Thursday, April 26, 2018

Murder at the Television Studio

"Print! Radio! That's what reaches people. Television is just a frivolous, expensive playtoy."
 "The Adventure of the Hardhearted Huckster"

As I mentioned in my review of the excellent Japanese TV adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I try to review mystery fiction in various formats on this blog, which often means either a movie or a drama. The reason I often end up reviewing movies is simple: they take relatively little time to consume. I also watch Japanese TV dramas regularly, but for some reason or another, I often forget to write a review of the series whenever the series is over. Last year's Kizoku Tantei was an exception in that regard, as more often than not, I end up only writing something about the first episode, like with Himura Hideo no Suiri or Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de, which were both fun series nonetheless.

For those like-minded people who enjoy watching proper mystery fiction in the audiovisual format, the recently released 21 Seiki Honkaku Mystery Eizou Taizen ("The Encyclopedia of 21st Century Honkaku Mystery Video", 2018) is a book to keep in mind. As the title suggests, this reference guide is a catalogue edited by mystery critic Sengai Akiyuki (and contributions from various people including Mitsuda Shinzou and Ookura Takahiro) with over 250 titles of honkaku mystery fiction in video form released in the 21st century. The book is divided in six categories: Japanese films, TV drama series and animation, foreign films and TV drama series, and "variety shows". The entries vary from length from half a page, full page to two-page spread, offering a short summary, some comments on the qualities of the product and occassionally other useful information like the best episodes in a series, or pointing out what other (mystery) works the screenplay writer or director has worked on. There are also a few short editorials (one a very detailed explanation about the differences between the original stories and the TV adaptation of Kizoku Tantei) and interviews to fill up the volume,

This book does not purport to be a complete guide, but on the whole, this is a packed volume with lots of alluring titles listed. The volume focuses on productions from the 21st century, which in general means productions from 2000 until late 2017, when work on this volume was finished (I think that Murder on the Orient Express (2017) is the most recent entry included, which dates from the end of 2017). With franchises or series pre-dating 2000, the book will only discuss those works released from 2000 on. The two-page spread on the Detective Conan movies for example starts with the 2000 release Detective Conan: Captured in her Eyes, while the Furuhata Ninzaburou entry only discusses the couple of specials released since 2000.

All the sections are richly filled with both familiar and interesting-looking titles though, even if there are some strange omissions like the more recent TV adaptations of the Asami Mitsuhiko series not even being mentioned in the Japanese TV drama section. I was surprised I had actually seen a good amount of the Japanese TV drama section, but there are still enough titles I hadn't even heard of. The foreign movie section is also surprisingly varied, with not only entries from the English-language world, but also plenty of works from Asia (South Korea especially) and Europe (Italian and French movies). The Japanese animation section is of course also quite important, as there are plenty of great Japanese animated mystery shows, and this especially is a form that is likely to be missed by English-language publications with similar goals (if they exist in the first place).

Is this a perfect guide? No, there are plenty of quirks that are easily noticed. Some are minor annoyances, like the foreign film/drama sections only mentioning the localized, Japanese titles, with the original titles (in their source language) only available in the index. Some entries are also hidden in other entries: the TV special based on Shimada Souji's Mitarai Kiyoshi series for example does not have its own entry and is not mentioned in the index, but it is briefly mentioned in the entry for the film Tantei Mitarai no Jikenbo - Seiro no Umi. The Galileo films on the other hand are mentioned within the entry for the two TV series of Galileo. You'd think that they're only putting franchises together, but this is not done consistently: the Detective Conan animated TV series and the film series have two pages each (but there is no entry for the various live-action adaptations). Death Note has entries for the films and the anime series, but not for the live-action TV series. So the selection can sometimes be a bit weird.

The quality of the entries also vary wildly. Some are really well-written considering how short they can be, with a brief summary, pointing out why it's good or not, the best episodes, and some insight in the staff behind the series. Others are overly-long summaries that barely give you any idea if the product in question is worth watching or not. The entry for Liar Game for example spends probably 90% of the available space to summarize the various games they play throughout the series, while arguably this series is one that would benefit so much more by a good explanation of why it's a mystery series for those who haven't seen it yet, as it is so different.

Despite some small points though, I'd say 21 Seiki Honkaku Mystery Eizou Taizen is a handy volume to have for the mystery fan. While the book is obviously somewhat more expansive on Japanese productions than on foreign productions, it's still a comprehensive work on mystery fiction in video form from all over the world and sure to provide some tips for future viewing. Though not each entry is as good as the other, I think this volume also provides some interesting reading on productions you haven't seen yet, but also on ones you already know.

Original Japanese title(s): 『21世紀本格ミステリ映像大全』

8 comments :

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. When you have the detective fiction genre spanning over a hundred years, it's inevitable to see "ideas" and "tricks" overlapping, whether the borrowing is intentional or not.

      To me, it's all about the execution. Whether the ideas are borrowed or not, as long as it is packaged in an original way, it will still end up being a good fictional work. Take Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" for example. One element of the setup was already used nine years prior in Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning's movie "The Invisible Host". Even knowing this fact, it certainly did nothing detrimental to Christine's #1 classic in any detective fan's mind.

      Just my two cents :D

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    2. Like Wing Hong says, there's always been overlap, or borrowing, in detective fiction. Even Christie built upon the work of the people before her. But it's how it's used that shows the quality of a work and the author. I mean, simply changing the names of the characters or the location is obviously not very original, while morphing a common idea into something not recognizable is a lot harder.

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  2. Since it's unlikely I'll ever get my grubby mitts on this one - I'm very curious, which names do they drop as far as Italian stuff? I'm asking because, as far as I know, my country was never very big on orthodox stuff, much more enamored with police procedurals and such.

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    1. The Italian movies mentioned are Non Ho Sonno, La Ragazza Del La Go and La Migliore Offerta. Never heard of them, so I can't really comment on how orthodox they are as mystery stories.

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    2. Non Ho Sonno is generally agreed to be one of Argento's worst, and def not an orthodox. La Ragazza del Lago is a proper mystery, but it's got police and procedures, so not really orthodox. La Migliore Offerta (which is actually one of Italy's best known films abroad) is more of a psychological thriller imo than anything. Very puzzling choices...

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  3. why was the tragegy Of y better than the egyptian cross mystery in top 10 western novels according to the ranking published?

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    1. Ranking? Are you confusing things up here? This post is about an encyclopedia on mystery fiction in video form, there's no ranking or anything like that. You're probably talking about the Tozai Mystery Best 100 (the 2013 edition), I guess. I mentioned it in that review, but the ranking is simply based on the number of votes of a large number of people or entities with some relation to mystery fiction (writers, critics etc).

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