Death Times Three

Time after time 

ひとり 花舞う街で

「Time after Time ～花舞う街で」（倉木麻衣）

 

Time after time 

Alone, in the city of dancing flowers

"Time after Time ~ In the City of Dancing Flowers" (Kuraki Mai)

By the way, is there like a honkaku Discord channel or something similar?

Still so many Nintendo DS mystery adventures to play.... A few months ago, I bought a bunch of DS adventures I still haven't gotten around to, but there are still so many I want to try out too...

Yamamura Misa and Nishimura Kyoutarou are two of Japan's mystery novelists who are often mentioned together, as there was a time where they were simply the best known detective writers in the country, at least in terms of name recognition. Both writers were extremely prolific, and their works were also often adapted for television, which of course eventually meant everyone had at least heard of their names, and likely they once caught one of the many television specials or series based on their works and characters. Nishimura was strongly associated with train-related mysteries, and by extension the travel mystery, a sub-genre that focuses on crimes occuring at touristic destinations and other places away from Tokyo that require travelling, whereas common themes in Yamamura's work were female protagonists, stories focusing on romance and romance-turned-to-hatred and most importantly: the city of Kyoto. Which is a very popular tourist destination in general, even for domestic tourism, which also makes her work feel part of the travel mystery genre. Another common point these both authors have, is that their work were also among the earliest in Japan to be adapted into the video game medium. The Famicom (the Japanese counterpart to the Nintendo Entertainment System) saw several mystery adventure games based on the works of Nishimura Kyoutarou and Yamamura Misa, and interestingly, these games weren't adaptations of existing works, but based on their works, often involving the original authors as supervisors. 

In 2018, I reviewed DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Shin Tantei Series: Kyoto - Atami - Zekkai no Kotou Satsui no Wana ("DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense - A New Detective Series: Kyoto - Atami - The Lone Isle In The Deep Sea - A Murderous Trap"), a mystery adventure game released on the Nintendo DS in 2007 by developer Tecmo. As the title suggest, it was a game based on the work of Nishimura Kyoutarou and actually the first original game bearing his name in over a decade at the time. His "connection" with Yamamura however remained strong, and the following year, a second entry in this series was released, but based on Yamamura Misa's work: DS Yamamura Misa Suspense - Maiko Kogiku / Kisha Catharine / Sougiya Ishihara Akiko - Koto ni Mau Hana Sanrin - Kyouto Satsujin Jiken File ("DS Yamamura Misa Suspense - the Maiko Kogiku / Reporter Catharine / Funeral director Ishihara Akiko - The Three Petals Dancing In the Ancient Capital - Kyoto Murder Files" 2008) once again has a supercalifragilisticexpialidociously long title, so I'll just be referring to it as DS Yamamura Misa Suspense. As the title suggests, this game focuses on three of Yamamura Misa's famous female detectives who are all active in the former capital Kyoto: Kogiku is a maiko (geisha in training), Catharine Turner is the daughter of a former US vice-president, who now works in Japan as a journalist and Ishihara Akiko is a funeral director with a keen eye for crime. DS Yamamura Misa Suspense consists of three episodes, each starring a different detective, supported by their respective boyfriends, and also by Inspector Kariya of the Kyoto police force, who is in charge of the criminal investigation each time and knows all three detectives acting as the connecting thread between the three episodes. Yamamura Misa had already died by the time this game was made though, so the game was supervised by her agency. 

