「ユメヲミタミタイ」

ひとつの目で明日をみてひとつの目で昨日をみつめてる

『The Real Folk Blues』

I look at tomorrow with one eye, while keeping my other eye on yesterday

"The Real Folk Blues"

With the end of the year nearing, I am at one hand tempted to try to come up with a best-of-list, because looking at the past is some kind of ritual that needs to be done around this time. And as I have a) actually read a reasonable amount of books this year and b) I can actually rely on my blog instead of on my memory, it would be possible too! On the other hand, I don't really like best-of-list all too much.

Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, as I have wait for new books to arrive here, I chose a book from my pile of 'yes, I haven't read these yet, but I don't feel an urge to read them anyway' books. The lucky (?) victim was Higashino Keigo's Yochimu ("Foreseeing Dream"). And as I have reviewed loads of Higashino Keigo's novels and am usually fairly to very positive about them, one might wonder why this was on the non-priority list, but there's a simple explanation for that. Yochimu is a short story collection in Higashino's Galileo series (the second volume in the series actually), but I had knew the five stories collected here, as they were featured in the TV drama based on Galileo. So yeah, there was no real urgency in reading stories I knew already anyway. Besides that, most of the stories collected here weren't that interesting anyway. In fact, I only choose this book because I could finish it quickly.  Ah, I hope my books arrive here soon.

While the Galileo novels (Yougisha X no Kenshin, Seijo no Kyuusai, Manatsu no Houteishiki) are all quite good, the Galileo short story collection all suffer from the problem that they are insolvable for us mere mortal readers. Most of the Galileo short stories follow the same formula: cop Kusanagi handles a case that has a supernatural tone to it. A predicted murder. Poltergeists. Will-o'-the-Wisps. Those kind of things. Kusanagi asks his scientist friend Yukawa for assistance, who then comes up with a complex scientific explanation for the situation. While the 'supernatural-phenomena-turns-out-to-be-perfectly-natural-phenoma' is certainly fun, Higashino's stories end up with roughly two problems. One is of course that unless you happen to know something about the scientific theme of the week, you are screwed. The second problem is that Higashino is not as fair as he should be and that he keeps pulling information from nowhere during the explanation. Thus we have an unfairly hinted story that relies on specialist information too.

The first story in the collection, Yumemiru ("Dream"), sorta avoids this by coming up with a totally fuzzy, way too vague solution to the problem of a man who apparently has foreseeing dreams. Ever since elementary school, he had dreams about a girl called Morisaki Reimi and he has always said he would marry her. Fast-foward 20 years or so, and we have this man arrested for breaking and entering the house where high-school student Morisaki Reimi lives. How could the man have dreamt about this girl, even before she was born? Her name is very rare and all evidence shows that this man has really been talking and dreaming about her ever since he was a boy. The solution Yukawa provides however is certainly not satisfactory.

Mieru ("See") is better luckily A woman is found strangled in her house, but she was also seen at a totally different place, at the time of her murder, by her lover. Was that her ghost who said goodbye to him? Of course not, and the solution to the whole story is pretty good, but it is the story structure and page length that kinda kills the story. The story is just too short to really work out the ghost-angle, and the pacing is a bit too fast too really convey a feeling of space and bewilderment that is needed for this kind of story.

Sawagu ("Racket") is the definately the weakest story of the five. Kusanagi is asked by a friend of his sister's to locate her husband, who hasn't come back in five days. She suspects that something has happened at the house of an old lady he used to visit. The woman has died recently and her nephew, his wife and two friends of them have moved in the house, but they are acting very strange. Especially the fact that they all leave the house at eight at night, only to come back a bit later is unnatural. Kusanagi and the friend break into the house after eight to see whether her husband is being held there, but find nothing. Nothing? Well, they did discover that every night a poltergeist starts to make a racket in the house and that is the reason why the four always leave the house at eight... Yukawa comes up with a solution to explain the poltergeist phenomena which is so absolutely unfair and impossible that it frustrated me intensely when I read it, even though I already the solution from the TV drama!

