Resurrection

"That's the name my stupid parents gave me! I like to be called by my Goth name: Nightpayne."

"South Park" 

So just around the time I finished this book (in February), Asukabe released another new book... Guess I'll have to get that one too...

Tone Shirou, an ordinary high school student, has a crush on the strong-willed and free-minded Kaen Kanoyo, the pastor's daughter. The pastor has taken in Shirou's classmate Kiyari Seiya, who was recently released from juvenile hall due to a death he caused. Shirou and Seiya became friends over a common interest: God. Seiya first spoke with Shirou on the day of their high school entrance ceremony, when Shirou was reading a book on God. Their discussion on the existence of God led to the idea that there must be an anti-these to the monotheistic God: not the devil or demons, as they spring from the influence of God, but a being that is the opposite of the biblical God. They arrive at the polytheistic concept of the Goth Gods. They stand for everything that God isn't. Shirou dubs one of the Goth Gods "Kodokuoh", a name inspired by an account written by his father about a past incident. Shirou and Seiya also realize there must be the Ten Anti-Commandments, which include commandments like "Thou Shalt Kill", "Thou Shalt Rape" and "Thou shall not take the name of Kodokuoh in vain."

One day, Shirou is walking down the street when he sees two thugs from a local crime gang beating up a girl. He recognizes the victim as Saigouji Sakura, a classmate who has been coming on to him rather too obviously, though he has not shown any interest back. Sakura is beating harshly by the two men, who demand she "gives up the goods". Shirou steps in, but is of course beaten himself, until he invokes the name of the Goth God Kodokuoh... who answers the summons and beats up the thugs horribly. When both Shirou and Sakura wake up, Kodokuoh is gone, leaving only two unconscious thugs on the ground. Sakura throws up right in Shirou's face, resulting in their first "vomit kiss". Sakura's brought to the hospital, while Shirou wonders why those thugs were after Sakura in the first place. A visit to her father Dendou, who runs an art hospital just out of town near the inactive vulcano, doesn't help much, as the father seems awfully uninterested in his daughter's well-being. Shirou learns from Sakura that the thugs might be after because she witnessed a murder some months ago: she saw someone strangling a woman. Eventually, Shirou and Seiya learn that this person must have been the masked painter Biwa, who disappeared some months ago. When they sneak into his abandoned house in the forest, they indeed find the decayed remains of a woman there, but oddly enough, there's no sign of the body actually... decaying in the house, even though she was killed there according to Sakura. As Seiya and Shirou dig deeper into this case, they find themselves at times confronted by the thugs, but fortunately, most of the times either of them summons Kodokuoh, they are saved by His actions. I say most, because Kodokuoh at times prefers to see violence unfold as is, as in the case of when Seiya summoned Kodokuoh when he saw Shirou's father being beaten up by some hooligans. Nonetheless, the two utilize, or even abuse the power of Kodokuoh as they try to figure out what exactly is going on.

Shirou has a bad relation with his father Masaya, who after a single published short story and many rejections afterwards, lost his interest at trying at anything, including raising his own child. However, two decades ago, he wrote a captivating account of an incident he experienced, which could easily have been a novel too. In the year 2001, when Masaya was in high school, he was friends with Jinmon Kouichi, the heir of the most prominent family in town: Kouichi's grandfather Jinmon Daizen ran the only hospital in the city of Yukiide when it was still just a rural, closed-off mountain village. Now his son (Kouichi's father) runs the place, with Kouichi of course being eyed as the third generation. Masaya first became friends with Kouichi when Masaya helped Kouichi's little cousin Ruru, who had been pushed on the street by Shimizu Kise, an elderly woman who long ago worked as a nurse for their grandfather. Kise recently died in an unfortunate accident... or was it? One day, Daizen receives a strange packet which contains... an urn packed with poisonous and venomous insects, all crawling over each other and fighting among themselves. Ryouko, Kouichi's other cousin, recognizes the urn from a photograph a mysterious figure had developed at the photo studio she frequents. The man had identified himself as Kodo Kuou, but when she mentions that name, everyone realizes the figure must have meant Kodoku-Ou: the King of the Ultimate Venom, "Kodoku" referring to an ancient ritual where someone stuffs an urn with all kinds of poisonous and venomous insects and have them fight each other until there's one survivor, the bearer of the ultimate venom. A threatening letter warns Jinmon Daizen for April Fools, on which the Jinmon family has a great event planned to commemorate the old mining industry, involving a tour inside the mining tunnels beneath the inactive vulcano. It is during this ceremony that the King of the Ultimate Venom strikes, as Daizen is found dead in one of the mining tunnels, but with witnesses on both ends of the tunnel, it appears the murderer just disappeared into thin air after killing Daizen! How did Kodoku-Ou commit this feat, and how are the events in 2001 connected to the events in the current day? That is the great question in the very lengthy 2025 novel by Asukabe Katsunori Massatsu Goth Gods, which also carries the English title Eliminate Goth Gods.

Phew, that was a long explanation of the premise! And yes, that is because Massatsu Goth Gods is a pretty long novel. Asukabe Katsunori was an author who was mainly active in the first decade of the 2000s. His work became out-of-print and hard to to get in the 2010s, but when a few years ago, the bookshop Shosen/Horindo started doing facsimile re-releases of his work, they sold really well, resulting in renewed interest in his work and publishers doing proper re-releases. And in 2025, Asukabe returned to the literary world as a writer with the very hefty volume Massatsu Goth Gods, which would instantly earn him a nomination for the Honkaku Mystery Award. I had bought the book pretty soon after release actually, as I managed to snag a cheap copy, but I decided I'd actually cast a vote this year, which bumped the book up the priority list. Anyway, in case it wasn't clear, the book consists of two narratives, one set in 2001, the other in the present day, following a father and son who both get involved in mysterious incidents involving murder, with both incidents also featuring a "being" called Kodoku-Oh or Kodoku-Ou.

Yes, Massatsu Goth Gods is a mystery novel, it is a detective novel, but most importantly, it is an Asukabe Katsunori novel, and that is what the reader will feel most when they read it. If you read it purely as a mystery novel, there will be times you will think something is not fair or unrealistic, you will find the actions of certain characters absolutely unbelievable or inexplicable, events unfold in the most dramatic and unrealistic manners and yet... it all works, because that's the world Asukabe sketches in most of his books; his world are our own world, but slightly contorted and twisted, with people who can snap more easily and do over-the-top things, where events do just happen to occur a certain way because it makes the more interesting or it's just fun to have a certain set piece, where scenes are less concerned about being the logical product of how everyone acts or thinks, but more about... just setting up a scene where everyone has cool lines, do memorable things while in the meanwhile things explode in the background, just because it looks great. Asukabe for some reason makes this work, and it is especially interesting here, as in other books, things often slowly build to the explosive finale where everybody and everything just go full throttle, while this book literally introduces the idea of the Goth God Kodokuoh within a few pages, and Kodokuoh defeats the two thugs within the first twenty pages of over six-hundred-and-fifty. Crazy things happen right away.

It is the 2001 narrative that sticks the closest to the "traditional" mystery tropes, and that's not only because it has a more clearly defined mystery, that being that of Daizen's death and the impossible circumstances under which it had been discovered: his body was found inside a section of a mining tunnel which could only be accessed from two sides. One side leads to the main tunnel, and there were people watching this entrance basically all the time because of a ceremony was about to start, after which a delegation entered the mine tunnels for a guided tour, with realistic mannequins being placed along the tunnels to recreate the mining experience of yore. There is another narrow tunnel that leads to the site where the body was found, but ground water here had caused the ground here to become muddy, and there were no footprints of the murderer leaving the tunnel to be found here, only the footprints of the two young men (Kouichi and Masaya) who entered from the other side of the tunnel to make their way to the site. Meaning the murderer somehow brought Daizen to the mining site, killed him there and then vanished. The solution for this impossible situation is a bit hard to believe, as it not only depends on a huge gamble by the culprit on guessing how things would develop once people entered the tunnel, it also simply sounds very dubious from a practical viewpoint (you'd think it'd be noticed). I think I would've liked the base concept of the trick better in a short story, but not as the main mystery of a huge narrative. 

