A friend of mine sent me a birthday present, but after unwrapping it, I could see that it was a locked metal box, with a huge combination lock on it. The lock had 8 rings, each featuring the digits from zero to nine. Obviously, I will have to rotate all of them to the correct position. The box was quite strongly built, so I didn't dare to break it open, as it would have needed considerable force or maybe even power tools, and I would risk damaging the contents.
Why would anyone send me a present like this? Ah, there is a letter! After the greeting and the birthday wishes there was the explanation.
I hope this present will teach you to value subculture a little more!
Well, I know he was quite eccentric and had all kinds of vastly different hobbies, he played in a marching band, collected manga, liked fishing, and did lots of other stuff I probably don't even know half of them.
After some examination of the box, I decided to carefully turn it over, and there was a sticker glued to the bottom, with a numbered list on it.
The top part was visibly torn off, and as the list started with the number two, I guessed only one line was missing. However, even that second line was illegible, as it was scribbled over multiple times.
The next line said
- Denza
The fourth one had some Japanese text on it, which I couldn't understand. After that came the lines
- Wiehle
- Blanter
- Vesterinen
The last line again in Japanese.
As there were eight digits on the combination lock, and eight lines on the sticker, I guess it should be part of the solution.
However, with so many information missing, with one line torn off, another scribbled out, and two in Japanese, how can I solve this puzzle? I can only read half the hints, and even those don't mean anything to me.
Hint 1
One comment on one (very partial) answer suggested that the names are authors of marching songs. The builder of the box specifically mentioned subculture, and knowing some hints about his personality, why wouldn't you start getting known some of that subculture he wanted to hint at? Maybe there is something where all the most famous compositions of these authors are present, and then the rest can be figured out?