Shimeru ("Strangle") is the best, though that is not saying much, it seems. A man is found dead in his hotel room, with severe strangling marks on his neck. The main suspect is his wife, as they entered a life insurance program only recently. What is making this strange though, is that the daughter says she saw a will-o'-the-wisp fly around her father some days ago. Was this a sign of his death? This time, the story is fairly hinted, though the main trick to the whole problem is pretty much impossible to deduce based on that single hint. It's a thing that kinda makes sense in hindsight, but no way a reader is going to deduce this beforehand.

Shiru ("Know") is another fairly decent story: a woman commits suicide in the apartment in the building across of her lover's apartment, with her lover and his wife being actual witness to that. The strange thing is that in the apartment next to witnesses' apartment, a sickly girl claims that she had seen the woman commit suicide two days earlier (but she admits she did see her being alive and well the day after). Was this a foreseeing dream by an hallucinating girl? Yukawa's solution to this supernatural phenomena is decent, but a bigger problem lies in another problem Yukawa uncovers at the same time. This is once again a solution that relies too much in specialist information that no normal reader is going to have. Which really hurts this story, because the main plot is actually quite decent that could have been worked to something much better.

So no, I am not really positive about this selection of stories. Having now read all the Gallileo short stories and another short story collection by Higashino, I think short stories are just not his forte. On the other hand, a lot of his novels feature tricks and plots that actually don't need a full-length novel to work properly, I think (they read very comfortably though). Higashino really should try writing novelettes.

And still waiting for books to arrive.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『予知夢』:　「夢想る　（ゆめみる）」 / 「霊視る　（みえる）」 / 「騒霊ぐ　（さわぐ）」 / 「絞殺る　（しめる）」 / 「予知る　（しる）」

Sunset Men

「誰にもとけない問題を作るのとそれを解くのとではどちらが難しいか」

『容疑者Ｘの献身』

"What is more difficult? Constructing a problem nobody can solve, or solving that problem?"

"The Devotion of Suspect X"

Finding free Japanese mystery novels at the university library is always fun. Now only if I actually had to read all those books! Even this post's topic, a Higashino Keigo novel, took me almost two weeks. In the holiday, I could easily finish a Higashino Keigo novel in one or two days. Oh, free time, where art thou?

Higashino Keigo's Manatsu no Houteishiki ("A Midsummer's Equation") is the third novel-length entry in the Detective Galileo series. The previous two novels, Yougisha X no Kenshin and Seijo no Kyuujo were quite different from the short stories within the series: whereas the Galileo short stories are usually about the use of the hard sciences in murders / solving murder, the novel-length entries have always been rather 'serious' police procedurals where physicist Yukawa, nicknamed Galileo, (sorta unwillingly) helps the police with their investigations, with only a very shallow link to the sciences (making the novels also more accessible).  Manatsu no Houteishiki continues this trend, but sadly enough isn't as interesting as the previous two novels.

The story starts with Kyouhei, an eleven-old kid, going to his aunt and uncle's place for the summer vacation, as his parents are out of town because of work. His aunt runs a pension in Harigaura, a little resort town that has seen better days. Even though it's the middle of summer, the pension only has two other guests. One is Yukawa, who is a invited speaker for a panel discussion on a planned natural resources development project in the sea of Harigaura. The other guest, an elderly man called Tsukahara, is apparently an interested party too, as he shows up in the public of the panel discussion. The panel discussion is quite heated, with lots of villagers wanting to preserve the sea, like Kyouhei's niece Narumi. Others see no future in Harigaura as it is now and strongly believe that the development project will save the town.

The night after the panel discussion however, Tsukahara is found dead on the cliffs. The police at first thinks it's a simple accident, but when they discover that Tsukahara was an ex-cop and that he didn't die of the fall, but of carbon monoxide poisoning, they start to suspect it was murder. Where did Tsukahara die and more importantly, why? Did it have to do with some of his old cases? And meanwhile, the kid Kyouhei is having the worst vacation ever, as his aunt, uncle and niece are too busy dealing with the police. He does find an unexpected friend in Yukawa though, who seems to have some interest in the Tsukahara case too.

While Manatsu no Houteishiki is mostly a police procedural like the previous two novels, it feels quite different. One reason is that we have about five interested parties, with the story's point of view changing between them. Yukawa, Kyouhei, Narumi and her parents, the local police and the Tokyo police all look at the case from different angles, with information flowing from one party to another, some information being hidden from another party and yes, it's a bit too much. The story never gets confusing or anything and the constant changing ensures the story developments keep up a certain pace, but at times it also just feels like unneccesary padding out of the story.

