Such Violent Saints: The Case of Urban Myth Dissolution Center

 

I am a huge fan of mystery visual novels of the Phoenix Wright, Famicom Detective Club, and Paranormasight mold. If I have to interact with menus for 15 hours to get a slow dripfeed of anime drama delivered in text, I am a happy camper. So I was delighted to discover Urban Myth Dissolution Center, a horror visual novel from Shueisha games, which has a case-style with a story that mixes the best of Occult Academy, In/Spectre, and Gatchaman Crowds while offering something they didn't.

Occult Academy is fun, but conspiracy theories and occult obsessions are not as cute and fun as a TV show from 2010 made out. In/Spectre is a delight, but its folklore focus isn't quite as grounded or political as I'd like. And Gatchaman Crowds is a classic, but Hajime is always too high minded and noble, and the series is never quite as angry about the internet as it probably ought to be. Urban Myth Dissolution Center offers a game that is about true crime, urban legends, internet trolls, and social dissatisfaction that feels incredibly important and timely.

There are six mysteries in the game which will take you about 15 hours to solve. Each case involves both investigation of the scene of the crime and searching social media for rumors of clues. Non-fans of visual novel style adventure games will not be impressed with the gameplay, as it mostly just involves searching hotspots over and over in various order to unlock story flags. There's not much of a game here, outside of quizzes where you're basically asked if you can figure out what's going on. There are no penalties for wrong answers, so you will eventually stumble on the solution if you keep trying. But what the game lacks in gameplay, it makes up for in gorgeous pixel art, atmosphere, and nerve. If you're a fan of this kind of title, you really have to check it out.

But I wondered with all of the righteous bombs it throws in the final act, if it was guilty, like a lot of media, of celebrating the very things it hopes to decry.

I will now get into spoilers, discussing the entire plot of the game, so do not continue if you want to play the game on your own.

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So upon first viewing, the ending is quite a bit of what I will lovingly call anime bullshit. But the immediate take away for me was Fight Club. The secret identity of the naive protagonist also somehow being a terrorist mastermind who got his revenge while decrying it as overkill is just the kind of perfect having your cake and eating it too scenario of Fight Club. I remember being so mad at Roger Ebert for saying Fight Club was a fascist movie when it so clearly had interesting things to say and so clearly indicated fascism was bad. I think in 2026 we can clearly see that Ebert was right. The aesthetics of fascism are so appealing, that just like Truffaut said you cannot make an anti-war film, you simply cannot make an anti-fascist work of art.

So does Urban Myth Dissolution Center basically reinforce the allure of conspiracy thinking and getting back at internet bullies while at the same time trying to teach good information hygiene and the importance of being there for people?

Of course it does. But I've come to accept pop culture will never be able to instruct morality. It's simply not possible to do. And fortunately in this case, we have an obscure visual novel that most people will never play instead of a Hollywood blockbuster.

But I did decide I wanted to play it again to see if the pieces really all worked together. The triple secret identity reveal at the end seemed like too much. Was it being ridiculous? I had to find out, so I took notes on a second playthrough.

The game never cheats, exactly. There's plenty of foreshadowing and clever trickery throughout to make it all plausible.

The first case with the man under the bed is an enjoyable Scooby Doo mystery where a masked villain tries to scare an innocent victim. Instead of simply driving Mio to run away, Eiko wants to lure her into a lifestyle she can't afford to make her willing to return to compensated dating. On a second playthrough, Eiko's naked manipulations are really visible. This game hates influencer culture passionately. This first case teaches us that there's always going to be a mundane explanation for the supernatural, but also that the game is going to have an edge. The hint at Mio having had an abortion and a stalker when she was doing compensated dating is really dark material, telling us that there is going to be a social critique included as well.

