tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80310639662725085872024-03-19T09:46:50.038+01:00ボクの事件簿Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.comBlogger1226125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-20524345165737366382024-03-16T00:00:00.001+01:002024-03-16T06:06:54.590+01:00Mr. Monk and the Miracle<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Il nome della rosa</i>"</span></div><p>In a way, a game based on this particular book is kinda fitting, as a contextual framing story...<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrWIXptwiBkY0eE0L6RlEg5htIWrb31X8Iq67SZvOzGrFy0nSG9-mnIELSHnRPOs4AUu30C9eb4EetougmfilgxmE4wDKpPeqsb806poIKuAqKZiVEtImGZBMIVopuSLgx6sVKmOwgqIczHTWBVUO0vGG3L7TYu7npDyhHZMr6n-fuZfFIJiFmZtc3Uf8/s260/abbey1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="200" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrWIXptwiBkY0eE0L6RlEg5htIWrb31X8Iq67SZvOzGrFy0nSG9-mnIELSHnRPOs4AUu30C9eb4EetougmfilgxmE4wDKpPeqsb806poIKuAqKZiVEtImGZBMIVopuSLgx6sVKmOwgqIczHTWBVUO0vGG3L7TYu7npDyhHZMr6n-fuZfFIJiFmZtc3Uf8/s1600/abbey1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>A few weeks back, I reviewed <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2024/03/in-search-of-black-rose.html">Umberto Eco's <i>Il nome della rosa</i></a>, which had a really memorable setting with its monastery harboring secrets and a labyrinth-like library. And I was obviously not the only one, as there are multiple games based on the impressive book. <i>Murder in the Abbey </i>is a 2008 game by Spanish studio Alcochofa Soft, based in turn on the 1987 game <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Abad%C3%ADa_del_Crimen">La Abadía del Crimen</a></i>, a game which actually started out as an adaptation of Eco's work until they couldn't get the rights, and it was apparently quite popular in Spanish-speaking terrorities at the time. I haven't played <i>La Abadía del Crimen</i> myself, but as for <i>Murder in the Abbey</i>, it is certainly very, very clear it was also inspired by <i>Il nome della rosa</i>. The game starts with the monk Leonardo of Toledo travelling with his apprentice Bruno: Bruno is to study at the Nuestra Señora de la Natividad Abbey, so once delivered there the two will part their ways, but on their way to the abbey, a boulder nearly falls on Bruno. When the two arrive at the abbey, they learn the abbot has need for Leonardo's abilities as a problem-solver: the gatekeeper has recently passed away in a tragic accident, but was it really an accident? The abbot even fears the death might perhaps be the devil's work. Leonardo sets out to investigate the curious death, but he is hindered by the fact he's not allowed in the famous library of the abbey, which is said to hold a wealth of knowledge, but only the abbot, librarian and his assistant are allowed to enter the library, and even copyists only get their materials supplied via the libarian. While Leonardo and Bruna poke around the abbey however, they learn the gatekeeper might have had information about the library that led to his death, and then more monks are murdered at the abbey. Can Leonardo solve the mystery of the murdered monks in <i>Murder in the Abbey</i>?<p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmwb4QUdSt93dClQcFGWK5_prCzelT_7mwKM8dBUB5AAa_g5IEVe661SfAwJk4z-xVPynBav8w_yqxzfgviB9tZE-LaukNc6tOqoalF6yb3QIfX5d-_-WMW2Jr2Zx7_aDMSGziFWXG29yH7sixo-1WL25K_OBVS_ys5peeaQ4kaQyjoAUiuNogZw_sD1E/s400/abbey3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmwb4QUdSt93dClQcFGWK5_prCzelT_7mwKM8dBUB5AAa_g5IEVe661SfAwJk4z-xVPynBav8w_yqxzfgviB9tZE-LaukNc6tOqoalF6yb3QIfX5d-_-WMW2Jr2Zx7_aDMSGziFWXG29yH7sixo-1WL25K_OBVS_ys5peeaQ4kaQyjoAUiuNogZw_sD1E/s16000/abbey3.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>This game was re-released in 2019 as <i>The Abbey: Director's Cut</i> with apparently some puzzles changed/added, and that's the version I played. <i>The Abbey: Director's Cut </i>is a point and click adventure with a rather attractive visual style, using nicely designed 2D abbey backgrounds with cartoony 3D characters which have rather animated facial features. While <i>Il nome della rosa</i> could be quite funny, <i>The Abbey: Director's Cut</i><i> </i>is a bit more comedy-focused, though it can be rather surprisingly dark like its inspiration, and it's at those times the art style can clash a bit with the topic of discussion. Discussions on burning heretics don't come across as serious the way these characters are designed and animated...</p><p></p><p>The atmosphere in this game in general is really good though, and you really feel like you're wandering around some kind of medieval abbey harboring a lot of dark secrets. While there's not that much variety in the locations within the abbey, and all the characters save for Bruno are middle-aged men (for obvious reasons), the game does a good job at characterizing all these monks. A lot of attention has gone to the character writing, with surprisingly in-depth conversations about the church, their views on their beliefs and all kinds of references to political on-goings outside the abbey: it's here where the game really feels very much like <i>Il nome della rosa</i>, presenting a rich world within the abbey, but outside it. This part is also elevated by <i>some</i> voice actors: the voice actor of Leonardo is particular is <i>really</i> good at the part. But there are also voice actors who do a pretty iffy job, with Leonardo's assistant Bruno being the one you'll have to listen to the most unfortunately (and it doesn't help that Bruno is written in a very vexing manner on purpose; and while that leads to an interesting twist near the end of the game, the manner in which this was brought still didn't help the impression Bruno was <i>really</i> irritating as a character).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3E_0W5DWdmybDzXKw1BWpdjUiK-41TW-kWHwbt0_QPgtzRTy_-vg_2eacV4DiywMuFFDojFdJIEjUcSDGZA-fj4Z6ltN12D8ViPU4yWIFDKlT5WmPhW9yByQVbLXhO6wsoSHs36YDCe1o3HIvlH057vgr8fw5ohBQCrmbA-RFMVyG3J1a-VmbHzaNXRQ/s400/abbey2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3E_0W5DWdmybDzXKw1BWpdjUiK-41TW-kWHwbt0_QPgtzRTy_-vg_2eacV4DiywMuFFDojFdJIEjUcSDGZA-fj4Z6ltN12D8ViPU4yWIFDKlT5WmPhW9yByQVbLXhO6wsoSHs36YDCe1o3HIvlH057vgr8fw5ohBQCrmbA-RFMVyG3J1a-VmbHzaNXRQ/s16000/abbey2.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>As a mystery game however, it has the same problem a lot of point and click adventures have when tackling a mystery story, and that the gameplay mechanics don't really allow for the player to solve story-related mysteries, and you are often simply busy with inventory puzzles to overcome an obstacle, which then leads to the story-related mysteries being solved <i>for you</i> via cut-scenes. As a point and click adventure, you'll be walking around <i>The Abbey</i>, <strike>stealing</strike> borrowing objects and talking to other monks in the abbey to gain information, and often you'll have to engage in fetch quests in order to gain the trust of a monk or be allowed access to certain locations within the abbey. So then you have to use your inventory items to solve a puzzle so you can get the object you're supposed to get, and then.... you'll get cutscenes or dialogues where Leonardo will make deductions about the case without your help. There is no mechanic to allow the player to deduce anything about the mystery, all they have to do is help Leonardo get past the obstacles/fetch quests, and afterwards, he'll engage with the mystery alone. And that's <i>kinda</i> irritating in these kind of adventure games. I'd rather see the opposite: skip the fetch quests for me, just give me a mechanic that allows me to engage with the mystery mentally! I don't want to be copying keys or retrieve a book for a monk so they'll translate something for me, allow me to investigate the corpse, ask me questions that allow me to deduce the truth behind the case! Especially, as I mentioned before, I do really like the setting and atmosphere of the game. As a point and clock adventure, <i>The Abbey: Director's Cut</i> also has some pretty infuriating pixel hunt segments at times, with very fussy hotspots, so be prepared to use a walkthrough.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevit6ec3yff9t_3vp9AZgMEwXmaQnAsXWKlx-J1ndvfv7FLhMnaoqN2lbzeIj9Zq6MmNmPdkGQFWMUq7cFo1szyM9uIfAN-PF0tc-QrQFmkR6K9kEGHh8YcdCG0_KdQyNJ4h7IOsrjcStxe1yfRL3KXbNP8O72mxdCbIUjKqUnud3WZz96XWmrFi7BRY/s400/abbey4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevit6ec3yff9t_3vp9AZgMEwXmaQnAsXWKlx-J1ndvfv7FLhMnaoqN2lbzeIj9Zq6MmNmPdkGQFWMUq7cFo1szyM9uIfAN-PF0tc-QrQFmkR6K9kEGHh8YcdCG0_KdQyNJ4h7IOsrjcStxe1yfRL3KXbNP8O72mxdCbIUjKqUnud3WZz96XWmrFi7BRY/s16000/abbey4.jpg" /></a></div><br />The mystery story itself is... certainly not <i>Il nome della rosa</i>, even if <i>a lot of cues</i> are taken directly from the book. A lot of moments and story developments will feel extremely familiar, though the exact details behind the mysterious deaths in the abbey are not the same as Eco's book. As so much time of the game is actually spent more on fetch quests rather than actually engaging with the mystery itself, I have to admit some parts of the denouement fell a bit flat for me: had we been given more time to talk with each character about motivations/backgrounds etc. instead of constantly asking them about whatever fetch quest you were busy with, the reveal of the culprit and their motive might have made more of an impact, but with most of the mystery being solved automatically for you during cutscenes, it felt a bit lacklustre. <p></p><p>As an adventure game, <i>The Abbey: Director's Cut</i> has pretty nice production values and in terms of atmosphere, it's really good: though a lot of it is <i>very very directly</i> inspired by Umberto Eco's <i>Il nome della rosa</i>, it's cool you're able to explore a mysterious abbey yourself, the world depicted in the game is really interesting. While as a mystery game, I can't help but feel disappointed the player is mostly relegated to doing fetch quests, with the mystery being solved by Leonardo himself in the cutscenes and there are some annoying pixel hunting parts, I don't think <i>The Abbey: Director's Cut </i>is a bad game by any means, though I'd not immediately recommend it to people as a <i>mystery game</i> per se. But if you liked Umberto Eco's <i>Il nome della rosa </i>and was curious as to how it'd work as a game, sure, this is fun. That is definitely the reason why I decided to play it, and in that regard, it didn't disappoint.<br /></p>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-63914206137897718152024-03-13T00:00:00.031+01:002024-03-13T00:00:00.141+01:00Mystery of the Samurai Sword<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"For all who take the sword will perish by the sword."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Matthew 26</i>" (New Revised Standard Version) </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Reading these books does bring back memories as while <i>Spiral</i> was far from the first anime I ever saw, it was one of the first series I encountered once I started to actually look for mystery anime series after <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Meitantei%20Conan%20%7C%20%E5%90%8D%E6%8E%A2%E5%81%B5%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3">Conan</a></i> and <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Kindaichi%20Shounen%20no%20Jikenbo%20%7C%20%E9%87%91%E7%94%B0%E4%B8%80%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E3%81%AE%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6%E7%B0%BF">Kindaichi Shounen</a></i>.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMywMabDv3LA9ehUS0qbL1eYvV-LRZYORvRG07Jqx9Pp80-IcTVcxuaLnZwpTW2yHDQGEJxDP0XsJSTKC5gI8MPPr-zZrCUtKlN4QobazJdWZddT2ymIKeHTrGdH1aKPCJ7At5XncV8t03Pm6YVEreqho3iHjjhxijUOV-j1X_eI6tqi5klO2mAkRyfLc/s311/spiral1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="200" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMywMabDv3LA9ehUS0qbL1eYvV-LRZYORvRG07Jqx9Pp80-IcTVcxuaLnZwpTW2yHDQGEJxDP0XsJSTKC5gI8MPPr-zZrCUtKlN4QobazJdWZddT2ymIKeHTrGdH1aKPCJ7At5XncV8t03Pm6YVEreqho3iHjjhxijUOV-j1X_eI6tqi5klO2mAkRyfLc/s1600/spiral1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Ayumu, piano <i>and</i> deductive prodigy, solved two murder cases that occured at his high school, but never had he expected to find himself dueling a teacher of his school. Kuromine Kiriko is one of the best swordfighters in Japan and now Ayumu, who has never even picked up a sword in his life before, is standing in a dojo, facing this terrifyingly cold martial artist. Ayumu is to win one point by hitting Kiriko in one of the vital points of Kendo, but how is a complete amateur going to win even one point against a swordmaster? The reason why Ayumu is in this predicament? The murder on Sakurazaki Kengo. Kengo and Kiriko had been Kendo-rivals since their youth and had been polar opposites. Kengo fought with passion and would overwhelm his opponents with his blazing energy, Kiriko fought calculated, striking with cold preciseness. Both also happened to enroll in the same dojo, and were the top students there. Jinpachi, the master of the dojo had to decide who would become the next master and inherit the centuries-old sword Yuugao. While it was clear Kengo, who was not only dating the master's granddaughter, but with his warm personality, was obviously the better "people's person" when it came to leading a school, Kiriko in the end was the better swordsman and out of the many duels between Kengo and Kiriko, it was usually Kiriko who became the victor. However, when the master had Kiriko and Kengo have one final duel to win Yuugao, Kengo managed to win, and with that, he'd became the next master. Seven months ago, Jinpachi handed Kengo the sword Yuugao. While Jinpachi had to go to the hospital afterwards, his granddaughter of course celebrated the occasion with Kengo, and even Kiriko stopped by to congratulate him. However, the following morning, Kengo's dead body was found in a burning car, a stake having been driven through his chest. The murderer was never caught, even though Himeko is sure Kiriko killed her brother. And now seven months later, Kiriko is set to receive Yuugao, as Jinpachi also passed away in the meantime and the dojo needs a new master. The police never managed to find evidence Kiriko killed Kengo, so Himeko at least want to damage his reputation as a swordmaster by winning a point on him, but Ayumu decides to look in the case, as he perhaps can figure out how Kiriko killed Kengo despite having an alibi, but he then finds himself having to fight Kiriko himself... Can Ayumu win this duel and prove who killed Kengo in Shirodaira Kyou's <i>Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 1</i>: <i>Swordmaster no Hanzai</i> ("<i>Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning 1: The Crime of the Swordmaster</i>" 2001)? </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Spiral%20The%20Bonds%20of%20Reasoning%20%7C%20%E3%82%B9%E3%83%91%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A9%E3%83%AB%EF%BD%9E%E6%8E%A8%E7%90%86%E3%81%AE%E7%B5%86"><i>Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna</i> or <i>Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning</i></a>, the mystery(-themed) manga created by writer <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Shirodaira%20Kyou%20%7C%20%E5%9F%8E%E5%B9%B3%E4%BA%AC">Shirodaira Kyo</a>u
and artist Mizuno Eita, was about Ayumu, whose brother Kiyotaka disappeared two years ago after a final phone call with Ayumu
where he mentioned the phrase "Blade Children". At the start of the
series, Ayumu, who like his brother is a prodigy in both the piano <i>and</i> reasoning, gets involved in a murder case that occurs at his school,
but with the help of the school newspaper club president Hiyono, he
manages to prove his innocence, only to learn that this murder involved
the Blade Children. This spin-off book was the first of four to be released, and is set<i> extremely</i> early in the series. It basically has no connections whatsoever with the main series save for the presence of Ayumu and Hiyono and tonally, it's also fairly different, so it really feels like a spin-off.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">While this is the first novel, I have already read <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/02/murder-digs-deep.html">the second</a> and <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-organ-speaks.html">third</a> ones because I don't read books in order, so I already expected this book to be a bit different in tone compared to the main series. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised by the media res opening scene where Ayumu faces Kiriko in a Kendo duel where Ayumu has to <i>deduce</i> his way to winning a point against a swordmaster. This is the type of "logic battle" we often saw in the main series, where Ayumu had to outsmart his opponents in life-or-death games involving bombs, guns or... a ball game, so this scene felt very much like <i>Spiral</i>. Like in those situations, Ayumu can actually <i>logically</i> deduce what to do in a Kendo duel, and while this sounds weird at first, he comes up with a very logical conclusion to what to do in this duel in order to win a point over Kiriko. It all makes surprisingly sense, and is cleverly clewed in a fair way, which you wouldn't expect for a sword fight, which makes it all the more fun. It also ties in well with the past problem about Kengo's murder, because if you figure that out, it gives you strong hints about Kiriko's actions in the duel, so those parts are really well integrated.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Like the other novels, this book consists out of one short novella (the titular <i>The Crime of the Swordmaster</i>) and two short stories, so ultimately, the main story isn't that complex. The Kengo murder is... okay, considering it's a short story. I think one part of the misdirection is a bit too weak, and once you realize what that misdirection was intended to do, you also know the how and why behind Kengo's death. So it's a bit short and straightforward as a mystery story. It also depends on a few characters acting in certain ways to have this mystery work in the first place, though I think the motivation for these characters is supported well enough. But as a perfect alibi story, it's fairly weak, and I think the way it ties back to the duel scene, is the more memorable part of this book.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The book also includes two stories which were originally published online, which focus on Ayumi's brother Kiyotaka when he was a police detective. The stories were originally published in two parts, a Problem and Solution part, so I suppose the idea was you had a week or something like that to guess who did it between the posting of the first and second parts. While they are okay short mystery stories, one about a woman being killed by a <i>jellyfish</i> stuffed in her mouth, and the other about a <i>braindead woman who'd die anyway being stabbed in the heart</i>, I don't think they really work well in this format of "guess the solution", because the type of mystery these stories are about aren't really that straightforward. Ellery Queen-esque reasonings where you cross off suspects off a list one by one work better for these kind of puzzle challenges I think. I do think the second story, about the stabbed braindead woman, was good as a mystery story, just not as one that is intentionally split up in two parts.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Overall, I'd say <i>Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 1</i>: <i>Swordmaster no Hanzai</i> is a pretty decent first spin-off novel. While it is still quite different from the main series, I'd say that of the three I have read now, it comes closest to the tropes we know of the main series, so it feels the most as part of the <i>Spiral</i> world. As a mystery story, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/02/murder-digs-deep.html">the second one</a> is the best, but it also feels <i>barely</i> connected to the main series. Anyway, one more to go!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 城平京(著) 水野英多(イラスト) 『小説 スパイラル~推理の絆1 ソードマスターの犯罪』</span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-78158297712481129132024-03-06T00:00:00.001+01:002024-03-06T00:00:00.359+01:00In Search of the Black Rose<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"<br />"</span><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Romeo and Julie</span>t</i>"<br /></div><p>This was the first non-Japanese book review scheduled for this year... until I moved <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2024/01/secret-at-mystic-lake.html">Lindongzhiguan</a></i> up to the first post of the year. Oh well.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje2Sqtfd0VVTHpptZIlvh3Rr4fmC6qiKhldbGXb0KAxwtrfiJP5xLIzubfTSiuKMfFaev4i6BKcDyYC04GwTc3qyKnHQU_42sJ6oJGHUyNQnH0uPy_aEE8XS2F3jnh0JL-yY-j0chDb7tLa81FujAFeDM13P_2h3sdMoUY1UOB_s23uBimQZdlAMXt3rk/s296/nameoftherose.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="200" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje2Sqtfd0VVTHpptZIlvh3Rr4fmC6qiKhldbGXb0KAxwtrfiJP5xLIzubfTSiuKMfFaev4i6BKcDyYC04GwTc3qyKnHQU_42sJ6oJGHUyNQnH0uPy_aEE8XS2F3jnh0JL-yY-j0chDb7tLa81FujAFeDM13P_2h3sdMoUY1UOB_s23uBimQZdlAMXt3rk/s1600/nameoftherose.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>It is in the year 1327 when friar William of Baskerville and his apprentice Adso of Melk travel to a Benectidine monastery in Northern Italy, The monastery is to be "neutral grounds" where representatives of Pope John XII and the Franciscans will debate the theological discussion regarding the poverty of Jesus, as ever since the Franciscans proclaimed this point, they have been made a target by the Pope. When William arrives at the abbey however, they are informed that the monk Adelmo has passed away, having seeminly fallen from a tower of the library at the top floor of the aedificium, but as the windows were all shut, it is unlikely Adelmo committed suicide, as people seldom tend to shut the windows behind them after jumping down. The abbot of the monastery asks William, a former inquisitor, to investigate the case, and preferably, before the big discussion starts. William's investigations brings him contact with a diverse casts of monks who live in the monastery, from a blind old monk who despises laughter to a seemingly cooperative herbalist and a often-grumbling glazier, who all occassionally have their own theological discussions with each other or William. William's probings into Adelmo's life, who might not really have been celebate thanks to his fellow monks, also turn his attention to the library of the monastery. The aedificium is basically a fortress, and the library is at the very top. The library houses an immense treasure cove full of knowledge, with books and manuscripts collected from the entire world, some even considered heretical or of the devil, but too valuable to dispose off. Monks copy and translate manuscrupts in the scriptorium on the second floor, but the library itself is only accessible to the librarian and his assistant: monks have to apply for a manuscript, and it's only the librarian who can give permission, and who can even find his way through the maze that is the library, as the top floor is designed as a mystifying labyrinth filled with books and manuscripts. But soon, more curious deaths occur in the monastery, from a monk found hurled face down in a vat of pig's blood to a monk's brain being crushed with an orb. William soon detects a pattern between the deaths, but can he find the murderer in time in Umberto Eco's debut novel <i>Il nome della rosa</i> ("<i>The Name of the Rose</i>", 1980)?<p></p><p> <i>Il nome della rosa</i><i> </i>is one of those books I had always been aware of, but never got started on. I knew the book took on the form of a mystery novel, but was also about a lot of other topics and themes, and certainly closer to "serious literature" than most of the fiction I read. I have not seen the film, but the idea of a medieval mystery set in a monastery sounded fun, even if I already knew it might not be the actual focus of the book. I have seen the book also mentioned in the context of "<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Three%20Great%20Occult%20Books%20%7C%20%E4%B8%89%E5%A4%A7%E5%A5%87%E6%9B%B8">anti-mysteries</a>" in Japanese fiction, like <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2013/08/loffrande-au-neant.html"><i>Kyomu he no Kumotsu</i></a> or <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Maya%20Yutaka%20%7C%20%E9%BA%BB%E8%80%B6%E9%9B%84%E5%B5%A9">Maya Yutaka</a>'s work like <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2012/08/swan-song.html"><i>Tsubasa Aru Yami</i></a> and <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/02/hidden-pictures.html">Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata</a></i>, books that took on the form and tropes of a "classic" mystery novel, but also use it to discuss very other themes or even the flaws and trappings of the mystery genre itself. While those kind of books seldom end up as my actual favorite books, I do find them interesting and captivating to read once in a way, perhaps exactly because 90% of what I do read is straightforward mystery fiction. A friend of mine read the book a while back and was really enthusiastic about it, which brought the book to my attention again, and in a manner extremely fitting to <i>Il nome della rosa</i>, I happened to come across the book at my local little free library, so I picked it up without any hesitation, because I really needed to know what it was about.</p><p>And indeed, <i>Il nome della rosa </i>is about a murder mystery, but also not. Though I'd say claiming it's not a true murder mystery at all, would be wrong: it is most certainly a murder mystery, and yes, while the book is also about a lot of other themes, especially theological discussions, those themes are used to support the murder mystery, and are definitely what elevate the mystery elements of the book. To turn it around: if this book didn't cover those themes and you had the bare-bones tricks and explanation behind the murders, you'd have a very average murder mystery, as a lot of it isn't <i>really</i> surprising or even original taken on their own. But Eco manages to weave these murders so very well with the background of the monastery, the monks and their motives and beliefs, <i>Il nome della rosa</i> becomes a very captivating work that thematically, is very impressive for a mystery novel.</p><p>Atmosphere is absolutely fantastic too. The medieval monastery really comes alive in the book, which is presented as a translation of translations of a manuscript originally written by Adso decades after the events, adding a cool book-in-book context. While the prose can a bit wordy (Adso must <i>really</i> be into doors to describe them in such detail), the presentation of how monks had to live in a monastery, how monks from various backgrounds (beliefs/schools) would interact with each other and of course the political struggles between factions of the Church are all very memorable. The actual theological discussion regarding Jesus' poverty for example is dense, but it's surprisingly <i>funny</i> if you make it through. The prose, interspersed with Latin phrases and where people often go monologuing or debating philosophical matters, is dense, and takes a while to get used to, and even then the book's not a very easy read, but it's also done to imitate the style of writing, so it's something you'll have to live with. I personally think that if the murder mystery plot was the absolute most important thing for this book, a lot of trimming would have been better without sacrificing on its themes, but understanding that is not what the intention was, I can let it slide. At the center of what gives this book its amazing vibe is the library: an almost magical place, which houses knowledge from all across the world, on the top floor of a fortress designed as a labyrinth. While I found the way the book leads William and Adso to investigating the library a bit too direct (there were no <i>real</i> direct clues leading to the library), the passages of them trying to make sense of the library are really cool. It's a bit disappointing the book isn't really trying to give the reader a chance to penetrate the secrets of the library themselves, and a lot of the mystery revolving around the library is sadly enough not synergetically connected to the murders, but as a atmospheric prop, it does its job very well.</p><p>As said, the mystery behind the murders taken on their own are not extremely complex or surprising. A lot of the deaths are incredibly straightforward (and William deduces the truth of some of them even before the readers gets any time to do anything), while a certain trick used for some other murders is unlikely to really catch any seasoned mystery reader off-guard, as it's... like the answer of one of those short one-page mystery quizzes you'd sometimes see. Yet, there's a lot to like here. I <i>love</i> the thematics behind the murders (the pattern that William picks up on) and the reason/explanation behind the pattern is also great: it fits <i>perfectly</i> with some of the themes this book handles and which had been slowly popping its head once in a while, and I like the sheer bombastic appeal of it. I have read other mystery stories that tackle the exact same pattern, that take it more seriously, but I think it works very well in <i>Il nome della rosa</i>, both in the "world of the book" as well as a major theme.</p><p>But it's definitely the motive for the crimes that works best in this book. As mentioned above, the characters (mostly monks) are all clearly defined by their beliefs and it's their actions that set things in motion. Sometimes it's the flaws of their beliefs, or flaws as them as a human being that moves things, sometimes it's their <i>strength</i> of their beliefs or strenghts as human beings which ironically sets the wheels of death in motion, but it's built-up to very convincingly in this novel. While I personally do think some of the dialogues (conversations/discussions) on philosophical questions go on longer than actually necessary, they do tie back to the mystery, making <i>Il nome della rosa </i>a very humanistic mystery despite it's very gothic, horror-esque apppearences. At the same time, it does definitely also touch upon anti-mystery themes, with William of Baskerville (obviously inspired by Sherlock Holmes) being both a brilliant detective, but also a flawed detective who certainly doesn't do everything perfectly in this novel. Readers of late <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Ellery%20Queen">Ellery Queen</a> works or <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Maya%20Yutaka%20%7C%20%E9%BA%BB%E8%80%B6%E9%9B%84%E5%B5%A9">Maya Yutaka</a> will definitely find a lot to like here, as the book does explore the theme of a flawed detective quite well, especially as it again ties back to themes that apply to most characters in the book. Other themes like the search for knowledge and truth, that of course are very important to mystery fiction in general, also become relevant, and all have great synergy with the motive behind the deaths. I mentioned earlier the library elements of the book didn't have much synergy with the mystery plot: in a way, the library is a <i>symbol</i> for the mystery, but it is surprising how the themes do really synergize well with each other and the deaths. Seen as such, <i>Il nome della rosa </i>is a great mystery.</p><p>I do think I liked <i>Il nome della rosa</i><i> </i>a lot more already the day after finishing the actual book, though I already liked it then. While purely seen from a mystery perspective, I think some elements are just too longwinded, while elements like the connection of the library to the mystery and the tricks behind the deaths are a bit disappointing in their shallow execution, I think that overall, this is a very memorable mystery novel, as it is thematically very strong, and pulls off some things (the pattern!) mystery-wise precisely because it is because of these themes, and other books might have had more trouble with it. It's not the easiest book to get through and it is certainly not as straightforward as most of the mystery novels I usually read, but definitely worth a read.</p><p>And now I will bring this book back to the little free library so someone else may seek the knowledge herewithin.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Italian title: Umberto Eco " <i>Il nome della rosa</i><i>"</i></span></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-37891865213009721342024-02-28T00:00:00.003+01:002024-02-28T00:00:00.157+01:00Two-Way Murder<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"I remember now," she said, "what that German word is. Doppelganger!" </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>At Bertram's Hotel</i>"</span></div><p>I seldom read summaries before reading the actual book, so based on the title, I was actually expecting this to be set in Europe and be about twin castles....<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7TW5HOqrI9SdWswdhGeRPabJscRlghrbV26V6Vlirynwkq1a-xk4_W93Rk3u6ZTM4qUiZnC3rUYJy-CxTEtDxY4F4E1dr2kGdxg3VIWvil43ogR8JaIvrwwiDfJZ0PsZBllCTLzOU3zjf1iZkY7WhBdxVKZyz4BIgwEO_tpfuJ0PB9o1sCQJ-a7IXW3o/s284/doppelganger1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="200" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7TW5HOqrI9SdWswdhGeRPabJscRlghrbV26V6Vlirynwkq1a-xk4_W93Rk3u6ZTM4qUiZnC3rUYJy-CxTEtDxY4F4E1dr2kGdxg3VIWvil43ogR8JaIvrwwiDfJZ0PsZBllCTLzOU3zjf1iZkY7WhBdxVKZyz4BIgwEO_tpfuJ0PB9o1sCQJ-a7IXW3o/s1600/doppelganger1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Nihonmatsu Kakeru has become the newest member of the Sealed Door club, a somewhat private university club, originally only created to investigate rooms that have been sealed and kept locked in houses, usually because of some kind of history behind it. Practically speaking though, it's just a group of friends hanging out, with rather unique characters like Narumi, who considers himself a Great Detective, Sakie, who might or might not have paranormal powers, Oomaeda who can open any lock and moodmaker Yui. One day, they are visited by high school teacher Toomine Yukihiko, who wants the members of the Sealed Door to come with him on his visit to Himuro Ryuukan, the grandfather of Himuro Ryouka, a girl in his class, but who has not appeared at school for a year now due to bullying. Last year, he visited Homuro Ryuukan's home too, when Ryouka had only missed a few days, and was told she'd return to school soon, but she never came back. But now he has received a letter signed by Ryuukan, telling him to come and that he'll be able to meet with Ryouka again. Toomine thinks Ryouka might be held captive in her grandfather's home, and therefore wants people of the Sealed Door club there so they can find the room and get her out. Ryuukan also happens to be the president of the famous mystery club Next Door, which self-publishes its material, one of the members being the famous mystery writer Aoyama Masayo, and Narumi agrees to come with Toomine right away the next day in his own car, while the others, under the guidance of Sealed Door president Godou Satoru, will arrange for a van so they can go together the next day. When Toomine arrives at Ryuukan's large manor, which lies near the sea far away from town, he learns the other members of Next Door are also invited here, as well as three girls from his school who were some way involved in the bullying of Ryouka. Narumi initially wants to sneak around to look for Ryouka, but is soon captured... but then the members of the Sealed Door lose contact with him.<p></p><p>The rest of the Sealed Door change their plans and hurry to the Ryuukan residence, but when they arrive there they find it completely empty. They then get a phone call from Narumi, and they learn something shocking. Narumi and all the others have been moved to <i>an exact copy of the Ryuukan manor</i>, but with shuttered windows, and no door out or stairs up or down. They have no idea where they are, or why there are here. While they are calling, they both stumble upon something horrifying: in the "real" manor, Godou finds two decapitated bodies in the bathroom, while in the same bathroom in the "second" manor, Narumi finds two cut-off heads: those being of one of the high school students, as well as of the taxi driver who drove her there. To preserve Narumi's battery, they decide to call again later while both sides look for clues, but when the next call comes, another death has occured at the second house, and it appears the murderer should be one of those in the sealed house, but who? Can the members of the Sealed Room find the second house and open the closed circle in Kirisha Takumi's <i>Doppelgänger-kyuu - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Ryuuhyoukan he</i> ("<i>The Doppelgänger Palace - The Sealed Door Club Goes to the Ryuuhou House</i>", 1999)?