Showing posts with label Closed Circle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Closed Circle. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

The Man in the Mirror

"Mirror, mirror on the wall..."
"Snow White"

For a change not writing a review of this series months (years) after reading it...

The Mirror House located in the outskirts of Kamakura belongs to Kurozawa Matsutarou, a wealthy man who has many mistresses. The manor was once the home of the twins Kirika and Sumika and their mother, who was Matsutarou's mistress, but after her death, the house was extended with an identical annex, like a mirror and no less than 48 mirrors of varying sizes were installed in both buildings, giving the building its name. When the twins were still young however, Kirika wanted to end her own life and since then, Sumika has learned to live without her sister, especially as Matsutarou kept telling her to forget about Kirika and live her own life. Matsutarou is not a loving father by any means however, and his interest in his daughters is purely political. While he lets his daughters live with their mothers while young, he has them all moved to the Mirror House when they reach a certain age, as he wishes to marry them off in political marriages, and their stay in the Mirror House is merely temporary until Matsutarou has found the perfect partner for them, regardless of their own life wishes. This has already led to tragedy one time, as last year, one of his daughters chose death rather than being forced such a life. At the moment, Sumika is joined by four of her half-sisters: Mahiru, Kurara, Sachiko and Ruri, as well as five servants. One of them is Shizuka, the half-Russian Mary Poppins-esque personal maid to Sumika who occasionally has a foul (Russian) mouth. Matsutarou only visits his daughters once a year to check up on them and to announce their upcoming marriages, but this year, his visit coincides with a heavy storm, which means three of the usual servants are stuck in town, leaving only Matsutarou, his daughters and two servants in the house. At dinner however, lightning strikes, illuminating one of the mirrors he has given to each of his daughters, and invisible lettering written on one of the mirrors is reflected on the wall, saying "Death". This angers Matsutarou and he retreats for the night, but that night, he is found murdered in one of the mirror rooms, being stabbed in the back, but for some reason he was lying on the floor with his feet towards a mirror and his arms thrown in front of him, almost as if he was trying to flee from a murderer inside the mirror.... With no means to notify the police, can the people in the manor be truly certain no more murders will occur in Tsukihara Wataru's Kagamiyakata no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Mirror House" 2020)?

Spoilers: more people die.

Kagamiyakata no Satsujin is the fourth entry in this series starring the pro-active maid Shizuka who each time works at a different place as a personal maid for young girls. The books sometimes namedrop the places/families she worked for earlier, but the books can all be read indepedently and in any order. They are all fairly formulaistic too: each book is set in the Meiji period, and set inside an isolated house with serial murders happening, and Shizuka's always there to eventually solve the case, but what makes this series memorable, despite some hick-ups, is how Shizuka is used: each time she's confronted with a killer, she not only detects, but tries to find ways to proactively stop the killer by interfering with their patterns and that leads to interesting twist on familiar tropes in mystery, for example when in an earlier novel, Shizuka notices the murders are modelled after a set of paintings, so she proposes to just destroy all the paintings to upset the killer's plans. It's these interactions with mystery tropes that make these books fun to read.

In theory, this book has interesting elements: there's a house with two mirrored sections, there are 48 different mirrors spread across the house, the first victim is seemingly killed by his own mirror image in a mirror and threatening messages are written on mirrors to announce the coming deaths. A lot of it is tropey, but that is the whole focus of this series so it never feels too reliant on tropes. However, of the four novels I have read until now, I do think this entry was by far the weakest.

The main trope of this book is the "murder announcement": the killer writes messages alluding to deaths on mirrors before committing the murders and sure, that's a trope, but... Shizuka doesn't really manage to do something really original with this, she doesn't come up with some outrageous plan to turn this "habit" around and have it backfire on the killer, or propose anything unexpected to counter this. Because of this lack of interplay with the trope at hand, Shizuka feels far more passive than in the other books. Because these books tend to be very short and rather light, Shizuka's actions usually felt as one of the major parts of the mystery, and having this aspect of the tale weakened hurts the overall experience a lot. "Announcing a murder" is just less exciting than a murderer who decapitates people, or tropes like locked rooms or mitate... While a large part of the story does ultimately revolve around the question why the murderer would chose to utilize this device of announcing their murders, the answer arrived it isn't that exciting, and gives us a rather mundane explanation you might have seen mentioned in other novels that don't even explicitly try to play with tropes.

This pattern also carries over to the whole theme of mirrors in this book. Like, cool, we have a building that is mirrored with an annex, and they feature over 40 mirrors installed here and there... but we never get a floorplan of the building, so the whole concept feels criminally underdeveloped! I wanted to see cool clever things with mirrors which become clear once you start drawing lines in the floorplans, not just vague descriptions of where mirrors are placed! The way the mirrors are used for the murders in this book is far from surprising, and also not really well-hinted, so it feels underwhelming. There is a neat twist regarding the theme of mirrors halfway through the book, but the implications it has for the murders feel a bit forced, and ultimately, I feel this is the book in this series that would've benefitted of more page real estate: the book has many ideas that could've been worked out in more detail, but this particular label releases light novels of a certain length (relatively short) and thus the reveal feels not as satisfying as it could've been, as I think more pages to set-up the twist more with more foreshadowing would have made it a bit more impressive.

Kagamiyakata no Satsujin is thus my least favorite of the Shizuka novels until now. It doesn't help the major trope it focuses on doesn't allow for that much original plays, but the murders themselves are also a bit disappointing, with some underdeveloped tricks and while there's one big twist halfway I do like as a concept, that too should have been given more build-up space for maximum effect. At the moment, there's one more volume, so I'll probably read that one too, but I might wait a bit, because this one was quite disappointing.

Original Japanese title(s): 月原渉『鏡館の殺人』

Saturday, May 3, 2025

The World's End

"We cannot conceive of a life other than this one - of a life after death. We can visualize only a continuation of what we know. We have no real belief in a God."
"Death Comes as the End"

It's just a feeling, but I have a suspicion a majority of posts on snow-themed mystery stories on this blog are actually published in the warmer half of the year...

As I announced in my review of The Werewolf Murder Case in volumes 14~16 of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), the plan was to wait until a full story was released before I'd do another review of this series within the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo franchise, where we follow a now middle-aged Kindaichi Hajime as he gets involved in murder cases despite not wanting to solve mysteries anymore. But then it was announced this series would wrap up last year. So I figured, as stories in this series usually carrying over across multiple volumes, I might as well just wait until the last volume is released to do a review of the remaining volumes. So volume 18 of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo was released earlier this year... and I completely forgot to get the volume. So that explains why this review is coming now so late after its release. Anyway, volume 16 first starts with the very last chapter of The Werewolf Murder Case, where we learn about the motive for the murders in that case (yes, it's revenge, it's always revenge), but then it's back to business as Hajime's assigned to a new project for his event-organizing company: Hijiri Island, a mountainous island in Hokkaido wants to drive its economic activity by profiling itself as the perfect resort for backcountry/off-piste skiing. Hajime and his subordinate Marin are to check out the place and will be staying in a lodge high up in the mountains, a place only reachable via helicopter. They will be joined not only by someone from the municipality, but also by the backcountry ski team of the skiing club of the Imperial Women's University, a prestigious club whose members often appear in the World Cups. The team always trains here, so they know the grounds well, so Hajime and Marin will be questioning the young women about the mountains in order to develop the place as a resort. Everyone is to stay in a newly built lodge, but the evening they arrive, they find someone has tampered with the heating, and it's slowly starting to become freezing cold inside. 

