So this something I ran across while sifting through the game numbers last week. Back when the game was introduced, remember when people questioned if it's possible for a failed Inspector to wind up with negative numbers in the Outside account? Turns out, you can. Allow me to explain.

Endgame Balances

In the endgame, Dayside had an endgame ATM balance of 3,348,840,000, which gets split between all members. So dividing this by 9, each player gets 372,093,000

(Technically it's 372,093,333.33, but rounding to the 1000's for simplicity)

Dayside Individual Earnings (Anime)

However, if you look at the individual earnings displayed this episode, look at Nao's endgame total (top-left): 102,093,000, which is less than 372,093,000 by 270,000,000.

That is,

>[Nao's Endgame Total / 102,093,000] = [Nao's ATM earnings / 372,093,000] + [Nao's Outside earnings / -270,000,000]

Nao failed as the Inspector so many times (intentionally against the Nightside players on Day 2 and unintentionally against Yokoya on Day 3) that she was at minus 270 million!

While this certainly isn't pretty, this too kind of speaks to Nao's acceptance and bravery at being the sole Inspector/Smuggler for Dayside on Day 3: their team may be playing to lose in game terms, but in the meantime she's willing to bear all losses on behalf of her team before using whatever meagre payout left for the three traitors.

As if I can't be more proud of my girl, the boss of the Country of Day.

--

As an aside, below are the manga earnings for comparison. Interesting adjustments the anime worked with, but I don't have it in me to run through all the differences (but I did verify Yokoya's earnings remain unchanged)

Dayside Individual Earnings (Manga)

I wrote this for many who'll undoubtedly be confused, thought to spread it here after several refinements. Hope this helps!

Small disclaimer: with so much numbers to keep track of, some of the decimal figures might be wrong or rounded incorrectly.

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1. Round 23 (Ep 16): Akiyama/Akagi (Bandana) inspection. After getting convinced to defect, Akagi hands Akiyama his recorder

2. After returning to Dayside, Akiyama then spends some off time recording his message. It presumably includes Akiyama's bluff plus his instructions for smuggling from Night to Day ATM

3. Round 26 (Ep 16): Akiyama/Shibayama (Longbeard) inspection. After getting convinced to defect, Akiyama passes Akagi's recorder to Shibayama, who then passes it to Hasegawa (Baldy) and then winds up back to Akagi. After listening, all 3 are now convinced and prepared to do the smuggling when one of them gets to be smuggler

4. Middle of Ep 17: Yokoya got suspicious and holds the Confession Game between Akagi and Shibayama. On a spur, Shibayama decides to "confess" Akiyama's bluff to Yokoya (but not that they're ready to smuggle) and Akagi thought he betrayed him for real.

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5a. Round 27 (Ep 17): when it's Night's turn to smuggle, Yokoya sends Hasegawa to verify if Akiyama will tell him the same thing as Shibayama's confession. However, Hasegawa intends to follow Akiyama's plan.

• Akiyama has broken speaker's magnet ready.
• Because Yokoya always gives his underlings another player's card, Hasegawa was given the one belonging to "Tajima Kakeru" (Eyebrows)

Current balances between both countries are as follows:

Actual Balances (Outside/ATM)	Balances per Akiyama's bluff
Day ~1.80B / 0B	Day ~1.80B / 1.91B (hidden)
Night ~1.62B / ~3.78B	Night ~1.62B / ~1.87B

5b. Seeing Hasegawa going to smuggle, Akiyama proceeds to use all 9 Dayside cards to withdraw ~1.87B from the Night ATM (ie all contents except for the 1.91B in the 3 idiots' accounts).

Hasegawa, still believing Akiyama's bluff that this was all that's left in the Night ATM, smuggles them into Tajima's account in the Day ATM using his card.

Actual Balances (Outside/ATM)

• Day ~1.80B / ~1.87B
• Night ~1.62B / 1.91B

5c. Upon confirmation, Akiyama confesses to Hasegawa that the 1.91B wasn't hidden, and seeks his help with smuggling that amount from Night to Day ATM.

After using the magnet to damage Tajima's card (by rubbing it multiple times and mess up its internals), the game staff provides Hasegawa with a replacement card.