That said, it is also clear that "the impossible situation" isn't really the main purpose of the 2001 narrative. For it becomes clear pretty early on that this is in fact more meant as a huge homage to the great adve-nture-detective stories of 1930-1940s Japan by Edogawa Rampo, which is especially apparent once you remember we have a villain here who goes by a Scooby Doo moniker, sending threatening letters and cackling on the pages about all the evil things they're going to do while pulling off impossible feats using tricks that are not really practical, but still amusing to read. And Asukabe absolutely nails this part: the 2001 narrative involves a lot of moving parts with especially many named characters who all react differently to the theat of the King of Ultimate Venom, but the story never bores because it just keeps going with Dramatic Reveals and twists and turns (even with fake solutions). As a story, I find it more interesting and captivating than the modern-day narrative, simply because it's just plain fun, even if a bit nuts at times. 

The modern-day narrative, focusing on Seiya and Shirou as they investigate why Sakura's being targeted in turn feels less focused and a bit more "passive" as an experience: Shirou is the main man here, but a lot of the story here follows a mode closer to a thriller, with multiple parties being after a MacGuffin and each party trying to lure out the other to see what they know exactly, with each party using different tactics to gain an advantage. The gang behind the thugs that beat up Sakura are of course utilizing sheer violence, while other invested parties like Sakura's father Dendou being more manipulative, and Shirou and Seiya of course have Kodokuoh as the ace up their sleeve. There are some mysteries that drive the plot besides the basic question of why everyone's after Sakura, like the mystery of why the painter Biwa killed a woman and then remained inside the house for a few days before getting rid of the body, but these are relatively minor beats in the story that don't get investigated thorougly, but simply receive an answer near the end. The present-day narrative in fact is perhaps best enjoyed as a coming-of-age story of Shirou, as he experiences a lot of growth during this tale: him getting new insights into the relationships he has with his friends and family are a vital part of this narrative, and he's forced to face quite some hardships along the way, all to reach the end where he finally finds some happiness. And as we're used to by now, Asukabe gives this story an explosive conclusion where everyone simply ends up massacring each other (figuratively) in bombastic ways, a chaotic catastrophe before catharsis. 

Massatsu Goth Gods is Asukabe's first book in 15 years, but it is a very familiar sight, utilizing all the tropes and motifs he also used heavily in his other books like Datenshi Goumonkei and Kuro to Ai: we have the discussions on art and art history, we have a focus on enigmatic women who become a love interest, or at the very least an object of attraction to the young boy protagonist, we have a kind of coming-of-age-story as the core, we have teenagers banter about love and how they see the world, we have dark, gothic imagery, characters who are...  a bit insane at first and who became positively violently insane at the end of the book. If you liked Asukabe's previous works, you'll find plenty to love here and in a way, Massatsu Goth Gods is a culumation of all of that, as if he had been saving up all his "Asukabe Power" these fifteen years and put it all in this book.

The conclusion of the book is pretty great too. While it relies a lot on coincidence and unrealistic scenarios to set-up its final surprises and twists, seeing Asukabe tie the adventures of father Masaya and son Shirou together to form one major narrative is honestly great, and while I honestly do think some of these twists are really out-of-there and not set-up well enough for a mystery novel, I also can't deny I really did think the surprises were simply fun to see as I read what was happening on the pages. Hearing how this or that happened was silly, but I could forgive Asukabe for its silliness, because I was genuinely enjoying what I was reading. I think it helped half of the book was really Edogawa Rampo-inspired, because it's that energy that has the reader go: "Yeah, sure I know that wasn't realistic or logical at all, but I had fun!"

So Massatsu Goth Gods is no conventional mystery novel by any means. For some, the weirdness might be too much, but for others, it might be exactly what they seek, especially if they are already familiar with Asukabe's work: the book holds all of his familiar tropes and the combination with an Edogawa Rampo-esque plot and villain works really, really well, making this easily one of my favorite books by the author. So definitely a must-read if you're already a fan of his work! 

Original Japanese title(s):  飛鳥部勝則『抹殺ゴスゴッズ』

The Four-Headed Dragon

One little soldier boy left all alone; 

He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

"And Then There Were None"

Great cover!

Kubinohara is a tiny rural village in the cold north of Gunma Prefecture. It is rumoured to have once been the hiding place of soldiers-on-the-run in the Genpei War in the late twelfth century and houses two temples despite its small size. The Kouzuki family has been the most prominent family in the village for ages, with Kouzuki Eiichi being the 17th head of the family currently. His daughter Aya is finally getting married at age 27 and her circle of old childhood friends, most of them who have moved to larger cities for work, have all returned to Kubinohara to celebrate the joyful occassion. The girls of course have a lot to talk about on the day before the wedding, and they are all scheduled to stay at the very spacious Kouzuki manor, which because of renovations and extensions can easily hold so many guests while also housing three generations of Kouzuki members: from Aya and her younger sister, to their parents and even her grandmother Ichino. 

After a long day of catching up and preparing for the important event tomorrow, Aya excuses herself as she tries out her dress in a room, while her friends all retreat to their respective rooms, have a chat with Ichino or have a bath, all remaining in the old wing. When Aya doesn't appear anymore however, they go check up on her.... only to find her decapitated body! The local police, of course not experienced in such murders, quickly have support from the prefectural headquarters come down to investigate the murder on the daughter of the prominent family. Because no footprints are found in the garden leading away from the house and because Ichino herself had been in a position to keep an eye on the hallway connecting the old and new wings of the house, suspicion soon falls on Aya's friends, as they were the only people in the old wing with Aya. However, none of them have Aya's head in their possession, clearing them of the murder for the moment. Aya's head is later discovered at the offering box at the nearby Dragon Kneeling Temple, almost like how they used to display the heads of criminals who had been decapitated. Aya's death however was only the beginning, as more of her friends are decapitated too, with their heads each time ending up being displayed at the temple. Who is this killer and why are they after the heads of these childhood friends in Kojima Masaki's Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi ("The Heads on Display at the Temple of Dragons, 2011)?

Kojima Masaki is an author I haven't discussed before. His publishing history is quite interesting: he had a few short stories first published in Shimada Souji-related anthologies and then made his debut in 2005 with the book Ten ni Kaeru Fune ("The Boat Returning to Heaven"), which he co-authored with Shimada Souji. That book would also be the first work in a series featuring the amateur detective Ebihara Kouichi, who is also the detective in Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi. Kojima's second book followed in 2008, which also featured Ebihara, but this time the book was credited to Kojima alone, and since then, he has written nearly ten of them. The Ebihara Kouichi novels are very much inspired by Yokomizo Seishi and Mitsuda Shinzou's work, featuring isolated rural communities as settings with local legends/beliefs that act as a core for the gruesome murders that follow. Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi is no exception to that: in this novel, Ebihara Kouchi is hired by Kouzuki Ichino to investigate the murder on her granddaughter. It happens that one of the police detectives investigating the case is Hamanaka Kouhei, who is actually a relation to Aya, as his grandmother is a sister of Ichino. She forces Kouhei to leak information to Ebihara and while Kouhei initially refuses, he can't really go against his great aunt and he soon finds himself reluctantly feeding all the police findings to Ebihara, who however proves himself indeed to be the one to find light in the darkness.

The book actually starts with a prologue set in the past, where we learn a young Aya, as the heir of the leading family of the small community, was pretty much a bully who ordered the other girls around. We learn that because of her doing, one of her "friends" has a motive for wanting her and the other girls dead once they're adult, but the reader is not informed as to who this person is. As I mentioned, I had never read anything by Masaki before, but he's sometimes referred to as an author who tries to stuff too much in his novels: I can definitely see some of that in Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi: a lot happens in this rather thick book, with multiple murders and also mysteries revolving how the cut-off heads end up at the temple, and then more mysteries regarding the history of the Dragon Kneeling Temple and there's of course the puzzle of how the unknown "victim" of Aya's bullying in the prologue is precisely connected to the current murders. While Masaki does keep the plot fairly focused, not all elements are developed as strongly as others, with some parts of the mystery sometimes ending up significantly weaker than others. The riddles surrounding the first death (Aya's death) are developed in a great way for example, from how the head was spirited away from the house, to the clues indicating how it was done, the clues pointing at the culprit and the set-up of how it was all accomplished in the first place. There are a lot of moving pieces in this "set piece" of the novel, but Kojima plots the whole thing in a very competent manner and it's very satisfying to hear Ebihara reconstruct the murderer's movement in this segment. Compare that to a later mystery, where witnesses see the body of a murder victim appear out of nowhere at the temple, and there the whole set-up is just barely believable, as you'd think very few witnesses indeed would've been fooled by such a trick.

