The Problem of the Ghost Woman

It is indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow,plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke　from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an immense　chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming,　boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream　onward over its jagged lip.

"The Final Problem" 

Now I think about it, having a waterfall right behind your school is probably not that safe. Sure, high school students aren't stupid, but still, something is bound to happen sooner or later...

Shiotani Ken's Meitantei Futabi (2025) also has the English title The Return of The Great Detective (well, technically it's The Return of Great Detective) and indeed, the book is about the legend of a great detective is given new life again. The Raihen Academy for Girls offers free schooling and accomodations for the family members of those who have contributed to the school's long history, and nobody has contributed more to the safety and reputation of Raihen than the legendary great detective Tokiya Yuu: she was a student at the school in the early 1990s, who solved many incidents that occured at Raihen. While they started out as minor incidents, things soon escalated to even murder. Yuu eventually figured out there was a mastermind behind all these crimes: Yuu confronted the mastermind at the waterfall behind the school and in the subsequent struggle, both fell down, with Yuu's remains never recovered. Tokiya Shou had never heard specific stories about her great-aunt, which is why she's surprised to learn she gets to study at the prestigious Raihen Academy for free. When she arrives at the school, she's welcomed as if she were a princess, as for Raihen, Yuu was indeed a queen. In fact, the dorm director was a student at Raihen herself in the early 1990s and assisted Yuu. Shou becomes classmates with Mima Shizuka, president of the newspaper club with a knack for making up stories. Shou is first shown around the school, which has memorial plates for Yuu all over the place, commemorating the various incidents she solved, like the mystery of the unconcious student in the communal bathroom or the murder of a student in the art room. 

The rumors of Shou, a relative of Yuu, soon spreads across the school, and it doesn't take long for a student to ask Shou for help. She recently got a polaroid camera, and while playing around with it, she and her friends took risqué pictures of each other in the bathroom while getting undressed. However, after they had their bath, they found the pictures missing, and now she got a blackmail letter with one of the stolen pictures, demanding for money. The victim rather not have the police involved, which is why she wants Shou to help. The problem: Shou isn't any good as a detective. Of course, just because your great-aunt happens to be a great detective, doesn't you are, but Shou can't say no, and ends up accepting the request. Out of her wits, Shou strolls to the waterfall where her great-aunt met her end and to her great surprise.... a ghost appears! The ghost agrees to help Shou and act as an armchair detective for her, if Shou helps gather her remains and properly bury her, so her spirit can finally pass on to the life beyond. The case is soon solved, earning Shou a reputation as a great detective herself, but then more incidents start to happen at Raihen, and another figure who saw Yuu's ghost, starts plotting against Shou...

It's of course no coincidence the school's called Raihen (Reichenbach) and that the great detective and her nemesis both died falling down a waterfall. The book's not designed as a Sherlock Holmes pastische though, nor are there really meaningful references to Holmes canon beyond these ones, so you don't need any knowledge of Holmes to enjoy this book. The book is structured as a connected short story collection, where Shou is confronted with ever-escalating cases during her time studying at Raihen, culminating in a grand finale involving both her great-aunt and her nemesis. One thing I have to mention first is how different this book is than Hakushaku to Mittsu no Hitsugi ("The Count and the Three Coffins"), the only other book by Shiotani Ken I have read at this point. That book was a historical epic with drama and tragedy like a Dumas novel, while this is a fairly light-hearted, comedic short story collection set at a girls' high school. Shiotani Ken does like using unusual settings/ideas though, and that's what we do have here too: Shou being helped by an armchair detective ghost each time, all just to maintain her reputation as a great detective herself (or as her excuse goes to keep the family name high). This device has some parallels to how Conan feeds Mouri his answers to maintain the Sleeping Kogorou's reputation high, only in this case, Shou herself wants to be fed all the answers, as she genuinely isn't smart enough to solve the crimes herself (though she does get "educated" as a great detective herself slowly but surely over the course of the book).

While I do describe this book as a short story collection, the individual mysteries are not titled as "stories", but as "chapters" in a novel, so I guess they do want to present this as a novel rather than a story collection. Anyway, the first story involves the stolen polaroids, with the mystery revolving around who could have stolen the polaroids and how: the only persons to know about the pictures are the group of four who took the pictures in the first place, but the pictures had been put in a locker while they were in the bathroom, and nobody had the pictures on them when they left, so the theft was impossible. This is a fairly short mystery, as it is also used to explain how Shou first went to the waterfall and stumbled upon the ghost, but it is a fairly well-constructed, if simple mystery, doing what you usually expect of an impossible heist story (offering multiple false solutions, offering a true solution that builds cleverly on the discarded false ones). The banter between Shou and all the other school girls is really fun though: not only with her roommate Shizuka (who's a bit insane when it comes to wanting to find a scoop and has no qualms about making things a bit more spicier in her articles), but also with her ghostly mentor, as she too is basically just a high school student who likes to chat about ordinary life (or at least, the ordinary life she saw pass by ever since she became a ghost). The second story is about an assault on an art student that occured in a classroom that could only be accessed via another classroom, that was occupied by the art club at the moment. Again, a seemingly impossible crime, and while I didn't like this mystery on its own that much, I loved how it really built on the previous story, as it showed the previous story had real consequences for the student life at Raihen Academy, making people act and think differently. 

The third story in turn has the first murder: members of the newspaper clubs of several school are invited to the house of an alumnus of one of the clubs. It's supposed to be a kind of training camp to hone the journalistic skills of the members, but Mima Shizuka, who had attended last year too, knows the organizer just uses this occassion to vent his frustrations on the current club members by completely roasting their writings. During the snowy evening, the girls sleep together in the storehouse of the manor, which can only be locked from the outside (as it's not meant to be lived in). During the night however, the organizer is found dead in the courtyard, his head bashed in. The only footprints left in the snow in the courtyard however belong to the victim, with no footprints of the murderer. The victim was furthermore found near the window of a room of the annex, where the guests were sleeping, but the windows on that side can't be opened, so the occupant of that room couldn't have hit the man either. Shou is asked to look into the case, not only because of her roommates involvement, but her uncle, a police inspector, is also on the case and has heard of the exploits of his niece. This is quite an elaborate story, that is great at using the various moving parts of the story (characters) to create a seemingly impossible mystery. The reason why the murderer ended up dead in the courtyard is a bit silly, but well-clewed and the way the culprit created the footprint mystery isn't per se that impressive method-wise, but very convincing motive-wise.

Up until this point, the stories also saw short intermezzos told from the POV of a character, who has also seen Tokiya Yuu's ghost herself, and has deduced that Shou is actually getting assistance from Yuu in solving the mysteries. This person however absolutely hates what Shou's doing, so they set a trap for Shou.

