Write, She Murdered

「これですべてが変わる……この俺の運命……カカロットの運命……そして……キサマの運命も!!」 

『ドラゴンボールZ たったひとりの最終決戦〜フリーザに挑んだZ戦士 孫悟空の父〜』

"Now everything changes. (...) As well as your fate. This is where it ends!

"Dragon Ball Z:  A Final, Solitary Battle: The Father of Z-Warrior Son Goku, Who Challenged Freeza"

Now I think of it, I haven't reviewed that many collaborative works here. This one is a bit different of course, considering the two didn't really work together...

A pushy person in need of money manages to sell off some documents to a mystery writer, but it turns out these documents actually contains a rather interesting, and mysterious account of a murder and the writer decides to have the manuscript published. The documents consist of a series of long letters, be written by a Sobue Shinichi, a journalist, writing to a friend, who may be the person who ended selling the manuscript. Sobue tells about the horrendous murder on Anezaki Saeko, a beautiful widow who one day was found murdered on the second floor of the storehouse in the garden. However, not only was she found completely naked for some reason, the storehouse itself was found locked from the inside. Anezaki and Sobue were both members of a club headed by Kumauchi where they dabble in spiritualism. The testimony of a legless vagrant (who couldn't have come up the second floor himself) tells the police two people approached the house during the time of the murder, a gentleman and a woman in an old-fashioned kimono, but the police can't find out who these people are. At the club, Professor Kurokawa, the strongest believer in spiritualism, wants to hold a seance to look into the matter: he takes care of a blind girl with spiritual powers and who can act as a medium. During the seance however, the girl (while possessed) not only declares the murderer is among them, but also that the beautiful woman in front of her will also die, and there's only one person in the club who answers to this description...

Thus goes the story Akuryou ("Evil Spirits") by Edogawa Rampo, a story that was never finished. The story originally started serialization late 1933, long after it had been originally announced and hit by delays. Rampo even skipped serialization twice during this time, and ultimately, Akuryou was cancelled after only three installments, with Rampo citing "various reasons" led to him giving up, including the fact he had started writing the story before the plot had been properly developed yet. In 2024, Ashibe Taku finally gave Akuryou a proper conclusion: his Rampo Satsujin Jiken - Akuryou Futatabi ("The Rampo Murder Case - Return of Evil Spirits", 2024) is a collaborative work with the late Rampo, containing not only the original three installments of Akuryou, but also including an original ending by Ashibe, clewed together by him based on the three existing installments. And not only that, Ashibe even offers an explanation to why Rampo gave up on the project in the first place... 

Rampo Satsujin Jiken - Akuryou Futatabi  is in many ways a very special book. It basically tells two stories on two layers: it has the original unfinished Akuryou manuscript by Edogawa Rampo, which of course tells a story on two levels: the story of the detective writer who bought the manuscript, and the story within those letters (the Anezaki murder). Ashibe too finishes these two stories on both levels, and even adds an extra layer to the story that explains why Rampo ended up cancelling this serialization. The result is a story that jumps back and forth a few times, and which can be confusing at first, but things do come together in the end.

What caught my attention at once was the physical element of the book by the way. Publisher Kadokawa uses very different fonts to differentiate the various elements of the story, so you can instantly see whether you are reading the original serialized Akuryou pages, or the new original pages by Ashibe. The font used in the Akuryou parts do really look like the font used in older early Showa publications (and even look slightly smudged like you're really reading an old book), and it really helps sell the vibe of reading an old, genuine Rampo story.

Anyway, it is very hard to judge this book on its merits as a mystery story. Fact remains that Edogawa Rampo abandoned the story mid-way and left no notes as to indicate how the story was supposed to end, so all Ashibe could do was use whatever was already there: he had to play detective himself, find the clues Rampo left and find out the solution himself! Of course, Ashibe had more creative freedom than a real detective: it wasn't as if he had to build the solution solely on the elements featured in the first three installments, as he was able to freely add segments retroactively, but still, Ashibe of course tried to keep the "original" Akuryou intact as much as possible, and have his solution stick as close as possible to the original Rampo manuscript. That is what makes this a difficult story to judge, because Ashibe's hands were tied. 

Some parts of the mystery, like the locked room murder of Anezaki Saeko, were already quite fleshed out in the original script, and Ashibe is able to put forward a solution that seems well grounded in Rampo's work, but other parts of the original mystery must have been more troublesome to Ashibe, like the mystery of a curious drawing on a note found inside the locked room: attributing a meaning to that sketch in a way that ties it to the murder must have been an insanely strange challenge and while I do think Ashibe did a good job at providing an answer to it, the original idea of the drawing itself was never really that interesting to me as it always seemed to me the answer would feel a bit forced, or at least trivia-reliant, and Ashibe's answer doesn't stray far from that expectation. In a way, that's of course impressive: it definitely feels like Rampo...  I know from experience that some of Rampo's serialized longer works often feel like he didn't plan that much in advance, and often his set-ups for mysterious events were much better than the solutions he'd later provide. In a way, I feel Ashibe's conclusion to the story has elements of this too, but at the same time, I can't really blame him considering it was Rampo who set everything up, and Ashibe simply had to guess what the solution could be. And style-wise, I can't deny Ashibe managed to nail Rampo's work. He clearly studied Rampo's writing, so the additions don't feel out of place, and you could imagine this being the genuine ending to Akuryou. And in that sense, I do think Rampo Satsujin Jiken is an impressive work, more so than in the sense of it being a mystery story on its own.

Interestingly, it appears that even if this book were to win an award, the credits would likely go more towards Rampo than Ashibe. While the two authors share the credits on the cover, the bulk of the book consists of the original Akuryou manuscript, so that apparently has influence on who would be the main recipient of a hypothetical award, even if I do think the book's interesting exactly because of the transformation by a second author.

So Rampo Satsujin Jiken - Akuryou Futatabi is not per se a book I would recommend to a mystery fan, because as an standalone mystery novel, it is really mostly a 1930s Rampo serialized novel with all the haphazard planning and somewhat disappointing payoff to the set-up. However, with the surrounding context of Ashibe coming with an original conclusion based on the unfinished story, him emulating the style and offering an explanation why Akuryou was never finished, you get a story that is infinitely more interesting than Akuryou on its own. So recommended to Rampo fans, and people who want to see Ashibe live out his fanboy dream and finishing one of Rampo's work.

Original Japanese title(s): 江戸川乱歩、芦辺拓『『乱歩殺人事件―「悪霊」ふたたび』

Triple Jeopardy

" There must be something comforting about the number three. People always give up after three."

"Sherlock"

I have mentioned it before that in general, I like the short story format more than a full novel, but when it comes to reading them, I have to admit I usually read these short stories when they are collected in short story collections and published as a single book. And in my case, that's basically always a short story collection of the same author, and very seldom anthologies. So I usually consume short stories as part of a bigger release, and rarely do I read just one short story on its own. Today however, I'll be briefly discussing three stories that I have read exactly in that matter, as just a single short story release. And strangely enough, all three of them were released in rather different ways.

The first one some readers might have expected already: while not exactly planned, the last two years I have discussed the winners of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award around this time of the year (here (2020) and here (2019)). Simply put, the Mysteries! Newcomer Award is the sister award to the better-known Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, as both awards are organized by the same publisher and aimed at unpublished works of authors who haven't made their major debut yet as writers. The Mysteries! Newcomer Award is meant for short stories, while the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award accepts full-length novels/short story collections. Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winners are obviously published as standalone book releases, while in the case of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award, publication means being published on paper in the mystery magazine Mysteries!. This changed however this year, as the magazine Mysteries! was cancelled, but a new magazine came its place: Shimino Techo (lit: "A Notebook for Silverfish") started in October 2021 and is of course a mostly mystery fiction-focused bimonthly magazine. So the winner of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award of 2021 was published in the inaugural issue of Shimino Techo, which the publisher Tokyo Sogensha was kind enough to send me, so I guess I'll be discussing the winner this year too! Aaaaand, no, I don't know why the award is still called Mysteries!

