London Particular

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, 

How does your garden grow?

First game review of the year... I wish it wasn't this game though...

Belgian police officer Hercule Poirot is sent on a mission to London to accompany a valuable painting of Mary Magdalene on its way to a London museum where an exhibit on religious art will be held, with the Mary being the big star. He has to work with Arthur Hastings, a young insurance agent of Lloyd's who is tasked with the same mission, and after meeting each other on the ship to London, they safely deliver the Mary at the museum, in time for the grand opening of the exhibition. During the preview gala however, which has some prominent guests like politicians, theatre stars and big high society names, the Mary is discovered to have been purloined, even though it was kept in a special exhibition room which was kept locked by the curator. Hercule Poirot knows he's merely a guest in London, but can't let this crime go unsolved as a matter of honor and assisted by Hastings, he starts an investigation into the painting's theft in the 2023 video game Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case, available on PC/PS4/PS5/XBox One/Switch.

As the title suggests, this game is a follow-up on 2021's Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases, a game I experienced as a flawed one. The game built on developer Blazing Griffin's Murder Mystery Machine, featuring gameplay where you gather clues and had to connect said clues to create mindmaps: visualizing the deduction process by having the player manually connect hint a + hint b to arrive at conclusion C. As a mystery game, it was pretty fun, but it was not really a Hercule Poirot game despite Poirot being in the title and this being a licensed game. As the title suggested, it was a prequel, portraying a younger Hercule Poirot when he was still with the Belgian police, but besides a completely wrong time setting (which I can still ignore), the character portrayed as Poirot was... hardly portrayed as Poirot, with few of his characteristic personality traits being mirrored in this younger version, save for some "grey cells" references. His mind for order, neatness and symmetry, references to interests like travelling, the way he speaks to women, his mastery(?) of English, none of these traits were visible in the Poirot in The First Cases, and I was left with a game that just felt really weird. It was with such an ambigious feeling I started with the sequel.

And unfortunately, Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case turns out to be inferior to its predecessor in all aspects.

The Hercule Poirot characterization is still weird, though I had expected that already. Of course, the timeline doesn't make any sense anyway if you go by the books, as the time period is a bit weird considering Poirot should probably much older, and at the very least, in the books he's about twice as old as Hastings which he certainly isn't in this game, so add to that the fact the Poirot in this game still feels far too removed from the actual character, and you still wonder why this is a licensed product. I mean, I get it, Agatha Christie in the title will sell much better, but save for the name, the story and characters really have nothing to do with the actual Poirot series...

At this point, The London Case isn't surprisingly better or worse than the first game, but sadly enough, as a mystery game, The London Case is also not nearly as engaging as The First Cases. On the surface, the game looks similar: you control a young Poirot as you question the various suspects and look for evidence in various locations ranging from a museum,to a church and backstage at a theater,  locations which are presented with an isometric point of view. The clues you gather are automatically stored in Poirot's mind as part of various mind maps pertaining certain themes ("the stolen Mary" "why is X behaving like that"). By connecting certain relevant facts in this mind maps, you're able to generate new insights or questions to ask your suspects, allowing you to progress in the game. Up to this point, The London Case isn't much different from the first game. But the critical issue is that The London Case is infinitely simpler than the first game, to a degree that it's just not enjoyable anymore. While The First Cases also simplified the gameplay of Murder Mystery Machine, I felt that was like nicely cleaning the user interface, but in The London Case, the deductions you're supposed to make are so simple and each map is so limited, you don't really feel the thrill of completing a deduction. There's never an "Aha!" moment when you make a connection, and many of the conclusion you make are often logically barely a step further than the initial hints you started out with. So the mind maps don't feel satisfying anymore to complete, and they were what made these games unique as a mystery games!

After a short prologue and the opening gala at the museum, the game world opens up as you interrogate everyone who had been at the gala, figuring out their alibis for the theft and trying to find hidden connections between everyone, but the mid-section of the game is surprisingly... dull, with a lot of walking to and from a limited amount of locations and even some fetch quests, which combined with the lower difficulty really make this game feel less detective work-focused compared to The First Cases. It doesn't help that the game's strength certainly doesn't lie in its story presentation, with sometimes awkward cut scenes where you always have the feeling like a few lines of dialogue are missing to convey things better.

I played this game on the Switch, and unfortunately, it runs really badly on the Switch for some reason. It's graphically certainly not impressive, but for some reason the loading times on the Switch are horrible, and that certainly didn't help the experience of the middle part of the game, as you constantly have to wait for the game to load each time you go from one location to another. For example: to visit the museum's curator's room, you first need to enter the museum hall (location 1), then move to a different gallery (location 2) and from there enter the curator's room (location 3), but when you want to leave, you have go back the same way, and each time the game takes ages to load each seperate location! And when you have fetch quests where you have to pick up something at location A (which might actually consists of 3 locations) and then go location B (which might be 2 locations) and then go back to A.... the game just isn't much fun to play at a technical level either, and even outside of the awful loading times, the game doesn't run really smoothly.

It's only now I even remember to write something about the story, because there was enough to complain about besides the story. As a Hercule Poirot licensed game, the consumer of course hopes to experience a tale that feels like one of the Belgian sleuth's adventures one way or another. And I guess the cast of characters feel like a Christie story, with many people in the upper parts of society and I can see a museum theft as a Poirot (short) story too, as well as some of the other developments later on, but it does miss a classic Christie twist that feels brilliant, while at the same time remaining simple. Some small thing that forces you to look at things at a different angle, but which explains everything. The London Case doesn't have that: it's a mystery story that at times incorporates tropes we see in Christie's work, and while I wouldn't call the story memorable, it's a tale that theoretically could fit perfectly with the mind map gameplay, but it's just presented in a far too simple manner in term of gameplay, while the presentation is so wonky at times you feel you're missing one or two scenes.

I did like the original The First Cases despite it not being all it could've been, so I had hoped the sequel would improve on that game, but Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case somehow manages to be worse in every aspect. Whereas I could recommend the first game, I would recommend you to stay away from this game unless you really want to play a video game with Poirot in its title, because as a mystery game, this game has barely anything satisfying to offer to the player.

The Baited Trap

"I, Hercule Poirot, am not amused."

"The Hollow"

So this game was released earlier this week, but for some reason the price of this game in Japan is just a third of the MSRP in Europe, selling for just 1500 yen instead of 35-40 euro...

An earlier encounter left an impression both on Angeline van den Bosch and Hercule Poirot, a patrol officer of the Belgium police force, so when Angeline found herself in trouble, she decided to write to now Detective Hercule Poirot, hoping he would be able to help her. After the death of her father Viscount van den Bosch, Angeline was raised by her mother Cassandra and while there had been financial troubles in the past, the illustrious Van den Bosch name seems to have regained its place among society, and the upcoming marriage betweeen Angeline and Gedeon Demir will only strengthen both families and their social status. However, Angeline has been receiving blackmail letters threatening to reveal a family secret unless she pays. She has no knowledge of any hidden secret and her mother also denies everything, perhaps too strongly even. Other socialites have been receiving blackmail letters too, so it might indeed be nothing and just an attempt to get money out of her, but worried, Angeline invites Hercule Poirot to a private party to celebrate her engagement with Gedeon at the Van den Bosch estate. Poirot makes his way through the heavy snowfall to the manor, where he meets various family friends and business acquaintances who all seem to be hiding more beneath their superficial pleasantries. But Poirot has barely started his investigations into the blackmail matter when the British Major van Hagen, an old family friend of the two Van den Bosch women, is found stabbed to death in his study, with the weapon missing. With the phone lines also down because of the heavy snow, it's up to Poirot to find out who murdered the Major and the crime's connection to the blackmail letters in the game Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases, released in 2021 on PC/PS4/PS5/MacOS/XBox One/Switch.