• Nearco didn't realise this happened since he was called out of room about the broken speaker, something he noted in Ep 17. Leronira though saw the whole thing and didn't tell him

5d. Hasegawa keeps the old broken card, hands it back into Yokoya's keeping and verifies that Shibayama's "confession" was true.

Meanwhile, Akiyama uses the 3 idiots' cards to withdraw the 1.91B from the Night ATM and the new replacement card to deposit them into Tajima's account in the Day ATM

Actual Balances (Outside/ATM)

• Day ~1.80B / ~3.78B
• Night ~1.62B / 0B

(Yokoya however still believes balances are at Akiyama's bluff per 5a)

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6. Round 28 (Ep 18): thinking Akiyama's plan hadn't been enacted yet, Yokoya proposes they pretend to accept Akiyama's plan, so they can intercept and hide the ~1.87B from the Night ATM.

When he sends Akagi, Akagi holds the card he got over the window and pretends it's not working, and upon speaking with Akiyama, Akiyama prepares a new plan on Akagi's recorder. His recorder is then passed to Shibayama and Hasegawa, and Akagi lies to Yokoya about his conversation.

7. Round 29 (Ep 18): Yokoya sends Hasegawa to hide the ~1.87B, Hasegawa holds the (damaged) card over the window and Akiyama plays along. Akiyama hands the replacement card back to him, then Hasegawa withdraws ~1.87B from Tajima's account in the Day ATM.

Hasegawa pretends Yokoya's plan succeeded and brings the ~1.87B back with him to Nightside. But because this was not deposited again, it is still considered part of Day ATM contents.

Actual Balances (Outside/ATM)	Balances per Akiyama's bluff
Day ~1.75B / ~3.78B (with ~1.87B taken out)	Day ~1.75B / 1.91B (hidden)
Night ~1.67B / 0B	Night ~1.67B / ~1.87B (hidden)

8. Afterwards, when neither Akiyama nor Nao brought up the 1.91B in subsequent inspections, Yokoya is convinced of Akiyama's bluff that both ATM's are now physically empty, so focuses instead on earning more money via higher Outside balance. They would have to win and keep playing the Liar Game, but at least this course will let them have more total earnings than Dayside.

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9. After Round 34, Day 2 ended with the following amounts:

Actual Balances (Outside/ATM)	Balances per Akiyama's bluff
Day ~1.65B / ~3.78B (with ~1.87B taken out)	Day ~1.65B / 1.91B (hidden)
Night ~1.77B / 0B	Night ~1.77B / ~1.87B (hidden)

The next morning (Ep 19), Eyebrows panicked to Yokoya that if both sides kept calling Pass, the earnings they get (ie per Akiyama's bluff) won't be as profitable as Yokoya suggested. Right as Yokoya was about to start confusing Dayside during Inspection

10. Based on the numbers (Ep 19), Yokoya increased Nightside's Outside balance by ~600M / ~0.6B

• ~400M / ~0.4B came from taking some from their hidden pile, deposit them into Yokoya's account in the Day ATM, then smuggle them Outside via the Inspection Room
• ~200M / ~0.2B came from the Inspector's (Nao's) confusion, either by Doubting on empty cases or Doubting a lower amount than the case's cargo.

(While Dayside wants their Outside balance to remain lower than Nightside, they don't want the difference to be too wide, so they want to Doubt to narrow the gap)

Thus Day 3's final results ended with the following:

Actual Balances (Outside/ATM)	Balances per Akiyama's bluff
Day ~1.48B / ~3.35B (with ~1.44B taken out)	Day ~1.48B / 1.91B (hidden)
Night ~2.37B / 0B	Night ~2.37B / ~1.44B (hidden)

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Additional Meta Notes: while going through the numbers, I noticed in Step 9 the anime actually corrected something! Specifically, the Day-Outside account balance as of Day 2's end!

• Manga (magazine and volume) balance: 1,681,670,000 (or ~1.68B)
• Anime: 1,651,670,000 (or ~1.65B)

Doing the math:

Total play money (7.20B) - ATM totals (~3.78B) - Night-Outside balance (~1.77B) = Day-Outside balance (~1.65B)

Furthermore when Hasegawa was smuggling, whilst the manga script was careful for him not to say he used his own card or he deposited/withdrew from his account, we were otherwise never shown whose card Yokoya had given him. The anime instead decided it was Tajima's, which you can see in Ep 19 and very partially in Ep 18, and I must applaud them for this detail.