Yanagawa Hajime's Sannin Shobou ("Three Men's Bookshop") is named after the used bookshop Edogawa Rampo, the father of the Japanese mystery story, ran with his two brothers before he became a professional writer and took on the name of Rampo. As you can guess, this story is about Rampo himself, or rather Hirai Tarou (his real name), though the story uses "Rampo" for convenience. The narrator of the story is Inoue Katsuki, a friend of the real Edogawa Rampo who is also mentioned in Rampo's essays. Rampo wrote that Inoue was staying with Rampo and his brothers in the bookshop for a while, and this story is set during that period. One day, when two frequent female visitors/friends are at the shop, Rampo and one of his brothers happen to going through a collection of used books they bought, when inside one of the books, they find a note signed by a Sumako, that appears to be a farewell or suicide letter of some kind to a lover. Based on the writing style and the name Sumako, they quickly realize that this note was written by Matsui Sumako, the actress who committed suicide a few months ago, following in the footsteps of a director with whom she was having an affair, who died because of a disease. But the note they found seems to indicate Sumako had another lover besides the director. Curious to the person who received this note, Rampo and his brothers start to look for the previous owner of the used books they bought, as they fear the note might shine a different light on Sumako's death. 

An interesting story, though not completely my cup of tea. The best part of this story is without a doubt the historical setting, based on the life of the father of the Japanese mystery story. The idea of having Rampo and his brothers solve cases while running their used bookshop is pretty fun, and having actual persons like narrator Inoue, but also the link with actual Japanese history is done really well: at first I didn't even know Matsui Sumako was a real person, so it was interesting learning what kind of news/scandals were on the mind of the people in Tokyo in the early 1920s. In that sense, the way this story uses some familiar Rampo tropes like letters/correspondence and the hidden meaning/messages in them in combination with Sumako is pretty inspired. As a mystery story however, the plot feels a bit too slow for me: there is no clearly defined mystery for the reader to solve, more like vague questions raised about the note and Sumako's suicide, as well as other characters' actions, and then the story moves to an interpretation of the situation that addresses these questions, but you never deal with a clear-cut problem to solve. That's just something I personally don't always like, though I think that if you like (well-researched) historical mysteries, and Rampo of course, you'll find a lot to like here. Personally I do think the mystery plot has some nice ideas, like how it reveals how a certain situation is mirrored elsewhere, but things move just a bit too slow for me.

The whole world had to adapt to a new situation last year and to cheer people up, playwright and film creator Mitani Kouki decided to bring back Furuhata Ninzaburou in his long-running been newspaper column Mitani Kouki's Mundane Life for the Asahi Shimbun. Furuhata Ninzaburou was a highly succesful comedic inverted detective television series that ran between 1994-2006, which followed the adventures of the somewhat eccentric Lieutenant Furuhata of the Tokyo police. Heavily inspired by Columbo, each episode would show the viewer how the culprit committed the crime and the mystery presented to the viewer was figuring out how Furuhata was going to solve the case. Inspiration was also taken from the Ellery Queen television series, as each episode, Furuhata would turn to the audience and challenge them to guess what put him on the trail. While the show had stopped long ago, Mitani decided to bring Furuhata back last year by serializing the very short story Isshun no Ayamachi ("A Moment's Mistake") across four installments of his column. While obviously there's only that much you can do in the space of four newspaper columns, the story was actually quite fun to read. Earlier this year however, Tamura Masakazu, the actor who played Furuhata Ninzaburou on television, passed away, and as far as Mitani is concerned that means Furuhata will never return on television again. However, on paper is a different story, so this year too, Mitani decided to use up his columns between September 30 - October 21 2021  to bring back Furuhata Ninzaburou for a special appearance.

Satsui no Yukemuri ("Steamy Intent to Kill") follows Mitani, who is enjoying a stay at a hot spring inn when a new guest arrives at the same inn: the actor Chateau Jirou (a thinly-disguised Satou Jirou) has worked on many productions of the great director Mitani Kouki, but there's one thing that has always bothered Mitani: Chateau Jirou improvises too much! Nothing is left of the original script whenever Chateau Jirou is in the scene, and it's about time Mitani finally confronts Jirou about this. Late at night, Mitani manages to corner Chateau Jirou in the outdoor hot spring and pleads with Chateau to finally stick to the script from now on, but the two get into an argument and a push and an unlucky landing on the head later, Chateau Jirou is dead. After fleeing the scene, Mitani is sure no clues have been left at the scene, but surprisingly, Furuhata Ninzaburou wants to have a talk the following day regarding the death of Chateau Jirou. But how did Furuhata figure out it was Mitani who did it? Like the story last year, Satsui no Yukemuri is incredibly short due to its publication format, but it's actually surprisingly well-plotted. Sure, it's kinda a one-trick pony because 4 columns worth of text is really, really little, and to be honest, the dying message featured in this story is really, really not interesting at all, but there's some good clewing going on regarding the fatal mistake Mitani made, and there's even a genuinely shocking conclusion to the case, when Furuhata reveals how he managed to connect all the seperate clues and immediately figure out it could only have been Mitani who did it. I would love to see this idea worked out into a more substantial story, but even as it is now, I have to say it was a very nice surprise. Definitely a must-read for fans of Furuhata Ninzaburou, or Mitani Kouki's work in general. I wonder if Mitani will be killing off another actor he often works with next year too!

The last story to be discussed today is also a "continuation" of  a post of last year, in a way. Ooyama Seiichirou's Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service") was a great short story collection that focused completely about perfect alibi stories. The unnamed narrator (a rookie police detective stationed in Nano Ciy, Nano Prefecture) is a very frequent visitor of Mitani Clockmakers, run by Mitani Tokino who inherited the shop from her grandfather. Tokino, a young woman in her twenties, does not only sell and repair clocks, but she also offers a special alibi cracking service. The concept of one single series on cracking alibis was not only fairly unique, but the quality of the stories was very high. Ooyama started working on the "second season" of this series soon after the first book was done, publishing a new story once every few months, which for some reason can all be read for free on the official site. The previous three I have already discussed, so I figured, I might as well discuss the fourth story too!

Tokeiya Tantei to Niritsu Haihan no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Antinomic Alibi") starts in the familiar fashion, with the narrator needing Tokino's help to crack the alibi of the main suspect in a murder case. However, what is unique about this case is that Nakaishi Junichi is the suspect in two different murders committed in different places around the same time, even though it would only be physically possible to commit one of them! On the fifth of November, the narrator is forced to cancel a dinner date with Tokino due the discovery of the body of Nakaishi Satoko, who was found in her house by a friend with whom she had a lunch date earlier that day. The Nano Prefectural Police soon start to suspect her husband Junichi: the couple had been living seperately for a year now. They trace Satoko's last known movements on the night before, and find out she must have been killed on the fourth of November, after having dinner at a restaurant. Confronting the husband with his history of infidelity and the fact a neighbor saw someone like him leaving the house around the time of the murder, the husband claims he was alone in his home, but can not prove his story. The detectives of the Nano Prefectural Police are pretty sure Junichi's their man and hope to nab him after Satoko's funeral, when they run into homicide detectives of the Metropolitan Police Department, who reveal Nakaishi Junichi is the main suspect in the murder of Kawai Aki, Junichi's mistress who was slowly turning into a nuisance. It turns out that this Aki was also killed around eleven o'clock of the fourth of November in Tokyo, and the MPD too have enough evidence to at least bring Junichi along for questioning, but this leads to a problem: Both the local Nano detectives and the MPD detectives are sure Junichi is the culprit of their own case, but obviously, he can only have committed one of those crimes, because the murders were committed around the same time and whether you take public transport or the car, it's about ninety minutes between the two crime scenes. Both investigative parties refuse to admit they are wrong, but the harder the Nano police detectives try to prove they are right, they are just proving Junichi's innocence in the other case, while the work of the MPD detectives in turn weakens the Nano police's case, resulting in neither party being able to pin anything on Junichi!

