Aibou TV Season 5 Episode 6 - Tsukinashi (wordplay to mean out of luck and no moon) (ツキナシ)

Subtitle: Tsukinashi (wordplay to mean out of luck and no moon) (ツキナシ)

 Kunihiko Miyazawa(宮澤 邦彦), who manages a first class architectural firm, is murdered in his own home while his wife is taking a shower. Shūichi Kitanoguchi(北之口 秀一), a Naoki Prize winning author, is the primary suspect, but all the evidence is circumstantial. Did Kitanoguchi kill Miyazawa?

Characters appearing/mentioned in the story

Shūichi Kitanoguchi(北之口 秀一) - 40 year old Naoki Prize winning author who recently wrote The murmur of Altair(アルタイルの呟き Arutairu no Tsubuyaki). His other works include Shrieking/Wailing Forest(慟哭の森 Dōkoku No Mori), Garden of Purple(紫の園 Murasaki No Sono), Red Season, A Black Dream and A White Reality(黒い夢と白い現実 Kuroi Yume to Shiroi Genjitsu), Coral in Love(恋する珊瑚 Koisuru Sango), Friendly Kidnapping(やさしい誘拐 Yasashī yūkai).

His fingerprints were found inside the Miyazawa household and his shoe-prints were found outside. Neighbors saw him wandering around the house. Three days after the murder, he voluntarily submits himself to questioning, where he denies killing Mr. Miyazawa. He then reiterates his innocence on live TV.

Saori Nagata(永田 沙織) later turns in a photograph which provides the author an alibi, but there is a problem. The clock in the picture reads 10:57, and the author claims that he was walking to a vending machine to buy a package of cigarettes, a second pen for him. However, the closest tobacco vending machine ceases to operate after 11:00 and it would take 10 minutes to get to that vending machine. Kitanoguchi then says that he must have bought the cigarettes from a convenience store. The Tokumeigakari pair later check the convenience store's surveillance cameras and find out that Kitanoguchi did not appear in the recording taken at that time. What's worse, the moon that day rose at 9:50 AM and moved out of the sky by 7:08 PM. Oddly enough, the picture included a window reflecting light from the moon, which is impossible.

Saori Nagata(永田 沙織) - Professional photographer of commercial goods who takes pictures of the night sky as a hobby. She drops by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department building to turn in a photograph showing Shūichi Kitanoguchi(北之口 秀一) at a location far away from the Miyazawa household at the time of the murder. On that night, the Tokyo Tower was lit up light blue to commemorate a public release of a movie, as was the Tokyo Tower in the picture.

She is supposedly Shūichi Kitanoguchi(北之口 秀一)'s fan and has many of his novels in her apartment, but all of them were printed recently - none of them were original printings. She starts smoking again (she was trying to quit) when the Tokumeigakari pair points out that she must have faked the photograph she submitted to the police.

Miyazawa(宮澤) - Kunihiko's wife who knows Kitanoguchi from a nearby gym. Kitanoguchi drove her home from the gym from time to time, including the day when her husband was killed. On that day, Kitanoguchi came into the house and started making unwanted advances, so she told him to leave her house, running into another room in the house and closing its doors.

Kunihiko Miyazawa(宮澤 邦彦) - Manager of a first class architectural firm who was murdered in his own home. He died between 10:55 PM  and 11:15 PM

Kōichi Nagara(長柄 孝一) - Main character in Shūichi Kitanoguchi(北之口 秀一)'s novel Garden of Purple(紫の園 Murasaki No Sono). According to Inspector Ukyō, Nagara "sinks into the lake of narcissism along with his lover's coffin" at the end of that novel.