What a Night, For a Dark Knight!

"Meow"
"Batman Returns"

Haven't seen that one neighborhood cat roaming around during the winter, hope she comes back with spring...

Mikeneko Holmes ("Calico Cat Holmes") is a long-running series by Akagawa Jirou about the not-so-bright police detective Katayama, his younger sister Harumi and their calico cat Holmes, who is either a brilliant detective, or who just "happens" to always manage to find important clues for her masters or warn them of imminent danger. The books are on the whole fairly light-hearted and with over fifty books, I think you can guess they're not like really complex, intricately designed mystery stories in general, but I still have a weak spot for it because one of the earliest books I read in Japanese was a Mikeneko Holmes short story collection. Still, the only other one I read was the first book in the series, which has a fun idea, but as a complete book I found a bit weird, In general I don't read that much Akagawa Jirou even though he's extremely prolific, but what's always stood out to me was that in all his series there seemed to be couples with an age difference, with a man high up his thirties or even higher ending up with a college student. It is something that happens a lot in Akagawa's stories. his Ghost series, Tantei Monogatari, Satsujin wo Yonda Hon...

So was I really surprised when Akagawa Jirou's 1983 novel Mikeneko Holmes no Kishidou ("The Knighthood of Calico Cat Holmes") started with another of these couples? No, not really. Tomomi, fresh out of college and a new member of the working force, is travelling with friends through Germany when they happen to become acquainted with the somewhat older Nagae Hideya, second son of a big company, but who isn't really interested in the business and has his own dreams to pursue. Tomomi and Hideya hit it right off, and they end up marrying. Tomomi's a huge fan of Medieval castles and Europe, so Hideya decides to buy his new wife a genuine castle in Germany, which with some renovations will be their new home in Germany. While exploring the castle before renovations were done however, Hideya lost his new bride in an accident involving an iron maiden. Three years later, Hideya invites his older brother Kazuya and his family to Germany because he suspects what happened to Tomomi wasn't an accident, and that someone in his direct family, who all happened to be traveling in Europe three years ago when the "accident" happened, might be responsible. Because a request was also sent to the Metropolitan Police Department, Katayama, his sister Harumi, fellow detective Ishizu (suitor of Harumi) and of course Holmes also come along to keep an eye on things. Arriving at the castle however, Hideya voices his suspicions and that he plans to deal with it, but the next day, Hideya himself has disappeared, and when they send out his secretary to call the police, the whole drawing bridge collapses, trapping everyone in the castle. What is going on and will Holmes and her masters make it back alive to Japan?

Well, of course, for these books are, despite sometimes dark backstories, very light-hearted in tone.

As I was reading this book, I kept thinking of stories with creepy old castles in Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, because they felt very similar. The closed circle situation with the drawbridge collapsed, mysterious happenings like Hideya disappearing and mysterious music luring people out of their rooms in the nights, a backstory with an accident with a genuine Iron Maiden in the chapel of the castle and of course Hideya's accusation that one of the people present here was responsible for what happened to his bride three years ago, which would of course be a motive to do away with Hideya in the present. Several murders occur during the cast' 'captivity' in the castle, so a lot of the props and story developments feel rather familiar. Save for the appearences of Holmes of course.

I picked this specific book because I was looking for recommendations for this series beyond the first novel (and I sure wasn't going to read all 50+ of them) and Mikeneko Holmes no Kishidou seemed a popular title and I think that in terms of readability, and suspense, I can definitely see that. The book reads very easily with events happening in quick succession, never ever really becoming boring or slow, and with the added tension of the castle setting, it's a fun few hours to read, even if, and I think you can guess where I am heading, this isn't a really surprising mystery story on the whole. In a way, I think it's a story that seems very much envisioned as a thrilling adventure which would do well on television, with spooky things happening in an equally spooky castle, people die, and in the end Katayama and Harumi manage to figure out everything with a lot of help from Holmes, explaining why all these enigmatic events occured and of course who did it. It's all very... light, and that's not a bad thing per se, but I can't feel like very engaged with it, neither positively nor negatively, because it's just a story that was over in no time. I wouldn't call the truth behind the deaths or mysterious events super clever or anything and certainly the last death points far too obviously at one person, but the whole book is written in a way that's easy on the eyes and mind, and I enjoyed as a light read between longer books. And surely for younger readers, this would just be a fun, adventurous read with some creepy elements.

Even if the motive for all that happened can be surprisingly dark. While these books have a lot of comedy and feel light-hearted on average, at times they do feature elements that make them not really feel like YA or children's literature, so I always wonder what the exact intended audience was...

Surprisingly, there's a GameBoy adaptation of this novel. The original GameBoy, the dot-matrix grey brick! There aren't that many video games that are full adaptation of an existing mystery novel, and when it comes to mystery novelists involved with games, you actually see the "based on the works of..." pattern more often, or even these novelists writing completely new stories for a game, but straight adaptations are less common. And then consider this was done on the original GameBoy! I haven't played it, but it's supposed to be fairly faithful to the book and that's quite impressive on the old grey brick. And the spritework is actually quite decent!

If Mikeneko Holmes no Kishidou is a high point in the series, I wouldn't say the series actually reaches memorable heights, but with the understanding that it's just more meant as an 'entainment-type' novel that is supposed to appeal to a very wide audience, both in age as in taste, it's an okay-ish adventure suspense story with a comedic tone. The first novel makes a lot more impact as a mystery novel with a locked room murder, and this one is definitely written more like a suspense story, so that may be why it's relatively popular. But in the context of this blog, hardly a must-read, and perhaps I might even point to the GameBoy game as being more interesting on its merits of being an early mystery handheld game.

Original Japanese title(s): 赤川次郎『三毛猫ホームズの騎士道』