Fortunately, the old lodge is 500 meters away from the new lodge, and everything should still work there, so they decide to move to the old lodge: the men go first to make sure heating there does work and to carry the kerosene, while the women will follow later with the food supplies. The men have just arrived at the old lodge and starting to prepare for their stay here, when the women in the new lodge use a walkie talkie to contact the men: one of the skiers has gone missing, and there's blood in the hallway. Two of them return to the new lodge, while Hajime and the municipal official stay in the new lodge, but then they discover the body of the missing skier: her head has been cut off, and placed on her lap! When everyone has moved to the new lodge, they learn that their radio is not working and the skis have gone missing, making it impossible to contact with the outside world nor to go down the mountains themselves. By discussing the case, they discover that while nobody has an actual alibi for the murder, as they don't know what time exactly the victim was killed, everyone does have a soft alibi: nobody could've carried the body from the new lodge to the old lodge unseen: the round-trip would've taken quite some time, but nobody was gone for long times/went unseen between the time the victim was last seen alive and the time the body was found. Soon one of the women suggests it's the headless skier: two years ago, a team of skiers got stuck on the mountains when the weather suddenly changed for the worse. Stuck in the cold and with no way to call for help, the team's leader volunteered to ski down the mountain alone to get help. However, after she left, a rescue helicopter found the remaining team members, but the leader never made it off the mountain alive. Only her cut-off head was later discovered: someone had strung piano wire between trees, so when the leader was hurrying down the mountain to get help...  Some say a headless skier is now haunting the mountains, but is this ghost also responsible for the murder, or is this the work of a living and breathing human?

You know, The Headless Skier Murder Case, which spans volumes 16 and 17, has a funny setting. Closed circle settings in this series are often either on an island or somewhere in the mountains... so why not set the story on a mountain, on an island, writer Amagi must've thought. But if this fusion of ideas sounds like he was trying to cook something grand, I'll have to disappoint you, as The Headless Skier Murder Case is a surprisingly simple case, basically revolving around one single trick. The mystery revolves around the fact nobody is ever gone long enough to allow them to carry a dead body and their head to the other lodge and return, which thus gives them all an alibi. This mystery is repeated later, as another dead body is found, this time at the new lodge while everyone was staying in the old lodge. The problem is that it is really just this mystery that drives this story, and the solution is not only a concept we have definitely seen previously in this series, in those stories we ususally get more than just this one idea, so there they can at least benefit from being presented as more difficult puzzles as they are interwoven with other ideas. Here, the problem is presented so bluntly it's nearly impossible to not guess what's going on. The big surprise is actually when the murderer is revealed and they start explaining their motive (yes, it's revenge, it's always revenge), as we learn how this person had been directed by a certain character to commit these murders: while the identity of this person won't be revealed until the next story, I *kinda* suspected who it was, though I thought it would be cheap, and then it turned out it was really that person and now I have no idea how this is going to develop in future series. 

The final volume of this series, The Sealed Space in the Sky Murder Case, starts with Hajime confronting his old nemesis The Puppeteer from Hell, a "crime consultant"-esque character who helps people bent on revenge by supplying them with perfect crime plans. While the Puppeteer has been in prison all this while, Hajime knows the Puppeteer has disciples: they call themselves the Olympian Gods, with the Puppeteer as Zeus the omni-god and Hajime has already encountered and captured a few of them. But after a conversation with the Puppeteer and a hint from his cousin Fumi, Hajime realizes one of the Olympian Gods, Hephaestus, is actually a person near him: he deduces Hephaestus is someone at his work, and that Hephaestus, with the help of another inside person at the company, has been keeping tabs on Hajime, which is why all these murder cases have been happening to Hajime each time he's gone on a business trip. Hajime has a pretty good idea of who Hephaestus's accomplice in the company must be, but the moment he decided to keep tabs on her, she ends up dead: ostensibly via suicide by throwing herself off the rooftop of the company building. She had borrowed the key to the rooftop to water the plants there, and as the key was found in her pocket, the rooftop door was indeed closed/locked and the guard kept the spare key safe, it looks like a genuine suicide, but Hajime knows better: Hephaestus must have killed their accomplice to silence her, and used a "sealed space in the sky" murder trick to challenge Hajime himself. But how could Hephaestus left the rooftop after the murder, as the door to the rooftop was locked (with the victim down below in possession of the key) and no way to reach the surrounding buildings? Hajime knows this is his chance to nab Hephaestus, and narrows the pool of suspects to a handful, but the list includes not only his direct superior, but even his faithful subordinate Marin...


For a story that is mostly about very quickly wrapping things up and features a very simple trick for its main mystery, I have to admit I liked it better than I had initially expected. A lot of the initial chapters is about trying to bring back the whole story about the Olympians back to the foreground again, as it's not been a priority plot element throughout, usually only being mentioned at the end of a case if the murderer happened to be one of the Gods and forgotten again, but here we get a crash-course on the related previous events and a rather cool deduction by Hajime about who he thinks Hephaestus' accomplice is and why. This is the type of hinting and plotting you very often see in Conan, using its serialized format to plant clues within various stories, across a longer period of time, but Kindaichi basically never uses this, with far more compartmentalized storytelling (and very loosely connected stories), so it's cool to see it utilized here. The 'Sealed Space in the Sky" mystery is relatively simple, with rudimentary visual clues and like the previous story in essence a one-trick-pony, but I do like that the focus in fact does not even lie on the howdunnit, but the whodunnit, as we see Hajime then utilize the howdunnit to cross off the suspects of the list, using Queenian logic to identify Hephaestus. This series more often uses a straightforward way to identify the killer (X making certain utterances/doing certain things/in possession of certain things), so seeing a Queenian chain, even if very short, is pretty cool.  The identity of Hephaestus is perhaps not as interesting as the direct aftermath, as the gameboard is reset to lead into the next series. We do get a brief explanation why Hajime swore off solving mysteries long ago, but we don't get the details, but then it's basically off to the next series. And very literally too, as this volume also included the first chapter of the new series: Kindaichi Papa no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Dad Kindaichi"), in which Hajime has been a father for a few years while running his own detective agency.  Hajime's new client instructs him to go a certain place on a certain date, and because Hajime is a very responsible father and definitely knows what's going to happen whenever he goes to a remote place, he decides to take his son with him and the two find themselves arriving at an old decrepit hotel that's absolutely safe and where no murders will happen...

Anyway, that wraps up Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo. I have to admit, the initial shock factor of seeing a suddenly aged Hajime quickly waned after the realization that storywise, these cases weren't that different from the usual affairs save for a few rare exceptions like stories with a more urban setting. Some ideas never really come to full fruition I think, but as a limited series, it at least had more direction than the 20th Anniversary series or 30th Anniversary series. The last story at least does a lot to make it feel more like a series on its own, so that helps, though I can't feel super excited about the deal of the Olympian Gods basically halting midway, and I'm still not sure what to think about that one character turning out to be one of the Gods too... I guess I'll have to keep on reading the new series to see if Amagi decides to actually end some of these plotlines anytime soon (I mean, I know Conan is long, but at least it has arcs that actually start and end).

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸(原)、さとうふみや(画)『金田一37歳の事件簿』第16~18巻

Friday, April 11, 2025

L'Île aux trente cercueils

About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the stream.
 
 So blended bank and shadow there, 
 that each seemed pendulous in air — 
 
so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began. 
 "The Island of the Fay
 

You know, that would be an interesting setting for a mystery story, an island where they have these GIGANTIC crosses and some kind of impossible crime happens, like a body appears right on top of the highest cross...