Shou, her uncle, the dorm director and some of Shou's allies have gathered, because they have realized the incidents Shou has been involved with, mirror those Tokiya Yuu solved during her time at Raihen. Yuu at the time deduced a mastermind "M" had been orchestrating all these crimes, and she died during her confrontation with M. It is now suspected a new mastermind has also been behind all the crimes Shou has been involved with. During their meeting however, Shizuka keels over after drinking her tea. A message is then delivered to the room: the tea cups have been poisoned and the door has been locked, with no way to call for help. The only way to open the door and get help for Shizuka, is if Shou drinks one of the cups: only one will not kill her. With no way to go to the waterfall to get help, can Shou manage to solve this mystery herself? The story feels a bit like a Liar Game game, where Shou has to deduce which of the cups is safe to drink (with a lot "if they think I think they think..." type of thoughts). The solution is simple yet elegant, and the story moves right to the finale, where Shou is confronted with the mastermind behind all the crimes and the truth behind the death of her great-aunt. This part of the mystery is elegantly clewed, with great foreshadowing planted throughout the various adventures to build up to this Reichenbach Falls-esque finale. Unfortunately, I already knew a bit how this finale would end up, because I happened to have met the editor of the book who kinda spoiled it to me, but despite my prior knowledge, I did think the mystery was constructed very neatly.

So while Meitantei Futatabi is not at all like the historical epic drama that was Hakushaku to Mittsu no Hitsugi, I did greatly enjoy the book: it's a fun, light-hearted school mystery (the sometimes venomous banter between Shou and her ghostly mentor is especially a highlight) with a clear, overarching story that manages to achieve exactly what it sets out to do. The individual mysteries are often fairly short, but competently constructed and the overall storyline, with Shou slowly growing into a detective herself, is satisfying. This is a great book to read between heavier stuff.

Original Japanese title(s): 塩谷験『名探偵再び』 

Picture of Death

But if this ever changing world in which we live in

Makes you give in and cry,

Say live and let die!

"Live and Let Die" (Paul McCartney & Wings) 

So I didn't know anything about the actual story of this book when I got it, so simply based on the title and the cover, I was expecting this to be something set in the Middle Ages/Renaissance exploring the theme of death. It was nothing like that.

Several months ago, I discussed Kenchiku Shizai (2001), a book which also carried the English title The Builded Dead and which is considered officially Monzen Noriyuki's debut work: it was the winner of the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, which is aimed at writers who haven't made a professional debut yet. However, Kenchiku Shizai  was not really Monzen's first work. Several years earlier, Monzen had already sent it a different manuscript for the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award and it was in fact deemed the best entry of that year by Ayukawa Tetsuya himself, but the other people on the committee did not agree, and the work didn't win.Monzen therefore decided to self-publish the book in 1997, with the title Shi no Meidai ("A Proposition of Death"). After Monzen made his professional debut in 2001, he wrote a few other novels, and then publisher Harashobo decided to revisit Shi no Meidai again: Shi no Meidai ("A Proposition of Death") was re-edited and given a new title (the shi in the title in the 2010 differs from the 1997 version), giving the book a new opportunity to reach the audience.

The book starts with the arrival of Shinohara Tsunajirou, Monoda Yoshihara and Mashime Kyouka at the Mishima residence, located in the forest surrounding Lake Ensui in the mountains near Matsumoto City in Nagano Prefecture. The two-storey building belongs to Professor Mishima Souichirou, or to be exact, his widow: the professor had started construction on his home, but he died in an accident on the lake. His widow, Otono, however had the project continued, with a large part of the house dedicated to her husband's accomplishments and his hobbies. Some time has passed since the professor's funeral,  and Otono has invited a few old friends of her husband to stay a few nights at the lake, including the aforementioned trio, who were students of the professor. Tsunajirou and Kyouoka often visited the professor and his wife and knew them privately, so they are a bit surprised Yoshihara was also invited, and it's also a bit awkward: Yoshihara was never close to the professor nor his wife, and Yoshihara and Kyouka also used to date when in university. They broke up and now Tsunajirou and Kyouka are now an engaged couple. When they arrive at the house, they learn their host is not present. The physician Miyabi Daisuke, a Mishima family friend who knows Tsunajirou and Kyouka as well, arrived earlier, and explains he found a package hanging from the door knob, which included the keys to the house, as well as a letter signed by Otono, who explains she had an accident herself and can't freely move. Because it happened only a few days ago and she knew all her guests had already made arrangements, she asks their guests to entertain themselves despite her absence: food supplies have been prepared, so they can enjoy a few days off at the lake. Everybody finds this a bit weird, including Annosawa Ikuo, a budding mystery novelist who's a patient of the doctor (he was brought for some social contact).  A late arrival is Takao Hiroshi, a salesman for a medical company who was also invited. 

As they discuss their current situation, they note that the note doesn't actually sound like it was written by Otono, and Kyouka seems eager to leave, saying they should pay the widow a visit in the hospital, but they decide to stay for at least one night, especially as it starts to snow heavily. They explore the house a bit to admire not only the late professor's collection of insect specimens, but also his collection of torture devices, including the giant guillotine standing outside the entrance of the house. The following day however, a horrible discovery is made: Kyouka is found dead in the garden, with her face having been hit with immense force. It's obvious not an accident, as the object that inflicted the damage is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile,Monoda Yoshihara can also not be found, so the others start looking for him: they find his body floating in the lake, having first been strangled and then thrown into the lake for him to drown. The police is informed, but the road conditions due to the weather prevent them from coming at once. As the survivors await the police however, more deaths occur: a poisoning, a man being split in half with the guillotine... And when the police finally arrive... they find all six guests in the house have died, with the last one apparently having committed suicide.

 It's the sister of the last person to live who visits Kumode, who runs a construction consultancy agency which double-acts as a detective agency, after earlier success in detection by Kumode. The sister naturally can't stand her brother being painted as a cold-blooded killer who killed five people and then himself, so she wants Kumode to investigate the case, which is done by an investigation of the crime scene itself (the Mishima residence), as well as the inspection of two diaries: one by the mystery author Annosawa and the other by the supposed killer: these were the last two men surviving and both men claim they were not the horrible serial killer in their respective notes. Can Kumode figure out what really happened at the lake?

Kenchiku Shizai/The Builded Dead was an interesting book as it showcased author Monzen's knowledge of architecture (which he studied): it was a very realistic book when it came to the presentation of how a building is actually constructed, and at times, the realism did hurt the presentation of the mystery a bit, but it was still a memorable experience. Shi no Meidai is surprisingly enough not at all like Kenchiku Shizai, being a far more unrealistic book, as it embraces the familar tropes of mystery fiction. The premise of the book is a classic And Then There Were None set-up: all people in the isolated house end up murdered, but by whom? Like And Then There Were None, there's a second part that follows the initial closed circle narrative, focusing on the investigation conducted by an outside party after the murders (in this case, Kumode's investigation). 

Shi no Meidai follows the familiar tropes fairly faithfully, and some characters even point out how everything feels a bit fishy, from their host not appearing herself and the selection of guests being weird. Which is why it does feel a bit strange the characters don't decide to leave at once: they're apparently somewhat savvy enough to realize not all is right, but they still stay, and that's a thing that continues throughout this book: the characters really feeling like characters in a detective novel, doing the exact things needed to get the plot going, but not really fully explaining why those characters would ever want to do that. 

