I think I have accidentally found where the key to the Golden Land is.
Well, not really, I suspect it has been tried before, but, if it was, it would be interesting to see why it's not it, because I don't remember it brought up. Here's my reasoning:
It's Ep3 and the siblings are finally actually trying to solve the epitaph.
- Siblings know the 'beloved hometown', but won't say the name aloud. George and Maria did the same thing with 'quadrillion' in Ep2, giving unsubtle hints instead, so I suspect it is important.
- Eva went there as a vacation, so it is a vacation or tourism spot, or somewhere close to one.
- The town completely changed because of being caught up in the war. Having just assembled the timeline, where the issue did come up, I noticed that there are remarkably few places in Japan or territories owned by Japan prior to Kinzo's birth actually caught up in the war, that is, heavily carpet bombed or suffering long term land battles. For most of the war the Allies had no range to actually bomb the mainland or anything beyond the isolated islands, as IJN dominated the sea. The actual strategic raids only commenced very late in the war.
- According to Rudolf, it had a remarkable revival and was rebuilt. Which means that now, it should be quite populated.
- Kyrie thinks the river is a metaphor. But if it is, it's a metaphor for something that's flowing or moving. Like a road.
Let's list the places that were actually strategic bombing targets or land battle areas in the Pacific campaign on Japan mainland or Japan-controlled islands, discounting places which are not major population centers in 1986, weren't hit hard enough to call it a complete rebuilding, and places which are not vacation or tourism spots for the Japanese:
- Raid on Taipei in May 1943. With tens of thousands people displaced, I expect major rebuilding was required. Definitely a tourism spot for the Japanese.
- Battle of Okinawa in April-June 1945. Numerous casualties, atrocities, 90% of the buildings on the island completely destroyed, proverbial vacation and internal tourism spot.
Surprisingly, that's all of them - everything else doesn't fit the constraints.
For Okinawa, speaks the 'Kin Town' which is so immediately suspicious with the kanji for 'gold' in it that it causes an immediate 'aha!' - but this, I believe, has been brought up before with no good results. But for Taipei speaks the rather unexpected and nonsequitur mention of Kinzo being in the habit of chewing the areca nut by Krauss to Natsuhi in a flashback. Taiwan was part of Japan since 1895 and up until 1949, which is is quite sufficient for Kinzo to even be born there.
Got to be Taipei.
Any ideas on the river?