The Creeping Creatures

    月光も　凍てつく森で   

   樹液すする　私は虫の女

「蛹化(むし)の女」（戸川純）

In a forest where even moonlight freezes

I drink sap from the trees / I am an insect woman

The Insect Woman (Togawa Jun)

Before I forget it again: here's the semi-regular "Hey, there's a Honkaku Discord server so join it!" message!  

Mount Otome lies just outside of Shimoyama City and is nearly 2000 meters high. 120 years ago, a man called Kichibei went up the mountain to look for mushrooms, but after making it to one of the higher points of the mountain, he fell off a cliff, but he miraculously survived: he happened to land on a protruding part of the steep rock wall, halfway down the 100 meter fall down to the ground. This ledge was small however, and nothing was growing on it. With no tools available, Kichibei could not climb back up, nor down the steep rock wall. Opposite the ledge was a cliff, and from that point eventually other villagers saw Kichibei was stuck on the ledge on the opposite rock wall, but nobody knew the exact way to the cliff above Kichibei, and there was too much of a distance between the cliff and the ledge to get food and water to Kichibei. Eventually, Kichibei had to survive by eating cicadas landing on the ledge, which didn't help his state of mind: Kichibei eventually jumped off the ledge, thinking he had become a cicada himself.

120 years later, and a duo of illegal loggers on Mount Otome are attacked (fatally!) by a Cicada-Man. Hearing rumors of the Cicada-Man roaming Mount Otome, Furuba, a teacher at Shimoyama Middle School, decides to ask the help of girl detective Sharaku Homura and her Watson Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke in a matter that has weighed on his mind for decades. Furuba loves mountain hiking, and forty years ago, he climbed Mount Otome. On the way to the mountain lodge, a little building where hikers can rest and buy food, one has to pass by the cliff opposite "Kichibei's Ledge" as it was called nowadays. When Furuba made it to that point however, he noticed a man lying on the ledge and from the way it looked, the man was very much dead. But Furuba also noticed other particular points: two trails of footsteps could be seen in the snow on the cliff above the ledge, both trails leading to the very edge of the cliff. One was obviously of the victim, but the other set of footsteps seemed to suggest someone came up from behind, and pushed the victim down! But both trails only lead to the edge, and none go back into the woods, so where did the attacker go? Furuba also notices a few footsteps in the snow surrounding the victim on the ledge, which he first assumes belongs to the victim, but upon second thought, he realizes the footsteps are in rather odd places and pointing the wrong way. The footsteps thus appear to belong to the attacker, but if so... where did the attacker go, for they are not seen on the ledge? Furuba would eventually get help from the people at the mountain lodge, but he never figured out the mystery behind the footsteps, and unfortunately, by the time the police came, the snow was already gone, washed away by rain. 

Furuba decides to confide this story to Homura forty years later, because the rumors of the Cicada-Man gives him a frightful thought: a Cicada-Man would have been able to simply fly away from the ledge after attacking the victim! Furuba brings Homura and Karate Kid along on another trip to see the ledge for themselves and it so happens the other people who were with Furuba when they found the body forty years ago are also on the mountain today. After a preliminary investigation, the three stay at a small hotel on the mountain, but during the evening, the hotel manager is called by someone calling themselves the Cicada-Man, telling them to check the private onsen (hot spring bath) to find a "nice" surprise. The surprise is a guest who has been stabbed in the back! But the bathroom was completely closed and locked from the inside, making this a locked room murder, Who is the Cicada-Man and why is it killing all these people?

Ever since I first started reading the Sharaku Homura (Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny) series by manga artist Nemoto Shou in 2018, I've been a big fan of this brilliant, fair-play mystery series. This is a self-published series (a dojinshi) about the adventures of the girl detective Sharaku Homura and her assistant Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke, combining Scooby Doo/Edogawa Rampo-esque set-ups with villains dressing up in creepy/silly costumes to scare their victims with almost devilishly delicious impossible crimes. Starting 2018, major publisher Bungeishunju (Bunshun) had been making this series available to a wider audience by publishing e-books bundling multiple issues. At the moment, Bunshun has published four volumes with these impossible crime-focused puzzle mysteries, but at the core, this is still a self-published series, so Nemoto Shou has also been publishing newer issues on his own, which eventually will get bundled again probably. Semi-Otoko (2023) or The Cicada-Man is the latest issue in the series, a massive 170-page comic which Nemoto has published on his own Note page (available here). It's also one of the best stories in the series I think, coming quite close (though just not as good as) the phenomenal Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers").

