up could be dismissed as a hallucination brought on by his mental breakdown, the protagonist points out that this still doesn't explain how Hayama witnessed the same bloody girl if Shinobu was already dead by that point, which Utsugi has no answer for.
  • This also applies to Yoko. At several points, the characters are left baffled at how an average high school girl, who only did mystery-solving as a hobby, started out looking into a schoolyard urban legend only to deduce the complete truth behind a 15-year-old cold case all by herself in just over a week, with no access to new or privileged information, and without arousing any suspicion or even contacting most of the people involved. Ayumi ultimately concludes that Shinobu's spirit possessed Yoko, which in addition to explaining her knowledge of the case, also explains her friend's odd demeanor in the week leading up to her death; while a mundane explanation is never suggested whenever she brings it up, the narrative never explicitly confirms Ayumi's theory either.
• Never Found the Body: The missing person from the Kaneda incident, Shinobu Asakawa, disappeared on the night of the murder and hasn't been seen since. It's speculated by the police that she may still be alive, but the investigator you talk to thinks the chances of that are slim at best. The game's climax involves finally discovering her body and officially closing the case.
• Open-Fly Gag:
  • As the protagonist tries to cheer up Ayumi after she expresses immense guilt at drugging him and making others worry about her safety, Ayumi can't help but notice and laugh at the protagonist's unzipped pants while he's trying to assure her that everything is fine now. It also happens to be the first time in the game where Ayumi is genuinely happy.
  • A little time later, a similar gag happens when the protagonist first meets Hitomi, with them listing your open fly as one of the reasons they found you suspicious.
• Relationship Values: After the game's credits, you're rated on how compatible you are with Ayumi on a scale of 1 to 20.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: In Chapter 10, after he pretends to be the culprit, Komada gets fed up with the protagonist's suspicion of Urabe being involved with the murders and leaves the school. He isn't seen again for the rest of the game.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: You're repeatedly beaten over the head with how amazing of a guy Urabe is, and insinuating that he's suspicious sets at least a couple of people off. Eventually, evidence starts to implicate him... only for it to turn out he truly is innocent. He was just covering for Hibino, who is the real murder; even the single death he's guilty of was an accident that he would have confessed to if it wouldn't have also revealed Hibino's act of premeditated murder. His desire to protect Hibino is to the point that even his suicide note is a false confession where he takes credit for every murder in the game, just so Hibino wouldn't get caught.
• Shout-Out:
  • The art student's "art is an explosion" quote is a reference to avant-garde painter Tarō Okamoto.
  • While looking for Ayumi in the entertainment district after she drugged you so she could hunt down Yoko's potential killer, a the night club promoter you meet mentions that while he doesn't know an Ayumi, the club he works for does employ a Rei and an Asuka.
• Slipping a Mickey: Ayumi slips some sleeping pills in the protagonist's coffee to put him out so she can search for Tazaki on her own, believing him to be the culprit responsible for Yoko's death.
• Statute of Limitations: One of the aspects from the plot was trying to solve the murder of Goro Kaneda from 15 years ago, which was going to expire ten days after the day Yoko Kojima was found to have been murdered.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Multiple characters remark that Yoko looked almost exactly like the missing Shinobu. Later on, the protagonist discovers that the two girls were cousins.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: In the original Famicom Disk System version, the protagonist's search for Ayumi saw the player navigate the city in the form of a 3D maze. Both the Super Famicom and Nintendo Switch remakes replace it with a montage sequence.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: Downplayed. While there is no problem with beating the game, the bug in the Super Famicom version renders the player unable to get maximum score on compatibility with Ayumi. It is fixed in the Switch version.
• Urban Legends: The titular Girl Who Stands Behind, a ghost who is said to haunt the local high school. Yoko's investigation into the story behind the ghost is what ultimately led to her murder.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Ryoko says that Shinobu used to be a sweet girl, but that she become louder, flashier and more of a party girl after she began hanging around with Goro. Her connection to Goro is what ultimately led to her death, as she was hanging out at his house the night his father was murdered by Hibino.
• What the Hell, Player?: Several characters will chastise you or express disappointment when you perform perverted actions during your investigation, usually in the form of using the "Examine/Look" command on some female characters' breasts. One of the most notable instances being using the "Take" command on the female police officer in Chapter 3; she'll be so disgusted at the perverted look on your face that she immediately throws you into a jail cell, resulting in a fake out game over screen. After she lets you out, both she and the resident detective jokingly call you creepy/creep when you talk to them afterwards.
• Working the Same Case: The protagonist investigates the death of a high school girl researching the origin of Ushimitsu's legend of The Girl Who Stands Behind, while Utsugi has been assigned to a murder case that occurred 15 years ago that's about to hit its statute of limitations. It's revealed at the end of the second chapter that the inspiration for the ghost story, a teenager named Shinobu Asakawa who mysteriously disappeared one day, was a key witness in the murder case who was seemingly abducted and killed.