The same holds for the core mystery plot: there are some cool ideas that are at play here, some honestly really memorable (and gruesome!), but many of the ideas used here are quite forced, especially if you consider them having all happened in the same story! Like, the murder of Kyouka is actually pretty interesting as an idea: it's actually an impossible crime, as the garden was covered in snow and yet only Kyouka's own footprints could be found in the snow, despite being hit from nearby with an object. I can easily imagine this part being a short story on its own as it has a memorable trick, but then you also remember the murders on the doctor and Annosawa also happened in their specific manners, and you start rolling your eyes as that's a bit too much luck/coincidence that is happening in one sequence. The murders on the doctor and Annosawa again would have been great core ideas in their own story (it's actually really good while being incredibly silly at the same time, and I love it for that), but it loses its impact here because it just becomes one small cog in a much larger machine. A far more fantastical machine than the realistic mechanism we saw in Kenchiku Shizai too. The way the murderer planned for all of this is almost farcical, as it relies on one coincidence or lucky turn after another, so taking this story in as.... one story feels a bit difficult. There are really good individual ideas, but they didn't need to be taken all together, especially as it works towards a conclusion that only strengthens this sense of forced coindence. I think if the book had been written differently, this theme could easily have worked, but the book is still told in a fairly straightforward manner that doesn't really dwell on the thematic consequences of its events, so you are never sure whether the author actually realized his book borders on a parody.

The book actually opens with a Challenge to the Reader, containing 5 'pointers' that act as a kind of tease of things to come. I think the book's fair enough to warrant a Challenge, though I'm not sure whether it works best in this position of the book (why not just before the soluton?).

 Shi no Meidai is a book I think some of the parts are better than their sum, with some good mystery ideas and tricks, that however become a bit deluded when taken all together, because all of that happening in the span of like two days feels a bit too much, especially as part of a plan by the killer. It's also completely different in terms of atmosphere from Kenchiku Shizai, despite being the same series, which might be a good or bad thing depending on what your thoughts on that book was, or vice-versa. I think that the individual elements of Shi no Meidai are far more memorable to me than Kenchiku Shizai, but I found the latter a better novel overall.

 Original Japanese title(s):  門前典之『屍の命題』

The Tuesday Club Murders

Sur les crédences, au salon vide: nul ptyx

"Sonnet en X" 

And yet I'm sure this is not the only book that's been on the 'to-read' list for over fiteen years...

The retired French literature professor Zuimon Ryuushirou is a huge fan of the poet Stéphane Mallarmé and owns a curious home which is named, and designed after meaningless word "ptyx" Mallarmé used in the poem Sonnet en X. To be exact, it follows the Japanese translation of the word, with a stem word for "shell", so the two-storey building is built like a spiral, with spiraling hallway on both floors, and a courtyard at the center of the building, that can only be reached by the stairs that are found at the very end of the hallway upstairs. Zuimon often holds gatherings at his manor to discuss literature, aptly called the Tuesday Club. In 1987, members of the Tuesday Club included, among others, an active professor in French literature and three students, a famous actor and... the great detective Mizuki Masaomi and the legally required Watson, Ayui Ikusuke, who has been chronicling all of the adventures Mizuki and he have as succesful novels. That night, after everyone has gone to sleep, a loud cry wakes everyone up and as they look for the origin of the voice, they find one of the guests lying dead in the courtyard, apparently having slipped from the stairs upstairs down onto the courtyard. But it was in fact not a natural death, and of course Mizuki promptly solves the case, allowing for Ayui to write a new book. The Ptyx House Affair is serialized in parts in magazines as always and while basically all of the story was serialized, with the case solved and perhaps only needing an epilogue, the book was never actually finished, and also never collected and published as a single, standalone release. This also marked the last of what the public would learn about Mizuki: Ayui stopped writing books and nobody heard of Mizuki again.

14 years later, the great private detective Isurugi Gisaku is contacted by a literary editor who wants Isurugi to reopen the investigation of the murder that took place at the Zuimon residence 14 years ago. The editor finds it strange Ayui never had the final book properly published and suspects there could only be one reason why Ayui had made such a drastic decision: what if in the process of writing down the adventure he had with Mizuki, he had inadvertently realized Mizuki might actually have nabbed the wrong culprit in this case? Isurugi, who is a big fan of the Mizuki Masaomi novels, accepts the request, and investigates the case by not only reading the installments of The Ptyx House Affair, but also by interviewing the real people involved in the actual case 14 years ago, and as he asks more questions, he slowly starts to notice little things in Ayui's account that bothers him too. Can he outwit the great detective Mizuki in Shunou Masayuki's Kagami no Naka wa Nichiyoubi, which also carries the German title Im Spiegel ist Sonntag ("It's Sunday in the Mirror", 2001)?  

Shunou Masayuki was an author who was only active for a very short period of time, writing about seven books in four years, but he is still well-remembered in the world of Japanese mystery fiction and you'll often find one of his titles (especially Hasami Otoko ("The Scissor Man") in 'best of' lists. I don't know why I hadn't gotten started on him yet, especially as fifteen years ago (back when we had like only three people blogging in English on Japanese mystery fiction!), I already wrote I had put this book on my 'to-be-read' list...It took me a bit of time, but I finally got around to it!

The books in the Isurugi Gisaku series are apparently all takes on familiar mystery tropes, with Kagami no Naka wa Nichiyoubi being an obvious variation on the familiar yakata-mono, murders occuring in a curiously built building like we see in Ayatsuki's House series. Here we have a house that is built in the most inconvenient manner as the house is just one giant spiral that goes up one floor, and it's of course nuts you'd need to go walk down the spiralling hallway of the first floor, go up the stairs, go down the spiralling hallway of the second floor and go out on the balcony and go down another set of stairs just to reach the courtyard, which is of course completely surrounded by walls so there's nothing to see (as there are no windows looking out into the courtyard). Houses like these are great for mysteries, not so for actual living.

That said, while the main mystery might seem to be the mysterious death in 1987 at the Ptyx house, one could argue that it is in fact another trope that is the main topic of this book: the unreliable narrator. Which might seem like a huge spoiler, but not only are we already told that Ayui apparently suspected Mizuki might have been wrong, meaning the solution presented in Ayui's book should be wrong, Kagami no Naka wa Nichiyoubi in fact opens with the most unreliable narrator we could have: a person suffering from Alzheimer in 2001. This person, closely related to the 1987 murder, does not recognize themselves, and can barely recognize people anymore by 2001. Isurugi Gisaku's investigation into the murder however stimulates the narrator in ways Isurugi could not have foreseen, and flashes of memories slowly show a glimpse of the solution awaiting at the end. The second part of the book flashes a bit back and explains how Isurugi Gisaku's investigation actually gets started and is interspersed with The Ptyx House Affair written by Ayui Ikusuke in 1987. It's here where we get another glimpse of how the 'unreliable narrator' works: while Ayui is almost fanatical in being accurate and truthtful in his account, as he thinks that is the best way to show how much of an amazing detective Mizuki was, Ayui does have to let his imagination do the work when it comes to portraying the people other than himself in his book. When in Isurugi goes interviewing the people involved in the case 14 years later, we see that Ayui often didn't get things quite right in his book, creating slight gaps between reality and his reconstruction of the case and the people involved. For example, in Ayui's book, he decided to use one of the visiting students as the main narrator, but the real "him" differs from the fictional one in quite a few ways. It's of course up to Isurugi, and the reader, to figure out whether these little discrepencies relate to what really went on 14 years ago, and whether Mizuki got the right killer or not.