<br /></p><p>Kirisha Takumi made his debut as a professional novelist by winning the 12th Mephisto Award, leading to the publication of <i>Doppelgänger-kyuu</i>. While it is the first novel published, the book starts off right away with Kakeru realizing there's some kind of backstory to all the members of the Sealed Door club which they try to keep a secret for now, so that is something that might be explored in later novels. I had never read anything by Kirisha yet by the way, so this was also my "debut" with his work and going just by this book, I'd say <i>Doppelgänger-kyuu</i> is certainly not a perfect book, and a lot of it can be attributed to it being a debut novel, but there are mystery-wise definitely interesting elements, which make me curious to the rest of the series.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPSKFLvIay9yTuuSOQpPXPqhHLcqA1hw73QuuYs4MBuwIRXVL40YX956DKGQ3kK2jV2O5dQeWqTyvpP7ggemjEZ2NdFQv1wPlXP9Rti2wjdm5tafBZmst9T-ek7aEtstnwlnEzNwkvrV_6YC3byL0p6JHZMe8Ao5UFnAPOD2f1LUi7oQaPA-FEIGg1udI/s331/doppelganger2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPSKFLvIay9yTuuSOQpPXPqhHLcqA1hw73QuuYs4MBuwIRXVL40YX956DKGQ3kK2jV2O5dQeWqTyvpP7ggemjEZ2NdFQv1wPlXP9Rti2wjdm5tafBZmst9T-ek7aEtstnwlnEzNwkvrV_6YC3byL0p6JHZMe8Ao5UFnAPOD2f1LUi7oQaPA-FEIGg1udI/s320/doppelganger2.jpg" width="193" /></a></div>The oddest part of this book is definitely that this is a closed circle murder mystery... but also not. Early on, we learn Narumi and all the other guests at Ryuukan's house have been moved to a sealed copy of that house, and they get killed one by one. This is pretty standard closed circle fare, but unlike most, if not all, closed circle mysteries, this book doesn't <i>really</i> focus on the suspense of such a situation at all. For the narrative doesn't follow Narumi in the second house, it's completely focused on the rest of the members of the Sealed Door, while they are working with the police trying to figure out where the other house is where Narumi and the others have been brought to, and discussing the murders that have occured both in the real and the second house. So unlike <i>Jukkakukan no Satsujin</i> (<i>The Decagon House Murders</i>), which also has a dual structure where you follow a closed circle situation on the island, but also an investigation on the mainland, <i>Doppelgänger-kyuu</i> focuses mainly on what happens in the "safe area", while we only get occasional updates on what is going on in the second house via phone calls. The tone is therefore also surprisingly light, as there's more focus on the (mis)adventures of Kakeru and Yui as they bumble around (with good intentions) to find clues, rather than a focus on a tense situation where people get killed off one by one and people starting to suspect each other. We only get to hear about the closed circle situation second-hand, and we basically never even got a real look at all the characters in the second house before Narumi called the others, so we don't really know them at all: we constantly see the closed circle situation via a filter, hearing about events <i>after</i> they have happened, and that makes this a very weird experience to read, if you're familiar with closed circle mysteries. It doesn't help the people in the second house are.... <i>completely</i> stupid by not following Godou's instructions about sticking together and not go exploring the house alone, so you feel no sympathy for them whatsoever, even if one death in particular is supposed to be somewhat emotional.<br /><p></p><p>The investigation in this novel therefore focuses a lot on the background of the crime, as we aren't really there "on the scene": why has everybody been taken away to a second house, and where is this second house? I liked the mystery surrounding the location second house, even if the solution wasn't that surprising (it's revealed about 70% into the book), though I think it could have used more clues: a lot of the revelation ushured in by Godou depends more on pure intuition rather than actually clues we had seen ourselves properly. Somewhat frustrating is that Godou keeps on telling the police they are completely wrong and looking for the second house in the wrong place, but he doesn't say why or what his thoughts then are until the very end! He doesn't even have a reason to keep quiet, as he's constantly saying he wants to save Narumi and the others, but then refuses to elaborate. One part of the misdirection is daring, but it comes a bit too close to the truth, and I think a lot of readers will figure it out tat that point. The mystery of the why is not as interesting, a lot of it is basically speculation based on flimsy clues/indications, and then we just get a revelation which feels a bit unearned. </p><p>At this point, you'd think I hate this book, as you don't get to see a lot of the core mystery of the on-going murders in the second house, while the focal points of the investigation we do get to see, are the less interesting parts of the mystery. That said, on the whole, I didn't think this an awful book though, as they are, as mentioned, also interesting parts to the mystery. I definitely found the parts relating to identifying whodunnit quite clever, even if it's told in a rather roundabout manner. You'd think there'd a better way to lay down the hints for that revelation, but as it is now, it can feel a bit chaotic, even if there are some points about it that quite good mystery-wise. It gave a really good reason for some of the murders, and it also ties nicely back to one of the underlying themes of the book. But it is definitely an uneven book, that feels very much like a debut novel.</p><p>While most of the characters <i>barely</i> appear in the book, and the focus is on the Sealed Door members, even then some of them barely get anything to do. The banter between the various members of the Sealed Door is fun enough I
guess, but obviously, it's not enough to carry a mystery novel. It's very much a main cast-character-focused mystery novel, but in this case, it seems it goes a bit too far, not giving the core mystery as much attention as it deserved, as I do think the actual events/happenings are interesting and make for a good mystery novel, but it is just told in a weirdly limited manner.</p><p>Is <i>Doppelgänger-kyuu - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Ryuuhyoukan he</i> a perfect debut novel? Not by any means. Its focus on a kinda rom-com between the core members of the Sealed Door somehow mean it also focuses <i>less</i> on the mystery than you'd expect from... a mystery novel, and while there are clever parts and clues in the book, a lot of it is told in a rather meandering manner. But going by what I have read here, I do think Kirisha might be able to pull a tighter mystery novel, so I'll definitely read more of this series!</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 霧舎 巧『ドッペルゲンガー宮 《あかずの扉》研究会流氷館へ』</span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-71839577708577379392024-02-21T00:00:00.004+01:002024-02-21T00:00:00.134+01:00Murder by Matchlight<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">眠れる勇者よ </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">目覚めろ くすぶるheartに火を付けろ </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">「くすぶるheartに火を付けろ」(影山ヒロノブ)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wake up, oh sleeping hero</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Light the fire in your smouldering heart</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Light the Fire in Your Smouldering Heart</i>" (Kageyama Hironobu)</span><br /></div><p> </p><p>The title of this book (named after the title story) is really simple as a term, but it does sound cool for some reason...<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGaRX7ClgqZAgazr1angT9B1ORe1gjYe9C382QZirjysrt7AlXLoApk7EsuUpJwIdD08b6dweoYuSDncHvzndbSGSLjoKH89CVozQ1KZ-DwxrMQ-xMQpG3uVoKxIHBX0CO0LfT6OrGHvtFHKgBYWjy_rWVRtY9LY65gR5-vp7__oxeVMUJkrfnQrdV4_k/s292/combustiblesubstances.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="200" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGaRX7ClgqZAgazr1angT9B1ORe1gjYe9C382QZirjysrt7AlXLoApk7EsuUpJwIdD08b6dweoYuSDncHvzndbSGSLjoKH89CVozQ1KZ-DwxrMQ-xMQpG3uVoKxIHBX0CO0LfT6OrGHvtFHKgBYWjy_rWVRtY9LY65gR5-vp7__oxeVMUJkrfnQrdV4_k/s1600/combustiblesubstances.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>As is common in Japanese police structures, whenever a crime is reported to the police, the local detectives will first take charge of the scene, but it's Prefectural Police Headquarters which will eventually take over the investigation: the detectives assigned to the Prefectural HQ are the the people who get sent across the prefecture to deal with crimes like homicide, and because of that, they obviously have more experience to deal with such investigations than a police detective from a local station. Inspector Katsura belongs to the First Division of the Gunma Prefectural Police and has an excellent track record when it comes to solving crimes, though he is seen as an outlier: while he follows the rules perfectly and always utilizes the correct channels to get whatever he needs, he's also seen by his superior as someone who is a bit <i>too</i> brilliant for his work: Katsura is excellent at directing his team of detectives in order to obtain whatever information he needs to solve the case, but his detectives simply aren't <i>as</i> smart as him, as more often than not, Katsura will be able to solve crimes long before his subordinates even suspect what their boss had been thinking about all along. In <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Yonezawa%20Honobu%20%7C%20%E7%B1%B3%E6%BE%A4%E7%A9%82%E4%BF%A1">Yonezawa Honobu</a>'s short story collection <i>Kanenbutsu</i> ("<i>Combustible Substances</i>", 2023), we follow Katsura as he solves five various cases his team has to handle, from a murder at a ski resort to a series of arson.<p></p><p>Sooo... this book probably has a good chance of being translated, right? Because after Yonezawa's success with <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Classic%20Literature%20Club%20%7C%20%E5%8F%A4%E5%85%B8%E9%83%A8%E3%82%B7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA">the <i>Hyouka</i> series</a> (specficially, its anime adaptation), his mystery fiction had been a bit neglected in the English translation sphere, but the critical success of <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-castle-conundrum.html">his <i>Kokuroujou</i> led to it being translated as <i>The Samurai and the Prisoner</i></a>. <i>Kanenbetsu</i> is the first time Yonezawa has attempted to do a police procedural, but it was extremely well-received among mystery fans in Japan, ranking very high (or taking the top spot) in all the major end-of-year mystery rankings of 2023, so that should attract the attention of publishers, right? I know it attracted my attention when I saw it on all those lists, and as I enjoyed <i>Kokuroujou</i> enormously, I knew I had to read this one fast too!</p><p>As I started reading this book, I couldn't help but be reminded of <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Yokoyama%20Hideo%20%7C%20%E6%A8%AA%E5%B1%B1%E7%A7%80%E5%A4%AB">Yokoyama Hideo</a>'s <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/06/beyond-law.html"><i>Daisan no Jikou</i> ("<i>The Third Deadline</i>")</a>, one of Yokoyama's best-known works and similar to <i>Kanenbutsu</i>, a police procedural short story collection. While both books are definitely police procedurals, I do have to say <i>Kanenbutsu</i> has a lot less attention to internal politics than <i>Daisan no Jikou</i>, so if you're not into that, you might still enjoy <i>Kanenbutsu</i>. I do think Yonezawa succeeded in presenting Katsura as the silent great detective within the format of a proper police procedural. The tone of these stories is <i>very</i> subdued and business-like: we get dry depictions of the crime scenes, characters are always introduced with age and current occupation, we never hear about the private lives of Katsura and his subordinates (thank you!), and the flow of each story is very, very deliberate, with Katsura doing every single thing step by step: sending a detective to check up on witnesses, have a detective contact some business, keep his boss up to date and ask for help for formalities when it comes to contacting other divisions in the police... At the same time, Katsura is definitely the great detective: while part of his brilliance comes from how meticulously he does his job, the sparks of inspiration he gets from seeing even the smallest clues definitely leads to the feeling of catharsis you get from "normal" puzzle plot mysteries when all the clues come together at the end, and I also like the book a lot for having a varied portfolio of crimes for Katsura to handle. <br /></p><p>The book opens with <i>Gake no Shita</i> ("<i>Beneath the Cliff</i>"), where four men and women have gone missing one afternoon during a snowboard outing away from the regular course of the Kouge Ski Activity resort: one of their party didn't join them as she was still a beginner, but when they didn't return long after dinner, she and the pension owner decided to inform the authorities. When the first two men are found however, the rescuers stumble upon a surprising scene: the two men were found beneath a cliff, seemingly having fallen off, but <i>one of them has been stabbed to death</i>. Katsura's team is brought in to investigate the case, but they learn from the rescue unit there were no footprints leading away from the cliff when they first arrived there, which seems to prove that the other (alive) man must have killed his comrade. But this second man heavily injured his arms when he fell, making it impossible for him to hold a knife, and even more important: <i>there's no sign of any weapon at the scene</i>. Given the man, like the victim, couldn't move away from the scene, the weapon <i>must</i> be beneath the cliff if he's the murderer, but if it's not there, does it mean someone else did it?</p><p>While at first you might think this might be a whodunnit, you soon notice that, like with basically all the stories in the book, this is more a howdunnit or even whydunnit. The "most likely suspect" is usually the person to grab in these stories, but in this case, the most likely suspect is also the least likely person, for he couldn't have handled a weapon he doesn't even have, right? I think taken in a void, the solution to this impossible crime isn't very surprising, but Yonezawa does a great job at hiding it beneath the format of a police procedural, showing how Katsura moves step by step to eliminate other possibilities until he arrives at the one solution, how surprising it may be, that is possible. In the type of puzzlers I usually read, I think this solution wouldn't be overlooked for so long, but it works here because of its far more realistic approach, and I think it's a good showcase of showing how you can incorporate "more outlandish" murder schemes, and show them how not an eccentric brilliant detective, but the police would arrive at such a solution.<br /></p><p>In <i>Nemuke</i> ("<i>Drowsiness</i>"), Katsura's team is not given any time to sleep, when Taguma Ryuuto, one of the major suspects in a murder-robbery, gets involved in a traffic accident in the middle of the night. Taguma was riding his van outside of town, tailed by two of Katsura's detectives. Because of construction work along the road, the car of the police detectives was stopped for a few seconds, while Taguma proceeded to the next crossing, when there's a big bang: Taguma's car was rammed by another car. The drivers of both cars are taken to the hospital, and after being awakened by his subordinates in the middle of the night to inform him of this turn of events, Katsura sees this as an opportunity, as if he can arrest Taguma for causing the traffic accident for driving through a red light, he could use that to also pump him on the murder-robbery. The following morning, hs team starts gathering witness testimonies from the people at the construction site, the corner convenience store and people living around the crossing, and Katsura soon gains multiple testimonies that say Taguma's van drove through a red light, but there's something bothering about the whole deal, but what? A rather interesting story, because indeed, you don't really know what's bothering Katsura so much even though it seems like an open-shut case, until he reveals why there's something wrong about it all. This is a great story for this particular format: I can't even imagine this working in those closed circle, logic-focused mystery stories I often read, but here, as a police procedural? Yes, it works, and while it might not be <i>completely</i> fair, I think it's surprisingly well-clewed, considering the twist Yonezawa is going for is really quite unique, but it really only works in this realistic setting.</p><p><i>Inochi no On</i> ("<i>A Life Debt</i>") opens with the discovery of a <i>cut-off human arm</i> along the walking trail of the Kisuge Plains. It is clear from the state of the arm it's been here for more than a day, but it's still recognizable as an arm. The police is notified, naturally, and they start a search for the rest of the body along the plains. They slowly do manage to gather the victim part by part, finding legs and a torso and eventually... a head! The teeth are still intact and the man is soon identified as Nosue Haruyoshi, who had been reported missing by his son. Nosue's business was going to fold soon, so he had been lending a lot of money from a man whom he had saved several years ago: Nosue had found the man and his daughter below the mountain track they had fallen off, and the daughter was bleeding heavily. Nosue had carried the daughter to safety by himself, while getting help for the father too, who was of course indebted to Nosue. The last few years, he had lent Nosue a lot of money to keep the business afloat, but now it seems Nosue had went too far... But would someone really kill the man whom he and his daughter owe their lives? A cut-up body is the most "great detective puzzle plot mystery"-esque this collection gets, and the solution... is surprisingly close to the kind of solution you'd expect from such a story! As usual with these stories, Katsura soon focuses on the main suspect and during his investigation, things do seem to point to this man, but there's still some nagging feeling that not all is right. But what is it that lies behind it? I like the motive behind cutting the body up and leaving it along the Kisuge plains, as the goal sounds like contradictionary at first, but it really isn't, and it's pulled off really well here. <br /></p><p>The title story <i>Kanenbutsu</i> ("<i>Combustible Substances</i>") deals with arson, a type of crime you don't often see in mystery fiction. For a week or so, somebody has been committing arson across town by setting fire to garbage bags which have been left outside at the disposal area on the streets early, in the evening before garbage day. The first incident was fortunately discovered by a passerby early, who then "borrowed" a bucket and hose from a nearby house to extinguish the fire himself, but since then, more fires have been discovered at garbage disposal areas, all with the same MO: setting fire to a flyer, which is then stuck into a bag of kitchen waste. Katsura's team is usually tasked with identifying a culprit after a crime has already been committed, but this time they need to find the culprit, but also prevent the culprit from starting a fire with deadly outcome, so every night, detectives are watching garbage disposal sites that are scheduled to be emptied the following day, making note of every suspicious person coming nearby, while at the same time, Katsura is also cooperating with the local fire department to learn more about the aronist's MO and checking up on known arsonists. But as Katsura learns more about how the arsonist is choosing their targets and committing these crimes, he feels something isn't quite right about this arsonist, but why? This is again more a story that focuses on whydunnit, as the identification of the main suspect is done via very, very mundane police work. The whydunnit is quite nice: there are a few seemingly contradictary actions taken by the culprit which are discovered while Katsura conducts his investigation, but the solution he proposes offers a very nice explanation for that, and because these stories are all <i>very</i> dry on the whole, the ironic twist at the end felt surprisingly hard. <br /></p><p>The final story, <i>Honmonoka</i> ("<i>The Real Deal?</i>"), has Katsura and his team on their way back after a succesful arrest armed murderer, when there's an incoming call for available units to go to a nearby family restaurant, as someone has barricaded himself inside the restaurant. Upon arrival, Katsura speaks with a local detective and a restaurant staff member, and he learns the manager suddenly cried out for everyone to run from his office, an alarm bell went off, and that at least all the four employees made it out safe, as well as a few dozens of customers who were inside at the time. The manager himself however is nowhere to be seen, and suspected to be still inside as a hostage. When the hostage-taker shows his face near the window, a local detectives recognizes him as Shida Naoto, someone who had run into the police a lot when he was younger, though he supposedly settled down now with a wife and child. However, what attracts even more attention is the pistol-like object Shida was holding in his hand. Is it a real pistol, or a fake one? Katsura is ordered to stay put, gather information and try to ensure the hostage remains safe while the tactical unit prepares for deployment, but what can he do from outside? A fun story, as it's so different from the rest again! Katsura slowly reconstructs what was going on before the alarm went off by talking with the employees and some customers, and must try to assess how dangerous the situation is. But how is he going to do that? The puzzle of determining whether Shida's pistol is real, and finding a way for the tactical unit to enter the premise safely to subdue Shida seems a bit detached from the reader for the most part as a puzzle, but more mysteries follow in close succession as the story nears its climax, and they result in a story that is surprisingly satisfying as a puzzle too, and in terms of clewing and plotting, this might be the trickiest of the whole book.</p><p>Overall, <i>Kanenbutsu</i> is a really solid short story collection, and I do think Yonezawa really managed to pull off a nice fusion. I am quite surprised to see how formal this is as a police procedural, as you really see Katsura needing to file in requests to get information from other organizations, or you see it reflected in the way detectives from Prefectural HQ are seen and treated as "guests" at the local stations, but at the same time, the plots do deal with the type of twists you'd expect from puzzle plot mysteries, accompanied by proper clewing. I don't think the book is as memorable as <i>Kokuroujou</i> in general, but it's still a very good read, and recommended material!</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 米澤穂信『可燃物』:「崖の下」/「ねむけ」/「命の恩」/「可燃物」/「本物か」</span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-74402458210442414302024-02-14T00:00:00.001+01:002024-02-14T00:00:00.136+01:00Dread Journey<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">8時ちょうどのあずさ2号で</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">私は 私は あなたから旅たちます</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">「あずさ2号」(狩人)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">At eight exactly, taking the Azusa 2</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I will, I will, depart away from you </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Azusa 2" (Karyuudo)</span><br /></div><p></p><p>Yes, I know, reading a random <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Nishimura%20Kyoutarou%20%7C%20%E8%A5%BF%E6%9D%91%E4%BA%AC%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E">Nishimura Kyoutarou </a>novel is always just like doing a gatcha game. The chance on getting an SSSR is really small, and most of the time you'll just get a C. As he wrote over 650 novels during his lifetime, most of them focusing on the so-called "travel mystery" subgenre, it's not surprising most of his output is very formalistic, with very fast-paced and light stories, featuring elements of the <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/search/label/Freeman%20Wills%20Crofts">Croftian</a> school, with alibi tricks using trains, airplanes and other means of transport, with stories set across various locations and areas in Japan. That was in fact the reason why I picked today's book. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn-ky5pnWhgm5FV25doW_aDRc8iTLPWJ78_DZFfMVg09vt6p2MJaYajOg8mET8RPAYFHr4zFaCQCb4_bX93Vfn_Fy3C5PVBsXCHS-hmaglPvvBmfx6IoojQygHvT5ifpqS_V0MUU9-PTH43Mvp_mv1Hy5o6PSonlkBRo9IQMZaw6R8KCFzgUyPan4M1Ts/s289/azusa7.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="200" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn-ky5pnWhgm5FV25doW_aDRc8iTLPWJ78_DZFfMVg09vt6p2MJaYajOg8mET8RPAYFHr4zFaCQCb4_bX93Vfn_Fy3C5PVBsXCHS-hmaglPvvBmfx6IoojQygHvT5ifpqS_V0MUU9-PTH43Mvp_mv1Hy5o6PSonlkBRo9IQMZaw6R8KCFzgUyPan4M1Ts/s1600/azusa7.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I came across Nishimura Kyoutarou's <i>Tokkyuu Azusa [Alibi Train] Satsujin Jiken</i> ("<i>The Alibi Train Azusa Express Murder Case</i>", 1986) while I was looking for a mystery novel involving the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azusa_(train)">Azusa Express</a> and the city of Matsumoto, and not surprisingly, Nishimura had written a book about it because I am going to guess he wrote a book about every limited express in Japan that ran during his lifetime. The book opens with <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Inspector%20Totsugawa%20%7C%20%E5%8D%81%E6%B4%A5%E5%B7%9D%E8%AD%A6%E9%83%A8">Inspector Totsugawa</a>'s subordinate Kusaka Junichi receiving a call from someone he had never expected to hear from again: once upon a time, he was all ready to marry Keiko, but she disappeared (with his money and an engagement ring) and with that, Kusaka learned a lesson. He's stunned when he hears her voice again at work, but it's what she says that puzzles him. She asks him to lie for her if he is asked what he was doing on a certain day, and he's to say he took the Azusa Express 7 with her to visit Matsumoto. As a police detective however, Kusaka can't promise her he'll lie, even though she says her life depends on it. When later Kusaka is called by a mysterious person who asks him about the day, Kusaka is indeed unable to lie for Keiko. Soon after, the dead body of Keiko is found in a park in Tokyo and she was seemingly tortured before her death. Realizing his refusal to lie led to her death, Kusaka confides in Totsugawa, and they soon realize Keiko had wanted Kusaka to provide her with an alibi for that day by saying she had been on the Azusa 7. They identify two major robberies that occured on that day in Tokyo for which the Azusa Express would have served as an alibi, but for which of these was Keiko trying to gain an alibi, and why was she killed?<p></p><p>Okay, so reading random Nishimura is a gatcha, and this one is definitely just a C pull.</p><p>Totsugawa's investigation rather swiftly allows them to identify which incident Keiko was involved with: a bank robbery. If Kusaka had lied about having gone to Matsumoto in the Azusa with Keiko, she'd have a perfect alibi for that time, but Kusaka didn't, and now his former <span class="ILfuVd" lang="en"><span class="hgKElc">fiancée </span></span> is dead. But then another suspect in that robbery ends up dead, making it clear <i>someone</i> is killing off the people in the gang. Is it someone in the gang trying to make their own share larger, or is something else going on. Another mystery is the fact the other victim actually had been investigated by the police before, and he could provide an alibi... as he had been riding the Azusa Express during the robbery. So why do all these clues point at the Azusa?</p><p>Well, for no other reason but that it's in the title. I picked the book hoping it'd at least give me a glimpse of the Azusa Express and the city of Matsumoto, but I was rather surprised by how irrelevant they are for the story. For some reason, we have like seven or eight different times we see characters board the Azusa, but you don't get many scenes inside the Azusa, and you see even less of Matsumoto itself, even though they are all heading to that city! So if you were ever considering to read this book because of the title, I'd recommend find something else.</p><p>Ultimately, the idea of having multiple people pick the Azusa as an alibi is an interesting concept to get the mystery going, but the reason provided for why specifically Azusa is so meaningless and simple, it really feels as nothing but an excuse so Nishimura could use the Azusa in the title. The story then shifts to the question of who is killing the gang members, and the thing evolves into a surprisingly large conspiracy-level plot that goes far beyond just the bank robbery, but that's also a reason why the titular Azusa Express feels so underutilized in the book, as the train is basically only relevant in the very first chapters of the book, and afterwards, the investigation is about something else. And... I didn't really like, as you may have guessed. The book reads more like a suspense thriller, with especially the latter half having Totsugawa directly facing a diabolical enemy whom he tries to outsmart while the lives of people are at stake, and at that point, it's just so far removed from what I expected this book to be. I mean, the Azusa train <i>isn't</i> even used for an alibi trick, Keiko <i>wanted</i> to use the train for one, and the "trick" was just by having her former fiance lie! The big plot Totsugawa stumbles upon is interesting in concept, but it isn't an idea that is a good facilitator for a mystery story per se.</p><p>So yeah, <i>Tokkyuu Azusa [Alibi Train] Satsujin Jiken</i> is quite disappointing overall. It's barely a mystery story, and I think I could've even forgiven than somewhat if the book had actually focused on the Azusa and Matsumoto more because I wanted to read the book for that reason, but even that it couldn't provide. So definitely not one of Nishimura's highlights. He's definitely written better novels than this one, ones that are true puzzle plot mysteries, so you can ignore this easily.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎『特急「あずさ」(アリバイ・トレイン)殺人事件』</span></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-83711542935246199082024-02-06T16:00:00.000+01:002024-02-06T16:00:00.135+01:00The Red Bull<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Come along, my friend! You want to see the Bull's Head, yes?" </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars</i>"</span><br /></div><p>While this post won't be posted until 2024, I read this book in 2023. I tend to prefer shorter books, but I think read like three or four of these 1000+ pages books in just a few months last year...<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfeh1KR3C-n2oJIthSNEmeciEA0gDZGwVpzEXQepIpxeGJVf8HZfoXmm_IBbd2i8a0z87DyGWzajYsnLhJQLVHoHTjpAxNRFWFy8IgW3un7jg8l-xVBsK6flShABYeC56qyPVzwlC061WYd0QjBYMJnTpxyNRvh6no1yI3HQI11kqink3ej4KOYZ4bhsY/s281/oedipussyndrome.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="200" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfeh1KR3C-n2oJIthSNEmeciEA0gDZGwVpzEXQepIpxeGJVf8HZfoXmm_IBbd2i8a0z87DyGWzajYsnLhJQLVHoHTjpAxNRFWFy8IgW3un7jg8l-xVBsK6flShABYeC56qyPVzwlC061WYd0QjBYMJnTpxyNRvh6no1yI3HQI11kqink3ej4KOYZ4bhsY/s1600/oedipussyndrome.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>After a strange arson incident at the Pasteur Laboratory, Nadia Maugars learns via her father Inspector Maugars and his subordinate that her old friend François Duval, who works at the laboratory, is back in Paris. They lost contact after he moved abroad, where he researches viruses. His return however is not one to be happy about: he had to return to Paris, because he is suffering from a newly discovered virus, which he had been researching and for which there is no treatment yet. Nadia visits François at the hospital, and he asks her to bring a report he had been working on regarding the new virus to his co-worker Pierre Madocq, who is currently in Athens. The thing is highly confidential, so he wants her to personally hand it to Madocq and he also gives her enough money to buy tickets tomorrow, and to stay in Greece for a while after she's done so she can have fun there. Nadia brings her friend Yabuki Kakeru, a Japanese student of philosophy and her tutor in Japanese, along, because she fears his life is in danger in Paris, as his arch-nemesis is in Paris. When they arrive in Athens, Nadia is surprised to learn Madocq is not there, but on Minotaur Island, a small private island off the coast of Crete. She's sent off to Crete ahead, while Kakeru has to make a phone call, and at Crete, she runs into another old friend: Constant, who disappeared a few years ago after getting too involved with the extreme left-wing student movement, but has now become a published philosopher. Nadia convices him to come along too, as Kakeru is not here now. When Nadia arrives at the village near Minotaur Island, she learns there are more people slated to go to Minotaur Island, including a doctor from Sweden and a few Americans, who are all invited by a "Laurence Bloom", even though the island is the property of one Paul Alexander, of the pharmaceutical company Biocross. On the day Nadia and the others are to arrive at the island however, a fellow guest of Nadia's hotel is found dead, having dropped off a cliff. The victim's name Dedalus reminds Nadia not only of Joyce's <i>Ulyesses</i>, but also the Deadalus myth (even though it's Icarus who fell), and it already gives her a bad feeling. Meanwhile, Kakeru has also caught up, but Kakeru told her to pretend to not know her, as for some reason, he's pretending to be the assistant of one of the other invited guests, a philosopher. When they arrive at the Deadalus House on Minotaur Island, they find a grand manor built in the style of a Minoan palace, with a big courtyard with ten bull statues. Nadia manages to hand the report to Madocq, who acts as the host as neither "Laurence Bloom" nor Alexander are present yet, but she quickly realizes the other guests have all been invited her for a secret reason, which nobody wants to tell her about. As the boat back to Crete won't go until the following day, she and Constant are offered to stay for the night too, but after dinner, one of the guests is found dead: the man seemingly fell of the balustrade on the third floor, falling <i>right on top of the horns of one of the bull statues below in the courtyard</i>. It could be an accident, they think, but when they discover one person on the island has taken off in the island's only boat and they learn the phone line's been cut, they suddenly realize this is really close to <i>And Then There Were None</i>. And indeed, one by one, people are killed on the island, but by whom and why? That is the question in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Kasai%20Kiyoshi%20%7C%20%E7%AC%A0%E4%BA%95%E6%BD%94">Kasai Kiyoshi</a>'s <i>Oedipus Shoukougun</i> ("<i>Oedipus Syndrome</i>", 2002) <p></p><p>It's been many years since I read <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2015/02/death-comes-as-end.html"><i>Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu</i></a> ("<i>A Locked Room for Philosophers</i>", 1992) by mystery author, critic and philosopher <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Kasai%20Kiyoshi%20%7C%20%E7%AC%A0%E4%BA%95%E6%BD%94">Kasai Kiyoshi</a>. That was the fourth book in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Yabuki%20Kakeru%20%7C%20%E7%9F%A2%E5%90%B9%E9%A7%86">the <i>Yabuki Kakeru</i> series</a>, starring Yabuki Kakeru, a Japanese student of philosophy who solves baffling crimes and mysteries through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_%28philosophy%29">phenomenology</a>, i.e. the analysis of structures of experience and conciousness and who because of that, usually doesn't start solving a case until the end because he needs to see the whole structure in order to analyse it. It was also the first time I read a fiction book by Kasai (I had read a few of his critical works on mystery fiction), so it took quite a while for me to get started on my second. Interesting to note it also took Kasai ten years to follow up on <i>Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu </i>with<i> Oedipus Shoukougun.