Recap / The Kindaichi Case Files Who Killed The Goddess

"Who Killed The Goddess?" is the second case in the Short File Series of The Kindaichi Case Files.

On the day of the Fudo High School festival, Kindaichi and Miyuki introduces Saki to a girl he harbors a crush on after accidentally finding her in the footage while filming a random crowd one day. That very evening, said girl, after undergoing a traditional ritual in the art club, becomes a prime suspect in a case of assault on an art club member, and so Kindaichi steps in to help solve the case.

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Tropes include:

• Bait-and-Switch: As the girl Saki harbors a crush on is being interrogated in the police station, a voice suddenly and loudly demands answers, slamming the hand onto the table along the way. It turns out to be Saki demanding answers from the police as to why she is being treated like a criminal, requiring Kindaichi and Kenmochi to try to defuse the situation.
  Kenmochi's colleague: *thinking privately* Who's the one being interrogated here?
• Clear Their Name: Saki's crush gets framed as the prime suspect in this case, necessitating Kindaichi to help the police investigate in order to prove her innocence and find out who is actually at fault.
• Continuity Cameo: Three people serve this purpose in this case story, making their respective, brief appearance while Kindaichi shows Saki around during the School Festival.
  • A childhood friend of Kindaichi's, who was among the prominent participants in a previous case arc, makes one appearance as a concession stand worker as Kindaichi meets him and asks for information about Miyuki.
  • A Cloudcuckoolander girl, whom Kindaichi met and got acquainted with in the same previous murder case, happens to run a fortune-teller booth. Kindaichi would rather minimize interaction with her, however, as indicated when he leaves the booth in a hurry the moment her face is shown.
  • A colleague of Kenmochi's, who was with Kindaichi in a previous murder case arc, appears alongside Kenmochi at the police precinct.
• Continuity Nod: A colleague of Kenmochi's had been with Hajime in the "Massacre of Deep Blue" case arc, which took place sometime before this one. While Neither Kindaichi nor the police investigator in question mentions the case arc explicitly, Kindaichi does make a vague reference to it.
  Hajime: [to the police investigator] Didn't we go on a cruise ship together?
• Everybody Lives: This is another case with no one being murdered.
• Frame-Up: The culprit confesses to have tried to pin the girl Saki pines for for the assault.
• A Friend in Need: Kindaichi decides to help solve the case because he wants to help Saki, as the girl being suspected of assault is his crush due to Love at First Sight.
• Happy Ending: This case ends with such an ending. Everybody Lives, the culprit and her boyfriend clear up any confusion between them and are to be married after both of them are out of high school (and the girlfriend is pregnant to boot), the girl Saki has a crush on is cleared of any suspicion, and Kindaichi suggests (and Kenmochi agrees) that no arrests are warranted in this case.
  Miyuki: (thinking to herself) So I guess... the only "victim" in this case... is really the statue of Venus.
• I Gave My Word: Besides the usual promise of helping to solve a mystery case, Kindaichi makes one early on in this series when agreeing to Saki's request to find out the identity of a girl Saki harbors a crush on due to Love at First Sight.
  Just leave everything to me. I'll take care of it. In the name of my grandfather, I swear it!
• Japanese School Club: The main participants in this case are members of the Art Club.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Once Kindaichi decides to step in to solve the case, he asks Kenmochi to start the police car to reach the art classroom where the assault took place. When another inspector asks Kenmochi how he can take orders from a high school student like Kindaichi, Kenmochi, who has witnessed Kindaichi's detective ways many times already, simply decides to go with the flow.
  Kenmochi: It's no big deal. That's usually how the case progresses anyway.
• Love at First Sight: Saki harbors a crush on a girl right after seeing her in his filmed footage.
• Mistaken for Cheating: The reason behind the culprit's assault and the subsequent Frame-Up turns out to be because the culprit saw her boyfriend and the girl Saki has a crush for entering a jewelry store. Thinking that her boyfriend had cheated on her, she attacked him when he was alone in the art classroom and tried to frame the girl he went to the jewelry store with, but it turns out the girl merely went inside said jewelry store with him to help him pick out an engagement ring for his girlfriend.
• Never Trust a Title: In-Universe. The sculpture that the Art Club president shows to Kindaichi and Saki at the art gallery cafe is titled "The Hammer of Justice", but the sculpture itself is a mishmash of various objects being seemingly combined together haphazardly with no explanation given behind its creation process, much less how or whether any of the objects being involved in the sculpture symbolizes "justice", and no hammer is seen anywhere on, in, or around the sculpture itself.
• Quirky Work: In-Universe. The president of the Art Club shows his latest artwork — a sculpture made of marble — to Kindaichi and Saki. How Saki reacts to the sculpture is not shown, but Kindaichi is... utterly perplexed by it, as it's a mishmash of various objects being seemingly combined pell-mell (e.g. part of the sculpture is a fish with a man's face clamping on a human neck that's attached to a hand holding a baseball while a steering wheel hangs off the forearm of said baseball-holding hand) with no explanation given behind such an assembly.
  The Art Club president: This is my creation which I made out of marble, but I still think something's wrong.
  Kindaichi: [sporting Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat] Wr... Wro... Wrong?
• School Festival: The Fudo High School festival takes place during the story. Kindaichi introduces Saki to the girl he harbors a crush on as the festival is ongoing.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Kindaichi does this twice during the Fudo High School festival.
  • Right after Kindaichi guesses correctly in a guessing game and Asaki shows himself, Makabe turns up, and both of them state their ultimate goal of creating a trick that will confuse Kindaichi to no end. Kindaichi reacts by leaving, taking Saki with him and looking completely unimpressed all the while.
    Kindaichi: Why don't you [Asaki and Makabe] just design a haunted house? Saki, let's go!
  • Kindaichi and Saki encounter a fortune-telling booth and decide to pay a visit. The teller turns out to be a Cloudcuckoolander girl, whom Kindaichi knows "is not playing with a full deck" due to having met her in a previous murder case. Kindaichi promptly makes a beeline out of the booth, dragging Saki along with him.
    Kindaichi: S-Sorry for bothering you! *thinking to himself* Why is she here? She goes to another school, right?
• Stunned Silence: Played for Laughs.
  • Saki is rendered speechless upon meeting the girl he has a crush on in person for the first time.
  • This is the reaction Kindaichi and Miyuki both sport when seeing Saki's "portrait" of said girl, with Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat to boot.
• Teacher/Student Romance: In this case, the culprit is the "student" part of the couple assaulting the teacher due to the latter being Mistaken for Cheating.
• Teen Pregnancy: The culprit is an eighteen-year-old student showing signs of pregnancy late in the case.
• Terrible Artist: Sake turns out to be downright lousy at drawing a portrait, as Kindaichi and Miyuki discover when they see the portrait itself, which looks more at home in a Picasso gallery, leaving them briefly in Stunned Silence. The story ends with Saki trying to show his hand-drawn portrait to his crush, while Kindaichi and Miyuki frantically try to prevent Saki's crush from seeing it.