I am not absolutely certain, but I think this is the first game based on Agatha Christie's famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot that is not an adaptation of an existing novel, but a completely original story (there have been official licensed Poirot books by new writers of course. Like the title suggests, this game is actually a prequel, set in the times when Poirot was still a police officer in the Belgian police force and long before he had to move to England because of the Great War. It's a period the original stories don't talk about that often (most notably the short story The Chocolate Box), so in theory, it's an interesting period to set original Poirot stories and I guess origin/prequel stories in particular are popular. I wonder whether it's a coincidence that this game's release window is pretty close to Frogwares' (far more ambitious looking) Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, which is another prequel game based on a famous fictional detective...

Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases is created by Blazing Griffin, the studio that also made Murder Mystery Machine, a game I wrote about a few weeks ago and which also features a character named Cassandra. Huh. The gameplay and mechanics of Hercule Poirot: The First Cases are a clear sign of this pedigree, as it is quite close to Murder Mystery Machine in design. You control a young Poirot as you question the various suspects and look for evidence in the rather spacious Van den Bosch manor, which is presented with an isometric point of view (unlike Murder Mystery Machine however, you are not able to change the angle of the camera). Relevant information/hints/evidence are are all memorized by Poirot in his brain, and by using your little grey cells, the player has to find connections between relevant pieces of information to bring order among the chaotic sea of information. All the information you gather is automatically organized in so-called "mind maps", which gather all the relevant information pertaining to a certain goal (for example, all the information on the blackmail affair is stored in the "blackmail mind map"). By connecting certain relevant facts yourself on this mind map, you're able to generate new insights or questions to ask your suspects. Connecting two contradicting statements from two suspects allows you to press both characters further on that point for example, or you might uncover a motive by connecting a seemingly innocent mention to a character's past to another fact you learned. People familiar with games like Frogwares' more recent Sherlock Holmes games or Gyakuten Kenji/Ace Attorney Investigations will feel at home here, as do the people who have played Murder Mystery Machine. As expected of a licensed product however, Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases plays a lot more streamlined than Murder Mystery Machine, and personally, I liked that better. The mind maps are already organized in an easy to read manner this time, allowing you to focus more on the actual thinking rather than struggling with dozens of posts-its. Each information point also has a short description, which really helps a lot with conveying what the context exactly is, as Murder Mystery Machine only had the words without any descriptions. And each mind map in Hercule Poirot: The First Cases shows how much connections are still possible to make and shows what actions you haven't followed up on yet (you migh have generated a new question to ask someone, but not done that yet). 

The mind maps are still quite enjoyable as a mechanic that allows the player to really follow the logical process of the detective and it works especially well with a character like Poirot, who prides himself on order and method.. Because the player has make the logical connections themselves and everything is visualized in a clear manner, you do really feel like you're piecing the case together yourself. There are also some other minor gameplay moments where you need to coax a suspect in revealing information by using different questioning approaches (some people fall for flattery, others need a bit of pressure), but you'll be spending most of the game eyeing the mind maps trying to find the correct connections. Sometimes, the connections can be a bit frustrating to find (why do I have to connect *these two* nodes, instead of the other, similar-looking one?), but the game never punishes you for getting things wrong on the mind map,  so you can brute-force yourself through them.

As a mystery story, Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases covers familiar ground in a fairly competent manner. The story reminds a bit of Murder on the Orient Express, with the Van den Bosch manor is snowed in, a surprisingly international cast of characters and even the murder mystery plot takes some minor cues from it, while some themes touched upon even remind of Agatha Christie's work in general While the game does a good job at letting the player make all the logical connections themselves and I'd say that ultimately, the mystery plot, while not really original, is perfectly servicable, I would say that the set-up for the second half of the game is rather clumsy: the game will try to present a plot twist halfway through that is supposed to serve as the driving force for the plot of the second half of the game, but is introduced in such an awkward manner it basically gives the whole story away at that point. Simply shifting around when certain plot points or pieces of evidence are introduced to the player would have resulted in a much more interesting detective story, while now the game basically reveals its hand by just dropping all its cards on the table for a second.

But there is one thing where Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases drops the ball hard, and while it wouldn't hurt any other game, one could almost call it a lethal mistake here: this game doesn't feel like an Hercule Poirot game at all! We're supposed to play a younger Hercule Poirot and sure, he has a moustache and he does mention his little grey cells, but that's it! Nothing about the character in this game, nothing about the writing in this game besides "his little grey cells" and the name indicator that says Poirot, would make you think you're playing a game based on the Poirot series. Not a single remark about his moustaches, never mentioning his love for symmetry or wanting to tidy things up: if you'd just look at the character's lines without any names, you'd never know this was supposed to be a young Poirot. And it's not like there are no opportunities to do so in a natural way. In a scene in the library, you examine some books and Poirot mentions his love for travelling. Why not sneak in a reference here that he'd love to visit Egypt some time? Why not some sly remark on the English and their food when he's speaking with the British characters? Why no funny remarks about a brother when he's talking with Gedeon about his brother? There's nothing that even feels remotely like Poirot here. Earlier this year, I played the game adaptation of The A.B.C. Murders, which as a mystery game was inferior to this game, but at least it had little details that made you feel like Poirot, like having Poirot curse when he walked through a puddle or being able to click on every mirror in the game so Poirot would check whether his clothes were tidy. 

I'm also rather confused about the time period this game is supposed to be set in. Given that this game is about a young Poirot in the police force who is still not very famous (save for his shooting incident), you'd expect this game to be set around the 1890s, but it feels like it's at least one or two decades later, considering the style of clothes of the characters as well as the style of furniture. References to "the war" involving the English army which every Belgian apparently knows about confuse things even more. The writing certainly isn't trying to actually sound like it's set around that time (and at times, it just sounds like... 2021), which doesn't help things either.

So Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases ends up being a very strange game. It is quite enjoyable as a mystery game that focuses on the logical steps necessary to solve the crime, and while the story and setting don't feature anything remarkably original, the end product is a capably made mystery game that does a good job at making the player really feel like they are piecing the mystery themselves. At the same time however, the game does not do a good job at making you feel like the titular Hercule Poirot. In fact, if you're somewhat familiar with the character and the books, you might end up like me, wondering constantly why the game is so intent on not feeling like a Poirot game. The license doesn't seem to do anything at all: from a pure story and gameplay POV, I can't say the game benefits at all from the Poirot license, while at the same time, the game does nothing to interfact meaningfully with the character Poirot and the many stories featuring him at all. It's a trap very few games based on existing licences fall into: ending up as a game that would have been better without the license. So curiously enough, I'd say that Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases is an interesting detective game, but it would have been more interesting without the Agatha Christie- Hercule Poirot in the title.

The Mystery of the 99 Steps

"You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

"Appointment with Death"

Man, I want to read more mysteries set at the Kumano Kodou now, because it's a visually stunning place and would make for a great setting for a mystery revolving around perfect alibis!

