Bury Me Deep

「いやあ、探偵は謎を解くというか、謎を解いたと人を納得させる職業ですけど」

『異世界の名探偵 2 帰らずの地下迷宮』

"No, you see, a detective isn't an occupation where you solve mysteries. It's more about convincing people you have solved the mystery."

"The Great Detective of the Other World 2: The Underground Maze of No Return"

Man, this would make for a cool type of mystery videogame, now I think of it. There aren't really many detective games with fantasy settings. Professor Layton vs. Gyakuten Saiban is an obvious expection and even then, it doesn't really go deep into classic fantasy videogame tropes.

Early this year, I reviewed the first volume of Isekai no Meitantei, which combined the classic puzzle plot detective story with isekai, the highly influential trope currently found in Japanese popular fiction like anime and light novels. It literally means "a different world" and refers to a sub-genre with parallels to works like Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia, usually featuring stories featuring protagonists from Earth who end up in a different world (commonly a fantasy world) by means of teleportation, reincarnation or some other manner. The genre often involves some kind of power fantasy, with the very ordinary human using their memories/knowledge from Earth to their advantage in their new situation/the other world to eventually become the legendary hero/evil overlord/whatever the story is about. The first volume of Katazato Kamome's Isekai no Meitantei didn't stray far from the template when it first showed us the death of an ex-cop with a love for mystery fiction, who then reincarnates as a baby in the fantasy world of Pangea, a world where magic exist. The memories of his life on Earth are retained by Van, who grows up to be a talented magician with a dream of becoming a State Detective. After solving the impossible decapitation case in the first volume, the newly graduated Van became nobility, was bestowed the family name Holmes and appointed to Vice-Captain of the Royal Detective Squad of the Kingdom of Sherck.

Isekai no Meitantei 2 - Kaerazu no Chika Meikyuu ("The Great Detective of the Other World 2: The Underground Maze of No Return") was released early 2020 and is set not too long after the first novel. While Van Holmes is now Vice-Captain of the Royal Detective Squad, his position is still somewhat ambiguous because of his lack of experience, so his captain Geralt the Silent decides to send Van on a special mission to allow him to make a name for himself. Vent Treasure is a self-made noble who made a fortune by providing services and trading with adventurers all around the world of Pangea. Now Vent is gathering a special party of highly skilled adventurers to accomplish a secret task involving a special dungeon. The world of Pangea is riddled with dungeons, mysterious massive structures that have been on the world as long as anyone can remember. Dungeons come in all sizes and forms and feature magic that nobody knows: nobody on Pangea is for example even capable of scratching the walls of any dungeon and most dungeons feature a special Stone of Return at the entrance, which allow people who are synchronized to them to instantly teleport back to the entrance just by thinking of the action (usually used when in danger). The deepest regions of these dungeons often hold great treasures or fabulous divine items with magic nobody in Pangea can replicate, but they are also filled with horrible monsters who attack anyone who dares to enter the dungeon.

Vent has recently become the owner of a dungeon with quite the reputation: it is said that no person has ever reached the deepest chambers of the Underground Maze of No Return, a dungeon which lies deep in the ground. The fact that even the entrance floor features high-level monsters suggests there's something great hidden at the end (monsters become stronger the closer they are to the end of the dungeon), but because the Stone of Return of this dungeon is broken, people can't simply escape if things go wrong several floors down. All people who have tried to clear the dungeon have failed, most of the challengers had to pay with their lives for it. Rumors even have it that there's a special monster in the dungeon called Shadow, who can even kill people inside locked rooms. The mission of the special party Vent has formed is to reach the deepest regions of the dungeon to show it is indeed beatable. The party forms a motley crew, with people like the berserker-type Blood, who once made it to the tenth floor, but couldn't figure out how to proceed, the fire magician Eni, Hunt Treasure (son of Vent) and of course Van, who is added because of his detecting skills. At first, the party seems to make good process, but things start go wrong when they get past the seventh underground floor. First Blood is killed inside his metal sleeping box (he's so paranoid, even of his party members, he sleeps inside a box to protect himself) and later, two other members are assaulted and spirited away even though they sealed themselves in a room for protection by erecting a magic wall. And as these impossible murders continue in the dungeon, the remaining party members start to distrust each other...

