Of A Psychotic Killer Revealed Through Strange Pictures

I got to the third book 'Strange Pictures'「変な絵」by anonymous author and Youtuber Uketsu (雨穴). This was first published in Japanese in 2022, and translated to English by Jim Rion in 2025.

The 168-page novella is made up of three interconnected short stories dug out by members of the university's Paranormal Club interpreting nine childlike drawings which led to chilling stories and murders. University students Kurihara and Shuhei Sasaki investigated the stories. 

We begin the story and sees a publicly accessible blog written by someone named Haruto, whose online pseudonym was Raku, who journaled about his wife Yuki's pregnancy and health. He posted five drawings made by a pregnant Yuki who drew them before she died in childbirth. These drawings are seemingly about her feelings of having a child.

Then the second story 'The Smudged Room' talks about a kid named Yuta Konno. We slowly realized that this is the Yuta, son of Yuki and Haruto. We learnt that he lived with his grandmother Naomi Konno, whom many thought was his mother instead. The grandmother had also wanted Yuta to call her 'mama' instead of 'grandma'. At this point, nothing seemed too weird yet. We hadn't assumed that Naomi was not quite right. Yuta somehow learnt that he has this Naomi whom he called 'mama', and he had a birth  'Mommy' who was beneath a gravestone. 

The drawing that Yuta Konno drew.

We were brought to an earlier time frame in the third story 'The Art Teacher's Final Drawing'. This story dug into the death of an art teacher Yoshiharu Miura. It had been seemingly solved with the apparent suicide and confession note signed by said murderer, and the police had closed the case. But two freelance investigative journalists thought otherwise. 

These investigative journalists young Shunseke Iwata and the older Isamu Kumai wanted to solve the mystery of Miura' death. Years later, and they were still obssessed about it. The clue was in the drawing that Miura did before he died. It hinted that he was alive in the morning, and not dead at 5pm as the police found. 

When Iwata realized that Miura was killed and battered to mask up the time of his death, he knew that the murderer was Miura's wife, Naomi. Before he could unmask her, he was killed too. Another suspect who was Miura's friend, Nobuo Toyokawa, whom the police pinned Miura's death on based on his 'suicide note', was in reality killed by Naomi as well. 

By now, we know that Naomi has a dark past and is a killer who would not hesitate to kill again. We wondered how it was possible that she hadn't been discovered. 

The last chapter wrapped up the murders. 'The Final Chapter: The Bird, Safe in the Tree' revealed the chilling link. Naomi Konno, is Yuki's psychotic mother-in-law. Naomi, at eleven years old, after her father died, and she realized that her mother didn't love her. Her mother wanted to kill her pet bird, so she killed her mother, and spent the next six years in a juvenile reformatory. 

She then married Miura and had Haruto. Their son wasn't an easy child, and Miura was strict with him and has taken to hitting him. Naomi didn't like that one bit. She didn't confess about her past, and knew she would lose her son in a divorce. So she made the decision to kill her husband.

Haruto ended up dating Yuki Kameido, his father's ex-student. She was older, but it was no barrier to their relationship. This was the same Yuki Kameido who confessed that she loved Naomi's deceased husband Miura. They married, and Yuki was pregnant. 

Naomi is twisted and possessive, and she wished to raise Yuki's son Yuta as her own. She had given Yuki salt pills, which elevated her blood pressure during childbirth, and she died. This wasn't Naomi's first kill. She has had a string of murders to her name, except that she hasn't been arrested. But Yuki somehow knew. "She had seen the murder lurking in Naomi's heart." Yuki was an illustrator. She couldn't believe that Naomi would do this. She wasn't actually sure that she would die in childbirth from the salt pills that Naomi gave her. Whatever it was, she decided to leave behind clues to her eventual death, in the form of these illustrations. 

Little Yuta's father, Haruto, who is Naomi's own son didn't know what his mother was capable of, until three years later after her death. He had taken a closer look at Yuki's illustrations. And sadly, Haruto was driven to suicide by this knowledge. He had posted Yuki's drawings on his blog using his pseudonym Raku. He couldn't escape the control of his mother. He was horrified that she killed his wife, but his loved his mother still. He couldn't live with himself or her, so he chose death as a solution. 