The famous detective Suguro Takeru enjoys a well-deserved holiday in Tengu Village in Wakayama Prefecture, near the Kumano Kodou, a series of ancient pilgrimage routes and sacred sites that cross the Kii Penisula. One of the other guests at the same hotel is Mrs. Hondou, a filthy rich widow who spends her time travelling across Japan with her family. While her (step)children are adult, they have all been terrorized by the commanding and controlling woman since a young age, and they literally can't do anything but follow her around and beckon at her orders, even if it makes them deeply, deeply unhappy. Not only Suguro is greatly disturbed at the sight of the woman intentionally playing her children apart to make them as miserable as possible, but also the young doctor Sara who is also staying at the hotel and who has become attracted to the younger Hondou son. Suguro is also rejoined at the hotel with an old friend, Uesugi Honami, who has become a Dietwoman. Uesugi convinces Suguro to come along on an excursion to explore the pilgrimage routes of the Kumano Kodou (even though Suguro would rather prefer to stay in the comfortable hotel). The Hondou family has the same plan, but after bossing her children around for a while in the bus, Mrs. Hondou insists she wants to be left alone for some time, and sends her children off, while she takes a rest at one of the sacred sites. At the end of the day, when the bus is ready to return back to the hotel however, Sara stumbles upon Mrs. Hondou still sitting there, but then realizes that she's dead. It turns out Hondou had been injected with something to kill her and it's obvious that her whole family has a motive for wanting her dead. But what makes matters even more serious is the fact that Suguro on his first day at the hotel overheard someone of the family saying "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" But which of them did it?

After a capable adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express in 2015 followed by a very impressive adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, screenwriter and playwright Mitani Kouki returned on March 6, 2021 with his third adaptation of a Hercule Poirot novel for television: Shi to no Yakusoku is a three-hour television special based on Agatha Christie's 1938 novel Appointment with Death. The summary above might make you suspect that this is a very loose adaptation of the Christie novel, but you'd completely wrong. While Mitani's adaptations do take place in a post-war Japan and star the eccentric detective Suguro Takeru, these specials have been very faithful to the source material and an absolute delight for fans of Christie's work. It's strange that even though these specials take place in another time, in another place than the original novels, they manage to capture the spirit of the source material so incredibly well. This respect for the original work can be seen in all the Japanese character names for example, which are clearly derived from the original names: the Boyntons became the Hondous, Doctor Sara King became Sara Kinuko, family friend Jefferson Hope Juumonji Kouta etc. There are some changes here and there that some might find significant, like the absence of the character of Dr. Gerard in this adaptation or for example the fact that Uesugi was made an old friend of Suguro (Poirot), but Mitani always does a good job at justifying each change from the novel, and the script never feels unnatural despite his tinkering. For example Uesugi is used to make Suguro a more involved character in this adaptation, while Poirot doesn't really appear that much in the original novel.

It's funny how the theme color of Shi to no Yakusoku is green by the way. Appointment with Death is set in Jeruzalem and they visit Petra in that book, so I always associated with a more... sandy yellow.

In terms of atmosphere, you can definitely feel Mitani's hand like in the previous adaptations: he is best his comedic storytelling and while lately, he's done a lot of historical drama, he's also quite experienced with mystery productions (like in Furuhata Ninzaburou, the fantastic Japanese Columbo and Ellery Queen-inspired TV show). His cozy, comedic style does fit Christie's stories pretty well, so the comedy never feels weird, and while Suguro is perhaps more of a physically comical character compared to Poirot, these adaptations have also shown a Suguro who's much more human than Poirot is in the original novels. Which is also shown here, as Suguro knows the Hondous are better off without their mother, but his own morals don't allow him to ignore this murder. We had a glimpse of this Suguro in the previous adaptations too, but Suguro is a detective who doesn't always enjoys his calling, but he knows it's the right thing to do, and this focus works very good with Mitani's own style. The setting move to the Kumano Kodou however is amazing. There are some fantastic shots of the party exploring the mountain woods and while in the original novel, several witnesses talk about Mrs. Hondou shooing off an Arab servant while she was alone, in this adaptation, it's changed to a pilgrim wearing a Tengu mask and it looks stunning visually. 

As for the mystery plot itself, it's mostly the same as the original novel and I'll have to be honest and say that Appointment with Death has never been one of my favorite Poirots. A lot of the plot revolves around Suguro having to reconstruct a timeline of who saw Ms. Hondou when while she was alone at the sacred site, but that makes the middle part of this story rather long, while the pay-off is... just a timeline of the events. Sure, Suguro builds on that to eventually identify the killer, but it does make this a rather slow story. What I did like about Appointment with Death was an iconic moment where the motive for the crime suddenly becomes clear: it's hard to explain what this is without spoiling the surprise, but people who know the original story will probably understand what part of the story I mean. It's basically the moment the victim actually makes her own appointment with death, making her own murder inevitable. I'm surprised to say that I actually like the variation in Shi to no Yakusoku even better than the original! It's when the little changes here and there by Mitani really pay off, because while the scene is basically the same as in the original novel, the set-up to have that particular scene play out the way it did is even better in this television special, and feels sooooooo much more satisfying when they talk about it again at the end of the story. 

So yep, Shi to no Yakusoku was yet another highly enjoyable and very well-made Christie adaptation by Mitani. In comparison to the adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, this televsion special might not be as ambitious, but like the previous two adaptations, Shi to no Yakusoku is a production where the combination of Agatha Christie and Mitani Kouki really feels like a match made in heaven, with the end result is more than the sum of the parts. The core plot by Christie has one very memorable moment in terms of mystery, while the changes made by Mitani to fit "his" version of Appointment with Death aren't made for fun, but often support or even elevate the original story. It's a shame that Suguro doesn't have his own Hastings at the moment, because tone-wise, it'd love to see how Mitani would tackle an adaptation of Curtain!

Original Japanese title(s): 『死との約束』

X Y Z

“I admit," I said, "that a second murder in a book often cheers things up."

"The ABC Murders"

 I enjoy mystery fiction as a genre, not any particular medium, so while the focus on this blog lies mostly on books, I stilltend to discuss a lot of mystery fiction in various media, from television shows and comics to videogames and theatrical releases and whatever. When it comes to the subject of mystery videogames however, I'm probably not the only person who has noticed that a lot of the other blogs that discuss mystery fiction barely acknowledge videogames, even if they do for example talk about films or television shows. It's a shame, because each medium brings something completely different to the mystery genre and some concepts work brilliantly as a videogame, while they wouldn't work as well as for example an ordinary novel or even a show.

Of course, that's also the other way around, and there are plenty of good mystery novels that simply wouldn't translate well to the interactive medium and that's why there are in general very few straight videogame adaptations of mystery novels, and even fewer that are actually good. Agatha Christie's famous The ABC Murders (1936) is fairly unique in the sense that it has two seperate videogame adaptations: an adventure game in 2009 for the Nintendo DS, and a multi-platform point-and-click adventure release in 2016 (note that the two games aren't related save for the fact they're based on th same novel). The more recent game is titled Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders and if you are familiar with the original story, you might guess why in theory, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders (2016, Steam, Xbox One, PS4, Switch and more) could make for an engaging videogame. Like in the original novel, the game starts with the famous French Belgian private detective Poirot and his friend Hastings receiving a letter signed ABC, which points them to things to happen in Andover soon. When Poirot is informed by Chief-Inspector Japp that a woman called Alice Ascher was killed in her shop in Andover on the announced day and that an ABC railway guide was behind at the crime scene, they realize the letter was not just a prank: a second letter announcing a death in Bexhill means both Poirot and the police have to work hard to catch the alphabet-minded murderer before they'll arrive at the Z.

