Shrine visits and fortunes

[robkelk]

Assuming Doug sticks around Minato long enough to make a "first shrine visit of the new year", he's probably going to visit the Hikawa shrine. Unless he goes out of his way to find the local version of Tarikihonganji, of course.

And what does one do during the first shrine visit of the new year? Besides "make an offering, clap your hands, add more cow shrine bell, and make a wish", that is. Why, one gets one's new year's fortune, of course.

But Doug doesn't get one of the usual fortunes.

Quoting from Wikipedia's page on these fortunes:

Other [good-to-bad fortune] sequences may include additional degrees such as "middle blessing" (中吉, chū-kichi), "great misfortune" (大凶, dai-kyō), or "blessing [and] misfortune still undetermined" (吉凶未分, kikkyō imada wakarazu, i.e. one's fortune could end up being either good or bad depending on one's actions).

No, I hadn't heard of "still undetermined" fortunes before today, either.

Actually applying a "still undetermined" fortune to Doug is left as an exercise for the reader. Even, or maybe especially, if Rei and her grandfather never wrote one for him to be able to draw.

EDIT: And if all of the Senshi get kikkyō imada wakarazu after Doug draws his fortune, well...