A Blast from the Past

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days

"Those Were the Days" (Mary Hopkin)

It's been a while since I wrote a very timely post (= within week of release)...

Disclosure: I translated Imamura Masahiro's Death Among the Undead and Death Within the Evil Eye. And I do hope one day, I'll get to work on the other books in the series too, regardless of which publisher decides to continue with the books...

While it were the deadly events occuring in Shijinsou no Satsujin (released in English as Death Among the Undead) that changed the lives of Akechi Kyosuke and Hamura Yuzuru forever, their exploits then were not the reason why they were known around campus: they had already built a reputation as the Holmes & Watson of Shinkou University, helping both students and staff by solving serious cases like missing cats and theft. When Akechi first entered Shinkou University as a young, mystery-loving man, he joined the university's official Mystery Club, only to learn the members of that club were not real mystery fans, but just filthy casuals, so he created his own club called the Mystery Society, with himself as the president and... the only member. Until the following year, he found a kindred spirit in Hamura Yuzuru. Hamura, a mystery buff himself, had to admit Akechi was an even bigger fan of everything related to mystery: Akechi very often sticks his nose into affairs out of sheer curiosity because he wants to play the great detective, and... he is actually reasonably good at that, even if he often won't get it right the first time around. Hamura acts as Akechi's counterbalance, trying to make sure Akechi never goes to far, but he knows: Akechi always means well, and together they make the campus of Shinkou University a better place. In Imamura Masahiro's short story collection Akechi Kyousuke no Honsou ("The Endeavors of Akechi Kyousuke", 2024), we are treated to five stories starring Akechi set before the events of Shijinsou no Satsujin.

I had been looking forward to this book for a long time! I have been a fan of the series ever since I read Shijinsou no Satsujin, which is why I was more than thrilled when I was given the opportunity to work on the English release of the book, and the sequel Death Within the Evil Eye too. Shijinsou no Satsujin was a brilliant book where Imamura showed how the supernatural could work perfectly with a pure puzzle plot mystery full of dynamic action, and he only keeps on surprising with each subsequent book in the series. Akechi Kyousuke no Honsou however is completely different from the previous three books, because it is set before the first novel. Where the books deal with supernatural murder mysteries, here we have very minor crimes and other everyday life mysteries, ranging from stolen exam tests to.... someone wondering why after a night of drinking, they are not wearing their underwear but still wearing their trousers.

The first story in this book was originally released in 2019 to coincide with the release of the live-action film of Shijinsou no Satsujin and is titled Saisho demo Saigo demo nai Jiken ("Neither His First nor His Final Case"). It is set about four months before the first book, and deals with a case of assault: a burglar had been snooping inside a building currently only used by the Cosplay Club looking for something to steal when he was knocked out, where he was later found by a security guard. Nobody really believes him, but Akechi is asked to look into the case anyway, as the club members are afraid that if it's not properly resolved, the Cosplay Club might be closed. I discussed this story in detail when it was first released in 2019, so I refer to that review for more details. It's a well-constructed puzzle story that really shows off Imamura's plotting skills, and I do always love mysteries that are about school clubs etc. And wait, this was released in 2019!? I was expecting more stories to follow and that they'd be collected into a short story collection eventually, but I hadn't expected it to take 4.5 years...

To Aru Nichijou no Nazo ni Tsuite ("Regarding A Certain Slice-of-Life Mystery") is perhaps the most mundane of all mysteries in this book: we are introduced to Katou Hisao, an elderly man who runs a cafetaria in the somewhat aging Fujimachi Shopping Arcade. Every week, he goes out to have a drink at a local standing bar to gossip with other local shopkeepers. Soon after he arrives at his usual spot, a young student arrives there too, who listens to the gossiping tales of Hisao and the other people there. This time, they're talking about old Nurii, who used to run an lacquerware shop in the shopping arcade: Nuri owned the whole building, but after retiring, he kept on living there because he had no other choice: his wife had passed away already and he was estranged from his daughter, but because the building was so old and lacking in maintenance, he also couldn't sell it to move somewhere else, so he was stuck there. But recently, a mysterious buyer offered to buy the building from Nurii for much more than the building is worth, which of course sparked rumors and gossip among other shopkeepers in the arcade, with Katou himself thinking it'd be nice if he could finally sell the cafetaria and retire himself. Katou can't help but wonder why in heavens someone offered Nurii and he notices the young student has been asking questions too, so it seems there's really a mystery worth investigating... A nice layered slice-of-life mystery: it's interesting to see the world of this series through the eyes of someone completely different, just someone who runs a small cafeteria, which lately has seen a new clientele of children because of the retro Space Invaders table they have. Through Hisao, we learn about how the shopping arcade has changed in the last few decades, with shops coming, but mostly going, and that is why he's wondering why anyone would pay much more than Nurii's building was actually worth, with some even joking whether the buyer hadn't actually meant to buy the larger multi-tenant building next door. These kind of slice-of-life mysteries often revolve around presenting a good explanation (motive) for a seemingly strange action, and I do think the motive is good for this story, though it's a bit hard to deduce beforehand why exactly, until a rather conclusive clue suddenly appears. So in that sense, I found it a bit unfair. I do like the layered puzzle though, which builds on a pretty famous story within the Japanese mystery scene, and I like the solution presented here. This is also the type of story you'd expect the least based on what you hear about Akechi and Hamura's adventures in Shijinsou no Satsujin.

Deisui Hadagi Kirisaki Jiken ("The Case of the Torn Hangover Underwear") starts with Akechi calling Hamura to come immediately. The previous night, Akechi had been drinking with classmates after finish a project together, but when it was time to go home, Akechi seemed a bit too drunk to send back alone. As nobody knew where Akechi lived though, they called Hamura, who brought Akechi home by taxi (one of the classmates gave him taxi money). Akechi, still dead drunk, said he was okay, so Hamura said goodbye at the front entrance of the apartment building and watched Akechi enter, after which he himself went home. Akechi in turn woke up this morning in his own bed with a headache, still wearing the clothes he wore last night. Fortunately, he had remembered to lock the door with his key and the door guard before falling asleep. But when he went to the toilet, he discovered something terrifying. For after removing his belt and trousers, he realized he wasn't wearing any underwear: why would he not be wearing his underwear, but still his trousers, and with the belt on? He then found his undies on the floor, but it was full of tears and rips. Akechi thus summoned Hamura to his room. He honestly can't remember anything of last night, so together, they have to figure out what happened to his undies last night. This is probably the most memorable story of the collection, not per se because of deductive brilliance, but because of the really silly and insignificant mystery (yes, in a positive way). Akechi himself can't remember much, so the two start coming up with various theories about why Akechi would have removed his underwear, while still putting back on his trousers and belt. This is a funny story of course, as we get Imamura's usual plotting revolving around theories based on physical evidence and actions of the characters involved, but about something so silly. I think the solution hinges on something that is hard to deduce beforehand, because of the way the clues are laid out, but I do love how this prequel story actually ties back? forward? to one of the later books in terms of themes.

Shuukyougaku Shiken Mondai Roei Jiken ("The Case of the Leaked Theology Exam") is a case alluded to in Shijinsou no Satsujin and takes place in July. Akechi and Hamura are walking down the stairs of a university building when suddenly a flustered student comes running to them, saying exam questions have been stolen. They have a talk with the student, Kumori Minori, who explains she had been in the office of Professor Yanagi. Minori and another student, Teramatsu Sou, had been told to write a formal apology essays by the professor because they had been cheating with their lecture attendence records. They were told to write the essay in Yanagi's office. While they were in his office, Yanagi had put a USB stick with the questions for the upcoming theology exams in his office safe, but then he had to go out for a bit because of a phone call. During his absence, Teramatsu also finished his essay and left, leaving Minori alone. She went to the toilet, but when she returned, she found Yanagi's office ransacked, the safe opened and the USB stick gone! Akechi quickly confirms with building security that nobody actually left the building the last ten minutes or so, as Yanagi and Teramatsu had been talking at the entrance of the building, while the employees-only exit had also been watched at the time. Suspicion falls on Minori, who had been alone in the office, but if she's the thief, how could she open the safe, and where could she have hidden the USB stick, as she couldn't have left the building? A nice story with a situation that is not strictly impossible, but still allows for Akechi and Hamura to talk about Chesterton's The Invisible Man: the thief managing to search an office and guess the safe combination in just three minutes is hard enough, but then they also needed to get away from that office without being seen by anyone, and pulling off all of that seems impossible. A story with few suspects, which makes it rather easy to vaguely guess who's behind the theft and how it was done, though I think Imamura did a good job setting up the clues and the logical trail you're supposed to follow (and not just a gut feeling). Some parts of the plan of the culprit seem very sloppy, relying on the actions of people they can not be so sure of, but I guess it was a gamble worth taking.