Ultimately, I think the book's merits also lie in how these various narratives (Alzheimer/Isurugi/Ayui) intertwine, and the truth hidden between the web spun between these three that makes Kagami no Naka wa Nichiyoubi an interesting mystery novel, The actual murder itself, and the clues leading up to resolving that, are not as interesting as seeing what is really hiding within Ayui's The Ptyx House Affair and learning how the narrator with Alzheimer links up with Isurugi's investigation and what these threads all actually mean. It's hard to explain precisely what this book does well, because that does go a bit too much into spoiler territory, but I can safely recommend this as a well-structured mystery novel. The only caveat I could have is simply the fact I feel nothing for Stéphane Mallarmé, and obviously, they do talk about him and his work a lot in The Ptyx House Affair

The bunko pocket version of Kagami no Naka wa Nichiyoubi includes the direct sequel Shikimi/Muro ("Anise/Juniper"), originally released in 2002. These are two interconnected short stories, with an interesting title convention: if you take out the "tree" radical from the kanji of either title (Shikimi and Muro), you end up with the word misshitsu, or "locked room". And thus both stories are about locked room mysteries. Shikimi ("Anise") is a story written by Ayui Ikusuke and details a case he and Mizuki had while visiting a small town with hot springs, as they had been invited to the hotel run someone they had become acquainted during a previous adventure. Ayui and Mizuki learn about a local legend telling a Tengu (a bird-like goblin) used to live here and that he had dropped his axe: the axe is enshrined in a local shinto shrine. Lately, the priest claims he saw the Tnegu with its long nose on Tengu's Hill in the night. What sounds like a tall story, turns into a creepy seed of doubt when one night, one of the guests won't come out of his room. They try to unlock the door with the master key, but the door is latched from the inside. When they finally break into the room, they find the guest lying dead on his bed, having been hit fatally with... the Tengu's axe.

Muro ("Juniper") is set 14 years later and follows Isurugi Gisaku, as he goes visit an old friend who runs a certain hotel in a town with hot springs... Isurugi actually lived in this town for a short period fourteen years ago to prepare for his school entrance exams, though he had left the day Mizuki and Ayui solved the locked room mystery in the hotel. His friend had been working part-time in the hotel at the time, and later married the proprietor. Isurugi is glad to see his old friend, though the wife is seemingly not so happy to have her husband's friend staying at the hotel as a guest (any hopes for a discount are soon thrown away as soon as Isurugi meets the wife). History seemingly repeats itself when a student reports to the reception his professor won't respond to knocks on his door. The professor had been a guest 14 years ago too and all of this soon sparks fears into all that were here too then, so after confirming the door is indeed latched from inside, they force the door open again... only to find the room empty. The professor later appears, saying he had gone out drinking, but who then had latched his door from the inside?

Both stories feature fairly simple tricks for their locked rooms, but the way the two stories intertwine, one set in the past and the other in the present, is good. Some things in Shikimi take on a different meaning when you have read Muro, and the trick in Muro definitely benefits from having read Shikimi first. These stories do really feel like a set, and while they are short and quite lite, I did enjoy them, espcecially as an extension of Kagami no Naka wa Nichiyoubi, as it once again plays with past/present narratives.

So overall, I really enjoyed Kagami no Naka wa Nichiyoubi and its sequel Shikimi/Muro. They provide fun takes on familiar mystery tropes which allow for some pondering on the genre conventions, while at the same time, they are actually written in a very accessible manner, being very easy reads. I do recommend reading Shikimi/Muro together with Kagami no Naka wa Nichiyoubi though, as they are really too lite on their own (which would explain why they are published as one single book nowadays). Anyway, I will be reading more of Shunou soon!

Original Japanese title(s): 殊能将之『鏡の中は日曜日』/『樒 / 榁』 

Turnabout Memories - Part 15

 "I have to go over everything that's happened. I have to remember"  

Another Code R: Journey into Lost Memories

 

Another year has passed, so it's time for the annual recap post. It's been another hectic year, so while I have managed to keep posting my (at least) one post a week, I haven't really been able to do editorial posts, and don't get me started on game-related reviews... Fortunately, I never run out of mystery novels and short stories to discuss, so while some media may not have seen much attention on this blog, I think I've managed to highlight quite a few interesting books this year. I've also managed to have some great mystery-related experiences outside the blog this year, for example attending the Honkaku Mystery Award ceremony for the first time in my life. I have been a member for years, but never managed to actually attend the ceremony because of simply not being in Japan when the ceremony is held, but this year, I finally managed to have a look and I met a lot of authors I've been reading for so many years now like Ooyama Seiichirou, and I also managed to meet a few of the authors whose work I've translated like Imamura Masahiro and Norizuki Rintarou. I'm also happy to say the Honkaku Discord server has recently seen its third birthday, and thanks to the wonderful people there, it's grown to a place where everyone can discuss Japanese mystery fiction (and horror) and participate in community projects like book clubs and guess-the-culprit games. So come and take a look inside the server if you're interested in Japanese mystery fiction! Anyway, 2026 is coming up soon, but don't expect much to change on this blog: I'll just be writing about (mostly) Japanese detective stories here, both old and new, and with a bit of luck, sometimes also announce something about my translation work! Have a nice Christmas and a great new year!

The Best Project Outside The Blog! In 2025!

The Clock House Murders

Another year, and fortunately, I was able to translate another book! The Clock House Murders by Ayatsuji Yukito is the fourth book released in English in the successful series about murders happening in strange, creepy houses designed by the same architect and it's perhaps my favorite of the series. In a way, it feels a bit like a new take on The Decagon House Murders, but with a lot more slasher horror segments added as Ayatsuji had released a few horror novels in the meantime. The grand trick behind the murders is absolutely fantastic and one of my all-time favorites. Ayatsuji is particularly proud of this book and he had wanted to see it published in English for some time now: before the English release of The Labyrinth House Murders had been decided on, he had suggested perhaps going straight to The Clock House Murders in case The Labyrinth House Murders would prove troublesome in terms of translation. Ayatsuji would win the Mystery Writers of Japan Award with this book and next February, the live-action adaptation will release on Hulu in Japan. If you haven't read the book yet, please do! While the UK release was earlier this year, readers in the US have to wait until next year though.

And as it's already listed on some sites, it's not really a secret anymore, but you can expect the next book in the series too somewhere next year... 

Best Premise! Seen in 2025!