The many perspectives on the case do make it kinda vague what the main problem of this novel is. The previous Galileo novels were clearly about an alibi trick and an impossible poisoning, but there is nothing like that in Manatsu no Houteishiki. The promotion phrase for this book was "Accident? Murder? The truth Yukawa noticed...", but even the question of accident or murder is not as important as one might think. Near the end, the story focuses on the why and how of Tsukahara's death, but it's pretty sad to see that Higashino basically reuses a plot-device he did much better in one of his other novels. The twists in the previous two Galileo novels were devilishly simple, while Manatsu no Houteishiki's trick is more like 'oh, well, yeah, that was simple and not very interesting'.

While there is little discussion on science in this novel, the interaction between Yukawa and the kid Kyouhei does give some interesting insights in Yukawa's idea of science. However, I had troubles seeing Kyouhei as a real kid in the novel. Which is maybe because he is 11, which means he is not a real kid anymore and thus can act more adult at times, but his character seemed to swing to much depending on the situation. Of course, Kyouhei is a lot more realistic than kids like Conan's Detective Boys or Edogawa Rampo's original Detective Boys (and Kyouhei isn't even playing a detective), but I would guess that realistic children are harder to create on paper than adults.

While Yougisha X no Kenshin, Seijo no Kyuujo and Manatsu no Houteishiki are about different kind of criminal problems, the three novels are in the core very similar novels. Higashino uses a similar plot-device in all three novels, he constructs a 'simple-and-therefore-effective' problem in all three novels, the police procedural angle with opposing forces plays an important role in the story development in all three novels. The 'problem' for Manatsu no Houteishiki is that even though it's a decent mystery, the other two novels are simply better at pretty much everything.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『真夏の方程式』

「ラブは０・・・いくら積み重ねても惨めに負けるだけ・・・」

なるべく傷つけぬよう傷つかぬように

切なさもほらね押し殺せる

愛だと名付ければそれが愛だといえる

『忘れ咲き』 (Garnet Crow)

Look! So I won't hurt you or myself,
 I can even supress my own sadness!
If I would call this love, I could say that this is love

"Wasurezaki" (Garnet Crow)

Re-reading Conan for the big series overview was fun, but it also took quite some time, that could have been spend on other material. And there is enough material I still want to read/watch/listen. So I won't make a habit of re-reading / reviewing material I read in the past. It would just take too long, even if it would be fun to discuss classics like The Greek Coffin Mystery, the Father Brown stories or 813 (I have a loophole for 813 though!).

But for some reason or another, I suddenly developed the urge to write about Higashino Keigo's Yougisha X no Kenshin ("The Devotion of Suspect X"). So I did. Yougisha X no Kenshin is the third entry and the first full-length novel in the Galileo series. For me, it's a book of memories. It was the very first book I read in Japanese. Armed with a dictionary, I spent an obscene amount of time deciphering the novel. For a first-year student who had just finished the elementary level lesson material, reading a complete novel in Japanese was perhaps a bit ambitious. Every three words, I had to open my dictionary to look up some word or expression. It took me months to get to the final page of the book. But it was worth it. Yougisha X no Kenshin was a great story that really impressed me. Earlier this year, an English translation was released and going through the book again, my opinion on the novel didn't change: Yougisha X no Kenshin is a great story.

The previous Galileo stories were about crimes that were connected one way or another to the exact sciences. Sometimes it was about a murderer who used some high-tech machinery to kill his victim, sometimes it was about some ghostly apparation that turned to be some natural phenomena. Science still plays a big role in Yougisha X no Kenshin, but no death-lasers to be found here. The story starts with a murder commited by single mother Yasuko and daughter Misato. The victim, Yasuko's ex-husband, was really asking for it, but still, murder is murder. Mother and daughter are still dazed, the stiff is still warm, when suddenly their neighbour, the maths teacher Ishigami knocks on their door. He knows what has happened and says he wants to help the two. Luckily for them, Ishigami is a real genius and he gets rid of the body and whips up a perfect alibi for the two in no time. The police on the other hand are having trouble finding the murderer (though they do suspect the mother/daughter duo) and detective Kusanagi decides to ask his old friend Yukawa, a physicist nicknamed Galileo, for help. And just to make things more dramatic, Yukawa and Ishigami are actually old friends too, each acknowledging the other as a true genius on their own respective fields (physics and mathematics).