Generally though, I did like the book and I think readers who like Yokomizo's work will find a lot to enjoy in Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi. The book can be pretty dark at times by the way, and interestingly enough, it's Ebihara who functions as a comic relief character, as his interactions with Kouhei (and Ichino) are often quite funny, while the rest of the book focuses on these gruesome murders and the investigation into this circle of friends slowly breaking apart not only because of the deaths, but also because underlying dynamics and interpersonal history that had been festering for two decades are finally exposed because of these murders. The conclusion is full of twists and turns that more often than not reveal rather nasty revelations about what led to these murders in the first place. Kojima has some good surprises hidden in this segment too, with some seemingly obvious facts being proven to be completely wrong assumptions that have been hiding the truth up until then and it really makes you eager to read until the very end, because as the reader, you're just never really sure whether Kojima has more twists waiting or not. Again, I don't think everything is executed perfectly and sometimes the connections feel a bit forced, but I do like what Kojima's going for and most of it works as intended.

The Ebihara Kouichi series has been released by several publishers and not all have the books have seen re-releases. I believe most of them are now available as e-books, but Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi is one of those books that only has a physical release at the moment, and it has also only been released as a hardcover release. I happened to come across this book, which is why I started with this book even though this book was released around the halfway point of the series. But my interest has certainly been piqued now, so I will definitely read more by Kojima.

It's not something that affects the story by the way, but the chapter cover page of this book has a very weird mistake, where it features a completely different chapter title than the one actually printed in the table of contents and in the margins of the pages of said chapter. The title features a term not from this book, so it's not even a chapter title that was changed between drafts, it's genuinely a title that comes out of nowhere.  

Anyway, as a first encounter with Kojima's work, I did enjoy Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi. It is obviously whose works serve as an inspiration for the Ebihara Kouichi series, but Kojima's book does stand on its own and while not every trick and set piece is as strong as another, the overall product is a pretty solid mystery story that excels especially in atmosphere. It was certainly enough to make me interested in the other books in the series, and most of them are more easily found than this book, so expect more reviews of this series in the future.

Original Japanese title(s):  小島正樹『龍の寺の晒し首』

In Search of the Black Rose

With bony hands I hold my partner, 

on soulless feet we cross the floor

"Grim Fandango" 

Phew, was I glad to hear this was getting a normal re-release, because all those facsimile re-releases are rather pricey... 

Aku Naoto is an amateur detective who's friends with Saikawa Shinji, a cameraman who works for a local television station. He's usually teamed up with director Gamou Takumi, who loves the occult and often creates original programs where they investigated haunted houses and other cursed locations, much to the horror of Saikawa, as he really doesn't like ghosts. When he and Gamou recently went location scouting and stayed for the night at a haunted place, Saikawa swears a ghost tried to strangle him, making him even more reluctant to do these kinds of jobs. That is why he has asked Aku to come along as his "assistant cameraman" on the next job. Their next job is at the Curious Crooked Castle, a Japanese-style castle that stands crooked and which until a few years ago was open to the public as a kind of amusement park/wunderkammer, but after a mysterious suicide happening in one of the rooms, it has remained closed. The room where the suicide happened, with creepy paintings hanging from the wall, is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a fallen soldier. Director Gamou is to stay a night in the room to see if there's a ghost there, but Saikawa is afraid Gamou will ask him to stay in the room too, so Aku's supposed to take his place if that were too happen. They have already made all the arrangements for the shoot with Houjou, the owner of the house, who happens to be the uncle of one of the writers on the team, who are all coming along too. Another important member of the team is Kuro, a beautiful high school student who dresses completely in black. She has psychic powers and she's to act as the spirit medium to detect if there's anything supernatural going on in the Crooked Castle. Oddly, the very first thing she says to Aku is: "Do you like scissors?"

After the crew's arrival, Houjou and his secretary show the crew the castle, which has four "exhibition" rooms, which feature paintings, but also a collection of curiosities like a mannequin which might or might not feature real human hair and also a basement with a dried-up well. The team prepares for the midnight shooting of the stay in the suicide room, but there's still quite some time, so everybody goes about their own business, until they realize Gamou's been gone for a while, even though he was just supposed to check out the suicide room. They find the room bolted from the inside and there's no reply coming from inside. Houjou's secretary brings out her beloved chainsaw to break the door open, and inside they find... a decapitated Houjou. A storm prevents the police from arriving at the scene, but Aku quickly deduces who the culprit is anyway, but why would that person want to kill Gamou? That is the great mystery in Asukabe Katsunori's Kuro to Ai ("Black & Love, 2010).

By now it should be a familiar story, as I have repeated a few times over the last two years. Asukabe Katsunori was an author who was mostly active in the first decade of the 2000s, but after that first period, the books stopped coming, and with that, his earlier books also became difficult to obtain, slowly earning him the status of a cult author. However, a few years ago, bookshops Shosen and Horindo started putting out limited facsimile releases of his out-of-print works and the facsimile release Datenshi Goumonkei ("Torture of the Fallen Angels" 2008) in particular was a notable event, gathering a lot of attention. Since then, publishers have been re-releasing a lot of Asukabe's books from their catalogues that had previously been out-of-print for over a decade, like Lamia Gyakusatsu ("Lamia Massacre"). Leonardo no Chinmoku and today's book, which got a new re-release in 2026, sixteen years after its original release. Renewed awareness of his work has also led to Asukabe's return to writing and he has published at least two new books in 2025 and 2026 by the time this review is posted.

Interestingly, the murder mystery I described above only makes up half of the narrative of Kuro to Ai. The decapitation murder in the locked room in the castle takes up a bit more than the first fifth of the entire novel, which ends with Aku announcing they've solved the murder. The book however then jumps back in time and focuses on... the killer. The story is told from their perspective and set several months before the murder. The culprit turns out to be working at a school library, with the television writing being a side job, and it is at this school the culprit first encounters Kuro: she transferred a while ago to this school and stands out not only because of her beauty, but also because she doesn't wear the school uniform, but a black uniform, which is supposedly from her previous school. The question "Do you like scissors?" is asked to the killer too, who is immediately smitten by Kuro's mysterious attitude. They very quickly become completely obsessed with Kuro, following her after school to her home and wanting Kuro all for themselves, becoming jealous everytime they see Kuro interacting with two friends. Kuro seems to have developed some kind of liking to the librarian too and even invites them to her "death birthday", but when one of Kuro's friends says Kuro shouldn't, the killer becomes nearly insane, ready to kill that friend right there for interfering with their and Kuro's relation. The obsession becomes worse and worse as the killer sneaks into Kuro's house and discovers a horrible secret Kuro and her two friends have been hiding in a refrigerator there. However, nothing the killer does to attract Kuro's attention works out as planned and slowly but surely, things develop in a way that makes murder the only solution...

This obsession with a beautiful young woman/teenager is definitely a huge part of Asukabe's novels by the way, being a recurring theme in several of his works. These women are usually independent, enigmatic and also have an element of weakness, attracting the attention of men their own age as well of those well above theirs, who want to "protect" the woman and have her alone for themselves. Of the Asukabe's works I've read until now, I think he managed to portray this obsession the best in this book, as so much of the narrative is dedicated to such an obsessed mind: in other books, we often follow a character who is also interested in the girl, but doesn't become as obssessed at the one here, and we usually also have more things to think about while reading those narratives, while here we have a whole part dedicated just to this obsession.

Anyway, the account leading up to the murder is not really a mystery per se (even if it has a few unexplained parts that involve a mystery), though it will plant some clues necessary for the solution of the locked room murder in the castle. What this part is, however, is a truly creepy account of someone who is soon revealed to be a bit unstable at the very least, and who completely loses it once they become enthralled by Kuro, wanting her for themselves and obsessing every single secound about her. The portrayal of this obsession is genuinely unsettling, and can feel both unrealistic and realistic at the same time: it's weird how quickly the killer becomes obsessed with Kuro and how everything starts to revolve around how to improve their link to Kuro, culminating into the murder on Gamou, but at the same time, you probably have to be at least a little bit insane to become an obsessive stalker. This account is definitely the highlight of the book by the way: not that the actual murder in the castle is bad, but the way we see the killer go down the path of insanity is absolutely captivating, not in the least because the object of their obsession, Kuro, is such a mysterious figure, someone who is always dressed in black, asks people whether they like scissors, who celebrates her "death" birthday. The way the account includes foreshadowing/hints that help build up the story's finale is great too, for example when the killer learns about an impossible disappearance from a basement cell in the Curious Crooked Castle. 