Tegami Baramaki Heights Jiken ("The Case of The Scattered Letters at Heights") is set the furthest back in the past, when Hamura wasn't enrolled at Shinkou University yet. At the time, Akechi, dreaming of becoming a great detective, had started a part-time job at the local Tanuma Detective Agency. Because one of Tanuma's employees is injured and the others have their own cases, Tanuma is forced to take on the new part-timer (Akechi) along as they work on a new case. Someone has been spreading stalker letters to residents of Heights Tokuro, an apartment complex consisting of three buildings. Some of them have received letters and informed the owner and caretalker of Heights Tokuro, who has now hired Tanuma to investigate the case, though on a rather small budget, so they only have three days to work on it. The letters are clearly stalker letters, talking about watching when the recipient returned home, or how they saw them smoking and they are also all written on the same paper and using the same writing style, but for some reason, several residents have received these letters in their letterboxes, until it suddenly stopped. Still, this is pretty creepy, so Tanuma and Akechi first go inquire to see if other residents have received similar letters (and simply not reported them to the caretaker/police). This is probably the most complex story of the volume, with a lot more going than you'd initially suspect. The story starts a bit slow, with Tanuma and Akechi interviewing the residents of Heights Tokuro and asking them in detail about when they received letters etc. Because the letters come from the same sender and seem to be talking about the same person, the detectives first suspect it might be a stalker whose target recently moved to Heights Tokuro, but of whom the stalker does not know which flat they have exactly, but that seems not quite right, as why would the stalker then just put random letters in random letterboxes, rather than first making sure where their target lives? The solution is actually quite clever, though rather complex, and I do think it really demands of you to just roll with a certain revelation. It's a story that perhaps would have benefitted from more pages, like being treated as a novella, or perhaps worked out into a full novel (with of course more body to the story), as I think the core ideas of this story regarding the letters are really cool, with honestly a very cool twist regarding the true meaning behind all those people receiving these letters, but some moments feel a bit too abrupt. Still, one of the cleverest "poison pen/stalker letters" mysteries I ever read and I am generally not too a big a fan of them.

Fans of Shijinsou no Satsujin might be surprised by what Akechi Kyousuke no Honsou has to offer: it is definitely not at all similar to the previous novels: gone are the murders, no supernatural elements that are cleverly integrated in the mystery, none of that. Instead, we have the slightly arrogant, but very passionate Akechi, occasionally supported by Hamura, as he deals with a lot of more mundane, and minor cases. But while I think this book is certainly not as strong as the supernatural efforts of Imamura in the previous books, you still see Imamura coming up with cleverly plotted short mysteries with surprise twists, which are nonetheless well-clewed and of course, always with a comedic tone in which he shows a lot of love for the character of Akechi. My favorite is probably still the first story in the collection, as I do think the "real" crimes (like theft/stolen exams) in this collection allow for the best and most rewarding plots (and I love the school/university setting). As a palate cleanser, Akechi Kyousuke no Honsou is amusing and it did precisely what I already expected it'd do based on the first story I read in 2019, but I do have to say it makes me yearn for the next proper novel in the series!

Original Japanese title(s): 今村昌弘『明智恭介の奔走』:「最初でも最後でもない事件」/「ある日常の謎について」/「泥酔肌着引き裂き事件」/「宗教学試験問題漏洩事件」/「手紙ばら撒きハイツ事件」

The Cinderella Ballet Mystery

Never reveal the secret to a trick

Practice to perfection

Do not repeat tricks in front of the same audience

(Howard Thurston)

You know, I'm not even sure whether I have ever seen a magic show in real life myself.

After reading the phenomenal Medium last year, I knew I had to read more by Aizawa Sako, and what's a better way to start than with his debut novel? Aizawa made his debut as a professional author by winning the 19th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award with Gozen Reiji no Cendrillon ("Cendrillon at Midnight", 2009), an interconnected short story collection. It's a book that's always been lingering in my head because I really like the cover art, but I didn't even know the author of the book was named Aizawa until his name first registered with me after reading Medium. Sugawa is a very ordinary high school student, who has a very ordinary problem on his mind: he's probably in love with his classmate Torino Hatsu, but he doesn't know how to approach her. He fell in love with her when his sister brought him to a magic bar, where Hatsu happens to be working part-time. Hatsu is a wallflower in the classroom, with no real close friends and always disappearing during lunch break so she can eat all by herself, so Sugawa was absolutely stunned by her shining appearance when doing table magic for the customers at the bar and since his visit there, can't stop thinking about Hatsu. When the two come across an odd mystery at school, Sugawa notices it has parallels with the magic tricks Hatsu showed at the bar, and asks her if she can solve it, hoping they can become friends in the process. 

I  have to admit that after finishing Gozen Reiji no Cendrillon, I was a bit disappointed that this book was not an absolute masterpiece like Medium was. Of course, no author is able to create mindblowing classics one after another, so my expectations were neither realistic nor fair (especially not as this was Aizawa's debut work), but after letting some time pass before I started on this review, I found it easier to look at Gozen Reiji no Cendrillon as a work of mystery that tries to accomplish something very different, while also laying the foundation for Medium in terms of format. Like Medium, Gozen Reiji no Cendrillon is a collection of short stories, which are strongly connected to each other. Events mentioned in one story are carried over to the next, and the final of the four stories here manages to make one cohesive narrative out of the whole book by pullng various plots threads from the other three stories together to form one tapestry. The big difference however is that Gozen Reiji no Cendrillon is also written to as a YA novel. There's a lot of focus on the high school as setting, with Sugawa's attempts at wooing Hatsu, to Hatsu's attitude towards school and her classmates and we also see other characters struggle with their lives at high school. This focus on the school life of the teenage characters also form the driving force to the mystery plots of this book: most of the mysteries we see here are more-or-less everyday life mysteries, not really crimes, but less serious, but still puzzling incidents that occur at school, and often revealed to be connected with very human motives. The book is perhaps best compared to the Classic Literature Club/Hyouka series.

The opening story Karamawari Triumph ("Futile Triumph") introduces the reader to Sugawa and Hatsu, and follows Sugawa's first attempt to strike a real conversation with his silent classmate. During his hopeless attempt in the school library, the two notice that the magazines of one of the shelves of a bookcase have been put there in reverse, with the spine inwards. Only one of the magazines there is placed correctly, with the spine to the outside, but why would anyone pull such a weird prank? The odd sight reminds Sugawa of one of the card tricks Hatsu showed and he decides to involve Hatsu in the mystery and ask if she can solve it with her knowledge of magic in an attempt to become friends with her. I like how the mystery of someone could quickly turn all the magazines in the shelf around is solved: a good look at the physical state of the "crime scene" allows the attentive reader to deduce how the magic was accomplished. And like a magic trick, it's deceivingly simple, yet capable of fooling you. The road from that point to the who, and especially why has fewer clues, and I think one extra step there in the logic would've made it a much better story.

Kyouchuu Card Stab ("Card Stab in the Heart") starts with a small private table magic show by Hatsu in the music room for two classmates and a senior student. After the show in which Hatsu uses a knife, they all leave except for the senior student, who has to practice for a piano contest. On her way home, Hatsu remembers she left her knife in the music room, so she returns there together with Sugawa, only to find an empty music room, as the senior student has gone to the bathroom. But to their shock, they find that someone has used Hatsu's knife to damage a table, carving three "F"s on the table surface. Who would do this and why? This time a tale that focuses more strongly on the reasons why someone would leave such a message on the table. Ultimately, it's not really a story where the reader is expected to be able to solve it before Hatsu does, but it works perfectly fine as a school drama mystery.