Momiji no Nishiki ("Breathtaking Red Leaves") 

A lot of the books I read, especially of authors I haven't read yet, are picked because of some alluring premise. From the premise of witches and time travel in Minami Asov's Eigoukan Chourenzoku Satsujn Jiken - Majo wa X to Shinu Koto ni Shita ("The Super Serial Murder Case at the House of Eternity - The Witch Chose To Die With X"), a murder mystery where both the victim and the suspects has been in a thousand-year cryogenic sleep in Sennen no Whodunnit ("A Millenial Whodunnit"), to murders commited on a space station, mystic murders in medieval China, or a hospital with detectives as doctors: they all have story set-ups that sound interesting on their own. So it might surprise I picked an otherwise very "plain" story as the tale with the best premise I read this year: Maya Yutaka's Momiji no Nishiki ("Breathtaking Red Leaves") is a short story that's just about a murder that occurs in a mountain town with hot springs, which is basically the description of every other mystery story, but Maya adds a brilliant twist at the end of the first part of the story, a twist that is both soooo simple and yet so ingenious: while the premise of the story, as a guess-the-culprit scenario, is to guess who the culprit is based on the hints provided, the first part of the story does not actually show who the victim is! So the reader not only has to deduce who the culprit is, they have to deduce who the victim is first! It's such a great premise for the puzzle and Maya ends up presenting a very elegantly constructed short story. 

Most Infuriating Timetable! In 2025!

Mokusei no Ouji ("The Wooden Prince")

 

And as I just explained above, Maya Yutaka is almost never a straight-forward author. He plays with the tropes of the genre, makes fun of them and takes them to their oddest extremes. In Mokusei no Ouji, he goes far with the classic alibi-deconstruction story, presenting the reader with a devilish puzzle with not only a house with an insanely complex layout, but also an extremely detailed timetable that denotes the movements of all the suspects down to the minute as they all wander through the maze-like house. The result is a timetable that is absolutely infuriating to behold, but in a good way, as you know Maya has something in store for you by presenting you with such an odd puzzle.

Silliest Cover! Seen in 2025!

Noto no Misshitsu - Kanazawa Hatsu 15ji 45pun no Shisha ("The Locked Room in Noto - The Dead Leaving Kanazawa at 15:45", 1992).

I mean, no contest, right? The thing is, I honestly don't see the connection between the cover and the actual contents of the book. Sure, there's a woman in the book, but I'm pretty sure there was no giant hand in the story, nor a thumb growing out of the woman's face. And it's not like the actual art is bad either. It's just that the actual topic of the picture is so... weird, and not related to the book. I mean, I would've understood it if the hand was made to look like a train, because trains play an important role in the story, but as it is now... Well, it's memorable, at least.

Best Porn Mystery! Read in 2025!

Marina Mystery File

In general, I aim to discuss the mystery genre on this blog, and I don't really have any rules regarding form (medium) or hybrid genres, as log as there's an interesting mystery plot at the core. However, it was a coincidence I happened to discuss two forms of porn mystery earlier this year. Chikan Densha: Seiko no Oshiri ("Molester Train: Seiko's Tush", 1985) was a softcore porn film in a long-running series, directed by someone who would go on to win an Oscar and I had known for years it also contained a locked room murder mystery which authors like Yamaguchi Masaya and Abiko Takemaru lauded. Marina Mystery File (1997-1999) was a manga that came under my attention thanks to manga artist and critic Nemoto Shou, about a teacher who manages to solve gruesome murder cases whenever she's thoroughly stimulated. While I think the locked room murder in Seiko no Oshiri is far more original and more complex than the plots we see in Marina Mystery File, I still think the latter is better as a porn mystery, in the sense the "sex" is integrated better in the mystery plots. Not always mind you, but in Seiko no Oshiri, the locked room murder feels completely unrelated to the sexy bits, while Marina Mystery File at least has some stories where the nudity and sex is actually connected meaningfully to the mystery plot.

Best Post I Accidentally Deleted And Had To Rewrite Completely! In 2025!

No winner.

Another year without casualties! Yay! *knocks on wood*

The Just-Ten-In-No-Particular-Order-No-Comments List

- Sekai de Ichiban Sukitootta Monogatari (The World's Clearest Story) (Sugii Hikaru)

- Kokumen no Kitsune ("The Black-Faced Kitsune")  Mitsuda Shinzou)

- Kami no Hikari ("The Light of God") (Kitayama Takekuni)

- Setsudantou no Satsuriku Riron (The Genocide Theories in the Mutilation Island) (Mori Akimaro)

- Hakushaku to Mittsu no Hitsugi ("The Count and the Three Coffins") (Shiotani Ken)

- Mokusei no Ouji ("The Wooden Prince") (Maya Yutaka)

- Yogen no Shima ("The Island of the Prophecy") (Sawamura Ichi) 

- Sennen no Whodunnit ("A Millenial Whodunnit") (Asane Juuji) 

- Momiji no Nishiki ("Breathtaking Red Leaves") (Maya Yutaka)

- Konrondo ("The Kunlun Slave") (Koizumi Kajuu) 

The End of the Trail

Feel, don't think. Use your instincts.

"The Phantom Menace" 

And just as I finish writing this review, I remember I never wrote one for Staffer Case even though I finished it months ago...

Professor Martin has brought two of his students, Emma and her friend (whose name is decided on by the player), from the United States to the country of Vendreka in Europe for a research trip. On the night before they board the train back to London, a murder occurs in the hotel they are staying: a person had been shot and fell several stories down to his death. Their interests piqued, the unnamed protagonist and Emma snoop a bit around the crime scene and befriend the police detective in charge, who allows them to look a bit around. The following day, professor Martin and his pupils board the train, which will take a few days to reach London. On the second day however, Emma is baffled by a mysterious disappearance. She had befriended a fellow passenger the previous evening and promised to meet her again this second day, but the woman didn't appear. That on its own might not be cause for any concerns, but when Emma asked the staff and fellow passengers who had been in the lounge carriage too at the time about the woman, nobody seems to remember having seen such a woman and in fact, it appears Emma might have been all alone in the lounge car. At first, Emma thinks she's going crazy, but as she and the protagonist poke around a bit, they stumble upon the possibility there had indeed been a woman on board, who has now disappeared. Can the two find out what happened to the missing woman in the 2025 game Detective Instinct, Farewell My Beloved, available for PC and Switch?

When developer Armonica LLC first announced Detective Instinct, Farewell My Beloved back in 2023, it caught my attention immediately. The developers were not shy about what the main inspiration was for their baby-in-the-making: Japanese adventure games, with command-style adventures like Famicom Detective Club, Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney, and Nintendo DS games like Another Code and Hotel Dusk as the biggest influences. While the "visual novel" school of Japanese adventures have become popular in the Western market, the traditional command-style adventure style is emulated far less often. The initial trailers and the demo however Detective Instinct, Farewell My Beloved were incredibly promising, offering great visuals invoking classic Japanese adventures from the late eighties ~ early 2000s and music, and teasing an interesting-sounding mystery. The game was finally released late November 2025, so how does the final product hold up?

To start off with the visuals and the audio: Detective Instinct, Farewell My Beloved is a must-see (and hear) for those who love the games I mentioned above. You can feel in everything how much the developers love games like Famicom Detective Club, Ace Attorney and Policenauts. The game features the familiar "command menu on one side of the screen" layout, though unlike Famicom Detective Club, it utilizes character art that is more animated, bringing them closer to the lively characters of Ace Attorney, with their personalities being perfectly conveyed through the player through the great animations. The artwork is really good, with also occasional cut-scene-esque stills that give the game a cinematic feel and the audio too features some great tunes that accompany your investigation into the missing woman. Detective Instinct, Farewell My Beloved feels right at home next to its direct inspirations and if you had told me this had been a game during that generation, I would probably have believed you right away. I honestly have no complaints in this regard.