I wonder, did the studio consult Kaitani-sensei about any of this?

VIZ | Read Albus Changes the World, Chapter 95 - Explore VIZ Manga's Massive Library

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 7.5 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

(Chapter(s) elapsed since last post: 259 - 261)

Welcome again to my latest edition of the Dual Purpose series! Now that we’re some chapters into Phase 2, it’s about time I do another write up.

Man, I wanted to get this out earlier but I got sick. Sorry if this feels a little shoddier than usual.

For this post, I’ll be giving my battle commentary and where I think things will go from here.

(Also, my previous post was mislabelled Part 12 when it should’ve been 11. THIS post is the correct Part 12)

General Thoughts

Ah, so Trion Soldiers are summoned via eggs that’re stored on the Operators’ laptops. Terrific, this makes Operators an even bigger chokepoint, because while they’re knocked out their squadmates can’t access any Soldiers that weren’t already distributed beforehand.

Regrettably, they’re denied the time to take full stock of their Trion Soldier inventory. I mean really, at the rate things are going forget 36 hours, how are the B-Ranks even going to hold out for 6 hours!?

--

I hadn’t bothered to think about who the A-Rank Commander will be, but in retrospect it really is a simple process of elimination. First, the “no away mission experience” rule kicks out A1 Tachikawa, A2 Fuyushima, A3 Kazama, A6 Kako, A7 Miwa and A9 Reiji immediately.

Then of the remainder of A4 Kusakabe, A5 Arashiyama and A8 Katagiri, Arashiyama is best choice because he’s here at the latest B-Rank Rank Wars from start to finish and therefore is more familiar with the latest B-Rank agents. Plus, he showed his strategic worth during the Black Trigger Retrieval Arc.

Fighting for Bridges… or not

I don’t believe it, after my write-up in Part 11 about how seizing ownership of the bridges will be vital at the very start, the B-Ranks gave up one bridge without a fight. Like, I get it, Squads 5 and 9 would’ve been outgunned and decimated, but still… Now their Trappers are wreaking havoc exactly the way I dreaded!

Still, funny thing: back then I conceived Rabits as one of the river-crossing options, albeit by jumping so wouldn’t be so practical. But the cannonball idea, mainly for fast transportation in general across the home turf? That’s a genius idea, and makes the Rabits’ elimination a heightened priority.

Worst still, their Trappers are wreaking havoc exactly the way I dreaded! From mining bridges to steadily expanding warp zone control, they absolutely need to be taken down.

Sticking Together

On the flipside, who’d have thought Taichi’s dogs/horses/cavalry would be so fast they can dash past a whole mined bridge!? Osamu you madman, you sent exactly the two most precious artillery pieces straight to the frontline.

So far having the B-Ranks massing together is indeed increasing their survivability, but the trouble now comes from their ability to move around while under enemy pressure. Just look at some squads are forced to move to this point and that.

I know Kodera’s decision to have Squads 1 and 2 play defence instead of raiding is unpopular, but I think it’s the sounder move: sending them in early will throw them into a meat grinder, and until Squads 10 and 11 with their high defence (Murakami and Hyuse) finally arrives on the frontline, Squads 1 and 2’s presence are needed to ward off the pincer attack at T4 Terminal.

At least, for the interim…

Preserving the Artillery

This gambit of sending forth Chika and Ninomiya as marauders on the enemy side is an excellent move for disrupting the enemy rhythm, but now the challenge is to extract that out alive. They’re still too valuable to lose in the very first hour!

Though their mount is doing radar jamming, I can see high mobility Kusakabe and Katagiri Squads go on a great hunt around to find and corner the duo. If that happens, my only hopes are either they’ve brought an Optic Stealth soldier with them for added stealth, or for Squads 1 and 2 to cross over and secure an escape route for them.

Challenges for Tamakoma-2

Hyuse

Squad 11 still needs to make it to the frontline, and at this point it may as well be to break the pincer and ensure a lifeline for the snipers.

Can see lots of uses for Hyuse’s mass Escudo

Yuma

Squad 1 is now assigned to break the pincer, but I hope once reinforcements arrive they can be assigned to cross the river and relief Chika and Ninomiya

Chika

She and Ninomiya can probably succeed in destroying the A1 Terminal, but naught more before Kusakabe and Katagiri hunt them in earnest. Will really depend on how long they can evade their opponents…

Also, looking at the battle map in Ch 260, some stray Rabits are wandering on the west side. Maybe while they run away, they can kill a couple of them along the way?