In Ate ni Naranai Predictor ("Untrustworthy Predictor"), Sugawa picks up a notebook of Itakura, a classmate who is known for her fortune-telling. He notices a list of classmates in a specific order, but when the grades for their English test are announced, he realizes that the list in Itakura's notebook corresponds exactly to the people with the best grades for this test. She appears to have real fortune-telling powers and she even claims she has seen the ghost of a student who committed suicide last year. Sugawa at first doesn't believe in the ghost, until he sees a ghostly figure in a locked classroom, but when they open the door, they find it empty! Two incidents that are not directly connected save for Itakura as a lynchpin plot figure. The trick with the list of students is simple, but very magic-like and it makes good use of very natural (wrong) assumptions of people. The disappearing ghost from the classroom has a very simple explanation in terms of mechanics (how it was done), but the explanation for it is fantastic: it's very specific to the school setting and both original and convincing.

Anata no Tame no Wild Card ("Wild Card For You") is the final story and revolves around the ghost of the girl who committed suicide last year. Someone has been using her account to post on the school message board, but why? This story is more focused on fleshing out the characters, with Sugawa finally learning more about Hatsu's past from a classmate and all kinds of minor references regarding the various characters who appeared in previous stories all coming together to form one single narrative thread. As a mystery story, I didn't find it too exciting, but as the finale to a YA school drama with a mystery-theme, it's okay. 

For the readers looking for a YA school drama mystery, Gozen Reiji no Cendrillon is a safe and entertaining read: the individual stories have some interesting ideas for mystery plots, while the overall story manages to portray interesting characters with Hatsu, Sugawa and their classmates as they spend their days at school. It's written in a way I think that even those who don't like mystery novels can enjoy it as a YA novel, but like I mentioned earlier, I wouldn't have minded it if had been a bit more mystery-oriented, as sometimes the core mystery plots felt just one or two elements short of becoming far more impressive experiences. There's a second volume out, which I might try out too.

Original Japanese title(s): 相沢沙呼『午前零時のサンドリヨン』:「空回りトライアンフ」/「胸中カード・スタッブ」/「あてにならないプレディクタ」/「あなたのためのワイルド・カード」

Strange Memories

 「春はあけぼの」

『枕草子』

 

"In summers, nights are best.

"The Pillow Book"

I always try to read at least one mystery book set in the city of Fukuoka (Hakata) every year. Last year's attempt wasn't quite what I had expected from it, but this year's entry is very, very recognizable as being set in Fukuoka.

Almost five years ago, I reviewed the short story collection Houkago Spring Train ("After-School Spring Train"), the debut work of Yoshino Izumi. The book caught my attention because it was set in the city of Fukuoka, and almost miraculously, it was set exactly in the area where I lived and studied while I was living there, making it a must-read as I try to read at least one mystery novel set in Fukuoka every year. Yoshino did not publish any more books after this debut work, so imagine my surprise when I noticed a new book by Yoshino in the fall of 2020 on the release lists, and it was a sequel to her first book too. Tenohira Astral (2020) once again focuses on the minor mysteries which puzzle the high school student Izumi, as she struggles with the problems every teenager faces. As she's in her second year in high school, it's about time to think about what she'll do after she's graduated. Many of her friends will go to college and her bestie Asana seems to have made up her mind she wants to become a teacher, like her older boyfriend Uehara, but Izumi still doesn't know what major she wants to do, and even if she really wants to go to college. It's during these busy days that she stumbles upon little mysteries of everyday life, like a classmate who for some reason is carrying the student ID of someone in the third year or a trail of blood leading out of a classroom, but no student in the class admits to having injured themselves. While insignificant problems, they do bug Izumi, but luckily Uehara's friend Tobiki, a student of Q University, seems to have an answer for everything.

Coming up with mysteries that seem mundane enough that anyone could encounter them in normal, everyday life, but yet interesting enough to actually drive a tale of fiction is quite difficult and often, such mysteries feel a bit underwhelming because the problem is just too mundane, or the solution is just not convincing enough. Tenohira Astral is a short story collection that does not really manage to avoid these familiar traps, and perhaps it's not really trying to anyway, because perhaps more than the first book, Tenohira Astral is perhaps best read as a YA novel, with a mystery plot running beneath the surface. Because the focus lies far more on the development of Izumi as a character now and about what she wants to do after high school. Each story is more about her encounters with her friends and how they talk about what they really want to do, and each mystery she encounters ultimately also ties in to her struggle about her post-school life, showing her that everyone makes their own choice.

The first story, Kanojotachi no Yukue ("The Way They Go") is perhaps the best story in the volume. Izumi picks up a student ID her classmate Yune drops, but notices it belongs to a male student in the year above them. Later that Izumi and Asana spot Yune seemingly all dressed up for a date in the city and they decide to tail her. They make sure Yune doesn't notice them in the subway, and eventually see her arriving in the city, but when Yune's boyfriend arrives, they're surprised to see it's not the person on the student ID Izumi picked up. They realize that if Yune was dating the boy from the ID, they'd leave their school together, but why was Yune carrying the ID of someone else? The answer to that question is very simple, but oh-so-real and convincing, and it works in the context of a naturalistic mystery of everyday life. It also ties up great to the overall theme of Izumi wondering about her future life.

Kanitsukai no Revenge Match ("Revenge Match of the Crab Master") on the other hand focus too much on this overall theme, and barely manages to present a mystery plot. The story has Izumi and some classmates visiting the open campus of Q University and her classmate Sudou is even competing in the robot competition on the campus, hoping to do better than his efforts last year. Tobiki also swings by, but he leaves an enigmatic message when he spots Sudou's robot crab and goes back to his work. The story revolves more around a really bad word pun than a real mystery, and it's barely better than the third story, Natsuyasumi Akemae ("Before the End of The Summer Holday"), where Izumi swings by school during the holiday but notices a classmate doing a test, even though it's long after the examination period. Izumi wonders about what exam it could be, but here the answer is too straighforward and not remotely attractive as a puzzle to the reader. It's strongly connected with the overall theme of Izumi deciding on what to do after school, but unlike the first story in the book, it's just not interesting at all as a mystery.

Tenohira Astral starts off with an interesting premise: Izumi and the other students who are on afterschool cleaning duty this week notice a trail of blood in the corridor. They follow it, but strangely enough it doesn't go the school nurse, but just the bathroom. They trace it back, but none of the students in the nearby classrooms seems to admit to having bled, though Izumi notices multiple people in her class with bandaids. Ultimately, the story is more about guessing the reason why someone would get hurt, and while it's kinda okay in the YA-context of this book, it's not really a satisfying mystery that manages to make best of the premise. 

The final story is a bit more interesting. Kiiroi Eki he ("To the Yellow Station") starts off on the Kaizuka Line. Before she gets on the train, she sees a mother talking with her young son who's about to take the train all by himself. The mother reminds her son to get off at "the yellow station" because his grandparents will be there waiting for him. The boy is probably too young to remember the station name, which is why his mother said it's the yellow station, but Izumi does wonder what the yellow station means, because the stations on the Kaizuka line don't have assigned colors and it's not like any of the stations on the line is particularly yellow in design. The boy however drifts off in the train, and when they arrive at the terminal Kaizuka, the boy realizes he's at the wrong station. Izumi wants to bring him to the stationmaster, but the boy refuses as he's a big boy and this is his first time taking the train alone. Based on the price of the ticket of the boy, Izumi deduces that "the yellow station" is one of three stations, but which of them is the yellow one? An interesting attempt is made to tie this mystery to a larger storyline developing throughout the five stories in the book, though it's hard to really call this a fair mystery. It's dependent on whether the reader is aware, or at least capable of thinking of a certain fact: if you happen to know about it, this mystery is a lot easier to solve, but the set-up to the reveal in this book itself is probably not strong enough even if it does tie to the overall storyline. It's easily the best mystery story after the opening story, but that's not saying much.

Overall, I think it's fairly clear I didn't like Tenohira Astral that much as a mystery novel on its own, though I do think it's entertaining enough as a YA-novel, especially as I absolutely love the familar setting of Fukuoka in this book: personally any book that's set between Kashiihama and Hakozaki, Fukuoka will win bonus with me. The way in which the mysteries tie to Izumi's coming-of-age story isn't always perfect, but when it does work, it's surprisingly convincing and satisfying, giving a lot of synergy to the themes. And like the first novel, the chatter between the high school girls is fun to follow. I'd describe this as 65% YA novel, 35% mystery, and personally, I'd have preferred the reverse, but I really don't mind reading these kind of books once in a while.