There have been several videogame adaptations of the Poirot novels by Agatha Christie in the past, and many years ago, I reviewed the game based on Evil Under the Sun, but as a story, The ABC Murders is definitely one of the Poirot stories that is best suited for a videogame adaptation. The story is set across the country, with murders occuring in diverse locations and this also brings Poirot and Hastings in contact with a diverse cast of suspects, as each victim dwelled in very different social circles: the murder in Andover is set in a small tobacco shop and the people in the victim's immediate circle are all in the working class, while later in the story, Poirot and Hastings will have to visit the stately country manor of a wealthy doctor. This means that the game too presents the player with a diverse cast of suspects and locations to visit: with so many Poirot novels focusing on one or maybe two murders in a fairly confined location, The ABC Murders is quite unique for its 'scale' and that at least makes Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders a pleasant game to look at: while your mileage might vary regarding the comic book art visual style, the game certainly isn't confined to only one or two boring locations and gives you a nice variety of locations to explore, as well as the 'home base' that is Poirot's office (which seems very much inspired by the office we see in later seasons of Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet, with the Japanese prints on the wall as well as the neat, curved cabinet beneath the windows). 

The story of the game follows that of the novel fairly faithfully: there are a few changes here and there to open up the suspect pool (often cleverly done by building upon minor points mentioned in the original story). You won't be confronted with drastic changes like a whole new murderer or anything like that (the game adaptation of And Then There Were None had its own twist to the conclusion, as well as the original ending as an extra), so there are few surprises here if you already know the story, but it works as a functional adaptation of the novel, which remains a fine tale of mystery regarding a serial killer with a seemingly crazy fixation on the alphabet.

Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is on the whole a pretty simple point-and-click adventure, where you control Poirot as you gather clues at each crime scene by exploring the location and talking with the people involved. Once you have gathered all the necessary clues at a specific location, the game will prompt you with questions that you need to answer with the clues/statements gathered earlier, to arrive at conclusions regarding the identity and modus operandi of the killer ABC. At the very end of the game, you use the conclusions you made and corrected throughout the game to figure out who the murderer is: it's not an original or surprising set-up, but it works for this story. There are some nice little ideas that make this feel like a Poirot game though. For example, each time you meet a new person, you don't start talking to them right away, but observe them for a moment, which allows you make deductions about their character and current state of mind. While it's a very simple gameplay mechanic, where you just find a few hotspots as you zoom in on a character, it's a mechanic that fits Poirot so well, as he's a detective who's always been more interested in the psychology of the crime, and of the persons involved. It's a simple gameplay element that fits wonderful with the story of The ABC Murders. A more advanced variation on this mechanic is found in 2014's Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments by the way, for those interested in seeing a different (and more engaging) take on the concept. There are also touches like being able to look in the mirror as Poirot to make sure you look tidy, or having Poirot lament the fate of his shoes and trousers each time you walk through a puddle.

As mentioned above, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a pretty simple game to play, and most likely, its primary target audience doesn't consist of people who often play mystery-themed adventure games, but people who like Agatha Christie's works as books or television shows and who might try a game based on the brand name, or mystery bloggers who never discuss mystery games. The game not only always tells you how many clues you have to find at a certain location or what your next objective is, but there's also a baked-in hint system that will automatically perform the next neccessary step to advance in the game (like picking up a clue you missed). Which is of course perfectly fine as not every game needs to be a stress-fest, but it's strange that at the same time, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders also uses frustrating adventure game conventions to stretch the experience, and the puzzles you often have to solve to advance in the game are incredibly contrived. At each new location, you gather clues not just by questioning the people related to the case, but also by searching each location, like the bedroom of the second victim. As per bad adventure gaming convention, often important objects are found not just lying on a table or in a drawer, but inside elaborate puzzle boxes that need to be opened: usually it's a box that needs to be turned around in 360 degrees, and sliding a panel at one side will open a mechanism somewhere else, which again will open another door etc. It's one of the things I really didn't like about the Sherlock Holmes games developed by Frogwares like Crimes & Punishments and The Testament of Sherlock Holmes and it certainly isn't different here. I don't know why so many detective adventure games seem to think that a detective characters needs to open puzzle boxes,, and why the people in these worlds tend to keep all their important stuff in puzzle boxes that can be opened by anyone as long as they figure out the mechanism instead of, like, keep it in a safe with a key. The most ridiculous example of this happens late in the game, when you need to open a trolley-size travel case which consists of perhaps five or six mechanisms which need to be opened in order, and when you're finally done, it turns out that perhaps 80% of that case consists just out of those puzzle mechanisms, leaving one small drawer as the actual usuable space of the travel case! It's such a 'game-like' thing to fill the narrative with these filler puzzles (and even then, it's a bad gaming convention), so while Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders feels like it's made to appeal to non-gamers with an interest in Agatha Christie's work, it's at the same time using boring adventure design conventions that are most likely to first scare off or bore non-gamers. It's just a weird dichotomy in game design. Well, at least the hint system allows you to skip these puzzles if you really don't like them.

Oh! By the way, I did like the inclusion of The Dark Shadow in the crime reconstruction scenes! The Dark Shadow is such an iconic part of Japanese visual mystery fiction, I just thought it was so funny to see that familiar face in a Poirot adaptation of all things!

Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders on the whole is a capable game adaptation of a novel that actually lends it well to a more interactive medium: the core plot translates well to the medium to show how Poirot solves the case on a mental level by allowing the player to go through each deductive step themselves. Little touches make the game feel like a Poirot game too. It's just those puzzle boxes that feel horribly out of place, and sadly enough, a lot of objects are kept for some reason in these puzzle boxes that for some reason are the newest fad in the UK, making everyone put things on boxes that can be opened by anyone with a mind for puzzles. In general though, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders does feature a lot of design choices that make it an easy experience for non-gamers, so it's one I can recommend if you aren't into mystery games yet, but want to try one out to ease in the medium.

Fatal Venture

"Of course, if you’ve made up your mind about it, you’ll find an answer to everything."

"A Murder Is Announced"

Some old, same old. Every time we have a new Agatha Christie adaptation, we have the discussion about the connection between the friction between being faithful to the original work, the freedom an adaptation should have and what makes a certain mystery plot or the characters work. As I am a reader who focuses mostly on the core mystery plot, I usually allow an adaptation a fair amount of freedom to mess around with the setting/characters, as long as I believe the core mystery plot is done justice. That is why I thought the Murder on the Orient Express adaptation by Mitani Kouki was quite enjoyable, even though it added a completely new section which retold the whole story from the point of view of the culprit. It actually worked out really well as an inverted mystery story, even if the most die-hard Christie fans might call it a blasphemy to change the work that drastically. And I didn't mind at all it featured a new cast, with a new setting in Japan. The 2017 TV adaptation of And Then There Were None too was daring in how it was set in contemporary times (with the visitors to the island even bringing their tablets and smartphones with them initially), but it also offered an excellent reason to do so in the second half of the story. This adaptation also turned the story into a whodunnit in the second half, as it added a completely original second episode after the events of the book, where the original character Inspector Shoukokuji investigated the case of the ten dead people on the island, with a fair-play set-up with new clues.