Gameplay-wise, the game follows Famicom Detective Club more than Ace Attorney though. You advance through the story by using commands like "Talk" and "Check" to interact with other characters or the environment, and by talking with everyone, you gather more information which allows you to talk about *other* things to characters, slowly advancing the story. Fortunately, the game also takes inspiration from the more friendlier version of Famicom Detective Club, highlighting what commands you haven't used yet as an indicator of how to advance in the game. At the end of each chapter, the protagonist and Emma recap all the events that occured that day and the discoveries they made, resulting in a series of questions that are basically just testing your memory, though it occassionally also asks you to input names manually (instead of just choosing out of a list of options). This is a 'mechanic' also seen in games like Famicom Detective Club and Another Code, and as in those games, it's not really an engaging mechanic in any manner. There's no contradiction mechanic where you have to find discrepencies between statements and evidence or any of such interactive detective gameplay, so save for two or three puzzles, Detective Instinct plays very much like Famicom Detective Club, where you're just following the story.

The story however, is where I find the game not as engaging as its presentation. While it starts off with an interesting premise, a murder at a hotel and then a disappearance of a woman, the mystery plot is ultimately fairly short, and what I found most disappointing is that the more interesting twists and turns of the story, aren't part of your investigation. Once you're on the train, the focus of your investigation is on the missing woman (the question of whether she actually exists and if so, where she has gone to) and while you can probably guess it's somehow related to the hotel murder at the start of the game, I have to say the missing woman part of the mystery is by far the least interesting aspect of the plot. The how of how she was seemingly spirited away from the train is boringly simple, while the why might be better, but again, it's by far the least interesting part of the whole plot. So where does the player learn about the more interesting parts of the plot? Well, the other characters tell you about it! The minor advancements you make in your investigation for some reason always lead to characters revealing very important plot points regarding other characters set elsewhere, revealing an interesting scheme being worked out elsewhere, but you only hear about it because it's like almost everyone on the train knows a bit about that scheme, with Emma and the protagonist being the only ones who don't know a thing. But they only learn about it, because they just happen to be looking for a missing woman and each time they discover something regarding that mystery, characters start telling them also about the more interesting plot. So until the very end, I felt I was not investigating the more appealing parts of the plot and stuck with the least engaging parts of the mystery. 

Perhaps it's a matter of the scope of this game, as while it certainly punches above its weight in terms of graphics and style, I can imagine the developers were trying to limit the scope of the story a bit to keep the development of this game manageable. But to me, the story just lacked the twists and turns to keep me truly exciting to learn more about the mystery, while at the same time I could imagine me liking the story so much better if we had been investigating this case from a completely different angle, especially with these visuals. Due the smaller scope of the story, which also leads to a smaller cast of characters however, you get to spend more time with most of the characters (especially Emma), so that will probably please the players who enjoy these characters and want to learn more about what makes them tick, but mystery-wise, I can't deny I had hoped for much more.

By the way, while this game was written in English, I ended up playing it in Japanese because I first just wanted to see how it looked, but had overlooked the (very clear) message telling me that the save games for both languages are seperate: by the time I realized that, I had already advanced enough in my Japanese save I didn't want to start all over again. The translation is really good though and really makes you feel like you're playing an old Japanese adventure game. 

So on one hand, I really liked Detective Instinct, Farewell My Beloved for what it aims to do and in certain aspects, it not only succeeds greatly, but far greatly surpasses expectations, but on the other hand, I also think it's not as succesful as many of its inspiration in using the limited command-style gameplay to present a mystery story. Not all those games have interactive mystery gameplay like Ace Attorney, but can still present engaging tales of mystery via the kind of mystery they focus on, the way the twists and turns are presented to the player and by using foreshadowing/clewing, and that's where I feel Detective Instinct, Farewell My Beloved's presentation far outpaced the story. I am interested in seeing more of this studio though if they want to make more of these games.

Sleeping Murder

"Uh, Jennifer, um, I don't know how to tell you this, but I... you're in a time machine."

"Back to the Future: Part II" 

I assure you: this book is more entertaining than the cover might suggest. 

In a not-too-distant future, mankind is preparing for a once-in-a-lifetime experiment. Nay, a once-in-a-millenium experiment. A private company is preparing to place seven people in a state of cryogenic sleep for a thousand years. The seven are to enter their sleep in special pods called tegmines. They are set to awaken one millenium later. To ensure their safety for all that time, the pods are placed in a special shelter in the mountains: the doors can only be opened from inside and because it's impossible to tell what will happen in a millenium, food and other supplies are also stored in the shelter, in case future researchers can't reach the shelter swiftly once the experiment ends and the seven awaken, allowing the seven to survive for some time on their own. 

And so, in the very-distant-future, Kuran, a former teacher who lost his wife, wakes up to find all kinds of tubes attached to his body, which he removes before he gets out his tegmine. As he watches the others do the same, he remembers how the members of the team had only met three days (+ 1000 years) ago before they entered their sleep. While six of the people were selected from a pool of people who signed up for this, one of them, Iriya is actually one of the researchers who worked on the project herself. One by one, they wake up: Kuran, Iriya, Shiina, Kuroe, Maruko, Kai and... then they notice the seventh person doesn't wake up from his sleep. As they examine his tegmine, it turns out it had ceased operation over a hundred-and-fifty years ago. They open the device, only to find a dead Shimon inside. Only, it doesn't look like he died because his tegmite stopped working, it's the knife in his back that probably killed him. The discovery immediately confuses everyone in the shelter: who could've killed Shimon, and why? Because the shelter can only be opened from the inside, it seems logical to assume the murderer must be one of the six others. The problem however is that a tegmite can't be operated from within the pod itself: even if Shimon and his killer happened to awaken a hundred-and-fifty years ago through chance, his murderer wouldn't have been able to get back in the tegmite again to freeze themselves again. For some reason, there's been no contact from the outside world yet, so the six prepare to wait for a few days, but when they go look for food supplies, they find the mummified body of a boy in the storeroom. His head has been bashed in, so they can't even tell whether it's someone they know, but this raises more questions: this boy wasn't in the shelter a millenium ago when it was sealed, so how did they get in, when did they get in, and how were they killed? The AI in the shelter's computer has been programmed to summarize all important news of the last millenium for once the experiment ends, so the six read up on all the major events, which includes a declining population and states forcing their population to move into concentrated areas, which may explain why there's been no contact yet. However, for some reason, there's a blank in the records: a period of about 125 years, between the last 15 years and 140 years, is completely missing, with no information whatsoever. They decide to explore the "future" world outside the shelter themselves, but what they find is not quite what they had hoped to see in Asane Juuji's Sennen no Whodunnit ("A Millenial Whodunnit", 2025).