Mephisto is a long-running magazine of publisher Kodansha focusing on mystery and other entertainment genre fiction, featuring columns on literature, but more importantly serializations of for example Ayatsuji Yukito's House novels. While it used to be distributed "normally" as a magazine, its current incarnation is only available if you are a member of the Mephisto Readers Club, with the seasonal release of Mephisto being one of the perks that come with a subscription. Currently the magazine is for example running running the serialization of Ayatsuji Yukito's Futagokan no Satsujin/The Twin House Murders while the last two years, it had Arisugawa Alice's Nihon Ougi no Nazo ("The Japanese Fan Mystery"), which got a book release in 2024. But the subscription also includes other content, including a series of flash fiction by various mystery authors who have to work with the same opening or ending line, and also regularly updated mini-columns on mystery fiction on various topics. Mystery Island was originally a series of short, one-page columns running in the first half of 2024 penned by six critics, who all discussed eleven mystery stories set on... an island. The closed circle setting of an island, where nobody can go to or escape from and you have a limited pool of suspects, is of course a very popular one in mystery fiction ever since And Then There Were None and there are quite a few worth recommending to others, but even I hadn't expected you could discuss 66 different stories. Later the same year, publisher Kodansha published all these columns as one book (with a great cover!), also titled Mystery Island.

The six critics are Aoto Shino, Ooya Hiroko, Katayama Daichi, Sengai Akiyuki, Masamune Q and Miyake Kaho, who each take on eleven mysteries set on an island. They obviously did have some discussion about how to divide the works, as they all will discuss a few of the really famous ones, like And Then There Were None, Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders, Gokumontou/Gokumon Island and Evil Under Sun, but each of them will also tackle some minor titles you likely had never heard about or wouldn't have expected to be discussed specifically. There is a good selection of both older titles and new ones, with some titles so recent they basically released the same year as when the columns were originally running, like Yuuki Haruo's Jikkai ("The Ten Commandments"). There's also quite some variety in the works discussed, from classic puzzle plot mysteries like the titles mentioned above, but also horror-mysteries like Sawamura Ichi's excellent Yogen no Shima ("The Island of the Prophecy") and weird fantasy-hybrids like Shimada Soji's Alcatraz Gensou ("Alcatraz Fantasy").

The Mystery Island columns however are very short, as they were originally published via LINE (a Japanese social chat platform) and it's best not to look as Mystery Island as a reference book, but rather as a coffee table book, the type of book you just pick up to peruse for a few minutes to read a short column and which you'll lay down and only return to after a while. The tone of each of column is pretty casual, usually containing personal anecdotes of how the critic came into contact with the story in the first place. Each column is basically just a page long, so there isn't much space to discuss any work in detail: they mostly get away with giving a brief outline of the work in place, and add a paragraph on its merits as a mystery story/mystery story set on an island. So for those who want to really know why a specific story is interesting as an island mystery, the columns might feel a bit too short, as they can never really delve deep into the themes and specific characteristics of the work in question, but for those who simply want simple pointers to decide what to read next, Mystery Island is quite effective as they really don't discuss enough to even remotely spoil anything. Because the six authors together do manage to introduce a great number, and a great variety of works, it's likely any reader will find a work they hadn't known about that sounds interesting. At least, I know I have a few new titles on my 'someday, I will read this' list I had not ever considered before. That said, the definition of 'mystery fiction' is quite broad, and seeing a title like Battle Royale here does feel a bit like cheating, but oh well, it's 66 titles, they're allowed to use a (very) broad definition.

Originally, these columns were posted on the subscribers-only Mephisto Reader's Club LINE account, and each column would be followed by a short poll on something kinda connected to the book in question: the one on Gokumontou for example asks if you were the killer, which of the four modern-day actors of Kindaichi Kousuke would you like to have as your opponent. The book release includes the outcome of each of these polls and also contains a write-up of the editors' meeting with the six critics, where they decided how to divide the work, which gives the reader a bit more insight into the selection process.


Oh, and moving away from the contents of this book, and discussing this book as... a book: besides the great cover, it also features some really cool character art by Kikuni Masahiko for all the six critics, in the same style as the silhouette characters of the authors featured in the shin honkaku anniversary anthology 7-nin no Meitantei ("The Seven Great Detectives"). The physical release also has a rather unique slipcase: the slipase is actually open on two sides (instead of one), so normally a book you'd place inside could slip out from the other side... but because this is Japan, the book of course also features an obi (a thin paper wrapper), and it's the obi that keeps the book in place. Really odd design I have never seen before.

 Mystery Island is a rather interesting release now I think about it. It was originally written for subscribers to the Mephisto Readers Club, so in a way, for an audience that is probably more interested and knowledgeable about mystery fiction than the average reader, but as a book, Mystery Island works better as a casual coffee book table than a "reference book for die-hard mystery fans". It's easy to pick up, read a column or two and lay down again, and while none of the columns really go deep enough to really become informative or provide you with some eye-opening revelation, they do a good enough job to point you to the existence of some stories you may not have considered otherwise, or help you decide what famous mystery set on an island you should tackle next, if you hadn't read that one masterpiece before. I wonder if a project like this could be translated/released in English too to casually introduce both the well-known, as well as the lesser known island mysteries from Japan to an English-reading audience, considering its more casual tone.

Original Japanese title(s): 青戸しの, 大矢博子, 佳多山大地, 千街晶之, 政宗九, 三宅香帆『ミステリーアイランド』

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Prediction: Murder

Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive
"And Then There Were None"

For some reason, after reading the prologue, I thought this book would be difficult to read in terms of writing style, but I ended up finishing it in about a day...

After continued harrassment by his boss led to a suicide attempt which fortunately was foiled by Sousaku's father, Sousaku returns to his hometown to recover. His childhood friend Jun of course tries to help Sousaku, as does the third friend of the group, Haruo. They decide to go on a trip together, and Haruo suggests going to Mukui Island, a remote island in the Seto Inland Sea. Mukui Island advertises itself as having nothing to offer and it's only inhabitated by elderly people, with all the young people having moved away from the inconveniently located island long ago. The reason they decide to go to Mukui Island is because of the psychic Uzuki Yuuko, who was immensely popular in the late nineties. Jun and the others actually once sent a photograph to Yuuko, asking whether that shadow in the background was a ghost, and they got featured in one of her books. The elderly Yuuko passed away after her visit to Mukui Island during a tour along the islands of the Seto Inland Sea, where she and a television crew would seek out paranormal activity. When she arrived on Mukui Island, she sensed an evil spirit on one of the two mountains of the island, and when she visited that mountain in the night, she suddenly collapsed. She died two years later, but she never quite recovered from whatever got to her on Mukui Island. During her lifetime, Yuuko also left several prophecies, and one of them suggest that twenty years after her death, on August the 15th, six people will die on the island where she too fell. 

Intrigued by this story and because of their own link with Yuuko, they travel to the island, arriving late afternoon on the fourteenth. While Haruo had made arrangements before, he's surprised to learn the inn owner suddenly refuses to offer them lodgings, saying the evil spirit will be coming down the mountain soon. They fortunately find another inn, where a few other outsider guests are, some of them also seemingly lured by the prophecy left by Yuuko. That night, they fall asleep, but when they notice Haruo's gone in the early morning, they go looking for him, and find him floating in the harbor. He's obviously dead and the one policeman on the island determines Haruo must have gone out in the night to buy something to drink and fallen into the water. Mainland police is informed, but due to bad weather it might take a while before they can come. One of the other guests, Kazumi, is a nurse, and she points out that despite what the policeman claims, it's clear Haruo was actually murdered before he was thrown into the sea. But as they deal with Haruo's death, they realize the other villagers on the island are being very succesful at avoiding them. Why? Are they involved in Haruo's death? Or are they afraid of the evil spirit which is said to leave the mountains this day? Or has it to do with Yuuko's prophecy six people will die today? Will the prophecy of the six deaths come true on Mukui Island, and is it the work of a human, or something supernatural? Those are the big questions in Sawamura Ichi's Yogen no Shima ("The Island of the Prophecy", 2019).