After this examination of the killer, the narrative jumps back to the present, where we learn Aku has already finished explaining exactly how the killer managed to decapitate Gamou in a locked room and how that method allowed them to identify the killer, who has been put in a cell in the basement until the police arrives. Things however escalate from this point on: more characters present in the castle are revealed to have hidden agendas which they hope to execute before the police arrive, while Aku's solution is also shown to not be completely right, leading to more twists and turns awaiting in the last third of the novel. The reader who has read more of Asukabe's work might not be surprised by now, but the climax does become fantasy/science-fiction-esque at times, though I guess you could squint your eyes and handwave those parts away as "it was meant metaphorically", though going by Asukabe's other books, it's definitely meant to be fantasy. Your mileage might vary on how well you'll like this part of the book: I have to say I'm not a very big fan of it in general, but by now I've learned to accept it as a part of Asukabe's work. One of the characters in Kuro to Ai is also heavily hinted to be the same character from another novel by Asukabe by the way, but revealing the exact character would probably be spoilers, especially considering what they do here...

Anyway, as for the actual murder mystery, I am not really a huge fan of the actual mechanics of the locked room murder: the trick is acceptable, but it's simply of the type I don't really like. What works better is how this trick is then used to utilize the Queen deduction method of elimination to identify the culprit: Asukabe does here that could almost feel like cheating, but I think he did a great job at setting the twist up with proper clewing, and it's an interesting way to play with the elimination method of deduction. The clues hidden in the killer's account turn out to be quite well-placed, challenging you to identify mirroring elements in both the past and present narratives even if they apply to different situations. The base concept is not something that is very surprising, perhaps, but Asukabe's execution is done really well. There is a secondary mystery about two impossible disappearances from a locked cell in the basement of the castle, and the solution here is horrible. I mean that mostly in the sense of "the idea of that happening is just terrifying", though the actual solution itself is also rather ridiculous. Its sillyness only works here because by then, the book starts to show omens of the fantasy/science-fiction-esque climax.

Kuro to Ai is definitely one of the strongest Asukabes I've read until now, and certainly stronger as a mystery novel, and as a "horror" novel, compared to the two books by him I reviewed before this one. The book presents an alright locked room murder mystery, but it's definitely the look into the killer's obsessed mind that makes this book a great read, especially once you realize how it all also connects to the actual mystery later on. His first novel, Junkyou Catherine Sharin ("The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine's Wheel" AKA The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine.) is still relatively "normal", so in terms of length and contents, I think Kuro to Ai might be the most accessible work by Asukabe that gives the reader a good idea of what he does best: other books tend to be much longer or otherwise less well developed as this one. 

Original Japanese title(s): 飛鳥部勝則『黒と愛』 

Trace Memory

ひとつの目で明日をみて

ひとつの目で昨日を見つめてる

「The Real Folk Blues」（山根麻衣）

 

With one eye I look at tomorrow 

With one eye I keep staring at yesterday 

 "The Real Folk Blues" (Yamane Mai)

Oh, this reminds me I never finished the Another Code R part of the Another Code Recollection. I loved the Wii original though...

"O" was a serial killer who specialized in murdering people in locked rooms: he was also extremely good at that, as he had nearly killed a hundred people during his career. He made a mistake however when he killed Professor Kiryuu, but left his child alive: the young Kiryuu Touma swore revenge, becoming a detective specializing in O's handiwork. Because Touma remains in the shadows as a detective, the public soon came up with the name "Phantom Alpha". And it was Phantom Alpha who eventually managed to capture "O", just as he killed his 96th victim. "O" turned out to be a man called Migiwazaki Hitoshi and he was soon detained, but not at a prison: he was sent to the laboratory of Kuzumi Chiyo, a former pupil of Professor Kiryuu and a personal friend of Phantom Alpha. Chiyo runs the Kuzumi Brain Laboratory on Akon Island, a remote and highly secured island. Here Chiyo's researching memories, with her end goal being the Pandora Brain, a device that can extract memories of one person and implant them into another person, effectively overwriting one person's identity over another. Because the police can't find proof/explanations for all of the locked room murders O committed, Chiyo and her team of a handful of researchers are to examine Migiwazaki's memories and extract that information about all the crimes he committed from his brain. Migiwazaki is of course held in a heavily secured room, with pressure and biometric sensors making sure he's kept safely inside his prison cell day and night. Phantom Alpha (Touma) visits the island too to witness the experiment. The two nemeses "O" and "Phantom Alpha" have a confrontation over a video connection, but then there's a short power failure. Chiyo has the main computer (on the back-up generator) restore power in the facility, but when the security cameras go on again, they see Migiwazaki's burnt body in his prison cell. Touma hurries to the cell, which was locked throughout the power failure, but there's no doubt there's a burnt body there. But how could anyone have killed "O" like that in a locked room...?

Three years later, a group of university students make their way to the island to stay at the remains of the Kuzumi Brain Laboratory. Three years ago, an incident happened on the island, with four people being found murdered at the lab, including Migiwazaki, and two people (including Touma), missing from the island. There also had been a fire, which burnt down part of the building. The students belong to their university's Mystery Club and managed to arrange to stay for a few nights in the lab with the current owner of the property. As fans of the mystery genre, they are of course excited to stay at an island where such a mysterious incident occured just three years ago, but then murders start to happen here too and they start thinking: what if that Pandora Brain device that was being developed here was in a working state, and what if Migiwazaki's identity survived the murder spree and fire...? Minami Asov's Pandora Brain - Akontou Satsujin(kaku) Jiken ("Pandora Brain - The Akon Island (Identity) Murder Case", 2025) follows mysteries set both in the past and the present as they slowly converge towards one truth.

Minami Asov's first mystery novel Eigoukan Chourenzoku Satsujn Jiken - Majo wa X to Shinu Koto ni Shita ("The Super Serial Murder Case at the House of Eternity - The Witch Chose To Die With X"), released in 2024, was a mystery novel that cleverly used the supernatural device of time travel to bring a complex, but highly enjoyable plot. It was thus not very surprising to learn Minami's second mystery novel too would utilize some kind of supernatural or science-fiction device. Whereas Eigoukan featured in a historical setting, Pandora Brain is most definitely set in contemporary times (with the mystery club students making a lot of references to mystery fiction) and again, unsurprisingly, we thus get a science-fiction device in the form of the titular Pandora Brain, a device that can supposedly copy a person's whole memories (thus their identity) and implant them into a different person, effectively erasing the original persons's identity and overwriting them.

Which is a cool idea on paper, but I have to admit that for a large part of the story, Pandora Brain doesn't spend a lot of time on said device. The story alternates between the past and present narratives, so we follow both Phantom Alpha/Touma and Chiyo as they deal with the mysterious death of "O" in the prison in the high-tech lab and the students as they stay in the ruins of the lab and they get killed one by one. This means the mystery focuses more on the how and why of the locked room murders, rather than focusing on shenanigans with identity copiers. This is a bit of a disappointment, as you also know the device will become relevant later on, but because the plot only starts to pay attention to the titular Pandora Brain relatively late, most of the reveals surrounding this feel a bit underwhelming, as they don't go far as might have been possible, had it been put front and center from the start, rather than in the last third/quarter of the book. What also doesn't help is that the exact workings of the Pandora Brain aren't explained in enough detail, which means some of the things we learn in the conclusion regarding whether the Pandora Brain had been used in these murders or not, feel a bit unfair: some things are more-or-less handwaved, with the reader just being told it can do certain things or how it can't do certain things, which are relevant to the mystery solving, but we weren't really told about these rules until the denouement!

There are more moments where the book showcases good ideas for a mystery, but where the clewing feels insufficient. The direct trick behind the locked cell murder on "O" is fairly simple, but the underlying idea of how it was brought forth is interesting, but feels unfair because again "this is how a certain thing works" isn't explained properly until the explanation. The same for another murder that happens in the past. Again, the direct trick is simple, but the trick can only be done via a principle that is quite interesting on its own and is basically similar to the underlying principle of the "O" murder, but here too the lack of prior explanation hurts the execution. In the present, I think the set-up of the locked room is decent enough, though I think it would've worked better in a visual format, rather than prose. It is at the very end when the plot tightly connects the narratives of the past and present together, explaining why murders happened on the island three years apart, but it's here where the insufficient prior explanation of "the rules" hurt the story, as the idea is interesting, but we are shown various instances of the rules being applied differently, which makes things feel unfair, even though this could have been avoided by giving us more explanation about the rules (and explanations how/when things work differently from the standard application). The ending is bitter-sweet and again, I do think the general ideas in this novel are good, but I found the execution not nearly as neat as Eigoukan.

