Dungeons & Detectives

"I'm Dungeon Master, your guide in the realm of Dungeons and Dragons."

"Dungeons and Dragons"

I do like playing JRPGs, but they tend to take so long I usually only end up playing one or two of them a year....

Several years ago, the existence of ESP was proven beyond any doubt. However, the research field of ESP is still very young, partially because few people actually possess the innate skill to harness these special powers, which can manifest in various forms, ranging from psychokinesis and levitation to healing powers, foresight and more. What is apparent however is that younger people are more likely to show signs of being an esper, which is why the government-backed ESP Laboratory, headed by the very young, but undeniable top-class esper Tokino Imawa, does school tours to educate teenagers about ESP and to see if they can find new espers among these children. Imawa and her entourage visit the high school of Kenzaki, once a gifted practioner of kendo, but who gave up the sword after failing to save a friend. After the initial speech to all the students in the gymnasium, Imawa and her party are supposed to do smaller class demonstrations, but Imawa excuses herself for a moment. The next time people see her however, she's dead: her body's found lying on the school's baseball field, but strangely enough there are no foot tracks left on the wet field. They have no time to consider this strange murder scene however, for suddenly the whole school is completely enveloped by black walls, seperating it from the rest of the world and horrible monsters appear in and outside the school. 

One monster instantly kills one of the people who discovered Imawa's body and the rest barely make it back inside the school. Classes have barricaded themselves inside their classrooms when a voice suddenly resonates throughout the school. The voice identifies himself as the Demon King and says that the school is now under his control, placed it its own pocket dimension where nobody from outside can reach it. The monsters are of course his doing and he challenges the students at the school, saying that the only way to escape from the school is defeat him. However, in order to find his hiding place inside the school, the students have to gather map pieces, which lie scattered across the school or held by the roaming monsters. But the students aren't helpless: during this challenge, the powers of every person in the school is heightened and everyone can use their own field of expertise or hobby in highly-powered offensive and defensive manners to defeat the monsters. Kenzaki for example can pick up any stick-like object which changes it into an actual sword, making him a master swordsman, a classmate who pitches for the baseball team can throw energy baseballs at the monsters, while others with some ESP affinity can now use their powers in more concrete manners. Like a Japanese RPG, students can level up and become stronger by defeating the monsters and learn new skills. Thus the students are forced to explore the school and fight the monsters, but Kenzaki teams up with Mira, one of the espers in Imawa's party, to investigate Imawa's death and find it out what that has to do with the current situation in Hayasaka Yabusaka's 2015 novel RPG School.

I've been quite open about my love for mystery fiction with supernatural settings, and RPG School is just a splendid example of how both silly and utterly exciting these books can be! Last year, I reviewed the Nintendo DS game Sigma Harmonics, a Japanese RPG which told a murder mystery story. RPG School is the opposite basically, being a murder mystery novel (with a YA theme) which takes on the form and structure of  classic Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. It doesn't take long for the story to introduce the RPG plot, which turns a normal high school into a giant quest map for the students, with very high leveled monsters roaming outside, while 'beginner level' monsters are making the corridors and classrooms unsafe. There are also little neat moments like all smartphones having been modified to act as a Pokédex/Monster Encylopedia, which allows the user to read up on the power levels and skills of any enemy they defeated (it only registers the name if you encounter an enemy, but not defeat it). Students also become stronger with every monster they defeat, allowing them to learn new skills to combat the foes. Any gamer will soon recognize the tropes and it's pretty funny to see a familiar setting like a school turned into the world of an RPG.

Last year, I happened to review Kadono Kouhei's Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer, which I described as "a fantasy novel, where the heroes happen to be dealing with a seemingly impossible murder case, rather than mystery story that happens to involve fantasy elements." I would say however that RPG School manages to stay more firmly within the realms of the mystery genre and despite the fantasy game-like background of the story, it's ultimately a cleverly-plotted tale of mystery, even if about three-quarters of the book initially only seems to be about the students exploring the school, fighting monsters and trying to locate the Demon King. The quest for the map pieces seems to take center position at first, with scenes detailing how Kenzaki, Mira and their allies fight the monsters, but there are also 'typical' sidequests and other intriques that spice up the narrative with some mysterious flavor, like an unknown masked figure popping up now and then who seems to have a completely other agenda than just finding map pieces or Kenzaki having to backtrack through the school to find certain witnesses while he's investigating Imawa's murder. This investigation is made difficult by the fact that Imawa's body lies outside on the baseball field of course, with high-level monsters wandering around who can't be defeated just yet by Kenzaki and Mira at first (so they have to level up first), so the reader might find this a weird detective novel to read, as a lot of what's normal in a mystery story can't be done here due to fantasy monsters roaming around.

Nonetheless, RPG School makes sure you remember that you're reading a detective novel at all times and that it's actually about an impossible crime, of some sorts. For while Imawa's body was found on a wet field without any footsteps around (the no-footsteps-in-the-snow pattern), the fact that there are espers around the school who can use psychokinesis to move objects and also a genuine Demon King and fantastical monsters in the school changes the kind of deductions you usually make in such detective stories. For why would you move Imawa's body there, leaving no footprints on the field? Who could give Imawa a lethal blow in the first place, as she's the most powerful esper in the country? While offensive ESP like combustion and psychokinesis do exist in this world, they have fairly well defined limits and it's unlikely anyone could've used that to attack Imawa, so while at first sight, you'd think that the existence of ESP and monsters would simplify the problem, it actually adds another dimension to a very familiar trope of the genre, making RPG School a fun read. 

It's during the endgame that you really realize that this story did really tell a proper puzzle plot mystery through the form of a JRPG, and that you were not just reading a fantasy adventure story, which also happened to include a murder investigation subplot. In the finale, it's shown that a lot of the adventures Kenzaki and Mira experienced in the school, also act as viable clues to figure out who the murderer of Imawa is and how the crime was committed. The RPG-touches like battles with monsters, Pokédex entries and the exploration of the school all turn out to be very important information in order to logically solve the murder, and it's a great feat of Hayasaka. Sigma Harmonics had some nice ideas to link up the murder mystery plot to the mechanics of the RPG: RPG School does a great job at using RPG tropes and mechanics to present a puzzle plot murder mystery.

If there's one 'gripe' I have with the book is that ultimately, the reason for why the school suddenly turned into an RPG is a bit handwavey. It's just an excuse to actually introduce the RPG element into the story, and while it does work well with the underlying YA theme of this novel, you really shouldn't consider the 'why are they now suddenly in an RPG setting?" as part of the main mystery to be solved. 

But overall, I enjoyed RPG School greatly, as a mystery story that cleverly utilizes the JRPG game genre to tell a very unique, but also satisfying impossible crime detective story. I'd love to see an anime series based on this though! It has the isekai-themery going on of course, and some other themes would've worked better if the story had more time to provide depth (it's a fairly short novel) to the characters and the RPG-structure of the tale of course lends it well for a series that slowly works towards a big confrontation with the Demon King. Anyway, definitely worth a read if you're into detective stories and RPGs, or just into original mystery stories.

Original Japanese title(s): 早坂吝『RPGスクール』