A story with a very interesting premise: Junichi is the suspect in two different cases that occured at the same time, so proving his guilt in one case, would only provide him with an alibi for the other case! Considering this series is about perfect alibis, you can of course guess that Junichi is in fact involved with both murders, and that his trick naturally does not rely on him having hired an assassin to do the other murder. I have to admit that at first though, the story seemed a bit too obvious to me: one of the most important clues in this story is very similar to a (good!) idea from the first collection, so that allowed me to guess what Junichi must have done fairly easily, because the connection is quickly made in your head. But when Tokino explained the crime, I was pleasantly surprised by the way the story actually builds up to that solution. While I had correctly guessed the main trick behind the double murders, I had completely missed the two clever hints that serve as the first step towards the 'big' solution. They are very cunningly hidden in the story, and result in a mystery that really benefits from a well thought-out structure: it doesn't allow, or expect from Tokino, nor the reader, to just jump to Step 3: The Trick in one go, but you also have Step 1 and Step 2 to go through first in terms of clues, to have the proper build-up to the final reveal. It makes this a story that is more than "just a clever trick meant to surprise the reader", because it shifts the focus more to the logical process behind how to solve such a mystery, and it succeeds because of that.

Three completely unrelated short stories, published in three very different ways, being via a magazine, being serialized within a newspaper column and online. And contents-wise, they are really different too, now I think about it, from the historically grounded Sannin Shobou to the more comedic, single idea-focused Satsui no Yukemuri to the tricky puzzler Tokeiya Tantei to Niritsu Haihan no Alibi. As a matter of personal taste, it's of course the puzzler that I liked best of these three, but all three stories have interesting angles to them. And that about wraps things up for this post. The next time I'll be discussing individual, seperate short stories again outside of short story collections? I guess... next year, around this time of the year agan?

Original Japanese title(s):  柳川一「三人書房」/ 三谷幸喜「殺意の湯煙」/ 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と二律背反のアリバイ」

Magical Mystery Enemies

"That's all magic is, an illusion."

"Jonathan Creek"

I thought it had been several years since I last read a Rampo, but it wasn't even that long ago that I read the excellent Yuureitou. Guess I forgot because it wasn't about Akechi.

After defeating the crazy murderer the Spider-Man in the novel Kumo Otoko (1929-1930), amateur detective Akechi Kogorou decided to take a long deserved holiday, resting at a lakeside hotel. There he becomes friends with Taeko, the beautiful daughter of the wealthy jeweler Tamamura Zentarou. After she returned to Tokyo, Akechi of course hoped he'd be able to meet her again, but he couldn't have guessed their reunion would come so soon: Akechi is contacted by the police, who want his help involving a mysterious threatening case. At first, Akechi refused, until he learns that it involves Fukunaga Tokujirou, the uncle of Taeko. Letters with numbers counting down have been appearing in the man's house every day now, and Fukunaga is afraid that once the countdown reaches zero, something horrible will happen. Akechi takes the first train back to Tokyo, but he's immediately kidnapped by an unknown party and during Akechi's absence, Fukunaga is murdered inside his locked bedroom by apparently a gigantic man. It seems like Akechi's latest foe can truly make the impossible possible and stopping this fiend won't be easy in Edogawa Rampo's Majutsushi ("The Magician", 1930).

After a series of short stories with the amateur detective Akechi Kogorou, Edogawa Rampo (father of the Japanese detective story) also had Akechi appear in novels. Akechi'd slowly transform from a bookish student to an amateur detective, to a dandy gentleman detective over the course of his career, with Majutsushi still being set in his amateur days, though he finally opens a true detective agency at the end of this novel. Akechi also meets his future assistant/wife in this novel, who's often an active character in subsequent Akechi novels, as well as in the Boys Detective Club series, so for fans of the character Akechi Kogorou, Majutsushi is a must-read for fleshing out his life.

Rampo had Akechi confront a terrifying, almost inhuman murderer in the thriller Kumo Otoko (1929-1930) and Majutsushi continues with that trend. In fact, most Akechi novels pit him against some kind of superfiend, like a Scooby Doo! monster, with whom Akechi will have several confrontations over the course of the story. This is also what happens in Majutsushi, where Akechi sometimes outwits, and sometimes is outwitted by a murderer who appears in front of Akechi as a circus magician, and who is hell-bent on killing all members of the Tamamura family. Besides the silly super-criminal trope, you also have the usual Rampo tropes here, like a focus on voyeurism, with several of the murders being displayed in public in all their goriness. Like I mentioned in my review of Issunboushi, exhibitionism, and a delayed realization of that plays a big role in Rampo's detective stories. In Majutsushi too, the eponymous Magician stages for some of his murders (or chopped off body parts) to appear in public, and usually people first look at it, find it odd, and only after that, it slowly starts to dawn upon them that what they just saw, was something horrible. Lenses and mirrors are also a Rampo-thing, and true enough, mirrors also appear in this story (not so curious of course, considering Akechi is fighting a magician).

As a mystery story, it's a bit like most Rampo novels, that is, not particularly memorable. Majutsushi is a serialized novel, and give it some credit, this is one of the better plotted ones by Rampo because with most of his other serialized novels, you can really tell he's simply winging things as he's going, while Majutsushi is actually reasonably tightly plotted, but still, the whole thing feels like a somewhat unambitious pulpy thriller. Most of the events that happen are just there to 'shock' the reader, even though they never really do, and the few truly horrifying scenes we get, are taken from Edgar Allan Poe stories (which Rampo also points out in his own look back at this novel). The locked room murder at the start of the novel has a silly, uninspired solution that Rampo has actually used in other novels in better ways, and other events in this novel aren't about detecting anymore, but at "look at how gruesome that is!". This is a pulp thriller, a very pulpy one at that too, but not nearly as entertaining as other Rampo pulps like Kurotokage.

There's a juvenile version of this novel by the way, also titled Majutsushi, set in the Boys Detective Club series. Rampo rewrote several of his stories as juvenile stories for this series starring the young assistant of Akechi Kogorou, Kobayashi.

So overall, Majutsushi is very typical of a Rampo serialized novel, that is, it's an incredibly pulpy story brimming with Rampo's trademark tropes. Judged solely on its mystery plot, Majutsushi does nothing particularly special, even if it tries to throw some surprises at the reader, but overall, I think this novel is most notable for its place in the Akechi timeline, establishing both the background of his future wife and Akechi's move to a professional private detective.

Original Japanese title(s): 江戸川乱歩『魔術師』

La Demeure mystérieuse

炎と燃えさかる私のこの愛

あなたにだけはわかってほしい

絆で私をつつんで・・・

「炎の宝物」 （Bobby）

This love of mine burns like a flame

I hope only you will understand

Embrace me with a bond with you...

"A Treasure of Flames" (Bobby)

I often comment on the covers of Japanese releases here, but I have to say, today's review has easily one of the best I've ever seen. People who are familiar with anime will probably recognize the style immediately.