So on the whole, I didn't like Pandora Brain as much as Eigoukan. It has cool ideas, and I think a lot of readers will like the banter of the characters (especially in the present, with the students), but as a fair-play mystery, I think it could've been better, even if it's far from bad: I just think there was not only the potential for something much more impressive, so much of it was just in reach, so that makes it feel even more disappointing. Still, Pandora Brain isn't a book I would tell you to avoid, as there's plenty of good to be found inside too.

Original Japanese title(s): 南海遊『パンドラ・ブレイン　亜魂島殺人（格）事件』 

The Secret of Terror Castle

The good king had died

And no one could decide

Who was rightful heir to the throne

"The Sword in the Stone" (Fred Darian) 

No cover art yet, so I'll just use the cover of the magazine with the first installment... 

As Luza wakes up, he still has vague memories of leaving home with his friends in search of the legendary Sea at the End of the World, but their trip soon ended in a disaster. The last thing he recalls is him facing certain death, which is Luza is so surprised to find him in the care of a young man called Romelia, who is very, very interested in Luza. For Luza is someone who shouldn't exist. It turns out an unconscious Luza was found by Romelia, who took him to his home in the Castle of Stone Spheres, where the last humans reside after a natural catastrophy wiped out civilization. While some of the previous society's knowledge still survives via books, technological advancements have been basically reset and the very small enclave of surviving humans now live in a walled village, which is collectively called the Castle of Stone Spheres, named after the enigmatic stone spheres that are scattered all around the castle. Romelia explains that for centuries, it has been believed that the Castle of Stone Spheres is all there is still to the world: the Castle of Stone Spheres is surrounded by total darkness and outside the castle walls is just ground that stretches into emptiness. All the food and other supplies the people consume has to be produced within the castle walls, which is why the community of the Castle of Stone Spheres is strictly regulated by the Nine Kings of the Night, who make sure the community is self-sustainable. Thirteen towers are embedded within the castle walls, each guarded by a priestess. All the towers contain a Crystal Skull, a mysterious device which can generate energy to light up the Castle of Stone Spheres. 

And that is why Luza is an impossibility: there's nothing outside the Castle of Stone Spheres, and yet Luza is not an inhabitant of the castle, meaning he is an outsider and came from beyond the castle walls. There has been no record of an outsider arriving in over two-hundred years of history. However, Luza is lucky Romelia found him, as Romelia does think there's something out there. His father, who studied the now extinct society, once ventured outside the castle walls to find what was waiting there, and while he died during his quest, Romelia still believes his father was right. Romelia decides to introduce Luza to one of the priestesses to see if they can help Luza get back, but they find her murdered inside her own tower, which they found locked from the inside. What's even more surprising is that the priestess had been decapitated! The Kings of the Night have the death of the priestess investigated, as each and every priestess is vital for keeping the castle running. Romelia however desperately tries to keep Luza's existence a secret to the Kings, as they are very swift to deal with anything that might endanger the equilibrium within the Castle. But Romelia and Luza soon realize it wasn't just one murder: one by one, the priestesses are killed in their own towers, each time found in a locked room. It's a race against the clock as Romelia and Luza try to apprehend the murderer and solve both the murders and the mystery behind the Clock of Stone Spheres in Kitayama Takekuni's 2026 novel "Sekikyuujou" Satsujin Jiken ("'The Stone Sphere Castle' Murder Case").

Wa-wait? Is this a brand-new entry in Kitayama Takekuni's Castle series? Why yes! Kitayama made his debut as a mystery writer in 2002 with  'Clock Jou' Satsujin Jiken ("The Clock Castle Murder Case"), which would be the first in a series of four novels, and with (at least) two novels that are somewhat related to this series (Alphabet-sou Jiken AKA The Case of Alphabet and Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken/The Moonlight Manor Murder Case). While the books in this series are standalone and not directly connected to each other story-wise, they all feature unique, fantasy-like worlds with some supernatural elements, with the main connecting tissue being that they all feature castles or grand manors as their main decor. There are some small references shared between the books, but nothing major. For example, a legend involving six decapitated knights and the name Geoffroy is featured in several books, though they do not per se refer to the exact same things. The major similarities between the stories are the castle settings, fantasy/science-fiction elements playing a role in the background, and perhaps the most important aspect: there is an emphasis on impossible murders (often featuring some grand mechanical trick behind them). In fact, Kitayama is known for his locked room murder situations with technical tricks because of this series and 'mechanical tricks' are basically what everyone associates him with. 

Anyway, Kitayama decided to return to his legendary series after two decades and so "Sekikyuujou" Satsujin Jiken was serialized across four installments in the magazine Mephisto between 2025-2026, with the actual book release scheduled for this June. And what a return it is! This is an immensely dense adventure, even by Kitayama standards. The reader is made aware fairly early on that there are thirteen priestesses in as many castle towers and that the murderer is killing and decapitating them one by one in locked rooms, so you start to think: "No way, he can't be serious...", but yes, the madman comes up with over a dozen of impossible crimes in this book! 

But more about that later. For first, I want to highlight the setting. The titular Castle of Stone Spheres is a very unique location, even within the series, as it's both a castle and a (walled) town: it's fairly open compared to previous castle because of that. But what still gives this book a claustrophobic atmosphere is the knowledge the Castle is all there is in the world; for some reason, the world within the castle walls is all that's been left after a catastrophe wiped out basically all of human civilization, and the community surviving in the castle has to be strictly administered to make sure it remains self-sustainable, as that's the only choice they have. Luza and the reader learn from Romelia however that there might be more to the history of the castle and the non-existing world outside, adding a grander, existential mystery on top of the more "mundane" locked room murders. There is also the mystery of the castle itself, which has existed for centuries and which for some reason, has stone spheres lying all around: the enigmatic stone balls vary in size and weight and can be found everywhere, from the town square to inside the priestesses' towers. They seem to be plazed haphazardly and nobody knows what their function is, and in fact, some even swear the spheres sometimes move about, as if they have their own will. These are all elements that tie in to the grand mystery Romelia tries to solve about the castle.

While Luza and Romelia try to save the priestesses, they find their quest hindered by the Nine Kings of the Night, who despise all those who threaten the balance within the Castle of Stone Spheres, which includes the free mind Romelia, and of course the outsider Luza. Romelia and Luza in particular find themselves targeted by Micthran, the King of Death, who seems to have an agenda of his own. He seems to know much more about the castle than anyone else, and it's this storyline that addresses the meta-mystery of the Castle of Stone Spheres. The climax of the clash between Romelia, Luza and Micthran is absolutely fantastic, with a shocking and insanely amusing truth awaiting the reader at the end. I'm not sure things work exactly as it's presented here, but the idea itself is just soooooo deliciously fun and yet simple to imagine, and I have to hand it to Kitayama, he actually had a looot of foreshadowing built into the story that points beautifully to this conclusion. It's this 'grand story' that will likely impress most readers of this book. 

Almost immediately after Luza's arrival in the castle, they realize there's a murderer on the loose who is after the priestesses and their heads, and for some reason the murderer is very, very focused on committing these crimes in locked-room situations. The victims are all discovered in their respective towers, but the exact situations are very different: in one, the impossibility comes from one of the big stone spheres being used to block the door from the inside (meaning the murderer couldn't have left the room after moving the sphere there), in another a priestess is found dead in a room even though Luza had been standing guard near the door, while another situation might involve an impossibility because the room itself couldn't be reached. With over a dozen of locked-room murders, it's no surprise the featured set-ups or solutions aren't all equally memorable or impressive, and while this is no short book, sometimes we do spend awfully little time at one crime scene before moving to the next already. That said, on the whole, Kitayama managed to come up a very entertaining novel and there are some really cool ideas going in some of the locked rooms. Some rooms for example may feature a rather simple trick when taken in isolation, but then Kitayama creates synergy with other locked rooms by cleverly transforming concepts used in one room and applying them to a different one. The use of one particular object in several locked rooms for example is quite memorable. Other locked rooms rely on very specific mechanical tricks that seem a bit gimmicky in a vacuum, though I do think it works narratively, because of something I will explain further below. The stone spheres also play a cool role in setting-up the locked rooms, like having a stone sphere blocking the door in one crime scene, or their presence being used to deny certain theories. The stone spheres are not always super present in the story, but when they pop up, they always make an impression because they end up either negating hypotheses or vice-versa, seem to be involved in the actual solution. The reason why the castle features so many of them in the first place is also addressed at some point, and it's a really clever idea too.