I could write about the big Yougisha X no Kenshin controversy (with big players like Nikaidou Reito and Kasai Kiyoshi), which was about whether this novel is a true orthodox detective and whether the hints were fair enough (and thus whether it was fair that this novel won the Honkaku Mystery Grand Prize). But I won't. All I know is that I enjoyed this novel when I first read it in 2008 and again when I read the translation in this year. I don't think that any discussion on the book will change my opinion about it. It's a very engaging mystery novel that anyone can enjoy. Unless you're an old sour grumpy critic.

Higashino Keigo is always quite strong in characterization, as human relations are often the emphasis of his mystery novels. Actually, his novels often turn out to be some kind of orthodox mystery romance psychological thrillers. Which totally explains his popularity in Japan. But anyway, in Higashino novels, people usually commit murder out of love, to protect the ones they love or because their unrequited love turns into grudge (See for example Seijo no Kyuusai ("The Saint's Salvation") and Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")). But even though this is a common theme in Higashino novels, the way these themes are used  in Yougisha X no Kenshin is exceptionally good. Inverted mysteries often need both a detective and a murderer you can root for. People can easily root for cops like Columbo or Furuhata Ninzaburou, so it might be a bit harder to create a symphathetic criminal. But it's almost insane how much the reader will root for Yasuko and Misato, how much the reader hopes that Ishigami succeeds in protecting his neighbours.

Note that the whole fact that I address a topic like characterization and human relations here is very strange. I mean, for someone who loves robot!Ellery Queen and the supershort Q.B.I. stories, you'd expect I don't pay much attention to those kinds of themes. Which is totally true. So the fact that I actually talk about them in a review, means that I was quite impressed.

This novel was also made into a movie in 2008 (the TV series based on the previous books was very popular). Actually, the reason I started with the book was because I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. The movie itself is pretty good too: the TV series had some cheesy elements, but the production team luckily got rid of that to fit the story's more dramatic tone. Tsutsumi Shinichi is unfairly billed as a supporting role, as he really steals the show with a heartbreaking Ishigami (and I love the ending song, Saiai).

I doubt whether I'll ever be able to look at this novel without the Nostalgia glasses on, but I'd like to think that this is a great novel, even without those glasses. 

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『容疑者Ｘの献身』

「おそらく君たちは負ける。僕も勝てない。これは完全犯罪だ」

「理論的には考えられても、現実的にはありえない。」
『聖女の救済』

"Even if it is possible in theory, it is impossible in practice"
"The Saint's Salvation")

While I absolutely love 2005's Yougisha X no Kenshin ("The Devotion of Suspect X"), I wasn't really impressed with 2008's Galileo no Kunou ("The Agony of Galileo"). I do still keep my eyes on the Tantei Galileo ("Detective Galileo") series however and with a new Galileo novel finishing its serialization this year (Manatsu no Houteishiki; "A Midsummer's Equation"), I thought it was time to finally catch up with the series. Luckily, I was just one book behind.

So it was time for Seijo no Kyuusai ("The Saint's Salvation"), released simultaneously with Galileo no Kunou. Seijo no Kyuusai is the second novel-length entry in the Tantei Galileo series and as such, I wasn't sure what to think about the book when I picked it up. Should I expect a fine work again, because the previous book was good? Or is the bar set by Yougisha X no Kenshin too high? Yougisha X no Kenshin was a big hit in Japan and stirred up discussions on what a detective novel is and as far as I knew, Seijo no Kyuusai didn't stir up anything.

Seijo no Kyuusai begins when Mashita Yoshitaka, CEO of an IT firm, tells his wife Ayane, a famous patchwork artist, he wants to divorce her. It's been a year since their marriage, but there are no signs of her getting pregnant and that is the only reason he got married in the first place. No kids, no marriage. As they agreed to this before their marriage, Ayane accepts. Before their divorce, Ayane goes to Hokkaidou, back home to her parents to spend a weekend there. It is during her weekend away that Yoshitaka dies due to arsenic poisoning. The most likely person to have commited the murder is of course Ayane, but how was she able to poison her husband in Tokyo all the way from Hokkaidou?