In the outskirts of Nagasaki stands an old Western-style mansion, with a clock tower on top, It was built in the final years of the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) as a country villa by a wealthy man with a love for clocks. Rumors say he had a secret maze built inside the building to hide his treasures, and that he had actually gone missing inside the maze, with nobody being able to even find the entrance to the secret passages to save him. Just a few decades later, around the transition from the Meiji to the Taishou period (which started in 1912), a former servant of the household had gotten into possession of the mansion, but she was murdered in her bedroom by one of her adopted children. Since then, the building has been without an owner, and the people in the neighboring village started calling it the Phantom Tower. Six years after the murder, young Kitagawa Mitsuo finds himself wandering through this haunted mansion, as it recently became the possession of his uncle, who intends to make it his home. While Mitsuo is checking out what needs to be renovated, he finds a beautiful, mysterious woman in the room where the murder took place. Akiko, as her name turns out to be, explains she knows how to handle the mechanism of the clock tower and says she'd love to meet Mitsuo's uncle. But who is this woman, and why was she in the Phantom Tower in the first place? Little did Mitsuo know that this first meeting with the mysterious woman would turn into a grand adventure in Edogawa Rampo's Yuureitou ("The Phantom Tower", 1937).

Yuureitou is probably one of the better known novels by Edogawa Rampo, father of the Japanese detective story. But that is not only because it is a novel by Rampo, as there is a a whole convoluted history behind this novel. This book was originally published in 1937, but this was actually an extensive reimagined version of Kuroiwa Ruikou's Yuureitou ("The Phantom Tower"), first serialized in 1899-1900 in Kuroiwa's own newspaper Yorozu Chouhou. I don't write that often about Kuroiwa, but he's an important figure in early Japanese fiction: he was a journalist/publisher/translator/writer, who often translated Western novels (w/o actually securing the rights, mind you) for serialization in his (common-people-oriented) newspaper. But his translations are actually best described as adaptations, as Kuroiwa freely changed things in a story to suit his own preferences. But his adaptations were very readable, and popular among. He famously translated Dumas' Le Comte de Monte-Cristo for example as Gankutsuou, "The King of the Cavern", which is still a common Japanese title for the book. Kuroiwa's Yuureitou made such an impression on young Rampo in his youth, that he later decided to write his own version of it (Rampo did ask for permission from Kuroiwa's relatives, by the way).

What's confusing is that Kuroiwa blatantly lied about the original story he translated it from. In the introduction to his Yuureitou, he explained the original work was titled Phantom Tower, by a Miss Bendinson. This was just an fanciful invention however. The real original title was A Woman in Grey, a 1898 novel by Alice Muriel Williamson (there's also a silent serial film based on the book available). But as noted, Kuroiwa's Yuureitou was not an exact translation: the characters in Kuroiwa's version for example all had Japanese names (despite still being set in England!), and Kuroiwa also changed details of the story to make it more exciting for his readers (in general, he placed more an emphasis on the exciting parts of the story, meaning that the first half of the story was shortened, but the latter half was extended). So in short, this story started out as The Woman in Grey, was freely translated/adapted by Kuroiwa Ruikou, and then again reinvisioned by Edogawa Rampo, with both Kuroiwa and Rampo adding and changing things to suit their own style (Rampo's version is set completely in Japan, and he too changed the flow of the story among other details).

As a gothic thriller, Rampo's Yuureitou is fairly amusing. It's very much a Rampo-work, I'd say, with both the good and bad qualities of most Rampo stories. For example, this story is fun to read. As in, every time I think I'm going to stop now, but I feel enticed to read just a bit more. Rampo was a great writer in the sense of writing easy, but captivating texts. This is also true for Yuureitou. Part of this is because this was written as a serialized story, so each installment had to be able to lure new readers. On the other hand, this is also where Rampo's writings sometimes stumble, and that's also the case with Yuureitou, as the story can be repetitive at times (recap moments for new readers), and some events are perhaps not forgotten, but kinda disappear to the background, making the story at times seem more like a series of discrete events, rather than a straight line of cause-and-effect. I'd make the argument though that this problem is less apparent than usual with Yuureitou, as Rampo obviously had the Kuroiwa version available as a guideline.

As with many of Rampo's later stories, Yuureitou is not a straight-up mystery thriller novel, but also features elements of the adventure novel and even science-fiction works. While there is a murder in this book, it's not the main mystery, as that revolves around the mysterious Akiko and the secrets of the clock tower, but even so, I have to admit I think this story feels a bit different from most other Rampo novels I've read. It has a more distinct gothic feel to it, probably because of the original story underneath. Sure, it has typical Rampo elements like an adventurey feel to the flow of the events, but whereas a lot of Rampo's novels are actually set in urban environments, this book is mostly set around the Phantom Tower, with a focus on Akiko and the past of the Phantom Tower. I wouldn't say it's not Rampo-ish, but Yuureitou does put its weight in different places than usual. Reading it as a mystery novel will probably result in some disappointment, as most of the plot twists can be read miles away. It is definitely an old-fashioned story, with plot twists that are rather predictable (I suspect they were even back in 1939), but Rampo still manages to present it in an entertaining way. 

The clock tower plays a big role in this story, obviously. Kuroiwa didn't change the title from The Woman in Grey to The Phantom Tower for nothing, and Rampo even expanded upon the theme of a phantom tower and its secret passages in his version of the story. In fact, the clock tower would prove to become a very important part of animation history. Like I mentioned at the start of this post, the version of Yuureitou I read featured a special cover by none other than the renowed film director Miyazaki Hayao. The (former) Studio Ghibli director famous for animated features like (Academy Award winner) Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Laputa Castle in the Sky, was a big fan of Rampo's Yuureitou. In 1979, he directed his first animated feature, Lupin III: The Castle of Caglistro, based on the Lupin III franchise (he had directed episodes of the TV series). The climax of this (classic adventure!) film is set at... a mysterious clock tower with a secret. This climax scene also formed an inspiration for the scene in Disney's 1989 animated feature The Great Mouse Detective (and in turn also the climax in the Batman: The Animated Series episode The Clock King). So in a way, the clock tower from A Woman in Grey has been a surprising part of popular culture throughout time. I actually wonder whether a game series like Clock Tower was also partly inspired by Yuureitou (the first game too featured a clock tower with secret passageways).

In 2015 Miyazaki opened an exhibit at the Ghibli Museum in honor of Yuureitou: he had designed and built his own model of the titular Phantom Tower, and wrote a short comic introducing the history behind the novel, and explaining about his own meeting with the novel. What's more, he even drew several (detailed!) storyboard pages for the first scenes of the book, explaining how he would animate it (he does note he won't do it though). All this material he created for his exhibit is included in this hardcover version of Yuureitou, published in 2015 (in full-color/high grade paper). For Miyazaki fans, this version is certainly a treat. I'm personally a big fan of Miyazaki's comic art, which is actually quite different from his style in his animated features (his comics are overly detailed, something you can't do in animation), and it's great to see how he envisioned the Phantom Tower.

I would not even dare to suggest Yuureitou is a classic of mystery fiction, but it is definitely an amusing read, even if a bit predictable and simple. But this particular version, with Miyazaki's beautiful artwork providing a commentary on the story and visualizing the image of book, is definitely something special. For people interested in both Rampo and Miyazaki, I can recommend this wholeheartedly.