But what Kitayama really does well is taking the whole series of locked-room murders as... well, a series. The locked rooms are not discrete cases, but Kitayama develops them as a sequence, with the complete case taking on a surprising form when viewed in its totality. The way Kitayama does this and ties this analysis to the murderer is both original and a bit insane, in the good sense of the word. Some really clever clewing regarding the identity of the murder is conceiled within the execution of each locked room, giving functional meaning to the fact Kitayama used so many locked rooms in the story, beyond just the notion that having so many of them is fun. The Ellery Queen-like build-up of gathering the clues to identify the murderer is done in a very devious manner in this novel, and Kitayama is sure to use the unusual setting of the Castle of Stone Spheres in its fullest. Kitayama also goes absolutely nuts with diagrams in this book! Basically all the crime scenes are accompanied by a small diagram of the crime scene, so you already have seen plenty of them by the time you arrive at the the final chapter. And there the reader is treated to an absolutely epic summation of all the locked room murders that went on in this book, which of course is accompanied by again more than a dozen of diagrams! I honestly can't remember a mystery novel ever featuring so many diagrams.

So yes, I enjoyed "Sekikyuujou" Satsujin Jiken a lot. It's a very worthy entry to the series. I do think the previous books each had a more memorable major "key" moment that was absolutely insane, from the reason why people were getting decapitated in Clock House to the reveal of the identity of the killer in Alice Castle or simply the presentation of certain locked room murders: in "Sekikyuujou" Satsujin Jiken however does something what I haven't seen Kitayama do before, by utilizing the idea of a series of locked room murders with actual meaning in a novel, and I think the book does show Kitayama's growth as a writer across two decades because it's a very consistent mystery novel throughout, with no real lows and it's entertaining from start to finish. Definitely one of the must-reads of this year!

Original Japanese title(s):  北山猛邦『「石球城」殺人事件』

Tricky Business

Ah Why Why Ah Tell me why you hold me

"Why" (Color) 

Serializations of novels or short stories have become quite rare globally, but the format is still quite viable in Japan, with many novels/short story collections still being serialized first before they are actually published as books. Or in some cases, stories remain in serialized form. Ooyama Seiichirou is an author who specializes in the short story format, and nearly the entirety of his creative output is serialized in magazines in both physical and digital formats first before they get a book release. I have for example discusses his series like Watson-ryoku/The Watson Force, Alibi-kuzushi Uketamawarimasu/The Clockmaker Detective and Akai Hakubutsukan/The Red Museum, which are classic examples of Ooyama first publishing four or five stories in magazines first, before they are collected as one book, occasionally with Ooyama adding one original story for the book release. However, if you take a look at his (Japanese) Wikipedia, you'll notice some of the stories he's been serializing have not seen a collected release yet. For example, in the past I have reviewed a short story in a series where an actor specializing in villain roles turns out to be a gifted amateur detective, and while Ooyama has already released enough stories in this series to fill a volume, it has not seen a book release yet.

The same holds for the series I am discussing today: Wayama Yawa no 5W1H Jikenbo ("Wayama Yawa's 5W1H Casebook") consist of five stories Ooyama wrote between 2022 and 2023 for the magazine Shousetsu Tripper. The fifth story was in fact also announced in as the "final" story in the serialization, making this a finished story, but even now in 2026, there's no sign of a collected release being considered. And that's a shame, for the five stories have been very entertaining! As the title of the series suggests, each story in this series is centered around the five Ws (Who, what, where, when, why) and the one H (how). The series detective is the titular Wayama Yawa, a young, petite woman in her early twenties, who is absolutely fantastic at her work, with the catch being... that she's working somewhere else every time. For Wayama has nothing but admiration for all the kinds of work to be found in our modern society, so she tries out something each time (and always masters the profession in seconds). Each story follows new characters as they get entangled in mysterious incidents (sometimes criminal, sometimes not), with Wayama somehow getting involved too because of whatever new job she's doing now, and of course solving the case in an instant.

In a way, this series reminds me a bit of Awasaka Tsumao's A Aiichirou series: there, the titular amateur detective isn't the focal character either, as each short story focuses on a different cast, and then Aiichirou happens to get involved too, either in his role as travelling photographer, or because he happens to have found a different job for a period. 

Oh, in case you are wondering what the illustration is featured in this review? It is an illustration that accompanies the title page of the first story of this series as featured in the magazine Shousetsu Tripper, though I don't think it is specifically related to Wayama Yawa no 5W1H Jikenbo. At least, I'm pretty sure Wayama doesn't look like that, and none of the other stories have such illustrations.

The first story, Dochira ga Saki ni Shinda ka? ("Who Died First?"), opens in the hospital, where Futagawa Eisuke, director of Futagawa Funerals, drawing his final breath. Present are his wife Tomiko, his nephew Takashi and his wife, and Nagadate Michio, the corporate solicitor. Not present is Eisuke's younger brother/father of Takashi, Yuusuke. Nagadate is surprised Yuusuke isn't present at his brother's deathbed, but Takashi explains he hasn't managed to reach his father at home. Eisuke and Yuusuke never got along and indeed, before their wealthy father died, he wrote a will that put all of his fortune in a trust: Eisuke and Yuusuke would only inherit his money once they were both respectively 62 and 60 years old, to ensure they wouldn't try to kill each other in order to inherit everything. The two brothers therefore started avoiding each other for many decades, wtith Eisuke becoming a succesful funeral director, while Yuusuke remained an unsuccesful painter. Some years ago, their father's inheritance was finally released, but the brothers remained estranged. The day after Eisuke's death, Yuusuke still can't be reached at home, so Nagadate and Takashi drive to Yuusuke's remote home to check up on him, but there they find... Yuusuke dead in the bath tub. It appears Yuusuke too died yesterday, though the coroner can't determine a specific time of death. However, Nagadate instantly realizes the order of the death of the brothers will become a matter of great importance to Takashi due to Eisuke's will, in which he bequeaths one quarter of his tremendous wealth to Yuusuke and the remainder to his wife Tomiko. If Eisuke died before Yuusuke did, that quarter of his inheritance will first go to Yuusuke, and because of his death, then go to Takashi. However, if Yuusuke died first, Tomiko will inherit everything from her husband, while Takashi will only inherit from his not really well-to-do father. The moment Nagadate tells his new employee Wayama Waya about this conundrum however, she senses they have to work fast to prevent a murder from happening...

This story poses a very interesting problem, and in a rather devious way poses a double problem: the title in English ends up focusing on the "Who?", but of course, from the set-up you'll also see the problem presented is very much about "When?". One thing I have to say about this story that holds for all five stories is that these stories are very short, so it's hard to write a lot about them without giving too much away. I really like this story though! Ooyama actually adds this extra mystery at the end by having Wayama declare she sees a potential murder coming, so that leaves the reader with the question of which of the two brothers died first and also the question of who Wayama thinks is going to be murdered and why. There's some very cleverly hidden misdirection in this short tale, and while I don't always like unanswered questions in mysteries, this one has one I can live with very easily, as it really adds an ironic twist to the theme of the tale.

The second story, Doko de Orita no ka? ("Where Did She Get Off?"), a lawyer Shinpei is trying to locate a potential witness who can prove his client is innocent of a robbery. The problem however is that this witness can't be found, even though in theory, locating the person should be easy: according to the client, at the time of the crime, he ran into a woman dressed in ancient garments, like she had just come from the  Heian period. However, despite the police's best efforts, they can't find the woman nor any other witnesses who saw her that day. Until Shinpei discusses the case with his cousin Yuuna, a college student. It turns out that when Yuuna took the bus back home after her exam yesterday, that woman was already on the bus. Yuuna dozed off and woke up just before her own stop, by which time the woman had already gotten off. Yuuna and Shinpei decide to locate the woman and try to interview the bus driver who drove that bus yesterday, but it just so happens yesterday was that driver's last day before the start of his extended leave today after decades of being dedicated to his job. The new driver has not seen the woman in question unfortunately. This leaves Yuuna and Shinpei getting on and off at every stop between the university and the stop near Yuuna's home to see if they can find any clue leading to the woman, but then the new bus driver, a young woman called Wayama Yawa, has a suggestion for them... A relatively innocent story with no real crime as the main mystery, which adds some variety. There's some funny circular reasoning going regarding the woman: the reason the woman was dressed in very traditional garments is likely related to the bus stop where she got off: do you have to deduce why the woman was dressed the way she was and from there deduce where she got off, or do you have to deduce where she got off, and based on that location deduce why she was dressed like that? It's a bit of both of course. While the woman being dressed like that is a bit strange, I think there's one main hint given in the story that allows for a natural, intuitive guess why she's dressed like that. I am more of a fan of the clues that allow the reader to guess at what stop she got off and why, as that is a multi-layered one that also cleverly includes Wayama herself in the mystery.

