The Whispering Statue

Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

"And Then There Were None"

I learned a lot on the development of mystery and detective manga after reading the seminal work Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar last year, and unsurprisingly, it resulted in me reading more mystery manga. My own interest was especially drawn to the period of 70-80s, when female artists would start with the earliest original puzzle plot mystery manga (not adaptations of existing stories), pre-dating by a decade or two the watershed moment for mystery manga of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, Detective Conan and Q.E.D. in the early to mid nineties. Yamada Mineko's Alice series and Maya Mineo's Patalliro! are some of the titles I talked about, but the first 70s mystery manga I read directly as a result of Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar, was Takashina Ryouko's Piano Sonata Satsujin Jiken ("The Piano Sonata Murder Case", 1979) last year. It is probably one of the earliest original mystery manga series, though the half a dozen stories of the original run have no direct connection to each other in terms of characters/setting: they are all standalone stories, but all feature "Something Something Murder Case" title convention. Takashina would write more of these stories starting 2002 by the way.

Rikashitsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Science Room Murder Case", 1985) collects two stories from the original classic series. The titular Rikashitsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Science Room Murder Case") was originally serialized in the July and August issues of the girls comic magazine Nakayoshi Deluxe. The handsome Arimoto Kouji is a new transfer student and while all the girls seem be interested in him, it's Ooshima Mayo who's told by the teacher to show Arimoto around school. When they arrive at the science room, Arimoto is surprised at the enormous number of stuffed animals in the room, some of them even of very rare animals. These stuffed animals are a whim of the chairman of the school board, who's completely obsessed with them. And to Mayo's great shame, the man's also her father. Rumors have it that he's even arranging for a panda to be shot and stuffed, which is of course not really legal. One day after school, the students going home are shocked by a huge explosion in the science room. Arimoto finds Mayo standing outside the science room, and inside lies the body of Mayo's father beneath a stuffed hawk. Police investigation leads to the conclusion that he died because of a blow to the head, and that the explosion was probably caused when victim and assailant were fighting and knocked over some chemicals in the science room. While Mayo's still suffering from her loss, the careless manner in which her young stepmother deals with her husband's death and the incessant calls about unpaid debts by the woman who arranged for all the stuffed animals for her father, rumors also start floating around that suggest Mayo herself killed her father.

Huh, I only realized now that the stories of this series are all about the same length as the stories in Katou Motohiro's Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou, which is about a hundred pages. Well, technically these stories are two times fifty pages.

Like with Piano Sonata Satsujin Jiken, this story's roots are firmly set in the romantic drama genre (a popular genre for girls manga magazines back then), combined with a capable, if simple, mystery plot. While the page count is about the same as a Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou story, much of the story is focused on the drama that is caused by the murder: Mayo's situation at home, her growing closer to Arimoto, the gossipping at school whether she murdered her father: there's a lot of melodrama here. It's not as focused on the mystery plot as you'd expect from a series like Detective Conan, but the story doesn't bore at least, even if it's a bit standard high school drama shenanigans. When we come to the core mystery plot, it's a fairly simple whodunnit problem that also leads to a howdunnit, but it's servicable enough, something you'd expect from for example an early Conan story. Takanashi has an interesting hook regarding misdirection which she talks about early in this story, which forms a nice thematic base for the story. It's not a classic story perhaps, but we're definitely presented with a puzzle plot here, thus laying the ground for later mystery titles.

The second story included in this volume is En no Naka no Satsujin Jiken ("The Murder Case Inside the Circle"), which was originally serialized in the November and December 1984 issues of Nakayoshi Deluxe. Kyou is a freshman student who one day is looking across town through the school's Birdwatching Club's telescope, when she suddenly sees somebody being stabbed in a room with a peculiar painting. She knocks the telescope over in her surprise, making it impossible to find the house back. The event is so incredible, not even the art teacher Sugimura seems to believe her story. Kyou tries to forget about it and becomes an official member of the Birdwatcher's Club, which also brings her under the attention of Matsuura, the handsome president of the club and Nagase Yayoi, the gorgeous madonna of the school. Nagase in particular seems to have become fond of Kyou, to the frustration of Tanigawa, Yayoi's former "favorite". But just as Kyou was starting to forget about the murder she saw, she spots her teacher Sugimura apparently burning the picture she saw at the crime scene. Unbeknown to her, things are happening around Kyou and death is closer than she might suspect.

The mystery plot takes a back seat in this story, I'd say. Most of the story revolves around the high school melodrama of Kyou becoming the new favorite of Yayoi, and Kyou trying to figure out how to become friends with the beautiful senior student she so looks up to. Things start moving from the second half on, but the subsequent murders/other incidents that occur, don't really do anything to set-up any real puzzle plot: there's no proper clewing to the solution and the story is more told in a thriller-mode than a true detective story with a neat trick (like the first story). A bit disappointing, as I remembered that Gakuensai Satsujin Jiken also utilized a thriller mode, but also good visual clewing to set-up the conclusion. It's a lot more passive experience in this story

Similar to Piano Sonata Satsujin Jiken, I wouldn't say Rikashitsu Satsujin Jiken is required reading, but the stories do form an interesting step in the development of the puzzle plot mystery manga. It's clear that the main pillar for these comics are the popular genres for shojo manga back in those time, with romance and drama at the center. It was in the seventies that female authors then started fanning out, incorporating other genres like fantasy, science-fiction, horror and mystery into the classic mold. Takashina's mystery manga are a good example of how these shojo comics developed, incorporating puzzle plots. I'd say the volume Piano Sonata Satsujin Jiken has a better selection of stories overall, though I think that the opening story (the titular The Science Room Murder Case) has a simple, but nicely executed idea. For the manga historians among us, checking a few of Takashina's stories certainly won't hurt.

Original Japanese title(s): 高階良子『理科室殺人事件』