Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom

 Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

"Inferno"

 

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

"Inferno"

To be honest, I was expecting a very different kind of story based on the cover...

The amusement park Illusion Land was all set to make its grand opening in 2001. The theme park was built in the nature-rich mountains of X Prefecture, and was supposed to be the first step in a larger Illusion Resort project: its location in the mountains provided a fantastic view on the stars, hence the galaxy-theme of the amusement park, as well as the name Ganny (Galaxy + Bunny) for its cute mascotte figure. The people living in the small, dying village of Amatsuki Village had ultimately agreed to move away to nearby Y City and other places to make place for the theme park, and that is also why Illusion Land had a special pre-open event inviting the people of the former village to have a look at the park. But the park had only been open for about an hour, when tragedy struck! Someone in the ferris wheel started shooting at people with a rifle, resulting in four deaths, eight people heavily wounded and the shooter himself also committed suicide. The man turned out to be one of the former villagers who had been against moving out of Amatsuki, and one of his victims had indeed been the woman who had been the central figure to convince everyone that they should give up on Amatsuki and find a new place to live.The horrible tragedy naturally made opening Illusion Land, and Illusion Resort impossible. The place was then bought by the wealthy magnate Toshima Iiori, who is also known as a big fan of urban exploration. For twenty years, Illusion Land was left abandoned, allowing nature (flora at least) to take over the park. And in 2021, Toshima made a big announcement: he was going to invite a group of fellow urban explorers to have a look at Illusion Land. While many people applied to the special sign-up site, only nine people were selected to visit, among them Magami Eitarou, a part-time worker in a convenience store who also runs a popular blog on urban exploration, where he uploads photographs which are received very well.

Upon arrival at the abandoned amusement park, Eitarou is all ready to go explore the land of dreams which has been empty for twenty years, but the representative of their host Togami has an interesting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory proposition. Somewhere in the park, a treasure is hidden, and whoever finds it during their three-day stay, will become the new owner of Illusion Land. Sounds like a dream for any urban explorer to own such a unique place, but by then Eitarou has also noticed that not all of the invited people are actually urban explorers like himself. Sure, there's the writer Aizawa Tomoshi, who writes urban exploration themed detective stories, and there's an editor of an urban exploration magazine, but there are also former employees of Illusion Land, from people in management to those working booths, who wanted to have one last look at the park. But these people too seem strangely interested in wanting to obtain this park. The special wristbands that allowed them into the park also check their vitals to make sure they don't leave the park during the set time period: everyone who leaves the park is disqualified. The first night, Eitarou decides to camp outside while the others prefer to sleep in the camp house, but before he dozes off, he vaguely sees the figure of Ganny walking around the park. The next day, when he goes back to the house for breakfast, it turns out one of the others has gone missing. They go looking for Sudou Susumu, a former manager of the park, but the moment they find a figure dressed in a Ganny suit skewered to the high fence surrounding the park, they all knew it was Sudou even before they removed the bunny mask. This is obviously no suicide, but how can you skewer someone on the outer fence of the park, as each post is twelve meters high, and the body of Sudou was pulled all the way down the spiked post to the ground? At first, Eitarou thinks the game is now over and that the police will be informed about the gruesome murder, but to his great surprise everyone seems rather reluctant to stop the game. But why is everyone so intent on finding the treasure and obtaining Illusion Land? And is it wise to stay inside the park knowing there's a murderer somewhere? That's for the reader to find out in Shasendou Yuuki's Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin (2021), which also has the English title The Murder Case of [sic] Abandoned Amusment Park on the cover.

Oooooh, so it's the bunny who dies? Like I said above, the cover totally made me initially think that the bunny would be the murderer, like in a splatter horror story. 

Earlier this year, I read Houjou Kie's Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo (2022) and I mentioned how it was initially a bit surprising how that after previous themes of time travel and an unknown creature hunting the human characters, the theme of a VR game sounded rather grounded. Last year, I read Shasendou Yuuki's Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari ("Paradise is the Absence of Detectives", 2020): it was the first time I had read anything by Shasendou, but the book easily became one of my favorite reads of 2021. It was about a world where angels had arrived on Earth and they'd immediately take people away who'd commit a second murder (the first murder is "free"). It had become a law of nature, and yet the story was about a series of murders, something that had become impossible in this world. The unique supernatural setting was used in a brilliant manner and it sure made me interested in more Shasendou's work. So like the aforementioned Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo, Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin (2021) is rather "normal and grounded" in comparison (not that these books form a series; it's just that my initial interest in Shasendou's work came from the supernatural element) There's no supernatural element here, just an abandoned theme park. Interestingly enough though, the abandoned theme park isn't that common a location for a closed circle mystery story, I think? It's a place that I associate much more with the horror genre, like an abandoned hotel or hospital, and I have indeed played games in this setting. Mystery stories set in theme parks are rarer, and I don't think I've read one about an abandoned one before.