Inspector Shoukokuji returned in an okay-ish adaptation of The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side last year, where he replaced Miss Marple as the detective character (meanwhile the adaptation of 4.50 from Paddington too featured an original Miss Marple replacement). Last week, the same production team brought us a new Agatha Christie adaptation featuring Inspector Shoukokuji as the stand-in Miss Marple. Yokoku Satsujin, based on the 1950 novel A Murder Is Announced, is essence quite faithful to the original novel, even if the story is now set in contemporary Japan. One morning, everyone in the village is surprised to find an announcement in the newspaper, which says that evening, a murder will be committed in Little Paddocks, the home of Kuroiwa Reiri, a woman who despite not being a born local is beloved by her fellow villagers and the lodgers that also stay in her house. Everyone assumes it's a joke or perhaps some covert invitation for a murder game, so Reiri's friends all come to her home, expecting some party. At the time detailed in the announcement however, the lights are suddenly turned off. A man with a gun barges in the room, threatening them while he blinds the guests with his flashlight. Several gunshots follow, and to the guests' surprise, they find the intruder lying dead on the floor, with Reiri herself coming off relatively unscatched, with only her ear grazed by a bullet. Inspector Shoukokuji is to find out who the assailant is, and why Reiri's home was the stage for such an incident.

You can probably find more than enough reviews on Christie's original A Murder Is Announced, so I'm not going to spend too much time on that. In essence, the truth behind why the unknown assailant had come to Little Paddocks and how he ended up dead is an idea Christie herself has used often in her books and in the Miss Marple series alone, you'll also find other books that utilize the exact same basic premise as in this book. One can talk about misdirection and other themes, but in general, I find this particular idea a bit too lean to stand on its own, and while Christie has some other extra elements to flesh things out, I can't say A Murder Is Announced is one of my favorite Marples, though I have to admit I never were a big fan of her, especially considering the Poirots are far better, and more fun to read.

But to get back to the matter of adaptations of mystery stories. I think this is actually a story that didn't really work well exactly because it was moved to the contemporary times. Part of the underlying plot works in the original works because it was set soon after World War II, making certain actions at least somewhat feasible. But I say it's neigh impossible to do what the murderer did in the story in contemporary times, especially considering the kinds of technology and other things we have now. It simply doesn't seem plausible in this adaptation set in 2019. Whereas the And Then There Were None adaptation of the same team actually went the depths to make sure it all made sense in the new setting and more importantly, that it actually added some new original element to strengthen the core plot, Yokoku Satsujin suffers from the change in setting, and there are no new elements that actually make the mystery plot better. And no, adding more comedy by giving the always stoic Shoukokuji a childish infatuation with one of the characters really isn't helping the mystery plot.

The screenplay writer had a lot of fun with 'translating' the original English names to their Japanese counterparts though. Letitia Blacklock becomes Kuroiwa Reiri ("Black" corresponding with the "Kuro" part of her name). Letitia's companion Dora Bunner is now Tsuchida Torami, who has the nickname Dora. A Murder Is Announced features some interesting wordplay, and this adaptation does a good job at building on that, even if at times, the plot becomes a bit confusing as everyone is given some nickname like Leily and Dora and Rikka.

Even with the changed setting, Yokoku Satsujin is quite faithful in terms of mystery plot to the original novel. But in this case, these background changes still have negative implications for the mystery plot, and unlike earlier adaptations by this team, there were no new mystery elements introduced to help the plot in different ways or give the familiar plot a new twist that still meshed well with the original ideas. The result is an adaptation that despite good intentions, fails to impress and adds nothing to the original experience.

Original Japanese title(s): 『予告殺人』

Black Coffee Rag

「オレは今、オレ自身の２つの問題で精いっぱいさ。コーヒーはなぜ、黒いのか？ そして‥‥なぜ、ニガいのか‥‥？」

『逆転裁判3』

"Right now, I have my hands full with my own two questions. Why is coffee black? And why... is it so bitter...?"

"Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations"

Coffee is something I don't see as much as a tasteful beverage, but more like a practical drink for its caffeine. Ice coffee however is a completely different story, as I love that.

Famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is asked by the famous scientist Sir Claud Amory to come by his house as he is facing a problem he himself can not solve. Amory had created a formula for a new explosive, but then he discovers that someone in his house has stolen it, probably to sell to a foreign agent willing to pay much for it and he needs Poirot's grey cells to figure out who did it. By the time Poirot and Hastings arrive at stately Amory manor though, it's been too late: Sir Claud had been poisoned through his black coffee. Was it the thief of the formula who murdered the man, or was there another person intent at taking the inventor's life? Hoping to at least help Sir Claud in his death, Poirot decides to investigate the manner of Sir Claud's demise, as well as of the theft of the explosive formula in Charles Osborne's Black Coffee (1998).

Black Coffee was originally a play written by Agatha Christie herself in 1930 featuring her famous creation Poirot. The play was not very well-known among Poirot fans, but in 1998, Charles Osborn wrote a novelization of the play, giving Black Coffee new life. When I first heard about this book, I have to admit I was not very interested, as it was "just" a novelization by someone else, and even though the source material was by Christie herself, I have to admit I was never that much a fan of the other plays by her I knew (like The Mousetrap or the other Poirot plays). Of course, now we're several years later and as I know all the other Poirot stories now, I thought that perhaps trying Black Coffee out could not hurt (yes, I know, I didn't exactly go in with really high expectations).

That said though, there is very little to say about Black Coffee, as it is an incredibly simple story, and even in novel-form you feel it was made for the theater. The whole set-up (Poirot being called to find a thief/murderer among a small household) reminds a lot of the Poirot short stories The Under Dog and The Incredible Theft, and Black Coffee is basically simply another variation on that theme. In terms of scale, Black Coffee is also barely a short story worth of plot, so that strengthens the similarities between these stories. As a mystery story, Black Coffee is nothing special at all, which is once again something this story shares with the Poirot stories mentioned, as I suspect few view them as the highlights of the Poirot short stories. Christie for example makes use of a device in regards to the whereabouts of the formula that was probably already old and over-used when this story was written and most of the rest of the tale consists of Poirot asking people questions that don't seem to lead anywhere. Black Coffee is definitely not Christie gold.

I can't compare the novelization to the original play, but you definitely can tell that this story was originally a play. Most of the story takes place inside the room where the murder took place, with all the characters moving in and out of the room to suit the plot. Of course, every time a person is all alone in the room, they'll act suspiciously for no apparent reader but to show the reader they're suspicious, I guess the novelization is probably faithful to the play in this regard, and it shows it respects the source material, but I had definitely preferred some more variety. This is a novel, so you don't need to incorporate every element of the play, especially if it's something that probably only exists because of the limitations of a medium. One might say that the final solution with Poirot works better if the whole story is set in the same room, but I don't think the effect is weakened that much if we'd see even a bit more of the outside world, and in any case, the prologue is in fact set outside the room (in Poirot's apartment to be exact), so I don't think it would've hurt that much.

I had hoped I'd be able to write something more substantial about Black Coffee, but there's so little I can say about it. Black Coffee is a full novel, but the core plot mystery is just barely enough for a short story in truth, as it's quite simple and nothing special, and certainly not something I'd consider a Christie classic (and she has written some great short stories!). The novelization is also, I suspect, quite faithful to the original play in being mainly set in one location, but this again strengthens the feeling of this being a short story being dragged out to a full novel. had this been a short story, Black Coffee would've been a mediocre effort of a mystery story. As a full novel, it's simply tedious and nothing special, and not even Poirot and Hastings can save it.

