Blood Will Tell

 "It's in my blood. I can't help it."

"Mrs. McGinty's Dead"

Which such long times between my reviews for both Detective Conan and the Kindaichi Shounen franchise, perhaps I should find a third manga to do regular reviews of...

Hajime's cousin Fumi was a focus character in The Kindaichi Fumi Kidnapping Murder Case, the final case in Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R ("The Young Kindaichi Case Files", 2013-2017), for the moment the last series in this long-running franchise still set in Hajime's teenage years. Part of the fun of the currently running series Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), set many years later, is of course not only seeing how Hajime has changed (or not) in two decades, but also to see what happened to the other main characters, so there were probably quite a few fans who were interested to see what had become of that young, bratty girl who at times would show that she too was one of the talented grandchildren of the legendary detective Kindaichi Kousuke. Fumi finally returned in volume 9 of the series, first released in April 2021. I already wrote a little about the story that started in that volume, but The Ayase Serial Murder Case wouldn't be concluded until volume 11, which was released in October 2021, so it took a while for me to finally be able to write about this rather lengthy story. 

Blood will tell, so should it surprise anyone that the twenty-nine year old Fumi now works at a detective agency? In her spare time though, she's also dabbling with mystery writing, and she's finally making her professional debut by winning in one of the categories of the Osokawa Mystery Awards with her novel The Hinokawa Legend Murder Case, written under the pen name Kaneda Hifumi. Hajime is of course happy for his cousin, but perhaps even happier he managed to secure the organization of the award ceremony for his company. At the venue, Hajime and his assistant Marin meet Osokawa editors, fellow debuting winner Fuyuki Agatha and Fumi's boyfriend Yuuto, an accomplished mystery writer himself. The grand winner of the main award is Setokura Ryou and his The ABC Murders-inspired The Ayase Serial Murder Case, but Setokura disappears during the ceremony, and instead a creepy video is shown on the projector, showing a man being murdered inside an abandoned building in a city block named Ayase. Hajime quickly realizes that this murder is exactly the same as the first murder in The Ayase Serial Murder Case, that's about a series of murders in city blocks called Ayase. Because there's no proof of an actual crime, Fumi and Yuuto decide to go look for the building shown in the video themselves while Hajime tries to convince Inspector Makabe to do something. Fumi and Yuuto, as well as some other interested parties manage to locate the building and find a corpse there. But when a new murder video set in a different Ayase is mailed to Setokura's editor, everyone fears the copy-cat killer will continue with these Ayase murders and it's up to the two grandchildren of Kindaichi Kousuke to catch the murderer.

While Detective Conan has a very irregular publishing schedule nowadays, Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo has been rather consistent in its releases, so you don't get gaps of a year between volumes. Still, the stories in this series seem to take up more chapters than they used to be, so this is not the first time a story has been spread across three volumes. It takes about half a year to release three volumes normally if there's no delay, so still better than the year wait between Detective Conan volumes 98 and 99, but still, three volumes is pretty long for a serialized story and I can't say that I'm a big fan of that. I know a lot of the fans of this series prefer the longer format, one of the defining differences between this series and Detective Conan, but as I'm reading this volumes as they release, it's just so frustrating to see a story cut up in so many volumes...

But that's more a matter about the publication format than the story itself, let's get back to that. After The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case and The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel, two not very impressive stories, I have to admit I liked The Ayase Serial Murder Case a lot more, even if as a detective story, it's not going to be very surprising or hard to figure out the major mysteries. I still enjoyed it a lot, partially I think because we actually get to see a lot of Fumi doing her own detecting now. The story is not solely focused on Hajime as the only detective, and Fumi, as a detective's assistant, mystery novelist and granddaughter of a rather well-known detective, gets to do a lot too. She's not as smart as Hajime, but that brings a different dynamic to the story we don't usually see in this series: while we'll see rival detective figures at times in the form of people like Superintendent Akechi, Fumi is unique in this series as an ally character, and this allows The Ayase Serial Murder Case to develop as a story from multiple angles and it feels rather fresh. I would love to see this Fumi more in the series: in the original series you'd catch glimpses of her talent in certain stories, but she was really by far the youngest character in the cast, which made usage of her sometimes a bit difficult in stories. Here she's really grown into a fuller character who could support her cousin in more interesting ways than we had seen before in this series.

The story starts in a real-time thriller mode, with Hajime, Fumi and the others realizing someone is copying the murders from the novel The Ayase Serial Murder Case, meaning first someone whose name begins with "A" will be killed in a place called Ayase, and then someone whose name starts with (the Japanese kana) "YA" in a different Ayase, etc. and a lot of the story focusing on them actually locating the crime scenes and trying to stop the killer in advance. As the story develops however, Hajime starts to notice little things that seem to not follow the book, and his attention is also drawn to the victims themselves, and it doesn't take long for him to deduce what of course most readers would have guessed: these are not random murders that are "just" copying a novel. By the time Hajime starts looking back at all that has happened and tries to figure out what is hidden beneath the surface of the case however, the story is severely handicapped by the series itself. For most people will be reading this series, because the franchise has always focused on impossible crimes. It's extremely rare for this series to have a story not focusing on an impossible crime, so when you know there's no locked room murder here or some murder without footprints, 99% of the readers will guess that this is one of those stories that focus on the murderer having a perfect alibi. And that means that everyone will at least have an idea who the killer is going to be, because there's basically only one character whose alibi is strong enough to be considered "perfect". And from that point on, all you're going to do is to pay attention to everything they do in each panel and you'll soon get a good idea of how the whole thing was pulled off.

Other series might have gotten way with this, but I'd argue that Kindaichi Shounen is the one mystery manga where it becomes too apparent immediately. While this franchise is never about the whodunnit only, once you know who to watch, a lot of the relevant panels will stand out a lot and because the underlying mystery plot ultimately uses fairly simple tricks (though woven into each other to make the overall picture more complex) to create the seemingly iron-clad alibi, it's rather easy to guess most of what's happening. That said, I have to admit the last act of The Ayase Serial Murder Case did manage to turn my initially somewhat lukewarm views on the story into something more positive. There's a great part in the story where Hajime decides to confront the suspect despite not having found any evidence yet, resulting in a very amusing game of shadows, where Hajime tries to lure the culprit into traps, while they carefully weigh each of their answers and tries to turn things around. The scene is tense and exactly because the reader will also have noticed a lot of the little questions Hajime asks, it's pretty interesting to see the suspect addressing them directly and trying to divert suspicion from themselves in a rather convincing manner. When Hajime finally manages to seal the deal with the support of both Makabe and Fumi, you'll realize the murderer was definitely one of the more trickier ones Hajime has encountered, which makes the moment Hajime reveals they were suspecting them right from the start even more satisfying: this moment is actually quite clever and I had completely missed the clue that set Hajime on the right trail at the start of the story. The story also ties back to the overall storyline of this series about Hajime slowly being drawn back into the life of an amateur detective again and about the incident that had made him stop in the first place, planting seeds for later story developments.

Volume 11 ends with the opening chapter of The Killer with Twenty Faces, about an Edogawa Rampo exhibition and a rather familiar-sounding name, but I'm going to guess that that story will also be spread across three volumes, so I'm guessing I won't be discussing it until the early summer of the northern hemisphere...