I love the premise of this book. The first novel of course established to the reader that the world of Pangea has real magic (and it also put limitations on what magic can do in Pangea) and in order to solve the locked room murder in the first book, you definitely needed to understand how magic worked there. Katazato could've easily written a second book again about a murder that utilizes magic in some clever manner, but he decided to go with a completely different setting that still fits perfectly with the world we have seen before. The dungeons as presented in this book are of course the dungeons we know from table-top RPGs as well as videogames, those magic-filled maze-like structures consisting of multiple floors with countless of monsters awaiting the player, where you solve puzzles and go deeper and deeper until you reach the last room which usually houses the boss of the dungeon as well as some great treasure (and optionally the long cut-scene to push the story forward). They even kill monsters in this novel for loot, which is as game-like as you can get. The dungeons also have gimmicks we know from games. Many videogames feature some object with similar functions like the Stone of Return (Escape ropes etc.) and one of the more interesting gimmicks in this novel are the one-direction-walls: these walls are transparent on one side and a person can pass through the transparent side to get to the other side of the wall, but it is a normal wall on the other side, meaning you can't go back. All of this results in a setting that is insanely unique for mystery fiction, and had me all giddy with delight.

Whereas the first novel focused on one single murder, the second novel features multiple killings (some of them under impossible circumstances), but I have to admit that not all of them are as good as the others. The first murder, of the highly suspicious Blood inside his own mini metal panic room, for example is pretty disappointing in terms of how it was done and the clewing is a bit crude. The murders that happen inside a sealed-off section of the dungeon when two members tried to protect themselves is far more interesting. The idea of a locked room murder, inside a monster-ridden dungeon is highly memorable and the trick behind it is original, making good use of the unique setting of this novel, and while the clewing is a bit shaky at times (the explanation why *that object* was *there* is a bit forced), I do really like how the misdirection was handled, making great use of the characters' understandable oversight. It's definitely an idea that I really can't imagine seeing in any 'conventional' mystery novel, set in the real world. Some later parts of the novel on the other hand feel a bit clichéd and almost unfair, making this overall an uneven experience. I do like the book as a whole, but there are some parts I really don't care for at all.

By the way, I do have to mention the fact that the author Katazato seems to have forgotten this second novel is also supposed to be part of an isekai series. In the first novel, the plot device that Van originated from 'our' world was at least used to ease the reader into the world of Pangea, explaining the rules and limitations of the magic used there and things like that. This ensured that the mystery plot was fair to the reader, as they, together with Van, learned how Pangea worked. Katazato does none of that in this novel. There are maybe two or three stray references when Van compares some object with something from our Earth, but this could easily have been a "normal" fantasy detective, without the backstory of Van being an reincarnation originating from Earth. The fact Van has memories of our world is of no consequence at all in this story, not even as character motivation like the first novel, where Van's love for puzzle plot mystery fiction drove him to become a detective in a world where detectives weren't really necessary and everybody just blamed magic spells that possibly didn't even exist.

Like the first volume of this series, Isekai no Meitantei 2 - Kaerazu no Chika Meikyuu has a very slow start, but when it finally gets to the murders, you're presented with a plot that cleverly mixes the puzzle plot detective with the fantasy genre. I do think the second volume is less consistent than the first volume: less effort is poured into fleshing out the world and its rules to the reader (I recommend starting with the first volume), not all of the murders are as cleverly plotted as the main one and some of the details of the crime seem glossed over and appear only to have introduced to make the crimes more alluring. But I can't deny I absolutely love the idea of a murder mystery set in a classic videogame dungeon setting, and I do think the main surprise sprung on the reader works. I do hope that for the next volume, whenever that will be, will make more use of the isekai plot device, giving purpose to the fact Van originates from our world. Because this second volume might as well be just a fantasy-detective novel with no ties at all to our Earth.

Original Japanese title(s): 片里鴎『異世界の名探偵 2 帰らずの地下迷宮』

The Headless Lady

「探偵って、そういうものなんじゃないのかな？少なくとも僕はそう思っているよ。探偵とは、大多数の人間を納得させて、事件を終わらせる存在だよ」

『異世界の名探偵 1 首なし姫殺人事件』

"Isn't that exactly what a detective is though? A detective is someone who can convince the majority of the people and bring an end to a case"

 "The Great Detective of the Other World 1: The Case of the Headless Princess"

If you have been following anime these last few years, there's no way you could've avoided the word isekai. Literally, isekai means "a different world" but it is commonly used to refer to a certain subgenre in Japanese popular fiction. In an isekai series, the protagonist is usually a person from Earth who ends up in a different world (usually a fantasy world) by means of transportation, reincarnation or some other manner. The genre often involves some kind of power fantasy, with the very ordinary human using their memories/knowledge from Earth to their advantage in their new situation/the other world to become the legendary hero/evil overlord/whatever the story is about.The genre has parallels with classic literature like Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia of course, but it's been especially popular in Japan the last couple of years, with an unbelievable amount of light novels, manga and anime released based on this concept, but all with slightly different takes and also far too literal titles that explain the whole premise like In Another World With My Smartphone or That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime.