Original Japanese title(s): 吉野泉『手のひらアストラル』:「彼女たちの行方」/「蟹使いのリベンジマッチ」/「夏休み明け前」/「手のひらアストラル」/「黄色い駅へ」

Last Song

Time after time
君と出逢った奇跡

「Time after time～花舞う街で～」（倉木麻衣）

 

Time after time

The miracle of having met you

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

2018's Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar, the seminal study which explored the history of mystery manga, points to the trio of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, Detective Conan and Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou in the early-to-mid nineties as the watershed moment that really popularized the genre. These series are serialized in magazines with boys as their primary audience (though the magazines are also widely read by girls and I think especially Conan has more female fans than male). People therefore might have a tendency to associate mystery manga with a male audience, but Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar also clearly shows how mystery manga first flourished in magazines aimed at girls. The seventies and eighties were the formative period for originally written mystery manga with puzzle plots (not adaptations) and its champions were mostly women too. I have been exploring this formative period the last year with for example Takashina Ryouko's Murder series, the mystery tales sometimes featured in Maya Mineo's Patalliro! and Yamada Mineko's Alice series.

It came as a shock to everyone when it was made public in May this year that manga artist Noma Miyuki had passed away at the young age of 59 earlier that month. Noma was probably the greatest veteran of mystery manga: her long-selling Puzzle Game ☆ High School started in 1983 and was still running in 2020 until her sudden demise, meaning the series had been running for over 35 years! It pre-dates the three watershed series by a decade, and while Puzzle Game ☆ High School may not have been the commercial succes like Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Detective Conan with countless of adaptations, videogames, merchandise tie-ups etc., it has remained a reliable cornerstone of the puzzle plot genre since it started with a loyal fanbase. It's no wonder so many mystery authors (not just of manga) responded to her sudden death, because she's been in the industry for so long and considered one of the giants because of Puzzle Game ☆ High School.

Earlier this year, I posted a short article on the first two volumes of Puzzle Game ☆ High School. At that time, I of course never could've guessed that Noma would pass away a few months later, but I had been reading the series on and off, and in the last few months, I've finally finished the complete original 34-volume series which ran between 1983-2001 (I read the bunko release, which is 18 volumes long) and I think it's about time I'd pick a few of the highlights from this lengthy series which I've grown to like a lot. But first a short introduction. As the title suggest, the series starts with a high school setting: Hazuru High School is a school with numerous school clubs and circle with an extremely high degree of autonomy and these clubs are exclusively governed by the student council: not even the school administration can interfere with these afterschool activities. Second-years Kazuki and Daichi are two childhood sweethearts who start their own new club: the new Mystery Club is also joined by Kazuki's best friend Mimei, a girl who can find out anything about everyone at school, and the shy first-year student Takuma, who also dabbles in stage magic. The Mystery Club's goal is to solve mysteries, of which there are plenty at school. From poisoned Valentine chocolates to blackmail attempts on clubs to vandals who paint the water in the pool red: Hazuru High School's unique club environment is also a breeding ground for countless of mysteries.

What makes Puzzle Game ☆ High School so unique however is that while it starts out as a high school mystery series, soon several sub-series are introduced that are set in different periods in the lives of Kazuki and Daichi. These chapters are published not in chronological order, but the series jumps back and forth time. The Puzzle Game ☆ Jr High School chapters for example are of course set during junior high before Kazuki and Daichi were officially dating, but there's also Puzzle Game ☆ Pre-Stage, which is set after Kazuki and Daichi are graduated from high school: Daichi is in college, but Kazuki is doing all kinds of part-time jobs to obtain various qualifications and diplomas for their joint dream. Puzzle Game ☆ The Professionals actually makes up the bulk of this series with thirty chapters: by this time Daichi and Kazuki are in their mid-twenties and have opened their own detective agency. These chapters tend to be the most interesting plot-wise, and often start with Takuma, who is now a journalist, hiring Daichi and Kazuki to help him in some investigation. It's in these stories where you understand why Kazuki was doing all those part-time jobs in the Pre-Stage chapters as Kazuki is always going undercover and I'd say that in terms of tone, The Professionals chapters are the most like the stories in Conan or Kindaichi Shounen. But there's more: at one point the  Puzzle Game ☆ Next Generation chapters start, which focus on Hinako, the ten-year old daughter of Daichi and Kazuki! Hinako is a child-model who not only has inherited her looks from her parents, but also their sharp brains and she tends to get involved with crimes in the model and entertainment industry.

This focus on the chronology is what really sets this series apart from series like Conan and Kindaichi Shounen. Sure, Hajime might be 37 now instead of 17, but that's one single jump in time: Puzzle Game ☆ High School however is built around the notion that we see all these protagonists in various stages in their lives and the various sub-series all have a different theme and tone that fit the ages of the characters: the classic High School chapters for example seldom feature murders and focus solely on the students of Hazuru High School (you hardly see any teachers or adults around, as most of the 'crimes' are kept inside the school), while the Pre-Stage chapters make use of the idea that Kazuki is doing all these part-time jobs to introduce a diversity in settings. I only named the main sub-series above, but there are eleven titled sub-series, and they all feel distinctly different, even if they all feature the same protagonists. The three Puzzle Game - Maternity chapters for example all focus on mysteries revolving around pregnancies, while Puzzle Game ☆ Hong Kong Connection is like full-blown HK crime thriller. But as I said, these chapters are not published in chronological order, so for example the reader had already seen Hinako appear several times as a ten-year old detective before the Maternity chapters were published, and it's fairly common to see a few The Professionals chapters followed by a Jr. High chapter. The story The Goddess of Fortune makes interesting use of this plot-device by the way: the first chapter of this two-parter is about a money theft at Hazuru High School. While the school is sealed off immediately, the student council can't find the money even though it's a pretty large sum (meaning the bills are bulky). Kazuki and Daichi of course figure out the hiding spot for the money, which is actually quite clever. They identitfy the thief, but they can't figure out why that person out of everyone would ever want to steal the money The second part of The Goddess of Fortune is set six years later, when Kazuki and Daichi have established their own detective agency. The thief is finally released from prison, but now they finally learn why the thief committed the crime. This second part is not as surprising plot-wise, but it's a nice story that transcends time (and sub-series). The mini-series Tea for Two also spans across time: three tea-themed stories, one for every year in high school. The first one is the best: Daichi is living on his own now his parents have to move to the US for work, and he becomes a customer of a nearby cafe specialized in tea. Daichi and Kazuki learn that the wife of the owner died in a car accident nearby some years ago and Kazuki remembers she did saw that two bouquets and some drinks had been placed at the accident site out of respect. But when Kazuki visits the place again, she notices how one bouquet has been removed, but why, and why only one bouquet? The solution is perhaps a bit easy to guess, but it's a nice short mystery you of the type you aren't likely to come across in other mystery manga soon.

In general, the stories in Puzzle Game ☆ High School are fairly easy to solve for yourself, also because Noma is playing the game very fairly and offering fair-play puzzle plots. She definitely set the template for successors like Detective Conan, Kindaichi Shounen and Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou, coupled with the series set-up with a regular cast of main characters and recurring characters and an internal chronology, with characters sometimes re-appearing after a few years. But while the stories may be a bit simple at times, there are still quite a few stories that stand out: as I'm writing this I can already see I'm not going to mention all the titles on my list, because there are just too many. In my earlier article, I already mentioned The Secret of the Red Pool in my first post, a fantastic school mystery about they mystery of why someone would throw red paint in the swimming pool, ruining the water. The motive for this 'crime' is both original and fitting the setting. Yasashii Hanzai ("A Gentle Crime") is set at the school festival, which has been threatened by a bomber. The gang of the Mystery Club eventually reveals a rather surprising truth lurking behind this truth. It's the type of story you might see in Q.E.D. or C.M.B. but not told like this.

