The Losing Game

「兄は兄。僕は僕ですから」

『内田康夫DSミステリー 名探偵・浅見光彦シリーズ「副都心連続殺人事件」』

"My brother is my brother. And I am myself."

"Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery - The Great Detective Asami Mitsuhiko Series: The Fukutoshin Serial Murder Case"

Last year, around this period, I had a short run of reviews of old Nintendo DS detective adventure games... I've only got one for this year though.

I think there's some kind of rule for licensed Nintendo DS games based on the works of famous mystery novelists to have insanely long titles, because after the Nishimura Kyoutarou and Yamamura Misa games, we also got Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery Meitantei Asami Mitsuhiko Series: Fukutoshin Renzoku Satsujin Jiken ("Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery - The Great Detective Asami Mitsuhiko Series: The Fukutoshin Serial Murder Case") in 2009. As the title tells you, the game is based on Uchida Yasuo's long-running Asami Mitsuhiko series: Mitsuhiko is a freelance writer for a travel magazine, who travels all across Japan to touristic destinations, and of course, he often ends up getting himself entangled in murder cases. Not rarely, he ends up being a suspect too, though the local cops usually regret detaining Mitsuhiko whenever they learn he's the younger brother of the current head of Criminal Affairs of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department. While the series is adapted quite often for the small screen, as far as I know, this Nintendo DS game is the first and only time the series got a game adaptation (with an original story). The story starts familiar enough: Mitsuhiko teams up with a new photographer (the player), but he also receives a letter from a girl, whose father recently passed away. This Senkawa Akihiko was one day found dead in his bed by his daughter Mafuyu, but while the police has deemed it a suicide, she can't believe her father would leave her all alone in the world. Senkawa worked in the sales department of the car manufacturer Y, so while working on his article, Asami also visits the Y headquarters along the Fukutoshin Metro Line to see whether there could be a different reason for Senkawa's death. He soon learns three months ago, Nakamori, a co-worker of Senkawa was murdered, which quickly puts a different light on Senkawa's death, and so Mitsuhiko starts digging in Senkawa and Nakamori's past.

I'll just refer to this game as Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery to keep it short. The game is, as you'd expect, an adventure mystery game of the command-style variety, where you use standard commands like "Talk" and "Go to" to visit various locations and talk with various characters to gather information. At key moments you'll be asked questions to show you're on the right track, or you have to solve small puzzles like figuring out a code. Nothing surprising here, though I must admit that right from the start, I was rather pleasantly surprised by the production values of this game. While it's not big AAA-title for the DS, I have to admit I had never expected it to be this good: there are official tie-ups with for example the Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line (which had only opened completely one year before the game's release) and Mercedes-Benz, there is a fair amount of animated characters and the voice work! Most characters are voiced, some by very big names like Ootsuka Akio and Tani Ikuko, and a staggering amount of scenes is voiced, not just some key scenes, but also minor scenes. The Nishimura Kyoutarou and Yamamura Misa games looked a lot cheaper than this and to be honest, I have seen enough non-licensed "for gamers" games that aren't produced with as much care as this game. Though, the music is quite... boring.

And as a mystery adventure game too, Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery is very, very boring. It's a shame the story and gameplay isn't as interesting as the production values would suggest. The story does hit all the usual Asami Mitsuhiko tropes, like Mitsuhiko being seen as a suspect by the police until they learn who his brother is, Mitsuhiko being scolded by his mother Shizue for loafing around and not marrying, we visit Karuizawa in a short segment to have our obligatory "tourist destination trip" and where we learn a bit about a local tourist spot and of course, the mystery plot focuses more on entangling human relationships and their motives, rather than solving tricks, so if you're an Asami Mitsuhiko fan, you might be satisfied with that alone (and yes, I do realize this game is of course also marketed to exactly those people, and not mystery gamers per se). I do have to say I am kinda disappointed the game is so Tokyo-centred. I get they got the Fukutoshin Line deal, but the way every location happens to be near around one of the Fukutoshin stations and one plot point was tied directly to the line felt a bit forced. But when translated to an actual interactive game, this story just doesn't really work in a way to be interesting. All you do is just go from one location to another and go through the conversations in order. The segments where you need to answer some questions correctly to show you've "deduced" something to proceed are just questions asking you repeat the little fact you learned five minutes ago, and the few puzzle segments where you solve a code aren't fun either. The game has multiple endings (bad endings), but as far as I know, they are all just directly choice-dependent, like choose to go to location A first means instant bad ending, location B first and you're fine. Which isn't really interesting either. 