</i> I didn't pick <i>Oedipus Shoukougun </i>because I wanted to read things in order or anything like that by the way (I still haven't read the first three books in this series). In fact, I wasn't even planning to read a <i>Yabuki Kakeru</i> novel in particular. I had been looking for Japanese mystery novels inspired by Greek mythology, so I ended up finding this one. Like the previous book though, <i>Oedipus Shoukougun</i> seems to be written really like the fifth installment of an on-going story, and especially in the opening chapters there are segments that are probably spoilers for earlier adventures. <br /></p><p>One thing to mention right away however is that 1) this book is long (more than 1000 pages), and that 2) Kasai likes to write about a lot of topics that are not directly related to the mystery plot. Depending on how much you can stand the latter, this can be a very interesting book, or an extremely long-winded one. I personally tend to fall in the latter category, and I certainly didn't enjoy the book as much as I perhaps could have, because there's just so much chatter about topics that didn't really interest me, but your mileage may vary there. In a way, it's very similar to the writing style <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Shimada%20Souji%20%7C%20%E5%B3%B6%E7%94%B0%E8%8D%98%E5%8F%B8">Shimada Souji</a> also has in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Mitarai%20Kiyoshi%20%7C%20%E5%BE%A1%E6%89%8B%E6%B4%97%E6%BD%94">his <i>Mitarai Kiyoshi</i> novels</a> after the first few ones or something like <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-crisscross-crime.html"><i>Alcatraz Gensou</i></a>, where he just starts writing about whatever topic that happens to be interesting him at the moment in a book, making them bloated works. In <i>Oedipus Shoukougun</i>, Kasai's pet peeve is of course philosophy, and characters will sometimes have extended discussions on philosophy. It's a topic that doesn't interest me personally, so I found these parts extremely tedious, but I guess some people will like it. Still, I think some of these discussions don't really make sense. There's a part where the closed circle situation on the island has been going on for a while, and they fear there's a murderer on the island. While some of them go search the house to see if it's safe inside, two others remain outside to wait for the clear sign. And what do these two do? They have a philosophical discussion. Topics range from sex to why a society condems murder, and there are also other discussions regarding the gay community and other topics, but I didn't really like the constant derailing that much, especially as they are only tangentially relevant to the core mystery plot (and certainly didn't need to take up such a large part of the narrative).</p><p>Because of the above, it also takes ages for the plot to finally move to Minotaur Island and to have the <i>And Then There Were None</i>-inspired plot to be set in motion (I have books that were shorter than the whole first section of <i>Oedipus Shoukougun</i>). Oh, for some reason this book also makes numerous references to how their situation resembles "a certain famous mystery author by a British novelist" and even spoils that book, but it never actually says the title. The same with the <i>Ulysses</i> references. Anyway, once it gets started, the plot becomes a bit smoother. After the first death, the caretaker disappears from the island with the boat... but is surprised by the storm raging outside, which overturns the boat. Which effectively traps everyone here on the island. But the following day, the murders continue, with more people being pushed down into the courtyard and other attacks being made on people. There's even a simple locked room mystery near the end, though that gets resolved pretty soon after it pops up. Overall though, the murders are fairly straightforward, and it's more a question of "Who could've committed these murders alibi-wise ?" For all the set-up regarding the Minosian palace, bull statues and other references to Greek mythology though, it's a bit disappointing these elements weren't played stronger, as the few links there are, are rather weak and not extremely important to the plot. </p><p>There are clever parts in the mystery plot but I think they kinda get buried by the amount of other things going and being told to the reader, and overall, I thought that as a closed circle murder mystery, <i>Oedipus Shoukougun</i> was just okay, with the potential for being a lot better had it been trimmed down and been focused more. A person obtaining a perfect alibi because of what he saw was done really well for example, and while not every part of the motive of the murderer worked for me, I think one part, the specific reason for why the closed circle was created, was an inspired move: it invokes a certain famous book perhaps, but here it is implemented in a far more natural way in-universe. Some of the clues pointing to the murderer were quite subtle too, allowing for Queen-like deductions, but I do think that due to few likeable characters and the constant derailing because Kasai wants to talk about something, the book overall feels tedious as a mystery novel, especially considering the enormous page count. If you just look at the mystery plot itself, it's a decently constructed story, with a few memorable moments, but it's not mind-blowing or anything.</p><p>For people who like their mystery novels to be a bit more pure literature-like though, I guess <i>Oedipus Shoukougun</i> might be interesting? It will certain tick those boxes better than a "straightforward" mystery novel. For me, this mode doesn't really work that well, and just looking at the core mystery plot, it's a good closed circle mystery with some genuinely good ideas, but in its current form, it just doesn't quite manage to capture me. So a book that will choose its readers, I think.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 笠井潔『オイディプス症候群』</span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-87806750258201836432024-01-31T00:00:00.003+01:002024-01-31T07:20:00.562+01:00Where's My Mummy?<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Everything lost is meant to be found."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life</i>" </span><br /></div><p>To be honest, I wasn't really that enthusiastic about writing last week's post, but as <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-mummy-case.html">it was about Egypt too</a>, I thought it'd show a nice contrast with this week's book. <br /></p><p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA5ltOOfDpoFnUC5NDF2bMr-bs82o6uynZN7r8NMaZ8S-znzY_acyKmtBptb4_VVbSZAwsTkke5qMywvX_x2zWuBi27djDp3OfdrRc3JfuMHQ1IK5u6-r8ZH21hBFGPDOiqxXhK6tfBLv67ag1Ieq-5LD_OJsIhhwBoMx-DKBvtNJamAejGqqihMtMNCc/s279/komori3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="200" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA5ltOOfDpoFnUC5NDF2bMr-bs82o6uynZN7r8NMaZ8S-znzY_acyKmtBptb4_VVbSZAwsTkke5qMywvX_x2zWuBi27djDp3OfdrRc3JfuMHQ1IK5u6-r8ZH21hBFGPDOiqxXhK6tfBLv67ag1Ieq-5LD_OJsIhhwBoMx-DKBvtNJamAejGqqihMtMNCc/s1600/komori3.jpg" width="200" /></a></i></div><i>Nnwenre no Serdab</i> ("<i>The Sealed Chamber of Nnwenre</i>", 1996) is the third novel written by <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Komori%20Kentarou%20%7C%20%E5%B0%8F%E6%A3%AE%E5%81%A5%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E">Komori Kentarou</a>, and deals with an international excavation project in Egypt, in a newly uncovered part of the Valley of Kings with many intact ruins. Because of the scale of the project, several countries are involved with the excavation, with the part handled by Japan being coordinated by Takaoka University and Professor Ashizawa, the leading Japanese authority. Shingou Toshiyuki is a writer for a magazine sent to Egypt to do a reportage on the excavation and on the plane from Cairo to Luxor, he recognizes a familiar face: Miyaji Reika was a college classmate, but now she's working at Jouhou University as an assistant. Jouhou University is a smaller university assisting Takaoka University's excavation project, though Reika's boss Professor Urushibara has a personal rivalry with Professor Ashizawa and keeps complaining anything they'll learn and uncover, will just be attributed to Ashizawa. Due to Jouhou University's small size, their expedition is also sponsored by a publisher: their star mangaka Azusa Miki is going to write a manga with ancient Egypt as its theme, so they were willing to fund Jouhou University's expedition if Azusa Miki could come along. It turns out Azusa Miki is in fact Mikiko, Shingou's college girlfriend, who took their break-up really hard. Mikiko is also joined by her young sister, personal assistant and editor. <p></p><p>The focal point of the international project is a recently uncovered list of pharaohs, which adds two new unknown pharaohs at the end of the 17th dynasty. Due to politics, short periods of reigns and human error, pharaohs were occassionally omitted or forgotten in later lists, so the discovery of the existence of new pharaohs is of course stunning. Each international team is assigned a location to dig. As the Japanese expedition is led by Takaoka University, they of course get assigned the largest and most promising part of the Japanese allocated spot, while Jouhou University's spot is rather modest. However, when they move an obelisk, they discover the entrance into the tomb of Nekhwenre, the last pharaoh of the seventeenth dynasty on the recently uncovered list, and thus a completely unknown pharaoh. The entrance of the tomb seems completely intact, meaning no grave robbers have been here yet in the many millennia that have passed. However, because Professor Ashizawa is in Luxor, they are not allowed to enter the tomb just yet, to the frustration of Professor Urushibara. That day however, Mikiko's young sister goes missing, and they find her shoe in the tomb entrance. It appears that while playing hide-and-seek, she had gone inside the tomb. The observer of the Egyptian government allows a small group, including Reika, Shingou, and other members of their party, to enter the tomb to look for girl, while the observer himself too joins the search. Inside they come across a completely untouched tomb, which excites the archeologists, but there's no sign of the girl. In the deepest part of the tomb, they find a sarcophagus with a mummy inside it... and a sword stuck through the torso. The mummy is actually a natural mummy, and not a mummy that had actually undergone any treatment, meaning the victim here was stabbed and left to die here in the sarcophagus, and he became a natural mummy. They find scrolls of papyrus, which Professor Urushibara translates: it turns out that pharaoh Nekhwenre was fearing a plot by an enemy, and had originally only pretended to be dead, hiding inside the tomb which was already in construction during his lifetime. But while he writes nobody is inside the tomb, he still greatly fears for his life, and eventually, even states he's about to be killed and he's only allowed to write this one final scroll of papyrus before his death. But how did the killer get inside the sealed tomb, even though Nekhwenre says nobody was there? Meanwhile, the group spreads out in the tomb in search for the girl, but they get killed in strange manners one by one...</p><p>If you're wondering why the title says "Nnwenre" and I'm talking about pharaoh "Nekhwenre", that's not a mistake. I was really confused throughout the book too. It gets explained eventually!</p><p>I first learned about this book via last year's <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-bloodstained-book.html">Misshitsu Mystery Guide</a></i>, which offered an extensive overview of the development of the locked room mystery by discussing
fifty titles in total: 30 Japanese stories and 20 foreign ones. In that book, author Iiki discussed the variety of the locked room mystery, by also including sections that spoiled the books selected and explaining how they add to the diversity within the locked room mystery, and as I found a lot of the picks in the book interesting, I decided to read <i>Nnwenre no Serdab</i> too, as it was one of the few Japanese picks I hadn't read yet.</p><p>It's in that context I found <i>Nnwenre no Serdab </i>an interesting read, though it's by no means an even experience, and of the (few) Komori books I have read, I'd say it's also the most uneven. It starts out interesting enough, with the arrival of the Jouhou University party (and Shingou) at Luxor, as they prepare for their part of the excavation, and Shingou also meeting with Mikiko again, who clearly never really got over her break-up with Shingou in university. We get introduced to these relationships before Mikiko's sister goes missing and they try to enter the tomb (with a not so very funny running joke of Shingou constantly bribing the observer of the Egyptian government to allow him to take pictures of the tomb). Once they stumble upon the sarcophagus, the party starts to split up in search of the missing girl, when one by one, they get killed off, even though there shouldn't be anyone besides them in the tomb, the same way pharaoh Nekhwenre wrote he feared for his life and that he was about to die, even the tomb was supposed to be his safe place.</p><p>The big gripe I have with the book is that the modern-day killings are not interesting at all. Yes, they all get picked off one by one in the tomb (which is <i>surprisingly</i> large for an underground complex built millennia ago, especially if you compare it to the sizes of hallways etc in the pyramids), but the murders aren't really interesting. While the book tries to pass them off as interesting mysteries and also tries to give them an air of impossibility, it becomes clear rather soon why they are getting killed one by one, and it's hard to imagine how the survivors wouldn''t have noticed who was behind this after the first death, let alone have them all fall for what is basically the same idea over and over again. The human relationships portrayed in the first half of the book are also barely relevant for the modern day killings, making these deaths feel very empty and void of meaning. </p><p>Fortunately, <i>Misshitsu Mystery Guide</i> didn't include <i>Nnwenre no Serdab</i> based on those modern-day deaths. The murder it focuses on, is of course the historical murder: they found the mummy of pharaoh Nekhwenre with a sword in his chest, meaning he was clearly murdered, but Nekhwenre had been faking his own death, and been hiding in his own tomb for the purpose of fooling his enemies. The papyrus scrolls they translated tell them that Nekhwenre was certain nobody was there in the tomb, yet he feared for his life, and in his final one, he even declares he's only allowed to write a last message before he's about to die. Yet when the party enters the tomb, they find clear signs they are the first people to ever enter the tomb after it was sealed. Considering Nekhwenre's own testimony, they just can't figure out how he could've ended up dead, if he had been alone in the tomb and nobody ever broke the seals on the tomb. The solution to this millennia-old locked room mystery is both very simple and clever, but it's really a trick you can only pull off once in your career, and even then, not everybody will be able to pull it off convincingly. I think it works really well here, with some clever foreshadowing, and it's the kind of trick behind a locked room mystery I honestly have seldom seen before, maybe because it is honestly so simple. I have read many locked room mysteries, but I myself at least hadn't come across one before relying on same principle, and I can see why Iiki decided to add it to his overview of the sub-genre, because this book does show off a kind of trick seldom seen. Again, it's very specific variation that is difficult to see implemented elsewhere without feeling like a knockoff, but it's integrated <i>very</i> well with this book's plot, with a very clever set-up that makes the simple solution feel fair, and not cheap. <br /></p><p>Oh, and while this was the first book by Komori published by Kodansha, he snuck in a few small references to his previous two books (from a different publisher), with Azusa Miki also working on a manga adaptation of <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2012/05/adventure-of-comic-book-crusader.html">Lowell Jou no Misshitsu</a></i>, written by Takasawa Noriko (who also appears in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-case-of-creative-crime.html"><i>Comiket Satsujin Jiken</i></a>).</p><p><i>Nnwenre no Serdab</i> is certainly not an overall masterpiece of the locked room mystery, and a lot of the book feels almost redundant because how simple and meaningless the modern-day murders are, but the historical murder is certainly interesting, hinging on something on a principle/concept that is not very often used in mystery fiction. It is at the core very simple, but the idea is used really well in this book, with a great set-up to spring the solution on the reader. Not really a book that should go straight to the top of your priority list, but definitely one to keep in mind and try if you're in the mood for something short and interesting.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 小森健太郎『ネヌウェンラーの密室』</span> </div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-5971558446347024452024-01-28T00:00:00.001+01:002024-01-28T00:00:00.527+01:00London Particular<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mary, Mary, quite contrary, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">How does your garden grow?</span><br /></div><p></p><p></p><p>First game review of the year... I wish it wasn't this game though... <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj86AtiIlzqI2GFzd5P1-KELU7IDu3gfSwMcmwpyuuzFGX-U4tUek1AkJlu7W5H8BQ41jYOO_tNLf9ZM1bRFGxRAy8kmOmQ8zejrK5AhQHqkrcFz9YMj8DxcjHE260dEnWmJvv0op94ieqw3IM6vwL3q9DIQ3SNnnmgS04bzQ77QVekrzOPkd9049jj8kU/s267/londoncase1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="200" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj86AtiIlzqI2GFzd5P1-KELU7IDu3gfSwMcmwpyuuzFGX-U4tUek1AkJlu7W5H8BQ41jYOO_tNLf9ZM1bRFGxRAy8kmOmQ8zejrK5AhQHqkrcFz9YMj8DxcjHE260dEnWmJvv0op94ieqw3IM6vwL3q9DIQ3SNnnmgS04bzQ77QVekrzOPkd9049jj8kU/s1600/londoncase1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Belgian police officer <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Hercule%20Poirot">Hercule Poirot</a> is sent on a mission to London to accompany a valuable painting of Mary Magdalene on its way to a London museum where an exhibit on religious art will be held, with the Mary being the big star. He has to work with Arthur Hastings, a young insurance agent of Lloyd's who is tasked with the same mission, and after meeting each other on the ship to London, they safely deliver the Mary at the museum, in time for the grand opening of the exhibition. During the preview gala however, which has some prominent guests like politicians, theatre stars and big high society names, the Mary is discovered to have been purloined, even though it was kept in a special exhibition room which was kept locked by the curator. Hercule Poirot knows he's merely a guest in London, but can't let this crime go unsolved as a matter of honor and assisted by Hastings, he starts an investigation into the painting's theft in the 2023 video game <i>Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case</i>, available on PC/PS4/PS5/XBox One/Switch.<p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As the title suggests, this game is a follow-up on 2021's <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-baited-trap.html">Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases</a></i>, a game I experienced as a flawed one. The game built on developer Blazing Griffin's <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/09/homicide-trinity.html"><i>Murder Mystery Machine</i></a>, featuring gameplay where you gather clues and had to connect said clues to create mindmaps: visualizing the deduction process by having the player manually connect hint a + hint b to arrive at conclusion C. As a mystery game, it was pretty fun, but it was <i>not really a Hercule Poirot game despite Poirot being in the title and this being a licensed game</i>. As the title suggested, it was a prequel, portraying a younger Hercule Poirot when he was still with the Belgian police, but besides a <i>completely wrong time setting</i> (which I can still ignore), the character portrayed as Poirot was... hardly portrayed as Poirot, with few of his characteristic personality traits being mirrored in this younger version, save for some "grey cells" references. His mind for order, neatness and symmetry, references to interests like travelling, the way he speaks to women, his mastery(?) of English, none of these traits were visible in the Poirot in <i>The First Cases</i>, and I was left with a game that just felt really weird. It was with such an ambigious feeling I started with the sequel.</p><p>And unfortunately, <i>Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case</i> turns out to be inferior to its predecessor in all aspects.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIcmmjfVl5L9ajvkr6zn38EJlp4L2ZenwQyEvXj9o-Q0oiqsERAETk7vgRnYcFwe4NunKOvQOYqNvqdk_MrCq6jvUhfeM3vyd_y6FkDM0x9-tqkuO3npLPREdOMk3cfrijtavFKiubcQumRM50n84a3qDUBL3YsS5uFgTuAmh4K3W76OJdqvFm8G7lEUA/s400/londoncase2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIcmmjfVl5L9ajvkr6zn38EJlp4L2ZenwQyEvXj9o-Q0oiqsERAETk7vgRnYcFwe4NunKOvQOYqNvqdk_MrCq6jvUhfeM3vyd_y6FkDM0x9-tqkuO3npLPREdOMk3cfrijtavFKiubcQumRM50n84a3qDUBL3YsS5uFgTuAmh4K3W76OJdqvFm8G7lEUA/s16000/londoncase2.jpg" /></a></div><p>The Hercule Poirot characterization is still weird, though I had expected that already. Of course, the timeline doesn't make any sense anyway if you go by the books, as the time period is a bit weird considering Poirot should probably much older, and at the very least, in the books he's about twice as old as Hastings which he certainly isn't in this game, so add to that the fact the Poirot in this game <i>still</i> feels far too removed from the actual character, and you still wonder why this is a licensed product. I mean, I get it, <i>Agatha Christie</i> in the title will sell much better, but save for the name, the story and characters really have nothing to do with the actual <i>Poirot </i>series... </p><p>At this point, <i>The London Case</i> isn't surprisingly better or worse than the first game, but sadly enough, as a mystery game, <i>The London Case </i>is also not nearly as engaging as <i>The First Cases</i>. On the surface, the game looks similar: you control a young Poirot as you question the various suspects and
look for evidence in various locations ranging from a museum,to a church and backstage at a theater, locations which are
presented with an isometric point of view. The clues you gather are automatically stored in Poirot's mind as part of various mind maps pertaining certain themes ("the stolen Mary" "why is X behaving like that"). By connecting certain relevant facts in this mind maps,
you're able to generate new insights or questions to ask your suspects, allowing you to progress in the game. Up to this point, <i>The London Case</i> isn't much different from the first game. But the critical issue is that <i>The London Case</i> is <i>infinitely</i> simpler than the first game, to a degree that it's just not enjoyable anymore. While <i>The First Cases</i> also simplified the gameplay of <i>Murder Mystery Machine</i>, I felt that was like nicely cleaning the user interface, but in <i>The London Case</i>, the deductions you're supposed to make are so simple and each map is so limited, you don't really feel the thrill of completing a deduction. There's never an "Aha!" moment when you make a connection, and many of the conclusion you make are often logically barely a step further than the initial hints you started out with. So the mind maps don't feel satisfying anymore to complete, and they were what made these games unique as a mystery games!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRINhNDWElRy7BeAo3Gqux4RWdllsVFNIl2qgEhUdX9O4d_f-QXVFrSBokhV_KytYSKWQM-upP_O2nWxqvCyIasZG7yqJGXu0TrY7xHrkbsaz3G4eEDnN3-tVTcx0dMxIwk43ui4xxFw5_J4Ba74GANFpziCzlDbzXicHZ6InZEqinvMHYwzPO0D1RHj0/s400/londoncase4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRINhNDWElRy7BeAo3Gqux4RWdllsVFNIl2qgEhUdX9O4d_f-QXVFrSBokhV_KytYSKWQM-upP_O2nWxqvCyIasZG7yqJGXu0TrY7xHrkbsaz3G4eEDnN3-tVTcx0dMxIwk43ui4xxFw5_J4Ba74GANFpziCzlDbzXicHZ6InZEqinvMHYwzPO0D1RHj0/s16000/londoncase4.jpg" /></a></div><br />After a short prologue and the opening gala at the museum, the game world opens up as you interrogate everyone who had been at the gala, figuring out their alibis for the theft and trying to find hidden connections between everyone, but the mid-section of the game is surprisingly... dull, with a lot of walking to and from a limited amount of locations and even some fetch quests, which combined with the lower difficulty really make this game feel less detective work-focused compared to <i>The First Cases</i>. It doesn't help that the game's strength certainly doesn't lie in its story <i>presentation</i>, with sometimes awkward cut scenes where you always have the feeling like a few lines of dialogue are missing to convey things better.<p></p><p>I played this game on the Switch, and unfortunately, it runs <i>really</i> badly on the Switch for some reason. It's graphically certainly not impressive, but for some reason the loading times on the Switch are <i>horrible</i>, and that certainly didn't help the experience of the middle part of the game, as you constantly have to wait for the game to load each time you go from one location to another. For example: to visit the museum's curator's room, you first need to enter the museum hall (location 1), then move to a different gallery (location 2) and from there enter the curator's room (location 3), but when you want to leave, you have go back the same way, and each time the game takes ages to load each seperate location! And when you have fetch quests where you have to pick up something at location A (which might actually consists of 3 locations) and then go location B (which might be 2 locations) and then go back to A.... the game just isn't much fun to play at a technical level either, and even outside of the awful loading times, the game doesn't run really smoothly.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO8pkDJww9UGEcPKIEirOG6gJYE2cC29GoInJo_9h7szxa6fAtWy_yEpK_sa6MJpuaySCgDn_WdAUZThZD-LjJq0mBEKVUBoY2kKjwU8RPSFiUmig-k80oqIxGi4xDdDjB__ILhnWlwxYEm7MWaPW-_PEZU8n0KgZiiSfDPLLoE47kE1-DF9mhjUnf2lg/s400/londoncase3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO8pkDJww9UGEcPKIEirOG6gJYE2cC29GoInJo_9h7szxa6fAtWy_yEpK_sa6MJpuaySCgDn_WdAUZThZD-LjJq0mBEKVUBoY2kKjwU8RPSFiUmig-k80oqIxGi4xDdDjB__ILhnWlwxYEm7MWaPW-_PEZU8n0KgZiiSfDPLLoE47kE1-DF9mhjUnf2lg/s16000/londoncase3.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>It's only now I even remember to write something about the story, because there was enough to complain about besides the story. As a Hercule Poirot licensed game, the consumer of course hopes to experience a tale that feels like one of the Belgian sleuth's adventures one way or another. And I guess the cast of characters feel like a <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Agatha%20Christie">Christie</a> story, with many people in the upper parts of society and I can see a museum theft as a Poirot (short) story too, as well as some of the other developments later on, but it does miss a classic Christie twist that feels brilliant, while at the same time remaining simple. Some small thing that forces you to look at things at a different angle, but which explains everything. <i>The London Case</i> doesn't have that: it's a mystery story that at times incorporates tropes we see in Christie's work, and while I wouldn't call the story memorable, it's a tale that <i>theoretically</i> could fit perfectly with the mind map gameplay, but it's just presented in a far too simple manner in term of gameplay, while the presentation is so wonky at times you feel you're missing one or two scenes.</p><p>I did like the original <i>The First Cases</i> despite it not being all it could've been, so I had hoped the sequel would improve on that game, but <i>Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case</i> somehow manages to be worse in every aspect. Whereas I could recommend the first game, I would recommend you to stay away from this game unless you <i>really</i> want to play a video game with Poirot in its title, because as a mystery game, this game has barely anything satisfying to offer to the player.</p>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-18203444172226473522024-01-24T00:00:00.006+01:002024-01-24T00:00:00.135+01:00The Mummy Case<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Take the Pyramids. Great blocks of useless masonry, put up to minister to the egoism of a despotic bloated king. Think of the sweated masses who toiled to build them and died doing it. It makes me sick to think of the suffering and torture they represent."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Death on the Nile</i>"</span><br /></div><p>I do hate writing reviews of books I feel so indifferent about...<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkj7420NGME8vtzjaVzeiE-Z0cXRK_6HkyEtx0DPduSOOjTVOsv3IvWaeE5CoQyPbMFlVgq5Q3JQGRNM6caBAE5u2VL2yH9Xhkmgp8Yep_mT6ozw45wr22GkMfX4WGNoaIcxMlzADdoX1zubUFx-gR7-NxR8gZmQxs-TtcVZun0u6S_5qr4PcJFI7d25E/s289/egypthitsugi1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="200" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkj7420NGME8vtzjaVzeiE-Z0cXRK_6HkyEtx0DPduSOOjTVOsv3IvWaeE5CoQyPbMFlVgq5Q3JQGRNM6caBAE5u2VL2yH9Xhkmgp8Yep_mT6ozw45wr22GkMfX4WGNoaIcxMlzADdoX1zubUFx-gR7-NxR8gZmQxs-TtcVZun0u6S_5qr4PcJFI7d25E/s1600/egypthitsugi1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Asako's father works for the Japanese embassy in Cairo and one day, she visits her father in Egypt. She's picked up by him and first visit a museum, when sudden business pops up and Asako's father says he has to leave her for a bit. He arranges for the wife of a colleague to show Asako around town and promises he'll back in the evening. That night however, Asako is informed her father died in a traffic accident. However, the doctor says his last words were "Canopic jar", one of the objects they had been admiring in the museum. Two years after her father's death, Asako has started working as a teacher at a middle school. During a school trip to Tokyo, one of her students is found dead, seemingly having committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the hotel. However, a classmate tells Asako he had been talking with the victim before her death and she had been talking about Egypt. This reminds Asako that the victim had actually made her own canopic jar during art class. The canopic jar also reminds Asako of the theft of a canopic jar two years earlier, soon after she had returned from Egypt. A special exhibition on ancient Egypt had been held at a museum in Kyoto, and she had visited the exhibition, because her father had been working on the project before he died. However, during the exhibition, someone stole the canopic jar on display and swapped it for an imitation. The man was caught red-handed, but committed suicide by taking a poison pill, and for some reason, the real canopic jar had already been smuggled away out of the museum. When even more murders occur among students, Asako starts to suspect all of this is connected and together with the brother of one of the deceased students, she tries to figure out how her father's death was related to all of this in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Yamamura%20Misa%20%7C%20%E5%B1%B1%E6%9D%91%E7%BE%8E%E6%B2%99">Yamamura Misa</a>'s 1980 novel<i> Egypt Joou no Hitsugi</i> ("<i>The Tomb of the Egyptian Queen</i>").<p></p><p><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Yamamura%20Misa%20%7C%20%E5%B1%B1%E6%9D%91%E7%BE%8E%E6%B2%99">Yamamura Misa</a> was an extremely prolific mystery writer, whose main themes were women protagonists and Kyoto (and Japanese culture). A lot of her work served as basis for adaptations on television, making her name synonymous for the two-hour suspense drama television special set in Kyoto or perhaps some other touristic destination featuring a
dramatic finale with the detective confronting the murderer at a
