A Treacherous Tide

夏を待つセイルのように

君のことをずーっと

ずっとずっと思っているよ

「夏を待つセイルのように」(Zard)

Like a sail waiting for summer

I'm always, always

always thinking of you

"Like a Sail Waiting For Summer" (Zard)

Think I've been on a sailing boat only once in my life.

Disclosure: I translated Osaka Keikichi's The Ginza Ghost.

Oosaka Keikichi was a talented master of the short puzzle mystery story, active in the thirties and forties of the previous century, but the second World War stopped his career abruptly: first state censorship didn't allow him to write the kind of detective stories he did earlier, and eventually, the poor man died on the battlefield. He became a forgotten author after the war, but was eventually rediscovered. In the past, publisher Tokyo Sogensha released two volumes that focused on Oosaka's output as a puzzle plot mystery writer: most of the stories in Locked Room International's English-language release The Ginza Ghost can also be found in these volumes. But in August 2020, this same publisher released a third collection of Oosaka's stories, but with a completely different angle. Shi no Kaisousen ("The Yacht of Death" 2020) collects more than a dozen stories originally published between 1934-1942, as well as some short essays/articles by Oosaka. The stories in this volume show a completely different side to Oosaka, focusing on his comedic (mostly non-imposssible) mystery stories, as well as stories with a stronger thriller or horror atmosphere.

I won't be discussing all the stories here as there are simply too many and some of them are really, really short stories. Nor will I be doing the (similarly short) essays/articles, though I have to say it's interesting to see the questionnaires included: these are the answers Oosaka gave to questionnaires in the magazines he was published in, answering questions like what books got him interested in writing and things like that. I'll just be picking out a few of the key stories in this volume. Also note that this volume includes the illustrations that accompanied this stories when they were first published in magazines: I like these typical magazine style sketches!

Shi no Kaisousen ("The Yacht of Death") is the tale most similar to the stories available in English and even includes a familiar face in Azumaya Saburou, maritime researcher and amateur sleuth. The narrator is a doctor who has been called to the manor of Captain Fukaya, a retired captain who built a house with the appearance of a ship on a cliff overlooking a bay. He lived in the house with his wife and his servants, but earlier this morning, the poor man died. He had the habit of going out sailing in the bay with his yacht, but this morning, the ship was found drifting with the captain's body floating in the water, tied to the yacht with a rope. Azumaya, who accompanied his friend to the house, soon finds signs that point to foul play and soon starts his investigation into finding out who killed the captain. This story feels similar to The Monster in the Lighthouse (incl. in The Ginza Ghost), not only because it features Azumaya, but also due to the seaside setting and Azumaya's focus on physical clues and a lot of measuring. Don't expect to be able to solve this one yourself, but for those who like those early Sherlock Holmes stories where you see Holmes come up with fancy deduction chains based on physical clues and measuring things, this is definitely a story in the same spirit. There are other Oosaka Keikichi short story collections from other publishers that have also used Shi no Kaisousen as the title story by the way,  so it's a really popular story.

It's important to note that as you read this book, you can really sense how the environment in Japan was changing as the war approached. It was a time in which it was made difficult for authors to write mystery stories about murder: with nationalistic sentiments growing in the build-up to the war, it was not deemed right to write stories about Japanese persons killing each other. Hyouga Baasan ("The Glacier Granny") isn't really a mystery story, but closer to a tale of the bizarre, about an elderly woman living near a glacier in Alaska. There's a distinct anti-American tone to the story and even ends with praise that Japan is going to invade the Aleutian Islands soon to save Alaska from the Americans. Suizokukan Ihen ("The Incident at the Aquarium") is a crime story with ero-guro-nonsense features, but stands especially out because there are quite a few sentences that have been censored, so those (segments of) sentences are just blanked out. There have been no uncensored versions of these stories, so they remained censored even in modern publications.

