I think key/type relates with the article, wherein which the clue was harvested.
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I’m sure they’re lol’ing at us while we struggle with their clue, lol.
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Ah, maybe alternate method to find the trail? Just search Tofugu for keyboard/typing artlcles? Could be. But that would remove the relevance of the kanji at all.
If so though, we’re probably barking up the wrong 木 with the kana keyboard thing. That clue’s would already be accounted for. Although nothing says it can’t be a recurring theme.
木, key, get it? ha ha
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I was playing with shifting everything down by one row (disregarding the numbers at the beginning):
- AABQD010L76223CEGD72FI5DPBOJJMO+
ZZ ACPQP>UYWWE無変換DBCUWVKTC+ LMM変換L?
つつ ちそせたせるなんてて無変換しこそなてひのかそれ りもも変換りめ - B51BIQPGS206HD
TQTKA+BXWPYNC
かたかのちれこさてせんみそ - 00LB269G
PP> WYOB
せせる てんらこ - D02315CPQAWDF0B~IL7KB1FG+A
CPWEQT無変換+ASCVP [K>< QVB?Z
そせていたか無変換れちとそひせ
But that doesn’t really seem like it’s going anywhere either…
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No, no, the kanji was the clue to the article. The kanji each had some number of strokes:
六 - 4 strokes
乙 - 1 stroke
泣 - _8 strokes
競 - 20 strokes
薬 - __16 strokes
4/18/2016 was the date that article was published.
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The kanji lead us to the image at the top of the article, so it’s still relevant even if we find our next clue from a different article. I don’t think we need to move on without a specific clue, though.
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Well, no I mean if the purpose of the key/type clue was so even if you didn’t figure out what the kanji led to, you could just get bugged by those words and search for them on Tofugu and maybe stumble on that article anyway.
Which, if that’s itself a clue, means we should start searching the other clues on Tofugu for relevant articles and looking for recent alterations.
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Is there any easy way to find all the articles which have been altered recently? 
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It’s possible that rather than being separate entities, the clues make a chain of actions. So the stroke count thing lead us to the Tofugu article that led us to the cipher text and the ‘start from death’ bit, now maybe we need to apply another clue or two to lead us to the next part, which might turn out to be the cipher key.
Incidentally, 'Lightning never strikes twice" → not the answer. but that lightning gif keeps bugging me.
Maybe it’s pointing to something like the Kaminarimon Gate. Or a Tofugu article about it.
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Here’s the method I used to find out that the article image was modified.
Instructions
- Click this to download the image
-
Search Google for the image (if you have Chrome)
-
Go to All sizes
-
Open a few images and compare. The one I opened said “plus.google.com” on the bottom of it, which was from Tofugu’s Google Plus.
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I’m not sure if it’s relevant, but in that picture on the page where you found the new clue, the person is using their phone… so maybe phone layout rather than computer keyboard layout?
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Feels like we are missing the sokuon (little っ) that is attached to the double consonants. BTW, nice find today, you should at least get a sticker or something. Things were getting grim…
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Thanks, lol.
The end of the How to Install a Japanese Keyboard article says to look out for Part II - How to type in Japanese, which is here. I don’t immediately see anything helpful there, though…
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And the dakuten/handakuten. And the other small kana (ya, yu, yo)
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I could never have found that from my tablet. Even knowing it’s there, that part of the image is off the edge of the screen 
Although there are numerous references to using the space bar, to convert kana to kanji…?
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Oh geez… I hope not. IMEs remember the words you’ve entered before, so different people would likely get different answers. 
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Let’s hope we don’t have to try and decode Koichi’s favorite kaomoji:
- Guy Pointing to Butt
(╭☞•́⍛•̀)╭☞ (__(__| - Giving up on Life Bean
＿( :⁍ 」 )＿ - Horrible Torture your Coworkers Face
（◞≼⓪≽◟⋌⋚⋛⋋◞≼⓪≽） - And, of course, Cat
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
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Phone keypad kind of looks like a matrix?