cliffside looking down at the sea. The works I have read of her tend to be on the lighter side, often featuring barely a mystery, though some books like <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2020/07/said-with-flowers.html">Hana no Hitsugi</a>, </i>were more like the reasonably solid puzzle-focused books I generally read. I don't really remember why I picked up <i>Joou no Hitsugi</i> specifically, I think I saw it mentioned somewhere as being one of Yamamura's more puzzle-focused books and that it featured a locked room mystery.<br /></p><p>It wasn't really that puzzle-focused, I soon discovered.</p><p>The book was focused on deaths though! It's like every two chapters someone dies off page. This is definitely one of those books that were written more like a suspenseful thriller, with a beautiful woman thrust into an unknown adventure and plot twists every few pages. Asako's father dies in the first few pages of the book, and after that, you learn about the museum theft (also ending in death), the (first) student dies after what is basically the prologue and this is just the beginning, as a lot more murders occur. Yamamura Misa writes pretty cozy mysteries, but she sure doesn't hold back when it comes to killing off characters! Of course Asako soon realizes all these deaths are <i>somehow</i> connected to her father's death, Egypt and the Egyptian exhibition two years ago when the canopian jar was stolen, but in what way?</p><p>After a while, I did realize <i>Egypt Joou no Hitsugi</i> was not going to be the kind of puzzle-focused mystery I hoped it would be, so I then decided I'd just go along for the ride. Which was a pretty <i>crazy</i> ride. The story starts in Egypt, but then narrative then returns to Japan, so I thought the story would remain a bit "smaller" in scale, but that was foolish of me: the story encompasses a lot of elements and even takes on the form of an international conspiracy after a while with huge political implications. A lot of that just barely stays connected via coincidences, so it's not really satisfying to read as a properly clewed detective, and the only fun you'll have with this book if you just accept it's a very over-the-top suspense crime novel. Perhaps I shouldn't say strangely enough, but there were parts of this conspiracy plot I did like, like the idea behind what the criminals were, in the end, actually trying to do (even if the execution was rather unwieldy).</p><p>There's a locked room murder half way through the story, set in the broadcasting room of Asako's school. The trick however is <i>very</i> simple and basically a variant on ideas you'll have seen elsewhere. At least the one in <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2020/07/said-with-flowers.html">Hana no Hitsugi</a> </i>felt unique because it was based on Japanese culture so much (in a seperate complex in the garden for tea ceremonies), but this one here felt like on that was just added to fulfill a quotum. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrhd7cGSvMNrSpT-jRpp6YNKtTAHDLK0ucI8LJeRVmaJmt8BzYg3OPubf0PWEsxB-_2vCMdSBXyOe8MIkfmaT_ztcgv73gOyULEWaVwnvU9Oa5U8lXj0Y5Gs5D_1elpZkvXhYCmZVQ4zCrCol73ZCJhU8FG6avTNhPmleNTmfT7oxD4pME6jVLjbp3UeY/s398/egypthitsugi2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="264" data-original-width="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrhd7cGSvMNrSpT-jRpp6YNKtTAHDLK0ucI8LJeRVmaJmt8BzYg3OPubf0PWEsxB-_2vCMdSBXyOe8MIkfmaT_ztcgv73gOyULEWaVwnvU9Oa5U8lXj0Y5Gs5D_1elpZkvXhYCmZVQ4zCrCol73ZCJhU8FG6avTNhPmleNTmfT7oxD4pME6jVLjbp3UeY/s16000/egypthitsugi2.jpg" /></a></div><br />Interestingly enough, this book was also adapted for television, featuring a different detective. While the series is called <i>Meitantei Catherine</i>, the protagonist is not Yamamura's series protagonist <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Catherine%20Turner%20%7C%20%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A3%E3%82%B5%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8A%E3%83%BC">Catherine Turner</a>, the daughter of the former vice-president of the USA who became a freelance photographer in Japan. Because they probably wanted a Japanese actress to star in the show, adaptations of Catherine novels have often featured a new character whose nickname is Catherine: Kiasa Rinko (Kiasarinko -> Catharine). So in this 1999 adaption, it was Catherine who got involved in this case, though I have no idea how faithful the adaptation is (I definitely suspect some aspects of the story were changed or cut completely as Japanese television drama series tend to shy away from such themes...).<p></p><p>Anyway, <i>Egypt Joou no Hitsugi</i> was definitely not the story I really wanted to read. At the same time, I understand that this probably wasn't a book that was intended to be the kind of story I wanted to read. I know Yamamura Misa has written more puzzle-focused books, but as she has written <i>so much</i> and so many of them <i>do feel</i> like paint-by-number mysteries, it's hard to find the gems among her enormous bibliography list. If anyone has recommendations, I'd be glad to hear about them!</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 山村美紗『女王の棺』</span> <br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-11880268017983875722024-01-17T00:00:00.009+01:002024-01-17T00:00:00.148+01:00The Witch Tree Symbol<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>Deep into that darkness peering</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>"<i>The Raven</i>"<i> </i></span></span> <br /></div><p>Yes, this is an <i>awesome</i> cover. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrghjKHCO2haliro39kXCQtf3UWxIBmlvwqAUPHWUyEtitSRfhzHKjSFaGnlWAWI7_RJyvWvGUk_s06GCpw1wFr8aitaLDXVwLvv0F2smJ9xD0KHP_9-4AVst1s15iv-vrc66Uw4WjuKqMLM838Z4dZyevi__kQ9sfD-UXbYU8k8gvcPgPNqtmy9HUl8/s280/kurayamizaka.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="200" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrghjKHCO2haliro39kXCQtf3UWxIBmlvwqAUPHWUyEtitSRfhzHKjSFaGnlWAWI7_RJyvWvGUk_s06GCpw1wFr8aitaLDXVwLvv0F2smJ9xD0KHP_9-4AVst1s15iv-vrc66Uw4WjuKqMLM838Z4dZyevi__kQ9sfD-UXbYU8k8gvcPgPNqtmy9HUl8/s1600/kurayamizaka.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Since Ishioka started writing down his adventures with his roommate <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Mitarai%20Kiyoshi%20%7C%20%E5%BE%A1%E6%89%8B%E6%B4%97%E6%BD%94">Mitarai Kiyoshi</a>, he's been making a name for himself as a mystery author, and it's through one of his fans he becomes involved with the mysterious death of Fujinami Surugu. The man was found dead the day after a storm <i>on the roof of his parental home</i>. There were no distinct clues indicating a murder, but why was he found on the roof? Suguru and his wife were living near Suguru's parental home, on the same block, in an apartment building owned by his mother Yachiyo. These buildings stand on Darkness Hill somewhere in Yokohama. In the Edo period, men were being decapitated here and it is said the gigantic true on the block of the Fujinami buildings grew that large because of the blood of the punished. Several decades ago, Yachiyo was married with the British man James Payne, who ran a school here. He was the father of three children, Suguru, Yuzuru and Reona, but when most of them had grown up, he just disappeared to return to Great Britain, leaving his family behind. Since then, Yachiyo and her children have remained here, but now her oldest son has died, and it's certainly not the first tragedy to happen on this block. The gigantic tree standing in front of the house is not only rumored to drink blood, but in the past, dead bodies have in fact been found hanging from the tree, and nobody ever figured out how those bodies ended up there. Mitarai Kiyoshi of course suspects there's more to this than just a cursed tree, so he and Ishioka investigate the case in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Shimada%20Souji%20%7C%20%E5%B3%B6%E7%94%B0%E8%8D%98%E5%8F%B8">Shimada Souji's</a> 1990 novel <i>Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki</i> ("<i>The Man-Eating Tree of Darkness Hill</i>").<p></p><p>Shimada made his debut in 1981 with <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-post_30.html"><i>Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken</i> (AKA <i>The Tokyo Zodiac Murders</i>)</a>, which also introduced the world to his astrologist-turned-detective Mitarai Kiyoshi and his chronicler Ishioka. <i>Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki</i> is the fourth novel in the series following <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2010/12/des-pas-sur-la-neige.html"><i>Naname Yashiki no Hanzai</i> (AKA <i>Murder in the Crooked House</i>)</a> and <i><a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/2014/02/confused-memories.html">Ihou no Kishi</a>. </i>This novel also marked a shift in tone, though the previous one already started that, though less ambitious. <i>Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki</i> shares a lot with the novels that followed it: like books like <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-fourth-side-of-triangle.html">Suishou no Pyramid</a></i>, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-last-vampyre.html"><i>Atopos</i></a> and <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2013/01/fragments-of-memories.html"><i>Nejishiki Zazetsuki</i></a>, this book is quite long (a so-called brick book) and it features Mitarai involved in a bigger adventure, even going abroad for some time to do some extra investigation. Also, these books take on a a different storytelling style, incorporating more themes like horror, and narratives-within-narratives where Shimada delves into topics that happen to be interesting him at the time of writing. These books are quite different from the two <i>Mitarai Kiyoshi</i> novels currently available in English, but are actually more "typical" of the series than those two, as Shimada stuck to this mode for much longer.</p><p>Because I don't really read these books in order, I already knew Shimada would eventually shift to this style, and in a way, <i>Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki </i>is very predictable because of that. Structure-wise, it is quite familiar in the sense I knew we'd be sidetracking <i>a lot</i> while Mitarai and Ishioka are investigating the death of Suguru on the roof. Initially, the mystery revolves around how Suguru ended up on the roof in the first place, whether it was by his own choice or whether someone else arranged for that. Strangely enough, the reason why the two got involved in this case is quickly forgotten and ignored, but as they investigate the case, the reader is also taken along a trip in history, as Mitarai starts to develop an interest in the history of the school that used to stand at this place, and in the family history of the Fujinamis and their father James Payne. In the meanwhile, more mysterious deaths occur, which are clearly centred around the ominous tree standing near the Fujinami parental house and people start to fear it's really a curse that's doing all of this. </p><p>Personally, I am not really a fan of the slower pace of the Shimada bricks, where Mitarai obviously has some idea of what is going on already, but he wants to delve deeper in the topic, and thus we get narratives-within-narratives detailing creepy histories or other stories. Some might appreciate the creepy atmosphere of the novel, and especially of the tree, better than I did, but I found the story to be slower than it needed to be, which after a while starts to become tiring. Ultimately, there are few "clear" mysteries that occur (like a death) even though this is a long book, and I didn't think the vague "but something feels off..." atmosphere the book was going for was strong enough to keep the plot engaging enough for the page count.</p><p>It didn't help my reading experience that even though there are few 'clear/focal' mysteries in the story, the solution to the mysterious deaths isn't... really surprising. Most of them can be seen as a variant on ideas Shimada uses quite often in his work, and therefore can be easily guessed if you have read a few works by him. This book was hardly surprising seen in a Shimada context in that regard. Of course, I don't read his work in order, so that may have "reverse-spoiled" me, but even so, I do feel the solution to the mysteries is a bit weak considering the length of the book, I would have wanted something a bit more intricately planned. While I guess there's also the bigger mystery of how all the incidents are connected to each other, including those that happened in the past like the dead girl found in the tree long ago and even smaller incidents that happened at the school decades ago, I felt that the merits of this narrative were more in its horror-esque implications, rather than as a detective story. Again, I know that is what Shimada was moving towards starting with this book, but his mode of trying to tie <i>a lot </i>of incidents taken place across a long period of time often ends up feeling rather forced and reliant on coincidences, and while the story can feel quite tenseful, it sometimes has trouble feeling like a proper logical puzzle, being more focused on the "feeling" of the mystery rather than the explanation.<br /></p><p>There is a short part that is set abroad, which has its own mini puzzle revolving an odd building: I liked the idea behind that mystery, but it felt really detached from the rest of the book, and I would have perhaps liked it better if it had been its own story, instead of a kind of narrative-within-a-narrative.</p><p><i>Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki</i> was thus not really my favorite Mitarai novel. I do think there will be readers who can appreciate this book better than I, as there are distinct horror elements to the story that will perhaps appeal better to others than to me, and when seen as a series work, this book is also important as it marked the shift to a different story style <i>and</i> it also introduces a certain recurring character who you'll often in other books, so some might want to read this in order exactly so they don't get spoiled on who will survive this book to return in subsequent works, but I personally wasn't too big a fan of this one.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『暗闇坂の人喰いの木』</span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-19196844577918116852024-01-10T00:00:00.017+01:002024-01-10T00:00:00.198+01:00 Requiem of the Golden Witch<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>The Black Cat</i>" </span><br /></div><p>FOMO, FOMO...<br /></p><p>After losing his parents in an accident, 13-year old Takuma moves to his mother's home town. She was the oldest daughter of the Daimon family, one of the influentual families in the small, isolated community, but she kept mostly away from her family, and Takuma himself had never visited the family on his mother's side. But now his parents are dead, he's been taken in by his youngest aunt Rei and his grandmother Matsu: Takuma's grandfather Taizou passed away some months ago, and because Takuma's two middle aunts Noriko and Yuuri are married into other families, taking the names of their husbands, the Daimon clan is on the verge of extinction. By having Rei, who had been married previously but is now divorced, adopt her nephew Takuma as her own son, Matsu hopes the Daimon family will continue through Takuma as the last male successor of the bloodline. Takuma, who had always lived in Tokyo, finds his new home extremely hard to adapt to. The town is an eerily closed community, perhaps best symbolized by the fact the local justice authority isn't actually a police officer: the "patrol officer" is a <i>private</i> person (Takuma's uncle), who acts as the local troubleshooter. While the 'patrol officer' will call for the <i>real</i> police if necessary, many smaller problems are handled by himself, and he can even sweep minor deaths under the rug if wished by the persons involved agree they prefer that over contacting the proper authorities. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fSpiCFvXUis5_0GtxR8s_PqZTuWXr06f4B4sk4NrT2p1JI-OBBkMoB1cIIH33us_LiJjQ8uJIulikUI7qIXqrKNtGIphq7RxLrYz-SGb91L3o9ewUOUjwVDFnqqBxYyFGVJiJpfZT5KwIIK7VqJHf2y272hhXR7w0kLVV5uccfmQawsJC3BvN5H3mJQ/s291/datenshi.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="200" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fSpiCFvXUis5_0GtxR8s_PqZTuWXr06f4B4sk4NrT2p1JI-OBBkMoB1cIIH33us_LiJjQ8uJIulikUI7qIXqrKNtGIphq7RxLrYz-SGb91L3o9ewUOUjwVDFnqqBxYyFGVJiJpfZT5KwIIK7VqJHf2y272hhXR7w0kLVV5uccfmQawsJC3BvN5H3mJQ/s1600/datenshi.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>While Takuma has found a few friends, and even love interests, by entering the school's Occult Club, he also has made enemies, for no other reason than being Daimon Taizou's grandson. He is in particular being harrassed by the mayor's son and his goonies, who accuse him of being possessed by a devil: apparently, Taizou had been experimenting with summoning devils before his mysterious death. Taizou had been running for mayor too, and rumors say he summoned a devil to kill the mayor's wife and two daughters, who had been walking out on a snowy day, on a path flanked on both sides by a wall of snow. Another person was walking the same way, and saw the three turn a corner, but when this witness did the same, he found the three women <i>decapitated</i>, but with no sign of the murderer nearby. The mayor's son thus blames Taizou, and now Takuma for the mysterious death of his mother and sisters. Meanwhile, Takuma learns the Daimon family holds a curious place in the town's society, as they are also the ones who can perform a local exorcism ceremony, applied when the townsmen think someone is possessed. While Takuma is being accused of being possessed by a devil, he himself slowly sees how the townsmen themselves turn into inhuman devils as mysterious event after event occurs after his arrival, from a fire burning down an important hut for the community, attempts being made on Takuma's life and to a grisly new murder in Takuma's own house. But why is all of this happening and what is the connection between all these incidents? Is it the work of the devil? That is the big question in Asukabe Katsunori's <i>Datenshi Goumonkei</i> ("<i>Torture of the Fallen Angels</i>" 2008).<p></p><p><i>Datenshi Goumonkei</i> was a book originally published in 2008, but late 2023, the out-of-print book got a limited facsimile reprint via Shosen and the bookstore Horindo in cooperation with the original publisher Kadokawa, which is actually a very rare thing to happen. The original release went for <i>crazy</i> prices, but I assume Kadokawa itself had no intention of re-releasing the book themselves for the moment, so now we have not exactly a private reprint, but it's still not a major re-release of the book. And of course fear-of-missing-out kinda played a role in me getting this book now, though references to <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/John%20Dickson%20Carr">John Dickson Carr</a> on the obi, and the fact the book was about impossible crimes, and devils and (fallen) angels did sound very appealing. The facsimile reprint version also comes with a small booklet with an unrelated short story also by Asukabe, whose work I had not ever read before by the way.</p><p>What this book really excels at, is atmosphere. The town where Takuma ends up at is <i>really</i> creepy, and with that, I mean the people there. It's a small, isolated town, though still large enough to have a normal town centre with stores, restaurants, gift shops and everything, so not really a mountain village type of isolated place, but the people there do live in a very isolated manner, with their own local customs and beliefs. The fact the place doesn't have an actual police station, and Takuma's uncle simply acts as an appointed "troubleshooter" who at times can even cover up mysterious deaths by making sure the town doctor and everyone else are all on the same page is already a sign of how weirdly the town works, but Takuma himself also notices how incredibly closed-off the people are, always looking at him as the outsider and teachers completely ignoring blatant acts of harrassment towards Takuma. People also don't really <i>tell</i> Takuma about a lot of the town traditions and beliefs until they think it's time, leading to Takuma constantly feeling like a fish out of water, like he's been sent to a town of madmen as the one sane person. The first time Takuma witnesses how his aunt/new mother Rei for example exorcises a woman is <i>horrifying, </i>but the townsmen all pretend like it's normal and even rejoice about the sickening deed. There's something "off" about the people here, almost like they're all cultists or something, and the more time Takuma spends here, the more unsettling it all gets. This culminates in the climax, when half the town appears to go <i>absolutely</i> mad, almost transforming into actual devils as they drive Takuma, who is still trying to solve the mysterious murders that have occured in the meantime, into a desperate corner. As a horror story, <i>Datenshi Goumonkei</i><i> </i>might not feel completely original, and even in the mystery genre, I'd say something like <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2011/06/blog-post.html"><i>Yatsu Haka Mura</i></a> ("<i>The Village of Eight Graves</i>") feels quite similar with its idea of an outsider arriving in an isolated community and things going <i>very</i> wrong, but this book certainly does this <i>very</i> effectively, and at times, it even comes close to feeling like something like <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Umineko%20When%20They%20Cry%20%7C%20%E3%81%86%E3%81%BF%E3%81%AD%E3%81%93%E3%81%AE%E3%81%AA%E3%81%8F%E9%A0%83%E3%81%AB">Umineko no Naku Koro ni</a></i>, even though it starts so relatively normal!<br /></p><p>I have to say that while I did enjoy the book overall, <i>Datenshi Goumonkei</i> feels a bit disjointed as a mystery novel. The book is <i>brimming</i> with mysterious or curious events and incidents, but a lot of these parts don't really have much synergy with each other, other than "being mysterious and curious". It's not a series of events that occur in this book, but a lot of discrete occurances that all seem mysterious, and... <i>most</i> of them are properly explained, but in hindsight, you do feel a lot of just happened just to scare Takuma and the reader, and there's not really much of a connection between event A and event B. Perhaps the coincidence at play is the work of the devil, but it does make the plot feel a bit overwhelming for the wrong reasons. Takuma at first also isn't that strongly involved in the mysteries, so while you hear about impossible murders and such, Takuma doesn't really actively investigate them at first, so that results in a slow start of the narrative. That said, there are many interesting occurences, from the sudden decapitation of three women five years ago, the mystery of Daimon Taizou's odd museum built like an inverted pyramid in the depths of the forest, to Daimon Taizou passing away recently in his locked study, where he was found with all his bones <i>crushed</i>, to smaller incidents, like an act of arson, Takuma's cousins disappearing closer to the end, and a mysterious empty retirement home found in the forest where a mysterious woman in red is seen by Takuma. Some of these elements are proper mystery plots, while other elements are closer to horror tropes, and some are just there because the author liked it, I guess (the longest chapter in the whole book is an essay on modern horror fiction written by Takuma's friend Fujio for Takuma, and it's <i>really</i> detailed, but also <i>not really</i> relevant to the plot). </p><p>Some parts are honestly only there to be cool, but don't <i>really</i> make sense in the context of a mystery novel. The catastrophic climax of the book for example has some <i>insane</i> (in a good way) scenes that work extremely well for the mood of the book at that point, but when it tries to <i>explain</i> these events later on in a rational way, well, it's barely acceptable (okay.... so that <i>thing </i>is just there...?). And some persons really make weird decisions here... I liked most of the murders though, and while the hinting was usually not really physical clue/action-based, but more based on "in hindsight, I could've guessed X was actually Y" types of revelations/interpretations, the way the murders were clewed did fit the overall atmosphere of the book, with a lot being based on Takuma's own direct experiences. Some of them also have short, but memorable false solutions proposed for them, with one major one being so<i> over-the-top</i> I almost wish it was the real one, because it would really have made this a unique kind of mystery. Still, don't come here hoping for a mind-bending locked room trick or something like that: the focus of the book lies more in somehow trying to tie these events together into a coherent series of incidents (and even then, the book has to almost cheat at times for that to work). Some of the minor mysteries are probably easier to solve: I did like the mystery revolving around the museum a lot, perhaps because I guessed it rather early on, but at the same time, it felt so seperated from the rest of the story, I didn't really understand why it was there. That is the main gripe I have with the book I think when it comes to the mystery, with some mysteries just being there but not really being related to the main plot in any way, as if Asukabe just had several ideas he really wanted to throw in the book, but couldn't really figure out how to make them all relevant.<br /></p><p>The book is also touted as a romantic boy-meets-girl-type of story, and in that sense,<i> Datenshi Goumonkei</i> does a good job: Takuma may have trouble adapting to his new home, but he does find himself attracted to a few of the girls at school, and part of why the book feels so creepy is definitely because Takuma is honestly trying to live a normal life in his new home town, despite him being treated as an outsider by so many and all the weird occurences happening around him, and often somehow involving him, making an event like a date, wedged between events where Takuma almost dies, feel very alienating, further giving the whole book a very unsettling atmosphere. This boy-meets-girl plot is a very fundamental element to the book, almost surprisingly so, but it does not "burden" the book at all from a mystery POV. <br /></p><p>Overall, I did enjoy <i>Datenshi Goumonkei </i>a lot. It feels a lot like a passion project due to how much is thrown into it, and I think it could easily have been tightened up a bit, but the overall atmosphere of the town slowly showing its true colors is done really good, and it certainly had me hooked from start to finish, even if I found some elements not very strong when viewed on their own. It's certainly a unique read, with a rather slow start, once the modern-day murders occur, things move a lot faster. The book certainly made me curious to reading more of Asukabe's work, and I do hope they have a similar vibe.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 飛鳥部勝則『堕天使拷問刑』</span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-75249309642464692052024-01-03T00:00:00.018+01:002024-01-03T00:00:00.134+01:00Secret at Mystic Lake<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> "Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Be Water, My Friend</i>"</span><br /></div><p>First one of the new year! <br /></p><p>The one thing I do hate about writing about Japanese translations of Chinese mystery novels is how I always have to look up the readings of each single name in Chinese and how to transliterate them into pinyin, as obviously, in the Japanese translations, they usually simply use the original Chinese characters and transliterate into Japanese pronouncations. It's not a lot of work, but I always have to get that out of the way before I can actually get started on the post...<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEoOaRoB87aT7GDxoDPcdK1JVIKfpuHfkVQ_xyH65ReoWywIwruoxWBJFDFWPb5e_PO2wwBSsYQBFczXT6OcuzlXwWMrIZcfSpJvVj_bAY5EdQ-3yaoDr4e0VvrRkamfUmvUhxdD8yRXUNkigjYBybNzQ7Dp_oKo84H9S-SXqyVPQ3N05clmNHgSIswJY/s296/sunqinwen1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="200" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEoOaRoB87aT7GDxoDPcdK1JVIKfpuHfkVQ_xyH65ReoWywIwruoxWBJFDFWPb5e_PO2wwBSsYQBFczXT6OcuzlXwWMrIZcfSpJvVj_bAY5EdQ-3yaoDr4e0VvrRkamfUmvUhxdD8yRXUNkigjYBybNzQ7Dp_oKo84H9S-SXqyVPQ3N05clmNHgSIswJY/s1600/sunqinwen1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In the suburbs of Shanghai lies the manor of the Lu family. Their spacious house used to be a state library and is located inside a former park, with a large lake next to the house. While the park and the lake had originally been left open the public when the former family patriarch bought everything, they eventually closed it off. After the patriarch's death, his widow (and second wife) Wu Miao remained the de-facto head of the clan. The sons Lu Ren (son of the first wife) and Lu Yi and Lu Li went their own directions, and still live in the same house with their own families too. Lu Ren in particular was well-known in society, as he was a philanthropist acting as the representative of the Lu family. One chilly winter morning, Lu Ren's grandson found a strange object near the semi-basement storehouse outside. When his father Lu Wenlong realizes his son was playing with <i>an umbilical cord</i>, he immediately goes to the storehouse. However, the entrance to the semi-basement storehouse is below ground level, and the stairs that lead down have been flooded due to the heavy rain the last couple of days. As the stairs lead two meters down and there's tonnes of water blocking the door right now, it has been impossible to open the door the last two days. But wanting to know what is going on, Lu Wenlong borrows a water pump to get all the water away, and when he enters the storehouse, he finds his father lying dead on the dry floor! He's been suffocated, and his mobile phone lies broken on the floor. As you can't suffocate yourself, it's obvious this is a murder, but the odd thing is that Lu Ren's estimated time of death is <i>just one day earlier, so after the stairs had been flooded</i>. Even supposing Lu Ren had gone inside the storehouse himself before the door was blocked by rain water, how did the murderer then get inside to kill Lu Ren, and get outside again? <p></p><p>When later another member of the Lu clan is murdered in a locked room and another umbilical cord is found, the voice actress Zhongke, who rents a room in the Lu house, becomes terrified and wants to leave Shanghai and quit her job, but that fortunately for her, she is also personally chosen by the popular manga artist Anzhen to become the main voice actress in the upcoming animated adaptation of his most popular work. Anzhen also happens to work for the police as a sketch artist, and has in the past helped solve crimes. Not wanting to lose her, Anzhen declares he will solve the series of murders in the Lu household to relieve Zhongke of her fears. But will it really be so easy to solve this mystery in Sun Qinwen's <i>Lindongzhiguan</i> (2018)?</p><p>Sun Qinwen is a Chinese mystery novelist born in Shanghai, who is known as the Chinese king of the locked room mystery. Originally debuting in 2008 with a short story, he continued specializing in the short story format, publishing with the pen name Jiding. It wouldn't be until 2018 when he would publish his first full-length novel with <i>Lindongzhiguan</i>, under his real name Sun Qinwen. I had heard his name mentioned before in the comments of this blog, so I had been interested in his work for some time, but his work was not available in a language I could read (except for one short story translated to Japanese, but only via Kindle). Fortunately, 2023 finally brought us a Japanese translation of this novel: <i>Gentou no Hitsugi</i> ("<i>Coffins in the Cold Winter</i>") was translated by Ai Kousaku, and marks the first time Sun Qinwen got a major release in Japan. And I sure hope more follows.</p><p>One thing I immediately noticed was that this was a <i>very straightforward</i> mystery novel, with "obvious" mysteries in the form of locked room murders. You might think this is a strange thing to notice, considering everything I read for this blog is... mystery. However, the last few years, I have read a handful of mystery novels that were originally written in the Chinese language (usually as Japanese translations), and oddly enough, few of them were actually clasically-structured mystery novels. Part of it might be because I had read a few of the Taiwanese Soji Shimada Mystery Award winners: those novels played more with mysteries that were built on intertwining narratives/consciousness/memories of events. That is a reflection of Shimada Souji's own preference, I suppose, as he acts as the final judge for that award and he himself too soon moved away from classically structured puzzle plot mysteries and started focusing a lot more on memory/narrative-focused mysteries. <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Lu%20Quicha%20%7C%20%E9%99%B8%E7%A7%8B%E6%A7%8E"> Lu Qiucha</a>'s <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2019/01/springtime-crime.html"><i>Yuan</i> <i>Nian Chun Zhi Ji</i></a> was awesome, but very deeply imbedded in classical Chinese philosophy while <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Chan%20Ho-Kei%20%7C%20%E9%99%B3%E6%B5%A9%E5%9F%BA">Chan Ho-Kei</a>'s <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2018/05/designs-in-crime.html"><i>The Borrowed</i></a> (<i>13.67</i>) was great too, but could differ in tone greatly depending on the story, so<i> Lindongzhiguan</i> in comparison felt very refreshing as a Chinese mystery that really just did nothing but be a classic puzzle plot mystery, focusing on a clear impossible crime. And it was a good one too!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhStWoDNL0dRx7l-jbi63OKPfjquy3hOAKoA3utcsnU8k9cVxnYt6DDFhHRk3ixM1dfs1JWCCtScafKdHv9PAsxZF2Kzfwf-BJGnOmZxW-10EHjNUJrlB9kRc20-JahwYxEQTsxxzoqZCltOEoRSoQSD5tE28kwOAXCWDhYPZkCEF_KLxjAww8bLhy2Rrw/s302/sunqinwen2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="200" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhStWoDNL0dRx7l-jbi63OKPfjquy3hOAKoA3utcsnU8k9cVxnYt6DDFhHRk3ixM1dfs1JWCCtScafKdHv9PAsxZF2Kzfwf-BJGnOmZxW-10EHjNUJrlB9kRc20-JahwYxEQTsxxzoqZCltOEoRSoQSD5tE28kwOAXCWDhYPZkCEF_KLxjAww8bLhy2Rrw/s1600/sunqinwen2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The first murder, in the semi-basement storehouse, is defnitely the most memorable one. The premise of a room that is sealed by water is really cool. And yes, it is a <i>huge</i> design flaw if you have a storehouse to keep food safe so you can survive in times of (natural) crises, but the stairs can get flooded, blocking the door of said storehouse. But anyway, as normal and essential water is for our usual life, it's probably hard to imagine right away how much water is needed to flood a stairs that go two meters down ground level, and <i>the sheer weight</i> that body of water has. But as the storehouse was found dry when Lu Wenlong discovered his father's body, it is also clear the murderer didn't just open the door and let the stairs flood again after committing the murder. The phone that was broken by throwing it on the floor also indicates the murderer had actually been in the storehouse, so how did they get in, and out? The solution could've been hinted at better I think: basically the detectives find something while looking for something else, and that something is a major clue to solving the water locked room. I like the solution though! It is a <i>bit</i> silly, but the right kind of silly because a locked room murder isn't realistic in the first place, and just visualizing it is really funny. Practically speaking, I am not completely sure how feasible this is, but I don't care, this is the kind of imagination I like to see in mystery fiction!<p></p><p>A second murder occuring inside the house, in a bedroom, is relatively simple. Someone is murdered inside their bedroom, while someone else had been sitting in the hallway in front of that room. After a loud cry, the door is unlocked from the inside, and when the witness goes inside the room, they find the victim lying dead beneath the bed, but sees nobody else in the room. The solution is an interesting variation of a trick I have seen somewhere else, but in a completely different context, and used for a completely different purpose. I quite like the idea here, but at the same time, I don't think it works quite well here: the location of a bedroom simply doesn't seem convincing enough for this trick to work, it'd need a different kind of room to really be convincing, I think. I do wonder if Sun Qinwen came upon the idea by reading that one comic I was thinking of, for I do think this is a great example of how to completely transform a trick. Visually, it reminds of that comic, but it leads to a completely different purpose and execution. Like, I can imagine how reading the comic could've jogged Sun's mind to arrive at this different conclusion. </p><p>The third murder is absolutely horrifying when you realize how it was done. Or perhaps, the murder itself is already horrifying, as it involves a decapitated corpse. Outside in the park, next to the lake, were three suspended cabins with glass floors. They were suspended above the lake, to give the feeling of floating above the freezing water and were originally open for rental when the park was still open to the public: most of them were removed after they closed the park, leaving only three for private use. One of these cabins had been dropped into the freezing lake by burning the metal suspension wires with acid. Inside the cabin however, a <i>decapitated</i> man was found. The cabin itself however had been locked with a padlock by someone else, and she swears the victim had been alive and well when she left him there (as part of their SM play), and that she had the key with her all the time. So how could the murderer have gone inside the cabin to murder the victim, and why did they also drop the cabin into the lake? Some of the logistics of this murder seem a bit iffy, but man, I <i>love </i>the main idea of this murder, and specifically, the reason why the victim ended up without his head. Imagining the scene is just terrifying, and incredibly memorable. Again not really a fan of how Sun Qinwen drops hints regarding the howdunnit however, he has cool ideas for locked room murder tricks, but the way he clewes the path to the solution to them often feel like the clues come out of nowhere, or Anzhen asks the police to check something <i>very specific </i>simply because he just happens to think of it, without a real prompt.</p><p>The whodunnit aspect becomes more prominent at the end of the book, and it's a mixed bag. Style-wise, Sun Qinwen does seem to follow the Queen school, with a lot of emphasis on deductions surrounding the actions the murderer took at the crime scene, and comparing those conclusions to the pool of suspects. Some of these conclusions are ones we see fairly often in this style of mysteries, so you might already recognize them as "oh, this is going to be used to identify the murderer" as soon as the element is introduced in the story. Not really a big fan of the ones we see more often, though there was a more interesting at the very end, though I like it more for the idea than the actual execution. I think the idea is really cool, but it needed much more robust clewing to feel fair in hindsight. As I read it now, I can <i>kinda</i> see how Sun Qinwen thought he had indicated that clue enough, but even then, it still doesn't feel convincing enough to feel "fair" in hindsight. I also don't think the identity of the murderer works <i>completely</i>. Ultimately, a lot of the plot also depends on luck, especially of having certain characters act in that particular way at that certain time, and the exact dynamics behind some of the locked room murders (the exact things and order the killer did to accomplish the murder) and while I can wave that away one time, each of these murders had a lot of these aspects, so it feels like the plot is constantly giving the murderer lucky brakes just so the mystery could work, rather than the murderer actually planning out an... executable plan with little room for failure. So there is stuff I like when it comes to how the plotting does allow for Queen-like deductions, but not all of it really works, and the identity of the murderer seems to raise a few more questions than answers when it actually comes to the matter of executability.</p><p>The book works quite well as an introduction to Sun Qinwen's works by the way. There are some minor references to his other works (thanks, translator's notes!), and we also learn bits and pieces of Anzhen's own past, and how he might be involved in a bigger mystery himself too, it is a great first work to read. The story that ties into the umbilical cords is also pretty awesome, somewhat reminsicent of Mitsuda Shinzou's work in the way it ties into old family ceromonies and things like that, with a touch of horror, though I think it was <i>very</i> underplayed here. It <i>should</i> have been used far more strongly, as it has so much potential!<br /></p><p>So on the whole, I did really like <i>Lindongzhiguan</i>. The locked room mysteries shown in this book have exciting elements, which at least do convey to me why Sun Qinwen would be seen as a major locked room murder specialist in China. While I don't think his whodunnit angle in this book works completely, it too has elements that are inspired, so I do hope to read more his work in the future. A short story collection in particular would be very, very welcome! </p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Chinese title(s): 沁文 "凛冬之棺</span>"<br />Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-1231335114238390522023-12-27T00:00:00.041+01:002023-12-27T00:00:00.237+01:00Turnabout Memories - Part 13<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span>"I have to go over everything that's happened. I have to remember" </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span><i>Another Code R: Journey into Lost Memories</i></span></span></span></div><p>Here on this blog, it's a tradition to look back at the reviews