Original Japanese title(s):　江戸川乱歩（原）、宮崎駿（絵）　『幽霊塔』

Les Milliards d'Arsène Lupin

Arsène Lupin in our midst! the irresponsible burglar whose exploits had been narrated in all the newspapers during the past few months! the mysterious individual with whom Ganimard, our shrewdest detective, had been engaged in an implacable conflict amidst interesting and picturesque surroundings. Arsène Lupin, the eccentric gentleman who operates only in the chateaux and salons, and who, one night, entered the residence of Baron Schormann, but emerged empty-handed, leaving, however, his card on which he had scribbled these words: "Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine."

"The Arrest of  Arsène Lupin"

Today, something completely different! Not a review, but a little look into the Japanese history of a very French character.

While the presence of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman-thief created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905, is not very remarkable in modern Western popular culture, Lupin still lives on in Japan in a curious way. Is he as well known as someone as Sherlock Holmes? That, I very, very much doubt, but the fact you can still stroll into a bookstore and find translated versions of tales of the gentleman-thief should say something. The question that might pop up in your head is: why? Forgotten is too strong a word, but Lupin is definitely not that big a household name anymore in the West, and while getting his books through the Powers of the Internet isn't that difficult, I doubt many stores in the neighborhood stock his adventures. Is there a secret behind his staying power in Japan?

Some might say that Japanese culture, or more precisely, Japanese mystery fandom, tends to focus more on the Western classics more than we do here. I think that would be a too easy, and a too careless attempt at an explanation, and one that seems to ignore the fact that Leblanc actually did write incredibly entertaining stories. Perhaps the question should be why he isn't still that famous here, rather than the other way around.

The notion of the gentleman-thief did not start with Arsène Lupin, of course. A direct literary forefather is E.W. Hornung's Raffles series, which started in 1898, and we have early examples in folklore like Robin Hood. In Japan too, there had been a tradition of folklore about thieves that were seen as heroes by the masses. There is for example Ishikawa Goemon (1558-1584), an outlaw who stole to give to the poor. His exploits became the subject of many kinds of folklore, including multiple kabuki plays. Another example would be Nezumi Kozou ("The Rat Kid"). Nezumi Kozou was the nickname of Nakamura Jiroukichi (1797-1831), a thief who managed to burgle over 100 samurai estates. His tale turned into folklore, and has been the subject of folk songs and kabuki plays (including one by Kawatake Mokuami, seen by some as one of the greatest kabuki dramatists). These characters are considered gizoku, or "thieves with honor" and are thus early examples of thieves that are considered the heroes of a tale in fiction (even if based on real persons and events).

So it isn't strange that a concept like the gentleman-thief would be accepted in Japan. Interestingly, Raffles wasn't translated to Japanese until the Taishou period (1912-1926), while Lupin arrived in Japan much earlier. Already in 1909, the magazine Sunday featured Pari Tantei - Dorobou no Dorobou ("Paris Detective - Thief of Thieves"), based on the 1906 short story La Perle noire. Translations of various stories by various translators followed, many of them being rewrites of the original plot with new titles. The Lupin-epic 813 was for example published in 1912 with the title Kojou no Himitsu ("The Secret of the Old Castle"), written/translated by Mitsuki Shunei. So even in Lupin's early days, he was already making his name in Japan.
(See: Hasebe Fumichika (2007). Oubei Suiri Shousetsu Honyakushi. Futaba Bunko. p159-161)

The character of  Arsène Lupin was also noticed by Edogawa Rampo, who is commonly seen as the father of the modern Japanese mystery story. It's easy to see the influence of the thief in Rampo's work. Not only did he have his own detective character, Akechi Kogorou, take on the famous French thief in his 1930-1931 novel Ougon Kamen ("The Golden Mask"): his famous creation Kaijin Nijuu Mensou (the Fiend with Twenty Faces) was also partly inspired by the thief. The Fiend would become the main antagonist in the highly succesful children's mystery series Shounen Tantei Dan (The Boy Detectives Club, started in 1936), so the notion of the flamboyant thief with a fantastic skill for disguises had been implanted in many. And more importantly perhaps, this notion was implanted in children, meaning a new generation would grow up with knowledge of this notion. The Shounen Tantei Dan series is still source of many pop-culture references nowadays,

The biggest influence on Lupin's staying power however is perhaps Minami Youichirou (1893-1980), a novelist and translator who'd be responsible for "The Complete Gentleman-Thief Lupin" series, which was a complete translated release of the complete Arsène Lupin series by publisher Poplar. Minami had been a teacher on an elementary school, but having found succes with writing adventure novels for children, he became a professional novelist. His first translation of the Lupin series was published in 1958, and it would take him over 20 years, until the year he died, to complete the project (though this project also included some non-Leblanc Lupin novels). What should be noted was that Minami did not make faithful translations. The Minami translation is aimed at children, so a lot of the stories were simplified, and plotpoints like adultery/divorce and such were skipped over. Some books were shortened to provide for a more streamlined experience. The result is a slightly more heroic, and perhaps 'cleaner' version of Lupin, but, thanks to Minami's own experience as a novelist of children's adventure novels, this version was also very readable, and as such incredibly well-loved by the readers. I too have read some of his translation, and they were quite fun as easier-to-read, and more focused stories.

Other publishers have also released faithful translations of the Lupin novels, but if you look on Amazon now, you'll notice that they're all out of print. Only the Minami Youichirou translations remain in print, even now, so many years after the series first started and even after 'better' translations were released. It shows how beloved his version of the stories are. And because his books are aimed at children, new generations keep growing up with his versions. Interestingly enough, even generations that have now grown up don't seem to have a particular need for the faithful translations! Also note that the Minami translations are instantly recognizable by their awesome retro covers!

Some people might also want to mention the famous franchise Lupin The Third as a reason as to why Arsène Lupin's still available in Japan. Lupin The Third, first started in 1967, is one of the biggest manga/anime franchises in the history, with multiple comic book series, TV series, even more TV specials and films and everything. Heck, an (EXCELLENT) TV series of it has ended just now in Japan, in 2016!  And yes, Lupin The Third is about Lupin III, grandson of Arsène, who's also a genius thief, so that is a link, but I think a lot of people overestimate this link. Lupin The Third borrows very little from his grandfather besides some names and the (very) occassional reference. So I wouldn't equate Lupin the Third's success with Arsène Lupin's reputation in Japan per se, even if it definitely helps to have the same name! Do note that Lupin The Third is way, way, waaaaay better known that his grandfather. There is a different recent manga based on Arsène Lupin by the way, titled Aventurier (2011-now), based on the books.

Anyway, I don't pretend to know exactly why Arsène Lupin still prevails in Japan. Then again: is there anybody who can accurately read the movements of that thief? If Ganimard can't, how can I? What I do know is that I absolutely love the character and I'm happy to see that he's still alive in Japan, in one form or another. Because what would Lupin be without a disguise?

Killed in the Ratings

Something old, something new, 

something borrowed, something blue,

The holiday season traditionally has a lot of mystery and murder on TV, for some reason. For the bigger and more interesting productions, I usually write seperate posts, but this season there was little I saw that warranted its post, so I grouped it all together in a short short post (where I write shorter reviews/thoughts on multiple mystery media, as opposed to longer, focused reviews). Funnily enough, this is the first short short posts in almost two years that does not feature either Detective Conan or The Young Kindaichi Case Files.

The TV special Kurotokage ("The Black Lizard") was broadcast on Japanese TV on December 22, 2015 and is an adaptation of Edogawa Rampo's 1934 book, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the writer's death. The original book is one of Rampo's best known stories and chronicles the adventures of great detective Akechi Kogorou as he attempts to capture the female thief the Black Lizard. It is a very pulpy adventure book, but oh-so-fun. The campy 1968 film was a very faithful and enjoyable adaptation of the book. The 2015 special is in a word horrible. I can live with the fact they moved the story to the present, or the fact they made Akechi Kogorou the Deputy Superintendent General of the police department, rather than a private detective. But the special is just dull.