As a spiritual sequel to DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Shin Tantei Series 1, it's probably not a surprise when I tell you that technically and game design-wise, the two games are very similar. They use the same user interface, you have the same kind of (fairly well-animated) character sprites transposed on real-life-esque backgrounds. In my 2018 review, I pointed out that DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Shin Tantei Series 1 was very beginner-friendly though, and it was obviously designed for non-gamers. It is an adventure game at the core, so expect to talk with the suspects about a variety of topics, explore several locations and find clues, and ultimately, use the physical evidence and other clues or testimonies you acquired throughout the game to solve the crime by answering questions from foes or allies, and correct answers will further drive the plot. Nothing surprising here when it comes to game design. This game however does not punish you for wrong answers and also guides you to the next location you must visit, so you can't ever get lost in this game or not know what to do next. This game is actually even more streamlined and linear than the previous game: whereas DS Nishimura Kyoutarou at least occassionally did more than just ask you what happened three minutes ago, DS Yamamura Misa almost expects the player to be not familiar with either video games, nor with mystery fiction because the questions it fires at you are ridiculously simple.

So you'll be mostly playing this game to just experience the three stories with the three detectives, as challenge is definitely not to be found here. I'd say that overall, none of the three episodes are truly memorable, though most of them have one or two ideas that are pretty interesting. You can play the episodes in any order, though the game has the episode with Kogiku lined up first. She's booked with a fellow maiko to act as a companion at a party, but on her way to the party, Kogiku stumbles upon the body of a fellow maiko who was supposed to appear at the party. The mystery plot is more about figuring out who had a motive for wanting the maiko dead and as the player, you don't really get to do much, though I liked an early part of the story where a maiko's alibi depends on how long it would take to put her clothes on! Traditional Japanese arts do play a big role in Yamamura's work, so this felt quite natural. The last story features the funeral director Akiko, who meets up with a friend who's been worried about another friend she can't reach. When they visit this person, they find she has passed away in her apartment, having cut her wrists. Akiko soon realizes something is off about her death, but the victim's father refuses to call in the police and wants her funeral service to be handled as quickly as possible. Akiko offers her services to the father, hoping to buy herself some time to find out what really happened. Again a story that is mostly about learning who had a motive to want her dead, but this time there's not even some small moment that stuck with me.

The episode with Catherine is definitely the most memorable: Cathy is writing an article on Noh theater, and she and her boyfriend visit a Noh hall sponsored by a tea maker. A young talent is rehearsing the piece Doujouji with his mentor in the hall and will have time to be interviewed by Cathy afterwards. Only the master and his apprentice are inside the theater while they are rehearsing, but as they finish and the mentor comes out the hall first, the young actor is poisoned with arsenic, even though nobody was inside the hall anymore once his mentor stepped out to speak with Cathy. The story once again focuses on finding out who hated the actor enough to want to poison him, but there is also an impossible crime angle to this story that makes this the best episode of the game, as the mystery just has more volume to it. The way the real play Doujouji is integrated into the mystery plot is actually really clever and even leads to one of the few moments in the game where the player has to think and figure the connection out themselves. I can actually imagine a full novel being based on this episode alone, as there are more than enough parts and segments that could easily be expanded a bit for a mystery with more body. 

 

DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Shin Tantei Series 1 had a fun extra mode titled West Village, featuring 50 short mystery quizzes and riddles, reminiscent of Professor Layton puzzles. This game sadly enough does not have such a feature, instead featuring a mode with quizzes on Kyoto and traditional Japanese culture, starring Yamamura Misa's daughter Momiji. West Village was a great way to present more interactive mysteries for the player to solve, so it's really a shame this game doesn't have those mystery quizzes anymore.

But as the game is now, I would not really recommend anyone to play DS Yamamura Misa Suspense - Maiko Kogiku / Kisha Catharine / Sougiya Ishihara Akiko - Koto ni Mau Hana Sanrin - Kyouto Satsujin Jiken File, at least, not if you're looking for an engaging mystery adventure. The game is too clearly aimed at non-gamers, so you're just led down a linear path with basically no mental input from the player. I do think it serves as an okay introduction to these three detectives by Yamamura, and while I have already read a few Catherine novels, I think I might try those with Kogiku and Akiko too in the future. I went in this game with pretty low expectations and I am also trying to play most of the Japanese mystery adventures released on the Nintendo DS, so I don't feel too disappointed with the game, but it's far from memorable. Its big brother DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Shin Tantei Series is more amusing in comparison, and even that is a title that hardly stands out.