The story itself I have to admit, was surprisingly on-par with other Asami Mitsuhiko books I have read. The game scenario is credited to the Asami Mitsuhiko Club by the way, the official fan club run by author Uchida Yasuo himself (it was disbanded in 2015 after 22 years). The books are not really the kind of puzzlers I prefer to read, but at least fans of the series will probably like this as it doesn't stray from the formula and feels like a genuine Mitsuhiko tale. At its core, the story does have things I do like, regarding how the whole series of murder is set up, though motive-wise, things feel a bit weak, and that way they tried to make the murderer feel symphathetic (because it's a human drama-focused mystery) didn't work at all for me. Not sure if the writers actually were trying to portray them as sympathetic, or were just overdoing the "explanation of the motive", but it was a really weird climax... Some parts felt a bit forced though, like the trip to Karuizawa, but at least we got to visit... Uchida Yasuo there.

Which was odd. In this game, Asami Mitsuhiko is actually well-known as the amateur detective, because the in-universe Uchida has written the books based on his adventures and those have been adapted for television too (like in the real world). He's at least famous enough for people to recognize him occassionally, and for Mafuyu to write him a letter in the first place. And yet there'd still be police detectives in Tokyo who don't know him? Or somehow Mitsuhiko's editor doesn't keep a better eye on him, considering Mitsuhiko's tendency to skip work to work on a case? The choice for the player being Mitsuhiko's photographer was also a bit weird. At the end of the game, you're actually being ranked for how good of an assistant you were to Mitsuhiko, but the rating system is a bit vague for that. You're ranked based on answering the questions correctly or doing the right suggestions to Mitsuhiko, but... "Mitsuhiko's assistant" isn't a character in the books, so you can't really know "how" you're supposed to act. I'm not sure why they didn't have you be Mitsuhiko himself...

But in short, the only thing Uchida Yasuo DS Mystery Meitantei Asami Mitsuhiko Series: Fukutoshin Renzoku Satsujin Jiken has going for it as basically its production values. As a mystery game, the story feels like an Asami Mitsuhiko tale, but it's not fun at all to play as a game, with too much hand-holding and not really requiring the player to ever think for themselves about the case and mysteries. Now I am starting to wonder whether there are actually games based on existing mystery novel series that are interesting on their merits as video games?  Perhaps I should try YAKATA Nightmare Project, based on Ayatsuji's House series one day...

Original Japanese title(s): 『内田康夫DSミステリー 名探偵・浅見光彦シリーズ「副都心連続殺人事件」』

Murder Is My Business

「兄は兄。僕は僕ですから」 

『浅見光彦～最終章～』

 

"My brother is my brother. And I am myself." 

 "Asami Mitsuhiko ~ The Final Chapter~"

Yes, it's time for my annual review of a mystery novel set in Fukuoka.

Uchida Yasuo (1934-2018) was a very prolific and well-known mystery author who passed away earlier this year. Uchida, Nishimura Kyoutarou and Yamamura Misa are often grouped together as hyper-prolific authors, who specialize in so-called travel mysteries: mystery stories often set in touristic destinations, with plots that involve local specifics, like local trains in the case of Nishimura, and local legends in the case of Uchida. The work of this trio is also often adapted for television. Uchida's most famous creation is Asami Mitsuhiko, a 33-year old freelance writer who travels across Japan for his work for the magazine Travel and History and who also has a born gift for stumbling across murder cases, and his inate curiosity and intellect won't allow him to ignore these crimes. Which often gets him into trouble with the local police, who usually end up taking Mitsuhiko to the police station. The subsequent scene is a staple of the Asami Mitsuhiko series, as it's only then when the higher-ups at the local police station learn that Mitsuhiko is in fact the younger brother of the Director-General of the Criminal Affairs Bureau of the National Police Agency, which usually leads to Mitsuhiko's hurried release and a lot of apologies, even though Mitsuhiko himself doesn't really like to rely on his brother's function to get bailed out.

