「なにかコナンだ！！外国人じゃあるまいし・・・」

「こんな本に囲まれて育ったから新一が推理バカになっちゃうのよ・・・」
『名探偵コナン』

"It's because he grew up among all these books that Shinichi became a deduction freak..."
"Detective Conan"

Sherlock Holmes might deduce someone's character through his clothes and manner, I prefer to do so by looking at a person's bookcase. Seeing what someone reads in what kind of languages, what sort of books he/she likes, how the books are stacked, bookcases provide a wealth of information on the owner. 

Not sure what to think about myself though, as I am kinda surprised myself at how many duplicate books I have actually. Well, they're not really duplicates, because they're actually versions in different languages, but still. At first glance, it might seem a bit superfluous.

I have professed my love Meitantei Conan here often. But it might be a bit surprising to see that I have Conan volumes in Japanese, Korean, German, French, Dutch and English. Of these, Japanese is the best, obviously. Don't really like the English version because of the name-changes in the translation and the overall design of the books, while the French and Dutch version are solid releases, but sadly miss the trademark brick-wall-and-picture design of the Conan series. Compared to those two releases, the German release is more authentic in the design department, but misses the slipcover and is slightly enlarged. The South-Korean version is a pretty good copy of the Japanese version, but for some reason has been enlarged a bit. Might be related to the fact they don't have the smaller pocket bunkobon books there, some kind of strange affection to bigger sized books?

It might be surprising to hear that I actually have perfectly good reasons for having the series in all these languages. And yes, reasons in plural form, because I have different reasons for different languages/volumes. It's complicated.

I don't have that many good reasons for the following double books though.

Yokomizo Seishi's Inugamike no Ichizoku / The Inugami Clan. I bought the original Japanese after the translation, so I might pretend that I'm going to read the original in the future, but I don't see that happening any time soon, to be honest. I don't particularly like the Japanese cover, except for the drawing of Kindaichi.

Both a Japanese and an English version of Maurice LeBlanc's 813, but not a French one. Once again, I bought the Japanese version later, but I really liked the cover, so that's my excuse.

Shimada Souji's Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken / The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. Once again, I like to pretend like I'm going to read the original too in the future. I really, really like the Japanese cover though.

A Japanese Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (a selection of stories). They got me with a limited edition cover by mangaka Hoshino Katsura (D.Gray-man).

A selection of Edogawa Rampo's short stories.... This I can defend, because the stories in Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination aren't real translations, so I actually do have the intention of re-reading some of the stories in Japanese. In fact, I have already.

Higashino Keigo's Yougisha X no Kenshin / The Devotion of Suspect X. Actually the first novel I read in Japanese, the English translation I read afterwards. Why? Reviewing purposes (not for this site).

I should stop with purchasing books twice though, even if they're translations. Except for Conan. If I'm this far, I might as well collect all the world's Conans, right?