A book that knows it has a cool premise so it doesn't even wait to hit you right with it: within the first 10 pages or so, you already know people had been kept in a cold sleep for a millenium and that once they wake up in their closed shelter, one of them has been murdered and that it's technically an impossible murder too: the reader knows right away they're dealing with an impossible murder, set in a closed circle situation and in the future too. It's a great set-up for an interesting mystery and while the story might not develop exactly the way most mystery fans will expect it to go, the book still ends up as  a fun sci-fi mystery. 

While the book starts right away with the mystery, the murder of Shimon actually isn't that important early on in the book for the very obvious reason that the six time travelers have more things to worry about. The experiment has apparently been succesful, but why has nobody come to welcome them into the future? Why is there no contact with the researchers who, together with future generations, were supposed to look after Karan, Kai, Iriya, Shiina, Kuroe, Maruko and Shimon? While knowing Shimon's been murdered, and there's an unknown dead boy in the shelter does disturb everyone, the priority now is to contact the outside world. Shimon's death being put lower on the priority list is also one that stems from the initial conclusions of the six that Shimon's death might not have anything to do with them personally: they didn't know each other until three days before the experiment started, Shimon was killed 150 years ago, and none of the other six could have been awake to kill Shimon and then go back into their pods, because they'd need someone outside to operate the pod (even supposing the existence of an accomplice, how could they have coordinated with an accomplice who lived over 800 years after they were frozen?). So the first half of the book or so seems more focused on discovering the world together with the six survivors.

After learning from the AI's summary of world events that most of the world's populations have been moved to concentrated areas due to declining populations, the survivors guess they have been forgotten and that the future humans must be located far away: their shelter was built deep in the mountains in a rural area a millenium ago, so if they want to go to the area where Tokyo used to be, they'd probably need to travel on foot for over ten days. Initially, they explore the area surrounding the shelter and occasionally find signs of where humans used to live. However, their discoveries lead to more questions. For example: why did they find so many skeletons lying in hospital beds in a nearby clinic, and why can't they find any 'contemporary' written records anywhere? As they slowly explore a larger area around the shelter, they find more pieces of a puzzle they didn't know they were working on, changing the focus of this tale from a "closed circle" mystery to an ontological mystery. Slowly but surely, a certain post-apocalyptic vibe creeps up on you, especially as the human history as the survivors know it has a 'blank period' for some reason, which started about 140 years ago.

As a mystery novel, the book does a good job at balancing the micro-level mystery of Shimon and the John Doe's murders within the shelter and the macro-level mystery of why there's no contact from the outside world. The whodunnit of the murders is given a whole new dimension if you factor in a millenium has passed. Early on, there's the matter of the survivors discussing Shimon's murder, and saying it happened 150 years ago already, but because they have also learned people in the future live much longer than in the time they knew, the murderer might actually still be around: something that would've been impossible with the common sense of their time. At the same time, the "futureness" of the story is kept fairly low-level, with the shelter apparently being far removed from future human civilization. These murders take a bit of a backseat in the middle part of the book, but they are of course addressed at the end, especially as we do learn there's a connection between their deaths and the bigger mystery of why the outside world is the way the survivors find it. The time-span of a millenium is used in a clever way to expand the problem of the whodunnit in a way most mystery novels can't and while Sennen no Millenium does weaves its sci-fi mystery tale using threads that may seem familiar from scifi and mystery fiction, author Asane also makes sure to clean up his threadwork and cut out excessive loose threads: it's a polished work, with story developments coming at just the right moments, clues and foreshadowing that are well-thought out and ultimately an overarching plot that is memorable, even if some of the twists feel a bit 'author-convenient'. While the direct motive for the murders is based on a reason that is probably a bit larger in scale than you'd expect at first, and coincidence is still alive one millenium later, but on the whole, it all holds together.

Though one does have to squeeze their eyes a bit to accept everything in this novel. Sennen no Millenium is not hard sci-fi by any means and at times, you do feel like Asane might not grasp the full length of a whole millenium completely. Just considering how much the world changed between AD1000 ~ AD2000, it does sometimes feel like the time period Asane describes is much shorter. Even supposing a certain language survived for a millenium, it's extremely unlikely two speakers a millenium apart would be able to immediately and quickly understand each other... Which also reminds me: early in the book the survivors read the AI's monthly synopsis of the world's major news for the last millenium to get an idea of what world they ended up in and... are you serious why are you reading a monthly synopsis do you know how much happens every month especially in a time like this how long would it take to read a millenium worth of that!!

Overall, I found Sennen no Whodunnit to be an enjoyable read. It's fun sci-fi mystery entertainment that might not be as 'hard' or completely fleshed-out in the way some readers might want it to see, but Asane uses his setting to create an amusing mystery that reads a lot like a mini-series. While as a mystery, some elements might seem familiar, I think Asane does a great job at implementing those ideas for this specific story and setting.

Original Japanese title(s):  麻根重次『千年のフーダニット』

The Secret of the Forgotten City

"A city on the verge of greatness"

"L.A. Noire" 

I used to review mystery video games quite often, though I have to admit I have fallen behind schedule the last two years, and even those reviews have become somewhat of a rarity here. Even rarer here however are posts on non-digital games, i.e., tabletop (board games). I have probably only reviewed a handful of them. Four years ago, I reviewed the tabletop game MicroMacro: Crime City, and that one has remained a favorite of mine since. So imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I learned only a few months ago, an app version had been released!

MicroMacro: Downtown Detective (2025) plays in essence the same as the physical tabletop game. The player is presented a map of a lively where a lot of crime happens at the same time. The map is a delight to behold, as so many interesting (and often funny) things are happening in various beautifilly designed districts like a busy beach, a bustling market and a city center full of shops. Take a closer look however and you'll soon notice all kinds of crimes being committed: a dead body lying in an alley, a shoplifter in action, a thief on his way to sneak into an apartment... What is interesting about the map of MicroMacro however is that it is not a snapshot of one single moment: it simultaneously shows multiple moments of the same sequence. Imagine a crime being like a comic, with several panels used to depict how the crime happened and what happened next. In MicroMacro, all these "panels" are plotted on the same map, so you might see the thief entering the apartment, but if you look down at the street you'll see the thief preparing to climb up the wall, and if you're attentive enough, you might even trace him all the way back across the city map to when he first left his home. This is the core gameplay of MicroMacro, and this works exactly the same in MicroMacro: Downtown Detective.  

Just like in the board game, Downtown Detective consists of several missions, that vary in difficulty. The earliest missions will be easy, requiring you only to follow certain characters across the map, with many "moments" plotted on the map, making the pursuit simple. Missions are also divided in submissions or checkpoints, guiding you to what you should do next. Later missions will require you to pay more attention and may provide less guidance. You might be required to track several suspects as they all move around the map and find out which of them is the culprit for example, or the game expects you to make certain deductions based on what you see to guess where a character might also appear in a completely different place of the map. Downtown Detective in this regard feels generally similar to the board game, but with a caveat: Downtown Detective is a lot easier than the board game. As of now 25 missions are available (the first three being playable for free as a demo), but even the last few missions don't really match the mid-game missions of the board game. That is because Downtown Detective gives the player much more often confirmation about what they should do, or what they are doing correctly. The game for example clearly marks important scenes if you touch them, which confirms to the player that they are on the right track. This is not only true for the "major scenes" of a case, as the game will also mark minor relevant events, each time confirming for you you're doing it right. The board game doesn't confirm you're on the right track as regularly as the app version, making it a more difficult game. For example, if a character for example would put on a disguise halfway through, causing you to lose sight of them as they walk across city, Downtown Detective will always draw you attention to that fact ("Hey, he's gone. Perhaps he's put on a disguise?"), while the board game basically doesn't do that, allowing you to check the map yourself and noticing that small scene inside a house where you can just make out someone changing their clothes. These were the best moments of the board game, rewarding you for a keen attention for detail, but Downtown Detective really guides you along these moments, even if the core gameplay and mechanics remain the same across both versions.