Seijo no Kyuusai is a pretty decent novel. It's an orthodox detective, fairly rare among Higashino Keigo's work, but it lacks the impact of Yougisha X no Kenshin. Like all of the Tantei Galileo stories, this is a howdunnit and like the previous novel-length story, this book does not feature the laser-guided-death-trap methods of killing from the short stories. The exact sciences still set Yukuwa, nicnamed Galileo, on the right track (keyword for this novel: imaginary numbers), but the sciences are like thematic decoration; no actual knowledge of them is needed to solve this mystery. The solution? A simple, yet effective one. If Higashino tries, he is perfectly able to write normal detective novels.

My only problem with the book is the length, as the story is rather drawn out. Which ties in with Higashino's pet peeve themes: women, love and the criminal mind. Many pages of the story are used to flesh out the rather small cast, digging in their psyche like in Uso wo mou hitotsu dake. And by letting police detective Kusanagi fall in love with the suspect, Higashino creates a dual story of Kusanagi trying to prove Ayane innocent, while his (female) junior Utsumi, with the help of Galileo, try to prove her guilt. While the story starts with the actions of Yoshitaka and end with Galileo's deduction, both males, most of the story is driven by the women in this story. As Sugie Matsukoi (2009) posed in an article on Higashino's work "Women are terrifying" is the theme in Higashino Keigo's work. I think gender in Japanese detective novels has been researched before (c.f. Seaman, Amanda (2004). Bodies of Evidence - Women, Society, and Detective Fiction in 1990s Japan. Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press), but maybe Higashino Keigo's work might be interesting too.

While not a masterpiece by any means, I enjoyed the book and I hope the third novel in the Tantei Galileo series, Manatsu no Houteishiki will be released soon in book form soon.　

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『聖女の救済』

『時の過ぎゆくままに。。。』

「あんたが自分を信じなくても俺はあんたを信じるよ」
『金田一少年の事件簿：剣持警部の殺人』

"Even if you don't believe yourself, I believe in you."
"The Case Files of Young Kindaichi: Chief Inspector Kenmochi's Murder"

Writing on detectivey-stuff is not going really well lately, mostly because I hardly read here. It at least is not a problem of not having enough material, because shelving problems are slowly appearing. I had started writing about how Japanese detectives are often like mini travel guides, as if they are not set in Tokyo or Osaka, they are often set at touristic spots all across Japan. Which was mainly inspired by a Wednesday TV drama I am watching, Meitantei Asami Mitsuhiko: Saishuushou ("Great Detective Asami Mitsuhiko: The Final Chapter") , which is about a journalist traveling all across Japan writing about touristic attractions, solving crimes and basically is an excuse to have every story set in another part of Japan. But then I realized this traveling aspect is also to be found very easily in Western (English) detectives, with the Orient Express and the Nile or just all across England, so it was not that interesting (though apparently the Asami Mitsuhiko series is quite popular here because it's so much like a travel guide with stuff on local legends).

But I digress. I don't do much reading except for homework now. Of course, I am actually required to read Edogawa Rampo stuff, as I have to hand in a book report next month for my research paper here, but even books with titles as The Era of Rampo: Ero Guro Nonsense can't help this reading-slump. Heck, even reading manga is not going as fast as it should.

Games are progressing quite good though. But while I enjoy detectives and games, they seldom work really good together. Case in point: the recently released Nintendo DS game Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Akuma no Satsujin Koukai ("The Case Files of Young Kindaichi: The Devil's Killer Voyage"). As releases in the Kindaichi Shounen series are not frequent anyway, I was kinda looking forward to this game, but as soon as I started up this game, I knew it would disappoint me, having played another game by the same developer. Please, developers at Tomcat, senseless clicking on every part of the map in the hopes the story progresses is not fun. Nor is diffusing bombs. Especially your bombs. Didn't you learn with Galileo DS?!

It's a problem I see often in detective games, where developers don't seem to be able to streamline the story. Either the story goes too fast, not allowing the player a chance to think or do anything at all, or the developers don't streamline the story at all and you are left clicking on everything, hoping you find the trigger for the next story event. A detective novel usually flows from one event to another, whether it being new information or the analyzing of information, but somehow, developers never seem able to really translate this to a working game system. And then you have the problem of developers wanting to make a detective game more like a game, so they insert bomb diffusing segments in the game. Which. Suck. Just because I am playing on a DS doesn't mean that you have to insert bad touchscreen gameplay.