and other posts that were published ths year and highlight a few of
them. I usually post this list around Christmas, but as my weekly update day is Wednesday, I figured it'd just post it on the usual day then as it's so close... I'm always <i>months</i> ahead with writing posts, but this particular post I always write in December, because sometimes I schedule in extra posts (like <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/12/terminal-connection.html">Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine</a></i>) and sometimes I end up shuffling the post schedule, so I usually am not sure about what posts I can refer to in this end-of-year post until.... it's the end of the year. Of course, some of the eligible posts I wrote way back in 2022 already... This year, I managed to read a few out-of-print authors and works I had been eyeing for some time now, so that was fun. I usually don't really <i>plan</i> what to read in a specific year, so even to me, it's a surprise how a year will end for me, sometimes I basically only read books by authors I already now, sometimes I see a rather noticable influx of authors I had never read before. I'm already in the second half of 2024 when it comes to scheduled posts, and I can already tell you there's gold among some of the posts there! I hope you'll all have a fantastic new year and see you back in 2024! </p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgUHWgZJLz2b-_mlpqpWpxFuhdEUBRe0sCSMJc-7TEW-jdORG8FK0JqLtPNbKp77fhkQnZojCRSt6gfIbVD6Q8LOjuz1WbdSyTVbHrxZKaOj3VCogf19iJGCdwfPsT6ouJyJfojZW7RxXF6bPVGCyBYsWQ8osh7HNtNeVDhtfzJ2ACPLV9a6oqZ61Dp=s400" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgUHWgZJLz2b-_mlpqpWpxFuhdEUBRe0sCSMJc-7TEW-jdORG8FK0JqLtPNbKp77fhkQnZojCRSt6gfIbVD6Q8LOjuz1WbdSyTVbHrxZKaOj3VCogf19iJGCdwfPsT6ouJyJfojZW7RxXF6bPVGCyBYsWQ8osh7HNtNeVDhtfzJ2ACPLV9a6oqZ61Dp=s16000" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Best Project Outside The Blog! In 2023!<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-mill-house-murders-released.html">The Mill House Murders </a></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM0VHRMRDMcZpfViMlyflqu_Ozn0jed8mXWmc4KuSoNUTZBReh2yq5v75p_z1S83IqaHShf4hS4m0y88d40Il8hdsLQqE_-l-8TieXH4m7TgDsnjnj8SajYGYl1IKvrpySWlS5YBYZJ7X5RLTp0ah8zMyVqlvw8fgC01s4teW11w4eGMmD4DVhMUdh/s305/millhouse.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="200" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM0VHRMRDMcZpfViMlyflqu_Ozn0jed8mXWmc4KuSoNUTZBReh2yq5v75p_z1S83IqaHShf4hS4m0y88d40Il8hdsLQqE_-l-8TieXH4m7TgDsnjnj8SajYGYl1IKvrpySWlS5YBYZJ7X5RLTp0ah8zMyVqlvw8fgC01s4teW11w4eGMmD4DVhMUdh/s1600/millhouse.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Yes, this is just the self-promotion category! The very first novel I translated was <i>The Decagon House Murders</i> back in 2015, and now, quite some few years later, I finally got the opportunity to work on its sequel, <i>The Mill House Murders</i>. While <i>The Decagon House Murders</i> was originally published by <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2015/06/decagon-house-murders-released.html">Locked Room International</a>, it is now currently being published by <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2020/11/decagon-house-murders-released-once.html">Pushkin Press</a>, so to be honest, I had no idea at first whether they were interested in continuing the series, and whether I'd be in the equation, but fortunately, Ayatsuji himself also wanted me back on board, and I of course loved to come back to the series, resulting in a release by Pushkin Press earlier this year. Last year, I worked on Imamura's <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/12/death-within-evil-eye-released.html">Death Within the Evil Eye</a></i>, which was the first time I got to work on a sequel to a book I also worked on, but <i>The Mill House Murders</i> still remains a bit special, due to its connection to my first translated novel! The translation of the third book in the series, <i>The Labyrinth House Murders</i>, has already been announced, and once again, I had the pleasure and honor of working on it, so I hope readers here will pick it up too next year!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'd also of course like to point readers here to the Honkaku Discord Server. It's been running for just over a year now, and it's become a nice place to chat about mystery fiction (not just Japanese). Of course, that's not my accomplishment, but that of the members in the server. It's a pretty easy-going server too, so if that sounds like fun, come have a look: <a href="https://discord.gg/z3HMSmf8qd">https://discord.gg/z3HMSmf8qd</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Most Interesting Non-Fiction Book! Of 2023!<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-bloodstained-book.html"><i>Misshitsu Mystery Guide</i></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyx0Frf44e_vzfcvT3yVKd14pvc0h5SzvvEOUj4jxC6qYAgkbuxmHu7a6b5tW6628NEedI0ovoNPH_7VZnAIC3t1Krf7Fo7FPmWDkJX7vlSShN5ZScTQ_mHd-1oA3TxrNEgN352h-W2HzrXpw5gp9G9n22YAIWz2DOBqCutcfBN0jzdNnGJMAbmouXljY/s320/MMG1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="195" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyx0Frf44e_vzfcvT3yVKd14pvc0h5SzvvEOUj4jxC6qYAgkbuxmHu7a6b5tW6628NEedI0ovoNPH_7VZnAIC3t1Krf7Fo7FPmWDkJX7vlSShN5ZScTQ_mHd-1oA3TxrNEgN352h-W2HzrXpw5gp9G9n22YAIWz2DOBqCutcfBN0jzdNnGJMAbmouXljY/s320/MMG1.jpg" width="195" /></a></div>Okay, I haven't read any other non-fiction mystery-related books besides this one, so this isn't really fair, but still, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Iiki%20Yuusan%20%7C%20%E9%A3%AF%E5%9F%9F%E5%8B%87%E4%B8%89">Iiki Yuusan</a>'s guide on the locked room mystery is really a must-read for fans of the locked room and impossible crime sub-genre, I think. In the book, the Ellery Queen scholar presents 50 mystery stories (30 Japanese, 20 foreign) that in his mind showcase the diversity that exists within the sub-genre. The book includes very cool diagrams of the crime scenes for each of the stories (so even for stories that originally didn't feature any diagrams), but what is more interesting, is the fact the book consists of two parts. In the first part, Iiki only introoduces the broad outline of the story in question and explains briefly why he thinks the book should be highlighted, but in the second half, he also spoils the solution of each story, and that allows him to freedom to pick entries based on their <i>solution</i> (and not just the trick), and that allows for some really unique picks for this book, like stories that aren't <i>really</i> impossible crimes until you consider the solution, or going with very experimental locked room mysteries. It's a fantastic book that really deserves a read.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Most Interesting Mystery Game Played In 2023! But Probably Older!</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-stone-idol.html">The Case of the Golden Idol</a></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtnZnh9SFxAg5aCj0S8CU4rU96BN4gan1toiGQvyNpxN-Z_A4qnVXpNzvxmok7basxMFoWV6D6dYBIldW_yWsz-Ogc8FjocecMGsuN0gj_rZt-mKMgBv5XDc6LXwwwAyekSZJO9c4qHK1Wcg5gLeSy7wWc4p5QgprW9G1-ry0KbNQFoibHA_AP4OiereE/s200/goldenidol222.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtnZnh9SFxAg5aCj0S8CU4rU96BN4gan1toiGQvyNpxN-Z_A4qnVXpNzvxmok7basxMFoWV6D6dYBIldW_yWsz-Ogc8FjocecMGsuN0gj_rZt-mKMgBv5XDc6LXwwwAyekSZJO9c4qHK1Wcg5gLeSy7wWc4p5QgprW9G1-ry0KbNQFoibHA_AP4OiereE/s1600/goldenidol222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I've played a fair amount of mystery games this year. <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-adventure-of-secret-partner.html"><i>Detective Pikachu Returns</i></a> was highly anticipated by me because I played the original back in 2016(!) already and had been waiting all this time to get closure on the story. A game like <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/03/delicious-death-for-detectives.html"><i>Tantei Bokumetsu</i></a> (AKA <i>Process of Elimination</i>) was a game I had been wanting to play for a long time, due to its unique premise of a mystery game in the format of a SRPG and I finally got around to it because I wanted to play it before the English version was released. <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/08/he-came-with-rain.html">Rain Code</a></i> was of course a game I had been looking forward to, as it was created by the same people behind <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Danganronpa%20%7C%20%E3%83%80%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%AD%E3%83%B3%E3%83%91">Danganronpa</a></i>. These were all games I liked playing in general, but always had points I found frustrating, or at the very least, they had obvious points that could've been improved. In that regard, I'd have to say <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/radio-suspect.html"><i>Unheard</i></a> was a very nice surprise, as I had very little knowledge about the game when I started with it, but it was a short, but memorable experience. Ultimately, I do think the most interesting mystery game I played this year was <i>The Case of the Golden Idol</i>, which offers deduction-focused gameplay combined with a rather surprising epic story. And yes, I had to quickly write the review of the game last week so I could feature it in this post!</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Silliest Clue! Seen in 2023!</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/02/death-of-author.html">Morikawa Goten no Inbou</a></i> ("<i>Intrigue at the Morikawa Manor</i>") (<i>Detective Conan</i> episodes 1050-1051)</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjDzsgrHYI7bwuVr2jWFWmoLD8TAHh5Zx9rPz8YhV80DPTlBx2dXk-2rWMX21LuExIDeIfYZWx4b0-uY-N23oAv6VvoEUBfd_1GANZ2S8CntRRrJr_mIh0XWpgpmMIwb5dYYmhF7aN1NwW7Yt_r9yx1ogZSNYHWLWlbvHprlKihHnnwjVf3IkPuymaMWs/s200/morikawagoten.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjDzsgrHYI7bwuVr2jWFWmoLD8TAHh5Zx9rPz8YhV80DPTlBx2dXk-2rWMX21LuExIDeIfYZWx4b0-uY-N23oAv6VvoEUBfd_1GANZ2S8CntRRrJr_mIh0XWpgpmMIwb5dYYmhF7aN1NwW7Yt_r9yx1ogZSNYHWLWlbvHprlKihHnnwjVf3IkPuymaMWs/s1600/morikawagoten.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Sometimes, you just want something silly. <i>Morikawa Goten no Inbou</i> is a two-parter in the animated series of <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Meitantei%20Conan%20%7C%20%E5%90%8D%E6%8E%A2%E5%81%B5%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3"><i>Detective Conan</i></a>, penned by <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Yamatoya%20Akatsuki%20%7C%20%E5%A4%A7%E5%92%8C%E5%B1%8B%E6%9A%81">Yamatoya Akatsuki</a>. Once you see his name, alarm bells should ring, for while he has written <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2020/03/slip-at-sea.html">an excellent <i>Tantei Gakuen Q</i> anime original with a locked room set in a sunken ship</a>, his output for <i>Detective Conan</i> has been nothing but <i>insane</i>. The dear man also writes for <i>Gintama</i>, which should give you an idea of how silly he can be. In 2020, I choose his <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2020/11/an-exercise-in-fatality.html"><i>Glamping Kaijiken</i></a> ("<i>The Curious Glamping Incident</i>") as the silliest mystery I had seen that year, and while on the whole <i>Morikawa Goten no Inbou</i> is not nearly as silly, I would say the final clue Conan presents to the culprit when he explains how he figured out that person was the culprit, has to be one of the most insane, and also outright <i>insulting</i> clues ever. No sane person would ever think to use that as a clue in a mystery story, but Yamatoya does. It's something you'd never expect to come, and it's brilliant.<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Best Locked Room Epic! Of 2023!<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-unseen-door.html"><i>Misshitsu Kingdom</i></a> (<i>Kingdom of the Locked Room</i>)<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4JYyhlZHNF7ExSG0Ta6KaWfHvNeOZi1P95zH4VcqtK6YW_uZifndexx3men7KLxxbjAhq8FFp0DEE78Mow8hBRKfr-GsGtrDcAV7NBaGPJpV3x9KB_b0xqSakL76-5g2_O3KBXcy8c8ThvP_UYnXsfY1aFUnZcHcl-Ij0nYS5RaBnPkme5CtU4ZP/s286/mskd2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="200" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4JYyhlZHNF7ExSG0Ta6KaWfHvNeOZi1P95zH4VcqtK6YW_uZifndexx3men7KLxxbjAhq8FFp0DEE78Mow8hBRKfr-GsGtrDcAV7NBaGPJpV3x9KB_b0xqSakL76-5g2_O3KBXcy8c8ThvP_UYnXsfY1aFUnZcHcl-Ij0nYS5RaBnPkme5CtU4ZP/s1600/mskd2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I am not specifically a fan of the locked room mystery, but this year, I did happen to read three books that all aimed to be an enormous locked room mystery epic. Of the three, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Kamosaki%20Danro%20%7C%20%E9%B4%A8%E5%B4%8E%E6%9A%96%E7%82%89">Kamosaki Danro</a>'s <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/03/secret-seven-adventure.html"><i>Misshitsu Kyouran Jidai no Satsujin - Zekkai no Kotou to Nanatsu no Trick</i></a> (<i>The Murder in the Age of Frenzy of Locked Rooms: The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks</i>) has a unique premise, set in a world where murderers <i>know</i> that by using locked room murders, they can't be convicted in a court of law unless the police figure out how they did it (because unless the police can prove how the defendant did it, the impossibility of the crime itself becomes an alibi for <i>every single person</i>) and in this book, we have no less than seven different locked room murders. However, the book is also fairly short, so each room barely gets any time. <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Kagami%20Masayuki%20%7C%20%E5%8A%A0%E8%B3%80%E7%BE%8E%E9%9B%85%E4%B9%8B">Kagami Masayuki</a>'s second novel <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/11/jb-as-in-jailbird.html">Kangokutou</a></i> ("<i>Prison Island</i>") is a <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/John%20Dickson%20Carr">John Dickson Carr</a>-inspired epic of about 1200 pages long, with a series of impossible crimes happening on a prison island isolated from the outside world due to a storm. The extended page count allows Kagami to come up with a very robust setting for most of the locked rooms, and it results in a very epic conclusion where series detective Bertrand explains all the mysteries in hundreds of pages! However, on the whole, I found <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Tsukatou%20Hajime%20%7C%20%E6%9F%84%E5%88%80%E4%B8%80">Tsukatou Hajime</a>'s <i>Misshitsu Kingdom</i> the better party. In terms of page count, it's similar to <i>Kangokutou</i> at about 1200 pages, but while Kagami's epic was very closely modeled after John Dickson Carr, Tsukatou uses very Carr-esque impossible crime situations, but at the same time, utilizes <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Ellery%20Queen">Ellery Queen</a>-esque chains of reasonings to drive the plot, and this fusion of these two schools is what really makes <i>Misshitsu Kingdom</i> special in my opinion.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Best Post I Accidentally Deleted And Had To Rewrite Completely!</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/11/jb-as-in-jailbird.html">Kangokutou</a></i> ("<i>Prison Island</i>")</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> <br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp3Pc6rEnO20jlUk0Eeefp5l6fgWV6VnMKE-i2RVBL_NQPDckNWHUUw55T1VQj4p3vIAl-FLrBMyjGhaVJ8EG-YZq8YOops3VlEDSnVrWP1GIcJxZZSNeRHXltUna0mjdqXKv_oNRRkBz9UYmtZho2NN6JT5dWk6vOZ5eKQpbpezTkxvDytC25LSBaAVg/s320/kangoku1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="197" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp3Pc6rEnO20jlUk0Eeefp5l6fgWV6VnMKE-i2RVBL_NQPDckNWHUUw55T1VQj4p3vIAl-FLrBMyjGhaVJ8EG-YZq8YOops3VlEDSnVrWP1GIcJxZZSNeRHXltUna0mjdqXKv_oNRRkBz9UYmtZho2NN6JT5dWk6vOZ5eKQpbpezTkxvDytC25LSBaAVg/s320/kangoku1.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><i>Kangokutou</i> didn't win in the previous category, but it sure wins here. In over ten years of blogging, never had I accidentally deleted a post I had finished already. I originally read <i>Kangokutou</i> in March of this year, and wrote my rather lengthy review of it soon after that and had the post scheduled for August, but the week before the post would go up, I wanted to change something, and a few wrong keyboard shortcut inputs later, I had accidentally deleted the contents of the post, and allowed <i>the empty post to be saved</i>. Which mean I had to rewrite the whole post from scratch, months after I had read the book in question. And I still think the original version of the post was better, going into more detail into the various crimes that occur in that locked room epic, but alas, we all have to just to be content with the current version of the post.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Best Premise! Of 2023!</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/02/wrong-way-door.html">Hen na Ie</a></i> ("<i>A Curious House</i>")</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUxiyx4fTDd4UqHSuJv722TDzFm74CtUA5MdNL7Q2CeCBTv2qMcn9jXAbbydE6FJxjXbmkOjr17a7qSqOsLev8EIImnXX-86jay6L9Vu4gr3fEg5v4L0QqgfVxp35sq-68Af4ZLDesAOceo9ClYvcQfoBIbb-8MA217zDE19DGsD4JFc0PqUZVsPnC/s294/hennnaie.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="200" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUxiyx4fTDd4UqHSuJv722TDzFm74CtUA5MdNL7Q2CeCBTv2qMcn9jXAbbydE6FJxjXbmkOjr17a7qSqOsLev8EIImnXX-86jay6L9Vu4gr3fEg5v4L0QqgfVxp35sq-68Af4ZLDesAOceo9ClYvcQfoBIbb-8MA217zDE19DGsD4JFc0PqUZVsPnC/s1600/hennnaie.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I've read a few books this year with memorable premises. Some were straightforward, but ambitious premises, like the epic locked room mysteries mentioned two categories ago. Some had just inspired settings for the book. Take for example <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Houjou%20Kie%20%7C%20%E6%96%B9%E4%B8%88%E8%B2%B4%E6%81%B5">Houjou Kie</a>'s <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/07/at-bertrams-hotel.html"><i>Amulet Hotel</i></a>, a book set at a hotel catering to <i>criminals</i>, allowing for rather unique stories as it's not the usual police doing detective work here, but a hotel detective working for an organization which rather prefers to "clean up" a hotel guest themselves if the guest has violated a house rule to keep things quiet. There are also more fantastical premises I found memorable: In <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Yonezawa%20Honobu%20%7C%20%E7%B1%B3%E6%BE%A4%E7%A9%82%E4%BF%A1">Yonezawa Honobu</a>'s <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/10/castle-skull.html"><i>The Broken Keel</i></a>, we have a small kingdom off the coast of Britain that deals with the murder on their king <i>while under attack by immortal Danes</i>, in <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/09/death-takes-dive.html">Kinnikuman Yojigen Sappou Satsujin Jiken</a></i> ("<i>Kinnikuman: The Four-Dimensional Murder Art Murder Case</i>"), the famous <i>Kinnikuman</i> franchise tackles on the mystery genre by having the superhuman wrestlers entangled in murder cases, and <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Nitadori%20Kei%20%7C%20%E4%BC%BC%E9%B3%A5%E9%B6%8F">Nitadori Ke</a>i's <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/uncivil-war.html">Suiri Taisen</a> </i>("<i>The Great Deduction War</i>") is basically <i>The Avengers</i>, with detectives with various superpowers gathering to tackle one case. Other memorable reads tackle form: <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Shirodaira%20Kyou%20%7C%20%E5%9F%8E%E5%B9%B3%E4%BA%AC">Shirodaira Kyou</a>'s <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/02/murder-digs-deep.html"><i>Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning 2: The Locked Room of the Steel Gang Boss</i></a> and its spiritual successor <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/03/dead-mans-tale.html">Kannagi Uromu Saigo no Jiken</a></i> ("<i>The Last Case of Kannagi Uromu</i>") by <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Konno%20Tenryuu%20%7C%20%E7%B4%BA%E9%87%8E%E5%A4%A9%E9%BE%8D">Konno Tenryuu</a> revolve around presenting multiple solutions based on a past murder (in the latter case, a mystery novel with no clear solution), something <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Komori%20Kentarou%20%7C%20%E5%B0%8F%E6%A3%AE%E5%81%A5%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E">Komori Kentarou</a> also does with his incredibly fun <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-case-of-creative-crime.html">Comiket Satsujin Jiken</a></i>, being about a series of murders happening at Comiket among membeers of a <i>doujin</i> circle, with their latest release being a collection of short stories with their intended solutions to a murder in the fictional series <i>Lunatic Dreamers</i>. But in the end, I think Uketsu's <i>Hen na Ie</i> is still the one that managed to surprise me the most with its premise. <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-quest-of-missing-map.html">Floorplans and diagrams are often an important element in a mystery story</a> (see the also aforementioned <i>Misshitsu Mystery Guide</i>), but never had I seen a mystery story that uses floorplans exclusively to tell its story. While the first chapter is by far the best of the whole book, the idea of making the floorplan the star of the story, instead of a supporting role, was inspired, and the result is a very unique book that despite some flaws is very, very entertaining and memorable.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Just-Ten-In-No-Particular-Order-No-Comments List</b></div><div style="text-align: left;">- <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/07/at-bertrams-hotel.html"><i>Amulet Hotel</i></a> (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Houjou%20Kie%20%7C%20%E6%96%B9%E4%B8%88%E8%B2%B4%E6%81%B5">Houjou Kie</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;">- <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-case-of-creative-crime.html">Comiket Satsujin Jiken</a></i> ("<i>The Comiket Murder Case</i>") (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Komori%20Kentarou%20%7C%20%E5%B0%8F%E6%A3%AE%E5%81%A5%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E">Komori Kentarou</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;">- <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/07/taken-at-flood.html">Hakobune</a> </i>("The Ark") (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Yuuki%20Haruo%20%7C%20%E5%A4%95%E6%9C%A8%E6%98%A5%E5%A4%AE">Yuuki Haruo</a>)<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-creeping-creatures.html">Semi-Otoko</a></i> ("<i>The Cicada-Man</i>") (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Nemoto%20Shou%20%7C%20%E6%A0%B9%E6%9C%AC%E5%B0%9A">Nemoto Shou</a>)<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">- <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-unseen-door.html"><i>Misshitsu Kingdom</i></a> ("<i>Kingdom of the Locked Room</i>") (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Tsukatou%20Hajime%20%7C%20%E6%9F%84%E5%88%80%E4%B8%80">Tsukatou Hajime</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;">- <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-moonstone-castle-mystery.html">Sougetsujou no Sangeki</a></i> ("<i>The Tragedy at the Twin Moon Castle</i>") (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Kagami%20Masayuki%20%7C%20%E5%8A%A0%E8%B3%80%E7%BE%8E%E9%9B%85%E4%B9%8B">Kagami Masayuki</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;">- <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/02/wrong-way-door.html">Hen na Ie</a></i> ("<i>A Curious House</i>") (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Uketsu%20%7C%20%E9%9B%A8%E7%A9%B4">Uketsu</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;">- <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-bloodstained-book.html"><i>Misshitsu Mystery Guide</i></a> ("<i>Locked Room Mystery Guide</i>") (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Iiki%20Yuusan%20%7C%20%E9%A3%AF%E5%9F%9F%E5%8B%87%E4%B8%89">Iiki Yuusan</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;">- <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/12/law-of-jungle.html">Meitantei no Ikenie - Jinminkyou Satsujin Jiken</a></i> ("<i>The Sacrifice of the
Great Detective: The Peoples Church Murder Case</i>" AKA <i>The Detective
Massacre</i>) (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Shirai%20Tomoyuki%20%7C%20%E7%99%BD%E4%BA%95%E6%99%BA%E4%B9%8B">Shirai Tomoyuki</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;">- <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/01/growing-up-and-good-byes.html">Tinker-Bell Goroshi</a></i> ("<i>The Murder of Tinker-Bel</i>l") (<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Kobayashi%20Yasumi%20%7C%20%E5%B0%8F%E6%9E%97%E6%B3%B0%E4%B8%89">Kobayashi Yasumi</a>)<br /></div></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-62194486919695856692023-12-20T00:00:00.035+01:002024-02-14T00:37:55.315+01:00Law of the Jungle<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">「 お前を信じる俺を信じろ」</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">『天元突破グレンラガン』</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> "Believe in the me who believes in you!"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Guren Lagann</i>" </span><br /></div><p>Final review of the year, but it's about a great book!<br /></p><p>Ootoya Takashi was always content being a minor private detective, always observing cheating spouses and that kind of work, so at first, he didn't quite understand why the student Ririko wanted to be his assistant, and when she explained, he refused her at first. Ririko's mother, during her lifetime, had been a member of a cult, which had swindled her out of her money, leading to Ririko's father kicking her, <i>and </i>Ririko out of the house. After Ririko's mother's death, she learned the truth about the cult, and wanted to expose their tricks under the cover of a detective agency. Ootoya eventually gave in, and together with Ririko, he exposed a gigantic scam conspiracy. Soon, Ootoya himself became a well-known detective too, but the truth was that while Ootoya did indeed solve a lot of cases himself, it was actually Ririko who was often one step ahead of him, even though she was his "assistant." When one day, in November 1978, Ririko disappears, Ootoya becomes worried about her because they have made enemies in the past, but he learns quickly she has gone to the South American country of Guyana, to the community called Jordentown.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Uusn8WV6l-gLFuAbtixIoa2LB22pygEUbM7wcz0hMZm4b5OfF6PdLwOkXzEm2VzVFuequI3PMU98bk9rIeltRs5uB_NMObnLp7lfxENILQzvVr4Tg5tWQSx3CGaEdLD8y_2tO_Zh6cwGZ4CHCT95I2aSTW_ydgPGLnn52KMXu6zUjzbTuxVqkFO5WXI/s289/massacre1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="200" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Uusn8WV6l-gLFuAbtixIoa2LB22pygEUbM7wcz0hMZm4b5OfF6PdLwOkXzEm2VzVFuequI3PMU98bk9rIeltRs5uB_NMObnLp7lfxENILQzvVr4Tg5tWQSx3CGaEdLD8y_2tO_Zh6cwGZ4CHCT95I2aSTW_ydgPGLnn52KMXu6zUjzbTuxVqkFO5WXI/s1600/massacre1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Jim Jorden claimed he could heal any illnesses and injuries, and started his own, Christianity-based cult. He gathered quite some followers in the United States, but also enemies: many people who have also left the cult, portraying Jim Jorden as a fraud and eventually, even politicians started to take a better look at him. Jim Jorden swiftly left the United States to found his own community in the jungles of Guyana, and he was followed there by about a thousand followers from the US and other parts of the world. The people of Jordentown mostly keep to themselves, led by Jim Jorden and his upper management members, but lately, US politicans have been putting political pressure on them, and Jim Jorden wants to move his community to the Soviet Union, with the help of a prominent US businessman with ties to the Soviets. This businessman however wants to know whether Jim Jorden really has powers to heal people, and after some negotations, Jim Jorden agreed to invite a team who will investigate whether his powers are real, and to observe the living conditions in Jordentown. Ririko had been chosen as one of these people thanks to her experience with exposing a fake cult, and she is joined by Jodie Randy, famous for exposing fake psychics on television, Yi Ha-jun, a Seoul University student who exposed a sexual abuse affair by the Christian church, and former FBI agent Alfred Dent, who has actually managed to go undercover, acting as an attorney for Jim Jorden. Ririko and the others however didn't return to their respective countries even though they were only to stay there for a few days, so suspecting they might be being kept captive by Jim Jorden, or worse, Ootoya himself travels to Jordentown with the help of a reporter childhood friend. When they arrive there, they learn Ririko and the others were held captive, because they didn't believe Jim Jorden's "miracles", so Jim decided to have his "guests" stay longer so he could convince them of his powers and report back to the businessman so he and his flock can go to the Soviet Union. As the people in Jordentown all believe in Jim Jorden as their "god" who can heal them, and some of them are such fanatic believers they are willing to kill for him (and the community is armed!), they have no choice but to stay there for a while, but they are fairly sure they won't be hurt because that would definitely mean no trip to the Soviet Union. The following day however, Dent is found stabbed to death in his room, and the room was locked from the inside. Was this an impossible murder? But in Jordentown, there <i>is</i> a man who can perform miracles, so is he the murderer? While Ootoya and Ririko try to solve the murder despite the unique circumstances, more impossible murders occur, but will they be able to uncover the truth, <i>and</i> get away safely? That is the question in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Shirai%20Tomoyuki%20%7C%20%E7%99%BD%E4%BA%95%E6%99%BA%E4%B9%8B">Shirai Tomoyuki</a>'s <i>Meitantei no Ikenie - Jinminkyou Satsujin Jiken</i> ("<i>The Sacrifice of the
Great Detective: The Peoples Church Murder Case</i>" 2022), which also has the alternative English title <i>The Detective
Massacre</i>. <p></p><p></p><p>The first time I read anything by Shirai Tomoyuki, was the short story <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2019/08/update-on-crime.html">Chibiman to Jumbo</a></i>, which was <i>beyond</i> nasty, with a lot of gore. And I don't mean "decapitated people" gore, but a lot of vomiting and eating sea roaches and stuff like that. I was told "nasty" was something Shirai wrote a lot about, so I was kinda avoiding him, despite hearing also positive things about his mystery stories in terms of... mystery. So when I saw <i>The Detective