The story is really long for this series' standards, with a 100 page set-up which introduces three major mysteries (the ledge murder, the bath room murder + one more thing), but there's also a lot of other things going on, and what is definitely the most impressive about this story is how immensely dense it is. A lot is going on, but it never feels boring, nor does the plot meander: basically every single page will be crucial to the mystery one way or another, and it's a sheer delight to read such a mystery-focused story. Had this been a novel instead of a comic, it would definitely be rather lengthy story in order to cover all the plot set-ups, clues, foreshadowing and other brilliant plays by Nemoto. The fact he can make it appear so easy due to the visual medium, is not just because of the medium, but because Nemoto is just that good at presenting his plots in that specific form.

Few mystery stories, regardless of medium, will be this focused on the mystery in fact. Nemoto somehow manages to not only present multiple core mysteries, but also play with fake solutions: characters will not only propose solutions that you as the reader may be thinking about to, but also properly discard them based on evidence. As I mentioned earlier, basically every page will be used one way or another to help the mystery, and it's surprising how many of the panels are also used to provide evidence how certain solutions can't work! Discussing fake solutions and also having proper evidence to prove them wrong has always been a strong point of Nemoto's plotting, but with a story 170 pages long (the part until the Challenge to the Reader is about 100 pages), you can bet he can do a lot more with that. And yes, as per series tradition, there's of course a Challenge to the Reader, for if there's one thing Nemoto likes, it's writing fair-play mystery fiction. As always, you'll come across a lot of page references during the denouement, pointing you back to all the pages where you completely overlooked the clues upon initial reading. A lot of the clues, as per custom, are visual, with some of them really good.

Surprisingly, my favorite part of the story was the locked bathroom murder. While it happens relatively late in the story, and I honestly didn't like the initial reveal of the solution, I became more and more impressed by it as the explanation continued. The trick itself is quite original (though I guess I know a variant on it quite well) and while at first I thought it was a bit unfair, Nemoto soon proved me wrong as yes, he had laid down a lot of clues pointing to that solution (especially visual clues), and I had simply completely overlooked them. And keeping in mind how he clewed the solution, and the surprising solution itself, I think this will be one of my favorite locked room tricks I'll read this year. Another prime example of how mystery fiction isn't just about a solution, but about the path towards that solution. The ledge murder is one that has a trick that feels a bit silly, but I have to admit it was clewed properly and considering the specific conditions, I can imagine it happening like that, so overall a good idea, though on the whole not as impressive as the bath room one, even though the ledge murder is the "main" mystery of the whole tale.  The story has more to offer, and it'll surprise you how very little things that pop up very early in the story, come back at the end in very unexpected ways. I am just repeating myself at this point, but the way Nemoto plotted this tale, not just in terms of "a mystery & solution" but especially in terms of clewing and foreshadowing, is excellent.

So yep, Semi-Otoko is definitely one of my favorite mystery reads of this whole year! I think it'll take a while before Nemoto has done enough issues to make a fifth volume, but I am sure this will be the highlight of that volume! As I said earlier, you can read it for free from Nemoto's site (available here), so be sure to do so!

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚（札幌の六畳一間）「怪奇探偵 写楽炎　セミ男」

The Unnatural

冷えた空から溶け込む淡い雪

すべてはこの大地の中すい込まれゆくのですね

「冷たい影」（Garnet Crow）

 

From the chilly skies, comes falling light snow that melts away

You see how everything is being swallowed by Mother Earth?

"A Cold Shadow" (Garnet Crow)

Has it been three years already? One of my favorite mystery reads of 2018 was the Sharaku Homura manga series by manga artist Nemoto Shou: originally this impossible crime-focused puzzle mystery manga had been self-published under the doujin circle name Sapporo no Rokujou Hitoma at comic conventions and other events, meaning the comics had only been available to a limited audience. In 2018 however publisher Bungeishunju (Bunshun) made the series available as e-books through all the major e-book storefronts in Japan. At the time, they published three volumes, each bundling 4, 5 issues and I devoured all three of them (reviews of the first, second and third volume here). The adventures of the clever girl detective Sharaku Homura and her assistant Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke were absolutely brilliant, combining Scooby Doo/Edogawa Rampo-esque set-ups with villains dressing up in creepy/silly costumes to scare their victims, with cleverly written and illustrated impossible crime situations. From locked rooms to impossible disappearances, the series had everything and what was surprising was both how clever the set-ups were, but also the focus on the visual aspect. Panels would hide clues in subtle ways, and you wouldn't notice until you get to the end and you see all the page references that point you back to the exact corresponding page/panel where you'll see the necessary clues had indeed been there all along for you to see.