Meanwhile, always feels good to see leader Azuma in action.

Osamu

He has to be thinking of ways to ensure Chika and Ninomiya will survive their assignment. Otherwise, it’s all about how to stall off the invading force’s momentum and allow his side to take back the initiative.

Looking forward to when he comes up with more ideas that don't involve Tamakoma-2 members though, it'd be extra hype.

Meanwhile, Katori’s a star surviving the way she did.

Final Thoughts

The next chapters I guess will serve as showcases for Kusakabe and Katagiri Squads, plus some more displays of custom Trion Soldiers. Otherwise, beyond what I’ve suggested it’s hard to chart how the battle moves from here.

What does strike me as strange is that if the B-Ranks had created battle-oriented Soldiers, you’d think they’d have summoned some by now…

And that’s it for this instalment, thank you as always! Hope next time I’ll be in better shape and can write better and there’s more fun stuff to analyse.

Let me know what you think, feedback, comments and criticism will be welcome as usual.

Since we reached where Asa is shown to Break contracts, I think it's a fair time to bring this up. Zero spoilers, fear not.

For English readers, "Break" and "Seal" may be quick and snappy ways to name the powers the twins are privy to. But in my East Asian eyes, I see something more complex and feel the English term is oversimplified. So I thought, why not write about what I know?

Break - 解 / Kai

Whilst Kodansha USA and Crunchyroll translated this as "Break", it's really more like "Release".

As per Ep 6, Asa can use this power to Release intangible things such as subspaces and Daemon contracts. So what's the theoretical extent of this power?

In Chinese, 解 has several meanings including "unravel", "unbind", "untie", "solve", "answer", "explain" and so on.

While I'm uncertain from how many angles author Hiromu Arakawa is looking at this word, at least from the Japanese side it can be used like so:

1. 解く / toku - untie; unfasten; unwrap; unstitch; solve; release; cancel; dismiss
2. 解除 / kaijyo - release (from obligations); remove; unlock; terminate; cancel; deactivate
3. 解放 / kaihou - release; liberate
4. 解凍 / kaitou - thaw; defrost
5. 解決 / kaiketsu - settlement; solution; resolution
6. 解散 / kaisan - break up; disperse
7. 解答 / kaitou - answer; solution
8. 解釈 / kaishaku - interpretation; explanation
9. 解読 / kaidoku - decipher; decode

Long story short, 解 / Kai has a variety of vocabulary to work with, and thus a diverse suite of powers that extend beyond just breaking/destroying.

• On one hand, I am seriously doubtful the power can be used for things like "settling arguments" or "show me the answer" or "give me the explanation"
• On the other, I bet unlocking/deactivating digital locks is absolutely doable

Point is, "Break" to me oversimplifies 解 / Kai a bit too much for my liking, as though it's only for "destruction", as though you can only break ropes instead of unfastening or unraveling them

Personally, I would've translated it as "Release" to convey this nature across, plus it's the direct opposite of "Seal" too.

Seal - 封 / Fuu

Official or unofficial, all translations went with "Seal" for 封 / Fuu. This is definitely the best choice, but it still simplifies things a bit too much.

In Chinese, 封 has connotations of "seal", "close", "block", "bind", etc. In Japanese, usages include:

1. 封じる / fuujiru - seal off; block off
2. 封鎖 / fuusa - sealing off; blockade; lockdown
3. 封じ込める / fuujikomeru - shut in; confine; trap; contain; suppress; restrain

In terms of vocabulary, 封 certainly has less available than 解 (not that they need to be equal), but my gut says this power's limits depend on what kinds of stuff the user is allowed to "close" and "lock".

For example, I can imagine this power being used to:

• "Lock" various materials together into makeshift weapons
• Close off prey in enclosed spaces
• Trap opponents' feet from moving
• Shield with arbitrary blockades
• Close wounds

There's so much extremely compatible usages with Yuru's hunter antics.

Last Big Question

So you have these two powers which by themselves are very powerful. But what I want to know most of all is can users "release" and "seal" things at the molecular level?

If so, these two powers may as well be "Deconstruction" and "Reconstruction". Sound familiar?