Well since we don’t need advanced maths but to be creative with the encoded text, a fresh mind won’t hurt if you want to join 
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Working on it in the other thread at the moment. I think fresh eyes do definitely help with these things.
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So I’ve had to drop off for a while, and have tried to catch up but wow so many posts! I’ve read all of the recent discoveries in both threads, but is anyone able to explain the link between the books and 六乙泣競薬? Do we know that yet or not? Would appreciate if any kind durt could fill in the gaps for my brain 
The meaning of the five kanji has been determined - it’s what got us to step two. What we’re still trying to find is the connection between step two (the four codes) and step three (the books). There’s no direct link between the kanji and the books.
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Thanks! I’d totally missed that part! Will go sifting back through everything so that I can fully understand 
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There’s a summary of the findings in the second post of this thread, if that helps any.
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The start from death reminded me of TextFugu or EtoEto as they seem to be inactive (dead? I don’t know but certainly dormant). Did you happen to be an alpha tester? I see you were active in the community archives.
If we’ve already figured out all the time related stuff, maybe we haven’t figured out the place related stuff?
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Oh, it’s Roman Holiday isn’t it?! Audrey Hepburn was always going on about how hard it was to type kanji.
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Reading through stuff from last night, this little bit of intentional formatting stands out to me.
I’m reading that “probably” in italics as in "we created an original encryption scheme for this puzzle and put some creative effort into it so it’s unlikely that it hasn’t been used before. So textbook encryption schemes are out, but I suppose it could be a derivative of one.
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That’s the way I took that answer too. It’s an encryption scheme, but we made it up from scratch. Which means, you’re not going to find it described on the internet (harder) but, we’re not cryptographers so it’s some naive kids-type cipher that doesn’t require the NSA to break.
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I think B3.3 the book ciphers are definitely the thing.
For B3.2, aka “the four numbered lines are important if you want to join them [in B4]”, that’s where we have the naive encryption that we’ve been unable to break so far.
I’m actually beginning to wonder in B3.3 is actually B4?
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I agree with this theory, the book cipher seems legit. It’s the B3.2 cipher that is an original cipher.
I thought of that too, lol. Maybe only three of the books need to have answers, and they’re not the answer to B3.
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I wouldn’t put it past a durtle to come up with an entirely new cipher that probably nobody’s ever used before.
Probably a romantic comedy from the 1950s.
That’s probably the sound one makes when you realize how much getting all three books will cost you but you just have to get them all.
These were all in Koichi’s responses. Could this be a clue? Or he probably uses the word probably too much?
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More to the point, how’d they manage to hit O and I while button-mashing the home row?
Oh, hah. Only just noticed this post was directed at me. Delayed notifications are annoying.
I am an EtoEto Alpha tester, yes. I literally never look at it, though. Are you implying that I should? 
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Within the 4 numbered lines we have the following 28 characters:
[‘+’, ‘0’, ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘5’, ‘6’, ‘7’, ‘9’, ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘I’, ‘J’, ‘K’, ‘L’, ‘M’, ‘O’, ‘P’, ‘Q’, ‘S’, ‘W’, ‘~’]
Letters and numbers not used: [‘4’,‘8’,‘N’,‘R’,‘T’,‘U’,‘V’,‘X’,‘Y’,‘Z’]
Chances that this is base64 is vanishingly small given no lower case letters, and we’ve exhausted that line of inquiry.
Length of the 4 lines, as mentioned elsewhere are: 32, 14, 8, 26
All of which are even numbers, chance of that happening by chance is about 0.5^4 =~ 6%. The number of unique two character combinations is quite large
The articles for B3.3 have lengths 32, 14, 26, the chance of this being the same as 3/4 is low. However… “how-to-install-japanese-keyboard” is the one that is 32 characters long and it being the part of a clue found on the “how-to-install-japanese-keyboard” page seems… weird.
We know “Space also required”
In summary I think they put a Turtle on a keyboard.
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Ah, thanks for that - I’d been thinking of looking that up, but never got around to it.
If the kana keyboard idea turns out to be correct, you can also add the following symbol keys which have kana equivalents to the list of unused keys: , . / ; ’ \ and -
Aye, I found that rather weird too. But maybe perhaps we’re supposed to notice that, and use it as a means to determine the keyphrase to decode the other three? But yeah, I don’t really get how it’s encoded.
It sort of came up on the dialogues too but maybe just an inside joke for EtoEto, I don’t know 
. These are all extension of Koichi’s world but late gamers to WK wouldn’t have access. Given the textbook searches and dead website of TextFugu, I thought it might be a transition given the textbook theme. If lifetime members still have access to TextFugu or if there are EtoEto alpha testers, then it may be worth looks around. As for what to look for, I have no idea 
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Probably close to the truth… lol
And now for an anacdote that will contribute nothing to this jiddle, but what’s new?
So I was reading the summery of the B3 conundrum and M.C.Eschers’ Ascending and Descending was mentioned there. Well, when I was in junior high one of the librarians of the local public library resigned and opened this small private library. I went there and the first book she recommended to mii was
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish By Douglas Adams.
On the wall of that tiny private library was this awesome picture of, Yep, you’ve guessed it - Ascending and Descending by M.C.Escher.
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