"I have to go over everything that's happened. I have to remember"
Another Code R: Journey into Lost Memories
Another year passes, another holiday season comes, and as per tradition, this is also the time I look back at the reviews and other posts that stood out the most this year and highlight them in a 'not really a list' list post. As I read the reviews posted this year, I noticed a lot of my favorites were all posted in the first half of the year, making the second half seem a bit... boring, though because the posts on this blog aren't actually written and published real-time (sometimes, a post waits for months before it's published, while others I decide to publish the same week), it's more of a coincidence than a trend, I guess. Anyway, the lists and categories in this post aren't really made after serious deliberation, and are just pointing to a few of the more memorable mystery media I consumed this year, so in case you happened to have missed them the first time, read them now! I'm already well into 2023 when it comes to scheduled posts, and I can already safely say some of those books will definitely end up in my lists of favorites of next year, so I hope readers will be back next year too. Until then, have a good holiday season!
Best Project Outside The Blog!
Yes, this is just the the self-promotion category! Unlike
2020 and
2021, I have only one title to mention here. While the release of
The Mill House Murders has already been announced, it won't be released until next year, meaning there's only one big, and I do mean big title to mention here: Locked Room International released IMAMURA Masahiro's
Death Within The Evil Eye, the direct sequel to his hit novel
Death Among the Undead. Death Among the Undead was a personal favorite, and its 2019 sequel was, almost surprisingly, also a real gem, weaving supernatural themes with a mystery story that still valued logical reasoning above else, resulting in the kind puzzle plot-oriented mystery story I love. This is the first time I got to work on a sequel novel too, so that makes it extra memorable. The release has been very recent, so I guess not many have read it yet, though I hope eventually people will pick it up, because it's really a great mystery novel. And I mean, we all have to read
something during the holiday season, right?
Oh, and technically a project outside the blog, in the sense that it is not supposed to be directly connected to this blog: I opened
a Honkaku-themed Discord server a few weeks ago, so you're welcome there to discuss mystery fiction, including (shin) honkaku stories, with other fans!
Most Interesting Non-Review Post! Of 2022!
Okay, I haven't really made any non-review posts this year... sorry! I'm always reading books, so there's always material for reviews, but I have to admit editorials etc. are the first type of posts to get forgotten whenever it's busy or I am just not in a writing mood. So in the end, the only posts that even fit in this category are my playthrough memos I kept while playing
Higurashi: When They Cry. Last year, I did the same with
Umineko: When They Cry, writing down my thoughts while playing through the eight episodes of that game and keeping track of how my theories changed with each new episode.
Higurashi: When They Cry had a similar set-up with multiple episodes, so it was only natural I would do the same thing. I don't know how many people actually read my notes while I was playing the game, but I still think this is a fun experiment, writing down the theories I play with in my mind while tackling a mystery story of an enormous (and time-consuming) scale. Perhaps I should do this for
The Sekimeiya and finally force myself to get past that first part because I know it's supposed to be
really good, but it's also
really slow...
Book I Didn't Really Want to Read But Wanted to Have Read!
I mentioned the saying "The books you want to have read, but don't want to read" in my review of
Maya Yutaka's 1993 novel
Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata ("
A Sonata for Summer and Winter" AKA "
Parzival"), because it was exactly the type of novel it would be used on. This year, there were basically only two novels I read which this saying applied to:
Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata and
Nikaidou Reito's
Majutsuou Jiken ("
The Case of the Sorcery King" 2004). And of course, this all sounds very negative, but these were books I really wanted to read, but of which I knew it was also likely it wouldn't be an easy experience:
Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata was often referred to as a catastrophic deconstruction of the detective story in true Maya post-modernist fashion, while
Majutsuou Jiken was a very, very long book and the last one I hadn't read in
Labyrinth saga in the
Nikaidou Ranko series, and in general, the tone and style of the
Labyrinth books just weren't really what I liked about the earlier
Ranko books. So why did I pick
Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata? Easy:
Majutsuou Jiken was actually pretty fun to read once I got started, and I ended up enjoying it the most out of the four
Labrinth novels.
Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata on the other hand was a tricky novel to read from start to finish, and while I am glad to have finished it to know what all the talk was about, I am also glad it's behind me now!
Most Interesting Mystery Game Played In 2022! But Probably Older!
2022 ended with a
lot of Nintendo DS reviews, so you'd almost think you had gone back about 15 years. None of those games were
really outstanding though, though that was something I already knew: most of these games I played because I have already played so many Nintendo DS mystery adventure games, so I kinda want to play, well, perhaps not all of them eventually, but most of them, so even the less impressive ones. Though I want to highlight
Project Hacker and
Unsolved Crimes as games with interesting points to them. Some other games that made an impression on me were
Lucifer Within Us and the board game
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, but for me, the 'fight' was clearly between
Haru Yukite, Retrotica ("
As Spring Passes By, Retrotica")
, better known as
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story outside of Japan, and
Higurashi: When They Cry, a game I poured
a lot of time in. And even then, I knew right away
The Centennial Case would win. Created by the director behind personal PSP favorite
Trick X Logic, this game utilizes similar game mechanics with a FMV game, resulting in a game that feels like an atmospheric mystery drama, but which
really succeeds on showing how a proper whodunnit should be plotted, and how
readers (viewers) should combine clues to arrive at hypotheses, and use these hypotheses to solve a mystery. While the individual episodes might not be
super complex,
The Centennial Case is a great showcase of how to translate a
shin honkaku mystery story to the video game medium.
This might actually be the first time a game ends up in this category that was actually released in said year...
Best Premise! Of 2022!
Rouko Zanmu ("
Dreams Are All That Remain To The Tiger Who Has Grown Old")
Always a difficult category. With premise, I mean the blurb on the back of the book or
something similar being enough to really rope you in, regardless of the actual execution.We have Houjou Kie's excellent
Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo (
"Delicious Death for Detectives", 2022). of course, which is set both in the real world and in a VR-game similar to a murder mystery
Mario Maker. On the other side of the spectrum there's Ashibe Taku's
Oomarike Satsujin Jiken ("
The Oomari Family Murder Case", 2021), a fantastic historical work that focuses on the fall of the Oomari family and the women of that family as they remain at home while World War II develops: the mystery is one that could only have occured in war-time Japan, war-time Osaka, and has a bit of a
Trojan Women vibe. In a similar vein,
Kokuroujou ("The Castle with the Dark Prison") AKA The Arioka Citadel Case deserves a special mention too, being a fantastic historical mystery story set during a year-long siege of a castle. An English translation is in the works by the way!
Higurashi: When They Cry has a fantastic horror-vibe premise that really becomes creepier with each subsequent episode, and it uses the whole set-up of multiple episodes really good to flesh the whole mystery out, while other note-worthy titles are
Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin (2021) (set in an abandoned amusement park)
, Dorothy Goroshi (
The Murder of Dorothy, 2018), set in the world of the
Wizard of Oz and
Cinderella-jou no Satsujin ("
The Cinderella Castle Murder" 2021), which places Cinderella in the defendant's seat in the murder case of the prince. All premises that sound amazing right away. I ended up with Momono Zappa's
Rouko Zanmu ("
Dreams Are All That Remain To The Tiger Who Has Grown Old", 2021) however because I thought the wuxia theme was really original, and while it's
very close to "conventional" fantasy (and I have read my share of fantasy mystery novels the last few years), I thought the martial arts aspect of
wuxia was also very appealing and I was wondering how it'd be incorporated in the mystery, so as a
premise, this one earns many points.
The Just-Ten-In-No-Particular-Order-No-Comments List
I adored Centennial. Music, atmosphere, end twists, the menu tools (with surprises on the timeline). Game and mystery of the year for me.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it was really a unique, memorable experience, and I can only hope Square-Enix will put out more of these kinds of games. We do have a real lack of "classically" oriented mystery games (<-> more pop-oriented Ace Attorney/Danganronpa-inspired games)
Delete