FOMO, FOMO...
After losing his parents in an accident, 13-year old Takuma moves to his mother's home town. She was the oldest daughter of the Daimon family, one of the influentual families in the small, isolated community, but she kept mostly away from her family, and Takuma himself had never visited the family on his mother's side. But now his parents are dead, he's been taken in by his youngest aunt Rei and his grandmother Matsu: Takuma's grandfather Taizou passed away some months ago, and because Takuma's two middle aunts Noriko and Yuuri are married into other families, taking the names of their husbands, the Daimon clan is on the verge of extinction. By having Rei, who had been married previously but is now divorced, adopt her nephew Takuma as her own son, Matsu hopes the Daimon family will continue through Takuma as the last male successor of the bloodline. Takuma, who had always lived in Tokyo, finds his new home extremely hard to adapt to. The town is an eerily closed community, perhaps best symbolized by the fact the local justice authority isn't actually a police officer: the "patrol officer" is a private person (Takuma's uncle), who acts as the local troubleshooter. While the 'patrol officer' will call for the real police if necessary, many smaller problems are handled by himself, and he can even sweep minor deaths under the rug if wished by the persons involved agree they prefer that over contacting the proper authorities.
Datenshi Goumonkei was a book originally published in 2008, but late 2023, the out-of-print book got a limited facsimile reprint via Shosen and the bookstore Horindo in cooperation with the original publisher Kadokawa, which is actually a very rare thing to happen. The original release went for crazy prices, but I assume Kadokawa itself had no intention of re-releasing the book themselves for the moment, so now we have not exactly a private reprint, but it's still not a major re-release of the book. And of course fear-of-missing-out kinda played a role in me getting this book now, though references to John Dickson Carr on the obi, and the fact the book was about impossible crimes, and devils and (fallen) angels did sound very appealing. The facsimile reprint version also comes with a small booklet with an unrelated short story also by Asukabe, whose work I had not ever read before by the way.
What this book really excels at, is atmosphere. The town where Takuma ends up at is really creepy, and with that, I mean the people there. It's a small, isolated town, though still large enough to have a normal town centre with stores, restaurants, gift shops and everything, so not really a mountain village type of isolated place, but the people there do live in a very isolated manner, with their own local customs and beliefs. The fact the place doesn't have an actual police station, and Takuma's uncle simply acts as an appointed "troubleshooter" who at times can even cover up mysterious deaths by making sure the town doctor and everyone else are all on the same page is already a sign of how weirdly the town works, but Takuma himself also notices how incredibly closed-off the people are, always looking at him as the outsider and teachers completely ignoring blatant acts of harrassment towards Takuma. People also don't really tell Takuma about a lot of the town traditions and beliefs until they think it's time, leading to Takuma constantly feeling like a fish out of water, like he's been sent to a town of madmen as the one sane person. The first time Takuma witnesses how his aunt/new mother Rei for example exorcises a woman is horrifying, but the townsmen all pretend like it's normal and even rejoice about the sickening deed. There's something "off" about the people here, almost like they're all cultists or something, and the more time Takuma spends here, the more unsettling it all gets. This culminates in the climax, when half the town appears to go absolutely mad, almost transforming into actual devils as they drive Takuma, who is still trying to solve the mysterious murders that have occured in the meantime, into a desperate corner. As a horror story, Datenshi Goumonkei might not feel completely original, and even in the mystery genre, I'd say something like Yatsu Haka Mura ("The Village of Eight Graves") feels quite similar with its idea of an outsider arriving in an isolated community and things going very wrong, but this book certainly does this very effectively, and at times, it even comes close to feeling like something like Umineko no Naku Koro ni, even though it starts so relatively normal!
I have to say that while I did enjoy the book overall, Datenshi Goumonkei feels a bit disjointed as a mystery novel. The book is brimming with mysterious or curious events and incidents, but a lot of these parts don't really have much synergy with each other, other than "being mysterious and curious". It's not a series of events that occur in this book, but a lot of discrete occurances that all seem mysterious, and... most of them are properly explained, but in hindsight, you do feel a lot of just happened just to scare Takuma and the reader, and there's not really much of a connection between event A and event B. Perhaps the coincidence at play is the work of the devil, but it does make the plot feel a bit overwhelming for the wrong reasons. Takuma at first also isn't that strongly involved in the mysteries, so while you hear about impossible murders and such, Takuma doesn't really actively investigate them at first, so that results in a slow start of the narrative. That said, there are many interesting occurences, from the sudden decapitation of three women five years ago, the mystery of Daimon Taizou's odd museum built like an inverted pyramid in the depths of the forest, to Daimon Taizou passing away recently in his locked study, where he was found with all his bones crushed, to smaller incidents, like an act of arson, Takuma's cousins disappearing closer to the end, and a mysterious empty retirement home found in the forest where a mysterious woman in red is seen by Takuma. Some of these elements are proper mystery plots, while other elements are closer to horror tropes, and some are just there because the author liked it, I guess (the longest chapter in the whole book is an essay on modern horror fiction written by Takuma's friend Fujio for Takuma, and it's really detailed, but also not really relevant to the plot).
Some parts are honestly only there to be cool, but don't really make sense in the context of a mystery novel. The catastrophic climax of the book for example has some insane (in a good way) scenes that work extremely well for the mood of the book at that point, but when it tries to explain these events later on in a rational way, well, it's barely acceptable (okay.... so that thing is just there...?). And some persons really make weird decisions here... I liked most of the murders though, and while the hinting was usually not really physical clue/action-based, but more based on "in hindsight, I could've guessed X was actually Y" types of revelations/interpretations, the way the murders were clewed did fit the overall atmosphere of the book, with a lot being based on Takuma's own direct experiences. Some of them also have short, but memorable false solutions proposed for them, with one major one being so over-the-top I almost wish it was the real one, because it would really have made this a unique kind of mystery. Still, don't come here hoping for a mind-bending locked room trick or something like that: the focus of the book lies more in somehow trying to tie these events together into a coherent series of incidents (and even then, the book has to almost cheat at times for that to work). Some of the minor mysteries are probably easier to solve: I did like the mystery revolving around the museum a lot, perhaps because I guessed it rather early on, but at the same time, it felt so seperated from the rest of the story, I didn't really understand why it was there. That is the main gripe I have with the book I think when it comes to the mystery, with some mysteries just being there but not really being related to the main plot in any way, as if Asukabe just had several ideas he really wanted to throw in the book, but couldn't really figure out how to make them all relevant.
The book is also touted as a romantic boy-meets-girl-type of story, and in that sense, Datenshi Goumonkei does a good job: Takuma may have trouble adapting to his new home, but he does find himself attracted to a few of the girls at school, and part of why the book feels so creepy is definitely because Takuma is honestly trying to live a normal life in his new home town, despite him being treated as an outsider by so many and all the weird occurences happening around him, and often somehow involving him, making an event like a date, wedged between events where Takuma almost dies, feel very alienating, further giving the whole book a very unsettling atmosphere. This boy-meets-girl plot is a very fundamental element to the book, almost surprisingly so, but it does not "burden" the book at all from a mystery POV.
Overall, I did enjoy Datenshi Goumonkei a lot. It feels a lot like a passion project due to how much is thrown into it, and I think it could easily have been tightened up a bit, but the overall atmosphere of the town slowly showing its true colors is done really good, and it certainly had me hooked from start to finish, even if I found some elements not very strong when viewed on their own. It's certainly a unique read, with a rather slow start, once the modern-day murders occur, things move a lot faster. The book certainly made me curious to reading more of Asukabe's work, and I do hope they have a similar vibe.