The bulk of the volume is made up with short, humorous mystery stories, similar to The Hungry Letter-Box (incl. in The Ginza Ghost). I personally loved The Hungry Letter-Box, and there are a few here that offer a similar fun read. Kyuukon Koukoku ("Matrimonial Advertisement") is about the middle-aged Ishimaki Kintarou, owner of an eraser company, had never much interest in marriage when he was young, but now regrets that. Noticing that nowadays, many people also use the newspaper to look for a marriage partner, he decides to answer an advertisement which catches his attention due to the style in which it was written. He receives an answer, and invitation to visit the woman, a certain Mizuta Shizuko who teaches at a girls academy. When he arrives there though, the woman says she never placed such an advertisement in the newspaper. The explanation to this has its roots in a certain very well-known short mystery story, but it's adapted well to a non-criminal setting. I had already read Kousui Shinshi ("The Perfume Gentleman") in the past and this story was interestingly written for a girls magazine. The heroine of the story is the teenage girl Kurumi, who is going to visit her aunt and cousin Nobuko by train, as Nobuko will be marrying and leaving her home. In the train, Kurumi finds herself seated with a rather suspicious man who is probably hiding something, but what can Kurumi do about it? Very short, but cute piece for the younger readers.

Hitogui Furo ("The Man-Eating Bath") is very similar to The Hungry Letter-Box, featuring a barber in love who happens to encounter an odd happening. Our hapless hero Kin can only think of the daughter of the local public bathhouse, but something odd has happened there: one day, when the bath was about to close, they found an unclaimed set of clothes in the women's dressing rooms. Some guests say they remember they saw a woman they never saw before in this public bathhouse, to whom those clothes probably belong, but where did that woman go, as she couldn't have gone far without any clothes on! Given that every other guest obviously did get out properly dressed, people start to fear the woman had been eaten by the bath itself, but Kin can't quite believe it, especially as it would endanger the livelihood of the woman he loves. Not a difficult story, but funny enough to read. Kuuchuu no Sanposha ("Stroller in the Sky") is very different in tone and features the detective Yokokawa Teisuke, who is described as a nationalistic anti-espionage detective. Yes, it has to be mentioned he is nationalistic. When an ad balloon to promote government bonds is untied from the rooftop of a department store once again by a prankster, making it drift all across the city, most people didn't think too much of it, but for some reason, Yokokawa becomes very interested in the incident, but why would this attract the detective's attention? I love it when Oosaka uses these signs of modernity in his stories (ad balloons hanging from the department store) and the ad balloon makes for a nice focal point for this story that is clearly set in a nationalistic spy/anti-foreign environment.

San no Ji Ryokoukai ("The "3" Travel Organization") is one of the best stories in this volume and is about a Red Cap porter at Tokyo Station who notices how every day, a different woman gets out of the third compartment of the train which arrives at three, and that these women are always awaited by the same man who carries their suitcase, which has a special "3" sticker on them. He strikes up a conversation with the man, who explains that he's acting as a hired help for the "3" Travel Organization, a special group which finances trips to Tokyo for single women from more rural places. The porter and the man only have short time to chat each day and it's only little by little that the porter learns the truth behind this odd group and the fixation on the number "3". The truth behind this grou that is revealed in the end is really clever, and there's some good misdirection going here. Shoufuda Soudou ("Price Tag Commotion") is set at the furniture department of a department store, which has been the victim of a bad prank for some time now: someone has been switching price tags of some very expensive pieces of furniture with a much cheaper one, and several times now, saleslady #304 and her manager had to apologize deeply to a customer as they had to explain that the prize tag of the closet they wanted to buy was actually wrong and that it was least double the price. But why would someone do this? The solution is one you may recognize from a different famous Japanese short mystery story, but this story can definitely stand on its own, with a very original take on the basic concept and a comedic tone that really manages to draw you in.

As a collection, Shi no Kaisousen is not one I would recommend as an entry point to Oosaka's writings: it's especially compiled to show a contrast with earlier collections. The title story is the only one that fits the model of the pure puzzle plot stories that are usually mentioned as Oosaka's masterpieces. The other stories offer far lighter material, though there are still a few in this volume that are genuinely worth a read as comedic mystery stories with a puzzle plot core. The volume also offers variety by also including thriller stories and a period piece and is an interesting read in a larger context because you can definitely feel the influence of building nationalistic sentiments as the war approaches, but this volume is best read after experiencing Oosaka's more focused detective stories.