And of course, it isn't strange that there's also an isekai mystery novel. Katazato Kamome's Isekai no Meitantei 1 - Kubinashi Hime Satsujin Jiken ("The Great Detective of the Other World 1: The Case of the Headless Princess", 2019) was originally published with the title Fantasy ni Okeru Meitantei no Hitsuyousei  ("The Necessity of a Great Detective in Fantasy") on the website Shousetsuka ni Narou, where users can upload their own fiction and have other users read them. The story starts in a very, very familiar manner when it comes to isekai works. Our protagonist is an ex-cop who had always dreamt of being like the detective from the novels, but it was only in his dying moments, stabbed for some insignificant reason, that he realized that the great detective is not of this world anymore. To his great surprise though, his dying moments are followed by his own birth scene. While completely confused at first, our protagonist realizes he has been reincarnated as a baby now, but still in possession of his old memories. What's equally surprising is that he is not in Kansas anymore, or even Earth. He finds himself reincarnated in Pangea, best described as the world from fantasy novels, with magic, elves, dragons and more. Our baby protagonist is given the name Van and he grows up as the eldest son of a peasant farmer family. Van turns out to be a rather talented student, especially of magic: magic is a skill most people master in this world up to a certain degree, but usually at a rather limited scale. Van's memories of Earth science give him an edge in his studies however, and realizing how talented their son is, his parents decide to send him to the Royal Academy of the kingdom of Sherck. While normally only reserved for children of nobility, the commoner Van is chosen as this year's scholarship student because of his enormous skill in magic, and he soon becomes friends with two other 'outsiders': Leo Bahl is the brash, but clever young head of one of the most important families of nobility of Sherck, while Kirio Lafla is the only daughter of an impoverished family of nobility who was raised as a boy. Eventually, all three friends manage to graduate from the academy, and the joint thesis of Leo and Van on a complete restructuring of the justice system in Sherk, emphasizing the need for scientific investigation, attracted attention from the whole country.

Each year, the top graduating students are commemorated in a Commendation Ceremony, but this year's ceremony is exceptional, as it will be attended by the king and queen of Sherck, as well as their daugther Princess Victi, who is considered to be the living reincarnation of Saint Phata, protector of the whole world of Pangea. Victi hardly appears before others, as the royal family and the church fight a political war over her, so the fact that Victi herself will speak to each of the four students individually is singularly unique. The private ceremony is held at the former Royal Academy, a small building with no windows originally built as a fort (because the students are usually of nobility). Princess Victi is to receive each of the students one after another in the chapel as part of the ceremony: her two security guards (one of the Royals, of the church) guide the students from the main building to the chapel and once the princess has spoken with the student, the guards bring the student back to their room. Each time the Mythril doors of the chapel are locked by the two special keys held by the two guards, meaning Princess Victi is always safe inside the chapel even when they are transporting the student to and from the chapel. After the last student's done, the guards walk the princess back to her room in the main building, when suddenly part of a wall is blown up, and in the confusion, the princess disappears. One of the chapel keys is stolen too, and when they blow open the Mythril doors of the chapel, they stumble upon a horrid sight: the decapitated body of Princess Victi, reincarnation of Saint Phata herself, lying on the floor! But how could her murderer have opened the chapel with only one key, and where did they escape to considering the whole forest surrounding the former Royal Academy is swarming with soldiers? The Royal Detective Geralt the Silent is soon called to explain the situation, butLeo and Van protest to his farfetched 'solution' and say they can really solve this mystery based on proper forensic investigation and logical reasoning.