So The Ayase Serial Murder Case might not be an exceptional high-point in terms of mystery plotting in Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo, and the execution of the story in fact suffers a bit because it's this specific series, but on the other hand, I think fans of the franchise will enjoy this story exactly because it also feels a bit different in the way it presents the story, with fan-favorites like Fumi returning as an adult, as well as a rather determined murderer who is able to keep up a good fight with two grandchildren of Kindaichi Kousuke. After a story set specifically at the location of an older story, and a story that followed the familiar closed circle trope, the pacing of this story felt refreshing despite the core plot being fairly predictable. And I'm kinda looking forward to seeing The Killer with Twenty Faces unfold: it's been a while since we had a killer who dresssed up in a costume in this series!

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一37歳の事件簿』第9, 10, 11巻

The Problem of the Phantom Parlor

"Don't let the ghosts and the ghouls disturb you, love"

"House on Haunted Hill"

Isn't it about time they started developing a live-action series based on Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo with Doumoto Tsuyoshi? We should have enough material by now for one cour...

The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case started at the very end of volume 7 of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37") and finally ends in the recently released volume 9 of the series, so time to look back. And some might even remember I wrote a short preview of this story already. Otowa Black PR is hired as a subcontracter by the big PR company Denpoudou to help out in a project to develop a Scottish manor into a pension. The manor was moved brick for brick from Scotland to Japan thirty years ago, but had fallen in disuse and now Denpoudou wants to redevelop it into a tourist spot. Denpoudou wants to preserve the current vibe of the manor however, so no renovations have been made yet. A test pilot is organized to see how guests enjoy a stay at the manor, and Hajime and Marin (of Otowa Black PR) are sent to assist in the pilot, basically doing all the menial work while the capable manager Shiratori Reo from Denpoudou and her assistant supervise the project. When they moved the manor to Japan though, they apparently also moved the poltergeists to Japan too, as there are rumors of ghosts and other supernatural beings. And indeed, the party has only just arrived in the building when they are greeted by candles in the hallway suddenly lighting up on their own and falling wineglasses. And it doesn't take long for supernatural murders to occur, like a poisoned arrow in the parlor which decided to fly straight into a victim's neck or a woman being attacked by a suit of armor inside her locked bedroom. The perfect moment for our middle-aged Hajime to show he's more suited to be a detective than an event planner!

The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case is also honestly one of the least interesting stories I've ever read in this franchise. In my preview, I mentioned how uninspired and boring the clue gathering scenes where in this story: Hajime and Marin spend a whole chapter just visiting each crime scene, Hajime immediately noticing an important clue and realizing how the impossible murder was committed, then off to the next room where Hajime does exactly the same, rinse and repeat. It was basically a grocery list of the necessary clues which writer Amagi decided to present in the most literal and straightforward manner without any intention of making it feel natural even remotely. This uninspired approach is felt throughout this story basically, with the murders and most of the mysteries presented being rather dull. The murders and the tricks behind ghostly pranks basically all occur in a vacuum, with tricks that are not related to each other. Which isn't a bad thing per se, but each of these tricks can barely be called variants on the classic locked room murder tricks and none of the ideas shown will impress: you'll have seen the same basic ideas elsewhere, even within the Kindaichi Shounen franchise, only as better or more original variations. I mean, 17-old Hajime saw plenty of tricks that use the same basic ideas, only in better adapted versions. The trick behind the flying arrow features the most original approach (relatively speaking), but even then it's not enough to make this a truly memorable story.

The only part of the mystery plot that I did enjoy was the elimination process, where Hajime slowly crosses off suspects of his list. The last part is genuinely clever, with a fantastic set-up for the decisive clue that allows you to identify the one murderer. Honestly, there's only one thing you need to remember of this story, and that's this part, as it's a great idea that makes fantastic use of the unique setting of this story and also a fantastic example of how mystery fiction can basically use anything, even or especially the objects you yourself use every day without much thought, as a brilliant clue or part of a mystery plot. What's done here is easy to overlook, but in hindsight it's an idea that works perfectly in this franchise.

In fact, it's the first three chapters of the next story included in this volume that seem much more promising. In The Ayase Serial Murder Case, we are reintroduced to a familiar face from the past: Kindaichi Fumi, Hajime's cousin. And no, that's not a spoiler as she's featured prominently on the cover. For the reader, it's been about three years since we last saw her in The Kindaichi Fumi Kidnapping Murder Case in the finale of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R, but in-universe it's been twenty years for Fumi too. Twenty-nine year old Fumi now works at a detective agency, but she's also been dabbling with writing mystery fiction (based on Hajime's cases) and at the start of the tale, Fumi informs her cousin that her novel Hinokawa Legend Murder Case, written under the pen name Kaneda Hifumi, has actually won one of the Osokawa Mystery Awards. Using this connection, Hajime manages to get the job for his company to organize the award ceremony, where Hajime and his assistant Marin also meet some of the other winners like the young debuting student Fuyuki Agatha and Osokawa editors. The grand award goes to Setokura Ryou and his The ABC Murders-inspired The Ayase Serial Murder Case, but Setokura disappears before he is handed the reward and instead a creepy video is shown where a man is murdered inside an abandoned building in a city block named Ayase. Hajime quickly realizes that this murder is exactly the same as the first murder in The Ayase Serial Murder Case. Fumi, her boyfriend (a mystery author), Agatha and an editor manage to track down the building shown in the video and indeed find a dead body there. When a new murder video is mailed to Setokura's editor, everyone of course fears that the murderer is copying the murders in Setokura's book.

But we'll have to wait until the next volume to see how this story develops further, as we're only three chapters in. But I have to say I liked the set-up of this story much better than the previous story already. Admittedly, it's partially because of the appearance of familiar faces like Fumi and Makabe (again), but the story pattern is also quite different from the usual Kindaichi story and I'm really curious as to what will happen next.

Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo's The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case (volumes 7-9) is definitely not one of my favorites in the current series, even if it has some minor points I liked. Which is perhas also partially the reason why I was so pleasantly surprised by the first three chapters of The Ayase Serial Murder Case, which is definitely a must-read for the long-time fans due to the return of Fumi. The next volume is scheduled to be released in June already, and while the last few volumes were all delayed slightly from their announced release frames, I hope we'll see the next volume soon and find out what happens next!

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一37歳の事件簿』第7, 8, 9巻

A Taste of Danger

Something old, something new, 

something borrowed, something blue

You know, I really should use my short shorts tag more often. Originally, I intended to use it as a corner to collect short, usually unrelated reviews and other observations that can't fill a complete post on their own. But nowadays, I usually just end up not writing about smaller things, or at least wait until I've got enough material for a full, standalone post. But the last one I did was back in 2016...

Anyway, so just a few random short pieces this time. And let's start with a short look at the eighth volume of  Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), which was released in October. It collects a large part of The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case, which started in volume 7, but the volume ends with Hajime having started on his summation of the case (the identity of the murderer hasn't been revealed yet), so I'll wait until the release of the next volume in March to go in detail. Hajime and Marin are this time sent to a Scottish manor which had been moved brick for brick to Japan thirty years ago. The large company Denpoudou now has plans to change the manor into a pension and has started a pilot panel. Hajime's company is a subcontractor of Denpoudou, and Hajime and Marin are there just for the menial work under the supervision of Denpoudou's Shiratori Reo, a young, but very capable manager. The Scottish manor breathes atmosphere, but apparently, some poltergeists were brought to Japan too when they moved the building.The guests have only just arrived when they are greeted by candles in the corridor suddenly lighting up on their own and falling wineglasses and it doesn't take long for ghostly murders to occur, like a poisoned arrow which decided to fly straight into a victim's neck or a woman being attacked by a suit of armor in her locked bedroom. 