Hakata Satsujin Jiken ("The Hakata Murder Case", 1991) is the 47th entry in the series and starts with Mitsuhiko helping out at a historical dig in the city of Fukuoka, which is also known by its old name Hakata. The body Mitsuhiko digs up however isn't a few centuries old, but just one or two years and only half-decayed. This is of course a job not for archaeologists, but for the police and they quickly realize the body is that of Katada, the head of the Kyushu Division of the Eikou Group who had been missing for a year. The department stores and supermarkets of the Eikou Group had been expanding aggressively across Japan with their affordable, mass-produced products and the successes it had already booked on its path to become the number one department store and supermarket chain in the southern island of Kyushu had all been the product of the brilliant marketing mind of Katada, until he suddenly disappeared. Now his disappearance has become a murder, suspicion falls on the Amanoya Department Store, as they benefited the most from Katada's literal elimination from the department store war. Sengoku of Amanoya's Information Office is the prime suspect, as he knew Katada personally and was seen arguing with Katada on the day of his disappearance, but Mitsuhiko receives a strange request from his brother: usually the Director-General of the Criminal Affairs Bureau of the National Police Agency would tell his younger brother to stay out of trouble, but this time he tells Mitsuhiko to find out who killed Katada and why, and most importantly: save Sengoku.

Yes, this is an ugly cover. I usually praise covers I really like, so let's do the same for ones I really don't like. I don't even understand the composition. I mean, yeah, sure, there are women in this novel... but is that the only connection between the cover and the actual contents of this book? Even now I've read the book I don't understand the reason for this design. 

Like I mentioned, I picked this book out because I wanted to read a mystery tale set in Fukuoka. To be honest, Hakata Satsujin Jiken was a bit disappointing in that regard, as we don't see much of the geographical setting that is Fukuoka. Ten to Sen featured the neighborhood of Kashii and Kashiihama for example, while Houkago Spring Train featured several landmarks from Higashi-ku and downtown prominently. The Fukuoka in Hakata Satsujin Jiken in comparison felt less pronounced. That said though, the department store war that is the main theme of the book is based on something that had happened in reality in Fukuoka: the Eikou Group and the local Amanoya Department Store from the novel are easily recognized as a thinly disguised Daiei Group (a chain that operates throughout Japan) and Iwataya Department Store (the oldest department store in Fukuoka). I hadn't at first even realized that Iwataya was based solely in Kyushu, with the Fukuoka store as its main store: I often visited Iwataya during my time in Fukuoka (the bread store!), but never realized that Iwataya wasn't to be found elsewhere in Japan. So that's typically Fukuoka, I'd guess, but I think on the whole you don't really get a 'local feeling' from reading this book, especially not if you're not familiar with Fukuoka, as you don't get a good sense of local landmarks.

I have only read a couple of the Asami Mitsuhiko novels (and seen a few of the drama adaptations), and they're usually whodunnit stories. Hakata Satsujin Jiken isn't one really. To be honest, I have trouble categorizing the novel in terms of mystery plot, as it's definitely not really giving you a fair chance to guess whodunnit, but it's not about an "obvious" problem like a locked room murder or a perfect alibi. In essence, you're given a lot of suggestive and cryptic puzzle pieces, like Christie-esque "she had that look on her face" recallings of previous meetings or hearing parts of conversations etc,  all elements that eventually help you figure out why Katada was murdered, as well as other enigmatic events that occur over the course of the novel, like the disappearance of an Amanoya floor receptionist and rumors of company spies within Amanoya. Eventually, Asami reveals how all the puzzle pieces fit together, but even then the story's a bit chaotic. I think that the central, binding theme behind the various events and murders is a good one, one that has parallels with the 3DS game Detective Conan: Marionette Symphony and which remains fairly neatly hidden until the end, but the unfocused storytelling doesn't really help, as the moment Asami explains the whole case, you don't have that catharsis feeling of seeing all the pieces fall in their proper place, but rather one of 'okay, that is one way to connect the pieces but that's more-or-less guesswork rather than actual detecting, right?'. Granted, guessing is also something that Christie utilized in her work, but her plots work better with the intuitive mode, as they are usually based on something simple, but flipped around or something like that. The plot of Hakata Satsujin Jiken isn't simple in form however, so you don't get that 'aha' feeling that the intuitive mode can bring.

