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...
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.
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?