Like I said, the story is still on-going, so I'll save my detailed thoughts for later, but I do wanted to note how I didn't really like the chapter before Hajime started his explanation of the case. Basically, up until that point everyone's just in a panic because of the ghostly pranks and the murders, and eventually, Hajime finds the time to investigate on his own with Marin, but this part is so... boring. It's literally Hajime and Marin visiting each crime scene, and Hajime immediately noticing some clue which tells him exactly how the impossible murder was committed. So they move on to the next room, and again, Hajime solves it immediately. It's incredibly boring with Hajime just walking from room to room and instantly solving the murders This is hardly a chapter about an investigation, this was writer Amagi just wanting to serve the readers the necessary clues without actually wanting to pour any effort in the presentation, as this is more-or-less just a grocery list. There is of course an inherent problem with serialized series like Kindaichi Shounen and Detective Conan that have to cut the narrative in distinct chapters that are released weekly/biweekly, but for some time now, the 'clue-gathering-parts' of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo have felt dry and business-like. Anyway, more on this rather Carr-like story somewhere in March or April!

Originally, the short shorts tag was used for a post which was partially about mystery storylines/homages/parodies in series that weren't strictly works of mystery. About a year ago, I also wrote about how broad the definition of the mystery genre could be, and how for example a film like Iron Man uses proper mystery grammar to tell part of its story. Recently, I've been enjoying some works of fiction that aren't really mystery, but can be studied as such, and I think it's worth mentioning them to give people an idea of what I meant when I said that the definition of mystery can be very broad.

Herakles no Eikou ("Glory of Herakles") is a series of role-playing game that originally started in 1987 on the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) and has seen a few sequels since, with the latest entry being 2008's Glory of Heracles (the only one released in the west). It's a very classic JRPG like Dragon Quest, but as the title suggests, this series is set in a mythological Greek world and with stories partially based on actual Greek myths. Last week, I played Herakles no Eikou III - Kamigami no Chinmoku ("Glory of Herakles III - Silence of the Gods, 2008), a feature phone remake based on the 1992 original created for the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo Entertainment System). While you might not immediately associate "Greek mythology" with the mystery genre, it's surprising how well the story of this game works as a proper mystery ! The story starts in a rather familiar manner for RPGs: the protagonist wakes up with amnesia, having no recollection of himself. But he does learn he has been made immortal for some reason: he can fall off cliffs and land dozens of meters below without dying. Meanwhile, strange events have been happening all over the world: monsters start appearing everywhere because of holes to the underworld being opened, while at the same time, the sun decides to not set anymore. The protagonist decides to find out what's happening, because he suspects his immortal state has something to do with all of this too, and during his quest, he finds new companions who like him have gained an immortal body in exchange for their memories, and they all join our hero to find out the truth about why the gods of Olympus stay silent during this crisis.

The story was written by Nojima Kazushige, a game scenario writer best known for his work on all-time classics like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X, but he has also written for mystery games like some of the earliest Tantei Jinguuji Saburou ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou") videogames, and it's his writing which changes a story about a quest of a band of immortals in a mythological Greek world into something that's actually a pretty darn interesting mystery! Throughout the game, our party comes across many mysterious events that occur in the world, and each time you think you've found an answer to the question of why everything's happening, another mystery is added to confuse the characters (and the player). Why are they suffering all from amnesia? Why have they been made immortal? What are the gods planning? Near the end of the game, there's a really neat section where everything is explained and suddenly every pieces falls into place, with even a few very early events taking on a very different meaning now you know what really happened. Yet this reveal doesn't come out of nowhere, as Nojima's been making use of foreshadowing and very carefully articulated dialogue to prepare the player for what was coming, utlizing the techniques of a mystery writer. So I'd say this game is pretty interesting for those who want to see how techniques of the genre can be used for very different types of media. The original Super Famicom version of the game is supposed to be a bit outdated when it comes to gameplay by the way, while the feature phone remake recently ported to the Nintendo Switch makes it a very easy game to play (but ideal if you just want to know the story).

I've also been enjoying the anime version of Oishinbo recently, which is a long-running classic manga about food. Everything food. The story is about the newspaper writers Yamaoka Shirou and Kurita Yuuko, who are tasked to compile "the Ultimate Menu" as a special project for the 100th anniversary of their newspaper the Touzai Shimbun. Their search allows them to try out a lot of very delicious dishes, but also puts Yamaoka in the path of his estranged father Kaibara Yuuzan, a famous and influential gourmand who puts cuisine above his own family. The series is perhaps remarkable for its realism: there's obviously a lot of research done on all the ingredients and recipes that are discussed, and the series even looks at "food" as a very broad theme, also focusing a lot on food production/distribution/culture and more.

The interesting thing is that a lot of the stories are also written like they could've featured in a mystery series. Many episodes revolves around Yamaoka getting involved in some kind of argument with a professional cook/critic about food and how a dish should best be prepared, and Yamaoka managing to prove that he was right, even though the opponent appears to have all the advantages. This is basically the same set-up as Liar Game, where characters manage to win games even though that seems impossible at first. In one early episode for example, Yamaoka claims he can prepare a better sashimi dish with a dead fish, than someone who'll use a fresh, living fish, which sounds utterly impossible of course due the matter of freshness, but this mystery can actually be solved by the viewer with some very basic knowledge of food (nothing specialistic, nor does it even require the reader to be able to cook). To make it clear: most of the stories are less likely to be solved beforehand by the viewer because they do require knowledge of lesser-known facts, but you'd be surprised how many of the Oishinbo stories do actually work as proper mystery stories.

And now I want to go eat sushi...

Anyway, that was it for this short short post! Any good recommendations you have for works-that-aren't-really-mystery-but-actually-do-feature-mystery-plots? And your favorite sushi?

 Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一37歳の事件簿』第8巻;『ヘラクレスの栄光III　神々の沈黙』; 雁屋哲（原作）、花咲アキラ（画）『美味しんぼ』

The Case of the Rising Stars

唄え　踊れ　無数のライトが闇を照らす

世界は一つの舞台

「世界はひとつの舞台」（marina）

Sing! Dance! Numerous lights shall illuminate the darkness

All the world's a stage

"All the World's a Stage" (marina)

Huh, the previous Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37") was released not that long ago. I wish Detective Conan would return to this release schedule... And in case you missed it: seventeen-year old Hajime recently made a return in a special webdrama...

Kindaichi Hajime, age 37, has seen a lot of deaths in his lifetime, but he is likely to remember some of them better than others. One of the murders he has always regretted the most occured in the Foreigners Hotel in Hakodate, where as a teen, he solved a serial murder case involving the "Red-Bearded Santa." Hajime however was too late, as one of the victims had been a personal acquaintance and Hajime would literally be haunted by the victim's ghost in later stories. Obviously, Hajime never wanted to return to the place again, but sometimes, you don't really have a choice when you're employed by a promotion agency and your boss sends you back to that painful memory. In The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel, collected in volumes 5, 6 and 7 of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), Hajime and his subordinate Marin's new assignment is to supervise the premiere of the fantasy musical "Hakodate Wars", starring several popular male idol stars, two from the former group Skywalker and the three men in Desperado. "Hakodate Wars" will be performed in the special theater of the Foreigners Hotel. In Hakodate, Hajime runs into familiar faces like Saki (a professional photographer) and Itsuki (still the freelance writer), but he also finds a less friendly face on his path: Superintendent Yukimura of the Metropolitan Police Department has been investigating the death of an ex-member of Desperado and this subordinate of Akechi has gotten into his head that Hajime is probably some kind of serial killer who was active when he was seventeen, and who has now returned to his deadly games as a 37-old man. Yukimura suspects Hajime has something to do with the death of the former idol and that something will occur at the premiere, and indeed, the premiere is horribly interrupted when it turns out that one of the pistols used in the play was the real deal and that the actors shot by that pistol on stage were really shot fatally. The investigation first focuses on who could've swapped the prop pistol with a real one, but soon after the "murderer" commits suicide by suspending themselves high above the stage and cutting their own wrists. Hajime however isn't convinced that this was a suicide, but forensic investigation of the blood stains shows that the victim's wrists were definitely cut several meters above the stage, so how did the murderer manage to fly up there?