As the university students dug through the mysterious blogs and murders, Isamu Kumai also was relentlessly hunting down Naomi, and staged an incident, and led the police to arrest her. In that process, he also got stabbed. But he recovered, and would adopt Yuta to care for him. 

We see snippets of Naomi's time in juvenile reformatory and her drawings with the psychologist. While the psychologist cleared her mental state of mind, and thought midwifery would be a suitable career for someone like her with a protective instinct, she had neglected to factor in just how protective Naomi will be. And this instinct will always win, and she would never stop killing if she feels that Haruto or her way of life is threatened. 

This book is absolutely intriguing to read. I love it. I had no affinity to any character. I simply enjoyed the storytelling. Humans are the real monsters, mostly. The occult and the supernatural are nothing to be feared compared to the evils humans can do. 

The girl/woman who will always keep her thorns.

Good Old Pasta Fresca

After a quick visit with the friends, we were going to get a casual dinner on our own. Then the friends decided to join us too. We didn't want to get takeout or have them cook. So we trotted out with the floofs to the Pasta Fresca round the corner for an easy meal. 

Pasta Fresca Da Salvatore has been around for ages, since 1988. The original Guthrie House oulet, then the Siglap outlets have been synonymous with my teenage years. Ha!

The wines were priced really decently. So we got a bottle of pinot grigio. We shared an easy burrata with grilled vegetables, and a pizza. The friends also had their own pasta bowls. I couldn't resist the lobster pasta. Had it with linguine. NOMS. No complaints at all. 

This outlet's al fresco area is more or less sheltered under the extendable canvas. They also had two giant fans that cooled the area pretty well. Tonight wasn't so warm. It was bearable. There was some thunder and it drizzled steadily for 20 minutes. So we simply stayed to finish up the bottle of wine before calling it a night. The rain stopped quickly enough and made for a pleasant after-dinner walk. 

Checked In With The BWI

I still don't own a smartwatch or a Garmin tracker. I don't bother to weigh myself either. The husband upgraded his weighing machine to a Hume that also tracks body composition and body-fat percentage. I don't use it. LOL 

What I do use once in a while, is the Evolt 360 body scan at the gym. It's pretty old technology and it hasn't improved much in terms of body fat readings. The readings are heavily influenced by hydration levels, caffeine, food intake and menstrual cycles. In short, it’s not terribly accurate. I'm not concerned though. I'm not paying for it; I’m not an athlete — I don't need it churn out such precise readings. 

The Evolt app kept my last scan in May 2024 and compared it with this recent one taken this week in July 2026. Ahahahah. I obviously ignored it for all of 2025. I already do DEXA scans every three years (since I turned 40) to check on bone density. For that, I need to fast overnight, and I have to stop any calcium supplements for at least 36 hours prior. 

Read through the analysis in detail. I didn't lose any muscle mass between 2024 and now. In fact, there's a 1.5% gain. Yay! I'm not into taking protein. I prefer to eat them, although I’m not eating enough to the recommended ratios. I don't mind taking EAAs and creatine, but not on a daily basis either. 

Anyway, for my age, the Evolt360 scan said that my BWI is 8.7. My total body fat percentage stands at 21%. These are optimal even within their indicated ranges. Sure. I feel fine. I'm not going to have that body fat percentage go down to 19%. I don't feel like training that hard. Hahaha. I don't race, and I'm not that competitive. I still have a healthy relationship with food and I never have issues with my body.

Save for those few years I dropped off the fitness radar and went up to 60kg, over-ate and over-drank, I'm back in shape now. That's not from appearance alone. I know it from what I can lift and squat while doin functional movements at home. The glutes and knees have grown stronger. Because of the sports I did as a child and as a teenager, I've always used body weight to build and maintain muscles. I still do. However, I've embraced weights as part of the exercise regime. I'm lifting the heaviest that I've lifted in my life. 

I'll just continue what I'm doing. Retain muscles and maintain bone density. It's simply about keeping fit, limber and strong enough to do all that I want to do.