Hakata Satsujin Jiken is on the whole, an unremarkable mystery story. There's an original theme for the background story (the department store war), there's a good idea for a mystery there somewhere, and for fans of Mitsuhiko as a character, this novel has some funny and interesting moments to offer too (the unusual request from his brother, and Mitsuhiko's usual warm welcome from women), but the structure is just too unfocused, with too many puzzle pieces that don't even look like they're from the same puzzle, and where the final picture is not that one of a neat form with straight lines, but one with little curves and bumps.

Original Japanese title(s): 内田康夫 『博多殺人事件』

Problem at Sea

"Why must people die? Why must the living die? Or rather, why must they live....simply to die?"

"Phoenix: Karma"

I. Need. New. Books. I really want to read something I haven't read yet! Aaaaaargh. These two months, I have read like... three new books. Two of those, I didn't even really wanted to read: it's just that I don't have anything else left here! Another month, another month...

As I am slowly going crazy, I picked up another book from my emergency pile. Which mostly consists of Uchida Yasuo books. I definitely picked up too many of his books that one time they sold books at university here, without really finding out if these were interesting or not. I have read a couple of his books now, but I am still not sure what to think about Uchida. On one hand, I do like the atmosphere in his particular brand of travel-history mystery novels. Uchida usually spins an entertaining yarn combining domestic tourism, popular history and folklore. His settings are usually very interesting and quite educational. On the other hand, Uchida is not that gifted a puzzle-creator. As a big fan of the puzzle-school writers like Queen, Norizuki and Arisugawa, the simple (detective) plots of Uchida's stories almost always feel disappointing, especially as his well-researched settings usually have great potential. It are the settings that really keep me glued to the pages of his books. If not, I would have given up on Uchida a long time ago. Well, now is an emergency though.

I reviewed two Inspector Iwao (the Shinano Columbo) novels last month, but Uchida's main/most famous series is the Asami Mitsuhiko series. It is an immensely long series that has many, many TV adaptations, audio drama adaptations and even videogames. I reviewed the first Asami Mitsuhiko novel in a faraway past, but to give an idea of the series: Asami Mitsuhiko is a freelance writer for a travel magazine, specializing in local history and folklore. He naturally has to travel a lot for his work and he has a knack for getting himself involved with murders that happen at the tourist spots he investigates. He also has a talent for getting himself into the position of important suspect in those cases. That is, until the local police find out that Asami Mitsuhiko is in fact the younger brother of the Director-General of the Criminal Affairs Bureau of the National Police Agency (Mitsuhiko hates people finding that out though). The best point of the series is precisely what Uchida does best: mixing tourism, folklore and local history with a detective plot. The character of Mitsuhiko provides a perfect vehicle for that (better than inspector Iwao, actually) and there is quite a large extended cast that provides for some entertaining moments throughout the series. This is strengthened by the literary agent aspect of the series: within the Asami-universe, there is a detective writer called Uchida Yasuo who bases his stories on the adventures of Asami.

Kumano Kodou Satsujin Jiken ("The Old Kumano Road Murder Case") starts with writer Uchida Yasuo asking Mitsuhiko to come along to Kumano in the Kii Penisula. Uchida's friend, professor Matsuoka of T University, has asked his help in trying to prevent his assistent Takeno and his students from reenacting an old Buddhist ritual in Kumano. The ritual is called Fudarakutokai, which means 'crossing the sea to Potalaka'. It seems that it has been believed in Japan that the Potalaka Mountains, where the Buddhist deity Kannon resides, are located in Kumano. However, to cross over to the Potalaka mountains, you have to get into a boat and let the sea bring you there. The ritual of Fudarakutokai consists of going out on sea on little boats. That's it. You either die at sea, or reach Potalaka to achieve enlightment. Many monks have actually tried this in the past since the Japanese middle ages, until it was banned in the Tokugawa period. It is probably fair to think that at least the majority of those people died.

Matsuoka's students want to recreate the ritual as a form of experiment despite Matsuoka's protests. Matsuoka's assistent Takeno has already signed up to be the one in the boat. Fearing that something bad might happen, Matsuoka wants Uchida on the scene. Uchida thinks he might use the fudarakutokai ritual for one of his books and agrees, taking Mitsuhiko along with him. On their way to Kumano however, the pair gets involved with the mysterious death of a woman who seems to have been following them. When they discover that the woman is linked to the fudarakutokai ritual, they begin to suspect that professor Matsuoka's feelings about the ritual might have been right.