Attempts at lighthearted comedy kill any attempts of creating atmosphere, the acting is mediocre at best (and the awful script is definitely not helping the actors) and the story has boring and uninspired attempts at adding "original" elements to the original book. The latter wouldn't be even that bad if they had at least tried to follow the spirit of the book, or Rampo's writings in general: 2004's Rampo R's version of the book was only based very loosely on the book, but at least it built on the themes of the book and Rampo in general, so that was a a lot more enjoyable than 2015's TV special. This is not how you should commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the most infuential mystery writer of Japan.

Kurotokage moved the story to the present, something Sherlock also did in its main series by moving Sherlock Holmes to a modern background, but the 2016 New Year's special The Abominable Bride goes back to the past. The story is set in Victorian London, where one Emilia Ricoletti managed to do the impossible by first committing suicide and then returning as a ghoul bride to kill her husband with a shotgun. Back at the morgue, Inspector Lestrade is horrified to discover that Ricoletti's corpse in the morgue showed signs of having moved and asks Sherlock Holmes of 221b Baker Street to help him. Note that this special is set in Victorian London like in the original stories, but that the characters are those from Sherlock and not that of the original canon. Anyway, this was a mostly enjoyable special.

The story has a bit of a Scooby Doo vibe actually, with demon brides haunting town. The mystery plot is rather forgettable though: I wouldn't say it's particularly smart, it's actually a rehash of something Sherlock has already done and the way it comes to a conclusion is very clumsily done. On the other hand: the latter half of the special gives the viewer a new perspective on the narrative up until then, and manages to give a rather bland mystery plot a bit more glamour by using that narrative as part of a bigger narrative. Overall an enjoyable TV special that fits well in the spirit of the series despite the setting, but I wouldn't watch it for the impossible crime.

Last year, an interesting, if flawed TV adaptation of Christie's Murder on the Orient Express was broadcast on Japanese TV, but this holiday season also featured a Christie adaptation, but on British TV (where else?). And Then There Were None, a three-part series based on Agatha Christie's classic that started on Boxing Day 2015, was perhaps the biggest surprise. Other recent adaptations of Christie's work on the TV were err... not optimal., so I was not expecting too much of this series, so imagine how surprised I was when I realized that this was actually a very faithful series. This series does an especially great job at visualizing the pressing atmosphere on Soldier Island, where invisible Death awaits ten sinful men and women.

The series is rather long (3x55 minutes), so there are some original parts that build on the original book in order to fill the running time, but little of it feels unnatural (I say little, because I'm not fond of one particular scene in the last episode). Overall, I think And Then There Were None was a great mini-series.

And that's it for today. Mystery-wise, this holiday season was better than than last year's, though nothing beats the extravaganza of two years ago (with Sherlock, Trick, The Kindaichi Case Files and more all starting in the first few days of the New Year). I hope next year will be at least as good as this year!

Original Japanese title(s): 江戸川乱歩（原）　『黒蜥蜴』

Miss Mystery

I Miss You Miss Mystery

君の全てを知りたい 

必ず暴いて見せる　

偽装られたアリバイを壊して 

「Miss Mystery」 (Breakerz)

I miss you Miss Mystery

I want to know everything about you

I will reveal everything

And break down your alibi

"Miss Mystery" (Breakerz)

Strangely enough, this isn't my first book I got from South-Korea. I am making a guess though that this will be the first and only English write-up of this book out there... Also: this is actually the first book I started and finished in 2015. All of the books I posted about before, and for months after this post, were read in 2014...

A Collection of Detective Stories from Keijou (original title: "Gyeongseong ui ilbon eo tamjeongjakpumjip") is one of the most interesting and odd book releases I know off. Like the title says: the book, released last year in South-Korea, is an anthology of detective stories written in Korea during the period the Great Korean Empire was colonized by Japan. Most of the writers featured in this anthology were Japanese living in Keijou (Seoul as it was called during the colonization) at the time, I think, but the book also features the very first detective story in Japanese written by a Korean. The 22 stories and essays (dating from 1927~1937) are scanned from their original sources (mostly magazines) and while it can be a bit difficult to make out the writing sometimes, the fact you can read everything like it was originally printed (together with the original illustrations) does add to the 'authentic' feel. The book ends with a postface that gives a paragraph or two about each story and the publishing background.

Now you know why I think this is an interesting release, but why odd? Well, except for the postface, everything in this book released in South-Korea, is completely in Japanese. As said, the contents consist of scans from their original sources and that means they were all written in Japanese. So yes, most people in South-Korea wouldn't even be able to read this book, even though it was published there! And even for those who do know Japanese, this book features pre-war Japanese, which has different spelling rules and can be quite difficult to read if you're only familiar with post-war Japanese. Add in the fact that the topic of the book, detective stories from Keijou, is probably not that popular and I really have to ask the question: who came up with the idea of publishing this book, in this particular form, in South-Korea? Heck, the contents of the book is from right-to-left (Japanese), even though the cover and binding is actually made from left to right (Korean)! I'm probably just missing some insight that explains the genius plan behind this book.

And a friend from South-Korea bought this curious book for me, so I can read it here in the Netherlands. Don't you just love overly complex international stories? My friend knows Japanese too by the way and she thought the book almost unreadable, to give you an idea of how common pre-war Japanese is.

I won't be discussing all of the 21 stories + 1 Edogawa Rampo essay in the anthology. Not only would that make this review way too long, I'll have to be honest and say that a lot of the stories are not particular good. Which for some stories, is even too nice a way of describing them. There are some stories that fall in the 'wide' crime genre, and some of the stories are literally: "A heinous crime happened. It was never solved. The end". So I'll just mention those that left an impression.

The book starts with Kui ni Tatta Mesu ("A Knife as a Stake"). The story was written by Kim Sam-gyu between 1929 - 1930 and is known as the first detective story written by a Korean in Japanese. The story starts with the murder on the heiress of a wealthy family, who is stabbed with a knife, which also holds the Spade of Ace card. This first victim is soon followed by more dead, each also being stabbed together with playing cards. The resulting chase for the unknown serial killer is a bit boring to be honest and the identity of the murderer is rather disappointing because there was just too small a cast and everyone ended up being related to the case for some reason or another. More interesting as an anecdote in history than stand-alone detective story.

The anthology features a great number of stories by the Keijou Detective Hobby Club (Keijou Tantei Shumi no Kai), which I think is a club of detective fiction lovers and writers. I say think, because the commentary included in the book that probably explains more about the club and its members is one of the few things in Korean. Which I can't read. Most of the club stories are relay-stories. Onna Supai no Shi ("Death of a Female Spy") starts out as a fairly amusing story where a female spy who infiltrated a communist group/revolutionaries is killed. Each new installment basically turns the story around and while it definitely does not seem like there was any planning done on the story, I had a couple of laughs seeing how each writer seemed to be intent on 1) turning everything the previous writer did around and 2) making things as complex as possible for the next in line. It's even more obvious with Mittsu no Tama no Himitsu ("The Secret of the Three Jewels"), which starts out as a Lupin-esque story where a man is suddenly given three jewels that appear to be the key to a horrible secret, which turns into a Russian melodrama in the second installment and finally the last installment which tries to make sense out of the two previous installments.

The anthology also features two Japanese translations of Sherlock Holmes stories. While Nazo no Shi ("The Mysterious Death") is a straight translation of The Speckled Band, the translation of Silver Blaze (under the title Meiba no Yukue, "The Whereabouts of the Famous Horse") is a bit more interesting. While the story is still set in England, everyone actually has Japanese names. I'd understand if the complete story had been moved to Japan, but why change the names, but keep the setting of England? It'd say it's even a bit distracting to have "Horimi" watch for curious incidents of dogs in night-time.