Okay, so a detective novel in a fantasy setting, one where magic is possible. Like I mentioned in a short piece last year, I love mystery stories that make use of supernatural settings. As long as the 'unusual' elements are properly introduced and explained, science fiction and fantasy elements work perfectly fine in mystery novels (in fact, the best examples authors do their best to actually be more fair than most other mystery novels). Magic is fairly well defined in Isekai no Meitantei 1 with clear limitations: line of sight is for example essential to cast magic in this world (you can't cast magic in some remote place on the other side of the world), casting takes time and while a skilled magician can easily create a block of ice the size of a fist, no magician can conjure up a whole snowman out of nowhere (to people who know Fullmetal Alchemist, magic here kinda works like alchemy in FMA, in the sense that a scientific understanding of all elements help the magician cast their magic). The Challenge to the Reader too helps define some more limitations, and with a fair amount of text that help define what magic can and more importantly can't do in this world, I'd say that Isekai no Meitantei 1 is still a fair mystery novel, that can be solved by logic and reasoning, and definitely no less fair than something by Carr for example.

It does take a long while to get to the mystery plot though. The first half of the novel is really just set-up of the world, with Van adaptating to this new environment and explaining everything about Pangea to the reader. It's fairly standard isekai fantasy stuff, which also makes this part quite boring, as so much is just exposition. On the other hand, it's also necessary, as both Van and the reader need to learn what is exactly possible in this world in order to present a fair mystery plot. You also have the usual power fantasy tropes, with Van turning out to be a brilliant student due to his Earth memories, and even co-authoring an epoch-making thesis. In the early parts of the novel you might think you'll be getting some kind of Harry Potter story, but then it jumps a few years in time, and suddenly we have Van being some kind of brilliant philosopher who wishes to change the whole criminal justice system. By the way, there are official detectives in this world, but because here the natural sciences have not developed and due to the presence of magic, investigation work in Pangea is more like 'guesswork' and there's no need for gathering evidence, proving a hypothesis or even having someone check the detective's solution: usually people just accept whatever the detective says happened (and sometimes, the 'solution' is just "perhaps there's this obscure magic spell that could..."). It's Van's history as a cop and as a fan of Earth's mystery novels, that drives him to conduct investigation in the same manner as his beloved detectives. In a sense, this reminds of the 3DS game Professor Layton vs. Gyakuten Saiban, where medieval fantasy witch trials are shaken up by the introduction of.... logic in the trials.

When you make it to the main mystery plot, you get a well-executed, but perhaps also surprisingly unsurprising detective story involving magic. As mentioned, the effectiveness of magic in this world is fairly limited. For example, at a limited distance, throwing a knife is both more effective and faster than trying to cast an explosion spell at the target. In this mystery plot, magic is therefore used for smaller scale events, but it's definitely a plot that only works because of the existence of magic. What makes this novel 'unsuprising' is exactly the fact magic is mainly used for rather smaller parts of the crime, rather than something large-scale. Of course, that's also what makes Isekai no Meitantei 1 a fairly-clewed mystery in the first place, because magic is kept at a scale that is still comprehensible to the reader, and Katazato is sure to mention all the practical uses of magic as utilized in the actual crime, have already been properly mentioned long before the solution. Magic is simply a tool like a string or a needle, not the solution to everything. Whereas Geralt the Silent first proposes a solution that is quite ridiculous for a mystery novel ("and then the murderer used some unknown magic spell that..."), the solution Van arrives at is one the reader can deduce themselves based on the clues, based on a logical examination of everything presented to them. I do think it's kinda easy to guess who the murderer is, because so much of the plot depends on a certain fact, but overall, it's a competently clewed mystery that uses magic at the right places.

Considering the current release now has a "1" in its title, I assume sequels to Isekai no Meitantei 1 - Kubinashi Hime Satsujin Jiken will follow. And yes, I'd be interested in more adventures of Van in Pangea. I do think the question of whether this really needed to be an isekai story is a fair one. At this point, Van having memories of his Earth life is mostly manifested in the fact that he's a quick learner, and the fact he knows about scientific investigation and mystery novels in general, but to be honest, this could've been a pure fantasy novel too, with Van simply being a bright kid who noticed the shortcomings of the investigative methods in this world. At the moment, there's little that really necessitates Van being from our world, besides being a vehicle for the reader to help introduce the world and provide for a framework for a fair mystery story, but Van being an Earthling isn't really interfering either, and perhaps we'll see more of that part of his Earth past in future volumes. As a first step in the world of Pangea, I'd say this first novel does a perfectly fine job.

Original Japanese title(s): 片里鴎『異世界の名探偵 1 首なし姫殺人事件』