In a way, the release of this book on its own is pretty creepy. A book about a group of people visiting an isolated location, of which a prophecy has said that on that specific day, people will die? This book was actually released only a month after Imamura Masahiro's Magan no Hako no Satsujin, released in English as Death Within the Evil Eye (disclosure: I translated the book), so it's basically a complete coincidence two mystery novels about prophecies coming true were released within just a month of each other. The funny thing is Sawamura is mainly a horror writer, though this book is touted as him taking on the challenge of writing a proper (horror) mystery story, so it just so happened that on the rare occassion he decides to do focuson mystery, someone else wrote a story with a similar theme. Fortunately, they both do very different things with the theme.

As Sawamura is mainly a horror writer, I had never read anything by him, but I can say Yogen no Shima is a proper mystery novel that is honestly a lot of fun to read. Of course, a lot of mystery stories do rely on horror tropes (or at least, tropes to stir up some tension/excitement), so in a way, it's no wonder Sawamura does a good job at portraying the creepy island of Mukui, without even showing that much of the island/villagers (as the villagers mostly ignore the visitors from outside). The book does a great job at setting atmosphere, especially as it shows you small fragments of local folklore on Mukui Island that seem connected to the villagers' fear of the evil that roams on the mountain, like creepy black idols being placed around houses, supposedly meant to ward off evil. The story also puts the backstory of Yuuko in the interesting context of the boom in popularity in psychics/spirit mediums in the media in the nineties in Japan. We get references to the works of Yokomizo Seishi (the isolated village with its own customs), but also Mitsuda Shinzou and Kyougoku Natsuhiko (local folklore and rituals, and the origins of said folklore) and I was surprised to see this book addressing issues you wouldn't really see in the works of those authors (also has to do with the time period in which this book is set). I really liked some of the points it made regarding this theme, and it worked all really well in the context of this book, both as clues to the main mystery, as well as just painting a surprising background for the prophesized deaths.

As a detective novel, the focus lies not as much on the individual deaths (yes, of course more people than Haruo die), which are committed relatively straightforward, but more on how these deaths tie to a grander mystery, which connects the whole island and the eerie questions about why the villagers are so genuinely afraid of the evil said to lurk in the mountain and the mystery of whether the prophecy will come true or not. A warning here: don't look in the bibliography of this book, because it might tell you more than you want to know in advance, but I do reallly like how Sawamura wrapped up this mystery. I have seen (well, technically listened to) a mystery with a very similar solution before (and with a similar setting and also with ties to folklore...), but the way Sawamura ties this solution convincingly to the unique setting and folklore of Mukui Island, as well as the backstory of the prophecy, and the execution is a lot better than  I had initially expected it to be.

The book sports a marketing slogan stating that the first time you read this book, it's a mystery novel, and the second time it's a horror novel and that honestly really is a great description. While you can read it safely as a straightforward mystery novel, some of the mysteries that are resolved at the end of the book really invite you to read the book a second time, as knowing a certain facts truly changes a lot of the seemingly innocent scenes in the book into something much creepier. Even knowing what is coming.... nay in fact, knowing what is coming really makes this a scary book. In that sense, Yogen no Shima is written and plotted very impressively, being both rewarding as a mystery novel and a horror novel. 

Yogen no Shima is fairly short and could easily have been just a dime a dozen horror novel, but it's a really effective mystery and horror novel, a good example of a piece of simply well executed entertainment media. I believe Sawamura might have written a few more detective stories, so I'll try to find out what the titles are exactly, for this book certainly made me curious to his other mystery output. I don't think this will end up as one of my favorite reads of the whole year, but certain points of this book I will certainly remember for years to come.

Original Japanese title(s): 澤村伊智『予言の島』

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Dead Man's Cavern

"Ragnarok, the end of the Viking world with a terrible winter that covered the Earth in ice, when vile crimes were rampant and all humanity lost."
"Max Payne"

I wonder if at those detective fiction courses at university they actually have locked room murder lectures...

During a holiday, Narumi, the self-proclaimed great detective of the Sealed Door club, invites his fellow member Kakeru (who was recently made his debut as a mystery writer), to go on an adventure together. While Narumi hesitates to tell Kakeru exactly why, they are travelling to a small village deep in the mountains of Gifu called Kagerou Village. When they arrive, they notice a strange church-like building in the middle of the village. They chat a little with the local people there, when they hear a cry coming from the nearby cliff: one of the Jizou statues has toppled on top of her, trapping her legs. Narumi and Kakeru quickly help her, but she then tells them her friend Yasoshima Daisaku fell off the cliff down in the swamp below. There's a dangerous path along the cliff that climbs down to the swamp, so Narumi and Kakeru carefully make their way down to look for Daisaku, who fortunately is safe: he is a firefighter and has experience with this. A tremendous storm starts as they climb up the path however, and it's becoming too dangerous to walk up this way. Daisuku instructs Narumi and Kakeru to find shelter in a cave halfway up the cliff path, while he goes further up to secure a way for them. Narumi and Kakeru are just inside the cave when the ground shakes, causing a cave-in that blocks off the entrance. To their surprise, they find there were more people inside the cave, and as they talk with these people, they learn this cave runs beeneath Kagerou Village and that in recent years, it has actually been converted to a cave hotel: the "church" Narumi and Kakeru had seen above is a wedding venue, and an elevator there goes down to the main part of the cave, which is surrounded by several rooms. The hotel is a somewhat eccentric attempt to attract tourists to the region. They also learn that Daisaku is a local who is to be married soon to Tsugumi, who is one of the people in the cave, as she was being shown around.

The group makes their way back to the main "lobby cave" to take the elevator back up, but when the elevator doors open, they find the nearly deceased Nanako, a local high school student: she's been shot in the cage. When she's asked who did this to her, Nanako points her finger at... Kakeru before she dies. While Narumi can quickly prove it couldn't have been Kakeru who shot her considering they just arrived there, the local people are still a bit suspicious about these two outsiders. They learn the elevator doesn't work anymore and for some reason, there's also no answer when they try the intercom connecting to the wedding venue above, even though there should be people there, and Daisaku should also know they're there. While afraid the murderer might have attacked the people above too, the people below in the cave can only wait, so they stay in the hotel rooms for the night, with Narumi warning everyone to keep their doors locked in case the murderer is still down in the cave, but his warning is not enough to prevent another murder the next morning. When one guest doesn't respond to calls from outside, Narumi and Kakeru try to open the steel door, but are only able to bend it slightly to create a gap, but the gap is enough for them to see the inhabitant is lying dead on the floor. But she has also written something in blood on the floor that seems to point to Kakeru again! Who is the murderer in the cave, and can Kakeru prove this time he really isn't the murderer in Kirisha Takumi's Ragnarok Dou - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Kagerou Numa he ("The Cave of Ragnarok: The Sealed Door Goes to Kagerou Swamp", 2000)?

Ragnarok Dou is the third entry in Takumi Kirisha's Sealed Door series, about the colorful members of a college club specializing in opening sealed doors. Last year, I read the first book in this series, Doppelgänger-kyuu - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Ryuuhyoukan he ("The Doppelgänger Palace - The Sealed Door Club Goes to the Ryuuhou House", 1999), which was also Kirisha's debut work. You might wonder why I skipped the second book and went straight for the third book in the series. Well, like with Summer Apocalypse a few weeks ago, I didn't actually choose this book because it was a book in this series. I was looking for books with dying messages as the theme, so when I learned this book had a dying message lecture, it found a place in the to-be-read pile, despite it meaning I would be reading a series out of order. Again. As always.