Nemoto Shou has kept working on new issues all this time, with a new release every six months or so, so when I was notified that the fourth volume had released last week (late August), I was both surprised, and not really surprised. I knew that there'd be enough material for a fourth volume, but I hadn't expected the release to be dropped so suddenly. It was a welcome surprise of course. Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura 4 - Hagoromo no Kijo ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny - The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers" 2021) collects the next five issues of the comic, but readers who have been around on this blog for the last few years, will probably recognize the subtitle of this volume. For while this fourth volume was released last week, I have already reviewed three of the five issues collected in this book in the last three years. Which perhaps tells you how much I enjoy reading this series, as I honestly couldn't wait for the collected volume and wanted to read the individual issues as soon as possible each time they were released. Anyway, I already wrote extensively on the title story Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers") in the past, and it is still one of the most memorable "no footprints in the snow" impossible crime story I have read in recent years and is definitely the must-read highlight of the volume, so it's no wonder it has been made the title story of the volume. For details, I recommend you read the review of the issue, but it's a very densily plotted mystery story with a great fleshed out backstory, false solutions and a truly original explanation for the impossible crime that appears to have been committed by a floating ghost. Two years have passed since I first read it, but it is still a brilliant impossible crime story that fans of that particular sub-genre should read.

I'll also be leaving the links to Kourei Yashiki ("The House of Necromancy") and Youtou Shikabanemaru ("The Demon Sword Shikabanemaru") here, so I won't discuss these stories in detail here anymore. These two stories don't involve murder, but other types of impossible situations (a jewel disappearing during a seance even though everyone had been tied to their chairs, and a sword that starts bleeding suddenly) and I liked the first one especially.

So for this post, I'll only be looking at the two issues included in volume 4 I hadn't read yet. Spriggan is the weird one of the collection. After purchasing a haunted jewel, the jeweler Uehara Yuuji is, well, being haunted. The jewel used to be part of a collection of a jewel collector who, in an attempt to protect his jewels from a robber, swallowed them, but was then murdered and cut open by the robber to get the jewels out of his corpse. Afterward the murderous thief was caught, the jewels were sold off by the victim's family to various parties, but every new owner has since been haunted by the ghost of the murdered collector who wants his jewels back. Since his purchase of one of these jewels, Uehara has been hearing voices around his house too, but his employees think it's just a prank of someone who must've heard about his latest purchase. Still, Uehara hasn't had any sleep since, so he decides to stay in a hotel for a while. Staying in a room on the third floor, he decides to take a nap, when suddenly he's awakened by an alarm clock he didn't set, followed by a ghostly figure opening his room door, stealing the jewel and knocking Uehara out. Uehara asks Homura to help him figure out how the ghost managed to get inside his hotel room: his room was on the third floor, with no other buildings in the neighborhood, the hotel doors lock automatically and the keycard to his room had been lying on his desk all the time and the code is changed every time a new guest arrives, meaning old keycards used by previous guests won't work on this door. The story is rather short, so Homura pretty much figures the whole thing out once she had a look at the room, though I have to say I didn't like the solution that much. The main clue hinting at how the ghost managed to open the door is slightly lacking, meaning it's difficult to come up with how the whole thing was pulled off exactly if you do recognize the significance of the main visual clue. The manner in which the impossible crime is 'dressed' and presented to Uehara/the reader is rather clever though, adding an extra layer of mistifying mystery even though at the core the problem is fairly simple. The way the title Spriggan connects to the actual contents of the story is absolutely weird though.

