Before the television, and before comic books were widely available, one of the major sources of entertainment for children in Japan was kamishibai, or "paper theatre". As the name implies, kamishibai artists were storytellers, who used big illustration boards to accompany the tales of adventure and mystery to told to children on the street. Often, these storytellers would sell candy to these children to make a living, and their stories were often basically serialized stories with many chapters. By ending each session with a cliffhanger, they could entice the children to come back the next time to listen to the continuation of the story. Kamishibai is an important, and direct predecessor of manga and anime, as you basically had these storytellers "live-dubbing" scenes of a story using those big illustration boards. Many of the manga artists post World War II also had a history as a kamishibai illustrator, with manga legend Mizuki Shigeru being one of the best known nowadays. Kamishibai were still around after World War II during the time the allied powers occupied the country, but with the rise of the comic industry, and later televisions (and anime), kamishibai eventually became a just interesting oddity of the past you might come across somewhere by chance now.
Powarou - Yakeato Tanteichou was a short-lived mystery manga by artist Endou Taiga and writer Kaneda Shoutarou, originally serialized in Big Comic Spirits between 1996 and 1997. There are only two volumes collecting the individual chapters, but the second volume ends with an announcement of the release window of the third volume, which was never actually released. Considering this third volume was properly announced, I suspect there are a few chapters of this series that were serialized in the magazine already, but never collected. Anyway. I first heard about.... no, the only place I ever heard about this series was in 2018's Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar, the fantastic resource on the history of puzzle plot manga. The reason it attracted my attention was the mention this manga featured a Challenge to the Reader: each tale would end with a Challenge to the Reader in the penultimate chapter, daring the reader to figure out whodunnit. While I was very interested in this series right from the start, the manga had been out of print for decades and the series itself is not available as an e-book unlike The Case Notes of Father Sakura for example (also a manga I found via Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar with a Challenge to the Reader), so for some years, the title had been in my "Oh, one day, I'll try to locate the books... Oops I forgot about it for some months. Again." mental shelf. But I finally got around to obtaining the two volumes, and I have to say, it might not be actual gold, but it was a fun series that really could, and I truly feel should have grown into a longer series because the potential was there.
Being set immediately after World War II and featuring cases that often involve local beliefs and legends, the series is definitely going to appeal to people who like the adventures of Kindaichi Kousuke, and if there's one thing to praise Powarou - Yakeato Tanteichou about, it's definitely the atmosphere. The opening story for example has a man killed in a storehouse which was locked from the inside, and the man is found with the decapitated head of a statue of Shuuten Douji on his stomach, a mythical demon who was defeated by Minamoto Raikou and his retainers, the statue being in the possession of one of the descendents of those retainers. The visual of a man lying beneath the head of Shuuten Douji is pretty gruesome, and considering the relative short length of these stories (two or three chapters), most of them do a fairly good job at fleshing out the local legends, ghost stories and beliefs that often play in the background of these stories. One of the better stories is collected in the second volume, and involves a series of deaths that follow the lyrics of centuries old song, which definitely invokes a Kindaichi Kousuke vibe, right? Most of the stories also make use of the historical setting, with some focusing on Americans living in Japan or with motives being based on notions/habits/mores of those times.
After reading the first volume, you'll be tempted to assume this is a series focusing on impossible crimes, as the first story is about the aforementioned man lying beneath the head of a decapitated statue in a storehouse locked from the inside, the second about a girl student whose throat has been sliced open while she was alone in a car of a ropeway and the final one not exactly "impossible", but if the obvious suspect isn't the killer, the other suspects all have an iron-clad alibi for the murder of a priest in a temple far away from the location the others were. The second volume however has three more stories that aren't as focused on any impossibilities, though the murder of a noh-actor in his room stabbed by the horns of a hannya-mask and a blood trail leading to a painting of a hannya-mask comes close. As mentioned, one important characteristic of this series that each story features a genuine Challenge to the Reader by Date. And I have to say, these stories are quite fair, perhaps to a fault. While sometimes aspects like motive aren't properly hinted at, it's usually more than possible for the attentive reader to solve whodunnit and how, as most of the time, the stories are very fairly-clewed. To a fault, I said, as most of the stories are also pretty easy to solve too: often the mystery plots are just variations of familiar tropes and other 'twists' in mystery fiction, and while I do have to say the execution is always more than passable, they do sometimes lack a real surprise factor. Though I guess that is because these stories were written with those Challenge to the Readers in mind, and in that regard, it is fair to say those Challenges are done really well: most of the stories are properly clewed, some through clever visual clues, others with simply well mystery writing and you never feel cheated. If you'd compare to the earliest Detective Conan stories for example, I'd say that quality-wise, Powarou - Yakeato Tanteichou is never worse, and often better than those stories, so it's a shame the series stopped after two volumes already. The two or three chapter structure of the stories are also a shame, as some of the stories feel like they could've been worked out into much bigger and deeper, as the base idea and the atmosphere are good. That coupled with the Challenges really makes this a series that feels like it lived far too short.
I mentioned how the second volume ends with an announcement for the third volume which was never released earlier, but as a bonus, these collected volumes also included a short five page prose story, which of course also featured a Challenge to the Reader. The first volume had the first part of a bonus story, which ended with a Challenge, and the solution to the story was included in the second volume. The second volume also included the first part of a new bonus prose story and a Challenge, and the solution was scheduled to appear in the third volume... but that one never came, so they never printed the solution. These stories are pretty easy to solve though, so even without the third volume, I am fairly certain I managed to solve the second story too.
Powarou - Yakeato Tanteichou is a series that really should have gone on for a few more volume, as there was the potential to become something much more memorable, even if it's worth a look even now if you happen to across the volumes. It is rare for a mystery manga to have a proper Challenge to the Reader each time, and the very atmospheric stories are well-clewed and fun to read. The biggest "fault" the stories have now is that they tend to be on the simple side, obviously building on familiar twists and solutions of the genre, and that coupled with the generous clewing means the stories sometimes undersell the "surprise element" of mystery fiction. Had the series gone on for more volumes, I can imagine the writer trying to go beyond these safe zone: truly a shame this series stopped at two volumes. The two volumes can be found for very little in the used manga market though, so if you happen to be interested, I think it can be worth it to take a look at this series.
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