Most of the series consists of The Professionals chapters and some of these stories take on a rather large scale: in the three-parter Tokibus Tour, Daichi and Kazuki are hired by Nonose, their former student council president who is now a lawyer. One of his firm's clients owns a touring bus company, but rumors have it that these touring buses are used to sell stolen art: potential buyers are given instructions to board certain buses on certain days and then the thieves will somehow contact them. The client has information that a recently stolen painting will be offered on one of the buses soon, and Daichi and Kazuki decide to go undercover by planting allies in and outside the bus to figure out who the thieves are and where the painting is. The story features a lot of familiar faces from the high school days who help out Kazuki and Daichi by pretending to be normal passengers and as a kind of ransom story like you'd see in Kindaichi Shounen (like the Shinsengumi story), it's fairly entertaining. The two-parter Panic in Hospital feels like Detective Conan movie: Daichi, Kazuki, Mimei and Takuma are visiting Nonose in a private clinic. At least, that's their excuse, because their real reason to come is to spy on one of the other patients. During their visit however, the clinic is taken over by an armed gang who take everyone on the floor hostage. Kazuki happened to be disguised as a nurse at the time, and with the help of the real nurses and doctors, manages to keep up the game and given some freedom to go around the floor to 'check on the patients.' As time passes by however, she starts to suspect that the gang's real goal isn't the ransom money.

There are some other minor gems in The Professionals: Listen to the Eternal Song is a fantastic everyday life mystery, where at a small party in a karaoke hall, Kazuki notices that the young man in the room opposite theirs is constantly repeating the same old song, but he does not sing and just sits there looking at the television. The young man is also visited by an elderly man, who seems to have a minor argument with him. The gang follows the man when he leaves the karaoke hall, only to find he's gone to another karaoke hall, where he plays the same song again! The explanation for this seemingly meaningless act is touching and very original. A Small Affair puts Mimei in the spotlight: her appearances in the series tend to be minor as Daichi and Kazuki are the main detectives, but she's not a founding member of the Mystery Club for nothing. In this story Daichi is investigating a doctor who's selling inventory to a dealer. He follows the dealer to his home and instructs Kazuki to tail the dealer by telling her where the dealer lives. When Kazuki arrives at the apartment the following morning however, she finds the man has moved everything away. She doesn't manage to pry information from the estate agent, but Mimei miraculously manages to find out where the dealer has gone too. It's pretty easy to guess what Mimei did differently than Kazuki, but the set-up is really good. In Worthy Juniors, Daichi, Kazuki, Mimei and Takuma are invited to the school festival by the current members of the Hazuru High School Mystery Club, who are dying to see the 'legendary' gang. Their project at the festival is a mini-murder play: a room has been changed into a murder scene and it's up to the participants to guess who the murderer is. But it turns out that the body in the room is really dead.  The reason why there was a real dead body in that room is quite original and it's really fun to see how these new members of the Mystery Club seem to have some of the guts the original members have.

The chapters with Hinako can be fun too: the single chapter Puzzle Game ☆ Angel is about Hinako's first model gig as a baby for a wine company. The night after an event of this company visited by Daichi, Kazuki and baby Hinako, the son of the company's owner is found murdered at home: a burglar stole several bottles of the wine collection of the father and killed the son. Hinako however helps Daichi and Kazuki solve the case despite being still a baby. The plot is based on a certain Columbo episode (not the one about wine...), but the punchline is completely original and really funny. Hinako relly shows of her own deductive skills in Police Station Chief for One Day, where she and her boyfriend Juri (also a child actor/model) are made "boss of the police station for a day" in a campaign to bring youth crimes under the attention. Naturally, this usually just consists of participating in all kinds of events during the day, but Hinako manages to stop a crime-in-progress that nobody had even suspected simply by combining all the information she hears over the course of the day.

There are more chapters I really though worthwhile, but this post has been going for too long now. As I mentioned earlier, the original series ran from 1983-2001, but the series continued more-or-less non-stop with other publishers and other magazines. These various series too focus on different phases in Daichi and Kazuki's life: some return to the high school setting, some continue telling stories about their lives as professional detectives etc. Puzzle Game ☆ Mystere was the eight follow-up series which had only just started when Noma passed away (she had only finished the first chapter), so unfortunately this is where the series stops.

Anyway, Puzzle Game ☆ High School turned out to be a very entertaining mystery series with a clear focus on puzzle plots that are perhaps a bit simple at times, but the plot idea of jumping through time and seeing everyone grow really gives this series its own face. The sheer diversity in plots is also very memorable, while the fact the series ran in Hana to Yume (a magazine aimed at girls) also allows it to tackle very different themes than the mystery series than run in boys magazines (even if it can feel a bit too melodramatic at times). Puzzle Game ☆ High School is a series that really grows on you due to its enormous scale in story and the focus on the growth of the characters while also constantly offering different kinds of mysteries to the reader. I do intend to read the post-2001 series one day, but for now I'll take a break to let it sink in a bit.

Original Japanese title(s): 野間美由紀『パズルゲーム☆はいすくーる』(花とゆめ版）

Long Shot

一射入魂

(四字熟語）

One's whole soul into one shot

(Japanese idiom)

Disclosure: I translated Abiko Takemaru's The 8 Mansion Murders. Also: the cover of today's book is amazing (the angle!).

Shinozaki Rin is a high school student who has been practicing the art of kyudo, or Japanese archery, since junior high. She's quite good at the martial art too, but as of late, she feels she might've hit a ceiling in her development cycle. While she trains several times a week in the school's archery club together with the other club members, she has also arranged she can visit the home of the retired teacher Tanahashi for some extra training. Tanahashi, who is an excellent archer herself and who used to be in charge of the school club, has a small private archery dojo built inside her own garden, and while she does not coach Rin anymore, she has allowed Rin to make use of the dojo for an hour or so in the weekend. One day however, Rin arrives at her old teacher's home only to find her path blocked by the police. A man was found dead with an arrow in his chest inside Tanahashi's archery dojo, and it is suspected that Rin's old teacher accidently shot the man when he walked into the dojo from the back door. Rin's knowledge of all the customs of Japanese archery allows her to poke a hole in the police's story and point the finger in the direction of the real murderer, and Rin unwittingly becomes famous a her school as the attractive prodigy archer detective. To Rin however, that's just more noise in her head as she tries to become better at archery in Abiko Takemaru's short story collection Rin no Tsurune ("The Sound of Rin's Bowstring", 2018).

I definitely have a weakness for mystery stories that involve specific fields or professions, and of course utilize those fields to come up with unique mystery plots. Come to think of it, I haven't read many stories that really utilize specific sports in the plot, save for the semi-frequent ones in Detective Conan (which can be both fun and educational). Anyway, I certainly knew very little about kyudo/Japanese archery and I can't think of any mystery story that's really built on that theme, so in any case, Rin no Tsurune wins points with its original subject matter. The specifics of kyudo are explained pretty well in this novel, emphasizing the fact that kyudo isn't 'just about shooting an arrow in the target', but also a highly ceremonial martial art where the spiritual/meditative aspect of the sport is at least as important as being able to aim and shoot.

Rin no Tsurune is both a mystery story and a YA novel, and perhaps it's best mentioned right away that while the book starts off with a fairly strong mystery vibe, this becomes less and less as you progress in the book. The first few stories feature some "classic" mystery situations that involve archery: the first story is about the murder at Tanahashi's home, but there's also a story for example about an expensive bamboo bow which has disappeared from the school dojo even though everyone was there training and the exit was being watched. The solutions to all these "conventional" mysteries involve specifics to kyudo, but it's a shame Abiko's not always playing fair: some deductions are based on facts about kyudo or the circumstances which aren't disclosed to the reader in advance, but only when Rin explains what has happened. So it's unlikely the reader, even if they had the knowledge about Japanese archery, would be able to completely solve these cases, and most of the time, you'll just go "Alright, that makes sense given the information you have just given me but not before". The way Rin deduces in the first story why it's at least unlikely the victim was shot by accident makes absolute sense for example in a logical way, but you'll never be able to guess it if you don't have knowledge about Japanese archery, and even then it's not really solvable, as the physical clue on which the deduction is based isn't explicitly mentioned until Rin does in her explanation.

After the first three stories or so however, the emphasis of the book definitely shifts towards the more conventional young adult novel, with some minor everyday life mysteries. Rin learns how other people see kyudo, she has her own teenager problems with what to do in the future and how she'll give kyodo in place in her life, and we also have semi-funny parts with Nakata of the school's newspaper club, who wants to make a movie about the "prodigy archer detective" Rin and the beautiful captain of the archery club Yuko (semi-funny, I say, because he's basically just stalking two girls with a camera). At this point however, the "mysteries" presented are hardly anything solvable to the reader however, and are more related to the psychology and motivation of the characters ("Why did they do that?"-type of mysteries). Some might enjoy this better than I did, but I was rather disappointed the "classic" type of mysteries were completely gone in this second half of the book.