Kageboushi ("The Shadow Man") tells about a series of mysterious nightly abductions of people living in Block 1 of Nanjou-ku, Shimoyama City by a mysterious Shadow Man. Homura is one of the victims who is taken away during her sleep, only to wake up in a creepy forest with the mysterious Shadow Man. After some banter the Shadow Man decides to hang her down an old well, where Homura faints, but when she wakes up, she's back in her room again. It turns out more people in the neighborhood have had similar experiences during their sleep, but nobody knows why the Shadow Man is doing this. There doesn't seem to be any link between the victims besides their address, as there are male and female victims, of various ages and of various professions. The mystery first focuses on the missing link angle, which ultimately leads to the question of who and why. The matter of the missing link is so simple in its concept that I completely missed it. It's actually cleverly hidden because if you don't realize a certain fact first, you won't see the missing link at all because it doesn't seem likely. Not a very complex mystery, but it's worked out very competently, and the story even has an extra surprise by adding a Challenge to the Reader after the main mystery is solved, asking you to solve a riddle that had been hidden beneath the main story. This one is probably easier to solve than the main mystery, but still entertaining. No impossibilities this time though.

On the whole though, Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura 4 - Hagoromo no Kijo is a pretty solid volume. Of the five issues collected in this volume, I think the three issues I had reviewed already were stronger on the whole than the two issues I hadn't read yet, but overall the quality of this mystery manga is still very high, and the title story alone makes this volume worth the read. It's a phenomenal mystery story, and the other stories included also show off quite well how fantastic the visual medium of a comic works with the mystery genre. As these are self-published comics, assuming Nemoto won't stray too much from his release schedule, I guess we can expect a new volume in about three years.... but I'll likely keep my eyes wide to see if I can read the individual issues earlier than that, because the Sharaku Homura series has yet to disappoint so I'd rather read new issues sooner than later!

 Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚『怪奇探偵・写楽炎 4 羽衣の鬼女』

The Eight of Swords

"He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword"

"The Doomdorf Mystery"

EDIT: Hey, the Famicom Detective Club remakes are also coming west! And with a May release, I really should speed up my Umineko playthrough...

Had to think of that art history professor I once had who had a real Japanese katana and actually walked around campus with the thing to show it off in the lecture room when the topic came up in class one day.

It's a misty afternoon when the clever detective Sharaku Homura and her Watson Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke make their way back home after school, when they are suddenly attacked by a masked figure with a Japanese sword. Or where they attacked by a Japanese sword, with a masked figure? According to the figure, the Demon Sword Shikabanemaru craves blood and the Demon Sword has now taken control of the mind of some poor man in order to have a wielder of its power. Karate Kid manages to fend off the assailant, who flees, but two men nearby overhear the two discussing Shikabanemaru: Masaki is a fan of Japanese sword who was on his way to the elderly Izawa, who actually owns the Demon Sword Shikabanemaru. Izawa invites Homura and Karate Kid along side Masaki inside his house and tells them the story of the Demon Sword Shikabanemaru, a sword forged decades ago by an insane swordsmith who used the blood of a hundred young boys and girls to create the blood-craving sword. The sword disappeared from police custody after the swordsmith was executed, and since then Shikabanemaru has gone from one owner to another in the underground circuit, but every time, the Demon Sword manages to seduce its owner to go on a killing spree with the sword. Izawa bought the Demon Sword recently, but since then has been tormented by dreams of killing boys and girls, and he fears the sword has possesssed him.

Inside the house, the four inspect the Demon Sword Shikabanemaru, which is kept safely in a glass case. They unsheathe the sword and are relieved to see that it's completely clean: not a sign of blood anywhere on the blade, nor does it look like it was wiped clean of blood moments ago. The sword is placed back in the case, and the four start to talk about Shikabanemaru's backstory, but suddenly, they notice blood leaking from the sheath. They quickly get the sword out of the glass case and unsheathe it, only to find the whole blade covered in blood! But how can the blade of Shikabanemaru's blade suddenly be covered in blood even though it had been put inside a glass case, unless it's really a Demon Blade? Even Homura doesn't know what to make of this grotesque mystery, until she later realizes what really happened in Nemoto Shou's Youtou Shikabanemaru ("The Demon Sword Shikabanemaru" 2020-2021), issue 19 of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, which can be read at Nemoto's Note site.

Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny") is a doujin comic (self-published comic) by professional comic artist Nemoto Shou, which in recent years has also seen a digital three-volume release by a major publisher (reviews of the first, second and third volume here). The series is an excellent mystery comic focusing on impossible crimes and a great example of how to do fair-play visual mystery fiction in general, and they even have formal Challenges to the Reader! While Nemoto has released more issues beyond the material collected in the three collected volumes, there's been no talk yet about a fourth volume. I have however discussed a few of the non-collected issues already: Issue 16, Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers"), was one of the best entries in the series about an impossible stabbing in a snow-covered field without any footprints of the murderer, while issue 18 Kourei Yashiki ("The House of Necromancy" 2020) presented an interesting impossible disappearance of a diamond. The latest issue too focuses on a non-murder mystery. Well, to be fair, a lot of people do die in the backstory of Shikabanemaru, but the main mystery of this tale is about how a clean, sheathed sword can suddenly become completely covered in blood.

Youtou Shikabanemaru is one of the shortest issues of the series and that is reflected in the mystery: for example, the list of characters is incredibly short, so most readers will probably have an idea who's most likely to be behind the magic of the bleeding blade, and from that point on, it's not that difficult to at least guess what they could've done to cause the blade to be covered in blood, even though it was clean when the sword was sheathed and put away in the glass case. The most obvious solution is luckily immediately discarded by Homura, as she shows that the easiest answer is definitely impossible, and this is properly supported by the artwork, which is always one of the things this series does best. But even so, the jump from there to the actual solution isn't that far, and it's basically a variation on the same idea. While I like the idea of the final hint Homura sees before she solves the case, I think the hinting could perhaps have been more focused on the specifics of what and how the culprit did it, rather than one step beyond: if for example the culprit did action A, for which they also needed to do action B, and for that they needed to do action C, the hinting in this story is focused on C, while it expects you to deduce A from that, which might be a bit too far, even most people will likely have a basic idea of what the solution will likely be. 

Speaking of stories about demon swords that possess people and tempt them to killing other people, I don't think I have read that many mystery stories about this theme, even if it sounds like an appealing concept. In fact, the first thing I had to think of was not a mystery story, but the action series Dororo, where one of the earlier stories is also about a demonic sword possessing a swordsman into becoming a ruthless killer (the PS2 game released in the West as Blood Will Tell is great and also features this story by the way!). I recall one of the short stories of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo also having a demon sword/knife or something like that and I'm probably forgetting a few I have read/seen, but even so, it's surprising I can't name more of them instantly.

I liked Youtou Shikabanemaru, the nineteenth issue of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, probably better as a horror story (the epilogue!) than as a mystery story, even if it's honestly not bad. It's a short story, so there's only so much you can expect of it considering the page count, but it has an original impossible mystery and interesting backstory, and while the solution to the mystery of the bleeding blade might be not as surprising as you might hope, it's still a well-written story that most of all tries to be fair at all times to the reader. But I'll have to be honest and say that after two short murder-less stories, I'm definitely looking forward to a longer murder mystery for the next issue!

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚（札幌の六畳一間）「怪奇探偵　妖刀屍丸」

Diamonds Are a Ghoul's Best Friend

"Curious, how everyone who touches those diamonds seems to... die."

"Diamonds are Forever"

Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny") was easily one of my most surprising reads two years ago. This doujin comic (self-published comic) by professional comic artist Nemoto Shou (who uses the doujin circle name Sapporo no Rokujou Hitoma) was an excellent mystery comic focusing on impossible crimes and a great example of how to do fair-play visual mystery fiction in general. Heck, the stories even feature formal Challenges to the Reader! Nemoto has been doing annual releases for about a decade now, but like most doujin comics, they can be tricky to find if you're not located in Japan because self-published materials are usually sold at events like conventions or through mail order. The last few years, we have also seen doujin circles selling their products digitally themselves, but Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura went a completely different direction: major publisher Bungeishunju decided to put this fantastic comic on digital storefronts in Japan, compiling the first fourteen issues into three volumes (reviews of the first, second and third volume here). Last year, I also reviewed the wonderful sixteenth issue: Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers") was another great entry in the series about an impossible stabbing in a snow-covered field without any footprints of the murderer, and the solution was highly original yet very well set-up.

