To be honest, I had forgotten I hadn't written a review of this book yet because I hadn't logged it on my finished reads list, as it was a self-published book and I assumed it wasn't on the site I use: turns it did have a proper entry.
The Maria & Ren series is a mystery series set in a slightly alternate universie, with minor science-fiction elements, with for example the invention of the zeppelin-like airship Jellyfish in the seventies leading to different modes of transportation available. With more of Ichikawa's books being at least somewhat sci-fi-adjecent, it's surprising to learn Quartette Dance is actually a school comedy mystery, with the first book featuring three short stories. The series is set in 1999 and revolves around four girls attending Kougasaki High School who are collectively known as 4S: Sakano Maki, Sugihara Midori, Senoo Asako, Shinguuji Rumika are all admired for different reasons, from Rumika's looks and her acting skills to Asako's frank personality and talent at sports. While the four are referred to as 4S by their fellow classmates, it doesn't mean they're actually friends though: while science nerd Maki can get along fine with Midori and Asako, Rumika and her are just too different from each other to become friends.
And yes, the 4S are totally just the F4 from Hana Yori Dango.
In the opening story, Quartette Danse, Takayuki (Maki's childhood friend and general "trying to be popular with everyone, especially the girls"-type of boy) is trying to rope the 4S into participating in the school festival's miss pageant: he already managed to talk pushover Midori into joining, and fellow club member Asako and the overly confident Rumiko were also easy to persuade, but Maki absolutely refuses. Takayuki is going from table to table as he talks to all the girls, each time talking a little bite or drink from the lunch boxes of all four girls... and then he suddenly keels over. An ambulance is called, and Takayuki is carried off. Judging by the way Takayuki collapsed, Maki is convinced the lunch boxes of one of the 4S (besides herself of course) was poisoned, but that also seems strange: how could anyone guess Takayuki would steal some of their food that day, and they all consumed more of their own lunch boxes, meaning even their food was poisoned, it had to be the specific bit Takayuki took, which seems unlikely too.
The opening story is mostly a set-up to introduce the character dynamics: we learn the 4S are not a close group of friends and Maki and Rumika in particular don't like each other. Each of them might have reason to poison Takayuki via their lunch boxes, but this method seems strangely roundabout, and rather dangerous as the girls consumed their own food too. The solution is... rather silly, and it works for a school comedy story, but it is not really solvable based on the actual hints: you can easily guess that is what happened because of the way the story is written and how other options are ruled out, but the hint is so embedded in... having knowledge of 1999's Japan, it's impossible for a reader now, especially if they come from another country, to actually use the hints to arrive at the "model thinking process" behind how it was done. As a funny mystery-adjecent story though, it works.
Locked Room Lingerie, which has the English subtitle "When She Changes in a School Bathing Suit" is set after the school festival: the 4S participated in the miss pageant and had to change clothes for that. Midori forgot to bring her underwear back home later that day and figured she would just bring them back the next day, but the next morning a creepy note with cut-out words from a newspaper shocks the school: an announcement that Midori's underwear will be stolen, signed by Phantom Thief Lily. Who would be so heinous as to steal the underwear of a high school student, and... why would you announce it? This story is quite short, but it works better as an actual mystery story, with a better twist and better hinting too. Again, it's not super complex, especially as the short length makes it clear any new element introduced will connect to the solution, but it's a surprisingly cute story that does make good use of its school setting with its specific character dynamics. By now we also realize Maki, the narrator character, isn't really a main detective character. While the science-focused girl is definitely the most interested in mysteries and the driving force in each story to actually investigating each "case", her single-mindedness does backfire a bit, and other 4S members often offer other viewpoints that actually help crack the case.
Distorting Bakery, which has the English subtitle "Threat of Cursed Examination" is about an upcoming test and the rumors that spook the nearby bakery Blau Rose: the story goes that whoever eats that bakery's Blau bread around the exam period is doomed to retake their exam. Maki of course doesn't believe the story, so imagine the shock when she learns she's failed her exam, which she believed to have aced. However, she starts to suspect something's fishy about her answer sheet, but who could've messed with her answer sheet during an exam? I think I liked this story the least, as I think the previous two stories worked well exactly because they had simple answers to "mundane" problems set at a school: you could explain in one short sentence what was going on, and that made them appealing. Here the solution is a bit more convoluted (instead of a "this is X because of Y" solution, it's more a "First they did X, and then Y, and then Z, because of A), and the motive behind the events that led to Maki's bad test score also work in principle, but the way it is worked out in this story doesn't convince completely for me: while this is the longest story in this short book, I do think it could've worked better in a longer story, with more "instances" of it happening to give the whole idea a better set-up.
As I mentioned, my experience with Ichikawa's work mostly stems from the Maria & Ren series, and so Quartette Dance feels nothing at all like what I'd expect from Ichikawa: it's a school comedy with stories that are very short and mostly feature one-concept-solutions. Which isn't a bad thing per se: I think that Ichikawa does succeed in what he's trying to do with these stories, and considering these stories were written over two decades ago, and an over a decade before he even got professionally published (so with an editor going over his work and all), it's pretty amusing. I might pick up more of this series if I ever attend another event where he's selling them just to see how the series develop and see how it's reflected in his professionally-publushed work.