As a YA sports novel, Rin no Tsurune can definitely entertain though. We follow Rin in her year as she slowly learns more about the sport she already thought she knew, and we see how all the characters all see kyudo in a different manner and want something else from the sport. We even have a tournament, because every sports story needs that!

Rin no Tsurune can perhaps better be described as a YA sports novel, that also has a few episodes featuring a mystery plot, than a mystery story with a sports element in it. I myself would've preferred the latter to be the case to be completely honest, but I did find the book entertaining as a sport comedy-type of story, especially as I knew next to nothing about kyudo before. But yeah, it's not as focused a mystery novel as you would first hope or expect and I wouldn't recommend this one if you're specifically looking for a puzzle plot mystery about Japanese archery.

Original Japanese title(s): 我孫子武丸『凛の弦音』

Have You Got Everything You Want?

"The human and personal element can never be ignored."

"The ABC Murders"

You know, while I spent all full three days at the Kyoto University November Festival (campus festival), I mostly remember just sitting inside the Mystery Club's assigned classroom to sell our club anthology, instead of walking around.

Houtarou's plans for his three years at Kamiyama High School had been to get by, doing as little as possible, but his school life turned out quite differently after his older sister forced him to join the school's Classic Literature Club to save it from dying out. As all the older club members had now graduated, it was up to Houtarou and the other three first-years to continue the tradition of the club. After joining the club, Houtarou found himself involved with all kind of small adventures at school: at the wishes of the club president Eru, the four digged into the history of the club's magazine "Hyouka" and its link to the school festival, while they also helped out class 2-F with their short mystery movie they filmed for the school festival. In Kudryavka no Junban ("The Kudryavka Sequence", 2005), the school festival finally starts! The Kanya Festa is a three-day event where classes and school clubs can show off their activities. For the Classic Literature Club, that means selling the latest issue of their club anthology "Hyouka" at the festival, but there is a "small" problem: due to a mistake, they ordered not thirty copies at the printer's, but two-hundred. As a niche product of a virtually unknown club, two-hundred seems like an utterly impossible number, but as they need to earn back the costs, all members try to come with plans to sell more anthologies, from asking other clubs to help selling "Hyouka" to participating in the various competitions at Kanya Festa to raise the name value of the Classic Literature Club. As the festival continues however, a series of curious thefts occurs, where small objects are stolen from various clubs and at each 'crime scene', a message is left by the thief who calls themselves Juumonji.

Kudryavka no Junban (subtitle: Welcome To Kanya Festa!) is the third novel in Yonezawa Honobu's Classic Literature Club mystery novel series (also known as the Hyouka series, as the anime series is named after the first novel). The series falls within the everyday life mystery genre, that focuses on the solving of enigmatic events that might occur in the normal, daily life, as opposed to bloody murder. It's a sub-genre that naturally fits the high school setting of Classic Literature Club much better than let's say every day a bloody impossible murder after school, and when done well, the everyday life mystery genre can be very entertaining. One of my favorite examples of the genre is from another series by Yonezawa, where the whole mystery revolves around the "impossibility" of how someone could've poured two cups of hot cocoa despite some limitions in the kitchen. That said though, in the second novel of the Classic Literature Club, Yonezawa had the students work on a fictional murder (they had to deduce the ending of an unfinished mystery movie) and that was a really entertaining mystery novel too. But I have to admit that the everyday life mystery genre also often lets me down a bit. It is really hard to come up with a good, everyday life mystery that is both alluring, yet "normal" enough and holds for the solution.

The Classic Literature Club series had been building towards the Kanya Festa ever since the first novel, as all the events in the first two novels basically only occurred because people were preparing for the school's cultural festival. Whereas the first two novels in the series were exclusively narrated by Houtarou, Kudryavka no Junban has us jump between the four members of the Classic Literature Club during the three days of the school festival, as each of them are busy trying in their own way to sell all two-hundred anthologies. This gives the reader an interesting look in the school festival, with for example mood maker Satoshi having fun at the various events (in order to make a name for the Classic Literatue Club) or club president Eru working with the management and news clubs of the festival in the hopes of getting a better chance at selling their wares. Read as a novel about life at a high school, Kudryavka no Junban can be quite interesting, delving into themes like expectations, and due to the varied cast, it's unlikely to really bore.

Unless you're reading the book for a mystery. It takes quite a while for the mystery plot of the thefts to really get going and even then, the core plot is a bit lean on the meat. The idea of a thief stealing seemingly insignifiant objects from various clubs can be fun, but the "surprising" relation between the various thefts is revealed very soon in the story, and afterwards little happens until the conclusion. The mystery doesn't have enough charm to its enigma, and the solution, well, you are not really going to logically deduce that in advance, with proper clewing as the basis of your reasoning. Of course, the everyday life mystery is often built on 'interpretation'  and seldom with mathematical reasoning, but for example, the first novel (Hyouka) was much more engaging as a mystery story, as it dealt with multiple hypotheses built upon each other, with new hints devalidating older hypotheses, but these still remained the basis of further theories. The scope of Kudryavka no Junban is far smaller, with a solution to the thefts that begs the question: "Why in heavens go through all that trouble to accomplish that?". Especially after the brilliance of the second novel, I have to say I felt a bit disappointed by this novel, as it's simply too lite as a mystery novel in comparison.

So yeah, of the three Classic Literature Club novels I've read until now, Kudryavka no Junban was the least interesting as a mystery novel. I have to admit that as a juvenile novel, this might the most interesting of the novels until now, giving us four different narrators and a varied view on the school festival, but read as a mystery novel, it's simply not as intricately plotted as the previous two novels, which had all those false solutions and playing around with Houtarou as a fallible detective and other things like that. I'm not sure whether I'll continue with the series. The anime series Hyouka covers the events of the first four books (three novels and one short story collection), so I might just try out the short story collection too. Or I might not. It won't happen soon anyway.

Original Japanese title(s): 　米澤穂信　『クドリャフカの順番』

Captured In Her Eyes

"A foolishly foolish idea born from the foolish mind of a foolhardy foolish fool."

"Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All"

This book reminded me I once went to a film screening of a Film Club during the university festival of Kyushu University. I think there were two short films, and you were supposed to hand in a questionnaire after the screening. I can't remember a thing about the films themselves though.

The four members of the Classic Literature Club of Kamiyama High School are still working for their project for the school festival when they are invited to see a short detective movie made by the people of class 2-F for the school festival. The story is about a group of students visiting an abandonded mine town, and the murder of one of them inside a locked room in a theater, but the film ends right after the body was discovered. The girl working on the script collapsed due to stress, making it unable for her to continue, but the problem is nobody knows what her plans were for the ending, making it an unfinished detective story. And while several of the clasmates have suggestions for solutions, it's hard to judge which one was the originally intended ending. Irisu Fuyumi of Class 2-F however, known throughout the school as the "Empress" because she's extremely good at getting the right people to work on the right things, wants the Classic Literature Club to act as observers and evaluate the suggested solutions so Class 2-F can finish their film. But it appears that perhaps the members of the club are better fit to find the real solution in Yonezawa Honobu's Gusha no End Roll ("End Credits of Fools", 2002).

Gusha no End Roll is the second book in Yonezawa's Classic Literature Club series (also known as the Hyouka series, as the anime series is named after the first novel). It also carries the English subtitle Why Didn't She Ask EBA, a reference to Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? The series falls under the everyday life mystery genre, which keeps itself busy with solving enigmatic events that might occur in the normal, daily life, as opposed to bloody murder. So more mysteries like "Why is that man on my bus always along for the ride for only one stop?" or "Why did that woman remain in her seat even though this is the terminal station for this train?". Obviously, it's more realistic for freshmen high school students like our four members of the Classic Litereature Club to be paining their heads about these kinds of problems, rather that of violent death.

