The Secret Garden

`Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

2018's Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar was a seminal study that explored how mystery manga developed in Japan by focusing on publishing history. It traces a chronological line starting from the fifties until the present based on over 800 mystery-related titles. While the major watershed moment for the genre was clearly the trio of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, Detective Conan and Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou in the early-to-mid nineties, the period discussed in the book that interested me most was the period right before that. The seventies provided a space for mangaka to experiment with the format and especially the female writers were very important in this period of exploration, as they did daring and incredible things that really pushed the format. This was the formative period for original mystery manga (not adaptations) and this work was mostly done by women, and this would carry on in the eighties. I have been exploring this formative period the last year with for example Takashina Ryouko's Murder series, the mystery tales of Maya Mineo's Patalliro! and Yamada Mineko's Alice series. But there was of course on one major title I still hadn't tried out, until now.

For how could one ignore Noma Miyuki's Puzzle Game ☆ High School? This series started a decade before Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Detective Conan, but in terms of runtime, it's been similarly succesful like those two giants: the original Puzzle Game ☆ High School ran from 1983-2001, which is really long by any standard. But like Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, it's been followed up by several sequel series, so it's actually running even now, more then 35 years after it originally started! As the title suggests, the original series starts at Hazuru High School, a school with numerous school clubs and circles. These clubs and circles have a extremely high degree of autonomy and are exclusively governed by the student council, and not even the school administration can interfere with these afterschool activities. The beautiful Kazuki and handsome Daichi are two childhood sweethearts who start their own new club: the new Mystery Club is further joined by Mimei, who knows about everyone and everything that's going at the school, and the shy first-year student Takuma, who also dabbles in stage magic. The Mystery Club's goal is to solve mysteries themselves, and there's more enough of mysteries and problems to be solved at Hazuru: from rumors of the all powerful student council president blackmailing clubs to let him sleep with the most attractive club members, to kidnapping attempts on a school idol, a vandal who threw a can of red paint in the school pool and the impossible theft of the student council seal, the members Hazuru's Mystery Club have more than enough to do.

Except they don't ever actually study at this school. I mean, I have read two volumes now, but I have not seen one scene where these students actually, err, do school stuff. They're like the whole day busy with their afterschool activities...

The setting of Hazuru High School is utterly nuts though. I mean, the idea of a student council having infinite power is something I can shrug at, but man, the things that happen at this school are far from normal for an institute for education. I mean, in their second case, the Mystery Club is investigating an underground escort club run by students at this school, one of Club's allies turns out to be a professional nude model who's also dating a former teacher of this school (and he was her teacher when they first met), there are more stories about students who had romantic relations with teaching staff, one story's even about a student who gave birth to a baby, some of the clubs are basically organized crime, the council president is a corrupt womanizer who abuses his power: what kind of crazy high school is this! I mean, sure, this school definitely allows the Hazuru Mystery Club to handle a lot of weird cases not even Conan or Hajime ever encounter at their schools, but what parents would ever allow their children to go to Hazuru? Even Hajime's Fudou High (where there's a high percentage that a student will either be killed or turn out to be a ruthless murderer themselves) is a better educational institution than Hazuru.

Anyway, as a mystery manga, Puzzle Game ☆ High School started out a bit uneven for my standards, but by the second volume it really started hitting a stride, and it does make interested in reading more of this series. Like I mentioned, the Mystery Club is called to investigate (or decides to stick their noses on their own behalf) in a diverse selection of cases and that also results in stories that don't always follow a formula. Whereas Conan and Hajime are most of the time solving murder mystery cases and the focus therefore lies on the whodunnit and howdunnit, this isn't the case here. The story about the escort club is more about how the Mystery Club is going to survive this investigation due to the powerful forces behind the escort club and turns into a battle of wits, while the story about the baby is more a sweet, but straightforward story where the club members uses their expertise to follow up on each clue to find the parent of the baby. Not every story is as strong as the other in terms of mystery or how the puzzle plot is constructed, but there are some stories that are surprisingly fun.

The first story that makes an impression is Nishibi no Naka no Alibi ("The Alibi of the Setting Sun"), where Takuma is accused of completely trashing a locked classroom, of which he alone had the key as he was the last one to leave the room. While he denies the act, the fact he has the key and there's a witness who says he saw Takuma trashing the room puts Takuma on the spot. The locked room element of the story is kinda glanced over and the title gives away too much, but this is the first story in the series to actually be a well-clewed mystery, even if it's too simple. But then you have a story like Akai Pool no Himitsu ("The Secret of the Red Pool"), which is truly a great school mystery. One morning, the school's swimming club find that someone had thrown red paint in the swimming pool, ruining the water. The Mystery Club tries to figure out why anyone would want to commit such a meaningless act. The motive for this 'crime' is both original and fitting the setting and the way the story builds towards the reveal is great. Definitely the best mystery story of the first two volumes.

Kin no Monshou Jiken ("The Case of the Golden Seal") involves a minor impossible theft: two persons who had their plans ruined by the Mystery Club in the past conspire together to destroy the club's reputation. They arrange so the Mystery Club's responsible for protecting the golden seal of the Student Council, one of the symbols of the council. It's to be shown to the students at a certain occassion, but our conspirators has sent a warning letter to the council president saying they will steal the seal, daring the Mystery Club to try to stop them. Hazuki is guarding the seal herself as they transport the seal from the office to the gymnasium, but despite that, the conspirators manage to swap the seal with a fake one. The mystery of how this was done is solved pretty easily, but seeing how the Mystery Club manages to regain their reputation is fun.  The second volume also contains Houseki Goutou ("Jewel Theft"), the first chapter of the mini-series Puzzle Game☆Jr., which is about Hazuki and Daichi's time as middle school students. Daichi used to be childhood friends with Hazuki, but his family moved away, until they recently moved back in town and happened to become neighbors with Hazuki once again. The previous inhabitant of the house was a young student who became close with Hazuki, but unknown to her he was also involved with a jewelry theft. Their accomplice hid the jewel somewhere in the house, but a fallout means they can't find the jewel anymore. As a Poe-esque mystery story about finding a hidden object it's pretty decent and interestingly clewed.

Seen from a historical perspective, these stories are exactly like the puzzle plot mystery manga like we know from Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen, and that coupled with the series set-up with cast of recurring characters and an internal chronology, this is definitely the series that directly precedes the triumvirate of Detective Conan, Kindaichi Shounen and Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou. To be honest, I am kinda surprised that Puzzle Game ☆ High School didn't manage to make bigger waves. Perhaps it was just too soon for its time, because in terms of concept, it's really no different from the major mystery series of the nineties with an emphasis on short puzzle plot mysteries.

These were just what I thought were the highlights of the first two Puzzle Game ☆ High School volumes and as I said already, I do plan to read more of the series eventually, though it's likely I'll just buy a few volumes once in a while, so don't expect frequent reviews. The quality of the mystery plots can be pretty uneven, differing widely depending on the story and the overall background setting of this school is crazy as hell, but when a story manages to hit the right notes, it's capable of providing more than entertaining mystery stories due to its unique setting, so I hope to come across more of these highlights.

Original Japanese title(s): 野間美由紀『パズルゲーム☆はいすくーる』第１－２巻