Massacre </i>won the '23 Honkaku Mystery Award and ranked in first place in the Honkaku Best 10 2023, and I heard this one didn't have the gore, I picked this book up as my first Shirai novel, and I am so glad I did, as this is easily one of the best books I've read this year, and I can definitely see why it'd end up high on people's rankings!<br /></p><p>It's of course clear right away this book was inspired by the real story of Jonestown in a lot of ways, and that is also the defining feature of this book: a story set in a very unique place, a closed-off town in the jungle, for a cult built around one single man, who rules the whole community and who is beloved by everyone as a god with healing powers. For Ootoya and Ririko, this is effectively a closed circle, as they can't just leave Jordentown alone and you definitely need a car to make it through the jungle to a landing strip, and of course you also need a plane to get away there. Due to the beliefs of the cult members, about a thousand of them in all ages (children go to school during the day, while the adults work on the fields to farm food), the impossible crimes also are not considered to be as grave or serious by them, as by the outsiders: impossible murders <i>aren't</i> strictly impossible for the cult members, especially not if those who are killed were <i>punished</i> by the heavens for opposing Jim Jorden and his followers. The result is a book with a fantastic, suspenseful and tense atmosphere, where you know any false move by Ootoya could perhaps lead to them being punished by the cult members right away for going against their rules and yet they do want to solve the murders.</p><p>On the other hand, the cult members aren't like brainwashed Kali cult members, but often ordinary people from the US with their own personal traumas, which they finally learned to cope with thanks to their life in Jordentown and the teachings of Jim Jorden. While they believe in Jorden, they are also, on the whole, peace-loving people who just want a place for themselves to live without being judged by others, and while initially cautious for the strangers, they do welcome Ririko and the others to Jordentown and are eager to show how great their community is and how they'd like to move to the Soviet Union in order to continue this life. It's under these circumstance we have these murders, and we clearly see how people on one hand know murder has occured, but also try to give these deaths a certain meaning that fits with their lives and their beliefs, again resulting in a very unique atmosphere that really makes this a one-of-a-kind mystery novel.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCojwzZt5kH1UbkzgwxiDwUjmUI5pZAitAWpUGTTC3T8qcQMNGIhlrtQxT1K-mKc0PFFkGOANreZeX8YIrv0pIeHq-b8jfrLAVf_mqh77V58FE-2-y0Z4uC8ZP53-JEA5IkX-4xnOonQbPYpBD9GAT_4q-r3_HfvSuxzKgovsIcEOLp1bhSWqbHwyhwJE/s482/massacre2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCojwzZt5kH1UbkzgwxiDwUjmUI5pZAitAWpUGTTC3T8qcQMNGIhlrtQxT1K-mKc0PFFkGOANreZeX8YIrv0pIeHq-b8jfrLAVf_mqh77V58FE-2-y0Z4uC8ZP53-JEA5IkX-4xnOonQbPYpBD9GAT_4q-r3_HfvSuxzKgovsIcEOLp1bhSWqbHwyhwJE/s16000/massacre2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Over the course of this novel, several murders occur during their stay in Jordentown, that are in principle simple, yet impossible. A man murdered in his bedroom, but with the key inside the room, a woman who was poisoned during a tea party, but the other women are all fine, things like that. The situations themselves are fairly small-scale and taken on their own, they might not be super impressive. However, <i>The Detective Massacre</i> manages to use these seemingly "small" murder situations in conjunction with the unique setting that is Jordentown to present an absolutely phenomenal mystery novel. That is in part already hinted at by the text on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obi_(publishing)">the <i>obi</i></a> of this novel, which tells the reader the solution part of this book is 150 pages long (close to 40% of the book!). Mechanically, these impossible crimes might seem simple, but because they are in such an odd place, where people literally believe in miracles and thus <i>impossible </i>occurings, the detectives have to go a long way to not only logically explain how things happened and the reason for that, they also have to explain why these murders aren't impossible, while at the same time, the explanation needs <i>to accept the existence of miracles, because the people here believe in them</i>. So the solutions often have to go a roundabout way to explain things, because the detectives have to incorporate the "<i>common sense</i>" that exist in Jordentown, while also arriving at a logical explanation acceptable for them. This leads to some brilliant pieces of deduction that only work in Jordentown and no other mystery novel. The book is also full of false solutions, as it takes a while for the detectives to arrive at the actual truth, but it's amazing how Shirai structured this book. The same situation allows for several false solutions, but they are all properly hinted at, and while not all of them are as clever and you quickly realize these must be false, it's still impressive how he managed to properly hint all of the false solutions as well as place the clues for the counter-argument to the false solutions, and also have a final solution ready. Fans of the works of <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Christianna%20Brand">Brand</a>, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Anthony%20Berkeley">Berkeley</a> and <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Ellery%20Queen">Queen</a>, with deeply structured false solutions that build on each other and stuff like that will definitely like this book too.</p><p>The placing of clues and foreshadowing in <i>The Detective Massacre</i> also deserves a special mention. Shirai does a fantastic job at placing all kinds of hints that come back much later for these false solutions, not only in the form of actual physical evidence being referred to later, but also situations or moments that seemingly have nothing to do with the murders, but that are mirrored in surprising and clever manners to become relevant to those murders. Some segments really just sound like nothing more than small characterization snippets used for a cheap chuckle, but then turn out to be applicable to the murder mysteries too by looking at those stiuations from a very different angle. It might be because of the weird location that is Jordentown, but it's easy to look at Jordentown as its own thing, so it's extra surprising when you see moments "outside of Jordentown" suddenly being used in a clever way to set things up that happen inside Jordentown.</p><p>The two detective characters of Ootoya and Ririko are also used in a really good way. The two detectives (<i>technically</i>, Ririko is Ootoya's assistant) have very different approaches when it comes to the question of what a detective is, and what they do, and that also results in them going for approaching the people of Jordentown very differently, and also trying to explain the murders in very different ways (hence there are not only <i>false </i>solutions, but actually different strands of solutions, where they work from different angles precisely because Ririko and Ootoya look at the people of Jordentown, and what they believe in, very differently). The ending, which puts Ririko and Ootoya at very completely sides in terms of "what being a detective is about" is amazing, as it really gives meaning to why we have two different detective characters. Some of the set-up to the final stretch of the book doesn't feel as strong as other parts of the book, but ultimately, it's a book that'll stick in your mind for a while, and the ending will play an important role in that. <br /></p><p>This book also appears to be part of a series which follows the title convention of "<i>Meitantei no...</i>" ("<i>The Detective...</i>") but I don't know how strongly connected these books are, if at all, in terms of story. Story-wise, <i>The Detective Massacre</i> feels fairly self-contained, but there are a few references and characters who might be series characters? I guess there's one way to find out...</p><p>But as Stan Lee also wrote, 'Nuff said. <i>Meitantei no Ikenie - Jinminkyou Satsujin Jiken </i>or <i>The Detective Massacre</i> is a fantastic mystery novel, which uses a unique setting to tell the kind of detective story fans of Brand, Berkeley and Queen are likely to love with its many (properly built-up) solutions, but it's also a great book on its own as it uses the setting of Jordentown to present a mystery story you really won't be seeing anywhere else. Even something like Queen's <i>And on The Eight Day</i> doesn't quite come close to this. One of my favorites of this year, and I hope to read more of Shirai's work in the future.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s):白井智之『名探偵のいけにえ: 人民教会殺人事件』 </span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-75262630910114323762023-12-16T00:00:00.041+01:002023-12-16T00:00:00.149+01:00The Stone Idol<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"That belongs in a museum."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</i>" </span><br /></div><p>Most of the mystery games I play, place an emphasis on the story, and use game mechanics to allow the player to advance in the story. Most of them are of course adventure games where you closely follow the development of a tale of mystery, and the story is allowing the player to interact with the mystery by presenting them these puzzles in the form of questions, to see if you managed to solve them. Often, these games also offer an 'inventory' system in the form of a clue system, where you accumulate clues which you can use to for example answer the aforementioned puzzles ('showing evidence'). A game like <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Gyakuten%20Series%20%7C%20%E9%80%86%E8%BB%A2%E3%82%B7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA"><i>Gyakuten Saiban</i>/<i>Ace Attorney</i></a> for example in fact mainly revolves around the exact same puzzle being fed to the player constantly, be it a highly context-senstive one (a contradiction between the evidence you gathered and a statement made by a witness), while other games like <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-adventure-of-secret-partner.html">Detective Pikachu Returns</a></i> might just present varying questions depending on the specific story part, ranging from "who is the culprit and what is the evidence that points to them" to "do we have some clues that could tell us how we could get past that guard?" or something like that. Still, most of the adventure games I play basically ask you context-specific questions that pertain to <i>that</i> specific part/scene of the story.</p><p>2018's <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2019/10/pirate-ship-of-fools.html">Return of the Obra Dinn</a></i> was a huge surprise as a mystery game, as it focused much more on one core deduction-focused game mechanic, and it basically only asked you the same question again and again, without much change in the actual underlying context of the question. Investigating the body-filled ship the Obra Dinn which mysteriously returned to the harbor, your task is to 1) identify each dead body and 2) identify the cause of death (and culprit if applicable). This task remains the same from start to finish, and you could theoretically just fill in the crew list, connecting each name with a portrait and their cause of death right from the beginning. Of course, the game wasn't that easy, as identifying each corpse depended on reliving their final moments via a magical watch, and it was necessary to have a <i>very</i> keen eye for contextual details to deduce from each death scene what name belonged to each face: a man being called by his name is of course a very easy clue, but most of them weren't <i>that</i> easy, and had to be deduced from seeing in them in multiple scenes and connecting various clues together. That said, the core tasks remained the same, and in my review, I described <i>Return of the Obra Dinn</i> as in essence being "<i>a gigantic sudoku puzzle: you know each face and each name, and now you have to determine what names and faces can or can not belong together by crossing off all the possibilities. If for example you know this person is either the carpenter or the carpenter's assistant, but you also heard somewhere that the assistant dies before the carpenter, than you can identify both once you know in what order the two nameless faces died</i>." Because each person can only have one name, face and cause of death, and names and faces of course are not shared among multiple people, it really felt to me like sudoku, determining the characteristics for each "sudoku puzzle" and knowing how faces/names/ranks/etc. had a finite number of uses. Strangely enough, I've had multiple surprised reactions when I described <i>Obra Dinn</i>'s gameplay as sudoku, even though in my mind it seemed not only so obvious, but I couldn't even imagine it was an original thought in any way. Earlier this year, I played <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/radio-suspect.html"><i>Unheard</i></a>, which had a similar feel (but audio-based) and it was quite fun!<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpdTLr4kYet-EGMShwRodWmefj-oP3XhxKDQyNfxxCQTjmBIv9VO9qPGCXNzyRMAk-FkE6kOyhVROUhHoEUwXb-GOc0JUdvLnAqw5mV3EMbt_j8AQyjbQuduPWBBNR-XooAlXXJQwPI2DBbewDZXOtMl6I6Lk9caV_O_gygxHi-ZvVXYTttIuE1GlH3D0/s200/goldenidol1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpdTLr4kYet-EGMShwRodWmefj-oP3XhxKDQyNfxxCQTjmBIv9VO9qPGCXNzyRMAk-FkE6kOyhVROUhHoEUwXb-GOc0JUdvLnAqw5mV3EMbt_j8AQyjbQuduPWBBNR-XooAlXXJQwPI2DBbewDZXOtMl6I6Lk9caV_O_gygxHi-ZvVXYTttIuE1GlH3D0/s1600/goldenidol1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p>When <i>The Case of the Golden Idol</i> released in 2022, I heard it had gameplay similar to <i>Return of the Obra Dinn</i>, and I also played the demo when it was released, which I enjoyed a lot. But for one reason or another, I didn't pick up the full game right away, but now we're more than a year later, and I finally played the game. * When you start up the game, you are immediately presented with a ghastly scene: one man pushes the other off a cliff. The problem? You don't know <i>what the heck is going on</i>. Who is the murderer? Who is the victim? Why is he murdering the other? Where are they? As you click around, you gather key terms (names, verbs, locations, etc.), and you slowly start to piece together the story behind this scene: set in the 18th century, we are looking at the two men who obtained the titular golden idol during an expedition, and apparently one is killing the other in order to keep the idol for himself. But who is who? You find letters with names in their rucksacks, so you know the two men must be Albert Cloudsley and Oberon Geller, but who is the pusher, and who is the pushed? </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBR5jPnK1Rd3nng0TPAu2JJ8ujMrWQL4a7gD1tWwPpwtkSjlBE4_IHZe5PmDmbelP_XiV9PBdfsHZfvvyMj247v5p-xIlZrpmvB8eFv63nBL5zBHwTyaohxyOrPX9OcDLiqwjgC_L3bg8GjylyeEdJEKB6ZquBuhv3QAtWF6TkOrg6pmDcVgR34bTAN4I/s400/goldenidol4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBR5jPnK1Rd3nng0TPAu2JJ8ujMrWQL4a7gD1tWwPpwtkSjlBE4_IHZe5PmDmbelP_XiV9PBdfsHZfvvyMj247v5p-xIlZrpmvB8eFv63nBL5zBHwTyaohxyOrPX9OcDLiqwjgC_L3bg8GjylyeEdJEKB6ZquBuhv3QAtWF6TkOrg6pmDcVgR34bTAN4I/s16000/goldenidol4.jpg" /></a></div><p>It's here we are treated to the gameplay similar to <i>Return of the Obra Dinn</i>: to get anywhere in this game, you must first use the names you have gathered, and assign them to the faces you see on the screen. At first, this is fairly easy, like seeing one character addressing the other by name, or for example you can guess by their uniforms, but later scenes are much trickier. Because <i>Golden Idol</i>'s gameplay focuses mostly on determining who and what everything is on the scene, the murders you'll be solving
are fairly straightforward: the focus is not on the <i>how</i>, but on figuring out the whole underlying context. While a lot of the scenes might seem rather baffling at first, that's often simply because you're dropped in a scene that is unfolding right now, and usually after collecting the first few key words, you'll quickly grasp the broad outline of the case, after which you can concentrate on figuring out who everyone exactly is and the order of events leading up to the murder. Unlike <i>Return of the Obra Dinn</i> however, <i>The Case of the Golden Idol</i> will also ask you other questions about the scene to answer, again using the key terms you have accumulated from the scene. You might be asked to determine whom certain letters you found on the scene belong to, or you find a floor diagram and must also determine who stays in what room. Once you figure out these secondary clues, you are usually tasked with one final mission: to determine exactly what happened. This is done by completing a short summary of the scene, which has a lot of blanks. You fill this summary in using all the key terms you found. You might for example see Character A killing Character B with something in their hand in a unknown location. So first you have to use the clues to determine A is in fact Colonel Mustard, a name you found in a letter in the luggage in one of the rooms and you remember one character calling A by his title, and then based on the books in the background of the location you determine the room is in fact the library and not the kitchen, and finally, you can fill in the blanks in the summary by saying [Colonel Mustard] walked into the [library] and used the [candlestick] to kill [Miss Scarlet]. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeh5ntflM4FOwYT0Jrly-0krrGW5cDOXRO_kSSvw6QYx7OJguV5Eo8FWvH63kBYZ_EsCRfS97XFKezTIcg6TUzfJbxCZPMieUMi504CyMrfDMEvpZqicQVmQ7oIQVobAokC115thBgSKNIMLggkLzxrHNNzJqgzUvOLj4CpYiIUbWQC02Gb6HZHW2usb4/s400/goldenidol2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeh5ntflM4FOwYT0Jrly-0krrGW5cDOXRO_kSSvw6QYx7OJguV5Eo8FWvH63kBYZ_EsCRfS97XFKezTIcg6TUzfJbxCZPMieUMi504CyMrfDMEvpZqicQVmQ7oIQVobAokC115thBgSKNIMLggkLzxrHNNzJqgzUvOLj4CpYiIUbWQC02Gb6HZHW2usb4/s16000/goldenidol2.jpg" /></a></div><p>While not as difficult as <i>Return of the Obra Dinn</i>, <i>The Case of the Golden Idol</i> is certainly a detective game that will challenge your mind, as while the first few scenes you investigate are fairly small and straightforward, later scenes might involve several screens with a lot more going on. The story is surprisingly epic, spanning several decades and each "level" is a specific scene (usually moments after a mysterious violent death) revolving around the titular golden idol. You follow the golden idol's journey as men crave its powers, but because each scene is presented without any introduction, it's up to the player to guess how this scene might connect to the previous one, even if it might be a few decades since the last scene and it's set at a completely different location with perhaps only one face or name you recognize from a previous scene. That is one part I really enjoyed <i>The Case of the Golden idol</i> over <i>Return of the Obra Dinn</i>, as the latter was a great deduction game, but the story you uncovered behind the crew's mysterious deaths was not that one of deductive mystery. <i>The Case of the Golden Idol</i> however does present one and realizing how each scene is connected to the next is part of the mystery the player also needs to unravel in order to beat the game. At first though, the scenes might feel very disconnected and that might feel a bit disappointing, as you move from one confused state to another, but it does come together quite nicely once you're past a certain point, when more of the plot is revealed. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXskd099ymUuxUk83SmzSGRr0G6dNxFrEmdmeipyNo5L9epHGIJGuO7dml-VTOHcZDhqy4wjMoH3M48akYkf6fGWbbq57XaP94dAu0SUPpNA6xZ5kEHmORK26w7HeNhxL4sUR3NuB_6_ZgH-BDrIJjjzz5u28GomtW4JwIBPWel4tZCkAQQ1zwMBi94do/s400/goldenidol3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXskd099ymUuxUk83SmzSGRr0G6dNxFrEmdmeipyNo5L9epHGIJGuO7dml-VTOHcZDhqy4wjMoH3M48akYkf6fGWbbq57XaP94dAu0SUPpNA6xZ5kEHmORK26w7HeNhxL4sUR3NuB_6_ZgH-BDrIJjjzz5u28GomtW4JwIBPWel4tZCkAQQ1zwMBi94do/s16000/goldenidol3.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>I quite enjoyed the overall story too, though I do think some of the secondary puzzles you are required to solve in each level had too much of a "logic puzzle" sense to them. One of the later stages for example had you figure out something out to a degree that wasn't <i>really</i> relevant to the case at hand (do you really need to know <i>those exact numbers?</i>) and those parts I didn't enjoy. I liked <i>Obra Dinn</i> a lot because it used the same basic puzzle of face + name (+ cause), but some of the secondary puzzles in <i>Golden Idol</i> feel very contrived as puzzles (sometimes, it almost feels like people are for example only calling other people by codenames or nicknames just so the player can be presented with a puzzle).</p><p></p><p>The demo I played one year ago of <i>The Case of the Golden Idol</i> is basically the same as the full product, so I can't say I was <i>really </i>surprised by the game now I have played it, but it is a very fun mystery game that really puts an emphasis on deductive thinking. If you liked <i>Return of the Obra Dinn</i>, you're certainly going to like this, and because of the shorter playtime and the slightly easier difficulty, I'd say<i> The Case of the Golden Idol</i> might even be the better introduction to this style of deductive reasoning games. I haven't gotten around to the DLC yet, though I have heard it's more
challenging than the base game, so I'll probably eventually get around
to playing those two too sooner or later! Preferably before the recently announced sequel comes!<br /></p>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-48521768487037694462023-12-13T00:00:00.006+01:002023-12-13T00:00:00.146+01:00The Body's Upstairs<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Two little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>And Then There Were None</i>" </span><br /></div><p>There is no reality where students would gladly say yes when their Philosphy professor invites them to their office to talk about Ellery Queen and the philosophical problems regarding mystery fiction... <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg8Ojtz6IzhPc0P8cxZA9vrx4hHh3Qu278PeNFs2kBiorzLh_5MdYQfu5H1WNHO6k8r2bfvqHpE_iIt3w4q5j3Q7E8e4wW3uIFzbhokhnb9bw3hpYYVP_ZxLUlwblOQKcforIc9Mz_Z51lv1ab7Hkhew5irwXsUwHgbaq2CVmBS5gGKJiL7X5Hd1ZRRdA/s325/hikawa3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg8Ojtz6IzhPc0P8cxZA9vrx4hHh3Qu278PeNFs2kBiorzLh_5MdYQfu5H1WNHO6k8r2bfvqHpE_iIt3w4q5j3Q7E8e4wW3uIFzbhokhnb9bw3hpYYVP_ZxLUlwblOQKcforIc9Mz_Z51lv1ab7Hkhew5irwXsUwHgbaq2CVmBS5gGKJiL7X5Hd1ZRRdA/s320/hikawa3.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Hikawa%20Tooru%20%7C%20%E6%B0%B7%E5%B7%9D%E9%80%8F">Hikawa Tooru</a> is a budding mystery author who has been trying to get published ever since graduating from the Faculty of Philosophy, but he hasn't had luck on his side. One day, he receives a call from Sumiyoshi Masaki, a former upperclassman of the faculty, who is a rising star in the world of philosophy, having published a popular book on the subject, and now teaching at the elite women's university Seishuuin in the city. Sumiyoshi has recently read <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Norizuki%20Rintarou%20%7C%20%E6%B3%95%E6%9C%88%E7%B6%B8%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E">Norizuki Rintarou</a>'s essay on the philosophic problems inherent to the earlier <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Ellery%20Queen">Ellery Queen</a> novels, which would form the basis of the so-called Late Queen Problem, indicating a post-modern problem in mystery fiction. Sumiyoshi wants to pick Hikawa's brain, knowing he's trying to become a mystery author and that he's a Queen devotee, and they agree to have a chat in Sumiyoshi's office after class. They are first joined by a teaching assistant with an interest in mystery fiction, but then a trio of students also appear. One of them, Sanae, is a student of Sumiyoshi, but the other two, Naoko and Miho, are not. It turns out Naoko wants to discuss something in private with Sumiyoshi and asked Sanae to introduce her. The three join the discussion on the Late Queen Problem for a while, and when it becomes late, Sumiyoshi decides to invite everyone for some drinks, but not before he has a talk with Naoko. <p></p><p>They leave the others in Sumiyoshi's office and walk to Seminar Room 1 on the same floor, which is unused at the moment. Just before they enter, a different professor wants to discuss something with Sumiyoshi, so Naoko enters the room first. As the two professors walk away, they notice a guard also entering Seminar Room 1. Meanwhile, Hikawa and the two girls who remained also loaf around a bit, going to the bathroom before they'll leave, but then a loud cry comes from Seminar Room 1. Everyone runs to the room, and they find... a dead guard lying in the room. But for some reason Naoko is not here. Around the same time, the police arrives at the campus, even though nobody here called for them yet, but it turns out <i>someone </i>else called because they saw something outside: the body of a woman was hanging from the roof of the building. This woman of course turns out to be Naoko, who was tied by her legs and thrown from the roof, hanging her upside down with her skirt hanging upside down. But when did Naoko leave the Seminar Room, why is there a dead guard there, and why was Naoko herself too killed? Hikawa, who has solved a few cases before, of course wants to know the truth, but it turns out Miho herself might be an even sharper detective than himself in Hikawa Tooru's 2001 novel <i>Saigo Kara Nibanme no Shinjitsu</i> or <i>The Penultimate Truth</i>.</p><p>After <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-dark-side-of-door.html">Makkura no Yoake</a></i> and <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-little-night-work.html">Misshitsu wa Nemurenai Puzzle</a></i>, it was very clear that Hikawa (the actual author) is a big fan of (early) <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Ellery%20Queen">Ellery Queen</a>, writing in the same style, and of course, <i>Saigo Kara Nibanme no Shinjitsu </i>follows the same idea. However, I feel that after the more exciting second novel, which utilized a closed circle situation to keep the story tense, <i>Saigo Kara Nibanme no Shinjitsu</i> was surprisingly boring to read, with an <i>incredibly</i> slow mid-section. As much as I love Queen-style detective stories, with an emphasis on longer chains of deductions based on physical evidence and the knowledge of what characters did or could have been aware of at what time, these kind of novels do rely a lot on presenting this kind of data to the reader, so the investigative portions of a story can feel a bit dragging. <i>Saigo Kara Nibanme no Shinjitsu</i> is an example of a book where the mid-section indeed suffers from this mode of writing, because it's just slowly feeding you data, and in a very passive way. Like in the first novel, Hikawa soon gains the trust of the police detective in charge of the investigation, who then occasionally gives Hikawa confidential information, and Hikawa has a few talks with the suspects, but all of this moves very slowly.</p><p>I think Hikawa (the author) tried to battle this by introducing the rival character of Miho, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-little-night-work.html">similar to the character Komiyama in the previous nove</a>l: in the second novel, the editor Komiyama turned out to be a talented fan of the mystery genre who pro-actively wanted to solve the mystery, and Miho too turns out to be very sharp, capable at times of out-thinking Hikawa (the character). But their battles only really become meaningful near the end of the tale, as Hikawa has a kind of inferiority complex regarding Miho throughout the tale, meaning it's just Miho sometimes posing a (clever) theory and Hikawa just reacting in awe and admiration. Perhaps it's because I read <i>Misshitsu wa Nemurenai Puzzle </i>and <i>Saigo Kara Nibanme no Shinjitsu </i>basically one after another, but the 'Hikawa feels inferior to rival' part of both stories felt very similar, so it was also not as exciting anymore (that, and you already know Hikawa's the series detective...)</p><p>Anyway, this time Hikawa is once again facing a situation that is not <i>quite</i> an impossible situation, but only nearly one. Nobody was constantly watching Seminar Room 1's door, but they can't figure out why the guard went in the room and ended up dead, while Naoko somehow ended up dead on the roof. Examining the timelines and noting the time the body of Naoko hanging from the roof was discovered by a taxi driver passing by the campus, they also realize Naoko must have left the room very early, creating only a small frame of time in which the murder could have happened. Meanwhile, there were only a handful of people left in this particular university building. In a way that's incredibly convenient for a detective story, it turns out the security company in charge of the building had secretly built an experimental system that logs the time and duration <i>any</i> time any door in the building is opened, which allows them to determine around which time Naoko slipped away out of the room, but again, this creates problems with the time needed to kill the guard in the room, and kill Naoko on the roof. Due to the system, the police also knows exactly how many people were in the building at the time, but not everyone with a connection to Naoko (mainly the people on the philosophy floor at the time of the murder) have a clear alibi.</p><p>As you can guess, the story becomes quite focused on deductions based on time, on figuring out where there's a gap in everyone's alibis which would allow them to commit the murder, and I have to admit, this can be quite boring. There's not much of physical evidence around, so you don't get much of those evidence based chains of deductions I tend to like, where you have to figure out why an object was used or what the use of a certain object tells you about the killer. Time table-based deductions can be interesting in combination with other elements, but on their own, or at least as the main focus, they tend to be very dry puzzles, and that's the same here, and part of the reason why this is definitely my least liked Hikawa novel of the three I have read now. Not that it is devoid of clever parts: the deductions regarding why Naoko was hung upside down from the roof are pretty interesting and exactly the kind of chains of reasoning I do like to read about, but it's definitely just a smaller element of a book that is more focused on time. The way the rivalry between Hikawa and Miho is also resolved in an interesting manner, that ties back in a meaningful manner to the discussion on Late Queen Problems mentioned earlier in the novel. Considering there's a second detective character, you know one of them will pose an incorrect solution at some time, but the way it's framed here, it doesn't feel like just filler or a fake, but it feels like an interesting thought based on the earlier philosophical discussion.</p><p>But on the whole, <i>Saigo Kara Nibanme no Shinjitsu </i>is certainly not my favorite of the Hikawa novels until now. While I appreciate the mode of the detection utilized in these novels, the way it is told now is a bit longwinded and I am in general not a super big fan of stories that require you to fill out time schedules for a dozen of characters and try to find a logical gap in them. Hopefully, the next will bring back some of the more focused mid-section like the second novel had. </p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 氷川透『最後から二番めの真実』</span></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-693160605056149712023-12-09T00:00:00.018+01:002023-12-09T00:00:00.367+01:00Terminal Connection<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Moby-Dick</i>" </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This year's <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Meitantei%20Conan%20%7C%20%E5%90%8D%E6%8E%A2%E5%81%B5%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3">Detective Conan</a></i> film once again managed to beat the previous film's earnings record, which was already huge. It's crazy how the film series becomes stronger and stronger, even though this is the 26th entry!</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span><span><span><u><b>Detective Conan <i>manga</i> & movies:</b></u></span></span><br />
<span><span><a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2011/06/blog-post_23.html">Part 1: Volumes 1 ~ 10</a><br />
<a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2011/06/blog-post_22.html">Part 2: Volumes 11~20; <i>The Timebombed Skyscraper </i>(1) <i>/ The Fourteenth Target</i> (2)<i><br /></i></a>
<a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2011/06/blog-post_25.html">Part 3: Volumes 21~30; <i>The Last Wizard of the Century </i>(3) / <i>Captured in Her Eyes</i> (4)</a><br />
<a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-post.html">Part 4: Volumes 31~40; <i>Countdown to Heaven</i> (5) <i>/ The Phantom of Baker Street</i> (6)</a><br />
<a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-post_04.html">Part 5: Volumes 41~50; <i>Crossroad in the Ancient Capital</i> (7) /<i> Magician of the Silver Sky</i> (8) /<i> Strategy Above the Depths</i> (9)</a><br />
<a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-post_09.html">Part 6: Volumes 51~60; <i>Private Eyes' Requiem</i> (10) /<i> Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure</i> (11)</a><br />
<a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-post_11.html">Part 7: Volumes 61~70; <i>Full Score of Fear</i> (12) /<i> The Raven Chaser</i> (13) / <i>Lost Ship in the Sky</i> (14)</a><br />
<a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/2015/09/blog-post.html">Part 8: Volumes 71~80; <i>Quarter of Silence</i> (15) / <i>The Eleventh Striker</i> (16) / <i>Private Eye in the Distant Sea</i> (17) </a><br />
(You will find the links to the reviews of volumes 70, 72~76, 78, 82~104 and the films <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/2011/10/blog-post_23.html"><i>Quarter of Silence</i> (15)</a>, <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.jp/2012/04/blog-post_26.html"><i>The Eleventh Striker</i> (16)</a><i>, </i><a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/2013/11/one-more-time.html"><i>Private Eye in the Distant Sea</i> (17)</a>, <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/2014/12/love-searchlight.html"><i>Dimensional Sniper</i> (18)</a>, <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/2015/10/suitable-for-framing.html"><i>Sunflowers of Inferno</i> (19)</a>, <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/2016/10/color-of-memory.html"><i>The Darkest Nightmare </i>(20)</a>, <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-scarlet-thread-of-murder.html"><i>The Crimson Love Letter</i> (21)</a>, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2018/10/justice-for-all.html"><i>Zero the Enforcer</i> (22)</a>, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-adventure-of-lions-mane.html"><i>The Fist of Blue Sapphire</i> (23)</a>, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-case-of-silver-bullet.html"><i>The Scarlet Bullet</i> (24)</a> and <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/11/magic-and-tricks.html"><i>Bride of Halloween</i> (25)</a> in <a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/p/library.html">the library</a> or via the <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Meitantei%20Conan%20%7C%20%E5%90%8D%E6%8E%A2%E5%81%B5%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3"><i>Detective Conan</i> tag</a>)</span></span></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmk6ONsNqC81Xw4RXl3J61ua01Cwy4FtEtff3sGc47ykVgZ3ZFXdT5fnKakd94HOzQUeCI8KhY4ZAGqYpGbFGKcmm4aW9UWqjylo6wX0ZvCvctFcTcOIVDzpR1ufXw2TsdOdgfHmxGRgnHVHbwvZDkAi6Szrhi78IRsyVnSjJqjncgFSc9YPBUH_xK7hA/s283/submarine1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="200" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmk6ONsNqC81Xw4RXl3J61ua01Cwy4FtEtff3sGc47ykVgZ3ZFXdT5fnKakd94HOzQUeCI8KhY4ZAGqYpGbFGKcmm4aW9UWqjylo6wX0ZvCvctFcTcOIVDzpR1ufXw2TsdOdgfHmxGRgnHVHbwvZDkAi6Szrhi78IRsyVnSjJqjncgFSc9YPBUH_xK7hA/s1600/submarine1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Kudou Shinichi, the high school student detective who was turned into a boy by the Black Organization via an experimental drug and has now taken on the name of Edogawa Conan to lie low, is always on the lookout for any trail that'll lead him to his nemesis, and one day, Conan is informed by an ally about a recent infiltration operation by members of the Black Organization into an Interpol base in Frankfurt, which led to the death of an Interpol agent. Conan and his friends happen to be visiting the island of Hachijou to watch whales, but when Conan spots Inspector Shiratori and Metropolitan Police Department managing officer Kuroda also on the island, boarding a cruiser, he quickly connects their visit to the Frankfurt break-in and a new Interpol facility built near Hachijou. The Pacific Buoy is located in the middle of the ocean, built partially beneath water level and houses the new surveillance system of Interpol: it's connected to all police surveillance cameras in Japan and can be used to real-time track people and objects due its recognition software. The new facility also uses new software developed by Naomi Argento, an Italian-Japanese American. Her software analyses photographs and can predict how people will look as they age, allowing Interpol to also search for wanted persons who have been lying low for many years, or for example kidnapped children who might be older now. Today is the day this new facility will also be hooked up to the European side of Interpol, allowing them to also analyze European surveillance footage. Conan manages to join Shiratori and Kuroda during their visit to the Pacific Buoy, but during their stay, Naomi is abducted <i>from the underwater facility</i>. This is only possible if someone on the inside is helping the kidnappers (whom Conan is convinced is the Black Organization), but who is the Interpol traitor? However, events shift into high-gear when members of the Black Organization accidentally learn that Miyano Shiho, the ex-member of the organization whom they thought they had killed previously, is still alive: Naomi's software has recognized Shiho in Haibara Ai, the identity Shiho took when she took the experimental drug to turn herself into a child, just like what happened with Conan. Haibara becomes the Organization's new target, but can Conan save his friend in the 2023 theatrical film <i>Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine</i>?</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">As always, a new <i>Detective Conan</i> animated theatrical feature was released in April of this year. <i>Black Iron Submarine</i> is film 26 already, and next year's film has already been revealed and given a release date of April 12, 2024, so that means the film sub-franchise of <i>Detective Conan</i> will be at least 27 films long, and they manage to keep on breaking earning record after record (<i>Black Iron Submarine </i>is at the moment the second best performing film in Japan of this year, and currently ranked at no. 25 of the highest-earning films in Japan of all time, beating <i>Jurassic Park</i>). Of course, the films' tone have also changed in these almost three decades, adjusting to the preferences and tastes of the audience. The earlier films were tonally quite similar to the stories from the manga, being mystery-focused stories with a bit more spectacle (explosions), but more recently, the films are far more character-focused, showcasing fan-favorite characters in <i>very</i> marketable manners, and of course even more and bigger EXPLOSIONS. of the more recent films, I still think 2017's <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-scarlet-thread-of-murder.html"><i>The Crimson Love Letter</i></a> managed to strike the best balance between a well-developed mystery plot and character-focused spectacle and definitely the film I'd now recommend to new viewers. This year's <i>Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine </i>is in a way very similar to last year's <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/11/magic-and-tricks.html"><i>Bride of Halloween</i></a>, which I described as a film that<i> ".,.</i>does things I hadn't expected a <i>Detective Conan</i> film to do, but also didn't do a lot of things I expect, or at least hope to get from a <i>Detective Conan </i>film."