Luckily, I had two new Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo volumes to wash away the memories of that game. They may only release two volumes of the manga a year, but it's always something to look forward too. And Pokémon HeartGold has found a great home in my Nintendo DS. After so many years enslaving poor critters is still addicting. And Butterfree, after so many years, you still are my favorite. Till I find a fishing rod to get me a Staryu. To get me a Starmie. 

Original Japanese title(s): 『金田一少年の事件簿　悪魔の殺人航海』

「すべての現象には必ず理由がある」

「あの問題を解いても誰も幸せにならないんだ」
『容疑者Ｘの献身』

"Even if you solve that problem, no happiness will come from it."
"The Devotion of Suspect X"

I watch Japanese television drama quite often nowadays, and while I had seen some drama before, I really started watching drama series with Galileo, based on the Detective Galileo books by Higashino Keigo (Meitantei no Okite). While certainly not a formal detective, the Galileo series certainly had some interesting points. Most of the stories involved seemingly supernatural phenomena like spontaneous combustion, astral projection and premonitions, usually connected to a crime in some way. Of course, at the end of each story, thanks to the insights of assistant professor Yukawa, nicknamed The Weirdo Galileo, these phenomena turn out to have a perfectly logical explanation to them. Because it's a scientific detective though, most of the mysteries are not really solvable for the normal reader as specific knowledge is needed. But the drama was quite entertaining. Especially the ridiculous over-the-top eureka scenes of Yukawa randomly writing on everything. Correction, ridiculous eureka scenes of Yukawa randomly writing on everything because he can solve everything through mathematics. Everything. Even things that can't.

The books, with Higashino Keigo's dialogue-heavy texts and good sense of kanji-usage, are also very easy to read to and the Detective Galileo books are actually the first books in Japanese I ever read. Certainly different from the It's not in the dictionary! rage I get from Edogawa Rampo's books. So I went through Galileo no Kunou ("The Agony of Galileo") pretty fast, one of the two Galileo books released last year. Two of the five short stories were already adapted as the Galileo Φ TV special, but all in all, a kinda disappointing short story collection. Similar solutions to earlier stories popped up, which is never a good sign. Nor was the suggestion of the supernatural as effective as in earlier stories.

Of course, supernatural phenomena aren't always needed for a good Galileo novel, as proven with the novel Yougisha X no Kenshin ("The Devotion of Suspect X"), which featured 0 supernatural phenomena, but was just a great story. The book was subject to quite some discussion in Japan whether it was a formal detective or not, but for me, it was and heck, I just love the theme of the book. The movie based on the book? Arguably even better. The movie didn't contain ridiculous eureka scenes with random writing though.

「頭脳明晰、容姿端麗、神出鬼没の名探偵」

ケモノ道でケモノに会って　いばらの道にもバラが咲いて
いつかきっといいことあるって　信じて頑張って
来週も　再来週も　何度も倒されて　笑われても
僕は　ああ　負けたくないんだ


"On a beasts' road you'll meet beasts, but even on thorny roads roses bloom
One day something good will surely happen." Believing that, I try my best,
Be it next week or the week after that, no matter how many times I'm knocked down and laughed at,
I just... don't wanna lose.


馬場俊英 (Baba Toshihide)、ファイティングポースの詩 ("Song of the Fighting Pose")
(Ending theme of Meitantei no Okite)

When I started this blog, I expected to write more about Japanese detectives, but mainly because Tokyo was superspecialawesome, I didn't have the time (nor energy left) to read as many detectives as I should have. Which means I have a large backlog now. Which means I have a lot to read. Which is nothing to complain about. So, until I'm back in Japan in October, this blog will mostly about (Japanese) detectives. And slightly related stuff. 日本だからできる。

And today, we begin with:

名探偵の掟 (Meitantei no Okite, "The Laws of the Great Detective")

Before, I only knew the writer Higashino Keigo from the Galileo series, a pseudo-scientific detective with the physicist Yukawa, nicknamed "The Freak Galileo", as the protagonist, revealing seemingly occult happenings as products of the many laws of nature. I enjoyed the series, enjoyed the quite moving Yougisha X no Kenshin ("The Devotion of Suspect X") even more, but with the dodgy exception of the last one, Galileo isn't an orthodox detective. Far from it.

