Dress Reversal

"The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic"

"The Blue Cross"

Due to frequent shuffling with my posting schedule, this review got delayed a lot. I can't even remember how often it got bumped down, but also up the list. In fact, at one time, this review was supposed to be posted soon after another Ashibe review, early in the year, but shuffling around means this review is posted first, and we're several months later than first planned.

High school student Remi is one day attacked on her way back from school, with her sudden assailant leaving a scar on her face with a razor blade. This attack alone left quite the impression on the girl, but it wasn't the only event to befall her family: her uncle had a motorcycle accident, and her little cousin was kidnapped and had been missing for a few days already. Curious as all these happenings may be, Remi didn't think too much of them together, until she meets a mysterious figure at a costume party, who tells her the Murder Comedy King is behind all these incidents, and that while Remi's family already had their turn, the figure warns Remi that more will follow, and those targets won't get off with just a scratch on their face. Scared by this warning, Remi decides to seek help from the attorney Morie Shunsaku, who has made a name as an amateur detective. That the fiend's warning was more than just words, is soon proven to be true when horrible murders occur one after another, like a man being murdered by having his spine cracked on the dial of a clock tower, or a woman who is drowned alive in her own cellar. Meanwhile, it seems the Murder Comedy King has more than one enemy on his trail, as the great detective Hanagatami Joutarou and his boy assistant Ariake Masahiko too seems on the case, and that's actually really odd, as Hanagatami is supposed to be a fictional detective! Can Morie and Hanagatami stop the monstrous serial killer Murder Comedy King in Ashibe Taku's Kaijin tai Meitantei ("The Fiend versus The Great Detectives", 2000)?

Many authors have different characters for different kind of stories, but Ashibe is someone who has somehow managed to use his series detective Morie Shunsaku in an incredibly diverse story selection. Morie Shunsaku is an attorney, so you'd expect a courtroom drama, right? Sure, Saibanin Houtei is even almost social school, as it was written to coincide with the introduction of the Lay Judge System in Japan. But then you also have the stories where Morie's like those old master detectives solving crimes in creepy mansions with weird gimmicks like hidden passages, like in Wadokei no Yakata no Satsujin. Historical and bibliophilic mysteries? Yep, got that one too. And what about a science-fiction detective story about parallel dimensions? Morie has covered that one too.... Every other Morie Shunsaku novel I read feels completely different from the previous one, as Ashibe will use him for whatever story he wants to write, and yep, Kaijin tai Meitantei adds another flavor.

Fiends, great detectives, you might've guessed already, but Kaijin tai Meitantei is a homage to the classic pulp thrillers by Edogawa Rampo from the 30s-40s, where Rampo's great detective Akechi Kogorou battles criminal masterminds with silly names like the Magician, the Golden Mask, the Dwarf, the Black Lizard, and of course the Fiend with Twenty Faces. While Kaijin tai Meitantei is set in contemporary times (the 2000s), the story reads as if we're still in the 1930s Japan with criminals dressing up as creepy figures to scare their targets and in the 1930s, it's also a lot easier to just kidnap people from the street without anyone ever noticing just by spraying sleeping gas and carrying your victim away with you or something like that (seriously: I never think about it much, but I can accept kidnappings much easier from 1930 pulp thrillers than stories set in modern days, because it's actually quite difficult to carry a body away from somewhere). The fanciful manners in which each of the targets of the Murder Comedy King is killed off are also clearly inspired by Rampo's work. Voyeurism is also a big theme in Rampo's work, as is exposition, and the gruesome murders in this novel could've fitted well in Rampo's novels, as yes, a man being tied to both the hour and minute hand of a clock tower so he'll get bent in middle is really icky, as is the murder where a girl is hanged from a balloon. Like in Rampo's work, the narration will often to the point of view of the victim here, leading to some real horror moments. Ashibe is having a lot of fun with these Rampo homages, and the book is brimming with references. In fact, each of the chapter titles in this novel is also a reference on its own to another chapter titles from Rampo's oeuvre and just figuring out where each title came from is a fun game for Rampo fans. Still, it's weird seeing Morie involved with a case like this, because the story is intentionally written to invoke the atmosphere of Rampo's novels, which is firmly set in 1920s-1940s modernizing Japan, while you know it's actually set in the 2000s.
 
As a mystery novel however, Kaijin tai Meitantei can not avoid falling in the same pitfall a lot of Rampo's novels also experience, though that might not have been Ashibe's goal in the first place. Anyway, there's a lot of gruesome deaths and scenes with the Murder Comedy King challenging his victims and the detectives, but there's not much to solve for the reader or Morie. The murders just happen and there's nothing particular to solve about them save for catching the killer. There's a kind of reveal about the Murder Comedy King at the end, but that's telegraphed rather obviously, but I'm not sure whether I should take it as a genuine reveal, or a "haha, Rampo's novels weren't that surprising in reality, so I'm going with a not-so-shocking reveal myself too" type of reveal. Sure, it feels like a Rampo novel with an ending like this, but I would've appreciated something that would've gone beyond that too. Ashibe also plays with meta-fiction in this novel, which is a theme he often utilises. Throughout the novel, you also learn that the great detective Hanagatami Joutarou is also working on the case, but he's a fictional detective by "Ashibe Taku," a personal friend of Morie, so how can a fictional figure also be working on a real case? There are some more segments that seem to blur the world of "reality" and "fiction" (within the setting of the story). There's an in-universe explanation for all of this, but it's more intended as a playful gesture to confuse the reader by Ashibe (the actual author).

Long story short, Kaijin tai Meitantei is exactly like one of those Rampo pulp thrillers, both in atmosphere and in execution. It's a very faithful homage to Rampo's work and his world, and as a fan of Rampo, I definitely had fun seeing these Rampo-esque situations. That said, I would never recommend Kaijin tai Meitantei as a first read in the Morie Shunsaku series, as its one purpose is just to revel in Rampo love. It's not really a Morie novel, and I also doubt readers can really appreciate the sheer silliness of this work without any understanding of Rampo's pulps.

Original Japanese title(s): 芦辺拓『怪人対名探偵』