With references to the Red-Bearded Santa case and appearances of several familiar faces (including a surprise appearance of a special someone at the very end of the story!), The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel was obviously written as a throw-back episode. If you're only familiar with the anime or the live-action drama by the way, you might not quite remember who the person is Hajime lost in the Red-Bearded Santa case, because those adaptations changed the details of the case and the "replacement" character for that deceased friend doesn't even exist in those media, even though he's been a part of the main cast since forever in the manga... Is it even a spoiler anymore to mention his name? It's almost like Aeris' position... We also have a new rival character, and I quite like him! Superintendent Yukimura reminds of the old Akechi, being in the same position in the police, but he's a bit funnier because we (the readers) know Hajime wasn't a serial killer in his teenage years, while on the other hand, it's not completely odd that Yukimura would find Hajime to be suspicious based on the police files which have Hajime's name appear in all those gruesome murder cases! Like Akechi, Yukimura is fairly intelligent, instantly figuring out how the locked room where the ex-member of Desperado was found was constructed and while obviously, he's destined to lose against Hajime forever, it'll be interesting to see if his character development will differ from Akechi's.

The case itself is fairly compact, and personally, I don't think there were moments that stood out as memorable, but it's an okay story that might be a tad too long: it's basically two full volumes long, but a fair amount of those pages aren't even specifically about the murder case, but just about Hajime and the reader reuniting with old friends. The plot revolves around two core mysteries: when was the prop pistol swapped for a real one, and how did the murderer manage to slit the "suicide" victim's wrists while the victim was suspended four meters above the ground and there were no ladders or other tools around? The latter one is fairly easy to solve considering the setting and indeed, Hajime basically solves the mystery immediately. The swap of the pistols is also a bit easy to guess: once Hajime accidentally stumbles upon a certain clue, it becomes clear what must have happened. More interesting are the clues that eventually point to the identity of the murderer. I can't say they are perfect: some actions are taken by the murderer in an attempt to evade suspicion, but these actions kinda stand out, which is what makes them look suspicious in the first place! I do like the more physical clues that point to the murderer: one element makes good use of the  visual medium (and the presence of Saki, of course) and the whole idea the story is about a fantasy musical. The other significant clue is perhaps less original, but I love clues in general that revolve around whether the murderer could or could not have known certain facts and how that knowledge (or absence of knowledge) influences their behavior.

The backstory that led to the crime was really dark by the way. It's still Revenge with a capital R (because why else?), but the details of this definitely wouldn't have flown in the magazines the older series were serialized in and you can definitely understand why the murderer would've been so set on killing their targets. It's basically going one step further than The Inspector Kenmochi Murder Case, which was already really pushing it. The novels do occasionally go that way, but I believe the adaptations of the novels in the anime series did tone down the darker side of the motives. This case also ties back to the very loose overall storyline of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo, but it's done in such an off-hand manner, I have a feeling series writer Amagi doesn't really have anything concrete thought out yet and just winging it as he goes. There's some hinting again at the cause why Hajime stopped his amateur sleuthing, but I assume it'll take a while before we'll learn the details.

Volume 7 ends with the first two chapters of The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case, in which Hajime and Marin are to monitor a test panel: there are plans to renovate a Scottish manor which was moved to Japan brick by brick and recently turned into a pension, but there are also rumors it's haunted by poltergeists. You know, at this point of the story, I was genuinely thinking, hey, perhaps this case won't be about a murder, but simply about Hajime figuring out what the poltergeists really are, until I noticed the friggin' title of the case in the table of contents just now. Alas, poor guests, you're probably going to die horribly in a creepy manor.

Anyway, Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo's The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel (volumes 5 - 7) storyline is probably a story many long-time fans have been waiting for, as we see a lot of the old gang come together again to solve a case, even if the 37-old Hajime's still claiming he doesn't want to solve any mysteries anymore. I didn't find the case itself very memorable: it's stretched a bit too thin, and the case misses the impact of something like the Japanese rock garden with no footprints setting in the previous story, or the always falling chandeliers in the (former) Opera House. It will be interesting to see how the story will move on from here though: with old faces returning as part of the gang, as well as a new rival and Marin finally learning about Hajime's history in more detail, future cases might give us a nice mix of the old and the new.

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一37歳の事件簿』第5, 6, 7巻

House Arrest

"Curious thing, rooms. Tell you quite a lot about the people who live in them."

"Crooked House"

Volume 7 of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37") will be released this week, will probably take a while before I'll get to it though... (Limited shipping options at the moment).

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the special Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo ("The Young Kindaichi Case Files") project Stay Home Satsujin Jiken (The Stay Home Murder Case). With everyone being asked to stay home as much as possible, series writer Amagi Seimaru (AKA Kibayashi Shin) decided to produce a #StayHome-inspired murder mystery. Mitani Kouki did something similar when he used his weekly newspaper column to publish a brand new Furuhata Ninzaburou story to bring some much-needed joy to people's lives, but Amagi's project can be described as far more ambitious, as his Kindaichi Shounen story was made to be filmed as a short live-action drama! Of course, because it's advised to not go out, all the actors filmed their own parts at their own places. These individual parts were then edited together in a Zoom-like screen, allowing everybody to 'play together' in one scene without actually being physically together (the story does pretend everyone's together in one room). The voice actors of Hajime and Miyuki from the television series reprised their roles for this special story (obviously, they got Hajime and Miyuki as profile pictures), and it surprisingly does feel like a genuine Kindaichi Shounen short story. Other roles were performed by actor-acquaintances or themselves (Amagi's own older sister Kibayashi Yuuko was cast in the role of the victim), while the background scenes too were presumably filmed at the Kibayashi family home.

In the previous post, I also explained how this drama was released in two parts.  The first part was released on Youtube on May 31, while the solution was released as paid content a week later. I wasn't sure whether I'd discuss the second part/solution at the time, even though I had a pretty good idea who the murderer was/how to prove it, but I did finally manage to watch the second part, so I decided to write this short follow-up post.

To go over the story of Stay Home Satsujin Jiken again: Inspector Kenmochi has to self-isolate due to a nasty fever, so he asks Hajime to help him with the investigation into the murder of Komatsuzaki Akane, a middle-aged woman who made a fortune with her own company. Because her dog had been barking for days, her neighbors became suspicious and when the police entered the very spacious Komatsuzaki manor, they found a stranged Komatsuzaki. The main suspects are the three persons known to have visited the victim on Friday, the day before Komatsuzaki is presumed to have died. The housekeeper, the victim's niece and the Uper Eats delivery guy all met Komatsuzaki that day for chores and deliveries, but none of them seemed to have noticed anything weird about Komatsuzaki at the time. Komatsuzaki always changed the code of her door lock after people visited her, so it also seems unlikely any of these three could've entered the manor on Saturday to kill Komatsuzaki. But as Hajime pokes around the home, he starts to suspect something else is going on.