In Nani wo Takurandeiru no Ka? ("What Has He Planned?"), the narrator is a former test driver who lost his job after gamble problems, but his skills allowed him to secure a very unique job: a transporter. Transport objects or persons from A to B and he's paid enough to accept the fact that some of these jobs aren't always safe. This time, he's asked to drive a wealthy hotel owner called Kureta Kouzou and one of his possessions from Tokyo to Karuizawa. The object in question is the Cretan Cat, a figure dating from the fifteenth century which is said to bring fortune to those who cherish it, and misfortune to those who don't treat it well. It has changed owners during the last few centuries, and has been the possession of some of very succesful people indeed. Kureta had purchased the Cretan Cat for a pittance after its previous owner died, but now two people are after the Cat: the nephew of the previous owner who sold the Cat to Kureta not knowing its true worth, and a high-ranking police official who might even use the power of the police to get his hands on the Cat in order to climb to the top. The driver and Kureta are joined by a hired bodyguard... a young small woman called Wayama. While the driver first thinks this must be a bad joke, he soon learns the woman is indeed suitable for the job, so the three drive off in a car especially prepared by Kureta, racing to Karuizawa via local roads. They get ambushed along the way, but Wayama not only finds a way out, she also immediately deduces which oppenent is behind the operation. 

Again, while this is a short stories, it's cool to see Ooyama use Wayama in all kinds of scenarios, this time in a more action-oriented story. There's of course a kind of hard-boiled atmosphere at play in this story with the first-person narration and a McGuffin in the form of the Cretan Cat, which again is very unique compared to the "everyday life mystery"-esque setup of the previous story. This story spends quite some time on the set-up of explaining who the narrator is and the backstory of the Cretan Cat, so by the time we get to the ambush, there are really not that many pages left to really develop the mystery. Guessing the mastermind behind the ambush is thus not very difficult simply because of the small scale of the story, though I like the motive behind the ambush: it's not simply greed that drives the culprit, but something more unexpected, despite it being fairly hinted at. Of course, that is the main problem of the story as proven by the title, but because most of the story is more focused on the who and how of the ambush, the question of why/what the goal was doesn't pop up until relatively late.

Naze Mainichi Ippon Dake Kau no Ka? ("Why Does She Buy Just One A Day?") is a variant on the famous real-life story of mystery author Wakatake Nanami: she worked at a bookshop when she was in university, and every Saturday a man would appear with twenty 50-yen coins, exchange those coins for a 1000-yen bill and leave again. She never figured out why that man did that, and her story has become the topic of two anthologies with both professional and amateur detectives providing a possible solution to her problem, and other writers have also utilized variations on this problem, like Ooyama here. The narrator works at Trico Mart, a convenience store and due to a lack of employees, often ends up working a shift all alone. For the last few weeks, a woman has been coming to the story every single weekday morning at forty-past-seven to buy one thing: a pencil priced at 95 yen. It is the only thing she buys every time she comes. The question of why has been weighing on the narrator's mind for some time, so he brings it up to the manager, but he has no idea either. The manager does bring good news: he has hired a new employee, a young woman called Wayama Yawa. When the narrator starts "training" Wayama the following day, he soon realizes she's a very fast learner. When he happens to mention the story of the pencil-buying woman, she asks him to guess why the woman would be doing that. The answer he arrives at, and the answer Wayama arrives at however are quite different. While the set-up is basically simply an inverted version of the 50-yen coin problem, I really like the problem presented. The narrator's main theory is actually quite interesting. Obviously, his one will end up wrong, so it's supposed to be a false theory, but I wonder how many people would have arrived at this one: his theory is built on a certain characteristic that is apparently present in convenience store registers, but I wasn't aware of that! The Wayama theory is of course far more interesting: the first part of her theory is pretty easily guessed, but the "jump" to the latter of her theory is a bit more difficult. Mystery fans might guess this "jump" rather easily as it is a trope that's sometimes seen in mystery fiction, but I think an extra hint to guide the step from the first half to the second half just a bit more cleaner, as making that connection is a bit more difficult without knowledge of that trope. Still, I think it's one of the better stories of the series.

The final story is Kyouki wa Douyatte Idou Shita no Ka? ("How Was The Murder Weapon Moved?") is set on the "Labyrinth", a so-called event train consisting of three carriages. The first and third carriage are normal carriages for passengers, but the second carriage has been completely stripped from its seats and instead, walls have been placed in the carriage to create a labyrinth, challenging passengers to find their way from the first carriage to the third or vice-versa. They change the layout of the labyrinth periodically, providing train fans even more reason to take this train frequently. It's the first time Hirokawa Daisuke is travelling all alone (knowing his parents wouldn't like this) and he's been having the time of his life. He recognizes one of his fellow passengers as Ootsuki Shinichi, the famous puzzle designer who also designed the labyrinth in this train. When the train conductor, a young woman in her twenties, announces someone has thrown paint on one of the walls of the labyrinth and that therefore she asks passengers to not use the labyrinth anymore, Daisuke is relieved he already explored the labyrinth. He dozes off. When he later wakes up, the conductor is here again, checking up on Ootsuki, who is sleeping in the seat in front of Daisuke. Or least, it appeared he was sleeping, but Wayama soon discovers Ootsuki is in fact dead, and the syringe cap lying on the floor seems to suggest a certain method of death. Then a passenger from the third carriage makes his way through the labyrinth, telling Wayama he found a syringe underneath his seat. The police soon discover that syringe was indeed used to give Ootsuki a lethal injection. However, an examination of the security camera in the labyrinth carriage show only Wayama made her way through the labyrinth between the time Ootsuki was last seen alive and then found dead, so how did the murderer move the syringe from the first carriage to the third carriage?

An impossible crime as our last story, and one in a rather fanciful setting too! Having worked on the English translation of Ayatsuji Yukito's The Labyrinth House Murders, I of course have a soft spot for labyrinths and I can't conceal my slight disappointment at the realization  Kyouki wa Douyatte Idou Shita no Ka? didn't feature a map of the labyrinth even if it's not directly needed to solve the mystery. This story is slightly longer than most of the other stories, so it has some more room for fake solutions, which is always appreciated. I think this case actually has one of the more outlandish tricks used in Ooyama's books (who is usually fairly realistic, and focuses more on the logic needed to solve the problem), so that actually came as a pleasant surprise, and it really helps sell the unique location. Still, it wouldn't be an Ooyama if the trail leading to the solution wasn't mostly built around logical deductions based on the crime scene and the actions taking by the people involved: a lot of theorizing is done on the reason why the syringe was moved to the third carriage after killing Ootsuki in the first place, and it serves as a first step towards the solution, which is clever, though it immediately points at one single character as the culprit, so it's a bit of a double-edged sword.

By now, you should know that I thoroughly enjoyed this series by Ooyama, and it's such a shame it hasn't been collected yet as a volume, as it can be difficult to obtain the stories now, as you can only find them in the magazines where they were serialized. I really like how unlike a lot of Ooyama's other series, we don't have a series detective (or "detective enabler", in the case of Watson-ryoku) who gets involved in most of their cases because of their profession/expertise (police detectives, alibi-cracking expert, locked room expert): Wayama can be in any role, and her stories can be about anything, from an impossible crime to a relatively cute story about where someone got off the bus and within these five stories, we already got a wide variety of characters, settings and problems. It would be so cool to see this series continued in the future...

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎　「どちらが先に死んだのか？」/「どこで降りたのか？」/「何を企んでいるのか？」/「なぜ毎日一本だけ買うのか？」/「凶器はどうやって移動したのか？」

The Men Without Faces

"Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nipponichi.."

"Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!" 