Downtown Detective however does use some mechanics that aren't available in the board game, making use of the digital format. In Downtown Detective, you can freely zoom in and out on the map (which of course isn't quite the same as just looking more closely at a physical map) and some details are only visible if you zoom in enough. That allows for some variety in the mysteries not seen in the board game, for example, in one missions where you are tracing a certain common object, that can only be differentiated from other lookalikes by noticing a small detail only noticable when zoomed in. The zoom in function is also really good for people with bad eyesight, which is probably great for people who have been interested in MicroMacro, but couldn't play it because the physical game does require you to squint your eyes at the map.

 

As far as I know, Downtown Detective contains a completely original city map. At least, I have only played the original MicroMacro: Crime City, and that featured a different map from Downtown Detective, though I haven't played the sequel board games to Crime City. The city in Downtown Detective starts out quite small, but it opens up in segments as you complete more missions. As of now, there are 25 missions, but there is a post-game message that says more content is to follow: something already foreshadowed by the fact you can see the silhouette of even more parts of the city that are waiting to open up in the future. The map is now smaller than it would be in the physical game, so I hope that with the future full map, the difficulty of the game will also be on par with the board game.

I might sound a bit negative, but I did really enjoy playing MicroMacro: Downtown Detective. If you haven´t played the board game yet, it provides a fairly good idea of how the board game works, which remains a great concept executed perfectly. Downtown Detective is a bit easy if you have already played the board game, as none of the missions match the later missions of the board game, but nonetheless, it's still a game I'd recommend if you're interested in MicroMacro, whether you´re a first-time player or a veteran, as the gameplay remains addictive. 

The Broken Anchor

Night of fire 

この気持ちに勝るものなんてないけど

「Night of Fire」(Dream) 

 

Night of fire!

There is nothing that can overwhelm my feelings

"Night of Fire" (Dream)

Disclosure: I have translated novels by both Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice.

"Mystery Night" was a special event to commorate the 15th anniversary of the "shin honkaku" (New Orthodox) movement of mystery fiction, marked by the publication of Ayatsuji Yukito's 1987 debut novel Jukkakan no Satsujin (The Decagon House Murders). The main stars of the events were Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice, and as many mystery stories are set in closed circles, the event was held in one, for the event consisted of a special cruise tour. Fans of mystery fiction would be spending one night on a ship where there'd be talk shows with Ayatsuji and Arisugawa, as well as a lot of fellow mystery writers like Nikaidou Reito, Takemoto Kenji, Yamaguchu Masaya, Maya Yutaka and Norizuki Rintarou, and there'd also be an interactive murder mystery show: participants would be presented the story of a mystery writer who was murdered, and try to solve this mystery (the writing of this mystery was supervised by Ayatsuji and Arisugawa). The book Mystery Night (2003) contains a detailed report of all that happened on the ship during the event, including all the interviews and the murder game.

So this is a bit of a strange book, as this is not a novel per se. Half of the book consists of the murder play, written in screenplay format. The other half includes write-ups and reports on all the other things that happened during the event, from how people arrived on the ship to completely transcribed interviews (and even a transcribed... magic show), as well as photographs of the trip and of the belongings of the authors which had been exhibited at the show. The trip was held twice, once in October 2002, embarking from Tokyo, and once in December of the same year, embarking from Kobe: this book reports on the events on both trips. The general flow of both trips was that people could get on board in the afternoon, after which the ship would depart the harbor. After a while, guests would be shown a video that laid out the basics of the murder game they'd try to solve. They could then find panels on the ship with additional information and the clues needed to solve the murder (for example, panels with close up photographs of the crime scene). In between, there'd also be dinner, with talk panels with the authors and at a certain point, the participants would also be asked to go to either an Ayatsuji or an Arisugawa room, where they'd talk a bit and also provide an exclusive clue to solving the mystery. At the end of the evening, people could fill in a form to guess who the killer was, and the big reveal, and they'd award the person who got the answer right by picking up on all the clues. The book reminded me a lot of Ayatsuji Yukito Satsujin Jiken - Arujitachi no Yakata ("The Ayatsuji Yukito Murder Case - The House of the Owners"), which was also a screenplay-format write up of a murder mystery play in honor of Ayatsuji, accompanied by write-ups on the events around it.

The story of the murder play revolved around Katayama Kippei, an infamous mystery writer who was harshly criticized for his books that were basically plagiarized from other writers. One day, he didn't appear at an appointment, so his wife and his editor visited him in his office, which they found locked from the inside. When they got in, they found Katayama stabbed with a knife and his head resting on a few of his books (like a pillow), his body surrounded by torn pages from the books that were allegedly plagiarized. Oddly enough though, the police discovered the only key to the office in the victim's mouth, so how did the murderer escape? Among the suspects are Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice, as Katayama also published books titled The Hexagon House Massacre and The 64th Locked Room...

To be honest, I only picked up this book because I was interested in the murder mystery supervised by Ayatsuji and Arisugawa, as I have loved a lot of their collaborative work (on Anraku Isu Tantei and Trick X Logic). This story was only supervised by the duo though, and as a mystery story, I ended up not liking it nearly as much as I had hoped. While the backstory of the plagiarizing writer is pretty funny and meta, the actual murder plot is (of course) presented in a rather disjointed manner, with both parts with actual characters and dialogue, but also just still photographs of the evidence and things like the locked room murder element don't really come alive due to the dialogue-heavy set-up of the story, and the fact it was designed as a story where info would presented in several bursts (video/panels etc). I am not a big fan of the trick used for the locked room an sich, though some of the hints for the surrounding mystery are good. Though I guess I do very much miss the big "reveal that changes your look on how things played out" that a lot of the Ayatsuji/Arisugawa duo mysteries pull off greatly, making this one feel a bit underwhelming.

The interviews/talk shows give you some background information on how the men look back at (at the time) 15 years of shin honkaku and of course their work, but I have to admit I was not nearly as interested in the interviews as in the murder play.

The official site for this tour is still online by the way, and it looks DELICIOUSLY early 2000s Japanese website. It would fit right in in Project Hacker...

So Mystery Night is more of an interesting anecdote than something you really need to read if you're looking for Ayatsuji/Arisugawa mystery fiction. The interviews might be of more historical value, as well as the write-ups on what is actually a very unique event (can you just imagine it!? A cruise trip to celebrate a group of authors and the mystery genre!), but I wouldn't bother go looking for this book for the mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人、有栖川有栖（監修）『新本格謎夜会(ミステリー・ナイト)』