And really not sure what to think about this book. I am pretty sure that my overall negative feeling is right, even though this story is not without its merits. Which is mostly concentrated in the fudarakutokai ritual. I don't have a spiritual interest in Buddhism, but as I have taken courses on Japanese religion and am a big fan of Tezuka Osamu's work, I have seen my share of interesting Buddhist rituals. I was already familiar with a ritual like instant Buddhahood (sokushinbutsu), of which fudarakutokai is a surprising variant. There is also a bit on the legend of Kiyohime and it are these elements that gave this story great potential.

I for one was expecting a locked room murder: here we have a little boat (more like a box), with someone locked inside it, going out on sea. Perfect situation for an impossible crime, right? It really screams for a scenario where the person in the boat gets brutally murdered even though the boat was in the middle of the sea with nobody in the neighborhood. And I admit, the story does develop sorta along those lines, but in the most unimpressive way possible: the person inside the boat is poisoned. Uchida then tries his hand at an impossible poisoning story, but it never really works out because it is almost painfully clear how it was done. Why not have the person killed in a more impossible way? Like dismemberment or something like that. That would have laid more stress on the impossibility of the situation.The strange thing though, the boat as a locked room situation is actually used in another situation in this story, but the impossibility of that situation is only explored after Mitsuhiko explains the trick and why it was seemingly impossible. I was utterly confused by this tactic of Uchida of first not making better use of a locked room situation and then creating an impossible situation which he doesn't explore as such. Seriously. What was he thinking.

There are definitely more problems with the story, from too much coincidences in the plot to a competely useless car chase at the end of the story that seemed written for a thrilling and exciting TV adaptation. The book also suffers from really bad pacing. The book is quite short (250 pages), but the first (and most boring) murder doesn't happen until past the halfway point. The conclusion also takes up almost 50 pages, leaving quite little for detecting. Which would seem sort of relevant. In fact, there are two major problems to solve in this story, but the only time the characters discuss those problems are when they are actually solving it. So the problem is followed immediately by the solution. With stories of writers like Queen and Norizuki, we are usually fed mid-term deductions throughout a story, just to keep us going to the conclusion. Here the puzzle plot is only mentally explored when the detective is explaining his deductions.

I am still not sure what to think about Uchida. I really loved the background setting of Kumano Kodou Satsujin Jiken, but the detective plot was quite a mess. Surprisingly, the tricks he did end up using in this novel were actually OK, but the way those 'puzzles' were incorporated into the plot was just horrible. I have to admit though, that the other three novels I read of Uchida were not nearly as bad as this book (they were all OK-ish), but this one was really disappointing.

Aaah, new, interesting books. I need them.

Original Japanese title(s): 内田康夫 『熊野古道殺人事件』

『殺人リハーサル』

「人間に想像する力がある限りラジオドラマには無限の可能性がある僕はそう思う。僕は好きだな。ラジオドラマ。」
『ラジオ時間』

"Radio dramas can go as far as mankind's imagination, that's what I think. I love it, you know. Radio dramas."
"Welcome Back Mr. McDonald"

While I wrote earlier that I watched the drama Meitantei Asami Mitsuhiko: Saishuushou ("Great Detective Asami Mitsuhiko: The Final Chapter"), I have to admit I have never, ever watched a whole episode of it. I fell asleep halfway through every single time. While the stories aren't that bad, early classes meant I was already dead by the time the drama finally began. And to be honest, you don't watch Asami Mitsuhiko for its story, you watch it for great location shots of every part of Japan.

Which is a big thing of detective drama in Japan. Especially the lighter mystery dramas (based on works by writers like Nishimura Kyoutarou and Yamamura Misa) are not as much about the story, but just excuses for location shots. Heck, sometimes the story even moves to South-Korea. Which is in fact quite close to Fukuoka. JLCC students who are from Busan could theorically go back home every day with the ferry.

But the king of travel detectives has to be the Asami Mitsuhiko series by Uchida Yasuo. Protagonist Mitsuhiko is a freelance writer on food and history and he travels to a new place in every book. And of course, Always Murder. So I tried the first book in the series, Gotoba Densetsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Go-toba Legend Murder Case"), which was an OK book, making no real faults, but also not containing elements to make it a classic. Weird though, was how Gotoba Densetsu Satsujin Jiken initially starts as a police procedural, until halfway the book the author suddenly seems to have a change of heart and changes a minor character from several chapters earlier into the great detective. That and the legend of Go-toba was surprisingly not very relevant to the case. You'd expect otherwise from a book named The Go-toba Legend Murder Case. But in any case an entertaining book.

