Disclosure: I have translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle.
As per custom, publisher Tokyo Sogensha usually adds an English title inside the book, which may be a translation, but often is a completely original title. In this case, the English title is Bohemian Dreams, after the cocktail served to Jizoubou. I wonder who comes up with those titles each time.
Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou collects seven short stories that are all quite short and they all follow the same format. Each story consists of six segments, of which the first and last act as the framing book-ends: the first section sets up how Jizoubou ends up relating one of his old adventures to his friends at April, while the last section is dedicated to a few guesses by his friends, until Jizoubou finally gives the trick away. That means that each story only has four sections devoted them, and as you can guess, each story is pretty simple in structure, usually with one main trick that makes up the mystery. That said, most of the stories are pretty clever considering how short they are, and the overall book is quite enjoyable, even if after a while the stories do feel a bit samey. That does make it difficult to discuss the stories in detail though, as they are really very short: in some cases Jizoubou's story basically ends with the discovery of the corpse. So in this review, I'll only very briefly discuss the stories and highlight the points I liked about some of them.
The book opens with Local-sen to Cinderella ("The Local Line and Cinderella") which is indeed one of those stories that seems to spend all its time on the buildup, and then we learn about a murder, after which the story immediately returns to April, with the bar attendeed trying to guess what happened. In this case, Jizoubou had been s and he managed to catch the last train on a minor local train line back to Akino, the nearest city connected to the major Japan Rail network. He happens to share this last train with the actress Hoshimoto Mai and her entourage: Mai hails from the mountain village of Douno, the terminal station of the local line, and had been visiting her home town. The following morning, Jizoubou learns a murder had occured in the last train in the direction of Douno (so the counterpart to the train Jizoubou took to Akino): a stranger had been found stabbed in the train. Jizobou comes up with an explanation for the murder that is very clever: while the trick itself might sound familiar in some ways, Arisugawa manages to hide it well within the limited page count, and the application of the concept in this specific story is original enough to leave a very positive impression. In a way, the second story, Kasou Party no Yakata ("The House of the Masquerade Party") uses a similar underlying concept for its trick, even if the execution and the surrounding story is completely different. The set-up is prett funny though. Wandering in the mountains and in search for shelter, Jizoubou ends up at a manor where they're having a costumed birthday party, and other guests, assuming he's dressed up, help him inside. During the party, two costumed men are found dead in a room upstairs, one strangled and the other hit on the head. Witnesses had kept an eye on the door, and there seems to be no clear suspect, as only the two victims entered the room until they were discovered. I like the trick here, even if it's more a trick that seems feasible on paper than in real-life. I only realize in hindsight, as I'm writing this, that some of the underlying dynamics of this story and the first story are similar, but definitely not in a way that it's clear right away or that this story feels like a rehash in anway.
Gake no Kyouso ("The Cult Leader on the Cliff") has Jizoubou trying to help a man, whose girlfriend has fallen under the spell of a charismatic cult leader, who resides inside a cave in a cliff. Jizobou assists the man as he tries to find a way into the cave, but this attempt goes wrong and his attempts to save his girlfriend are also rebuted by the girlfriend herself. The following day however, Jizobou returns to find the cave half-collapsed: a bomb had been set off in the meditation chamber, killing the cult leader! But how did the culprit plant a bomb there, as it went off in the morning and his disciples sweeped the room earlier? The solution is simple but well foreshadowed, and I like the setting of a mountain sect/cult leader, as it fits the yamabushi motif of Jizoubou.
Jizoubou easily makes friends, so it's not rare for him to get invited for dinner, but seldom to one where one of the guests ends up poisoned! In Doku no Bansan ("Poisoned Dinner"), Jizoubou is invited by a friend to dinner, which is also attended by some other guests/family relatives. During dinner, one of them keels over, and it turns out his beer had been poisoned. But who did it? I love the trick behind this tale: it's so much not a mechanical trick, but a brilliantly psychological one, but even within the limited amount of pages Arisugawa has, he manages to very convincingly portray these characters in a way, that explains in a satisfactory manner how the murder was committed. I can imagine the same trick used in a full novel, but still, it wouldn't have the elegant simpleness of this version.
In Shinu Toki wa Hitori ("You Die Alone"), Jizoubou tells the story of when two hoodlums tried to pick a fight with him, but he was saved by their former boss: they used to form a gang of organized crime, but their boss has washed his hands clean and started a small bar. His former followers however still haven't quite gotten used to normal life yet. To apologize, the boss invites Jizoubou to his bar and offers him a drink. When the boss goes into his private office for a moment, a gunshot rings. Jizoubou and a former follower enter the office to find the boss shot and signs of someone having fled the office through the back door. Outside however, they can find a pistol, but also witnesses along all the alleys that swear they didn't see the murderer flee their way. So how did the killer escape? The trick behind the vanishing shooter is simple, but the story is quite memorable due to the underlying motive of the murderer: it is established very well, again, despite the limited amount of pages and it's surprisingly convincing.
In Wareta Glass Mado ("The Broken Glass Window"), Jizoubou is invited to the home of a man hunting for truffles, When his host excuses himself for a moment to retreat to his study, a loud voice can be heard, and Jizoubou and the host's wife hurry to see what's happened: the host is lying dead on the floor with his head bashed in, one window broken and glass lying outside, as well as a book from the collection of the host. The matter seems simple: there was a struggle, a book was thrown at the assaillant and missed, and the host was killed. Or was that really the case? This is an interesting story, in the sense the murderer does something very over-the-top in order to create what is in essence a very simple trick, only made complicaed because of the 'over-the-top' thing. It's a bit silly to go so far, but it works. I wish it was clewed a bit better though, because I think the idea itself is good, only this is an example where I think the limited page count works to the story/trick's disadvantange.
Whereas the previous stories were all serialized in magazines originally, the final story Tenma Hakase no Shouten ("The Ascension of Doctor Tenma") was written especially for the book release and it is therefore also a bit longer than the magazine stories. Wandering around in the forest, Jizoubou meets with an inventor who has been working on odd creations like a remote controlled boomerang. This inventor is later found dead in the early morning, apparently having fallen to his death from the cliff behind his house/lab. Footprints were left in the snow behind the house and they show how the inventor weaved a path from his house to the cliff, right above the spot where he was later found dead. He was found by someone passing beneath the path on his morning routine and at first glance, it appears this was nothing but a tragic accident, but of course, Jizoubou has different ideas. Because this story is a bit longer, we also have more/deeper theories proposed by Jizoubou's friends at April, which make this a more complex story. The trick revolves around something that seems a bit out of place in the world of this series, especially when we have a travelling hermit as our detective, and the trick itself is a bit simple to guess I think once a certain prop is introduced in the story, so I don't think it's the strongest tale of the collection, even if it's not that different in quality from the others.
Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou is a fairly solid, if simple short story collection by Arisugawa. Because each story is very short, there's simply not much room to paint really deep or complex stories, which results in most of these stories ending up as tales that revolve around one single thing, but most of the time, Arisugawa actually manages to make full use of the space he does have to bring satisfying stories with plots that are crafted with consistency and confidence. Few stories in the collection will probably manage to make an ever-lasting impression, but it's a quick and entertaining read that always retains a good level of quality when it comes to the mystery.