Original Japanese title(s): 『DS山村美紗サスペンス 舞妓小菊・記者キャサリン・葬儀屋石原明子 古都に舞う花三輪 京都殺人事件ファイル』

Said with Flowers

"Dahlias?"

"What do they signify?"

"Insecurity."

 "Hmm. I dont' want to give her the wrong idea about me..."

"Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars"

With newer series, I still manage to read things in the correct order, simply because I'm genuinely following each new release as they come out, but with older series, I often just try whatever crosses my path. For example, I have read a few of Yamamura Misa's Catherine series in the past (only reviewed one novel before, it seems) and even taken a glance at the surprisingly numerous videogames based on this series, but all these entries were completely random pulls from the long-running series. Yamamura herself is of course an institution in Japan, often strongly associated with television drama adaptations of her creations. When you think Yamamura Misa, you think the two-hour suspense television drama set in Kyoto or perhaps some other touristic destination and of a dramatic finale with the detective confronting the murderer at a cliffside looking down at the sea. My own experience with Yamamura's work has been... nondescript? None of her stories really made any lasting impression on me, some of the short stories I tried seemed to have okay-ish ideas, but never anything that really excited me.

Anyway, so I was already familiar with the Catherine series, but for some reason, I decided it was time to try out the first novel in this series, which also happened to be an impossible murder mystery. I also believe it's been translated in the past in French? Anyway, Hana no Hitsugi ("A Casket of Flowers", 1975) begins with the arrival of the vice-president of the United States arriving in Japan, but it's actually his daughter who attracts more attention from the press. The beautiful Catherine has an interest in Asian culture and plans to remain in Japan for a longer time to study Japanese culture, especially flower arrangement (ikebana), an art she fell in love with after viewing an exhibition in New York. Given Catherine's VIP status, the Minister of Foreign Affairs decides to appoints his nephew Hamaguchi Ichirou to be her guide and interpreter during her stay in Japan, figuring that it'd be better to have some close in age to be her guide (though he warns Ichirou that romance is out of the question). Immediately after her arrival in Japan, the masters of the three major flower arrangement styles try to win Catherine over to their own style: Tougou Ryuufuu of the Higashi School, Nishikawa Hou of the Kyou School and Yamano Hanako of the Shin School all figure that having the daughter of the vice-president of the US (and possible future president) as one of their members will bring a significant prestige boost to their own style. Catherine however says she wants to learn flower arrangement from Ogawa Maiko, who held the exhibition in New York. While Maiko is a high-ranking disciple in the Higashi School, she has openly criticized the outdated system of membership and promotion of 'her' school, making her not a popular figure within the establishment of the Higashi School But even though the news reported on Catherine looking for Maiko, it seems she's avoiding Catherine and the next time they find Maiko, she has died of poison near a temple in Kyoto. While at first it seems her death may be a suicide, more incidents happen in Kyoto following her death. Some are relatively harmless, but the murder on Nishikawa Hou of the Kyou School is definitely a heinous deed, especially as he was murdered in a double locked room: he was found inside the tea house annex in the garden, but the annex was locked from the inside and there were no footprints in the snow-covered garden leading from the main building to the annex. And his death is still not the end of the case...

Huh. For the first novel starring Catherine, it's interesting to see how she's not the focal point of the narrative. The novel kinda jumps between the main police detective investigating the case and Ichirou as the main protagonists, with Catherine almost a member of the secondary cast. Later novels focus much more on her as the protagonist. Uchida Yasuo and his Asami Mitsuhiko series are also strongly associated with touristic-oriented mystery fiction for television and I remember the first novel starring Mitsuhiko (Gotoba Densetsu Satsujin Jiken) was also very light on Mitsuhiko himself: he hardly makes any appearances early on, but then reveals himself as the great detective at the end of the novel. It's somewhat similar here: one part of the mystery is actually solved by Ichirou and the police detective is fairly competent himself too. Catherine only solves part of the mystery.

