Game of Shadows

「今回の犯人は、常にフェアプレイを好むスポーツマンです。人を殺したという以外は、実に公明正大な人物です。 そして、アメリカ大リーグで活躍する、ある日本人野球選手と全く同じ名前で、顔もそっくりです。しかし、別人です。お間違えのないように」

『古畑任三郎：フェアな殺人者』

"This episode's culprit is a sportsman who enjoys a fair game. Save for the fact he killed a man, he's actually a spendid, upright person. He shares his name with a certain Japanese baseball player who's active in the American Major League and he also looks exactly the same. But they are not the same person. Don't confuse them."

"Furuhata Ninzaburou: The Fair Murderer"

Earlier this week, the Japanese news reported heavily on the announcement by baseball player Suzuki Ichirou, better known as simply Ichiro, that he was retiring. The mass attention for this announcement was not surprising. I myself know nothing about baseball, but Ichiro is known as one of the most famous athletes of Japan ever, and is a popular sportsman in both the American Major League and his home country. But to mystery fans, he is perhaps better known as that one murderer.

For Ichiro once starred in an episode of the television drama Furuhata Ninzaburou. In fact, it was only through Furuhata Ninzaburou that I first heard of him and because it has been a while, I decided to pop the DVD in again last night. The inverted mystery show Furuhata Ninzaburou, conceived by playwright Mitani Kouki, ran for three seasons and one final special season between 1994-2006 and was heavily inspired by Columbo. The show starred the somewhat eccentric, peculiar and very petty Lieutenant Furuhata of the Tokyo police, assisted by his bumbling subordinate Imaizumi and later the capable, but close-minded Saionji as they tackled cases in which we, the viewer, already knew who committed the crime and how and where like in Columbo, the fun was in seeing how Furuhata was going to solve the case. One unique characteristic of the show was that Furuhata talked directly to the viewer twice: in the avant-title, he'd start with a random story or observation which usually turns out to have something to do with the main story, whereas in the latter half of the episode, he'd always challenge the viewer directly when he figured the whole thing out, asking the viewer whether they got the answer too.

Furuhata Ninzaburou Final was broadcast in 2006 and consisted of three long specials and in the second episode, The Fair Murderer, we are introduced to the famous baseball player Ichiro who plays in the MLB in the States. In the avant-title, Furuhata assures us by the way that the Ichiro in this episode just happens to share his name with a certain famous Japanese MLB player and who also just happens to look exactly like that other man. Ichiro is back in Japan for a charity event for children. On the day of his arrival, Furuhata and his subordinates Imaizumi and Saijonji visit the hotel where Ichiro is staying, to visit their old friend and former colleague Mukoujima. Mukoujima recently quit his job as a police constable to work at this hotel as a security guard. To their great surprise, they see Ichiro himself coming down to the guards' office to have a chat with Mukoujima whining about wanting to get out for a quick snack, and it's only afterwards that they learn that Ichiro is in fact Mukoujima's younger half-brother. What they do not learn however is that Mukoujima's been blackmailed for some time now by a sleazy reporter with the name Kooriyama, who has not only found out a minor slip-up Mukoujima made when he was a police officer, but the man also knows he's the brother of Ichiro. Fearing his own slip-up will ruin Ichiro's sports career, Mukoujima plans to kill Kooriyama, but realizing his older brother will never be able to pull such a scheme succesfully Ichiro decides to murder the man himself to save his brother. After the body of Kooriyama is discovered in the underground parking lot of the hotel, Furuhata quickly realizes he's dealing with a strange murderer this time, because the killer has left clues on purpose, as if they are hoping for a fair game with the police...

What makes this episode so memorable is of course that Ichiro is really just playing himself. Apparently, the character in this episode was originally planned to be called "Hachiro", but Ichiro himself proposed to use his real name, and it results in a very strange experience where reality and fiction is mixed. This had happened before in this series by the way, when the five members of the boy band SMAP played themselves in a story where SMAP killed a blackmailer during their concert. What's also surprising about the Ichiro episode however is that... Ichiro's actually pretty good at acting. I mean, I guess playing yourself helps, but he really didn't feel out of his league compared to the other professional actors in the episode.

The core mystery plot of the episode is a bit simple, though that has an in-universe explanation, as Ichiro only took over from his brother at the last moment, and most importantly, Ichiro is portrayed as a sportsman who enjoys the game. Throughout the episode, he states he likes to play fair and square, which is why he left one clue at the crime scene so the police'd have a chance at getting to him, and throughout the episode, he never lies to the police to protect himself. In fact, Furuhata soon realizes what is going on, and even suggests that if he were to ask Ichiro on the spot whether he was the murderer, he was sure Ichiro'd sooner admit to the fact honestly rather than lie. This idea of a 'fair-play' murderer who tries to get away while not coming up with elaborate alibi tricks and similar idas definitely helps the otherwise simple mystery plot, really changing it into a game of wits, as Furuhata himself is too proud too to get Ichiro in a simple manner, and wants the sportsman to admit defeat on his own. The way Ichiro is finally caught is incredibly common in inverted mystery fiction, so it's not really shocking, but there are a few scenes that are memorable from a mystery point of view, for example the unique way in which Ichiro decides to get rid of a damning piece of evidence (only possible because he's Ichiro) and the initial deduction of Furuhata which first set him on Ichiro's trail.

If you have the occasion to watch this episode of Furuhata Ninzaburou, I can definitely recommend it. It's incredibly fun to see Ichiro playing himself as a murderer, and while the core plot might seem a bit too familiar at times, the little things in the script that help cement the idea that it's really Ichiro who committed the murder do really help set this episode apart in a series which is already full with memorable murderers.

Original Japanese title(s): 『フェアな殺人者』