So yeah, the theme of the book is dying messages and it might be surprising to learn Narumi, the self-proclaimed great detective, comes up with a dying message lecture fairly early on in the book. While he namedrops Doctor Fell, Nikaido Ranko, Mercator Ayu and Sorachi Masaya as eminent predecessors when it comes to presenting a lecture on a specific trope in mystery fiction (locked rooms, no footprints in the snow, motives for creating locked rooms and alibis, respectively), I do have to say I find Narumi's alibi lecture really original. While I have seen dying message lectures before (disclosure: I translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle), the one in this book is quite original in that because it is about a message: being there's a sender and receiver, this lecture actually consists of two seperate sections (chapters). In the first Narumi presents a categorization of the type of dying messages a victim may leave behind to denounce the murderer (writing, oral, etc.), so the medium of the message, while in the second part, the lecture goes in detail about why said message might be misinterpreted/not understood (so the signife of the message). But what I liked especially about this lecture, is that it is in fact not just a fourth wall-breaking moment, or just two chapters where Kirisha shows he has done his homework and to provide the reader with context to understand how his twist on the dying message in this book will work. While I can't give details because it spoils one of the cleverest elements of this book, Narumi actually has a fantastic reason to actually be holding a lecture about dying messages, and it's precisely because he does this, they're in the end able to solve the case. Narumi might be a self-proclaimed detective, but.... he's actually truly a very clever detective, who in every other series would have been the protagonist. Narumi's just not lucky here, as the club president Godou is just a little bit smarter than Narumi (though less active). At any rate, I have seldom seen a lecture in a mystery story used in such a clever way in-universe, and that alone makes this worth a read, I think.

As the proper cave entrance is blocked and the elevator broken, the people in the cave hotel find themselves in a closed circle situation, but an odd one, as at first, there's no reason to believe the murderer is still in the cave, and it in fact seems more likely the murderer is on the surface, having shot Nanako and then sending the elevator down. The pistol used to kill Nanako is believed to be the one that should have been enshrined in the shrine in the cave: it used to belong to a World War II pilot who crashed in the swamp. But if the murderer did go up, how come a second murder occured in one of the hotel rooms? The door was locked from the inside, and because it's a steel door with a very sturdy, submarine-esque turn-dial lock, Narumi and Kakeru can't even force the door open with a steel bar, only able to open a minor gap through which they could confirm the victim died. As the story progresses, more people are of course killed in the cave. Meanwhile, everyone is also worried about the people above, for Daisaku and other people should know people are trapped in the cave hotel (especially Daisaku, as his soon-to-be-wife Tsugumi is one of the people there!) and Daisaku's a firefighter who told Narumi and Kakeru he'd inform the rescue unit, but why is nobody coming to their rescue? This leads to a lot of speculation on Narumi's part, and it's here where the book kinda repeats some of the... I wouldn't call them faults per se, but it's definitely something that stood out when I read the first book.

For like the first book, this book does feature a large cast of characters like many closed circle murder mysteries... but the narrative is mainly focused on the recurring characters, in this case Narumi and Kakeru, and later other club members after everyone is rescued and they go over the case again to try and solve it. Most of the book revolves mainly around discussions between just the recurring cast as they go over theories and discuss what they could do next, and the side characters that only appear in this book barely get anything to say before they die. The worst example of this is Nanako, who appears as a dead person right away, and we hear some characters lament her death, but we don't actually hear about how they know Nanako, who she is, and why she was in the elevator or anything. She's just there, dead. Only much later you hear a throwaway line about how one character knew Nanako exactly. This happens with other parts of the story too, where you don't really understand what their role is and how character X knows character Y, because the story is focused on Narumi and Kakeru chatting among themselves, instead of with others. It does allow the story to focus on a lot of the detective plot, as Kakeru and Narumi obviously talk about the ongoing case, but some of the puzzle pieces remain vague because you don't hear the other characters speak up too often. And while I do think the members of the Sealed Door club are fun and their banter does mean we get intelligent, genre-savvy discussions regarding the mystery, like the first book, you do feel some of the other characters should have given more speaking lines to flesh out the mystery more.

As for the mystery itself.... it's really dense! You have multiple dying messages (in the broad sense of the meaning, so writing, gestures, in-actions etc.), a locked room murder, long deduction chains about how the murderer must have been moving both on the surface and in the cave, and while I do think sometimes feel a bit chaotic, ultimately, I think it worked out pretty well. The solution to the locked room isn't that interesting to be honest, and the closed circle situation is resolved in a rather easy manner, but the deductions regarding the dying messages and the reasoning chains that point to the murderer are more memorable, and they work really well in conjuction with the aforementioned dying message lecture. Parts of the backstory of the shrine in the cave, which ties directly to the motive, are interesting ideas, though it's debatable about how "fair" it was presented and at times, this backstory goes pretty weird ways: I wouldn't have found the revelations here in any way weird had this been for example a Nikaidou Reito novel, but this being my second book in the series, I hadn't quite expected Kirisha to tell us this kind of backstory. This is an element I think could have been worked out in more detail to feel both more shocking, but also less... coming out of nowhere. 

The book also provides some more insight into the history of the Sealed Door club and why club president Godou started the club, which likely will tie to the final, fourth book in the series, I assume. These books are easy and fun enough to read, so I will eventually get there, not sure whether I will read the second book first, or the last one though.

Ragnarok Dou - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Kagerou Numa he is a fun mystery novel that does some original things via its dying message lecture, and for that alone, I think this is worth a read. Like the first book, it's a story that focuses a lot on the recurring characters and often has a comedic tone to it, so like many character-focused mysteries, it's pretty easy to get into, and while because of that focus, I do feel the mystery isn't presented as strongly as it could be, overall, I do always end up enjoying these books. Solid entry, and I'll be sure to read the other two books in the series too.

Original Japanese title(s): 霧舎巧『ラグナロク洞 《あかずの扉》研究会影郎沼へ』

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

The Mystery of the Yellow Room

もしも 生まれ変わっても また私に生まれたい 
この体と この色で 生き抜いてきたんだから 
「Yellow Yellow Happy」(ポケットビスケッツ)
 
If I would be born again, I want to be born as myself again
Because I have survived in this body and this color until now
"Yellow Yellow Happy" (Pocket Bisquits)

No, this book is not set in a place where rocks levitate...

It has been three years since the traumatic events at Katsuragi Teruyoshi's family home, and now the great detective and his best friends Tadokoro Shinya and Mitani Rokurou are all studying at different universities, all having an idea of their future. They still see each other often, but they have not travelled together in ages, however, exceptions are made for special occassions: Katsuragi and Tadokoro have received a letter from Asukai Hikaru, the former high school student detective whom Tadokoro looked up to when he was young. A few years ago, Katsuragi and Tadokoro met her, now in her late twenties and working as an insurance agent, at the house of  mystery author Takarada Yuuzan, where they were confronted with a horrible murder. Katsuragi and Hikaru had clashed about their views about what a detective is, so Katsuragi and Tadakoro are surprised to learn she had written them a letter. She informs them she's going to be married to Dotou Kouki, the son of Dotou Raizou, the world famous multi-disciplinary artist, especially known for his paintings, sculptures and architecture. While Kouki is "a normal guy", his sisters have inherited their father's artistic talent, with Yukie being an accomplished illustrator, Tsukiyo a sculpter and Kanon a singer. Because of Kouki and Hikaru's engagement, they're going to have a rare gathering on the last day of the year at Raizou's home the Wasteland Manor: a house with four towers Raizou himself designed, located in what is basically a small, square valley, with the house surrounded completely by four rock walls. 

Raizou turns out to be a friend of Takarada Yuuzan, who has passed away since. It was Raizou who designed the house of Yuuzan, and in exchange, Yuuzan had written a mystery novel set in Raizou's home. It is this unpublished manuscript that worries Hikaru, prompting her to contact Katsuragi and Tadokoro. It appears Hikaru's presence at Yuuzan's manor three years ago had not been a coincidence, but set-up by Yuuzan, and she fears she's being manipulated again by this unpublished manuscript of Yuuzan. She hopes Katsuragi and Tadokoro will come to the house, as her "relatives" and see if they can get their hands on the manuscript and see what is hidden within the pages. Katsuragi has no intention of meeting Asukai again, but he agrees to at least join Tadokoro and Mitani on their way to the house. The three young men meet with Hikaru and Kouki outside the house to discuss what they'll do, but then they are surprised by a heavy earthquake. While they are all unharmed, the road has collapsed and trees have fallen on the road, blocking it completely. Very conveniently, Katsuragi alone finds himself on the outside world side of the road, while the rest are now trapped on the house-side of the road. Katsuragi says he'll go to the nearby town and stay there, while Tadokoro and Mitani will go with Hikaru and Kouki as planned. 