</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgLfSdvvv-UyUzSnCnVksYiMCXtfb7VPdsrFu7I2WtI6dftXB5JaEfiG20Ce-NcHZgJk9_qdjvsCRTHwGbLQLUsYH5DyzkpRvZ6QqSBn0aFJCGqwJMiD86AFJN36kdh8ozoqXmTnIQScLNhTQxIdxesf8O9VglFsxtbZOu7Q0kGX0Wn3IjOhNVUjM_AE/s400/submarine2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgLfSdvvv-UyUzSnCnVksYiMCXtfb7VPdsrFu7I2WtI6dftXB5JaEfiG20Ce-NcHZgJk9_qdjvsCRTHwGbLQLUsYH5DyzkpRvZ6QqSBn0aFJCGqwJMiD86AFJN36kdh8ozoqXmTnIQScLNhTQxIdxesf8O9VglFsxtbZOu7Q0kGX0Wn3IjOhNVUjM_AE/s16000/submarine2.jpg" /></a></div> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For again, we have a film that is fairly light-weight when it comes to the mystery-element, while at the same time, it dares to show aspects of characters in a way not even the main series has ever done, and it does this also by building strongly on events and the history of the main series. Whereas many of the films are written<i> </i>(to varying degrees of success) to be understandable to people who don't watch the main series (in fact, many people <i>only</i> watch the annual films), last year's <i>The Bride of Halloween</i> was very strongly connected to the main series, making numerous references to very specific stories, events and characters, even at times feeling like a sequel to certain storylines, and while the references this time are not as specific, a lot of what makes <i>Black Iron Submarine</i> work is because long-time fans <i>know</i> the context of the character interactions and what exactly drives them, and the film makes effective call-backs to earlier adventures with Haibara and her encounters with the Black Organization to tell its own original adventure, showing a Haibara we so seldom see in the main series. Up until now, the main series has shown us several stories where the Black Organization comes close on the trail of Haibara (Miyano Shiho) in their attempts to eliminate the traitor, and <i>Black Iron Submarine</i><i> </i>is definitely a great addition to that tradition. In fact, the Black Organization has seldom felt so threatening and efficient. In recent years, only <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/10/a-study-in-black.html"><i>The FBI Serial Murder Case</i></a> story from volume 100 comes close, but that was a small group of organization members versus one lone FBI agent on the run (backed up by Conan), while in <i>Black Iron Submarine</i>, we have the Black Organization being frighteningly effective in dealing with Interpol and their new undersea facility, while they also hunt for Haibara. I have to be honest, I hadn't expected the film to begin <i>like that</i> either! As a dramatic, character-focused suspense film, <i>Black Iron Submarine </i>is definitely highly entertaining material, with chases, fights and basically a <i>war</i> <i>at sea</i> going on between the Black Organization and Interpol, with Haibara caught in the middle, and with parties trying to outwit each other.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi_MCboJmspltgJsHVqSpnkKeoY-LnILVFBdc4BvZfxPiKnao35K4QZOaVycQnj3v6085jRRXKMCOovVPq67z6Tawxoti9sOv_wEUbjoxA7R7q8humpidoYuqIWk_BTCYDBMqxGgonUbJ5sEd03_WSq9RXBqH_e7qjz0X_J6GxY4aKZCW5tWlp5pfw-6A/s400/submarine4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi_MCboJmspltgJsHVqSpnkKeoY-LnILVFBdc4BvZfxPiKnao35K4QZOaVycQnj3v6085jRRXKMCOovVPq67z6Tawxoti9sOv_wEUbjoxA7R7q8humpidoYuqIWk_BTCYDBMqxGgonUbJ5sEd03_WSq9RXBqH_e7qjz0X_J6GxY4aKZCW5tWlp5pfw-6A/s16000/submarine4.jpg" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Because of this though, I think the film might be hard to follow who don't really know <i>Detective Conan</i>, as it juggles <i>a very large cast of recurring characters</i> this time, some only making very short appearances without much of an introduction. The film assumes you know the motivations of the characters, which can be especially difficult as a few characters in this film are in fact double agents, so sometimes they act for one party, and the next moment for another, and while this is shortly mentioned at the start of the film, there's no real "conclusion" to this, as their role as double agents of course continues in the main series, and there's no real "pay-off". On the other hand, the film <i>is</i> more straightforward than <i><a href="http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.nl/2016/10/color-of-memory.html">The Darkest Nightmare</a></i>, which featured a lot of the same cast members, but in a more confusing "multiple parties with different agendas going against each other" plot... Also, the film does assume you're more-or-less up-to-date with the collected volumes at the time of release, so the film does for example show you the Black Organization member Rum, whose identity had been a plot-driving mystery for some time in the manga, but who was revealed a few volumes earlier.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTg9sS-8SypeN4Ee3DHeoNPorSbViJPntwRBRy36ASsZIvgstwg87YFipWoniwFBDMzbXbemBQ9A961ho0KicFnGalZAolgT0ChxJixe8TvONI9iZM3BIf4PLaPwHFupv-wAguUwZ47XKAlWU5NsR5fPpKxglgnURs4GSobEWrquOt0izSt8YO3KE0-o/s400/submarine3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="209" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTg9sS-8SypeN4Ee3DHeoNPorSbViJPntwRBRy36ASsZIvgstwg87YFipWoniwFBDMzbXbemBQ9A961ho0KicFnGalZAolgT0ChxJixe8TvONI9iZM3BIf4PLaPwHFupv-wAguUwZ47XKAlWU5NsR5fPpKxglgnURs4GSobEWrquOt0izSt8YO3KE0-o/s16000/submarine3.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />As a mystery film however, I again have to stress<i> Black Iron Submarine</i> isn't anything special. The mystery-plot mostly revolves around who the traitor within the Pacific Buoy is who helped the Organization kidnap Naomi and later even commit a murder in the Buoy, but the tricks used by the murderer, and the clues pointing to them are rather basic, and I wouldn't really mind in a normal 24-minute episode of <i>Detective Conan</i>, but they feel rather underwhelming in a theatrical release. The best I can say is that yes, the clues are properly and fairly planted for the attentive viewer, but don't expect a sense of blissful comprehension when all the pieces fall into place, as the puzzle is just too simple. It also doesn't help the suspects have far too little screentime to make any impression on the viewer: they get an introduction at the start, but afterwards they all have like only one or two appearences saying one or two lines, as the film focuses more on the recurring characters from the main series. The murder half-way the film is also a bit too "on the nose" with its use of technology to facilitate the killing, and the kind of idea everybody will have played with in their mind at one time, and here it's used in the most non-surprising, direct manner imaginable. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But in short: if you're just a mystery fan, you can skip <i>Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine</i>, as the mystery plot is fairly flimsy for a 110 minute film, and it's also not really the focus of the feature. For fans of <i>Detective Conan</i>, and <i>especially</i> the character of Haibara though, this is a must-see. <i>Black Iron Submarine</i> is a highly entertaining suspenseful thriller revolving around her and the Black Organization that feels at least as tenseful and captivating as previous such encounters in the main series, but this film even goes beyond those stories at time due to it stronger focus on character drama. So if you're more-or-less up-to-date with the main series, I'd definitely recommend watching this film too. Can't wait to see the next <i>Detective Conan</i> film, which will focus on Hattori, Kazuha and KID!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s):『名探偵コナン 黒鉄の魚影』</span></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-41593697926190031452023-12-06T00:00:00.013+01:002023-12-06T00:00:00.173+01:00Murder as a Fine Art<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">「真実はいつも一つ!」</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">『名探偵コナン』</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"There is always only one truth!"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Detective Conan</i>" </span><br /></div><p>I don't think I have many books with a grey cover...<br /></p><p><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Maya%20Yutaka%20%7C%20%E9%BA%BB%E8%80%B6%E9%9B%84%E5%B5%A9">Maya Yutaka</a> is not an author you're going to read if you want something conventional. Ever since he made his debut in 1991 with <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2012/08/swan-song.html">Tsubasa Aru Yami - Mercator Ayu no Saigo no Jiken</a></i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2012/08/swan-song.html"> ("<i>Darkness with Wings - The Last Case of Mercator Ayu</i>")</a>, you can detect a theme in his works, and that is deconstruction. Maya obviously loves the mystery genre, but it's his love that also allows him to deconstruct the familiar tropes and themes of the genre. Post-modernist themes like the Late Queen Problem are subjects that play a big role in Maya's work, and notions like the truth or the detective, which seem like very "obvious" themes in the mystery genre, are transformed, transfigured and molten into new shapes in Maya's books. His books are seldom straightforward, and will turn the conventions of mystery fiction around just to mess with you, whether it's by not providing a clear truth at all (like in the infamous <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/02/hidden-pictures.html">Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata</a></i>) or just delving into Late Queen themes like multiple truths/interpretations in <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-mystery-of-evil-eye.html">Sekigan no Shoujo</a></i>.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqss9JnBWQWHkOT1Laote24YyxGG37aXDPAsrwHG4xBWxKQBnG_7JMfs9Iv3szmDERtvmyJTW1uviFQiCr_f_jY7TYyiFN6_tEo1sxOgUL9IQRunoNl0_MaaLneMpuwwlys_176knLQtetLn8Agu32fZyZtBGkbAlrt49N6Iw1PHJu7p2OsEmm7pfizFQ/s275/mercatorkaku.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="200" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqss9JnBWQWHkOT1Laote24YyxGG37aXDPAsrwHG4xBWxKQBnG_7JMfs9Iv3szmDERtvmyJTW1uviFQiCr_f_jY7TYyiFN6_tEo1sxOgUL9IQRunoNl0_MaaLneMpuwwlys_176knLQtetLn8Agu32fZyZtBGkbAlrt49N6Iw1PHJu7p2OsEmm7pfizFQ/s1600/mercatorkaku.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Maya Yutaka's 2011 short story collection <i>Mercator Kaku Katariki</i> ("<i>Also Sprach Mercator</i>") collects five stories that basically are all about Maya deconstructing the classic mystery tale with a great detective. As the title suggest, we are once again treated to an appearance by <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Mercator%20Ayu%20%7C%20%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AB%E3%83%88%E3%83%AB%E9%AE%8E">Mercator Ayu</a>, who first appeared in Maya Yutaka's debut novel <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2012/08/swan-song.html"><i>Tsubasa Aru Yami - Mercator Ayu no Saigo no Jiken</i> ("<i>Darkness with Wings - The Last Case of Mercator Ayu</i>")</a>. And yes, that is a very suggestive title. The <i>very</i> arrogant and self-centred private detective Mercator Ayu has since returned in several novels and short stories and in the past, I had read <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2013/02/trouble-is-my-business.html">the first short story collection</a>, but that one was actually still quite like a collection of normal mystery stories. Not the case with <i>Mercator Kaku Katariki </i>however. I can tell you right away: if you want to read a conventional mystery story, you need to walk away now, as you won't find <i>anything</i> remotely like that in the pages of this book. Maya plays with the reader in these stories, and does everything you won't expect of a mystery story. <p></p><p>And in a way, it's <i>incredibly</i> fun. But you definitely need to be in the right mindset for this.</p><p>It's also very difficult to write about these stories, precisely because more often than not, they're not really meant to be normal mystery stories. They almost feel like <i>punchlines</i>, building on Late Queen problems and other post-modernist themes regarding mystery fiction and taking their conclusions to the extreme. So while the stories start out in familiar ways, the part that is usually the "solution" to a mystery is changed in these stories, concluding in very surprising and subversive ways.</p><p>The opening story <i>Shisha wo Okosu</i> ("<i>To Wake the Dead</i>") for example starts very conventionally: Mercator is hired to investigate the death of someone, who died one year ago, while he was staying with some friends in an old house up for sale just outside the town. They had been drinking, and he had been resting in another room, and it appears he just fell out of the window, killing himself. Mercator is now to see whether it was really an accident, as the friends still feel something was off. While they are waiting for Mercator and Minagi (a mystery author who acts as Mercator's Watson/slave), they quickly realize the death wasn't quite normal, and they start to suspect each other, but then Mercator arrives and he... solves the case? I do really like some of the deductions Mercator presents in this story. They do remind you that Maya was indeed a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, and he utilizes some clever Queen-like deduction chains to slowly point towards a surprising truth behind the death one year ago. Only... that's not all. Once the dust has settled, Mercator basically turns everything around in a way that completely renders this a non-mystery story in essence. I like the idea, but this first story proves right away this isn't <i>really</i> a mystery collection.</p><p>The second story <i>Kyuushuu Ryokou </i>("<i>A Trip to Kyuushuu</i>") does something similar: Mercator forces Minagi to open a file on his own computer, which turns out to contain a virus. Because Minagi's manuscript has been wiped, Mercator offers to present Minagi a plot for a new story. They walk out of Minagi's apartment, but just near the stairs, Mercator notices a weird smell from one of the neighboring rooms, and when he peeks inside, it turns out someone's dead inside. Mercator and Minagi look around the room, trying to figure out why Minagi's neighbor is dead, as this will serve as Minagi's new story. Again, this story features a few nice short deduction chains based on the physical evidence they find, but ultimately, it's all building up to a climax that can only be described as a punchline, and any feeling of catharsis of learning the solution is washed away immediately. It's quite funny and I do think this particular story is the closest to a "normal" detective story, but still very subversive. </p><p>The third and fourth story <i>Shuusoku</i> ("<i>Convergence</i>") and <i>Kotae no Nai Ehon</i> ("<i>A Picture Book Without Answers</i>") can't even be explained properly, as both are truly something you have to <i>experience</i> yourself. In <i>Shuusoku</i>, Mercator and Minagi are invited to a small island with a mini-cult to investigate a break-in, while in <i>Kotae no Nai Ehon</i>, the murder on a teacher is the subject of an investigation. While again both investigations do feature clever deductions that would've been great in <i>straightforward</i> detectives, Maya then decides near the end to tie explosives to the story, blow it up, gather the pieces and then set fire to them just to finish them off. The conclusions of both stories will <i>infuriate</i> you if you want a normal detective story, but that's what makes them so interesting as experiments regarding the set rules and tropes of mystery fiction. <i>Kotae no Nai Ehon</i> in particular is daring with what it tries to do, and truly something you can only pull off once, though I like the surprising elegance of what is done in <i>Shuusoku</i> better. These two are the must-reads of the collection, just for their craziness.</p><p>The final story <i>Misshitsusou</i> ("<i>The Locked Room House</i>") is a short short, involving just Mercator, Minagi and a dead body they find one morning in the house they are staying at. What follows is a short conversation-only story that once again ends with a ridiculous resolution if you'd think about it from a "mystery genre" point of view, though at this point, I think a lot of readers can guess what Mercator will do considering how <i>outrageous</i> he's been behaving all this time. The title of the collection is <i>Also Sprach Mercator</i>, and that is certainly a theme running through all these stories: ultimately, it's Mercator who decides what the "truth" is and how each story will end.</p><p>I did enjoy <i>Mercator Kaku Katariki</i> a lot, but it's not something I would want to be reading all the time. It worked for me, precisely because I had been reading a lot of formal mystery stories at the time, and so I had a lot of fun seeing those same tropes played with in such a daring way. I do think this collection is the most accessible work written by Maya where he addresses these deconstructive themes. Something like <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/02/hidden-pictures.html">Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata</a></i> just requires a lot more dedication from the reader, while <i>Mercator Kaku Katariki</i> is actually a very short and light-weight read. This is not a book I can unconditionally recommend to mystery fans, but if the idea of playful deconstruction appeals to you, I think this will be a very fun read.<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩『メルカトルかく語りき』:「死人を起こす」/「九州旅行」/「収束」/「答えのない絵本」/「密室荘」 </span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-25091870963268494512023-11-29T00:00:00.014+01:002023-11-29T00:00:00.140+01:00Choosing Sides<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>A place for everything and everything in its place</i>.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Saying)</span><br /></div><p>Time for my single anthology review of the year... And yes, it's a bit late this year...<br /></p><p></p><p>Disclosure:
I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. However, I
didn't vote for the stories this year.</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGfmZmOXGIZTLocXoGjF_Q7t4sNKEvZDVMLyEg6db_9xezfAbffv17UUui2nAIm8p_PSUwG9cE5jVbY8K8H3TwOMOPqobXHDJsVN7YKx4gT5dgkDbbRo-lEyleO01e68CAaVu0WJPAOQ83TMLI943O9ovREGKXGXZ2AWc3UHlEi5VrWzppM81lGRW9X0/s279/H2023.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="200" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGfmZmOXGIZTLocXoGjF_Q7t4sNKEvZDVMLyEg6db_9xezfAbffv17UUui2nAIm8p_PSUwG9cE5jVbY8K8H3TwOMOPqobXHDJsVN7YKx4gT5dgkDbbRo-lEyleO01e68CAaVu0WJPAOQ83TMLI943O9ovREGKXGXZ2AWc3UHlEi5VrWzppM81lGRW9X0/s1600/H2023.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Every summer, the <i>Honkaku-Ou</i> ("<i>The King of Honkaku</i>") anthology is published, collecting the best <i>honkaku</i> short stories published the previous year, as selected by the members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. The selection of short stories basically acts as a counterpart to the Honkaku Mystery Award, which is awarded to the best published book each year. Short stories are usually published in different magazines or online, which can make them difficult to obtain at a later stage, so having all the chosen short stories collected in one book is quite convenient. The <i>Honkaku-Ou</i> format was started in 2019, as the previous format also included the year's best mystery-related essays chosen by the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club, but while not every year was as strong as others, I do think the last two years had really strong contenders, some of them I'd even consider candidates for my own best-read mysteries of those years. So I had been looking forward to the 2023 edition too. <br /><p></p><p><i>Honkaku-Ou</i> 2023 (2023) opens with <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Imamura%20Masahiro%20%7C%20%E4%BB%8A%E6%9D%91%E6%98%8C%E5%BC%98">Imamura Masahiro</a>'s <i>Aru Heya Nite</i> ("<i>In A Certain Room</i>"), and apparently, this is the first short story Imamura wrote that is not part of a series. Oh, and another disclosure message: I translated Imamura's <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/09/death-among-undead-released.html"><i>Death Among the Undead</i></a> and <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/12/death-within-evil-eye-released.html">Death Within the Evil Eye</a></i>. This is, interestingly, considering his other works, an inverted mystery and opens with a scene where Kengo tries to talk things over with Yuuka his... girlfriend? ex? and things go horribly wrong, ending with her death. Because he snuck in the apartment building, he figures he might get away with it if he can spirit her body away for a while, and he's just done stuffing her body in a suitcase and about to leave the place, when an attorney appears at the door, who says he has an appointment with Yuuka, as she wanted to discuss something with him regarding a rather pesky stalker. Kengo pretends he's Yuuka's brother, hoping to fool the attorney long enough to get out of here, but the attorney seems to notice a lot of little things that add up to a big truth while he's in the room... This is a rather short story, and it's one I like better for the turnabout climax at the end of the inverted mystery, when things inevitably go wrong for Kengo, than for the build-up. While I like the big "twist" you often have in inverted mysteries that is presented here (when you realize the murderer made a truly fatal mistake), the minor mistakes and faults the attorney notices in the build-up feel less strong, and don't really give that satisfying feeling you often have even with smaller points like in <i>Columbo</i>. Not a bad story by any means, just a bit underwhelming on the whole.</p><p>Yuuki Shinichirou was featured in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2020/10/danger-on-parade.html">the 2020 edition</a> of this anthology, and returns with the oddly-titled <i>Koronde mo Tada de ha Okinai Fuwadama Toumyou Soup Jiken</i> ("<i>The 'If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade' Fluffy Egg Pea Sprout Soup Incident</i>"). This time we follow a kind of Uber Eats driver, but one of the shops he works for is rather special: the restaurants is also actually a detective agency. By making very specific orders via the app, clients can engage the detective/cook's services, who uses a select number of trusted Uber drivers to visits to the clients to gather the necessary information to solve the case. This time they are working on a case of a dead woman found in an apartment building that went up in flames. While people were watching the smoke outside, a woman saw another woman who mumbled "Good for him!" and then ran into the building. Later this woman was found dead in one of the apartments, which was occupied by her ex, who escaped from the fire in the building in time. Because of his connection to the victim, police are of course investigating him, but as the woman was seen going into the building herself, it doesn't seem it was his fault she died, but why did she go inside in the first place? At first sight, I thought the idea of an Uber-detective-service sounded fun, but I didn't think it was really used meaningful here. I assume this story is part of a series, but the way the story was told with bits of the driver returning to the cook to discuss the case didn't help the pacing of the story. The fire incident itself is not super complex and I think many will guess early why the woman went to the building herself, but I liked it enough, so I thought it was a shame the story read a bit awkward.</p><p>Shiotani Ken's <i>20XX-nen no Shuki</i> ("<i>Accounts Dated 20XX</i>") consists of a series of reports written by different people, portraying a unique dictatorship led by the Great Leader X, who guides the strictly-led nation. The first account is from A, the director of Camp 33 in the Kanto region, a training camp where men are trained in several skill fields. His account to his superiors says nothing is wrong at the camp, but the next report already introduces to B, the replacement of A, as A was caught lying in his reports. B reports on the death of K, an injured man who had been sent to the camp to recover, but who accidentally died during his stay at the camp, a fact A tried to cover up. More letters follow, which slowly delve into the secret behind K's death. This was a short, but fun story, with each letter changing your views on what was said in the previous letter. It's not really fair play puzzle in that sense, as the writer of each new account always knows much more than the reader, but it's cool to see how the case changes and events described in earlier accounts can suddenly take a completely different meaning. The world described in these letters give this story both a very large, and small scale: apparently this is a North Korea-esque society, but at the other hand, all we see of this world is through these letters, which are all about events occuring inside a special training camp, so ultimately you don't see that much of this unique society. This would be cool to see in a full series.</p><p>According to Yagi Jun's own introduction, <i>Chikusare</i> ("<i>Fatal Blood</i>") was written as a horror story, so he was surprised it got picked for this anthology. It's about a sister, who joins her younger brother and his two children on a camp, as his sister-in-law is too busy with work to go with them. During their time outdoors, the sister remembers how there's a shrine in the forest here, with a cursed stone which can cut ties between people if you put the blood of the one you want to cut ties with on the stone. But as time passes by, she starts to see her younger brother act suspiciously with a cloth with some blood on it... This is indeed more of a horror story than a straight puzzler, revolving around the sister's suspicions about her brother's actions. Not bad per se, but also not really what I expect to read in an anthology like this. Had it been written more as a straight mystery story, I think I would have liked it better, because the last revelation is good, but the hinting/foreshadowing is a bit weirdly paced because it's more a horror story.</p><p>Araki Akane's <i>Doukou no SHE</i> ("<i>Fellow Traveller SHE</i>") is about Yuuko, who is going to kill somebody. She boards the night bus with just a kitchen knife inside her coat pocket, ready to strike when she arrives in Tokyo. The woman next to her however almost immediately notices the knife, and says she'll tell the driver, but Yuuko places the knife against the woman, Ruri, and tells her to stay quiet. The bus makes its way towards Tokyo, occasionally stopping at rest areas. During one of these stops, the passenger in front of Yuuko and Ruri says his phone and wallet was stolen from his bag in the overhead rack, and when they look around, the wallet is found inside Yuuko's bag! Yuuko knows she didn't steal the wallet, and immediately suspects Ruri pulled the stunt off to get out of her predicament, but how did she manage that while being kept at knife-point? A very thrilling story, though mystery-wise it is a bit... convenient? Like, I know people doze off in a night bus, but would nobody have noticed what was going in with that bag considering what was done with it in order for the wallet to end up in Yuuko's bag? The mystery of the smartphone is better, and I like the final turn of events regarding Yuuko's intended murder overall very much too though.</p><p><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Shirai%20Tomoyuki%20%7C%20%E7%99%BD%E4%BA%95%E6%99%BA%E4%B9%8B">Shirai Tomoyuki</a>'s <i>Moterean no Tekubi</i> ("<i>The Hand of the Moterean</i>") starts with a group of three looking for crystallized fossils on the island of Posta, the realm of Gods. Once upon a time, an alien species called Moterans lived on the island, but they are now all extinct, and having been in the ground for so long, the three think they might find fossils turned into gemstones here. They eventually do find a cut-off hand, which is a bit weird, so they dig even further and far deeper in the ground, they stumble upon an arm. When they dig dozens of meters further, they find a body with a missing arm, and also signs they were naked when they died. This however leads to a very puzzling question: how did this Moterean's body end up like this on Posta Island, naked, and with their hand and arm at completely different depths in the ground? <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2019/08/update-on-crime.html">The one Shirai story I ever read</a> was <i>pretty gross</i> and I hear that's his thing, but that was fortunately not the case here. This was an interesting archeological mystery. While I think the 'big' twist in the middle wasn't as surprising as it was probably intended, I liked the theories posed as to how parts of the fossil ended up seperated so far. The scale of the story encompasses thousands of years, so it's a weird "murder mystery" in that sense, but I really liked how this was used to come up with a very surprising explanation for the fossil being like that, as the misdirection really takes advantage of the unique setting.</p><p><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/07/old-habits-die-hard.html">Michio Shuusuke</a>'s <i>Hariganemushi</i> ("<i>Horsehair Worm</i>") is part of a series where each story includes a QR-code to a Youtube audio file, where you get to hear a specific scene/moment from the story. I think this is a pretty cool idea, but on the other hand, it's not really used in a meaningful manner in this specific story. I guess that's because the prose story has to work on its own, so you can not really have the audio track be the actual solution or a vital hint, but still, it's little more than a gimmick now. In this story, we follow a cram school teacher who is stalking one of his students: he has given her an USB charger, but in fact it's a listening device, and the last few days, he's been following her to her home, and listening from his car to the sounds from her bedroom. While doing this, he learns more about her home situation, which is quite grave with an abusive step-father. Things eventually explode in the household, but there's nothing the teacher can do. But what did really happen in the house, and what was it he was actually listening to? I think the problem with this tale is there's no real surprise? It's more a thriller than a detective story, as even at the end, when a detective-like figure explains everything, it doesn't feel like an explanation, because the teacher heard all of this himself and... there was no mystery or anything. The audio track you get to listen at the end, is also just part of a scene the teacher was listening to, with the exact same phrases, so all the audio track offers is just... hearing the scene acted out.<br /></p><p>Overall, I think <i>Honkaku-Ou 2023</i> was not as strong as previous entries. The last three years, there was always at least one story I really, really liked, making the whole collection worth reading, but while there were stories I simply liked in this year's edition, I don't think any of them were really must-reads. I think my favorites are Shiotani's story for having a unique premise and a good build-up to the solution, as well as Imamura and Shirai's entries for their more focused story-telling, but even then, it's not like I think these alone make this really a worthwile read. Oh well, I guess there's always next year!<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2023』: 今村昌弘「ある部屋にて」/ 結城真一郎「転んでもただでは起きないふわ玉豆苗スープ事件」/ 潮谷験「二〇XX年の手記」/ 矢樹純「血腐れ」/ 荒木あかね「同好のSHE」/ 白井智之「モーティリアンの手首」/ 道尾秀介 「ハリガネムシ」</span> <br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-45354514711966835062023-11-28T00:00:00.005+01:002023-11-28T00:00:00.156+01:00Door to Death<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJuTOlfRh4cv3vPSjIfdk4Uo_cEs3LnRkok55EOr1wfnd3X-uZ06jDrUFOMybVCJtY3RQ6wHuDkD2kAvb3vYYsOKiXCo7wLt41Ajg-FnQczwfdk39htJfwefSmOp_M9chGLRP88AFm7nZt1PUhKMScmK9IJvMAkoaPXb05NzXcMAU_7LyZpL7j-E6Z/s200/discord.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJuTOlfRh4cv3vPSjIfdk4Uo_cEs3LnRkok55EOr1wfnd3X-uZ06jDrUFOMybVCJtY3RQ6wHuDkD2kAvb3vYYsOKiXCo7wLt41Ajg-FnQczwfdk39htJfwefSmOp_M9chGLRP88AFm7nZt1PUhKMScmK9IJvMAkoaPXb05NzXcMAU_7LyZpL7j-E6Z/s1600/discord.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>One year ago, I asked about whether anyone knew about any interesting honkaku-focused Discord servers, and as it appeared there wasn't one yet, I decided to open the Honkaku Discord server myself. And today it's been active for exactly one year! At the time, I <i>hoped</i> the server would attract about perhaps thirty members after some time, but to my great surprise, that number was reached <i>much </i>faster than what I had expected, and the Honkaku Server has been a fun place to talk about mystery fiction, from not only Japan, but across the world and in different mediums, from books to games. We've also been doing regular book clubs, even of stories and novels written by fellow members. I haven't really name-dropped the server lately here, so I guess it's about time I do it again, as you're sure to have a great time there if you like chatting about mystery fiction! <br /><p></p><p><b>Invite link</b>: <a href="https://discord.gg/z3HMSmf8qd">https://discord.gg/z3HMSmf8qd</a></p>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-87774427068003699852023-11-22T00:00:00.247+01:002023-11-22T00:00:00.134+01:00Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The world seems full of good men—even if there <i>are</i> monsters in it.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Dracula</i>" </span><br /></div><p>I have to admit, as much as I like reading short story collections, I really don't like writing reviews for them because they either become too long, or I try to discuss them too briefly...<br /></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5guavbf1pbfVuOEThiqakiV3tl5YtFQNLpOIvZn4kKIS2FxjpyZXTGTGmuWA9FefQ9q8HbXT0Cv6OO-0QeqRmzzboTa6RwOVLeFn0XMzpzbwuzBmWb00XXug6E_GRkcvdBsBdyJy2sYJFxbfveSFIeFAD4a8hZQCoOWHOfbQ8n5MWwrcctZEcfTNVwIs/s326/shibarikubi1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5guavbf1pbfVuOEThiqakiV3tl5YtFQNLpOIvZn4kKIS2FxjpyZXTGTGmuWA9FefQ9q8HbXT0Cv6OO-0QeqRmzzboTa6RwOVLeFn0XMzpzbwuzBmWb00XXug6E_GRkcvdBsBdyJy2sYJFxbfveSFIeFAD4a8hZQCoOWHOfbQ8n5MWwrcctZEcfTNVwIs/s320/shibarikubi1.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>The last few months, I have been reading the <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Charles%20Bertrand">Charles Bertrand</a> stories by <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Kagami%20Masayuki%20%7C%20%E5%8A%A0%E8%B3%80%E7%BE%8E%E9%9B%85%E4%B9%8B">Kagami Masayuki</a>, an author who debuted in 1999, but died very young in 2013, having only published three novels and one short story collection, and a handful of uncollected stories. While the uncollected stories were eventually collected, and published posthumously in 2022, it's still a shame this writer who was strongly influenced by <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/John%20Dickson%20Carr">John Dickson Carr </a>published so little, His main detective is Charles Bertrand, a character strongly modeled after Carr's Henri Bencolin character, both being former spymasters and current Paris magistrates. I felt the Carr influence very strongly in the first two novels I read (especially <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-moonstone-castle-mystery.html">the first</a>!), with stories with grandeur focusing on locked room murders and other impossible crimes set in the interbellum and I would definitely recommend a Carr fan (who can read Japanese) to try and trace the Kagami books if possible (they are not in print anymore). The third novel is going for rather a hefty price in the used market though at the moment, so after reviewing the first two books, I skip now to the fourth and final book published during Kagami's life-time: <i>Shibarikubi no Tou no Satsujin</i> ("<i>The Murder in the Tower of Hanging</i>"), a 2011 collection featuring five stories with the Paris magistrate Bertrand and his American nephew and assistant Patrick Smith solving a series of impossible crimes, all with a supernatural theme. <br /><p></p><p></p>While visiting England when he was younger, Charles Bertrand got involved in an old-fashioned duel to the death, but in a very different form than usual. Henry Goodfellows had been accusing Francois Manolisque of being a fraud psychic, whil Manolisque claimed he could make an astral projection of himself and thus commit acts far away from where his physical body is. And thus, the challenge was born: Francois Manolisque declared he would kill Goodfellows, but his astral body would do the job, while his physical body remained in his own home, commonly known as the House with the Hanging Tower, tied up <i>and </i>observed by witnesses. On the night of the duel, Manolisque is put in a suit of armor, and tied to a chair and put inside an underground room in the house. Five witnesses, including Bertrand, keep an eye on Manolisque in the coming hours, until the designated period is over. They check at intervals whether Manolisque is still there. The dagger with which Manolisque declared he would kill Goodfellows is also kept safely inside a box by these five men: with one having the key, another person knowing the code to the combination lock and one physically watching the box itself. Hours fly by and nothing seems to happen, and when it's past the deadline, the five witnesses enter the room again, but to their great shock, they find Manolisque dead inside the armor. And what's more: he's been <i>shot to death</i>, even though the armor is completely intact and nobody ever heard a shot. Meanwhile, Goodfellows is also found dead inside his home thirty miles away, and he was stabbed to death. Shockingly, they learn Goodfellows had shot at his assaillant, and the bullet found in Manolisque matches Goodfellows' pistol, while when they open the box, they find the dagger is stained with blood. At first sight, it seems Manolisque <i>did</i> indeed manage to send his astral body to Goodfellows and that they eventually killed each other, but is that really the case?