Houseki wo Nerau Otoko ("The Man Who Wanted The Jewel") by Sagawa Harukaze (better known as Morishita Uson) is a wonderfully hilarious story where a police inspector happens to learn of a jewel heist by a infamous thief and lays a trap for him. The story is short, but satisfying and invokes the spirit of the famou French gentleman thief.

Tenkyoushuu Daijuuichigou no Kokuhaku ("Confession of Asylum Prisoner No. 11") by Yoshii Nobuo (of the Keijou Detective Hobby Club) is another hilarious story of an asylum patient telling how he came to cry out "the wind is blowing, the wind is blowing!" which got him admitted in the mental hospital. It starts out so dark, but the ending is fantastic. It is not a real detective or crime story, but it certainly made me laugh. Ijiwaru Keiji ("A Spiteful Detective") by Yamazaki Reimonjin (kinda guessing the reading of the given name) too is a funny story about something that appears non-criminal at first, but ends with a little twist. His story is subtitled "a detective sketch", so that gives the reader an idea of what to expect.

A lot of the stories are "crime" stories and while as pieces of fiction, they don't impress at all, I do have to say I found these stories interesting as relics of the past, because I normally would have never even thought of trying these stories. With the stories dating from 1927~1937, it's funny to see how many of these stories feature communists and left-wing activists as a source of evil. There's also a faint anti-foreigner tone to be found at times. I don't think people would nowadays read these stories just for fun (I wouldn't), but presented in this form, I thought it was fun to read these stories for a chance, instead of the time-proven classics of yore. Another element that really made you feel these stories were from another time and space was the censoring! Sexual expressions were censored, but that made some stories actually appear more erotic than they probably were. (Ex: "And then he XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX her.").

It is not directly related to the contents of the book, but I had fun reading pre-war Japanese. I had read some short stories before, but never something as long as this. It's not completely different from modern-day Japanese, but it takes a while to adjust to the alternate spelling conventions and more complex characters. Still. it only makes me wonder more why a book in pre-war Japanese is published in modern-day South-Korea.

While not all stories of A Collection of Detective Stories from Keijou are as amusing, I quite enjoyed the book overall. While I have some questions about the specifics behind this publication and I really have to wonder how many people bought this book, I think the book does offer an interesting look in an otherwise overseen element of both Japanese and Korean detective fiction history.

Original Korean title: "경성의 일본어 탐정 작품집"
Original Japanese title(s): 金三圭 「杭に立ったメス」 / 山崎黎門人、阜久生、吉井信夫、大世渡貢 「女スパイの死」 / 山岡操、太田恒彌、山崎黎門人 「三つの玉の秘密」 / Arthur Conan Doyle, 芳野青泉（訳） 「名馬の行方」 / Arthur Conan Doyle, 倉持高雄（訳） 「謎の死」 / 秋良春夫 「捕物秘話」 / 青山倭文二 「水兵服の贋札少女」 / 青山倭文 「犯罪実験者」 / 総督府、野田生 「青衣の賊」 / 末田晃 「猟死病患者」 / 森二郎 「共産党事件とある女優」 / Y・黎門人 「彼をやっつける」 / 白扇生 「闇に浮いた美人の姿」 / 倉白扇 「暗夜に狂う日本刀 脳天唐竹割りの血吹雪」 / ヒアルトフ・アルクナア 伊東鋭太郎（訳） 「夜行列車奇談」 / 佐川春風 「宝石を覘う男」 / 木内為棲 「深山の暮色」 / 山崎黎門人 「意地わる刑事」 / 山崎黎門人 「蓮池事件」 / 吉井信夫 「癲狂囚第十一号の告白」 / 古世渡貢 「空気の差」 / 江戸川乱歩 「探偵趣味」

The Sign of Three

熱い心クサリでつないでも今は無駄だよ

邪魔する奴は指先ひとつでダウンさ

「愛をとりもどせ!!」 (クリスタルキング)

Even if you bind my burning hart with chains, it's no use

I knock down everyone who stands in my one with just one finger

"Take back my love!" (Crystal King)

I have a whole bunch of unread Edogawa Rampo volumes lying around here. It's basically my emergency kit: whenever I have nothing else to read, or I want to read something I know I can get through quickly and still have some fun with, I pick up one of these volumes. And so today, another of Rampo's novels.

In Edogawa Rampo's Akuma no Monshou ("The Crest of the Devil", 1937~38), an unknown enemy has threatened to wipe off CEO Kawate Shoutarou and his family of the face of this world. Because the famous detective Akechi Kogorou has left the country for other business, Kawate decides to hire Professor Munakatari, another private detective who has been making a name for himself as being at least the equal of the great Akechi Kogorou. But even Professor Munakatari has to admit that this case is a lot more complex, and the secret adversary much more dangerous than he had assumed. Without breaking even a sweat, the avenger manages to kill one of Munakatari's assistants, do the same with Kawate's youngest daughter and stage a disappearing act with the elder sister from a guarded room inside a well-secured house. The only clue Munakatari has is the murderer's fingerpint: this mark of the devil with three distinctive swirls appears on every crime scene, like a face laughing at Kawate and Munakatari.

Akuma no Monshou was originally serialized in the magazine Hi no De from September 1937 until October of the following year, with Yokomizo Seishi as its editor. Rampo was also busy with the serialization of Shounen Tantei Dan in the same period by the way, so it was a productive time for him. Wthin the oeuvre of Rampo, Akuma no Monshou holds a B-rank in terms of name I think: it's not as known as other works by Rampo, but it is certainly not an obscure title (I even have a comic version of it by The Accidents' Yamada Takatoshi).

But this is definitely not Edogawa Rampo at his best. A lot of the plot consists of reusing elements of other, and usually better stories he had written in the past and considering Rampo's strange fascination for mirrors, Akuma no Monshou ironically feels like a laughing mirror version of these stories. Mirrors appear in the form of a mirror house in this novel by the way, and you'll see a lot of other familar Rampo tropes too, but their use never feels original. It's all an inferior version of what Rampo had already done a lot better in the past. People hiding in stuff? Done better in The Human Chair. Public display of dead bodies and themes of voyeurism? Done better in The Dwarf. Mirrors and lenses? The Hell of Mirrors. A long detective story? Kotou no Oni was much more entertaining and it doesn't even come close to the excellent novella Nanimono (translation here). Every element in Akuma no Monshou has been done before by Rampo himself and much better.

And while I have the feeling Rampo was aiming for a traditional mystery plot with Akuma no Monshou, it's so full of silly stuff it is hard to take the novel seriously. The plan of the avenger is unneccessary complex and time-consuming, half of the plot is held together through threads of coincidence and luck and even though I absolutely love Rampo's work in general, even the sillier ones, I have difficulty finding something that really sets this novel apart from other Rampo stories in a positive way. The only part remotely interesting is the way the three-swirl fingerprint keeps turning up everywhere as the symbol of the avenger, but even that isn't really as terrifying as it could have been.

In general, Rampo has problems with longer stories. His novels were usually serialized, and he often just winged the plot together as he went (Kohantei Jiken for example). Because of that, a lot of stories feel very episodic and never really well planned out. This doesn't mean all of Rampo's longer works are bad: sometimes the chaos works (it certainly worked out for something like Ougon Kamen for example) and as the Lupin novels also show, episodic events do add a sense of thrill and adventure to the overall story. But Akuma no Monshou is an example of how it sometimes kinda falls apart and you're left with something, while not absolutely unreadable, is still not close what it could have been.

