I wonder how did Layton keep his life organised before he met Emmy and Luke, and after Luke moved with his parents. It sounds like he didn’t remembered the symposium at all.
CT’s back from the dead to analyze tf outta these images
Thank you to @call-me-rucy for making me aware of Level-5’s tweets with your post.
To open, I agree with @mysticpuzzleno001 that this desk very likely does not belong to Professor Layton. I also noticed the mug with the tea bag at first glance, and thought that it wasn’t the Professor’s style considering he’s a tea connoisseur who likes brewing loose tea.
I also thought that he’s not the type of person to keep mint gum lying around. No evidence for this, just that he never struck me as the type of person who likes chewing gum.
What else is in this image? There are a bunch of photos, and the only comprehensible one is of some buildings. I’m not sure what that thing with the recycling logo is, but it’s possible that it’s a pack of paper, a cardboard package, or a pizza box. If it’s a pizza box, that seems like the type of thing Al and Lucy might have in their office.
Lastly, I can’t tell what the shape on the bottom right is, but it’s outlined much thicker than the rest of the drawing. This leads me to believe that it might be part of a character, since manga artists, especially those working in black and white, want to make their simple, cartoonish characters contrast against the realistic and detailed background. Maybe it’s a shoulder with a short cuffed sleeve? The shadow implied that this shape is in front of/over the table, but it’s hard to tell what it is, especially with the angle of the drawing.
People have pointed out that this isn’t the Yard as it appears in any Professor Layton game nor LMJ/LMDA, but we’ve never seen the outside of the building in Mystery Room. I’m not sure how significant this is since they love to inconsistently redesign the Yard for no reason, but if it’s deliberate then it’d rule out Hershel and Kat as possible protagonists of this manga.
Who/what do I think it’s about?
Considering the overall tone of these drawings, I feel like they’re too serious and down-to-earth to be part of Katrielle’s world and more realistic than the Professor’s. Level-5 once said that they’re either done making PL games or PL’s adventures period (correct me which one), so if his years as a protagonist are over, I can’t imagine him getting a new manga.
Kat is predictable as a main character since the last two installments were about her, but her stories are always bright and bubbly, which doesn’t line up with the messy desk covered in papers and the rainy image of London. Katrielle doesn’t look at evidence and do paperwork, she runs outside and talks to everyone she sees on the street instead and gets right to the scene. The weather is also always uncharacteristically good in her world (someone’s clearly never been to London).
This leaves me with two possibilities. It’s extremely likely that this manga will be about LBMR. LMJ and LMDA both teased a LBMR sequel in Katrielle’s correspondence with Lucy in the game and Lucy and Al showing up at the agency in the last episode of the anime. The images of the desk and Yard match their story because, y’know, they work at the yard and their desks are typically covered in papers. They do their detective work in the mystery room rather than the field, and it’s in character for them to have things like bag tea, mint gum, and what is possibly a pizza box covered in yet more paper. We’ve never seen their Yard (seriously, does the Scotland Yard have multiple locations in the Laytonverse?), and this serious, realistic style matches the style of their game.
Second option. The manga isn’t about any of the three Laytons at all. They never said it would be. As an avid, unapologetic pusher of the Flora Main Character agenda, I’d love to see a new face solving the mysteries. I’m assuming this manga will be canon to the rest of the series, in which case I really hope some old characters at least show up. I want to see them again, and it’s quite frankly weird that we haven’t yet.
Overall, I think a “sequel” of sorts to LBMR is the most likely subject to the new manga. I might rb this post with updates when new teaser images come out, though, especially if my theory changes.
Professor Layton Syndrome is when you see some unanswered question or Thing That Is Deliberately Being Kept Secret in your everyday life and your brain goes puzzle? Puzzle for me? Mystery to solve? Which leads to going full detective mode and results in, “that’s a hell of a mystery no one thought a mystery and didn’t even really need solving. But damn if it didn’t just get solved so nice work.“