Like I mentioned in the first post, Stay Home Satsujin Jiken does feel like a real Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo short story despite the unique circumstances in which it was produced, but that also means that a lot of it is rather familiar in terms of plotting. There is a focus on visual clewing of course, but it's fairly simple here (probably partially because they had to prepare all the story props themselves with 'normal' objects you have lying around at home) and most people will soon realize what the main contradiction is that allowed Hajime to identify the murderer. Some clues are just lightly changed versions of ideas and concepts we have already seen in earlier stories in this series, so fans will immediately recognize them. A different trick used by the murderer to protect themselves is actually I don't immediately remember as having ever seen in the Kindaichi Shounen main series, but I do know it's one of the possible tricks seen in the brilliant Kindaichi Shounen videogame Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo - Hoshimitou - Kanashimi no Fukushuuki ("The Case Files of Young Kindaichi - Stargazing Isle - The Sad Monsters of Revenge"), where you play as the murderer and have to make sure Hajime won't catch you (yes, it's an inverted mystery game!). On the whole, Stay Home Satsujin Jiken is not a remarkable mystery story, but it's definitely a very fair one and with a little effort and thinking, you should be able to pinpoint the murderer. Who, of course, has A Tragic Backstory. Because what else?

In the conclusion of the first post on Stay Home Satsujin Jiken, I wrote " If my hunch is right, Stay Home Satsujin Jiken may perhaps not be extraordinary if one looks only at its merits as a mystery story, but I think I will forever remember it as a special piece of mystery fiction, a memento of that period in 2020 when the world was different, a detective story where you absolutely need to understand the context in which this was produced. It's an immensely odd murder mystery, created in immensely odd times." I don't have much to add to that actually. If we had seen this story in the manga, I'd have shrugged and just considered an average Kindaichi Shounen short story that doesn't do anything wrong, but doesn't stand out in any way either. It's the story behind how this story was produced that sells it, and in that regard, I think it's definitely worth remembering that in 2020, we had that one weird Kindaichi Shounen story filmed over Zoom with laggy sound and creepy talking profile pictures of Hajime and Miyuki. I guess we'll see more StayHome-related mystery fiction this year: I know there's an anthology coming up in August titled Stay Home no Misshitsu Satsujin ("The Stay Home Locked Room Murders") with Kitayama Takekuni as one of the contributors for example and it'll be interesting to look back in few years to look at all the COVID-19-related mystery stories.

Original Japanese title(s): 『金田一少年の事件簿STAY HOME殺人事件』

Home Sweet Homicide

"There's no place like home."

"The Wizard of Oz"

Countries all handle the pandemic in different ways, and while Japan's state of emergency in certain prefectures did not lead to a true lockdown like seen in Italy, it's still advised to remain home as much as possible. This has also led to new creative projects that came to be due to these circumstances. As an Animal Crossing: New Horizons fan for example, I loved seeing the StayHome performance of the main theme.Earlier this week, I reviewed Mitani Kouki's little project to lift the spirits of the people in these times: I truly enjoyed how Mitani used his weekly newspaper column to revive his hit mystery series Furuhata Ninzaburou.

I mentioned in that same post that Amagi Seimaru (AKA Kibayashi Shin), the writer of the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo ("The Young Kindaichi Case Files") series was also working on something special and the result is a very memorable one as it's a genuine #StayHome-inspired murder mystery, a story that could only have been produced because of the current situation. Story-wise though, it may not be very special. Stay Home Satsujin Jiken (The Stay Home Murder Case) starts with the police knocking at the door of the mansion of Komatsuzaki Akane, a middle-aged woman who made a fortune with her own company. The dog's been barking for days now, which alerted the neighborhood. When the patrol officer opens the door, he first notices a broken wine glass with some spilled wine on the floor, but in the next room, he finds Komatsuzaki, strangled to death. Inspector Kenmochi is put on the murder case, but he catches a nasty fever, and he is forced to self-isolate, even though he already asked Hajime and Miyuki to go to the Komatsuzaki mansion. Kenmochi hopes Hajime can solve the case for him, so Hajime has no choice but to meet with the three suspects: the housekeeper, the victim's niece and the Uper Eats delivery guy. While Komatsuzaki's housekeeper would swing by three times a week, and her sommelier niece also brought wine on the day before her death, it appears they couldn't have committed the murder as they wouldn't be able to get inside the house: while the locks of the Komatsuzaki mansion can be opened with a code number, Komatsuzaki always changed the code whenever someone had come, and the code had indeed been changed again after both of those women had left. It is therefore believed the Uber Eats delivery guy was the final person to have come to the mansion. While he's questioning the suspects however, Hajime seems to realize which of the three suspects is the murderer.

And the attentive reader will of course also have noticed the screenshots in this write-up are a bit weird. That's of course what makes Stay Home Satsujin Jiken so special: it's a live-action murder mystery drama filmed over Zoom, broadcast via Youtube. It might take a second before you really grasp what that is. Creator Amagi Seimaru employed the help of family and friends to create Stay Home Satsujin Jiken: the actors all filmed/recorded their parts in their respective homes via Zoom/other methods, thus respecting the #StayHome advice. Amagi's own older sister Kibayashi Yuuko (a manga writer herself) for example was cast in the role of the victim Komatsuzaki Akane. The individual parts were then edited together, allowing everybody to 'play together' in one scene without actually being physically together. On top of that, the actual voice actors of Hajime and Miyuki from the television series reprises their roles too. The end result is a live-action drama which of course feel very much home-made (the lagging voices!), but it's still a genuine Kindaichi Shounen mystery.

The first part was broadcast today (May 31) via Youtube, while the second half (with the solution) will follow next Saturday (July 6) as paid TwitCasting content. This obviously means this write-up isn't meant to be a full review: I have only seen the first part of this story, and I am not even sure whether I'll purchase the second half. Mystery-wise though, I think I have picked up enough clues to have an idea where this will be going, and if I'm right, the plotting is what you would expect from this series, with a lot of visual clewing. Which is therefore surprisingly well done as everyone had to to film their own parts via Zoom etc. But despite this being early, I felt I really had to write something about this production, because it's just such a unique piece of mystery fiction.

For Stay Home Satsujin Jiken does feel like a real Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo short story, and that's quite impressive given the way this thing was produced, with live-action actors filmed in sub-optimal environments, and odd talking shots of Hajime and Miyuki. If my hunch is right, Stay Home Satsujin Jiken may perhaps not be extraordinary if one looks only at its merits as a mystery story, but I think I will forever remember it as a special piece of mystery fiction, a memento of that period in 2020 when the world was different, a detective story where you absolutely need to understand the context in which this was produced. It's an immensely odd murder mystery, created in immensely odd times. And yet, it is exactly what you'd expect from this series. People will find a way to create something fun, even if they have to find new methods.