Original Japanese title(s): 大阪圭吉『死の快走船』:「死の快走船」/ なこうど名探偵」 /「塑像」/「人喰い風呂」/「水族館異変」/「求婚広告」/「三の字旅行会」/「愛情盗難」/「正札騒動」/「告知板の女」/「香水紳士」/「空中の散歩者」/「氷河婆さん」/「夏芝居四谷怪談」/「ちくてん奇談」

番外編： The Ginza Ghost Released

I think I did the same back with the release of The Decagon House Murders, but I should really learn not to announce everything in advance in the announcement of the announcement. It's nowadays common practice to announce when you're going to make a major announcement, or at least it's like that in the videogame industry, but I guess the trick is not *not* give away everything during the pre-announcement.

So to be completely honest, I have little to add to my previous post on The Ginza Ghost, but for the fact that is actually released now, in both digital and good old paper form, and available through the usual channels like Amazon (questions about procuring the book are best directed to LRI by the way). This short story collection, translated by me and published by Locked Room International, collects ten fantastic impossible crimes, as well as two "bonus" stories from the hand of the "forgotten" writer Keikichi OOSAKA. The man was a talented master of the short puzzle mystery story active in the thirties and forties of the previous century, but the sociopolitical background leading up to World War II never gave him a chance to make a name. It was long after his demise in the war that he was rediscovered, and when fellow authors and readers alike started to be amazed by his imaginative and atmospheric tales of mystery. The stories he tells are set in a Japan that is still in transition, that is combining the traditional with the modern. From a mysterious death at a modern department store and a disappearing car from a leisure highway to a horrifying serial murder deep down inside a mine seemingly committed by a ghost: OOSAKA manages to create highly original detective stories by mixing his creative mind with surprisingly real, down-to-earth settings that result in something magic. For people familiar with EDOGAWA Rampo, a contemporary of OOSAKA, you might be surprised at how different this collection is, and how the stories prove to be a genuine classic puzzlers.

Publishers Weekly has a review here, while fellow blogger (and proof-reader) JJ was kind enough to write a review over at The Invisible Event too.

Anyway, I think that if you enjoyed The Decagon House Murders and/or The Moai Island Puzzle, you'll definitely love this book too. The stories are much older, yes, but they form important points on a line that goes from honkaku (orthodox) puzzle plot mysteries directly to the modern shin honkaku (new orthodox) mysteries.

And that's it for today's service announcement. I hope you'll enjoy The Ginza Ghost!

番外編： The Ginza Ghost

Longtime readers of the blog know the drill: no introducing quotes means either an editorial piece, or a service announcement. Today we have a service announcement long overdue (mostly because I kinda forgot about writing the piece. Most of the time this blog runs 'automatically', as I have enough reviews ready and waiting to be posted until almost next year, so I'm not always in 'writing mode').

Two years ago, I was proud to announce that Locked Room International was going to publish Yukito AYATSUJI's The Decagon House Murders, and that yours truly was responsible for the translation of that devious homage to Christie's And Then There Were None. Around the same time last year, I had the honor to announce that LRI's new Japanese project would be Alice ARISUGAWA's The Moai Island Puzzle, a novel I personally see as one of the greatest Japanese experiments in deduction, surpassing Ellery Queen at his own game. Both novels were also critically well received, which to be completely honest, was something I was even happier about as a fan, rather than as the translator!  And as we are once again in that same time of the year, you can probably guess what the announcement of today is about.

So I'm thrilled to announce that Locked Room International will be releasing Keikichi OOSAKA's the short story collection The Ginza Ghost very soon, the translation once again done by me! OOSAKA was a writer specialized in the short story form who was active in the period before World War II, and thus a contemporary of Edogawa Rampo. While he excelled at writing brilliantly atmospheric puzzle plot mysteries firmly set in unique backgrounds in the new, changing modern society of Japan of the thirties, he never did gain much fame back in those days. The war changed everything, as state censorship and being drafted into the army marked a cruel end to his career and his life. He became a forgotten author of the pre-war period, until he was rediscovered many years later, with influential writers like Tetsuya AYUKAWA praising as OOSAKA as one of the great losses of Japanese mystery fiction. His work has since then gathered much praise, and The Ginza Ghost contains a special selection comprised of twelve of his best tales: ten impossible crimes stories, plus two extra (non-impossible) stories that are commonly considered to rank among the best he had ever written. Mystery author Taku ASHIBE was so kind to write an informative introduction to the book.