However, Catherine is presented as the best thing since sliced bread, which is really weird. I mean, we have the three heads of influential flower arrangement styles (with considerable political power!) who are fighting over Catherine, only because she's the daughter of the vice-president of the US. I mean, sure, things might be different if we were talking about the vice-president themselves, but she's just his daughter, who doesn't even have any political ambitions! The official schedule of her father in Japan is even changed at one point, because Catherine wants to visit someone. The oddest part is when Ichirou asks Maiko why she didn't immediately contact Catherine when the newspapers reported on Catherine looking for Maiko, as if the whole world revolves around Catherine. Catherine as a character is not annoying on her own by the way, but the writing seems to put her on a pedestal for...no reason at all. Which can be really taxing.

Anyway, if I had to describe this novel with one word, it'd be Kyoto. While the story starts in Tokyo, most of the action occurs in the ancient capital, with all the crime scenes set in or near famous places in Kyoto, and the story itself of course revolves around a traditional Japanese art (flower arrangement) that is often associated with the refined image of Kyoto. The double locked room murder in the tea house annex is another example of this. The set-up reminds a bit of Honjin Satsujin Jiken, given we have a locked room murder in 1) a traditional Japanese annex house made with wood and fusuma doors and a 2) no footprints in the snow situation outside the annex. The second part of this mystery is nothing worth mentioning and kinda cheap: characters just happen to forget about something that explains the whole footprints thing immediately, so the moment it's brought up, that part of the mystery is solved for you. The locked tea house itself is a bit more interesting. Like in Edogawa Rampo's D-Zaka no Satsujin Jiken, much ado is made about how this is a locked room murder, even though the room itself is just made of 'soft' material like wood and paper. I do think the solution is clever, making good use of a blind spot of the witnesses as well as fitting perfectly with the setting, but it's dragged out a bit for this novel. It would've been better in a short story on its own, I think.

There's another impossible-esque situation later in the novel, concerning the murder of an abducted person. The man was found inside a trailer parked near a temple in Kyoto, but it's determined that trailer was sill parked in a camping car parking park last evening and that it had disappeared from that park at one point. But nobody knows how it could've left the park, because every trailer is registered when they leave the park (to determine the parking fee), and nobody at the three exits of the park actually saw the trailer leave. Traces of the victim's blood is found in the park, so the murderer must've brought the victim here, killed him in the trailer and then gotten the trailer out of the park unseen, but how? The solution for this conundrum is a bit easy to guess when the actions of a certain character are revealed, while the set-up for the trick is rather convoluted. I think the basic idea of using the trailer park as an impossible situation mystery is pretty interesting and the solution is workable, but ultimately, the reason why the murderer went through all this trouble is not really convincing.  I mean, sure, they have a point, but was there really nothing easier they could do to accomplish that? This trick should have been low on the priority list.

Was Hana no Hitsugi significantly different from what I have come to expect of this series? Nah. Mind you, I do think this novel is more tightly plotted, and more puzzle-focused than any other adventure of Catherine I've read and for those seeking a very "Japanese" experience in terms of atmosphere, I think Hana no Hitsugi can be very entertaining. And some people really like the book, as Arisugawa Alice even put a spotlight on this novel in his An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998. But some parts feel undeveloped, while other parts dragged out, and taken as a whole, I do think Hana no Hitsugi is definitely by far the best Catherine novel I've read until now, but it's not like I feel impelled to read more of this series as swiftly as possible. Though I wouldn't say no to other Yamamura novels of this calibre. It is a very long series though, so it'll take some time figuring what entries are worth it. Perhaps I should try one of the videogames...