Personally, I have to admit that this has been a good lesson because for some reason, I've liked practically all I've read of Rampo. Even though I know he wasn't always at his best when at the writing table: there are actually quite a lot of his stories that were received quite badly when they were published and Rampo himself is the first to admit that a lot of his work isn't as good as it should be, one can read in his memoirs. But for me, Akuma no Monshou was the first story I just didn't manage to really like. Ah well, at least now I am sure I am not just a blind Rampo fanboy.

Akuma no Monshou is a very mediocre work by Rampo. You can find practically all of it, in a better form, in Rampo's other works. You're better off reading those stories, and if you have already, then there's no need whatsoever to read Akuma no Monshou.

Original Japanese title(s): 江戸川乱歩 『悪魔の紋章』

Step by Step

無邪気に笑い　踊る君　シェリーを口にする度 
妖艶 & 豹変　大人の女に変わってく

「Miss Mystery」（Breakerz）

Smiling innocently and dancing, every time you put sherry to your lips,

A bewitching transformation, you change into an adult woman

"Miss Mystery" (Breakerz)

Lots of firsts in this review: the first appearance of the first quintessential Japanese master detective, a stor that is commonly regarded as the very first Japanese locked room/location mystery and the first time here I was provided with a review copy by the publisher. And that leads into my very first disclosure message.

Full disclosure: Review copy of Edogawa Rampo's The Early Cases of Akechi Kogorō was provided by Kurodahan Press. I have written the introduction to Kurodahan Press' publication of Edogawa Rampo's The Fiend with Twenty Faces (2012).

Maybe I should also disclose that I'm a huge Edogawa Rampo fan. Though I think that should have been quite clear by now considering how often I mention him...

Edogawa Rampo, the father of the Japanese detective story, is a well-known name even outside Japan. I myself have reviewed a lot of his books on this blog and while a lot of the material I discuss here isn't translated, actually quite a lot of Edogawa Rampo's novels are available in English, a great number of them starring his series detective Akechi Kogorō. From early inverted stories like The Pyschological Test (in: Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination) and Stalker in the Attic (In: The Edogawa Rampo Reader) and novelettes/novels like The Black Lizard (In: The Black Lizard / Beast in the Shadows) and The Fiend with Twenty Faces, Akechi Kogorō has been quite active in the English world. The Early Cases of Akechi Kogorō, released early this month, is the latest in Kurodahan Press' series of English Rampo releases and collects three short stories and one novelette featuring the master detective. As the title suggests, these stories are all early Rampo works and let's be honest: as a writer he was usually a lot better early in his career than later on.

The collection starts with one of the best known titles of Japanese detective stories: The Case of the Murder on D. Hill (1925) is not only Akechi's first appearance, it is also seen as the very first original Japanese locked room mystery. As often with early Rampo stories, D. Hill features a loafing narrator/author avatar who is having a drink with the mysterious Akechi, with whom he recently became acquainted. As they have a chat, they notice something weird is going on in the secondhand bookshop on the other side of the road and when they take a look, they discover the wife of the owner has been murdered. Puzzling however is that nobody seems to have seen anybody suspicious leave the block of houses there.

This was not the first time I've read D. Hill, but I've always appreciated this story more for other elements than its impossible crime angle, which really is a bit weak. Granted: considering that Japanese houses in the period often featured thin paper walls, it's kinda difficult to construct a locked room mystery as seen in Western fiction from the same time period and Rampo's first steps, even if a bit shakey like his name suggests, did serve as an example for others to follow. As such, I think the historical meaning of D. Hill is much more impressive than the pure puzzle. But I actually like the other thing Rampo did much better, which I can't really explain in detail without going in spoilers. But suffice to say that for fans D. Hill does feature early examples of familiar Rampo tropes and that as a first appearance story, it is quite enjoyable. I think that anybody interested in Rampo or Japanese detective fiction should at least read this story.

The Black Hand Gang (1925) is the only story of the collection I had not read in Japanese before and quite enjoyed it. The titular gang of vanguards has been making a name for itself in the capital by kidnapping children of wealthy families for ransom. When the narrator's cousin has been kidnapped too, he asks Akechi to help save her. The plot is simple, but fairly satisfying considering the length of the story and it features quite some enjoyable Rampo tropes, including a fairly ingenious code (that sadly enough is a bit hard to understand if you have no knowledge of Japanese at all). Codes of course are fairly important when discussing Rampo, as it was the main puzzle in his debut story The Two-Sen Copper Coin (available in English in Modanizumu), which is often praised for its ingenious code strongly linked to the Japanese language. The Black Hand Gang is also notable for featuring well, a gang that kidnaps children and who act like phantom thieves: fantastic criminals pop up all the time in Rampo's writings (most notably with The Fiend with Twenty Faces, but also someone like The Black Lizard), while kidnapping...whoo, you could write a whole book just about the number of kidnappings in Rampo's stories! It's like every other creation of Rampo will be kidnapped at some time in the story.

Most of Rampo's stories have fairly simple, to-the-point titles and as you can guess, The Ghost (1925), features a ghost. The ghost of old Tsujidō has been haunting his arch-enemy Hirata: his figure follows Hirata everywhere and despite several measures taken (including double-checking Tsujidō's death and keeping an eye on Tsujidō's son), he still can't explain how the face of a dead man can keep popping up. The solution is almost cheating, though it does involve elements that are actually quite ingenious. Better for its basic idea than the actual execution, I think and easily the weakest story included in the collection.

When Akechi Kogorō made his first appearance The Case of the Murder on D. Hill, he was described as an amateur detective / scholar and this was his image throughout all of his early stories published in 1925. These stories have now all been released in English:

1. The Case of the Murder on D. Hill (In: The Early Cases of Akechi Kogorō)

2. The Pyschological Test (In: Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination)

3. The Black Hand Gang (In: The Early Cases of Akechi Kogorō)

4. The Ghost (In: The Early Cases of Akechi Kogorō)

5. The Stalker in the Attic (In: The Edogawa Rampo Reader)

From 1925-1926's serialized novelette The Dwarf on however (the final story in The Early Cases of Akechi Kogorō), Akechi slowly changed into a gentleman private detective, which is how Akechi is commonly depicted as nowadays. Well, he starts off here dressed in Chinese clothes, but trust me, he'll become the dandy gentleman detective later on. The Dwarf is about the investigation into the role of a mysterious dwarf in the disapperance of Yamano Michiko. And I could write a lot about this novelette here, but I actually already did when I wrote a review of the book when I read it in Japanese two years ago, so I'd like to link to that review (man, I used to write really comprehensive reviews, I noticed just now... publication history, voyeurism and modernism among other topics). The short version: The Dwarf is a feast for those into Rampomania, as it has pretty much all of the important Rampo tropes. As a mystery story it's has its share of faults, but I enjoyed it as a pulpy detective story with a dwarf running around with human limbs. There probably aren't many of them out there, I think.

Overall, The Early Cases of Akechi Kogorō is a decent collection. The Black Hand Gang and The Ghost aren't the most impressive of Rampo's short stories, but The Case of the Murder on D. Hill and The Dwarf are great additions to Rampo's English library: D. Hill has great value in the history of Japanese detective fiction, while The Dwarf is a fun pulpy detective in the spirit of The Fiend with Twenty Faces and The Black Lizard. I still think Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the best introduction of Rampo available, but for those who have developed a love for Rampo's pulpy detectives, The Early Cases of Akechi Kogorō offers more of his early work.

Finally, I really gotta ask this: I'm pretty sure that the cover is supposed to be based on The Dwarf, but I can't possibly be the only one who was thinking of the moon of Majora's Mask, right?!