The bloody Mary case immediately after is kind of a curveball. Kinoko, the hapless occult streamer doesn't have a direct victim he's preying on, but much like the mushroom of his namesake, he feeds on rot and decay. His exploitation of human tragedy and true crime is reflected in the leering, rumor mongering neighbor who creeps our heroine out. This case is messier than the first, but forces us to consider the case of Miwako's poor father, the survivor of the murder suicide who no one cares about, living in solitude after the internet rumors move on. As a mystery based around a misunderstanding, it's less satisfying on a mechanical level, but expands the scope of the cases to be about how rumors and legends take form.

The third immediately escalates on this by preventing an actual revenge plot of a relative of someone's life who was destroyed by the rumor industrial project. On second playthrough, the obvious connection to the main plot is almost too on the nose, but it also underscores that the game was always honest about it's narrative threads from the start. Yamada stealing the envelope with evidence about the Ueno Tenchu case is a clever trick, as is Meguriya's disappointment in the practical logic of Tomoko's revenge plot rather than the morality that Azumi is so disappointed by.

The fourth case is kind of a return to the form of the Man Under the Bed, presenting as an unlikable influencer who's obviously as guilty as a Columbo villain. Here it's the mechanics of the curse, though, that really shines. Though the game never exactly spells it out, the tea made from vines featured here is clearly ayuhuasca. How this got put into a Japanese game with Japan's anti-drug culture is kind of amazing. I imagine it's because most of the people playing the game in Japan won't pick up on the referencing at all.

Finally, we have the doppelganger case, where we have the villain actually weaponizes the urban legend against us, setting up a scenario where Azumi and the Center can be framed. The doppelganger everyone insists upon in this story never existed at all, but was merely an excuse offered up to cover for people's own actions. It honestly reminds me a bit of Shonen Bat from Paranoia Agent in this case. Here is a case of deliberate misinformation rather than a rumor that accrues through embellishment and miscommunication.

Then we have the last case, which ties all of the individual cases into a single narrative.

This last case is kind of a master class of having it both ways. Azumi goes along with a literal government spook to the secret room where the government covers up all the crimes they want to look the other way on. So here we have an attempt of some nuance. Corruption is real, cover ups are real. These things happen. But not everyone in positions of authority approves of them, and conspiracy is more about covering for friends than sending out the secret police to disappear anyone who has ever raised a question on the internet. Skepticism of power is good, but we cannot let ourselves fall into paranoia. We need to practice good information hygiene and go only where the facts lead us.

But then our perfect blameless heroine also just so happens to execute the perfect crime that owns all of her haters in a thematically perfect way by planning a massive conspiracy with a secret society. Cake so nice you have it twice.

It's a fun time, and by this point almost anyone can see that the Director and Samejima Admin are the same person, so making the heroine yet another personality is basically necessary to give the game a twist ending and set up a sequel hook. Is it too much?

In the cynical, Admin view of the world, sure. It's all too pat, too tidy, the allure of conspiracy aesthetic is just more fun and exciting than being sober and responsible.

But in the spirit of Azami's pure heartedness I will offer an alternative interpretation. Multiple personality twist endings are scorned for a reason, since they're based on specious psychology. But I think there is something honest at work here. We all do contain the three personalities on display here. Like Meguriya, we do find true crime fascinating and conspiracies fun. Like the Admin, we do like cruel justice and seeing our enemies spited. But also like Azami, we do have the self awareness to realize that these other impulses can lead us to bad places.

Rather than a shoddy schizophrenic case study, we should view these personalities as aspects of ourselves. We can always choose to be the pure hearted Azami who strives for truth, honesty, and supporting other people with an open heart, while we recognize the allure of the other paths.

The game wants it both ways, but so do we. It is really good cake.

So I will allow Urban Myth Dissolution Center its inconsistencies, as it is a fascinating, angry game that has given me a lot to think about.

As a snapshot of a specific period of time and mood, there's nothing else quite like it. At the end, having the Great Reset happen despite all her efforts, Azami is crushed. I think this scene is worth sitting with despite the fact that she's also the great mastermind of it all. While the game is much more spiteful than Gatchaman Crowds allowed itself to be, Azami is kind of a Hajime-like representative of pure empathy. Despite the game's fury and mixed messages, it does recognize the true hero of the story.