Original Japanese title(s): 山村美紗『花の棺』

Line to Strain

丸竹夷二押御池
姉三六角蛸錦
四綾仏高松万五条
雪駄ちゃらちゃら魚の棚
六条三哲通りすぎ
七条越えれば八九条
十条東寺でとどめさす

Maru Take Ebisu Ni Oshi Oike

Ane San Rokkaku Tako Nishiki

Shi Aya Bu Taka Matsu Man Gojo

Seta Ring Ring Uo no Tana

Past Rokujo Santetsu

After Shichijo it's Hachijo and Kujo

And then it ends at Jujo Toji

 

Whenever I think of Kyoto, I think of the little song I quoted just above this. It's a mnemonic song of all the large roads that go from east to west in Kyoto, and you wouldn't believe how often I had to sing the song to figure out where I was and how far I still needed to go when I was living in Kyoto.

Nishijin refers both to a geographical area in the city of Kyoto, as well as the textile that has traditionally been manufactured there. A visit of Catherine Turner (magazine editor, daughter of a former US vice-president and amateur sleuth) to Kobayashi Souzaemon (owner of one of the oldest textile manufacturers in Nishijin) ends in a little treat in a traditional Gion tea house, where Catherine learns about a geigi-cum-mistress sponsored by Kobayashi. The following day, the mistress is found murdered in her room, and Catherine and her boyfriend Hamaguchi Ichirou suspect the murder might be connected to the Kobayashi family, which has the "usual" problems of second wives who can't seem to give birth to a new heir, sons of first wives who are afraid for their inheritance and pregnant mistresses. Luckily for Cathy and Ichirou, the police detective in charge of the case is an old acquaintance of them, and so the two have a new murder investigation adventure in the old capital of Japan in Yamamura Misa's Kyouto Nishijin Satsujin Jiken ("The Kyoto Nishijin Murder Case", 1987)

The words "Yamamura Misa Suspense" are an institution in Japan. When people think of The Stereotypical Two-Hour TV Drama Mystery, they think of either Nishimura Kyoutarou or Yamamura Misa. Both writers are known for having provided countless of original plots for TV detective productions, often featuring mystery plots that require little thinking, some romance subplot and set in touristic destinations (=anywhere but Tokyo). Yamamura Misa's father's academic work had brought him to Korea during its colonization by Japan and she was born in Keijou (Seoul). They moved back to the ancient capital Kyoto afterwards though and Kyoto features heavily in Yamamura Misa's work.

The Catherine Turner series is probably Yamamura's best known series, as it's been adapted into TV productions and even videogames. Catherine is a journalist and wealthy heiress, who has a great interest in Japanese culture and speaks it fluently (For some reason, she still uses "yes" and "no", even though she knows a lot of complex Japanese phrases...). For TV productions, the character of Catherine is often changed so she's Japanese, or switched out with other Yamamura Misa creations.

I have to admit, I was expecting pretty much nothing of Kyouto Nishijin Satsujin Jiken. I've read a couple of Yamamura's books and seen some TV specials, and they were always very predictable, stereotypical stuff. You've seen one of them, you've seen all of them. Kyouto Nishijin Satsujin Jiken did absolutely nothing to help this image sadly enough. There are some murders. There's a bit of amateur sleuthing. There's a bit of a romance subplot. And there is basically nothing that is really appealing. This is a by-the-numbers book. The Stereotypical Yamamura Misa Plot. Nothing more than that. I don't even feel like going much deeper into it, as anyone familiar with the Two-Hour TV Mystery Drama knows what to they can expect from this story.

The only things that interested me a little where the bits that delve into Kyoto culture, like Nishijin and the local ordinance that regulates building heights to preserve the traditional cityscape (which is why Kyoto is relatively 'lowly' built), but that's basically just trivia (and I've seen them used better in other detective stories too).

Kyouto Nishijin Satsujin Jiken is what you'd expect from a Yamamura Misa novel with Catherine Turner. Just that. Would I recommend it? No. Only interesting if you want to know how the Japanese Stereotypical Mystery Story goes. As a lesson in stereotypes across cultures, it's s certainly educative.

Original Japanese title(s): 山村美沙 『京都西陣殺人事件』