Our detective duo from Shimoyama Middle School returns in the eighteenth issue of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura titled Kourei Yashiki ("The House of Necromancy" 2020), a story submitted to the Hokkaido Mystery Cross Match Award competition and which can be read here. The clever girl detective Sharaku Homura and her assistant Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke are out in the mountains looking for materials to use in science experiments when they are surprised by the rain. Looking for shelter, they stumble upon a old, decrepit old inn which is now the property of the spirit medium Maruyama Kamazu. They meet the high school student Akagawa Hasuko there, who explains to the duo that she and her father are here for a seance, because her father wants to speak with her mother again, who died recently. She also confides to them that she suspects her father is more interested in learning where her mother left her secret savings. Hasuko arranges so Homura and Karate Kid can stay in the house until the rain stops and inside they meet the creepy spirit medium Kamazu, Hasuko's father and two acquaintances of the family: the surgeon who owns the hospital where Hasuko's mother was treated and a jewelry dealer with whom Hasuko's mother often did business. Hasuko explains she also brought her mother's beloved taaffeite with her, as the valuable gem will be used as a medium to channel her mother's spirit.

Late at night, everyone in the house is summoned to the annex for the seance session. The annex is a small building with only one entrance and one barred window, while the upper attic floor can't be reached because the ladder has been removed.  The gem is set in the middle of the table, with everyone seated around it. To make sure there are no shenigans going on, everybody is chained to the legs of their chairs and they have to put on handcuffs too. Even the medium Kamazu undergoes the same treatment, placing the key in front of him on the table. At first, the seance seems to be going well, but then the lights in the building suddenly go out for a second, and the next moment, they discover the gem has disappeared from the table! Any one of them may have reached out to the middle of the table to grab the gem, but because they are all still tied to their chairs, Homura orders everyone to stay put as she calls the police, figuring the thief must still be carrying the gem. But when the police arrive, they learn that nobody is hiding the gem on their person, and a search of the empty annex doesn't lead to any results either, meaning the gem has somehow disappeared completely. Given that no person could've stolen the gem, does that mean the ghost of the dead wife took the gem with her to the other side?

Stories that don't focus on an impossible murder are in the minority in this series, but we still have an impossible disappearance here. The problem is fairly simple: where did the gem disappear to? Given that the annex is very small, with the only entrance locked from the inside, a barred window preventing the thief to throw the gem far away outside and everyone having been tied up to their chairs during the seance, it doesn't seem the thief could've done much with the gem, and yet the police can't find it. Homura of course does figure out where the gem is, and I think it's here where Nemoto really shows off his gift for plotting a mystery story. Just taken on its own, the hiding place of the gem is quite clever, if somewhat simple. But it's what Nemoto does on top of this idea that makes Kourei Yashiki a better story than it could have been. For the story doesn't only revolve around the disappearance of the gem, the author also made sure it's actually possible for the reader to deduce on their own what happend to the gem, and who did it, based on clever visual clues. Many authors would've just called it a day with only the disappearance trick, but Nemoto also prepared two distinct lines of reasoning for the reader to pick up: one that gives a valuable hint as to the whereabouts of the gem, and one line that points to the identity of the thief. It's because of these clues that the Challenge to the Reader actually feels fair: Nemoto made sure you didn't have to *miraculously* think of the hiding spot, but expects the reader to deduce where the gem is hidden and by whom based on the clues he left.

The clues that point to the hiding spot of the gem are really good too. It makes brilliant use of the visual medium of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura: the clue is set-up across several scenes throughout the story, but it's very easy to miss, yet one can't even claim it was too obscure, as the story does really place a lot of attention to this part at one point, but it is likely the reader will overlook the importance of that scene, which is exactly what you want from mystery fiction. It's a clue that could also work in normal prose fiction, but I think I would find it not as fair there, as the visual medium really adds a lot, without making it too obvious. The other line of reasoning that points to the identity of the thief is also in essence simple, but it too feels really fair, yet subtle thanks to the visual medium: it sorta feels like it makes use of comic grammar and the shortcuts used there to fool the reader, but the attentive reader should feel something's up here. The story ends with some other minor mysteries that Homura manages to solve too, though part of that is already revealed beforehand to the reader and only kept hidden from the characters in the story, so the reader has the advantage over her there (though one could argue that that knowledge could function as a red herring for the impossible disappearance).

By the way, there are of course more stories about crimes/mysteries that occur during a seance like Lovesey's A Case of Spirits but personally, one of the early cases from Tantei Gakuen Q is always the first one I think of when it comes to seance mysteries. They do make for interesting impossible crime situations, as people are often required to hold hands etc. during a seance, making it seemingly impossible for one single person to act without others noticing.

