Some of you may have noticed it already, but I added an extra temporary page to the site (via the bar on the top of the page on a PC browser) while I'm playing the mystery novel game Umineko no Naku Koro ni Saku to write down random thoughts, because it will probably take me ages to get through all the episodes and I'm bound to forget things about each episode. I've only just finished the first episode and it seems like subsequent episodes will give out more important information, so perhaps it's not even possible to solve the mystery at this point, but it won't hurt to scribble down some random ideas. You could take a look if you've already played the games and obviously you shouldn't look if you don't want to see (ROT13-protected) spoilers. I have switched off comments because I honestly want to proceed in the game completely blind though, so please keep that in mind. I'll probably mention it in the usual posts on the front page if I happen to update the Umineko page/whenever I'm done with another episode and for now, I think I'll just keep the page up until I'm done with the episodes in the Question Arc.
Yamada Fuutarou is best known for basically inventing, and perfecting the genre of historical fantasy novels starring ninja, like the classic Kouga Ninpou Chou ("The Kouga Ninja Scrolls"), which has also been adapted as the anime and manga Basilisk. His epic historical tales where clans of ninja waged war against ecah other with fanciful powers with technique names had a huge influence on not only the popular image of the ninja, but also popular culture in general: series like Naruto and Bleach are basically direct descendants of Yamada's work and would simply not have existed without him creating the popular battle manga formula. Yamada however started out as a mystery writer and he was quite good at it too: Meiji Dantoudai ("The Meiji Guillotine") and Youi Kinpeibai ("The Bewitching Plum in the Vase") are fantastic works in the genre for example.
Part 1 of this book collects the conventional puzzle plot mystery stories, with the title story as its centerpiece. Tengu Misaki Satsujin Jiken introduces the reader to Shimazaki Hachirou, a middle school student who strangely enough has the tendency to faint whenever he sees something swing around. One day, he's had another of his spells, and his teacher Kurobane decides to accompany him back to his home to make sure nothing's wrong. While Hachirou's sleeping in the next room, his father decides to tell the woman about how Hachirou's mother came to die when he was still a baby. Because he was a sailor, the father was often away from home, and it appears his younger wife was having a secret affair. The Shimazakis home is at the tip of one of the cliffs of a bay: the cliff on the other end of the bay is known as Tengu Cliff and there's a little park there. The wife would always meet secretly with her lover at that park. One day however, while her husband was lying ill at home, she was found stabbed in the back in the park on Tengu Cliff, and witnesses only saw her, and later her lover climb the peak, so the man was of course accused of murdering his lover. As the teacher is listening to this story though, she points out how someone else could've murdered Hachirou's mother without being spotted on Tengu Cliff. As a howdunnit, it reminds a bit of the stories in Meiji Dantoudai ("The Meiji Guillotine") or some of Oosaka Keikichi's stories, with a rather mechanical trick behind it all. I think it's juuust running along side the line of being a convincing idea, or just beyond the realms of possibility, so some readers may think this is a neat idea, and some might find it hardly believable it could've been pulled off in this way. I still don't know what side I'm on. Another story worth mentioning in Part 1 is Kono Wana ni Tsumi Ariya ("A Sinful Trap"), which is a story that invokes Edogawa Rampo's Shinri Shiken (The Psychological Test), where a student is questioned about the suicide by gas of a friend. Feels a bit like Columbo with all the detective slowly pointing out contradictions at the scene. Futatsu no Misshitsu ("Two Locked Rooms") also warrants a mention because it's a weird parody story: it consists of two seperate "locked room" mysteries, one with "Ellery Vance" and the other with Professor Van Dusen "The Thinking Machine", but the solutions to both mysteries are clearly meant to be utterly silly (and even a bit science-fiction).
To be honest, the reason I didn't want to write something on each story was because Part 2 and 4 were not that interesting. Part 2 in particular is easily forgotten, with Panchuutou Jiken ("The Case of Retribution against Whores Gang") being the 'best' story, about a mysterious gang who have been 'stealing' the belly buttons of prostitutes by basically sealing them off with a piece of skin. Nobody knows who's been doing these mutilations and some of them are even done under impossible circumstances, but ultimately it's a weird story, while Edo ni Iru Watashi ("I'm in Edo") is just plain science-fiction. The stories in Part 4 are regular short crime stories, but they're so short that I feel that even a short summary would be giving away too much.
Part 3 is by far the most interesting of the book and consists of five stories which form collectively the mini-series Onna Tantei Torimonochou ("The Case Book of the Female Detective"). In the first story, we are introduced to a trio of wandering musicians, considering of an attractive female singer Mika and her two companions (an elderly man and a child). It turns out these three are out for revenge due to something that occurred to their home in Okinawa, and the "princess" and her retainers are looking for those who caused the tragedy. Each time, the three manage to trace one of the people they seek, but their targets always happen get to murdered under impossible circumstances, and it's up to the princess to swiftly solve things so they can move on and find the rest. The stories are all very short, but most of them have pretty neat ideas that could also have been used for longer stories. Sadly enough, this series kinda stops halfway in the tale, so there's not really much closure to the whole deal.
And yes, this review of Tengu Misaki Satsujin Jiken was rather brief. There are just too many stories of varying quality here to discuss, and that should also give you an idea about what kind of book this is: it's not an introduction to Yamada Fuutarou's mystery stories, and I'd definitely recommend starting somewhere else first, because this collection is best explored by people who already have some idea of Yamada's detective stories. You won't find his best work here, though I have to say I really liked the five stories with Mika and her entourage.
No comments :
Post a Comment