Thus, I was more than pleasantly surprised when I read Meitantei no Okite by Higashino, as it is an excellent parody on the Golden Age detective novel (in Japan known as the orthodox detective novel), as we know from writers as Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen and G.K. Chesterton. The idea behind the book is that the protagonist, the great detective Tenkaichi Daigorou is aware he is the protagonist of a book. He knows he is a great detective (introducing himself as 'the great detective with a bright mind, far-reaching knowledge, versatile talents and unparalled activity'), he knows every cliche in the genre and he knows those cliches are bound to appear in his world. While the people in the stories might think Tenkaichi is some kind of nut, the great detective works hard to comply to all the rules of the orthodox detective novel in order to please the reader. Because those laws are like promises to the reader, which never ever should be broken.

And Tenkaichi succeeds. Every chapter of the short story collection is built around one of the cliches in the genre, ranging from a locked room murder to the disappearing murder weapon, from the detective falling in love with a suspect to the dying message. And while the stories comply to the cliches, the solutions still manage to surprise everytime (don't forget, this is a parody!). The book kind of reminds me of Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime. But Okite is better.

In April 2009, a Japanese drama was broadcast based on this novel, starring Matsuda Shouta as the great detective Tenkaichi Daigorou (Matsuda Shouta's father by the way, played the detective Kudou Shunsaku, protagonist in the legendary Tantei Monogatari series and the image of Japanese badassness). Minor changes included the... inclusion of female detective Fujii, who according to the genre rules, is a love interest for the detective Tenkaichi. Maybe. Anyway, the drama didn't disappoint (including original cliches not found in the book). As there's another Tenkaichi book (see the next part), I am hoping for a (movie) sequel.

The best point of the book (and the drama) is probably that it's quite accesible for both fans and people not in the know. Another (great) Japanese detective parody drama 33 pun Tantei ("33 Minute Detective") pretty much expected people to know the cliches and built upon that, which makes it a little harder to follow at times. Meitantei no Okite on the other hand explains the cliches to the unknowing, while still managing to be ridicilously funny for those who don't need extra explanations.

Selfnote: 「密室宣言ートリックの王様」、「以外な殺人ーフーダニット」、「屋敷を孤立させる理由（わけ）ー閉ざされた空間」、「最後の一言ーダイイングメッセージ」、「アリバイ宣言ー時刻表トリック」、「『花のＯＬ湯けむり温泉殺人事件』論ー二時間ドラマ」、「切り裂きの理由ーバラバラ死体」、「トリックの正体ー？？？」、「殺すなら今ー童謡殺人」、「アンフェアの見本ーミステリのルール」、「禁句ー首なし死体」、「凶器の話ー殺人手段」

名探偵の呪縛 (Meitantei no Jubaku, "The Curse of the Great Detective")

In this novel-length... novel, the great detective Tenkaichi appears again! Or does he? A writer in our world wakes up one day to find himself in the identity of the great detective Tenkaichi Daigorou, who is called to a strange little town. A mysterious town indeed, as it is a town where no one has ever heard of the word "detective novel" and no such novel even exists in their word! But with "Tenkaichi" appearing in the world, strange, detective-like incidents start to happen. Like murder.

I finished the book today and am kinda in doubt what to think about it. It is completely different from the previous book, but it was clearly not meant as detective parody in the first place. Where Higashino managed to express his love for the orthodox detective in Meitantei no Okite by making fun of it, here he expresses his love by lamenting about the loss of the orthodox detective novel in the real world. It's the same, but different. I enjoyed Meitantei no Okite more, but Meitantei no Jubaku manages to hit sentimental notes in the heart of a orthodox detective fan.

In overall, Higashino manages to show his love for the orthodox detective novel in both of the Tenkaichi Daigorou books, but I really recommend Meitantei no Okite, be it in book form or drama form. Or both. As a detective parody it succeeds tremendously. As a comedy series, it manages to be very accesible without making light out of the long history of orthodox detectives. Even better, it serves as quite an interesting introduction in what makes the genre great.

Currently reading: 横溝正史 (Yokomizo Seishi) - 金田一耕助の新冒険 (The New Adventures of Kindaichi Kousuke)