Turnabout Storyteller

"The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it."

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd"

On this blog, I try to discuss mystery fiction in various forms. While most of the reviews here are of books, you'll also find many reviews of mystery videogames, audio dramas and I have even discussed mystery musicals. But the medium I discuss most often after books, are the audiovisual productions: television dramas, specials and movies. Mystery dramas and movies are of course quite popular, and many of them are in fact adaptations of novels. An adaptation almost always opens the way for discussion: some stories turn out to work better when it's presented in a visual medium, while other stories actually have trouble working as a visual production. To refer to a recent review on the blog: the solution to the locked room murder in episode 184 of Detective Conan works so much better because it's presented in a visual format and it wouldn't have nearly as much impact in a novel form. But there are plenty of examples where an adaptation might seem troublesome.

Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) has long been such an example. This third novel featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot was adapted for Agatha Christie's Poirot featuring David Suchet in 2000 for example, but did it really manage to convey what Christie did in that novel? No, not at all, and it ended up in a rather nondescript television movie of what is arguably one of Christie's better known novels. There's a Russian adaptation, it seems, but I haven't seen that one so can't really comment. But in general, one can say that some ideas simply don't work too well outside a novel, the same way some ideas don't really work outside the audiovisual format, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has long been a headscratcher for that reason.

A few months ago, it was announced that Fuji TV would broadcast a three-hour television special based on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in April, with a screenplay by Mitani Kouki. Mitani is a theater/film/TV screenplay writer and director, who is known for his comedic storytelling. He has directed some fantastic hartwarming comedy movies like Radio no Jikan (AKA Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald), The Uchouten Hotel, The Magic Hour and Suteki na Kanashibari. One of his better known plays was Juuninin no Yasashii Nihonjin ("12 Gentle Japanese"), a fantastic parody on the courtroom drama classic 12 Angry Men. He's also an important person in the context of this blog: he wrote Furuhata Ninzaburou, the fantastic Japanese Columbo and Ellery Queen-inspired TV show and he was a showrunner of Sherlock Holmes, a children's detective show which featured not actors, but puppets.

In 2015, his adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express was broadcast: the two-part special was set in 1933's Japan and featured not Hercule Poirot, but the great detective Suguro Takeru. While the first two-hour part was a competent, but rather too faithful adaptation of the book (which reminded a bit too much of the 1974 film adaptation), the second part was sheer genius: it told the story of Murder on the Orient Express from the point of view of the murderer(s) in a comedic tone. This inverted adaptation of the story fitted Mitani's style perfectly, as many of his comedy movies are about problems happening 'backstage' at for example an hotel (The Uchouten Hotel) or a live radio play performance (Radio no Jikan). The backstage tale of Murder on the Orient Express was more than charming, and some of the original elements even helped address some of the problems of the original novel! While The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has long been seen as a difficult work to adapt, I was really curious to see what Mitani would do with this television special!

Mitani Kouki's adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd titled Kuroido Goroshi ("The Murder of Kuroido") was broadcast on April 14, 2018. The story is set in a small, rural village in 1952, where we first meet with Doctor Shiba, the village's only practitioner who is also a personal friend of Kuroido Rokusuke, the most affluent person in the village. Kuroido is one night murdered inside his study, and suspicion soon falls on his adopted son Haruo, who had left for Tokyo, but had that day returned to the village with debts. Believing in Haruo's innocence, Kuroido's niece (and fiancee of Haruo) asks Doctor Shiba's neighbor for help: it turns out that unbeknownst to Doctor Shiba, his odd neighbor is in fact the world famous detective Suguro Takeru who had retired to the village to grow vegetable marrows. Suguro accepts the request and with the assistance of Doctor Shiba in the form of his new Watson, the two set out to figure out who murdered Kuroido.

One can feel Mitani's love for the original novel throughout this special, which already starts with the names of the characters. While they are all Japanese, they're also neat references to the original characters. The great detective Suguro Takeru's name is for example based off Hercule Poirot: Suguro is a Japanese name that is somewhat similar to the Japanese pronouncation of Poirot, while Takeru is derived from Yamato Takeru, a legendary figure just like Hercule(s). Kuroido is of course a name similar Ackroyd (the kroyd part), while Doctor Shiba in this special is named Doctor Sheppard in the original novel. For fans of the source material, there are a lot of neat little references to be found here.

While the story is set in 1950s Japan instead of 1920s England, Kuroido Goroshi is actually a fairly faithful adaptation of the source material. The core mystery plot is left completely intact and Mitani even adds a few minor changes to make the whole production more entertaining, strengthening the backstories and motives of several of the suspects for example, making it harder to guess who's the murderer. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is especially infamous for a certain reason which I can't and won't divulge here, but those who have read the book will know about it without any doubt, and it's famous enough you might know about it even without having read it. It is the reason why The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is often seen as very hard to do in a visual format. Kuroido Goroshi works surprisingly well, to be honest. While it may not be 100% exactly the same as the book (which would be quite a feat), I'd say Kuroido Goroshi does more than a commendable effort. Clever shifting of some of the events and supporting dialogue lines help set-up the surprising twist quite well, and the moment Suguro reveals who the murderer is, you really see how there's actually more foreshadowing than in the original novel. Like with his adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, Mitani stays mostly faithful to the original novel, but dares to add some new touches here and there to answer some of the unanswered questions of the original novel, making it a very robust mystery story. The motive for the murder is changed by the way, but it really works well in the context of this special: the original motive wouldn't have fitted Kuroido Goroshi and I'm happy they went with this one.

The tone of Kuroido Goroshi is distinctly Mitani, with a heartwarming atmosphere with a lot of playfulness. While Suguro Takeru (played by Nomura Mansai) is the detective character, the true hero of this special is Doctor Shiba as played by Ooizumi You, as he's even longer on screen than Suguro! (Suguro doesn't even really appear on screen in the first third of the special). The scenes he has with his older gossipy sister are pure Mitani gold in terms of warm comedy, and the chemistry between the eager Doctor Shiba and the somewhat eccentric Suguro works really well: I wish we had a whole series with these two. Ooizumi You is playing the assistant this time, but he's played the protagonist in other mystery productions discussed on this blog before: he not only plays the unnamed detective in the films based on the novel series Tantei wa Bar ni Iru, he's also the voice actor of Professor Layton! While some might be of the opinion that the comedic tone might not fit The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I think it works wonderfully for Kuroido Goroshi, as it really manages to give this production its own face, while at the same time, it shows the original novel the respect it deserves. In my mind, this is the best of both worlds: in his two-part Murder on the Orient Express adaptation, most of the Mitani flavor was reserved for the second part, and the first part felt like nothing but a remake of the 1974 film where Mitani's hand could hardly be felt. Kuroido Goroshi however is from the start clearly a collaboration production between Mitani and Agatha Christie, which really sets its apart as a television special.

So Kuroido Goroshi was a very entertaining adaptation of Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that easily surpassed my admittedly reserved expectations of it. Screenplay writer Mitani Kouki managed to come up with a story that is very faithful to the source material, but that at the same time is also distinctly his take on the story. One can instantly recognize his style in storytelling, characterization and comedy, but this is fused brilliantly with Christie's original story, resulting in a television special that is truly a team effort across time and cultures. Mitani also manages to translate a trick that doesn't really work outside of the book format in a surprisingly workable and convincing manner for this special and the result is a mystery special that can firmly stand on its own.

