Home Sweet Homicide

"There's no place like home."

"The Wizard of Oz"

Countries all handle the pandemic in different ways, and while Japan's state of emergency in certain prefectures did not lead to a true lockdown like seen in Italy, it's still advised to remain home as much as possible. This has also led to new creative projects that came to be due to these circumstances. As an Animal Crossing: New Horizons fan for example, I loved seeing the StayHome performance of the main theme.Earlier this week, I reviewed Mitani Kouki's little project to lift the spirits of the people in these times: I truly enjoyed how Mitani used his weekly newspaper column to revive his hit mystery series Furuhata Ninzaburou.

I mentioned in that same post that Amagi Seimaru (AKA Kibayashi Shin), the writer of the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo ("The Young Kindaichi Case Files") series was also working on something special and the result is a very memorable one as it's a genuine #StayHome-inspired murder mystery, a story that could only have been produced because of the current situation. Story-wise though, it may not be very special. Stay Home Satsujin Jiken (The Stay Home Murder Case) starts with the police knocking at the door of the mansion of Komatsuzaki Akane, a middle-aged woman who made a fortune with her own company. The dog's been barking for days now, which alerted the neighborhood. When the patrol officer opens the door, he first notices a broken wine glass with some spilled wine on the floor, but in the next room, he finds Komatsuzaki, strangled to death. Inspector Kenmochi is put on the murder case, but he catches a nasty fever, and he is forced to self-isolate, even though he already asked Hajime and Miyuki to go to the Komatsuzaki mansion. Kenmochi hopes Hajime can solve the case for him, so Hajime has no choice but to meet with the three suspects: the housekeeper, the victim's niece and the Uper Eats delivery guy. While Komatsuzaki's housekeeper would swing by three times a week, and her sommelier niece also brought wine on the day before her death, it appears they couldn't have committed the murder as they wouldn't be able to get inside the house: while the locks of the Komatsuzaki mansion can be opened with a code number, Komatsuzaki always changed the code whenever someone had come, and the code had indeed been changed again after both of those women had left. It is therefore believed the Uber Eats delivery guy was the final person to have come to the mansion. While he's questioning the suspects however, Hajime seems to realize which of the three suspects is the murderer.

And the attentive reader will of course also have noticed the screenshots in this write-up are a bit weird. That's of course what makes Stay Home Satsujin Jiken so special: it's a live-action murder mystery drama filmed over Zoom, broadcast via Youtube. It might take a second before you really grasp what that is. Creator Amagi Seimaru employed the help of family and friends to create Stay Home Satsujin Jiken: the actors all filmed/recorded their parts in their respective homes via Zoom/other methods, thus respecting the #StayHome advice. Amagi's own older sister Kibayashi Yuuko (a manga writer herself) for example was cast in the role of the victim Komatsuzaki Akane. The individual parts were then edited together, allowing everybody to 'play together' in one scene without actually being physically together. On top of that, the actual voice actors of Hajime and Miyuki from the television series reprises their roles too. The end result is a live-action drama which of course feel very much home-made (the lagging voices!), but it's still a genuine Kindaichi Shounen mystery.

The first part was broadcast today (May 31) via Youtube, while the second half (with the solution) will follow next Saturday (July 6) as paid TwitCasting content. This obviously means this write-up isn't meant to be a full review: I have only seen the first part of this story, and I am not even sure whether I'll purchase the second half. Mystery-wise though, I think I have picked up enough clues to have an idea where this will be going, and if I'm right, the plotting is what you would expect from this series, with a lot of visual clewing. Which is therefore surprisingly well done as everyone had to to film their own parts via Zoom etc. But despite this being early, I felt I really had to write something about this production, because it's just such a unique piece of mystery fiction.

For Stay Home Satsujin Jiken does feel like a real Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo short story, and that's quite impressive given the way this thing was produced, with live-action actors filmed in sub-optimal environments, and odd talking shots of Hajime and Miyuki. If my hunch is right, Stay Home Satsujin Jiken may perhaps not be extraordinary if one looks only at its merits as a mystery story, but I think I will forever remember it as a special piece of mystery fiction, a memento of that period in 2020 when the world was different, a detective story where you absolutely need to understand the context in which this was produced. It's an immensely odd murder mystery, created in immensely odd times. And yet, it is exactly what you'd expect from this series. People will find a way to create something fun, even if they have to find new methods.

Original Japanese title(s): 『金田一少年の事件簿STAY HOME殺人事件』