Original Japanese title(s): 『金田一少年の事件簿STAY HOME殺人事件』

Light in the Darkness

「追いつきたい 突き止めたい その真相 最高機密」

「永遠の不在証明」（東京事変）

"The truth / I want to catch up to it / I want to figure it out / Top secret"

"The Scarlet Alibi" (Tokyo Incidents)

Ever since the 1997 film Detective Conan: The Time-Bombed Skyscraper, Detective Conan has seen a new theatrical release each year, which always releases mid-April, just in time to draw in viewers during Japan's Golden Week. The release schedule of the Detective Conan comics is also synchronized to the annual film, with a new volume releasing in the same week as the film's premiere. But that only works if everything goes as planned. In 2018, Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer was not accompanied by a new volume in the long-running series, as series creator Aoyama had been having health issues, which disrupted the schedule of the comic serialization, and volume 95 wouldn't be released until October. This year we have the reverse, as Detective Conan 98 (2020) was released in April as scheduled, but the release of the 2020 film Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet has been postponed for the moment due to COVID-19 and at this moment, there's still no new release date set. I always wait for the home video release around October/November, but I guess that the discs will be delayed too this year...

The sad thing is that volume 98 is one of the best examples of how good the timing process of the multimedia franchise that is Conan has been for the last decade or so. The main three stories in this volume all focus in one way or another on the four characters who form the focal point in the upcoming Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet, so it's clearly meant to push the film. I am happy to say that after a very disappointing volume 96, and a rather average volume 97, this volume was far more entertaining. The volume opens with the remaining chapters of The Antique Appraiser Murder Case. Previously, Dr. Agasa had brought an antique bowl he inherited from his uncle to the famous antique appraiser Nishitsu. Meanwhile Nishitsu had also been approached by three different clients, who all brought him the same antique Chinese decorative Phoenix plate. Only one of these three plates is the real thing of course. Nishitsu is fatally wounded by the owner of one of the forgeries, just as Dr. Agasa arrives at the house to get his own bowl back. In his dying moments, Nishitsu tells Agasa which of the plates is real, marking it with a smear of his own blood, but not knowing the murderer was still hiding inside the room, Dr. Agasa ran off to call for help. Nishitsu was then finished off for good by the culprit, who also made sure to replicate the smear on all three plates and to place the real plate in the container with their own name, with the intent of taking the plate back as their own of course.

The puzzle of figuring out which plate was real based on what Dr. Agasa saw isn't that difficult: the thing he overlooked was very elementary, though I like the follow-up better: after they figure out who did it, they still have to figure out who was the actual owner of the genuine plate, and the clewing there was both simple, yet cleverly hidden in the illustrations. The story however also acts as a set-up for future story developments, as Dr. Agasa, Conan and Haibara had extra company in the persons of Sera and Dr. Agasa's neighbor Okita. Sera has had her suspicions of both Conan and Haibara's real identities for some time now, so she's eager to get the truth out either of them, while Okita, in their first real interactions in this series, attempts to temper Sera's efforts. And even Conan seems to come to a surprising conclusion regarding Sera and her "sister from beyond the territory," a plotline which have been running for some time now.

The second story, The Deduction Race Between the High School Student Detectives, sees the return of Momiji, who is still intent on winning Hattori over. She organizes a kind of detective competition between Hattori and... Kudou Shinichi and if Hattori loses, he has to do whatever Momiji wants. Momiji has been approached by an acquaintance looking for help. The housekeeper of that family recently died, and she had sent four different coded messages to her four sons, whom had all been adopted by other families when they were young due to the father's death, which caused severe financial problems. The four brothers had not seen each other since, though the mother and the oldest brother Benzou did keep in touch with the others through e-mail. The mother had been bequested a treasure by her wealthy employer before her death, so it is assumed her coded messages, when put together by all four sons, will reveal where this treasure is. The brothers had been discussing the code over e-mail, but then the mails from oldest brother Benzou stopped. Fearing he might've gotten into some trouble while hunting for the treasure, Momiji wants Hattori to solve the code and figure out the location of the treasure. When they finally arrive at the location indicated however, they find a dead Benzou, surrounded by three men who claim to the other brothers, but as none of them had seen each other since childhood, nobody knows for sure whether these men are really the people they claim to be.

Interesting story! I think this is a good example of what makes a Conan story a typical, but good Conan story, mixing the rom-com drama featuring the regular characters with a story that has a few plot twists and good clewing that makes use of the visual format. It seems unlikely anyone is going to figure out the coded messages themselves, even if it's strangely similar in idea to the code featured in the Scarlet School Trip storyline. Once we get to the murder, we get a slim, but capably plotted who-of-three type of mystery story, where Aoyama shows how even with concepts that aren't that surprising taken on their own, he can still craft an enjoyable mystery story through good clewing. The story is also funny to read because in the background, you also have the plot of having a deduction battle between Hattori and Shinichi, as well as the romantic intriges plotted by Momiji to win Hattori's heart, so all in all a good Detective Conan story. The way the tale ties back into the current overarching plot is also interesting.

In The Shogi Player Serial Murder Case, Conan bumps into Shuukichi, boyfriend of patrol officer Yumi and expert shogi (Japanese chess) player as the current holder of the prestigious title Taikou Meijin. Shuukichi has been heading a small shogi study group for some time now, and Yumi and Conan are invited along to take a look (because Yumi assumed Shuukichi was cheating on her). The group always meet at an apartment room they rent together, but on the way, Shuukichi, Yumi and Conan bump into three of the four members outside: the four members had first come to the apartment together, and then three of them went out to buy snacks and drinks for the study group. The fourth member, Genda, is waiting in the apartment already, preparing some other snacks there. When the party arrives at the apartment however, they find the door unlocked, and a strangled Genda lying on the floor. Besides him lies a shogi table with two of the feet knocked off, tying this murder to the recently murdered shogi player Nishikido, who suddenly disappeared after suspicions of matchfixing rose, and who was later found murdered together with a shogi board with one of the feet removed.

Conan suspects one of the three members of the study group is the murderer, and that they only pretended to go out to buy their designated snacks/drinks, to kill Genda in that time period. The problem is that all three of them brought their food and drinks either warm (bread and coffee) or cold (ice cream), while the kitchen in the apartment didn't have gas nor a microwave, and the refrigerator was empty too when they left. So if their alibi is fake, how did they prepare their food to make it appear they just got it from the store? Strangely enough, Conan doesn't seem to really give any good reason why the murderer couldn't be some third party who planned to kill Genda while the others were out, making his suspicions a bit weird, as they only make sense for us, the reader, as we can safely guess that the murderer is, of course, one-of-the-three. I think that the trick the murderer used to fake their alibi is interesting in the sense that it's obvious from this story, but also many of these which-of-the-three type of stories, that Aoyama, his assistants and editors collect loads of ideas, factoids and trivia that can be used for a murder mystery in one way or another. While I hate mystery stories that rely on very specific pieces of knowledge that only experts know, many of these Conan stories are based on something practical you see and use in everyday life, like kitchen appliances, stationary and writing utensils, even the way cupboards are built. These ideas usually revolve around something very mundane, so I seldom feel cheated. Here too, I think the trick is a clever way to use what's there to create the fake alibi without feeling like it's based on something obscure, but with these stories, I always think, "Man, you guys really just write down everything you come across in the hopes of using it in this series at one time or another. And you actually succeed in that too!"

I like how this story focuses on Shuukichi though. He's been pushed to the main stage these last few volumes, but I never felt his stories were really... memorable? he always seemed like a minor secondary character, as he was always shown through his relation to Yumi (who has of course been part of the series universe for much longer). In this story he solves the murder basically instantly, with Conan trailing far behind him, and the story also does a better job at showing him as a character on his own, . And the action scene at the end... is nuts!

The volume ends with the first chapter of The Truth Of Poison and Medicine, where Ran, Sonoko, Sera and Conan attend the birthday party of their classmate Remi and her older sister Yumi, who is a famous actress now. Murder ensues (of course) at the party, while Sera's still trying to get the information she wants from Conan. I guess this will be build-up to the approaching climax to the current storylines.

