Yeah I’m just gonna make it my own personal headcannon that Kinzo didn’t kill everyone.
And it took me so long to come to terms with the fact that he did it. 
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Crazy old Kinzo and Young Kinzo has been pretty well discussed in this thread.
However I would like to raise the side point that EP7 Alternate Kinzo shouldn’t be ignored in the discussion of Kinzo’s character. From here we are at least shown that if Lion isn’t dead to him:
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Kinzo doesn’t go full occult crazy
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Kinzo doesn’t remodel his room and lock everyone out of his world
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Kinzo warms up abit and is just a strict grandfather
Arguably, if Lion was (known to be) alive, Kinzo wouldn’t go crazy in his mixture of guilt and saddness. Seems like he even slightly takes notice of his family after mellowing out.
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Kinzo caused the WWII massacre. This is a fact because the scene was declared in red by Bernkastel at the end of EP 7 to further humiliate Clair and Lion (Red Guts Scene)
The manga page you are referring to visualizes Sayo’s belief as to what happened, but we still learn important facts regarding the massacre.
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Kinzo was the first to propose the massacre. He may have not fired the first bullet, but he put the plot in motion.
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The mass grave was organized by Kinzo. How he treats the dead is telling of his character.
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I think it’s probable Kinzo was involved in the violent fallout on the island.
The WWII massacre mirrors the 1986 massacre in that it’s a catbox scenario where the survivors will not divulge the truth. In fact, if we consider that the WWII massacre and 1986 massacre could be parallels, it lines up pretty neatly that both Kinzo and Sayo facilitated the crime and then tried to escape with their loved one.
I don’t know if we have to consider these points…
The only things we know about Ushiromiya Kinzo are through his legacy. Since we never observe him in prime, we can only take into account other character’s subjective opinions of him to find a middle ground. While I believe these things would hold true, we can’t say for sure that’s what Kinzo acted like/would have acted like if Lion existed.
From a mystery perspective, Lion’s Kinzo is only a theory of what Kinzo could have been like if the man of 19 years had been raised by Natsuhi. It’s all just speculation.
These Kinzo talks have been so crazy to me because it’s made me realize how much I don’t know about Kinzo. The more aspects of his personality you identify, the more you start to notice the gaping holes in the image you get of him. It could be entirely possible that the Kinzo of Lion’s world is most true to Prime Kinzo just as the Kinzo of Sayo’s world could equally be as true.
There’s simply no way of knowing.
Huh, I actually forget about that part in the red guts scene.
Yeah, but you could argue Kinzo was much, much, much more selfish in his motives-and if even makes you think if he really loved Bice that much considering she could’ve died by him putting the idea of a massacre into the soldiers heads.
He really didn’t think that one through
Edit: But I do suppose that it could be seen as a sort of gamble to get rid of all the other competitors for the gold. After all, I sincerely doubt Kinzo could take out an entire base full of highly trained soldiers.
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I think it’s questionable whether Kinzo intended to cause the massacre. Remember, we have a precedent for this sort of guilt assignment in that Battler was responsible for the 1984 massacre because he came back and the massacre would not have occurred if he either stayed away or kept coming to family conferences even during his fight with his dad. Similarly, the first massacre might not have occurred if, for example, Kinzo wasn’t there to be a translator and thus accelerate the break-down in negotiations that lead to the slaughter.
Also, look at the exact text here. Kinzo is being called a coward for even saying anything about stealing the Itallians’ gold. But of all the many things you could say about a thief, cowardly isn’t the appropriate insult here if he was proposing murder and thievery out of the blue.
However, if it was something like he refused an order and accused the thug-commander of wanting to do that, thus putting it in his head, and his fellow soldiers were scandalized at the idea because they didn’t yet realize what a vile piece of work that guy was, things seem to line up with that scenario.
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Plus wouldn’t Bice have realised that Kinzo caused the massacre?
Kinzo was a shitty person. He forced himself on his own daughter (whom he isolated from the rest of the world) and got her pregnant. The lone fact that he raped someone makes him a scum in my eyes.
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Not really. Especially since all the soldiers started shooting on their own. There’s really no way to prove he put the idea into the others soldiers heads.
Yeah I’m specifically referring to the final confrontation between kinzo and that japanese army general. However we don’t even know if that even happened so there’s a bit of a deadlock there.
We don’t know how earnestly Bice reciprocated his feelings, so it may have not mattered to Kinzo how she felt.
Assuming everything there is true…
I find it funny how Genji basically acts as an enabler to every single bad or unhealthy thing Kinzo has ever done, as well as Sayo’s idea of committing mass murder-suicide, and yet…
The one time he actually tries to take matters into his own hands (by having KInzo think that Lion is dead)…
Is also the one time it really couldn’t matter less based on how he acts when Lion is alive.
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Yeah it’s messed up how Nanjo and Kumasawa were perfectly ok with Kuwadorian Beatrice being locked up for her whole life too.
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I wouldn’t really say they were okay with it, but they certainly enabled Kinzo.
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Don’t forget Beatrice 2 died young. Home-schooling a child from birth to young adult-hood isn’t over the line in terms of eccentric rich person practices.
But it does seem kind of off to me that we get a suggestion of Beatrice 2 as a recent mother from Bern but there were no clues to that at all in the Rosa / Beatrice 2 Kuwadorian scene. I wonder if it’s supposed to be a fake-out and Bern is playing Erika-style truth games, or maybe something that changed during the writing process between when Ep 3 and Ep 7 were published.
Or it could be that Beatrice 2 didn’t recognize Sayo as her own. Which would sadly…make sense. Also, we don’t even know if Beatrice 2 knew her own child was alive, as Kinzo gave Sayo away to Natsuhi.
Also, we don’t know how much time passed between the time she gave birth to the time she died.
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Mmm, I may not be an expert in this since I don’t have the appropriate reproductive organs, but it seems kind of insane to me that a woman could go through an entire pregnancy and child birth and not really understand that there is a small person developing in her womb. It’s beyond crazy that Dr. Nanjo or Kumasawa (the presumed midwife) wouldn’t clue her in to what is going on during the inevitable medical examinations to try to stave off another death-during-child-birth situation. I would not describe a failure to recognize Sayo as her child from Beatrice 2 as ‘making sense’ from my point of view.
I guess it could be that Kinzo had already removed Sayo from Kuwadorian before Rosa stumbled in and that whole situation happened, I would have to go back and check the timing again.
I think you might be misunderstanding something. By saying that Beatrice 2 did not recognize Sayo as her own, is that she rejected the idea that Sayo was her baby. She didn’t want to believe that such an abomination could possibly be her kid. Also the manga does show Kinzo holding the newborn Sayo so I presume she was more or less handed off almost immediately.
I really doubt that Rosa visited Beatrice 2 just after she gave birth. Kinzo gave Sayo to Natsuhi almost immediately so I’d say Rosa would have to visit Beatrice 2 like a month or two after she gave birth.
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Why would she consider Sayo an abomination though?
Because she was a result of her father raping her. Even though she still loves Kinzo and was probably confused about his actions towards her, I can imagine that Sayo reminded her of what happened.
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I see. From my perspective, Beatrice 2 wasn’t really aware of things and how the world worked. I think the idea that Sayo was her own child was something she was unable to grasp. Furthermore, I don’t think Beatrice 2 even knew what incest was or that it was wrong. Heck, she didn’t even know what a zoo was, I highly doubt she was informed about incest.
So I don’t see a reason for her to consider Sayo an abomination.
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