And this is actually the first time where I don't have a handy link to an old review ready! Partly because this is an all-original edited collection. So while I can't link you to "proof" that shows how I was already impressed by his work before I ever got to work on it this time (save for this very old one about two of his stories, the first of them being included in the collection), I hope you believe me when I say that OOSAKA's work is really great. Not only did he come up with very solid mystery plots (written in a time when Japanese mystery fiction was more about horror and eroticsm than actually detecting), the atmosphere in these stories is unique, with a sense of pathos as we are introduced to all kinds of baffling cases set around workplaces and local industries that give you a glimpse into a Japan that was quickly modernizing and Westernizing in the thirties. Personal favorites this time are The Hungry Letter-Box and The Mourning Locomotive by the way.

Publishers Weekly already has a review available here.

Anyway, I hope you'll find The Ginza Ghost an entertaining read. I at least had a blast working on them. OOSAKA may have been a forgotten author for a long time in his own country, but I hope new readers will find out why everybody was so enthusiastic about him when his work was rediscovered. And if you haven't read The Decagon House Murders or The Moai Island Puzzle yet, why not try them out too?

番外編： The Moai Island Puzzle + The Cold Night's Clearing

No quotes in the introduction of this post? That means service announcements!

Longtime readers of the blog know that I'm a big fan of ARISUGAWA Alice's Student Alices series. I've reviewed all of the books of the series in the past, and I consider the adventures of the student Alice and his merry comrades of the Eito University Mystery Club as one of the most entertaining, and intellectually most challenging mystery series. The books mix young-adult themes with Ellery Queen-like tricky plots, complete with a Challenge to the Reader. In particular, I've praised 1989's Kotou Puzzle  ("The Island Puzzle") on more than one occassion as the book where Arisugawa in fact outdoes Queen at his own game. It has everything: a hunt for a buried treasure on an island with dozens of moai statues, a locked room murder, a Challenge to the Reader, and an incredible finale where the detective, Mr. Egami, points out who the murderer is based on a very satisfying chain of deductions. 

So I'm more than thrilled to announce that after the critical succes of The Decagon House Murders, Locked Room International will be bringing you another Japanese mystery classic: ARISUGAWA Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle is scheduled to be released coming June. And once again, I had the honor of translating the book. The title is slightly different from the original title, but hey, now it's more Ellery Queen-like! Like with The Decagon House Murders, I have to admit I feel a lot easier about praising the book on the blog now (as the translator), knowing that I had already raved about the book as a crazy fanboy in the past already! So not as the translator, but simply as someone who realllllly enjoyed the book, I say: definitely check it out, as it's simply one of my favorite Japanese mystery novels.

Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, which I hope is the first of more positive reviews to follow. My own review of the Japanese original can be found at this link (written many years before I knew I would translate the book), and my we-write-English-reviews-of-Japanese-mystery-novels collegues over at My Japanese bookshelf and On the Threshold of Chaos also have reviews.

Also, in other translation news: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine May 2016 All Nations Issue (on sale now) features my translation of OOSAKA Keikichi's 1936 short story The Cold Night's Clearing (original title: Kan no Yobare). OOSAKA was a contemporary of writers like Rampo and KOUGA Saburou, specializing in impossible crimes. And I'm almost afraid to say it, but Rampo had always wanted to be published in EQMM, but because of me, both OOSAKA and KOUGA succeeded in that before him... Sorry. Anyway, The Cold Night's Clearing is based on a translation I had posted on my blog earlier, with some additional revising/editing. It's an impossible crime story about a murdering Santa Claus who disappears into the sky....or something like that. Now I think about it, it's not really a story for a May issue of any magazine, though I guess it fits in the "All Nations" theme. Anyway, it's a great story no mater the weather outside. So take a look in the issue if you're interested.

And that's it for the service announcements today

『今、甦る死』

「えーテレビを見ながら食事をする人、いらっしゃいますよね。お風呂の中で雑誌を読む方、いらっしゃいますよね。ただ、私からのお願いです。人を殺すときくらいはどうか、殺人に集中してください」
『古畑任三郎：　忙しすぎる殺人者』

"There are people who eat while watching television. There are people who read a magazine while in bath. But I beg of you. When you kill somebody, please focus on the murder"
"Furuhata Ninzaburou: The Too Busy Murderer"

Hmm, maybe thinking I would be able to finish several games, while writing my thesis and other things, was somewhat stupid on my part. So I'll stop with the game reviews now and pick them up again after most deadlines have passed. In April.