 

So the setting does feel special in a way, which is emphasized even further when you first open the book, as you'll be presented with a nicely designed "pamplet" of Illusion Land, with a map of the theme park with all the attractions and the prices for the various rides etc. It really helps you get in the mood, and of course, you'll be tracing events and people on the map of the park too while you're reading the story, so it helps with the immersion. And as the book continues, you do realize that Shasendou does make great use of the srtting of the amusement park. To be honest, the first murder is kinda disappointing, as you have a whole amusement park with all kinds of broken attractions and rides, and then they find.... a body skewered to one of the posts of the outer fence. Sure, the victim's dressed in a Ganny suit, resulting in a rather cute-creepy scene of having a pink bunny lying there with a twelve-meter high pole through its torso, but still, the body is physically just barely within the confines of the park itself, so it doesn't feel like it makes good use of the setting. As the story continues however, more people are killed off and these make better use of the attractions and the unique setting. Like, if I mention there's a mirror house too, you can probably imagine all kinds of possibilities now. While most of the events occuring in this book might feel a bit "small in scale" taken on their own and with some adjustments, each of them could perhaps have been used in some other setting, but all taken together they do work best the context of this particular setting. So that does make the whole feel like a true amusement park mystery, even if the individual parts don't always feel as strong as one.

Despite the alluring setting though, the book is a bit slow to start. While it doesn't take long for the first murder to occur, the way the story acts all mysterious about why everyone seems to have their own reasons to not want to inform the police and how they are connected to Illusion Land can be a bit frustrating, as the reader is made aware early on that everyone is hiding something and that therefore everyone is acting in a way that is not particularly helpful to the investigation, but it takes some time for all of this to get worked out, and in the end, it feels like there's just a lot of coincidences going on, with everyone having different reasons to act like they act, with as sole goal simply to make the story seem more complex than it actually is. The story pacing is slowed down a lot by all the "why is X acting like" parts, especially when you realize that ultimately, having these specific characters all together in this party feels pretty arbitrary anyway, and then on top of that come all the other coincidences of the (in)actions of these characters, making the story appear like it's trying to be more complex just for the sake of it.

The story eventually also delves into the past of Illusion Land, into the shooting on the people in the park and the true intentions of the shooter, and this part has pretty cool ideas, but also elements that are handled too swiftly in my opinion. The way the reader is shown that the truth behind that case might have been completely different than initially thought is great: the realization that there's a gigantic contradiction in the official account of the events is hidden fantastically, even if some of the clues are mentioned a bit too easily. But a lot of the following logistics that involve that case seem to be handwaved away rather easily. So I absolutely love the main idea used here, especially as it's one that makes brilliant use of the theme park setting, but the details seem a bit unconvincing. The main idea and the build-up alone however already makes this a worthwile read, I think.

You might think I am a bit vague in explaining what makes this story so "amusement park"-esque, but that's really just me trying to spoil not too much. I can only say that a lot of the props and ideas used here all originate from an amusement park and you'll have to find out the rest for yourself! While this obviously does make it sound this book is very much a howdunnit ("props and stuff"), it's not really. I think its whodunnit aspects are really strong too and it's certainly in this manner that this book reminds me of Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari. Initially you have to wade through a lot of the intersecting coincidences/motivations of the various characters, but there are some neat whodunnit twists to be found here.

So yeah, overall, I'd say that Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin is a fun book! It might not have some supernatural element to it, but Shasendou makes great and full use of the unique location, utilizing a number of ideas that all feel absolutely natural here, but really come together to present a tricky mystery story, The plot's a bit slow at times, but it's definitely worth a read. Now I think about it, I read Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin almost exactly one year after  Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari, so perhaps I'll read another geeat Shasendou in a year time? I'll sign for that!

 Original Japanese title(s):  斜線堂有紀『廃遊園地の殺人』