Grim Judgment

闇の国へと連れていかれた あの日

君の温もりさえも ah

地上に残していた 

「未完成の音色」(Garnet Crow）

That day you were taken away to the Land of Darkness

And only your warmth, ah

Was left on the earth

"An Incomplete Sound" (Garnet Crow)

It is no secret that I often prefer the short story form over the full-length novel when it comes to mysteries. As someone who focuses a lot on the core mystery plot, and the solution, I find that the short form works better in terms of execution and focus, as the limited number of pages forces an author to really think about what is important to the main mystery plot and how to effectively present that, while the plot in full-length novels sometimes tend to meander, and relying more on filler for misdirection than anything else.

Another reason I prefer the short story form is a simple one: I want my mystery fast. The fewer pages it takes me to get to the first corpse, or impossible theft or anything, the better. It doesn't even have to be the main mystery yet (though that's usually the case of course in the short form), but at least present me my mental task early on. Some writers can get away with something else in the short form: many of Awasaka Tsumao's excellent A Aiichirou series are funnily enough only revealed to be proper mystery stories at the very end, as you don't even realize something was being played on you, but those I can forgive because 1) Awasaka's an amazing writer and 2) the short story form means it still doesn't take long for me to get to the main plot. But in general, I'm a very vulgar reader who wants his deaths (or other mysteries) as soon as possible.

It's for this reason I have to admit I found the first half of Mitsuda Shinzou's Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono ("Those Who Bewitch Like The Evil Spirits", 2006) extremely tiring. It's not a short novel by any means (600 pages!), but the first true mystery for the reader to solve isn't introduced until the halfway point, near the 300 page point! It took me about two months to get through this first part, as I have the bad habit of reading multiple novels at the same time, and because things went so slow in this novel, I finished no less than five other novels in the time it also took me to read this first part, which I all started after beginning reading Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono. In its defense though: after I was past the midway point, I finished it within two days. What kept me reading all that time, albeit very slowly, was of course the fact that the other novels I read in Mitsuda's Toujou Genya series were excellent: Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono was an amazing start of the year with one of the best mystery novels I've read in years, and Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono was surprisingly enough a true masterpiece on its own too. Those were respectively the third and fourth novel in the Toujou Genya series, so I thought it was time to read the first novel in the series.

Toujou Genya is an author of horror stories, who travels across Japan to research local folklore, religions and legends. His travels in the late 1950s bring him to Kagagushi Village, a small mountain community flanked by Kaka Mountain and Kugu Mountain. For centuries, this area has been known for people being spirited away mysteriously, and Genya is also interested in the local belief in the fearsome mountain deity Kakashi, who is deified in the form of scarecrow-like figures placed around every corner in the village, and within all houses. The village has two prominent clans: the Kagachi Clan and Kamikuji Clan. The Kamikuji Clan is the "White Clan", as they represent the auspicious Kaka Mountain, while the Kagachi Clan is considered the "Black Clan", as this family is aligned with the inauspicious Kugu Mountain, which is the home of the feared Kakashi. It's also the Kagachi Clan which since ancient times has been a family line of spirit mediums: female twins (who are all called Sagiri across all generations) are very common in the family, and they are easily possessed by the spirit of the mountain deity, making them also powerful spirit mediums who can exorcise other evil spirits from other people with the help of Kakashi's powers. The Kamikuji and Kagachi Clans have long been vying for the top position in the village, but lately some within the Kagachi Clan have been plotting to escape the stigma of being a family that is possessed by an evil spirit, and they hope to join the two clans together by marrying Renzaburou, youngest son of the Kamikuji Clan to Sagiri, the youngest daughter and current spirit medium of the Kagachi Clan. Somebody seems to be very against this plan however, as the morning after Genya arrives in the village, a travelling monk who had been the guest of grandmother Sagiri, and in on the plot to join the clans, was found hanged inside the meditation hall of the Kagachi residence and dressed up to look like Kakashi. At first, it seems that either granddaughter Sagiri, or her insane aunt Sagiri (twin sister of young Sagiri's mother) must've done it, but the time table based on statements of several witnesses makes it look impossible for them to have really done it, and then more murders happen, with all victims dressed like Kakashi, but also seemingly impossible for anyone to have done it. It doesn't take long for people to start to fear that it was the mountain deity Kakashi itself who executed divine judgment on those who wanted to put an end to the Kagachi Clan.