I consider myself sort of a bibliophile. I love the touch and smell of older books, I love seeing books on shelves (or in my case, in little piles on the floor and on bookshelves and on other books and...) and I just enjoy browsing through little chaotic bookshops. So no, you won't see me buying an e-book reader any time soon.

But having said that, I read some stuff on my mobile phone in Japan occasionally. No, no cell phone novels. Just books and manga I downloaded, because it was free and I was bored and I was still trying out my new phone then and stuff. Because everyone would do that. In the end though, I mostly used my phone for normal things like calling people, mail, getting weather forecasts and finding out when that bus was coming, so I think I finished very few of the books I downloaded. And recently I decided I would read them now. So I took my Japanese cellphone from the drawer, switched it on, looking at that screen full of memories.

One of the authors I had on my phone was Oosaka Keikichi. Of whom I knew nothing. Nothing at all. I think Oosaka may be the only Japanese mystery writer of whom I knew nothing when I procured his works (not counting anthologies). Anyway, his writing-style quickly told me he was a pre-WWII writer, because few people would use the kanji he uses in modern writings (except to look smart/be irritating) and Wikipedia tells me he was a detective writer who lived from 1912-1945 and that he debuted in 1932 with Depaato no Koukeiri ("The Hangman of the Department Store"). Starting out as a somewhat amateuristic, stiff writer, he wrote better stories as the years went by, until state censoring prohibited detective stories and Oosaka turned to spy and humor stories. Also sprach Wikipedia.

And lo and behold, I actually had Depaato no Koukeiri on my cellphone. And it's an enjoyable story too! The narrator (a newsreporter) and Aoyama Kyousuke head to a department store to cover the news of a man who had fallen from the roof. What first seems like a suicide, is quickly proven to be something else, when they find strange marks on the victim's body, as well as a necklace which had been stolen a day earlier from the department store's jewelry section. Aoyama doesn't take long to solve the case though.

And I like the case. Around the beginning of the story, Aoyama deduces the nature of the crime by looking at the marks on the body and it is a bit Holmes, a bit Queen. A somewhat fantastic deduction, but certainly grounded in reality upon which Aoyama bases his next decision. While the trick is not very difficult, I gather anyone would see through the trick as it is not particularly well hidden, it is a well-structured, fairly hinted story and I can see why Oosaka went on writing detective stories.

The one point I didn't really get though, is why there was a tiger (in a cage) on the top of the department store. I know the department stores in general are meant to attract people, and are supposed to be grand and all that, even more so in the Taishou/Shouwa period, but a tiger? 

Kankanmushi Satsujin Jiken ("Clanking Bug Murder Case"), released the same year, is very similar to the previous work. Once again, the narrator and Aoyama head out to cover a murder scene. The dead body of a dockworker (called "clanking bugs" in slang) who had been missing for 5 days was found at sea. The other personm who had disappeared with him hasn't turned up yet. Like at the department store, Aoyama manages to deduce a lot from the wounds on the dead body, ultimately leading to the culprit. However, while the structure is similar, I didn't enjoy it as much as Depaato no Koukeiri. The solution here is, in an oblique way, quite similar to the solution in Depaato no Koukeiri (people who have read the stories might say otherwise though. It's somewhat hard to explain and kinda abstract). The drydock setting was OK and actually more fleshed out in the story than the department store, but it's just not as alluring as a department store. Which is cool and glamorous and stuff.

Still, that digital-reading, thing? Not really for me. Sound novels? I actually love them. But just plain texts? Actually, halfway through, my cellphone tried to connect to a network, which is kinda impossible, so I told him to stop it. He asked me another time. I said no. And now it seems my phone doesn't want to start applications (like the e-book reader) anymore.  I read the last part online, as it seems like the copyright on most of Oosaka's works has expired. And I could just read them all online, but I just... ugh...no. No.

Original Japanese title(s): 大阪圭吉、「デパートの絞刑吏」/「カンカン虫殺人事件」