<p></p><p>The title and opening story <i>Shibarikubi no Tou no Satsujin</i> ("<i>The Murder in the Tower of Hanging</i>") is also <i>by far</i> the best story of the book, and I don't mean that because the rest is so awful. It's just a really neatly constructed story that isn't super long, but full of details that help set-up the puzzle and the solution. I don't really get the title to be honest: while there is a dead person eventually found in the tower of the house, the main mystery is of course how Manolisque could've ended up shot to death while he was inside a suit of armor, in a room that was observed by five different people, and how he could've killed Goodfellows at the same time, who was in his own home thirty miles away. I don't think the solution is super surprising, as there are just so many elements necessary to facilite the solution, it's likely you'll think of at least one part of the solution yourself, and from there you could work your way through the whole thing, but the construction o the whole operation is really good, with a keen eye for detail and clues, and the result is simply an incredibly solid impossible crime.</p><p><i>Jinrou no Kage </i>("<i>The Shadow of the Werewolf"</i>) details the first time Patrick assisted his uncle in his investigations. At the time, Paris had been shocked by a series of abductions of young women. When the first woman was found dead, her body was covered in countless of wounds, with the fatal wound being a bite that crushed her throat and people of Paris starting to call the murderous kidnapper the Werewolf. When the wife of Duke Loreine is threatened too, police officers are posted around the duke's home, but they are unable to prevent a tragedy: The wife is staying inside a locked room by herself, but when she doesn't react to calls by the maid and she and the duke look through the keyhole, they find the wife's been decapitated! They manage to open the door, but while the maid has gone to call for reinforcements, the duke is attacked and bitten too, and the "Werewolf" escapes with the wife's head, But how could the werewolf have entered the house, and the victim's room, and later escaping, without the police noticing? The story is rather simple, and a lot of elements have a few similarities with another Kagami story I read recently (* I basically read all of them "recently" as I acquired the books soon after another), so that made the solution probably a bit easier to guess than normal. More a story that is enjoyable due to the pulpy shock factor than being a highlight of the collection.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivep2jahXbdicdBKtSk3Ca03c4S_BswLOazUPBEoDzglHAJOwPVuU4SNHNXPXOZmupNNGRD5MgWhOYdsI95tB95XfG_MjRJdWuuCvxQMFwmZIGbzaec6yWbLNykgwNmOXoUTRndq867b-RqDjjf8Ej51480My42JtdxeAap45bmqv69cFrLEid4KA4_7o/s576/shibarikubi2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivep2jahXbdicdBKtSk3Ca03c4S_BswLOazUPBEoDzglHAJOwPVuU4SNHNXPXOZmupNNGRD5MgWhOYdsI95tB95XfG_MjRJdWuuCvxQMFwmZIGbzaec6yWbLNykgwNmOXoUTRndq867b-RqDjjf8Ej51480My42JtdxeAap45bmqv69cFrLEid4KA4_7o/s16000/shibarikubi2.jpg" /></a></div> <p></p><p>In <i>Wendigo no Sasayaki</i> ("<i>The Whisper of the Wendigo</i>"), Irene Simpson hopes Charles Bertrand can help her uncle Abner, who is apparently being threatened by the widow of Joseph Desbitt, brother of Arthuer Desbitt whom many years ago, helped Abner on his deer hunts in Canada, but who disappeared mysteriously. In fact, it was only recently Joseph too visited Abner, hoping to learn the truth behind the disappearence of his brother, but he could not believe what Abner had to tell: according to Abner, the two had gotten lost on their way, and one night, they were attacked by something that he believed was the Wendigo, and it was the Wendigo who took Arthur's life. Joseph obviously didn't believe this story, but he was later also found dead under mysterious circumstances in Abner's home, which prompted the visit of Joseph's widow and a help to come to Abner to find out what really happened to the Desbitt brothers, and they are not willing to play nice with Abner, who in turn keeps denying any fault. The widow and her companion are allowed to stay at the house, but the following, the companion is found dead in the garden of the Abner residence, but the death is impossible: the man must've dropped from a tremendous height, but considering his location, he obviously did not fall from the clock tower from the neighboring lot. The only explanation seems to be... a Wendigo lifting the man up in the sky and dropping him. Or is it? I think I like the <i>basic</i> idea behind how it was done, but the clewing is a bit sparse, and there's not that much synergy with the Wendigo/Canada backstory, so as a whole, the story feels a bit chaotic? I think I'd have liked the main trick to the impossible fall better if it had been used in a different story where the reveal is set-up a bit better and where *a certain thing* doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere.</p><p>The last two stories do feature Charles Bertrand, but are at the same time also directly inspired by two John Dickson Carr stories: <i>Vampire no Tou</i> ("<i>The Vampire Tower</i>") is based on the (backstory mystery) of <i>He Who Whispers</i>, while <i>Circe no Shima </i>("<i>The Island of Circe</i>") is based on <i>The Burning Court</i>. I haven't read the last one, so I don't know how similar the two are, but <i>Vampire no Tou</i> is very similar in terms of set-up, about a man falling of a tower while he was alone there, and the entrance being watched, and also focusing on a woman who is rumoured to be a vampire. While the actual solution is a bit different from <i>He Who Whispers</i>, it's still very similiar, and if you're familiar with the Carr book, I think you can guess a lot in advance. So I <i>am guessing Circe no Shima</i> is similar. It is about a mysterious woman (a witch) who is seen to commit a murder in a room, but who then disappears completely. Technically, it's a good, solid impossible crime story, but I kept wondering about how much of this would be similar to <i>The Burning Court</i>, so that did distract me. I am fairly sure that someone who has read <i>The Burning Court</i>, might enjoy this story better as a kind of pastische/homage (not to say the story is bad, but I kept wondering how much of it was just mirroring the original story).</p><p>This book features insert illustrations by JET, who also did manga adaptations of works by Ellery Queen and Yokomizo Seishi. The art is truly amazing, and you can really see how Bertrand was based on Bencolin!</p><p>In the end, I do think <i>Shibarikubi no Tou no Satsujin </i>was the weakest book by Kagami I have read. While the title story is great, and it alone makes the book worth reading, the rest never reaches the same heights. The middle two are a bit 'okay, they're not really bad, but not really memorable either' and the two stories directly inspired by Carr stories, or at least the one I knew, was better, but stayed a bit too close to the source material, taking away some of the surprise. While the art is awesome, I wouldn't say this book is top priority if you want to read Kagami<i>.</i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 加賀美雅之『 縛り首の塔の館』:「縛り首の塔の館」/「人狼(ワーウルフ)の影」/「白魔(ウェンディゴ)の囁き」/「吸血鬼(ヴァンパイア)の塔」/「妖女(キルケー)の島」</span></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-39821341696863750852023-11-18T00:00:00.004+01:002023-11-18T00:00:00.143+01:00The Losing Game <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">「兄は兄。僕は僕ですから」</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">『内田康夫DSミステリー 名探偵・浅見光彦シリーズ「副都心連続殺人事件」』</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"My brother is my brother. And I am myself."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery - The Great Detective Asami Mitsuhiko Series: The Fukutoshin Serial Murder Case</i>"</span> </div><p></p><p>Last year, around this period, I had a short run of reviews of old Nintendo DS detective adventure games... I've only got one for this year though. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK7hS8ail_9D2oZ7X1XOQdGwItN5strutH4-fczUi_HearhOOoV6qDeiZw2qK4GRWvhLkg_HzXC5sh0lpK_OvHdGnsDK5nEq3o9a3ZrLN1MDb6MugJFsoNlZlK8ZvypiFLk4sVHPJkF4uuX2rBAbg6X4pxciguUMoSULBdMUG79jHzBfALWFqRe-VrofY/s200/asamids1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="200" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK7hS8ail_9D2oZ7X1XOQdGwItN5strutH4-fczUi_HearhOOoV6qDeiZw2qK4GRWvhLkg_HzXC5sh0lpK_OvHdGnsDK5nEq3o9a3ZrLN1MDb6MugJFsoNlZlK8ZvypiFLk4sVHPJkF4uuX2rBAbg6X4pxciguUMoSULBdMUG79jHzBfALWFqRe-VrofY/s1600/asamids1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p>I think there's some kind of rule for licensed Nintendo DS games based on the works of famous mystery novelists to have insanely long titles, because after the <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/12/danger-on-ice.html">Nishimura Kyoutarou</a> and <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2022/11/death-times-three.html">Yamamura Misa</a> games, we also got <i>Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery Meitantei Asami Mitsuhiko Series: Fukutoshin Renzoku Satsujin Jiken</i> ("<i>Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery - The Great Detective Asami Mitsuhiko Series: The Fukutoshin Serial Murder Case</i>") in 2009. As the title tells you, the game is based on<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Uchida%20Yasuo%20%7C%20%E5%86%85%E7%94%B0%E5%BA%B7%E5%A4%AB"> Uchida Yasuo</a>'s long-running <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Asami%20Mitsuhiko%20%7C%20%E6%B5%85%E8%A6%8B%E5%85%89%E5%BD%A6">Asami Mitsuhiko</a></i> series: Mitsuhiko is a freelance writer for a travel magazine, who travels all across Japan to touristic destinations, and of course, he often ends up getting himself entangled in murder cases. Not rarely, he ends up being a suspect too, though the local cops usually regret detaining Mitsuhiko whenever they learn he's the younger brother of the current head of Criminal Affairs of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department. While the series is adapted quite often for the small screen, as far as I know, this Nintendo DS game is the first and only time the series got a game adaptation (with an original story). The story starts familiar enough: Mitsuhiko teams up with a new photographer (the player), but he also receives a letter from a girl, whose father recently passed away. This Senkawa Akihiko was one day found dead in his bed by his daughter Mafuyu, but while the police has deemed it a suicide, she can't believe her father would leave her all alone in the world. Senkawa worked in the sales department of the car manufacturer Y, so while working on his article, Asami also visits the Y headquarters along the Fukutoshin Metro Line to see whether there could be a different reason for Senkawa's death. He soon learns three months ago, Nakamori, a co-worker of Senkawa was murdered, which quickly puts a different light on Senkawa's death, and so Mitsuhiko starts digging in Senkawa and Nakamori's past.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsKV3T3dyGc6TutjoJu3E-5MY3oYMV1YvVdpU_0OXE0flgiqLj1DzDseYt299l1Ju3nGMM0tA3zY6xgDKBAsdn52LhmgUnFNVtjmd_W8ra7jchHVrKuEIMdPVjW8NDWPY7o1sL3LaE_4z46VwGs_3bQ6MxCmSpL4iW1q7XqekR6m7ZCsTiBZnmD0SFuWM/s400/asamids2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsKV3T3dyGc6TutjoJu3E-5MY3oYMV1YvVdpU_0OXE0flgiqLj1DzDseYt299l1Ju3nGMM0tA3zY6xgDKBAsdn52LhmgUnFNVtjmd_W8ra7jchHVrKuEIMdPVjW8NDWPY7o1sL3LaE_4z46VwGs_3bQ6MxCmSpL4iW1q7XqekR6m7ZCsTiBZnmD0SFuWM/s16000/asamids2.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p>I'll just refer to this game as <i>Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery </i>to keep it short. The game is, as you'd expect, an adventure mystery game of the command-style variety, where you use standard commands like "Talk" and "Go to" to visit various locations and talk with various characters to gather information. At key moments you'll be asked questions to show you're on the right track, or you have to solve small puzzles like figuring out a code. Nothing surprising here, though I must admit that right from the start, I was rather pleasantly surprised by the production values of this game. While it's not big AAA-title for the DS, I have to admit I had never expected it to be this good: there are official tie-ups with for example the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro_Fukutoshin_Line">Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line</a> (which had only opened completely one year before the game's release) and Mercedes-Benz, there is a fair amount of animated characters and the voice work! Most characters are voiced, some by very big names like Ootsuka Akio and Tani Ikuko, and a staggering amount of scenes is voiced, not just some key scenes, but also minor scenes. The Nishimura Kyoutarou and Yamamura Misa games looked a lot cheaper than this and to be honest, I have seen enough non-licensed "for gamers" games that aren't produced with as much care as this game. Though, the music is quite... boring.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheHM8zlqPD0CLFHrrfx3-f3MDzPXoertuKlms5H3kTCYfjpgzPgqwpvU_APVK9P-tft9ey6z33OIJl-0H0kXRoLfYZHyZEFTUQlze6ReYfUzRIoxVdzYmbjX9vioRxPo3Syx4pNDx82oYk6py8-IpOiXfbXrVft_d4NjTBlGpN3wHXis3nN6fDINaKnYA/s300/asamids3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheHM8zlqPD0CLFHrrfx3-f3MDzPXoertuKlms5H3kTCYfjpgzPgqwpvU_APVK9P-tft9ey6z33OIJl-0H0kXRoLfYZHyZEFTUQlze6ReYfUzRIoxVdzYmbjX9vioRxPo3Syx4pNDx82oYk6py8-IpOiXfbXrVft_d4NjTBlGpN3wHXis3nN6fDINaKnYA/s1600/asamids3.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>And as a mystery adventure game too, <i>Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery</i> is very, very boring. It's a shame the story and gameplay isn't as interesting as the production values would suggest. The story does hit all the usual <i>Asami Mitsuhiko</i> tropes, like Mitsuhiko being seen as a suspect by the police until they learn who his brother is, Mitsuhiko being scolded by his mother Shizue for loafing around and not marrying, we visit Karuizawa in a short segment to have our obligatory "tourist destination trip" and where we learn a bit about a local tourist spot and of course, the mystery plot focuses more on entangling human relationships and their motives, rather than solving tricks, so if you're an <i>Asami Mitsuhiko</i> fan, you might be satisfied with that alone (and yes, I do realize this game is of course also marketed to exactly those people, and not mystery gamers per se). I do have to say I am kinda disappointed the game is so Tokyo-centred. I get they got the Fukutoshin Line deal, but the way every location happens to be near around one of the Fukutoshin stations and one plot point was tied directly to the line felt a bit forced. But when translated to an actual interactive game, this story just doesn't really work in a way to be interesting. All you do is just go from one location to another and go through the conversations in order. The segments where you need to answer some questions correctly to show you've "deduced" something to proceed are just questions asking you repeat the little fact you learned five minutes ago, and the few puzzle segments where you solve a code aren't fun either. The game has multiple endings (bad endings), but as far as I know, they are all just directly choice-dependent, like choose to go to location A first means instant bad ending, location B first and you're fine. Which isn't really interesting either. <p></p><p>The story itself I have to admit, was surprisingly on-par with other <i>Asami Mitsuhiko</i> books I have read. The game scenario is credited to the Asami Mitsuhiko Club by the way, the official fan club run by author Uchida Yasuo himself (it was disbanded in 2015 after 22 years). The books are not <i>really </i>the kind of puzzlers I prefer to read, but at least fans of the series will probably like this as it doesn't stray from the formula and feels like a genuine Mitsuhiko tale. At its core, the story does have things I do like, regarding how the whole series of murder is set up, though motive-wise, things feel a bit weak, and that way they tried to make the murderer feel symphathetic (because it's a human drama-focused mystery) didn't work <i>at all</i> for me. Not sure if the writers actually were trying to portray them as sympathetic, or were just overdoing the "explanation of the motive", but it was a really weird climax... Some parts felt a bit forced though, like the trip to Karuizawa, but at least we got to visit... Uchida Yasuo there. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwVysea9Q_fKwaesvwSPk0B_ak1Kd2EyAj_iHqhX5Ib0Bmcr-A9KPNHjQfrIexEuBbvhR_GIZsX9ve8NQTVAh0yEcwbv5df8ZQ20WSVtnaqwluzIe9QkqmPu7J5_ZCgEHSUBynsIdvJrQfx2NHpHCrUM6tO-KsZRd_ojj5ZFAVJ8UFsX4xYxK2nScQUI/s300/asamids4.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwVysea9Q_fKwaesvwSPk0B_ak1Kd2EyAj_iHqhX5Ib0Bmcr-A9KPNHjQfrIexEuBbvhR_GIZsX9ve8NQTVAh0yEcwbv5df8ZQ20WSVtnaqwluzIe9QkqmPu7J5_ZCgEHSUBynsIdvJrQfx2NHpHCrUM6tO-KsZRd_ojj5ZFAVJ8UFsX4xYxK2nScQUI/s1600/asamids4.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Which was odd. In this game, Asami Mitsuhiko is actually well-known as the amateur detective, because the in-universe Uchida has written the books based on his adventures and those have been adapted for television too (like in the real world). He's at least famous enough for people to recognize him occassionally, and for Mafuyu to write him a letter in the first place. And yet there'd still be police detectives in Tokyo who don't know him? Or somehow Mitsuhiko's editor doesn't keep a better eye on him, considering Mitsuhiko's tendency to skip work to work on a case? The choice for the player being Mitsuhiko's photographer was also a bit weird. At the end of the game, you're actually being ranked for how good of an assistant you were to Mitsuhiko, but the rating system is a bit vague for that. You're ranked based on answering the questions correctly or doing the right suggestions to Mitsuhiko, but... "Mitsuhiko's assistant" isn't a character in the books, so you can't really know "how" you're supposed to act. I'm not sure why they didn't have you be Mitsuhiko himself...<p></p><p>But in short, the only thing <i>Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery Meitantei Asami Mitsuhiko Series: Fukutoshin Renzoku Satsujin Jiken</i> has going for it as basically its production values. As a mystery game, the story feels like an Asami Mitsuhiko tale, but it's not fun at all to play as a game, with too much hand-holding and not really requiring the player to ever think for themselves about the case and mysteries. Now I am starting to wonder whether there are actually games based on existing mystery novel series that are interesting on their merits as video games? Perhaps I should try <i>YAKATA Nightmare Project</i>, based on Ayatsuji's <i>House</i> series one day...<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 『</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">内田康夫DSミステリー 名探偵・浅見光彦シリーズ「副都心連続殺人事件」</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">』 </span></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-15242924238648736642023-11-15T00:00:00.002+01:002023-11-18T09:34:22.648+01:00Dead Man's Hand<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"It's good to be the king."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>History of the World: Part 1</i>"</span><br /></div><p>To be honest, I really dislike writing posts on books I feel... very indifferent about. <br /></p><p>Disclosure: I translated Norizuki Rintarou's short story <i>The Lure of the Green Door</i>. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOf0imBNuIoSxSjONuZrEc8MxaE7HT7PA-GI5LOBQcA7HWDRjExC7iRzzqNcvSxauLT_lbETyuMXJZpKP915JL7mTEsvzPaze8Io5x4Sl7AyxPMAok7jf_Fvr-RDAVwEM569gouQmJ862u658QiHuaE0WDvRrSdYMTAZbSGCq3pwjKbCXs6DGwCdiF5Yg/s280/kingsagase.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="200" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOf0imBNuIoSxSjONuZrEc8MxaE7HT7PA-GI5LOBQcA7HWDRjExC7iRzzqNcvSxauLT_lbETyuMXJZpKP915JL7mTEsvzPaze8Io5x4Sl7AyxPMAok7jf_Fvr-RDAVwEM569gouQmJ862u658QiHuaE0WDvRrSdYMTAZbSGCq3pwjKbCXs6DGwCdiF5Yg/s1600/kingsagase.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>A group of four gather in a karaoke box. While at first, this might seem like a normal gathering of friends, we soon learn the four barely know each other. But they have one thing in common: they all have someone they want dead. The four agree to exchange murders: by trading murders, they can secure an alibi for themselves when the person they want dead is murdered by someone else for them. Of course, they will have to commit a different murder in return. By having <i>four</i> people exchanging murders, they hope to fool the police completely, as a simple 1 - 1 trade might be discovered. They use a pack of cards to decide who gets which target and the order in which the murders have to be committed, as well as exchanging basic information about the intended victims with the would-be murderer. And in time, the game starts. Inspector Norizuki gets involved in one of these murders, but the discovery of a playing card leads to his son Rintarou realizing a murder exchange might be hidden beneath the murder. Can he and his father figure out who the murderers are in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Norizuki%20Rintarou%20%7C%20%E6%B3%95%E6%9C%88%E7%B6%B8%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E">Norizuki Rintarou</a>'s 2011 novel <i>King wo Sagase</i> ("<i>Find the King</i>")?<p></p><p><i>King wo Sagase</i> is at the moment the latest novel in <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Norizuki%20Rintarou%20%7C%20%E6%B3%95%E6%9C%88%E7%B6%B8%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E">the <i>Norizuki Rintarou</i> series</a> featuring the same-named Norizuki Rintarou, a mystery novelist who sometimes assists his father Inspector Norizuki in difficult cases, mirroring the Ellery Queen/Inspector Queen dynamic. While a few short story collections followed afterwards, this is still the last long adventure of Rintarou, and also the last book I hadn't read of the series, so I guess I <i>finally</i> caught up, even though the <i>Norizuki Rintarou</i> books are among the first I ever discussed here.</p><p>The theme of the book is a murder exchange... which strangely enough a rather common theme in Norizuki's writings. The short story<a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2012/12/calendar-of-crime.html"> [Libra] <i>Shukumei no Majiwaru Shiro de</i> ("<i>At the Castle where Fates Cross</i>")</a> is about a murder exchange too and is apparently a kind of proto-version of <i>King wo Sagase</i>, while one of the earliest non-series Norizuki's I read, <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-secret-of-old-clock.html"><i>Double Play</i></a>, also tackles the same theme, While not about a murder exchange, I also have to think about the short story <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2021/08/curious-interpretation.html"><i>Abekobe no Isho</i> ("<i>The Switched Suicide Notes</i>")</a>, where the wrong suicide notes are found with the wrong people. You do get a sense that Norizuki likes... people swapping things.</p><p>This book does take on a different form than most Rintarou stories and the other novels, because it is about a murder exchange, and therefore takes an inverted mystery form in at least the first third/half of the book. We are told about the meeting of the four conspirators right away, and see them dividing the playing cards that decide who will kill who and in what order, after which we follows some of the murderers committing their crimes. When Inspector Norizuki and Rintarou become involved, it doesn't take them <i>too</i> long to start suspecting some kind of exchange is going on based on the clues they found, and I have to say it was this part which does feel a bit rushed, because okay, how swiftly would you usually really connect two or more seemingly unconnected murders by suspecting a murder swap? But I guess the realization has to come at one point for the book to shift gears, as from this point on, we focus more on the Norizukis investigation into the suspected murder exchange.</p><p>It's here the book takes a surprising turn. The book starts out as an inverted mystery story and we as the reader already know there really has been a murder exchange, but some things in the criminal plan go wrong, which quickly allows Inspector Norizuki and Rintarou to focus in on the murderers, who of course wish to escape the claws of justice. They come up with a plan to fool the Inspector, and this is basically the main mystery of the book: we already know who the murderers are and the murder exchange, which was the "initial" line of defence, has been exposed, so now they have to come up with a new line of defence using the cards they have been dealt. This becomes a more conventional puzzle, but I wasn't really a big fan of the overall plot, I think. I'm not really sure why. I think part of it is that it feels very much like a puzzle: a lot of the mystery demands of you to remember the real names of the four murderers, their nicknames they use among each other and the cards they were given at the start of the story and at times it really just feels like a sudoku-esque puzzle where you need to determine symbols A/B/C. And after reading other murder exchange stories by Norizuki, I guess some of the surprise of the twist lacked impact, as a lot of it did feel familiar in terms of themes. There is an interesting twist in theory, but it's basically portrayed in a rather cumbersome manner, and after at least two other stories with the same theme, little of <i>King wo Sagase</i> really surprises.</p><p>Perhaps someone who hasn't already read Norizuki's other murder exchange stories will enjoy this one better, but for me, <i>King wo Sagase</i> was just too short, with too many elements that feel too familiar to really impress me. In general, I also think the short stories with Rintarou are better as puzzlers, so I guess that this book was fighting an uphill battle with me, but while it's my last Norizuki Rintarou novel for now, it's sadly also probably my least favorite, not because it's actually bad, but having read all the other works in this series, it just doesn't manage to surprise as much, nor does it provide a deductive chain as entertaining as other Rintarou stories do manage to offer. I'm glad I have read all the Rintarou books now though, and I hope new short stories will come!<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 法月綸太郎『キングを探せ」</span><br /></div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8031063966272508587.post-26987000129456057722023-11-12T00:00:00.005+01:002023-11-12T00:00:00.135+01:00Phantom of the Knight<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Only you can put the king in check, vigilante. Move according to the rules, or it's the end of the day."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"<i>Batman: The Animated Series</i>" </span><br /></div><p>I wish we could return to the schedule of having three or four new <i><a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/search/label/Meitantei%20Conan%20%7C%20%E5%90%8D%E6%8E%A2%E5%81%B5%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3">Detective Conan</a></i> volumes a year instead of the <i>barely</i> two we get now...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdg7TPCaSmOHPr6O51SWoyjq5wzRVyA6yMvVcXzSX2FLoog9XPHuxP4z4OwRiSozAnZ8QM0paJ6FhzGc9Q5QEy0iGYjydZ-meqT_cpNruI2TOvpGmsCBMCdQbY9C4KGRjWXhKXySKGOqKTDOQW55i7VuyEV1aVR8Cekx4CHGnc6hpwvvbTuFNaDDPs1f8/s314/Conan104.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="200" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdg7TPCaSmOHPr6O51SWoyjq5wzRVyA6yMvVcXzSX2FLoog9XPHuxP4z4OwRiSozAnZ8QM0paJ6FhzGc9Q5QEy0iGYjydZ-meqT_cpNruI2TOvpGmsCBMCdQbY9C4KGRjWXhKXySKGOqKTDOQW55i7VuyEV1aVR8Cekx4CHGnc6hpwvvbTuFNaDDPs1f8/s1600/Conan104.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>It's been about six months since we last saw <a href="https://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-lions-smile.html">a new <i>Detective Conan</i> volume</a> so here we have volume 104. I am not really sure why they didn't time the home video release of this year's theatrical release, <i>Kurogane no Submarine</i>, with this volume, as there's a gap of over a month now even though they are usually quite good at timing these kinds of releases, but this is the way things go, and what do we have this time? A very, very disappointing volume indeed, that is only <i>kinda</i> saved by one story, but also not really. The volume opens with <i>The Knight Was Witness</i>, where we learn Inspector Shiratori is participating in an amateur chess competition. His girlfriend Kobayashi is there to cheer him on, as is fellow teacher Wakasa, and their pupils the Detective Boys. They also run into Kuroda, the Managing Officer of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police (so Shiratori's superior), who also turns out to be quite the mean chess player. During the first round, someone plays <i>Amazing Grace</i>, which seems to unsettle a few of the players, who say something similar happened last year too. During the down-time between rounds, a few players who finished their games early chat and have some drinks, but then one person in the room suddenly has his drink shot into fragments by an crossbow arrow! Kuroda and Conan run into the hallway in the hopes of finding the assailant, but they onyl find a second victim in the men's bathroom, who not only has an arrow shot in his stomach, but next to him lies his belongings.... and a keychain figure of a Knight's piece, which Kobayashi had gifted Shiratori earlier. He claims he lost the figure and that he had been making a call at the stairs. Security footage confirms nobody took the elevators after the victim arrived at the floor, limiting the number of suspects to three, plus Shiratori, who seems to be the main suspect considering his keychain was found next to the victim. But what are those blood smears in that magazine of the victim?<p></p><p>A dying message of course, and not a very interesting one either. Wordplay dying messages are seldom my favorite, and one major clue that serves as a <i>kinda</i> twist is telegraphed with such enormous lights, it's hard to miss. The story also seems only to be an excuse to serve as a prologue to the next story: Kuroda sees Conan solving the riddle of the Knight so fast, he decides to confide to Conan about an incident he got involved with 17 years ago in the United States, involving a bloody knight's piece...</p><p>And fans who have been reading <i>Conan</i> this whole time of course know what Kuroda's <i>finally</i> going to tell Conan about, as we have been getting hints about a murder case involving a wealthy person that occured 17 years ago for a long time ago, and we know the incident also involved Rum, the second-in-rank in the Black Organization that created the drug that shrunk Kudo Shinichi to his current child-form, forcing himself to play the role of Conan. We also know other suspicious figures were involved one way or another with this case, but not exactly how, so in <i>The Truth of 17 Years Ago</i>, we finally get the story told completely, via flashbacks of both Kuroda <i>and</i> Rum themselves, who has plans to assassinate a certain person involved with this incident. The case involves the death of the wealthy Amanda Hughes, an elderly lady with both financial and political powers, who is also an amateur chess player who recently became friends with a young, but very talented shogi player. She has caught the attention of a certain crime organization however, who plan to assasinate her at her hotel, where the shogi player is also staying. She indeed ends up dead, and others fall victim too to the organization, but Amanda left one curious message as she died, leaving lipstick on her watch and smearing her blood on a knight's piece on her chess board. Kuroda now hopes Conan can solve this message for him.</p><p>While this incident taking place 17 years ago is important in <i>Conan-</i>lore as it connects several characters to each other, and also clarifies the actions and motives of a lot of the characters finally (we only got hints and fragments telling us about that before), <i>The Truth of 17 Years Ago </i>is not a very interesting story mystery-wise. Not at all. The fact we got <i>another</i> dying message involving a knight's piece one after another doesn't really help, but the message as Conan solves it <i>doesn't even really tell either Kuroda much, nor the reader</i>: because the reader is also shown flashbacks of Rum (who was involved in the murder 17 years ago), we know exactly what occured when Amanda died, and while Kuroda and Conan didn't know, the message that is decyphered doesn't tell them much in the first place, and it tells us the reader absolutely nothing noteworthy, as we already know the contents of that message via Rum's own flashbacks! So as a mystery, the story isn't interesting at all. There's a secondary plot, where in the current day, we see Rum bossing his sniper assassins Chianti and Korn around to assassinate a certain person, but this plot point also didn't really work for me, because for some reason Conan, after hearing about Kuroda's story, <i>somehow</i> guesses an attempt at this person's life might be made <i>this very moment</i>, and while that is, miraculously, really the case, there is no way Conan could've known that Rum would attempt such a thing on that day at that time, and not on <i>any other day</i>. The created tension thus feels very fake, and ultimately, this story offers nothing mystery-solving-wise. It is just a gigantic lore dump. Which makes this story a must-read for people who want to follow the story, but that is the only reason why you'd be reading this story.<br /></p><p><i>The Ghost Tale of the Man-Eating Classroom</i> is set at Teitan Elementary, where a new transfer student in the class next door has been telling the kids the tale of a ghost who roams classrooms, demanding for food or else it will cause fires or destroy pots and things. Some kids believe him, though Conan is of course sceptical. But then, during lunchtime, the flower bed just outside the classroom catches fire! While Haibara manages to quickly stop the fire with water from a vase with flowers, Conan suspects it's certainly not a ghost who set fire to the flower bed and he even has an idea of what people in the class might have a reason for causing an incident, but on the other hand, nobody saw anybody near the flower bed before the fire started, and besides some burned chips, he also can't find evidence somebody set up some time-mechanism to set fire to the flowers (so the culprit wouldn't need to be there at the time the fire started). The story is... okay? I don't think the fire incident meshes that well with the ghost story (which is more about a ghost demanding food or else it gets hangry) and there's no way you're going to figure out howdunnit based on the hints given, but I think that as a whodunnit, it worked surprisingly well, because the howdunnit feels very natural in relation to the culprit (i.e. the actual means available to that person to create this incident), as well as the whydunnit. As in, the way the incident was started fitted well with the classmates of Conan as we know them from previous stories and also with their characters, so it didn't come out of nowhere. But still, the actual howdunnit is a bit lacking in clues, and there's just no way you'd arrive at that conclusion based on those hints.</p><p>Volume 104 ends with the first chapter focusing on Heiji and Kazuha taking the train with... Momiji (Kazuha's rival in love) and her butler, who seems to get involved in a rather mysterious incident while on the train. I am actually curious to how this story will develop further, but we'll have to wait for next year, when the next volume is released...</p><p>Anyway, <i>Detective Conan 104 </i>was not one of my favorite volumes of this series. The main story is important lore-wise, but not interesting at all as a standalone mystery tale, and the other two stories which are fully included in the volume are not very memorable either, either because it's another far-fetched dying message, or simply because it was a story that is intentionally not very big: you usually have such "smaller" stories after bigger event stories, which <i>The Truth of 17 Years Ago </i>technically is, and while I understand not all can be as good in bringing a lore-important, action-packed story <i>while</i> also providing a good mystery as volume 100's <i>The FBI Serial Murder Case</i>, this is the other end of the extreme, where it focuses so much on finally conveying some context to an event that had been hinted at over the course of many years, to the extent it forgets to be interesting as a standalone mystery too. Let's hope volume 105, scheduled for next year (probably when the new film releases in April), is better!</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』第104巻 </span> </div>Ho-Linghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673330638260132388noreply@blogger.com0