As this was my third time I read a Mitsuda novel, I had some expectations of what would come, and of course, the post-war setting and tropes like local folkore/religions, small mountain communities absorbed in said folklore and more were exactly what I expected. The novel also had a distinct horror flavor, as the Toujou Genya series is explicitly described as a horror-detective series (each novel also has some unanswered parts that contribute to the horror flavor). Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono had a slow beginning too, but like I said, it was really slow this time, as the first three-hundred pages are mainly devoted to a very detailed set-up, with insights into the backgrounds of the Kagachi and Kamikuji Clans, the history of Kagagushi Village and neighbouring Haha Village and the local folklore. Getting a good image of the character relations in particular is incredibly difficult, with every other woman in the Kagachi family called Sagiri (written differently in Japanese, but all prounounced the same), clans with several branch families, divorces and second marriages and more. While the story in this first half does have some mysterious, and especially horror parts regarding some children being spirited away in the past, the main mystery (the murders) really takes a long time to start. Not to say that the first part is completely obsolete of course: the background of the families IS of vital importance to the plot, and there's plenty of hints and foreshadowing to be found here, but still, one does wonder whether it couldn't have been a bit more concise.

I praised Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono and Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono for being absolute masterpieces in synergy: each component in both novels worked to enhance the other elements there, which was possible because each of the mysteries, from the impossible murders to other enigmatic happenings, could be ultimately led back to one single concept. Each of these novels utilized unparalled originality in bringing one single theme in so many various forms and variations, all for a clear purpose. Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono is similar in concept, as basically all the mysteries can indeed be led back to one single answer, one concept that brings light to everything, but in terms of execution and finesse, this first novel in the series is not as amazing as the third and fourth, even if it's a pretty ingenious thing that's pulled off here. Once you're at the answer, you really want to go back and read the whole thing again, because you suddenly realize there must've been an abundance of hints and foreshadowing that you've missed completely. The concept is also only made possible due to the special atmosphere of the village, which really enhances the synergy of the whole novel. What is a bit disappointing however is that the individual mysteries aren't as alluring as the grand picture. The reader is presented several times with a situation that isn't exactly an impossible situation, but situations that simply leave quite a few questions open. Most of the time, the viable suspects aren't really dismissed, only seen as 'gee, they could've done it, but it doesn't seem likely because it would've been a bit difficult, and also strange for them to have done it like that'. But this leaves a lot of ambiguity as you read on, so the individual mysteries feel a bit lacking compared to the impossible disappearances or the brutal decapitations of the later novels. But to reiterate, the main idea behind the whole book is really ingeniously done. While the basic idea might seem familiar, this particular variation is definitely not. It is arguably one of the hardest variations to do, and I doubt many authors could pull it off with this much success. And while I admit this trick does work best with some page room, I still think that the set-up didn't need to be that long. And as noted before, these novels are also toted as horror novels, and there are always some elements that remain unanswered and in the mist, though the core mystery is of course always addressed properly.

These Toujou Genya novels also love their fake solutions by the way. Each time, Genya only starts announcing his suspicions at the end of the novel, but he always explores every possibility: meaning he will often start building cases against someone, only for him to dismiss it at the end before he moves on to someone else. These fake solutions are both brilliant and vexing. When you first start to realize who he's going for, your first reaction is "no way, that's just stupid" but as Genya continues his summation of hints and foreshadowing, you really start to have doubts, only for him to say he was wrong anyway and then moves on to the next. This fake-out solution isn't just for the shock element though: his latest hypothesis is always built upon the fundamentals of the previous one, showing his thinking process. He also incorporates the reactions and statements of the people present during his summation, so sometimes he actually deduces the identity of the murderer on the fly, adapting for the information obtained just minutes before by someone crying out how absurd his theory is. The fact these fake solutions are also properly clued really make the Toujou Genya novels a very tricky reads.

Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono is thus a very slow read, that is not as good as some of the later novels in the series, but it is still a very tricky, and ingeniously plotted mystery novel that makes fantastic use of its format and setting. It does pull of something I really can't see many novels do, but I wouldn't recommend this novel as a first step into the Toujou Genya series: the other two novels can be read on their own without any problems and are much more consistent throughout from start to finish. I think that in a parallel universe, Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono would've been a crowning achievement for any writer, but in this world, Mitsuda manages to write even better mystery novels later on that improve on the ideas and writing found in this novel.

Original Japanese title(s): 三津田信三『厭魅の如き憑くもの』