Which is why it's funny that Gusha no End Roll is indeed about murder! A fictional one, mind you, but still. The idea of having the students detect the murderer in an unfinished mystery film is actually quite brilliant, as it allows for Yonezawa to involve his characters with a type of crime he usually wouldn't be able to. The unfinished film is set in an abandoned theater, with one of the students killed inside one of the backstage chambers which was locked. The only key available was in the manager's office next to the entrance of the theater, but to get that key you'd need to pass the hall and the hallway unseen, which would've been impossible as all students were wandering through the theater). This unfinished film is treated as a text in a historical or bibliomystery: the Classic Literature Club members, but also the students of Class 2-F use the film/text as the base for their deductions, searching each frame for a clue as to what the intended solution was. But like in a historical/bibliomystery, the text is not the only source for our detectives, and that is what sets it apart from a conventional mystery, as there is a layer "outside" the film world. While the script writer is out, the club members also interview other people involved with the filming, like one of the prop builders, to learn more about the fictional world, and about the script writer and how this film project came to be in the first place, all in the hopes of figuring out what the solution is supposed to be.

And as this is the second book I read in this series, I'm now starting to see patterns, and I can say that Yonezawa loves his multiple solutions. Hyouka already had a double-layered solution, but this one has like four or five solutions. Several involved members of the filming crew, like the assistant-director, suggest their solution to the locked room conundrum to the Classic Literature Club, all firmly based on both the "text" and their knowledge of the project circumstances (for example, the props that were prepared). These hypotheses, while grounded, are all rejected one by one based on small oversights made, though each hypothesis does add some new revelation to be used for the next. It has a Berkeley-like effect, and it's something you don't often see done this well in the everyday life mystery genre, so I could appreciate that. The solutions are also different enough to keep the reader entertained (the fake solution marathon can feel tiring at times if done badly) and it also invites the reader to read the "film text" carefully, as a lot of hints are hidden there, while the multiple solutions also show how wildly different each viewer can interpret (the importance of) a scene.

Oh, and as a side-note, the final solution is a lot easier to guess if you know your Holmes! If you're not that well-read, you might not understand a certain hint, but I think the true solution to what happened fits wonderfully with the whole theme of the book, giving true meaning to all the false solutions that came before it.

What is also interesting is that Oreki Houtarou, the narrator and main detective of the series, is shown to be a fallible detective once again. While he does get it at the end, he's not likely to get there in one step, and often falls in the trap of the false solution himself before he finally gets it. It fits his personality perhaps (he's not really a pro-active detective), but the often mistaken detective trope is not one you often see with younger detective characters, at least not seriously (as opposed to what you see in series like Scooby Doo!, where it's most definitely a source of comedy). There is something like a larger story playing across the books in the series with Houtarou's older sister trying to push her brother to be a bit more active, and the books are also slowly working towards the school festival it seems, so we might see more of Houtarou's growth in subsequent books in the series.

Gusha no End Roll is thus a very enjoyable entry in the Classic Literature Club series, as it introduces murder in a convincing and amusing manner in a series that is supposed to be about minor mysteries you'd encounter in your daily life. The result is a book that takes on very large themes in mystery fiction like the locked room mystery, text-based mystery solving and multiple solutions, but dressed like a school comedy drama. Can't wait to read the rest of the series!

Original Japanese title(s): 米澤穂信　『愚者のエンドロール』

Candy

I cry...
To try to cry my pain away
Alone, nobody around
I say you pay for all the things you said 

"I Cry" (Nadia Gifford)

I am not that well-versed in Japanese classical literature actually. I know a bit of Classical Japanese, and I know a bit of the stories through references, but I have never read completely through tales like Genji Monogatari...

Oreki Houtarou's plans to spend the coming three years at high school in an energy-efficient manner (meaning: without any extra activities) are immediately shot down by his globe-trotting sister. She orders her brother to join her old school club at Kamiyama High School, because the Classic Literature Club is on the verge if extinction due to the fact the last members graduated last year, meaning that if there's no influx of new members this year, the club's effectively dead. Houtarou finds he's not the only one to join the club, as Chitanda Eru, heiress of one of the prominent families in town, also joins the club "for personal reasons", as well as two of Houtarou's childhood friends. After learning that Koutarou has a knack for solving small mysterious events that happen at school, like the mystery of the book that is borrowed, and returned on the same day every week by different people, Eru decides that he's the one who can help her. She confides in him that she joined the club because she needed to dig in the history of the Classic Literature Club, as she wants to learn more about her uncle who has disappeared, and her only clue is a fading memory that links her uncle to the school's Classic Literature Club and their club magazine, Hyouka, which is also the title of today's book. There's also an English subtitle, The Niece of Time, a reference to The Daughter of Time.

Hyouka was the 2001 debut novel of Yonezawa Honobu, published in the Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko line for light novels. It turned out to be a golden debut, as Hyouka was followed by several sequels to form the Classic Literature Club series, which was adapted as a succesful anime TV series in 2012, which was named after this first novel in the series. The anime series is fairly populair even outside Japan, and I think most people will know Hyouka better just as a school anime series, rather than as a detective series or the debut work of Yonezawa. I haven't seen the anime myself by the way, as I kept saying to myself I'd read the books first, but it took me quite some years to actually get to them (I have read other works by Yonezawa in the meantime though).

Now I think about it, Hyouka is quite similar to Yonezawa's Petite Bourgeoisie series, as both feature high school students, a protagonist who is somewhat reluctant to actually detect, a more active female counterpart and of course, everyday life mysteries. The mysteries solved here aren't bloody murders, but other, rather innocent happenings that happen in your normal life that might raise an eyebrow. The first few chapters for example throw the cited example of a rather boring book being borrowed every single week on the same day, but by different people, or one where Eru is locked inside the club room, even though there's only one key to the door, which was in the possession of Koutarou (who most definitely did not lock the door). While not a spectacular as a triple murder, I've come to appreciate this subgenre of detective fiction, especially when they're done like in Hyouka: the situations are somewhat mysterious, but normal enough that they raise questions, and they're properly hinted. Bonus points for the fact the situations fit perfectly with the school setting.

After the introducing chapters, Hyouka moves to the main storyline, which is about Eru's uncle and what transpired at the Classic Literature Club thirty-three years ago. Here the mode changes to that of something that resembles a mix between a historical and a bibliophilic mystery, as the club members search for old books and other materials to deduce what happened three decades ago. One has to admire how Yonezawa used precise wording in each of the documents to nudge the reader in the right direction, as well as the fact how each new document presented changes the working theory. So first a theory is made based on document 1, which is then altered because of the contents of document 2 leading to theory 2, etc. It's a great showcase of the cause-and-effect relation between clues and hypotheses, even if the deductions feel less 'tight' (or decisive) compared to the mysteries found in the earlier chapters because it's based on textual interpretation.

I first read this book as a short story collection, as early on each chapter had its own mystery, but it turned out it was a proper novel, and I liked in hindsight how good the clueing was throughout the book, with little comments or revelations made the earlier parts coming back for the end. This is what any good detective novel should do, of course, but because I first read it as a short story collection, I wasn't prepared for that much story integration across stories, and even after noticing it was not a story collection, I thought the clueing/foreshadowing was done really well.

Hyouka was thus a fairly entertaining book, even if a bit short. While the book does feature a finished storyline, it also feels like the start of a story, so I guess we'll learn more about Houtarou, the other characters and the school itself in subsequent entries. So while Hyouka on its own is a good, but light meal, I have the feeling the whole course will turn out to be quite satisfactory. And hey, I might even try the anime.

Original Japanese title(s): 米澤穂信 『氷菓』

Sing A Song of Sixpence

"No lesser crime than murder will suffice."

"Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories"

Not that this is a bad cover (to the contrary!), but I do miss the bold use of the color yellow of the previous two volumes.... 

Urazome Tenma is almost an urban legend at his high school, as while he's easily one of the top students there, Tenma seldom interacts with his fellow classmates and the few that do know him, mostly know him for being incredibly lazy and selfish. What even fewer people know however is that he's actually living on the school grounds, as he's secretly confiscated one of the club rooms after having run away from home. Most of his free time is spent on his hobbies, like watching anime, reading manga or sleeping. But that Tenma's actually capable of miracles if he sets his mind to it, as was proven in the few months before the summer holiday of his second year, as he managed to solve the impossible murder that happened inside his school's gymnasium, as well as a gruesome murder that was committed in the local aquarium. Aosaki Yuugo's Kazegaoka Gojuuendama Matsuri no Nazo ("The Kazegaoka 50 Yen Coin Festival Mystery") details a series of smaller adventures that Tenma and his friends encountered during the summer holiday after the previous two cases happened.