Yep, two Conan reviews in succession!

Earlier this week, I reviewed the newest Detective Conan film Fallen Angel of the Highway. The Detective Conan films always release in the second/third week of April, just before the holiday season Golden Week starts there, making it an annual event. Which is why the publisher also times the release of a new volume of the comic in the same week the manga releases, and author Aoyama Goushou also tries to include stories with the main characters of that year's film in that volume. This all requires some timing with serialization and book releases, which is why... apparently it's been a YEAR since the last Detective Conan volume was released. Of course, the times we had a new volume every three, four months are long gone, but I had completely forgotten the most recent volume until last week had in fact been volume 107, which was released along-side the April 2025 film One-Eyed Flashback. Fortunately, volume 107 didn't end with half-way a case, so Detective Conan 108 opens with a brand-new story: An Encounter With the Past. Conan and the Detective Boys run into FBI agent Andre Camel, who after the events of volume 100 was forced to change his identity.  The man now known as "Andou Rekiya" jogs frequently, and just as he and the children are talking, they hear a shot from a nearby apartment building, followed by a knife thrown out of a window. They all hurry to the flat in question, where they find a man already knocking on the door. However, there's no answer and they eventually have to find the landlord to open the door for them. Inside they find the inhabitant of the flat dead, having apparently shot herself through the head with a pistol. It appears she had relations with three male hosts, who had all been called to her flat at that time. At first sight, it appears the woman committed suicide and wanted to have that image haunt the three men in her life, but Conan and Camel soon find indications that suggest the woman had hit her head fatally first, and that the gunshot was used to mask her wound. Furthermore, sushi chef Wakita appears with a sushi delivery made for two persons, suggesting the victim had in fact only invited one of her male friends here, who would be the likely suspect for the murder. But if it was murder, what about the gunshot Conan and the children heard and the knife being thrown out of the flat which was locked from the inside?

This is a pretty run-of-the-mill impossible crime in Detective Conan, where author Aoyama strings a few simple tricks together to create a seemingly impossible situation. The individual parts are usually not that memorable, and even taken everything together, every aspect of the impossible crime feels a bit too seperate from the rest with little synergy, so it's hard to really think of this as a great locked room mystery simply based on its mechanical features. The story is made more interesting with the underlying storyline, which is having Camel run into Wakita, who was revealed in previous volumes to be a disguised Rum, second-in-command of the Black Organization.  The reason why Camel has to hide his true identity is because he and Rum recognize each other, but now the two men happen to gather in the same flat, and they both immediately sense danger. So while Conan, the police and Camel are trying to solve the murder, Rum/Wakita is also trying to determine what the connection is between Camel and Conan, making it more difficult for Conan to solve the case the way he always does.

This story connects directly to Where The Chaos Ends: the police investigation ends and all the witnesses are free to go their own way. Wakita/Rum commands his underlings to kidnap Camel, but just before that happens, Camel is stopped by another resident of the apartment building. Camel is mistaken to be a friend of one of the residents there, who is playing very loud music. The neighbors on both sides happen to be game streamers and the loud music is interrupting their livestreams, so they want Camel to tell the man to stop. It happens Camel and the man in question just quarreled once in front of the building, but they go up to the flat, but there's no answer despite their knocking. The landlord opens the door again, but finds it locked with the door chain. Camel and Conan spot the man hanging in the back of the room, so Camel breaks the chain and rushes to the man, but it's too late: the man apparently hung himself from a pull-up bar. Hints scattered around the flat however make Conan and Camel suspect the man was murdered inside a locked room, and by one of his two neighbors nonetheless, but both claim to have an alibi as they were live-streaming games and interacting with their viewers.

This is just hilarious. So there's a locked room-murder in a flat, Conan solves it, the police is just ready to leave and then ANOTHER locked-room murder happens in another flat in the same building, with the landlord being asked to unlock the door both times? This is insane!

It's a murder in the same building... and mystery-wise, it's also very similar to the first story, with the murderer stringing variations of a few relatively simple, often-seen tricks to accomplish the locked room. While the idea of live-streams acting as an alibi is interesting, I feel too little is done with it, with little of the potential offered by this concept explored in depth. Had this story been written ten years ago, I am sure Aoyama would have managed to explore the game-live-stream-as-part-of-a-mystery concept in more depth, but with health and scheduling issues, it seems Aoyama for the last few years have relied on much simpler mystery plots, instead focusing more on the character relationship developments needed to advance the overall storyline. Here we have the same deal, as it turns out the assistant-teacher of the class of Conan and the Detective Boys, Wakasa has also arrived at the scene, bringing her in close contact with sushi chef Wakita/Rum. As revealed in earlier volumes, Wakasa too is actually Asaka, a former bodyguard in disguise, and she has a beef with Rum: her run-in with Wakita immediately confirms her suspicions about his true identity, while he too finally manages to confirm for himself who Wakasa truly is. Thus the reader is treated to a battle being played beneath the water surface, as Rum has identified both Asaka and Camel, and they have identified him: how are they going to get out of this situation? The story ends with a somewhat odd solution chapter, where Conan confirms for himself that Wakita is Rum in disguise: while this was already explicitly revealed to the reader, we now learn how Conan managed to figure that out based on the hints that have been laid throughout the series every since the character of Wakita was introduced in the series. It feels a but superfluous, because the reader already knew this fact, but I do like some of the hints.

The Secret Hidden in the Photograph at first seems disconnected from the previous storyline and starts with Ran, Sonoko, Conan and Sera Masumi visiting a hotel for high tea. Just as Sera parks her motorcycle at the hotel, a sleazy man praises her motorcycle and asks if they ever met. Ran and Sonoko immediately suspect the man's hitting on Sera, but both Sera and the man truly seem to have some recollection of each other, but they are not sure from what. At the hotel, Sonoko and Ran notices a famous actor and an influential politician are also present, though "incognito". Conan deduces that the man who spoke to Sera is in fact a journalist. Sera realizes she saw him at the hotel bombing case she was involved in: the journalist had taken a picture of the crowd, including Sera and her "little sister" Mary. Sera needs "convince" the journalist to delete the picture so she rushes to his hotel room, just as he returns with his girlfriend following him. He says he forgot his phone so he pops in the room, with all the others waiting outside, but when he doesn't reappear even after ten minutes, they peek inside, only to find the journalist with his head bashed in, with no other person in the hotel room! The actor and politician also appear at the door because of the ruckus, and it is soon revealed both men were being blackmailed by the journalist with compromising pictures, giving both men a motive for the murder, but if either of them did it, how did they escape the room while Sera and the others were waiting outside the door?

Again a story where the underlying plot, the threat of having the crowd picture that also includes Mary and Sera being published, is more interesting than the actual mystery: the solution to the locked-room mystery includes trite elements that we haven't seen used with such little originality in this series since the very first volumes. Meanwhile, the "first half" of what the culprit did to pull off this crime hinges on him counting on something the victim would do that seems very unreliable. Explaining what the culprit did in the most simple terms also results in a very silly sentence that you wouldn't expect to be used as in a mystery story: not that it is a very sure way to actually achieve what the murderer wanted though... 

The volume ends with the first chapter of Memories of a Ring, in which Ran, her father and Conan are relaxing at a hotel with hot springs which by sheer coincidence is also visited by Kanagawa Prefectural Police Mobile Unit squad leader Hagiwara Chihaya and her friend, and also by Inspector Yokomizo (Chihaya and Yokomizo being the focal characters of the film Fallen Angel of the Highway). There's also a group of women there, who used to be in the same school club. When one of them looses her ring, the others help looking for it, but then one of the friends is found murdered. Unfortunately, fans who read the collected volumes will have to wait until autumn, as that's when volume 109 is scheduled. Oh well, at least it's not 2027...

Detective Conan volume 108 sadly enough doesn't manage to break the mold of the stories of the last few years: with Aoyama not being able to publish weekly chapters consistently anymore, most of the stories end up being forced to include some element that is connected to the greater storyline just to keep things going, and evident from the quality of the more recent years, Aoyama has trouble juggling that with cool short mystery stories with original or memorable tricks. While I am interested in seeing how the greater mystery unfolds with all these cool characters, I can't deny I really miss having stories I vividly remember because of what cool tricks they used, or because it had a great whodunnit plot. I'll always be reading this series and be there when it ends, but I can't deny I really miss the better mystery stories of yore.

Original Japanese title(s):  青山剛昌『名探偵コナン』第108巻