Things soon take a turn for the worse however. Tadokoro and Mitani are introduced to the rest of the family (as well as two other guests), though none of the Dotous seem very interested in them. Everyone is shocked to learn they have been cut off from the outside world, but they have enough supplies to last for about four days. And while there are occasional aftershocks, the house itself is sturdy enough to withstand the violent movements. However, the following day, patriarch Raizou is found dead in the courtyard of the house: the elderly man has been shish-kebab'd on a statue of a knight holding a sword up high and what's more: the murderer has left no footprints in the wet garden. When they go looking for Yuuzan's unpublished manuscript in Raizou's room, they find someone has taken it: is it a coincidence a manuscript about a murder case happening in this house is now missing? Meanwhile, Katsuragi has barely managed to find a room in the only inn in town, which is swarming due to the sudden earthquake and trains not running anymore. His attention is soon drawn to his roommate Ogasawara Tsuneharu, who is acting rather suspicious. Of course, Katsuragi has no way to know that Ogasawara is planning to kill the proprietor of the inn: not because he has a motive to kill her, but some hours ago, Ogasawara had agreed to do a murder exchange: when he was not able to go to Raizou's home due to the road collapse and fallen trees, a woman called out to him from the other side of the blocked road, who offered to kill Raizou for him, if he instead kills the inn proprietor for her. Can Katsuragi and Hikaru solve all the crimes happening in and outside the house in Atsukawa Tatsumi's Koudokan no Satsujin ("The Murder in the Earthy Yellow Manor" 2023)?

This is the third book in the series which now bears the name Manor Quartet, which obviously suggest this series will be four parts in total. The first book had fire and the summer as its theme, the second water and autumn and this third book revolves around earth and winter. So yes, that suggest the final book's theme will be wind (air) in the spring. A murder in a house during a typhoon? Anyway, I enjoyed the previous two books about Katsuragi, the young detective who has the ability to sense people lying to him, and while I had not read the premise of the book before, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Asukai Hikaru from the first book returned too in a prominent role, so once I got started with this book, I had gone through it really fast.

The book takes on a rather interesting structure: the first third of the book is actually an inverted mystery: we follow Ogasawara Tsuneharu as he makes his way to the Wasteland Manor to kill Raizou, whom he hates for a very personal reason, only to find the road collapsed and blocked by fallen trees. When he grumbles out loud he now can't kill Raizou now, a woman calls out to him from the other side of the road. While they can't see each other, she offers to kill Raizou instead of him, if he then kills the propriator of the local inn. The woman suggest she'll kill Raizou first and use a flare signal so Ogasawara will know she has succeeded in her task, after which he'll kill the proprietor. Ogasawara accepts the offer for a murder exchange, and arrives at the inn, but can only stay he shares a room with Katsuragi. And so Ogasawara slowly starts to plan his murder (luckily, he was already planning to kill Raizou so he has things like poison with him). But as this is an inverted detective, we of course see how Katsuragi slowly starts to suspect his roommate isn't just some innocent guest. But how did he figure it out? This part is fairly short, but I do like the clewing Atsukawa employed to allow Katsuragi to get on the trail of Ogasawara. We know Katsuragi starts to have his suspicions very early on, but the clues that allowed him to zero on his roommate are fairly clever hidden. In the aftermath, Katsuragi learns about the murder exchange, finally realizing his friends Tadokoro and Mitani may be in danger, as there's a murderer in Wasteland House. 

At this point, the book jumps back to the last day of the year, and we now follow Tadokoro, who together with Mitani visit the Wasteland House. Kouki's sisters Yukie, Tsukiyo and Kanon seem not interested in the two men, nor are the two other guests (an art broker and Kanon's manager), but Raizou himself seems interested in Tadokoro, as Raizou is aware Tadokoro and Katsuragi where involved in the incident in the house of his friend Yuuzan, and Raizou also seems more interested in Hikaru's past as a high school student detective, rather than as his future daughter-in-law. The following day however, the man is found dangling from the sword of the knight statue in the courtyard, but how could anyone have lifted the victim and stabbed him on a five-metre high sculpture? As there's no landline phone and for some reasons, their mobiles don't have any reception, all they can do is wait until the road's been restored or outside help comes via some other way, but they don't have much time, as more mysterious happenings occur, from sightings of a masked butler who can escape from a tower room with only entrance even though they were being chased by Tadokoro and someone being shot inside another tower room, even though it was locked from inside and the only window in the room looks out... on a rock wall. With Katsuragi not present, and Asukai Hikaru having sworn off ever playing detective ever again, Watson Tadokoro finds himself forced to be the Holmes himself this time...

In Gurenkan no Satsujin and Aomikan no Satsujin, the respective themes of a mountain fire, and a flooded river added a note of excitement to the mystery: like Ellery in The Siamese Twin Mystery, it wasn't just that Katsuragi and Tadokoro found them having to deal with a musterious murder committed in a house, they also had to deal with an unstoppable force of nature, a force that also had its influence on the murders. In Koudokan no Satsujin, we have one major earthquake at the very start of the book, followed by unpredictable aftershocks, but I have to admit I found the theme not as strong here as in the previous books. The initial earthquake creates the closed circle setting, and also sets up the murder exchange, but from that point on, we just have aftershocks happening now and then. They don't really serve as a constant threat, as they come and go swiftly, and it's not like you can predict them. The earthquakes are not a theme that permeate throughout the novel, only popping up now and then, so that kinda weakens the "earth" theme, even if the couple of themes they do feature in the mysteries, they are integrated cleverly.

 What you can't accuse Atsukawa of, is him skimping on the mysteries though. We have Raizou skewered on a sword in the courtyard, even though there are no footprints left in the courtyard, even though rain had softened the ground last night. We have masked butlers being chased into rooms with only one entrance and disappearing from those rooms. We have a body which appears in a room, even though everyone has an alibi for the time between the discovery of the body, and the last time people visited the room, and many more. What I do like is that a lot of these mysteries do share a common thread, used in a few ways. I have to admit I have read so many of these books by now, I found the big trick a bit easy to guess because I have seen similar ideas quite often, but the execution is well-clewed and because Atsukawa utilized the idea in various ways, it feels fairly substantial, rather than a one-trick pony. The earthquakes in return are featured now and then in the mystery, for example forcing the murderer to do something in a certain manner, or the earthquake creating an unforeseen situation for everyone. As mentioned before, the synergy between this 'force of nature' theme and the mystery isn't as prominent as I had hoped, but when it's done, it definitely presents interesting parts of the mystery.

That said, I do find the whodunnit rather disappointing. The first part is an inverted mystery, so of course who the culprit is, but Ogasawara himself never learns who his partner in crime is, so we don't know who the murderer inside the house is. However, the way Atsukawa planted the clues to point to the murderer are a bit too obvious. While from an in-universe point of view, it makes sense it takes some time for the detectives on both sides to catch up as you need information obtained from both in and outside the house to solve everything, it doesn't mean the reader isn't already in possession of that knowledge, and it makes the attempts to present false solutions feel a bit weak, as you know the big elephant in the room hasn't been addressed yet. 