Oh, I also read the sixth volume of  Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), which features most of the chapters of The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel. Hajime has already started his explanation of the case by the last chapter of this volume, so I already know part of the solution, but I'd better wait with my review until I've read the full conclusion in volume 7. I do want to note already that this story is an interesting blast to the past. Hajime and his subordinate Marin are sent to the one place Hajime really didn't want to return to: the Foreigners Hotel in Hakodate. When he was seventeen, he solved the infamous murder case involving the Red-Bearded Santa here, but painful losses were also made. Now Hajime's boss has sent him here to supervise the premiere of the fantasy musical "Hakodate Wars", starring several popular male idol stars, two from the former group Skywalker and the three men in Desperado. Hajime runs into familiar faces like Saki (a professional photographer now) and Itsuki (still the freelance writer), but he crosses paths with Superintendent Yukimura for the first time, who has been investigating the death of an ex-member of Desperado. This subordinate of Akechi has gotten into his head that Hajime's probably some kind of serial killer who was active when he was seventeen, and who has now returned to his deadly games as a 37-old man. I guess we have a new rival character! We have some deadly incidents during the premiere and of course the ol' 'everyone has an alibi, so this is an impossible murder' angle, but I'll wait until the next volume to organize my thoughts about this story.

Anyway, Detective Conan 98 proved to be one of the volumes I enjoyed best overall these last two, maybe even three years. The mystery plots aren't that impressive, but Aoyama manages to cover for that with good writing/clewing and by tying these stories to the overall storyline. He has done this in the previous volumes too, but not as consistently as with the stories in this volume, I think. It's clear the chess pieces are moving towards a certain point, not only to provide the foundation for the 2020 film Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet, but also in the comic storyline. Volume 99 is scheduled for a Winter 2020 release, meaning volume 100 will probably follow in 2021: I think it's safe to say we may expect something big then. I might write a post reminiscing about how I first started with this series then... Update on the 37-old Kindaichi Hajime will follow when volume 7 releases in July!

Original Japanese title(s):  Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌　『名探偵コナン』第98巻

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,

And pretty maids all in a row

(English nursery rhyme)

Meanwhile, the upcoming Detective Conan volume is scheduled for a late December release, so it's likely I won't discuss that one until somewhere in January...

At age 17, Kindaichi Hajime was already used to visiting all the corners of Japan, usually because of some part-time job or a school club excursion, and unfortunately for him, these visits to remote islands, abandoned houses in the middle of nowhere or mansions in the mountains usually turned into bloody crime scenes. Travel is still part of his life now he's 37, because nowadays, he's being sent here and there across Japan for his work developing and managing guided tours. While Hajime and the reader, have seen a lot of Japan throughout the course of this series, I believe that The Beautiful Kyoto Flower Arrangement Practioners Murder Case is the first time we have a case set in the ancient capital of Kyoto. This is the third story in Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37") and spans volume 4 and 5. Hajime and his assistant Marin are sent to Kyoto to develop a new package tour. The idea is that the tourists will also attend an introduction course on ikebana practictioners, the traditional art of Japanese flower arrangement, and who better to learn from than the famous Kyougoku family, head of the ancient Akaike-style of ikebana? Like his firm had feared though, Hajime learns that the current head of the family, Ganryuu, is a very difficult person to work with. Ganryuu is actually not an expert on ikebana: his brother was, until he died. Ganryuu's twin nieces Kaoruko and Sakurako are the talents in the family, though Sakurako left the house to become a modern flower artist rather than a traditional ikebana practitioner Hajime and Marin are invited to stay one night at the manor of the Kyougokus, which includes a splendid traditional rock garden, considered to be a National Treasure. During the night however, Hajime discovers the body of Sakurako lying on a rock in the rock garden. It is assumed she committed suicide: she had a reason to do so because a few weeks earlier, revenge porn pictures of her were posted on social media and the gravel of the rock garden only has Sakurako's own footprints and nothing to indicate the presence of a third party. The carefully raked wave patterns in the gravel take up to six hours to do, so if there had been a murderer, they wouldn't have enough time to redo all of the gravel before Hajime found the body. But soon circumstances change, when the following night Kaoruko's murdered too, and she's even decapitated! The search for her missing head continues as the murderer prepares for more deaths, and Hajime has to work fast to find the murderer before his firm calls him back!

Like I mentioned in my preview of this story, the use of the traditional rock garden as a variant on the familiar footprints-in-the-snow trope is pretty neat. In terms of imagery, it might not be very different from the footprints-in-the-snow pattern or other popular variants like footprints-in-the-mud, but of course, they all have different properties, and tricks that work for one variant do not work for others. The rock garden, or karesanzui is of course strongly connected with Kyoto, with the rock garden in Ryoanji being a very popular tourist destination in particular. The patterns raked in the gravel (representing the waves of the sea) take hours to do, because all the lines are done in one continuous stroke and if you step on even one of the lines, you basically have to do everything (as you have to step in the garden to redo them, ruining even more lines). The trick behind how the murder (yes, it was a murder) was done is neat, but not farfetched, so an attentive reader could definitely think of it. I do have to say that while the trick also has a nice visual flair to it, I do really wonder whether the murderer really needed to pull it off in that exact manner, or whether they couldn't have just done it in a more straightforward manner which perhaps wouldn't have looked so good on the page. I guess in a visual medium, it's also necessary to think of the visual impact...

This story basically revolves around two major problems: if Sakurako's death is a murder, then how did the murderer escape the rock garden without leaving footprints in the gravel and with Kaoruko's death, it's the missing head that poses the second problem, as it can be found nowhere in the house (and obviously, it was determined nobody left the manor). The problem of the missing head too is nicely connected to the theme of traditional Japanese culture, though it's kinda weird nobody thought of searching that place, as yes, it's a blind spot, but I can't imagine not even trying that thing when genuinely searching for a head. I like the idea behind it though.

My 'problem' overall with this story however is that while the two tricks are fairly well thought off the way the story has Hajime solve the murders is rather crude. At two distinct points, Hajime is unbelievably lucky to stumble upon vital hints that help him solve the case. Especially the first time, it's hard to swallow he'd end up in that exact spot of all places he could be in Kyoto. This happens late again, when Hajime visits a restaurant and is offered no less than two (!) vital clues by accident. It's also somewhat unfair that we, as the reader, don't even hear the exact things Hajime learns at that restaurant: the moment Hajime asks for details about the thing that bothers him, the story cuts away to a different scene, and we only hear exactly what he was told when Hajime explains the murders to everyone. But it's quite unfair as a mystery story: Hajime is told something that basically explains the whole footprints-in-the-gravel trick to him, but we don't hear that for ourselves. Sure,  we can make an educated guess due to the set-up, but why should we have to deduce the thing for ourselves if Hajime is basically told the answer? While something similar happens to the trick behind the hidden head, at least that still involves Hajime having to put one and one together himself.

The way the murderer is exposed is also rather... uninspired. We have seen this kind of visual clue far too often with this series now, where some minor visual detail like a sock being pulled up higher in one panel and lower in a different panel shows that person was the murderer. I do like visual clues in general, as it make use of the visual medium and this series has made pretty good use of it in various stories, but sometimes, they feel a bit too nitpicky, where the story requires you to pick the differences between two panels, but without saying which one, so you have to compare thousands of panels with those same thousands of panels. I have the feeling I have seen this kind of clue far too often with Kindaichi the last few years, and often, this makes the whole clue feel like some afterthought, like they suddenly remembered they had to have a clue that points to the murderer too so they quickly changed two panels.