And then there were the new podcasts/radio dramas of the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. As I haven't read Q.B.I.: Queen's Bureau of Investigation yet, I was looking forward to these modern radio-drama versions of Ellery Queen's The Myna Birds and A Lump of Sugar. Especially the first one, as I was wondering whether something else besides Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney could pull of bird-as-a-vital-witness succesfully (Cross-examining a PARROT while still maintaining your dignity is hard to pull off!).
However, The Myna Birds certainly didn't succeed. The biggest problem is that the radio dramas are way too short, leaving no time for any development. The original war-time radio plays usually are around 30 minutes, leaving enough time to flesh out everything. Even with the bad sound quality and overacting, they're great to listen to even in this age. Heck, you could even just do with reading the scripts. These two radio plays by EQMM were just too short with too little substance.
\But they had nice music. Which is something. 　

Original Japanese title(s): 内田康夫　『後鳥羽殺人事件』

『時の過ぎゆくままに。。。』

「あんたが自分を信じなくても俺はあんたを信じるよ」
『金田一少年の事件簿：剣持警部の殺人』

"Even if you don't believe yourself, I believe in you."
"The Case Files of Young Kindaichi: Chief Inspector Kenmochi's Murder"

Writing on detectivey-stuff is not going really well lately, mostly because I hardly read here. It at least is not a problem of not having enough material, because shelving problems are slowly appearing. I had started writing about how Japanese detectives are often like mini travel guides, as if they are not set in Tokyo or Osaka, they are often set at touristic spots all across Japan. Which was mainly inspired by a Wednesday TV drama I am watching, Meitantei Asami Mitsuhiko: Saishuushou ("Great Detective Asami Mitsuhiko: The Final Chapter") , which is about a journalist traveling all across Japan writing about touristic attractions, solving crimes and basically is an excuse to have every story set in another part of Japan. But then I realized this traveling aspect is also to be found very easily in Western (English) detectives, with the Orient Express and the Nile or just all across England, so it was not that interesting (though apparently the Asami Mitsuhiko series is quite popular here because it's so much like a travel guide with stuff on local legends).

But I digress. I don't do much reading except for homework now. Of course, I am actually required to read Edogawa Rampo stuff, as I have to hand in a book report next month for my research paper here, but even books with titles as The Era of Rampo: Ero Guro Nonsense can't help this reading-slump. Heck, even reading manga is not going as fast as it should.

Games are progressing quite good though. But while I enjoy detectives and games, they seldom work really good together. Case in point: the recently released Nintendo DS game Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Akuma no Satsujin Koukai ("The Case Files of Young Kindaichi: The Devil's Killer Voyage"). As releases in the Kindaichi Shounen series are not frequent anyway, I was kinda looking forward to this game, but as soon as I started up this game, I knew it would disappoint me, having played another game by the same developer. Please, developers at Tomcat, senseless clicking on every part of the map in the hopes the story progresses is not fun. Nor is diffusing bombs. Especially your bombs. Didn't you learn with Galileo DS?!

It's a problem I see often in detective games, where developers don't seem to be able to streamline the story. Either the story goes too fast, not allowing the player a chance to think or do anything at all, or the developers don't streamline the story at all and you are left clicking on everything, hoping you find the trigger for the next story event. A detective novel usually flows from one event to another, whether it being new information or the analyzing of information, but somehow, developers never seem able to really translate this to a working game system. And then you have the problem of developers wanting to make a detective game more like a game, so they insert bomb diffusing segments in the game. Which. Suck. Just because I am playing on a DS doesn't mean that you have to insert bad touchscreen gameplay.

Luckily, I had two new Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo volumes to wash away the memories of that game. They may only release two volumes of the manga a year, but it's always something to look forward too. And Pokémon HeartGold has found a great home in my Nintendo DS. After so many years enslaving poor critters is still addicting. And Butterfree, after so many years, you still are my favorite. Till I find a fishing rod to get me a Staryu. To get me a Starmie. 

Original Japanese title(s): 『金田一少年の事件簿　悪魔の殺人航海』