Overall though, I do like how this book is set three years after the previous books, with a more mature Katsuragi Teruyoshi who has learned to deal with his trauma gained in the previous two books, and we see how that also helps Asukai Hikaru, who has her own trauma. I'm not really that interested in character development, but for those looking for that in a detective character, you can definitely find it in this series, and what I do like is how Katsuragi's character does influence his detecting style a lot: it's his experiences that leads him to act like he does now as a detective, so in that sense, I do like seeing the change in him, as it's directly reflected in the way the mystery is plotted and how Atsukawa decides to have the story solved.

Koudokan no Satsujin is overall a solid third entry. While the earth theme isn't as strongly present here as the force of nature themes in the previous two books and it is overall a bit simpler, I do like the twists Atsukawa presents here, like having an inverted mystery section, and focusing on basically three detective figures in Katsuragi, Hikaru and Tadokoro. Can't wait to see how the last volume will wrap things up!

Original Japanese title(s):阿津川辰海『黄土館の殺人』

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

The Labyrinth Seduction

"There is no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one."
"Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings"

I wasn't aware the full title of this book was so long until I started writing this review...

Shizuku is a detective. At least, she plays one, in the virtual reality MMORPG Alfheim Online. As "Spica", she has her own detective agency, with even her very own Watson (her childhood friend, and narrator Endou). In reality, she has never ever taken a case, and the two just hang out in the office every day after school, but don't say that out loud in front of Spica. One day, the narrator finds a mysterious object in his inventory: he has no memories of ever picking up such an item, so how could it have been added to his inventory? When the two take a look at the diary, they realize they have in their possession an impossible object. For this diary purports to be written by a player of the VR MMORPG Sword Art Online, and written within SAO. Which is impossible: Sword Art Online was the infamous brainchild of Kayaba Akihiko, who made a revolutionary virtual game system with a helmet that stimulates all 5 senses, but when the game launched, the players found themselves trapped inside Sword Art Online by Kayaba. Players were unable to log out and they were told that if they died in-game, the helmet would also kill them in real-life, which would also happen if someone tried to forcibly log them out by messing with the hardware. In the end, players did manage to beat the game and escape, but many of the players had suffered deaths in the meantime. After the game was beaten, most of the data of Sword Art Online and all the records of what happened within the world was deleted however. The in-game world was completely lost, though the very basics of the system survived, allowing the creation of the (safer) Alfheim Online as a spiritual successor. So how could Spica and the narrator now have a diary that was written by one of the players in Sword Art Online during that period, and how did it appear in Alfheim Online?

The diary itself is written by a player called Jason, who is the leader of a party called the Argonauts. While they are fairly powerful, they are not strong enough to be leading the attempt to clear all 100 floors of Sword Art Online. The Argonauts however do fulfill an important role. Because the frontline parties try to clear each floor as quickly as possible, they are not able to explore each floor completely. Parties like the Argonauts are active a few floors behind the frontline parties and help explore every corner of each floor, because they might find hidden equipment, items or hints that may help the frontline parties. It is during one of these exploration missions Jason, and his comrades Orpheus, Hercules, Asklepios, Atalanta and Caenis find themselves transported in an underground labyrinth. While they explore the place, they are suddenly attacked by a menacing Blind Minotaur. While the party display fantastic teamwork, they soon realize that the Blind Minotaur is faaaaar more powerful than they are, and they are hardly able to chip off even a little of his hit points. As a hopeless battle, all they can do is flee, and then soon learn that they are safe if they manage to stay inside one of the few rooms in the labyrinth and keep the door closed, as the Minotaur is not able to get inside "uninvited." The Argonauts try to find a way out, but run into a different party who just made it here: the Legendary Heroes consist of Arthur, Evelyn, Rocky, Azrael, Mark and Omega, but unlike the Argonauts, it's clear this party isn't really a team, and their whole strategy revolves around Arthur alone. The two parties don't really trust each other, and decide to try to find a way out on their own, while avoiding the Blind Minotaur, who seems to have a set pattern of appearing from an underground lair once in a while and then return again. However, the Argonauts are later contacted by the Legendary Heroes with shocking news: it appears Arthur had gone out into the labyrinth on his own during the night, and was killed by the Blind Minotaur (something his party members can see "on screen" happen, as you can always check a party member's hit points and status). There are however suspicious points to Arthur's death, as why did he sneak out in the night and why would he try to take on the Minotaur alone? The two parties agree to find a way out together, and they suspect this dungeon isn't about beating the Blind Minotaur, but finding some kind of secret that solves the dungeon, but while they are trying, more and more people are killed, and they soon start to realize some of these deaths weren't commited by the Minotaur, but one of their own. But why?

As long as it's a mystery, I'm interested, so I occasionally consume mystery media based on IPs I don't even know or have ever seen/read. In the past I have for example discussed the Fate/Grand Order mystery novels by Van Madoy, even though I don't play the game and have still not ever played any of the Fate games or seen any of the anime series. I also originally had no interest in watching Oppenheimer, until someone told me you could totally watch it as a mystery film, and... he was right. So when I learned Konno Tenryuu had written a mystery novel for Sword Art Online, the franchise based on the light novels by Kawahara Reki. I was immediately interested, even though I have not seen or read the series. Yes, I know it's really popular, but I'm from the generation where "an isekai series of a boy having to clear floors to beat a RPG-like world" equals Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. Anyway, I have read a few of Konno's books too, many of them dealing with fantasy elements, and I like his work, so I knew I wanted to read Sword Art Online Alternative: Mystery Labyrinth - Meikyuukan no Satsujin (2023), or as the cover also says: Murder in the Labyrinth Pavillion.

I can at least say that even with zero prior knowledge of the Sword Art Online franchise, this was pretty accessible. It is, as far as I know, not directly connected to any events from the series, and is mostly a standalone story, though it is set after the original Sword Art Online was beaten, so the first series/book. The mystery plays at two levels, the series of murders that occur in the Labyrinth Pavillion dungeon and the parties' attempts at finding an exit out of the maze, and a meta-mystery where Spica and the narrator try to figure out how this diary could've made it out of Sword Art Online, a world that has been destroyed, and into Alfheim Online.


The murders in the Labyrinth Pavillion are of course the meat of the mystery and I found it highly entertaining. Konno does a great job at actually incorporating the game-element of Sword Art Online to create highly original mysteries, that are truly only possible in such a setting. For example, we have characters witnessing a murder and learning the exact time of a death not because they seeing the death with their own eyes, but because they can see their party member's HP bar dropping in the party member status screen: where else could you ever see such a way to establish a time of death and alibis for the suspects!? Other cool things are how there are no corpses in the world of Sword Art Online, with the player's body simply disappearing from the game world if they are killed, though they do leave whatever they have equiped at the time, again opening up possibilities for shenanigans as the murderer doesn't have to deal with hiding bodies. As a closed circle setting, the Labyrinth Pavillion is also interesting, as the rules of the game make it a place you can't easily get in or out to, making it a very convincing confined location. Add in the rules of how many people can stay in a room and how you have to invite people inside, and the characteristics of the Blind Minotaur (the players slowly learn its attack and reaction patterns through their various encounters, which again tells them how the Minotaur could've been used to faciliate the murders) and you end up with a novel that is just fun to read because you're constantly confronted with new ways to present a mystery due to the unique setting. Clever things are done here, and the fact the Blind Minotaur (a force of nature/a game enemy) is used as a "murder weapon" is of course also really interesting. The motive for the murders is also rather unique to this series: while I don't think it's completely convincing, I do think Konno did a great job at really making this a motive that works in Sword Art Online. The one thing that didn't really work for me was solution to beating the Labyrinth Pavillion: that part of the mystery is just too farfetched, and nobody would be ever able to solve such a puzzle...

Meanwhile, the meta-mystery at the Alfheim Online level is probably easier to guess, as Spica seems to know what the trick is from a very early stage and gives out hints. The answer might seem a bit predictable once you reach about the middle of the book, but overall, I think it provides a nice side-story to Sword Art Online, being completely seperate of the main story, but still firmly set within that world. It probably helps the book was based on an idea by series creator Kawahara, and also supervised by him!