Volume 5 ended with the first chapter of the next story by the way, and it's another return to a familiar place from the classic series! The first story in this series on a 37-old Hajime started with his return to that accursed island Utashima, but this time, he'll be returning to a hotel that err, should've caused some trauma with him, as it was the place where he had to battle the Red-Bearded Santa Claus. Especially readers of the manga will know why this place should hold a special place in our memories, though the event was changed in both the anime and live-action adaptation. Am interested to see how this case will develop though, as we're also introduced to a new rival police detective for Hajime in the set-up. Speaking of the classic stories, I'm still reading the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Gaiden - Hannintachi no Jikenbo ("The Young Kindaichi Case Files Side Story: The Case Files of the Culprits") spin-off parody series, which retells the old stories from the POV of the murderer as a gag manga. The series started about two years ago, but probably won't continue for long as it's basically done all of the old stories (until the series hiatus in 2000), but I'm still having fun with them. I don't discuss them here because they're not mystery comics on their own (and they are full of spoilers for each of the stories), but if you're a fan of this series, you really should read them as they're hilarious.

Anyway, Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo's The Beautiful Kyoto Flower Arrangement Practioners Murder Case (volumes 4 & 5) is a pretty classic case in terms of structure, with an impossible crime, decapitations and even the overused 'super minor detail clue' often see in this series. I quite like the basic tricks behind the various murders this time, but the overall story seems rather... uninspired, with luck and coincidence helping Hajime a lot this time and some of the story developments/characters too seem just like they 'were there' rather than truly thought out. It's not a bad story per se, but after the more original angle the previous story took, I have to admit this story felt a bit too by-the-numbers. I'm looking forward to the next story though. Volume 6 is scheduled for a February release, but it's very unlikely the new story will wrap up in that volume, so it is likely I will only review the next case when volume 7 is released (probably somewhere in the summer of 2020).

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一37歳の事件簿』第4&5巻

The Riddle in the Rare Book

「危険思想とは常識を実行に移そうとする思想である」

『侏儒の言葉』

"The ideology of putting common sense into practice, is a dangerous ideology."

"Words of a Dwarf"

And it's only after writing this whole review I realized it was also six years ago when I first read this book, just like what happened to Hajime...

It's the summer holiday, and Hajime has to clean up the house. He comes across a cup wrapped in an old newspaper and his attention is drawn to one of the small news articles in the corner of the page. It is dated six years ago, and talks about a man who died of starvation in Mt. Asama. When he learns the name of the deceased is "Dejima", his memories throw him back six years ago, back when he was still in elementary school: Hajime had spent his summer holiday six years ago near Mt. Asama, where he had become friends with four children who lived in the Heretic House of Professor Ema. The expert on bacteria was not only the biological father of Junya, but he had also adopted three orphans. All four of them were experts in their own fields despite being as young as Hajime: Junya was a prodigy artist, Kentarou was a brilliant programmer, Ruriko a gifted violinist and Hiro an award-winning writer. Hajime recalled how one night, they had played a game and visited the creepy ruins of a mansion in the mountains. They all fled when they heard spooky moaning coming from a locked cellar room, and on their way out, Hajime tumbled across a backpack. But now six years later, he still vividly remembers the Akutagawa Ryuunosuke book Jashuumon (Heretics) inside the backpack, as well as the name "DEJIMA" in the backpack, which makes him realize that perhaps the 'moaning' he heard back then didn't come from a ghost, but from a man being held there against his will. Wanting to know the truth behind this, Hajime takes the old newspaper article with him go back to Mt. Asama, back to his friends to learn more about the death of Dejima. But after Hajime's arrival at the Heretic House where he's reunited with his old friends, a threatening note is delivered, telling him to scram, signed by "The Heretic". When Hajime doesn't, one of his friends is murdered and that's of course the moment you know Hajime will do everything to catch the murderer in Amagi Seimaru's novel Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Jashuukan Satsujin Jiken ("The Young Kindaichi Case Files: The Heretic House Murder Case" 2001).

During the original run of the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo manga between 1994-2000, writer Amagi Seimaru also wrote novels for the series, accompanied by art by Satou Fumiya. These were not novelizations of the comic stories, but original stories that were proper part of the series mythos. The second case that occurs in the Opera House is from the novels for example, and several semi regular characters like the young Chinese acrobat Xiaolong originate from the novel series. Eight novels were released during the original run, though recently, two new children's novels were also released (reviews here and here). Seven of the original novels were adapted for the anime TV series and the animated theatrical releases, while three of them also acted as the source material for episodes in the various drama series. 2001's Jashuukan Satsujin Jiken however is an outlier: it was never adapted for the anime, nor for the drama series, making it only available as a novel. Which is pretty rare for this series, I mean, even the audio dramas on cassette tapes were adapted for the anime!

By the way, I originally read this novel in 2013, when the re-release was published (the original release was kinda hard to find by then), but I somehow never wrote a review of it. Weird actually, because I usually do Kindaichi Shounen reviews whenever I read a story for the first time.

Anyway, the story set-up of Hajime revisiting old friends might sound familiar. Indeed, in my review of the live-action adaptation of The Yukikage Village Murder Case, I also referred to this novel, as the two stories do share the same minimalistic set-up and the focus on the human drama, with Hajime confronting old friends who have all grown up in the last six years. One difference however is that Jashuukan Satsujin Jiken is even more minimalistic in set-up. We don't even have an impossible situation in this story, and that's kinda a cornerstone of the series! The Yukikage Village Murder Case had a no-footprints-in-the-snow problem, but this story has a very trick pulled by the murderer concerning their alibi, but it's really, really meagre compared to what you're used to in this series.

Instead, the story revolves around on the why: why was Dejima killed, why was Hajime's friend killed and how is Hajime able to deduce that? I think the main clue that points in the direction of the murderer might be a bit crude (and Hajime has a really lucky break coming across that other important article), but I do like how the story is built around misdirection: there are several instances in this story where utterances by multiple characters can be interpreted in multiple manners, which leads to the creation of the mystery. These are not lies or intentionally cryptic statements, but sometimes, some conversations can be interpreted in multiple ways, unbeknownst to both the speaker and listener. This story builds on that idea by having a few characters misunderstanding other people, or assuming certain things only from their point of view, which results in a mystery plot that is at the core not really complex, but where the confusion between some characters create a nice cloud of misdirection. It's a type of misdirection that is sometimes utilized in this series, but seldom as the main concept, so it does make Jashuukan Satsujin Jiken feel very different from what you'd expect of the series.

I guess that I didn't review Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Jashuukan Satsujin Jiken the first time I read it, because it's so... minimalistic compared to the other novels. It's not bad per se, but it's not exactly what I'd expect from a Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo novel. The novel is more character-focused than other stories in the series, which works well with the 'misdirection built around interpretation' theme of this story, compared to the more grand impossible situations that we usually see. So it has an interesting angle in that regard. And for fans of the series: one character introduced in Jashuukan Satsujin Jiken also returns in Kuromajutsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Black Magic Murder Case") from the manga (also adapted as an OVA). I was probably not the only one who had no idea who that person was when they first read that manga story, only to learn he came from the novels. Anyway, Jashuukan Satsujin Jiken is not the best of the novels out there, but fans should try it if they have the opportunity.

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸、さとうふみや（絵）『金田一少年の事件簿　邪宗館殺人事件』