Original Japanese title(s):『黒井戸殺し』

The Double Clue

Out flew the web and floated wide- 

 The mirror crack'd from side to side; 

"The curse is come upon me," cried 

 The Lady of Shalott. 

The Lady of Shalott

In 2015, I reviewed the Japanese TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, directed by Mitani Kouki, playwright and director of comedic theater and film productions and also creator of Furuhata Ninzaburou, the Japanese Columbo. His two-part Murder on the Orient Express was an entertaining production. While it at times had trouble finding its own voice in the first episode, the second part made up for it, as it presented an inverted telling of the story from the POV of the murderer(s) which really managed to wonderfully mix Christie's story with Mitani's trademark warmhearted grand-scale 'backstage' comedy stories, and it even cleared up some matters which even the original novel didn't! So I was quite pleased to learn Mitani's getting a second opportunity to adapt Christie for TV, as in April, a TV adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd will be broadcast! The story will once again feature Poirot-replacement Suguro Takeru and be set in Japan, but I'm pretty excited to see what Mitani will do with this story, as it's infamously hard to do good as a TV production.

The Japanese television-viewing audience certainly don't seem to get enough of their Agatha Christie adaptations, as in the weekend of 24-25 March 2018, two other original Christie adaptations were broadcast too, produced by the team responsible for the Japanese 2017 And Then There Were None TV adaptation. And Then There Were None (2017) consisted of two two-hour episodes, but this time each story got one two-hour slot, and like with And Then There Were None (2017), the settings of these stories were changed from their original post-war UK settings to modern day Japan. The stories chosen were two Miss Marple stories: 4.50 from Paddington and The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.

Paddington-Hatsu 4-Ji 50-Pun - Shindai Tokkyuu Satsujin Jiken ("4.50 from Paddington - The Sleeper Express Murder Case") was broadcast on Saturday March 24th, and stars not English village busybody Miss Marple, but Amano Touko, once a gifted police inspector, but who quit her job to take care of her ailing husband, and who became a consultant after his demise. Her mother was one day riding the Orion Express, when she witnessed a murder happening in an compartment of the Sleeper Express Asagiri when the two trains happened to be running parallel to each other. Unlike the authorities, Touko believes her mother's story of having seen a murder, and starts poking around. She realized that if a murder did actually occur on the Asagiri, the body had to be dumped from the train before arrival at a station, and that the best spot for that is in the woods around the tracks that belong to the Tomizawa family, known for Tomi Confectionary. Touko decides to send her friend Aya, known as the "super-housekeeper", to the Tomizawa Residence to scope the land. Aya not only finds the body, but also detects something sinister brewing among old man Tomizawa and his sons/daughters/son-in-law regarding the Tomizawa fortune that might have to do with the body from the train.

While the story is set in modern-day Japan and we don't have Miss Marple chasing after McGillicuddy 's story anymore, this special is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the original story. The problem being that to be honest, 4.50 from Paddington wasn't a very exciting mystery story in the first place. The opening is great: a murder happening in one train that happens to be witnessed from another train is a great way to start of a story, and reminds of Rear Window. But this segment is actually somewhat detached from the rest of story, as it only serves as a way to introduce the viewer to disfunctional Tomizawa family. From there on, you have your traditional 'all the family members hate each other and they all act as suspiciously as possible' story, and the whole train part of the story is considered over, as especially once they've found the body on the lands of the Tomizawas. There is a murder plot somewhere, but it is one we've seen Christie use a lot in her stories, so it's hard to get really impressed by it. Most of time, the story is just going through very familiar motions, and this particular adaptation does little to help that.

The move to modern-day Japan and a new protagonist sadly enough doesn't do much either. Besides the fact that it makes no sense that the Asagiri is pulled by an actual steam locomotive despite being set in modern-day Japan, I think the character of Amano Touko doesn't really work either (she is played by Amano Yuuki by the way, who voiced Curaçao in Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare). She's apparently so well-regarded during her time with the police that even now, high officials respect (and even fear) her talents, and while they at first didn't believe her mother's story about witnessing a murder on a running train, the police actually soon start listening to everything Touko has to say. It results in a very different dynamic than we had with Miss Marple in the original story, which isn't a bad thing per se, but Touko is supposed to be so good, the way everyone is acting it's like you have a whole army of detectives working on a case which isn't really that interesting.

4.50 from Paddington was followed the next day by Daijoyuu Satsujin Jiken ~ Kagami wa Yoko ni Hibiwarete ("The Great Actress Murder Case  ~ The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side"), which starts with the return of the actress Irodori Madoka to the silver screen after 13 years. She has bought "The Divine Mansion" as her new residence, also for use in her comeback film, but during a party held for the local high society, a woman is poisoned to death after drinking a cocktail meant for Madoka. It appears someone has been threatening Madoka and that the threats have become reality, even if someone else fell victim to it. The cool-headed Inspector Shoukokuji is put on the case to prevent more tragedies from happening, but that's easier said than done.

In this adaptation of The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side,  Miss Marple is replaced by Inspector Shoukokuji, an original character who was created for the 2017 And Then There Were None adaptation (as unlike the novel, this particular production of ATTWN needed a proper detective character). As a stereotypical stoic-but-capable character, Shoukokuji isn't really interesting, but still, funny to see how they connect these productions through this original character. Once again, the story is, ignoring the modern setting, fairly faithful to the original story, which is famously based on a tale that really happened (you probably don't want to read up on this until you've read the novel/seen this special). As a mystery story, The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side's definitely not one of my favorites, though I do like the motive behind the story. Then again, the whole story is really only built around this motive (which in turn is based on real life), and there's little else besides that that really makes The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side stand out. It also has the usual Christie tropes of faux hints/tropes ("we didn't meet for x years and I don't recognize you at all anymore!" or "she had this look on her face!"), which can work in some stories, but I wouldn't say this story provides an exceptional example of that practice.

The gripe I had with these two specials is that they managed to do so little with the changed settings. As a Japanese production, it's not strange they decided to relocate the stories to Japan, and a modern day setting is also easier to pull off than a period piece, but with And Then There Were None (2017), they actually managed to do more than just "hey, this story happens in modern-day Japan", but really incorporate this new element of the story in the mystery plot properly: there was a perfectly fine justification for that particular production of And Then There Were None to be set in the modern day, and it worked! But this is not the case for these two specials based on 4.50 from Paddington and The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side: they may be fairly faithful adaptations, but they don't benefit from taking place in modern day Japan, as nothing truly clever has been done to incorporate that into the plot besides "Oh yeah, I checked her blog". And Then There Were None (2017) consisted of [fairly faithful adaptation] + [modern day Japan] + [extra elements], but these two specials miss the [extra elements]. I really wish there was that little bit extra, as And Then Were None (2017) should it could be done, to result in at least a unique adaptation.

So these two adaptations of two of Miss Marple's more famous adventures were fairly well-done adaptations on their own, but they had very little originality to offer, despite the fact that the changed setting offered so much potential for that. Some might prefer adaptations to be as faithful to the original novel as possible, but given that this is another medium, and the fact that due to more practical circumstances, these two adaptations were planned to be set in modern day Japan, I really wish they had just gone that extra mile to somehow incorporate that more firmly into the plot to bring a truly unique adaptation of the source material, instead of 'just another one.' I hope that Mitani Kouki will be able to bring his own unique charm in his adaptation of The Murder of Roger Akroyd soon!