So even without ever having seen any Sword Art Online, I can safely say Sword Art Online Alternative: Mystery Labyrinth - Meikyuukan no Satsujin is a fun mystery novel, that makes great use of its VR MMORPG setting to present a mystery with elements you won't find in other mystery novels. It is a book that fully utilizes the fact it is based on an existing IP, building on the story and rules of the franchise, yet at the same time is not at all dependent on the main story. It's really impressive what Konno managed to do here in that sense.

Original Japanese title(s): 川原礫(草案・監修)、 紺野天龍『ソードアート・オンライン オルタナティブ ミステリ・ラビリンス 迷宮館の殺人』

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

The Case of the Seven Bells

"Blue flowers are fatal to you - remember that."
"The Blue Geranium"

This is one cover that probably looks a lot better in full-size printed on actual paper than as a small thumbnail on your screen...

The Demon God has been defeated and sealed away, but can not be killed. The Demon God will inevitably rise again, but the Goddess of Fate watches over the world, and when the Demon God starts to wake again, six heroes will awaken in the world, destined to seal the Demon God again. Each generation, warriors hoping to become a destined hero undergo a ceremony to present themselves as a candidate, and when the time comes, six of these people will receive the mark of the hero somewhere on their body in the shape of a flower's petal. Because nobody knows exactly when this happens, the six heroes who are awakened might all be in different corners of the world when their call for duty comes, so it is a rule for the Six Heroes of the Flower to make their way to a designated spot near the seal of the Demon God within a month, where they will gather and then set out to fight the evil again, while monsters and other minions of the Demon God will of course attempt to fight the heroes off. Adlet, a cocky young man who boasts to be the strongest man in the world and has absolute confidence he will be chosen as a hero, really turns out to be a hero when a flower mark appears on his body. There is the small problem of him being in prison now, but Nashetania, the princess of Piena and the Saint of Blades, which grants her the power to conjure swords out of nowhere, releases Adlet out of the Piena prison as she reveals she too is a hero. The two travel to the rendez-vous point, fighting against demons together as they make their way there. They end up with a motley crew, from the assassin Hans to Mora, head of all Saints and Goldof, a personal knight to Nashetania. But there's also Fremy, someone who until recently had actually been killing off potential heroes, but is now chosen as one of them. But when the heroes arrive at the temple where they are supposed to gather, a trap is set by the evil legions bent on holding them off until the Demon God revives again: a magical mist field that had been set standby around this temple has been activated. The mist messes with the sense of direction of everyone inside it, making it impossible for them to actually walk out of the covered area. It was originally intended to trap demons there, so the heroes could head towards the Demon God, but now this trap has been used to trap the heroes themselves in the mist field, making it impossible for them to wander far away from the temple. But what is even more distressing is the realization, there are not six heroes here, but seven! There have always been only six heroes, so they soon realize one of them must be a fake sent by the demons, and that this fake must have used the trap to capture all heroes, but which of them is the fake? They all carry the mark of the hero, but unless they quickly find out who the imposter is and force them them to lift the mist field, the Demon God will rise and take over the world. The six heroes can fight, but can they also think  their way out of this obstable in Yamagata Ishio's Rokka no Yuusha ("Heroes of the Six Flowers" 2011), also known as Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers

Rokka no Yuusha is a light novel series by Yamagata Ishio and featuring illustrations by Miyagi, with the main series being 6 volumes long running from 2011 until 2015, and was followed up by one additional extra volume one year later. There has been a manga and anime adaptation, and the books have also been released in the United States, so imagine quite some people are actually already aware of this series one way or another. I had known about the series for some while, but it took me quite some time to finally get started on it. I have read a few other mystery novels set in a fantasy setting, like Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer, Isekai no Meitantei, RPG School and Seijo Victoria no Kousatsu, but I always interested in seeing more, and Rokka no Yuusha in particular is so widely available, I knew I had to get started on it sooner or later.

As one would expect, the book starts out focusing more on the fantasy elements, first presenting the story of the Demon God reviving, the legend of the six heroes awakening, and then telling the story of Adlet, the young, over-confident protagonist who never even doubts he will be chosen as a hero, and who only dreams of becoming one and fighting the Demon God with his comrades. The first half is very, very focused on the "gathering of the heroes" part, and if you're here just for the mystery, you'll have to be patient, as this part is pretty stereotypical, with heroes slowly gathering and meeting each other, some of the heroes being typical hero-like characters and others who might not seem fit to be a Hero of the Flower initially. It's only in the second half the book really starts to focus on the mystery, when the heroes have arrived at the temple from which the magic mist field can be started. Someone starts the field while the heroes are still there, even though it was supposed to be activated after the heroes had left the area, so now they are all trapped, and they realize that seven heroes have gathered at the temple instead of six, meaning one of them has to be an imposter, likely someone sent by the demons to stop the heroes from reaching the Demon God.

Some of the heroes already know each other, others have more shady backgrounds, and even someone being well-known is no guarantee they are indeed a hero chosen by fate, so the deductions actually do end up being based on very "normal" evidence like testimonies and witness accounts, but even so, even after the plot shifts to the mystery, it does take some time for the story to focus on that. Partially because the book also presents a lot of combat: when in a "normal" detective story people start accusing each other of being the culprit, you might see some fighting, but obviously, fighting in a fantasy setting, with people being able to wield magic or are obviously superhumanly powered, is a tad different. At some point, Adlet ends up being suspected as the imposter, and as everyone thinks killing him is the way to lift the mist field, he has to fight off and flee from his fellow heroes as he tries to figure out who then is the real imposter. Lots of action here, and if you have ever read a shounen battle manga, you probably know what to expect from these fights, and how they are also used to help flesh out and delve deeper into the characters.

When it comes down to the mystery, it was... well, I have to admit, because the book ultimately did not focus very strongly on the mystery of who activated the mist field due to the many fights, and it seemed more intent on just dwelling on the "there's a seventh hero!" surprise mystery, I was getting a bit worried, but there are certainly parts regarding the mystery that are actually cleverly set in the world of Rokka no Yuusha (a fantasy world) and could only work there. Adlet 's main concern is that he arrived at the temple first which was locked from the inside, but saw nobody in the temple activate the mist field (making him the main suspect as the self-proclaimed first on the scene) and some parts of the trick behind how the imposter managed to activate the field even though the room was sealed are both foreshadowed and hidden well. I think some more focus on for example the working of magic and other world-specific "rules" would have helped faciliate the trick a bit better, but it was certainly better than I had started to fear. The motive behind the deed is a lot less memorable, it kinda comes out of nowhere, and because Rokka no Yuusha is a series, the problem is barely resolved in this first book: yes, they identify the culprit, but they have not gotten one step closer to fighting the Demon God, and the book actually ends on a cliffhanger by throwing another surprise at the reader at the very end, so as a standalone book, it offers an okay mystery, that is however just a small part of the whole story. And depending on how invested you are in the main story, the mystery is not 'big' enough to really keep you entertained all the time.

And that's the point I am now at. The first volume of Rokka no Yuusha, which corresponds with the contents of the anime series, has an okay mystery in it, but it's at least equal parts fantasy action and it's also just a minor part of a bigger story that is not even close to being resolved in the first volume. I don't think I am invested enough in the story to want to read the rest too, at least not now, and I also have no idea what kind of mysteries the next novels will throw at you (the cliffhanger kinda has me worried to be honest, though I can only hope it's not really to going to do that in the second volume). It's worth a look at if you want to read a fantasy mystery novel, but be aware the mystery element is fairly light and that it is just the prologue to a larger story.

Original Japanese title(s): 山形石雄『六花の勇者』