Kazegaoka Gojuuendama Matsuri no Nazo ("The Kazegaoka 50 Yen Coin Festival Mystery") was originally published in 2014 as the third book in Aosaki Yuugo's Urazome Tenma series, and the first short story collection in this series. I read the paperback version, which was released in 2017. The book, as well as all the stories included, all feature alternative English titles by the way, which are not direct translations of the original titles. Aosaki is an author who is obviously inspired by Ellery Queen, and the previous novels all featured alternative English titles named in the Queen spirit ("The [Color] [Noun] Mystery"). In this book, the stories have English titles in the spirit of Ellery Queen's early short story collections The Adventures of Ellery Queen (and The New Adventures of Ellery Queen), and thus feature the title format "The Adventure of...".

The book opens with Mou Isshoku Eraberu Donburi ("A Rice Bowl Where You Can Choose One Extra Dish"), which carries the alternative English title The Adventure of the Missing Chopsticks. I had already read this particular story earlier this year, and even wrote a review about it, and there's little I want to add to that. It's a brilliant short story that presents a very normal, but puzzling mystery (Why did a student dump their tray and half-eaten rice bowl just outside the school cafeteria, even though it'd have taken no effort to bring it to the drop-off point?) as a meticulously constructed logic puzzle for the reader to deduce this seemingly nonsensical deed was done. It is a perfect example of the everyday life mystery, that changes an innocent, almost meaningless circumstance to an amusing mystery story by simply asking "Why?" and "How?" about things you normally wouldn't think twice about. The mystery also fits the school setting of this series perfectly, much more actually than the murders we saw in the previous two novels.

The title story Kazegaoka Gojuuendama Matsuri no Nazo ("The Kazegaoka 50 Yen Coin Festival Mystery"), or The Adventure of the Summer Festival, is set at a summer festival held at a shrine. Yuno's brother (a policeman) has to swing by with some drinks for the local policemen on guard here, with Yuno tagging along to enjoy the festival mood and food. She meets with Tenma at the festival, as well as with schoolmate Kaori and Tenma's younger sister Kyouka. During their chats however, they realize something weird is going on at this festival, for a great number of food stalls at this festival are returning all of their change in 50 yen coins, instead of the more common 100 yen coins. But why?

A surprisingly normal, yet weird puzzle, but one with roots in reality. For this story is actually a variation on a real-life mystery the author Wakatake Nanami encountered once when she was working part-time in a bookstore. Each Saturday, a man would appear with twenty 50 yen coins, asking her to exchange it for a thousand yen bill, with no explanation as to why. This enigmatic incident later formed the basis of a collaboration work published by Tokyo Sogen, with both professional mystery authors (like Norizuki Rintarou and Arisugawa Alice) and amateur writers offering their reasons to Wakatake's conundrum. A second volume was also released, with even more possible solutions.

But back to Aosaki's story. The problem is deliciously innocent yet puzzling, because whether you get your 200 yen change back as four 50 yen coins or two 100 yen coins shouldn't really matter, but it's still a problem that will slightly bug you. While the story revolves around such a 'nonsensical' problem, the actual plot structure is quite good, with proper hinting and even false solutions to put you off-guard (with adequate hints and proof to show why the false solutions are wrong). The solution is also wonderfully innocent, yet convincing enough to what at first sight might seem to be a rather mundane occurance.

Harimiya Eriko no Third Impact ("Harimiya Eriko's Third Impact"), or The Adventure of Rieko Harimiya, stars the titular Eriko, once a problem child who bullied others, but who of late has been trying to become a better person, or at least not a bully anymore. Part of the reason for her change is that she recently started dating Saotome, who's one year younger than her. Saotome is also the only boy in the school's brass band, and they are also rehearsing during the summer holiday at school. Eriko learns that the last few days, Saotome has been sent out to buy water for everyone to drink during their practice sessions, but that every time he returns, the girls have locked the room, forcing him to cry out loud for them to open the door for him. Eriko suspects he's being bullied by the other girls in the band, but can't really accuse them of anything considering her own past. Desperate, Eriko decides to ask Tenma to figure out why they're bullying Otome and to solve the problem for her.

This reminds me, the previous two novels were filled with both obvious and obscure reference to manga and anime, because of Tenma's hobbies, but as he isn't the main character in these stories, there are actually fewer of these references in this book. Or at least, I noticed fewer of them. The Third Impact from this story is obviously a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion however. As for the story itself, it features a mystery that is obviously very strongly connected with the school setting (suspected bullying), but the truth behind the case is also wonderfully fitting, and is ingeniously hinted at through various hints and happenings that occur throughout the story. The everyday life mystery is a difficult genre, as it is difficult to have puzzling situations and solutions that are both mundane yet alluring. While the problem in this story might seem a bit too mundane, the solution is really convincing, but with just enough of wonder to surprise the reader.

Tenshitachi no Zanshomimai ("A Visit During A Lingering Heat By Angels"), or The Adventure of the Twin Angels, is about a curious incident described by a senior member of the school's Theater Club in one of his idea notebooks, with the writer claiming that he really experienced the following tale. He was one day dozing off after school soon after the summer holiday was over, but then made his way over to his classroom on the second floor, only to see two of his female classmates in a passionate embrace standing near the window. He quickly backed away, turning back to the hallway. But after some time, he decided to go in anyway, only to see the two girls had disappeared, even though he had his eyes on the classroom door all the time. So how did those girls leave that room completely unseen? The solution was something I had not thought off, though I think that Japanese readers have an advantage here, as it involves a certain custom not as common where I grew up, but more so in Japan (in fact, I first experienced myself in Japan too). Once you think off it, the mystery of the disappearing girls makes a lot more sense, and once again the hinting is impeccable, with careful wording and seemingly innocent statements always coming back at the end of the tale to explain what happened in a logical way.

The final full story in this volume is Sono Kabin ni Gochuui wo ("Please Mind That Vase"), or The Adventure of the Silent Vase, which stars Tenma's younger sister Kyouka, who studies at an elite junior high. She's having a talk with her friend Himemari in a classroom when it is discovered that the flower vase placed in the hallway outside the classroom was broken, with the shards, flowers and water spread all across the floor. As a member of the student council, Himemari obviously has to investigate who broke the vase, until she realizes something strange is going on: neither she nor Kyouka had seen anyone pass through the hallway while they were in the classroom, nor had they heard the sound of the vase breaking. So did it break on its own, silently? The story is very similar in idea to the earlier two novels in the series, as it focuses on the movements (and alibis) of characters and there's even a diagram of that section of the school for the reader to trace the movements of everyone involved, but the story feels a bit too hasty for its own good. The basic idea behind this story is to figure out who could've broken that vase without anyone hearing it, but the reader is given next to no time to contemplate the problem themselves, and the mystery itself feels much more 'constructed' than the previous stories, which felt much more natural and in line with the everyday life mystery. This story on the other hand features a character who acts just like the culprit in a complex mystery story with almost uncanny knowledge about the movements of all the other characters in order for them to commit that heineous crime of breaking a vase unseen and unheard. While this was in a way the M.O. in the two novels in this series, it really doesn't fit the tone of the other stories in this volume. So it's a bit too smart, a bit too 'conventional crime'-esque.

The volume also contains a very short bonus story, Sekai Ichi Ikokochi no Warui Sauna ("The Worst Sauna To Be In"), which is not a proper mystery story, but shows a bit more insight in Tenma's relation with a certain family member. I suspect it might also serve as 'laying the ground' for the fourth book in the series.

While the last few stories were not as strong as the first few, Kazegaoka Gojuuendama Matsuri no Nazo has proven itself to be an excellent short story collection that mixes impressively structured detective plots with incidents that seem mundane at first sight, but prove to be vexingly puzzling, resulting in very alluring everday life mysteries. The school setting is used to its fullest, and the volume also fleshes out the various characters and school setting better than the previous two novels, making this series a richer environment. I for one can't wait to read the next volume!

Original Japanese title(s): 青崎有吾　『風ヶ丘五十円玉祭りの謎』：　「もう一色選べる丼」 / 「風ヶ丘五十円玉祭りの謎」 / 「針宮理恵子のサードインパクト」 / 「天使たちの残暑見舞い」 「その花瓶にご注意を」 / 「世界一居心地の悪いサウナ」