Original Japanese title(s): 『パディントン発4時50分　寝台特急殺人事件』&『大女優殺人事件 鏡は横にひび割れて』

A Little Man With Enormous Moustaches

“There’s no doubt at all about what the man’s profession has been. He’s a retired hairdresser. Look at that moustache of his.” 

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd"

The transformation from an image conjured up by a collection of words printed on paper to a fully realized visual image is always a perilous one. If you have a hundred persons reading the exact same description and ask them to visualize the contents for other people, you might still end up with a hundred different manifestations of what should be one and the same. This holds especially for adaptations of popular works, often ensuing in discussions on what actually defining characteristics actually are, and how free an adaptation (or interpretation) can be, and if one can argue that "the original work" might not always be the best base. Today, I wish to take a look at one of the most often adapted infamous beings from mystery fiction and look at the characteristics and merits of each interpretation. When I mention the name of mystery queen Agatha Christie, you'll probably instantly understand what I'm talking about. I'm naturally speaking of the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot....... 's moustaches.

Hercule Poirot's moustaches are an important presence in the stories featuring the Belgian detective, appearing in all the stories where he appears in to. Would Poirot be Poirot without his moustaches? Of course not. There's a reason why you thought of Poirot when you saw the image above. Had it been a hat or a walking stick, you would never had recognized it as a symbol for Poirot. It's thus not an exaggeration to pose that Poirot only exists in our minds as a character because of his moustaches. The moustaches don't exist for Poirot, Poirot exists for the moustaches.

While often interrupted by long segments with a mystery plot, the stories by Agatha Christie about Poirot's moustaches do manage to portray a lively image of them. They have been described as "magnificent" (Double Sin),  "suspiciously black" (Appointment with Death) and "stiff and military" (The Mysterious Affair at Styles). A certain expert on moustaches from Belgian has been known to say that "nowhere in London have I observed anything to compare with them" in regards to the entity known as Poirot's moustaches. While Poirot's moustaches are already grand on their own, time is of course invested in them to keep them in tip-top shape. It's been said that the only thing about his own appearance that pleased Hercule Poirot was "the profusion of his moustaches, and the way they responded to grooming and treatment and trimming" (Hallowe'en Party). Poirot's moustaches don't do well in warmer climates however, as the heat makes them go limp (The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb).

As one of the most popular of Christie's creations, Poirot's moustaches have been adapted for both the silver and the smaller screen back home countless of times, each interpretation bringing something new on the table. In this humble monograph I will not attempt to do a comprehensive write-up on the moustaches, but only examine a selection of those adaptations, mostly the ones I myself am most familiar with.

Murder On The Orient Express (Film, 1974, on the face of Albert Finney)

The moustaches in the 1974 theatrical adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express are indeed magnificent: the profusion is unmistakenly there, especially between the nose and mouth, but notice how meticulously trimmed it is: the moustaches form a triangle, but the ends curl upwards to give it a playful look and to soften the facial characteristics of the man behind them. The moustaches are also undeniably suspiciously black.

Death On The Nile (Film, 1978, on the face of Peter Ustinov)

The moustaches in Death on the Nile however are not suspiciously black, and not even unsuspiciously black. One could argue that it wouldn't make sense for Ustinov to have black moustaches considering his cranial hair, but this does raise questions of what should be considered more important in an adaptation. Compared to the moustaches in Murder on the Orient Express, the Nile moustaches also lack the energy: look at how thinly grown it is beneath the nose. Is it a magnificent moustache? While there's certainly length, and the playful curls at the ends do add some character, one can only say that these moustaches are far less impressive than the 1974 ones.

Agatha Christie's Poirot (TV, 1989-2013, on the face of David Suchet)

David Suchet had the honor of being the vessel of Poirot moustaches for the longest period of any of its interpreters and that allowed for something not possible in earlier adaptations: change throughout time. Early on in this series, Poirot's moustaches were, while not as rich as in the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express moustaches, quite splendid: they were full, black and featured a more pronounced curl at the ends. I described the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express moustaches as a triangle, but here we have moustaches that feature nicely rounded curves that emphasize how well trimmed it is. The moustaches were often revised in later seasons: by the time of the last season, Poirot's moustaches were similar in volume like in earlier seasons, but the energy, the vigor had made way for fatigue, as the curls had all but straigthened out.

Murder On The Orient Express (TV, 2001, on the face of Alfred Molina)

They are black, yes, but obviously, these moustaches lack the strength of the 1974 editions, as well as those from Agatha Christie's Poirot. They look like they were only grown a few weeks ago and certainly don't show signs of having been groomed and trimmed, and don't even invoke the grandeur that Poirot's moustaches must have. No criminal would fear these. 

Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple (TV, 2004)

In the Japanese animated series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, we have a set of moustaches that are magnificent. Look at how richly grown it is, that's almost two fingers thick, enough to cover his mouth completely. Yet it is not only volume: notice how the curl up at the ends actually turn inwards. The 1974 edition only managed to curl outwards, while the moustaches in the early seasons of Agatha Christie's Poirot pointed straight upwards, but the moustaches in this series have enough density and volume to manage a curl inwards!

Murder on the Orient Express (PC videogame, 2006)

In this PC videogame adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, David Suchet was once again allowed to portray the vessel of Poirot's moustaches as Poirot's voice actor, and one can see that the moustaches here are quite similar to the early ones from Agatha Christie's Poirot. The curl up and the volume is quite similar to the TV series, while the distinct triangle form is reminicent of the 1974 theatrical adaptation of the famous moustaches.

Orient Kyuukou Satsujin Jiken (TV, 2015, on the face of NOMURA Mansai)

While the setting was relocated to Japan and the names of all the characters were changed, this two-part special is in fact both a faithful, and radically original adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, and it doesn't take a genius detective to recognize that Suguro Takeru's moustaches are in fact Poirot's moustaches. While a bit thin at the center, Suguro's moustaches have a refined look, emphasized by the distinct "W" form of it, different from the earlier triangle or horizontal line with curling ends forms. The ends are this time also exceptionally long, again showing off how much work such a moustache needs.

Murder On The Orient Express (Film, 2017, on the face of Kenneth Branagh)

The 2017 theatrical adaptation of Poirot's moustaches is by no means black, but it is definitely magnificent. "Stiff and militairy" they are not, as the volume is almost threatening: most of the other moustache adaptations mentioned earlier would fit two or three times in it! In fact, these are the only moustaches that actually go around to the sides of the face, in a distinct "WW" (double W) form. The almost grotesque form however becomes less pronounced once you actually see it in motion, probably because it is in fact basically a cartoon moustache. Character designs in animation often cheat by making certain characteristics always visible on the design no matter the camera angle, for example a standing pluck of hair that is always seen on the right side of a character no matter where the camera is. The 2017 moustaches follow the same principle: because the moustaches are so absurd long with a double W form, you'll see "W"-shaped moustaches from basically any angle besides from the back. It makes the moustaches ever present.

This monograph on moustaches has gone on for long enough, so I will end my admittedly incomplete examination here for the moment. The goal of this study was to indicate a preliminary selection of adaptations of Poirot's moustaches, and there is still much room for further research, for example in regards to the two videogame adaptations of The ABC Murders. Admirers of the moustaches are welcome to comment on their favorite interpretation of Poirot's moustaches in the comments below. Merci.