Kourei Yashiki, the eighteenth issue of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, may not revolve around murder this time, but it's still a very enjoyable entry in the series. It might lack the surprise factor of Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers"), but this is definitely a very well-written mystery story, that shows that even with ostensibly simple elements, you can come up with a satisfying mystery story through good plotting. And with four uncollected issues out now, I do think it's about time for that fourth volume...

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚（札幌の六畳一間）「怪奇探偵　降霊屋敷」

Snow Place Like Home

秋に秋の実りがあり

冬には冬の厳しさがる

「籟・来・也」（Garnet Crow)

Fall brings the harvest of fall

And winter brings the harshness of winter

"Rai Rai Ya" (Garnet Crow)

One of my favorite discoveries of last year was Nemoto Shou's manga Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny"). These were originally doujin comics which Nemoto was self-publishing under the doujin circle name Sapporo no Rokujou Hitoma for sale at events etc. In the current age, a lot of doujin material like fanzines, indie videogames etc. is also sold in digital format, but there are still many, many doujin circles that publish their work in physical format. Half of the fun of making a doujin comic is indeed putting the finishing touches on the file you send off to the  professional printer and binder and some time later, you bring your box of freshly created booklets to a convention or some other event to sell the fruits of your labor all by your own hand, meeting and speaking with each and every of the people who swing by your stand. Nemoto had been working on the Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura series for about ten years, and readers praised it as an excellent mystery comics, but due to its doujin status, it was also relatively difficult to get your hands on an actual copy until last year, major publisher Bungeishunju helped getting these fantastic stories on digital storefronts in Japan. Fourteen issues were compiled into three volumes, and I loved each and every one of them (reviews of the first, second and third volume here).

At the end of the third review, I mentioned that the series was still on-going as a doujin comic and that it was unclear whether further issues would be made available as ebooks too. Even if this would happen, it was likely this would take several years, as the other volumes collected 4-5 issues each. But luckily, I didn't have to wait too long to have my reunion with our favorite students of of Shimoyama Middle School: the clever girl detective Sharaku Homura and her assistant Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke. This summer, Nemoto won the first Hokkaido Mystery Cross Match Award with Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers"), the sixteenth issue in the Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura series. The Hokkaido Mystery Cross Match Award is presented to the best unpublished mystery story (unpublished as in not by a professional publisher, for short~novelette-size stories) and while this first time, the authors were all living in or around Sapporo (capital city of Hokkaido), residence in Hokkaido is not a requirement to compete. To celebrate this joyous occassion, Nemoto has made this award-winning comic temporarily available for free download (see this tweet for the link) and having read it, I can definitely recommend people to check it out too.

Homura and Karate Kid are out mushroom hunting in the mountains, but after being chased away by a rival mushroom hunter with a rifle and a rather wild dog, the kids are shocked to find a dead man lying in the middle of a snow-covered clearing in the forest. The man appears to have a stab wound in the temple of his head, but strangely enough, the only footprints left in the surrounding snow are those of the victim himself, besides those of Homura and Karate Kid. Police investigation reveals two interesting facts. One is that the victim was indeed stabbed by a sharp instrument in his head (there was even some metal left in his head). The weapon however was not found near the body, ruling out any possibilities of suicide. The other fact is that the victim used to be a monk at the Buddhist temple further up the same mountain, but that he had been thrown out one year earlier for repeatedly stealing money. The victim was unemployed, but he was carrying a bag of mochi (rice cakes) with him, suggesting he was going to visit someone. The other monks at the temple seemed shocked to learn about the death of the victim. The temple is home to various interesting legends and objects of interest, like a Buddhist mummy, but also a stone seal that is supposed to keep an ogress trapped: like in the west, legends that follow the archetype of the story of the Swan Maiden exist all across Japan (see also my review of the opening story of Professor Munakata), but in this version, the Heavenly Maiden who got her robe of feathers stolen, killed the thief herself and turned into a blood-craving ogress, until she was defeated by the founder of the temple some centuries ago. Her feathered robe, a relic kept hidden in the temple, was stolen the night before the victim was killed by what appeared to be the Ogress herself. Did the Ogress use her magical robe to fly to the victim to stab him in the head, leaving no footprints behind in the snow?

Like I said, this is a great story. It's very densely plotted tale at ninety pages, allowing Nemoto to not only come up with several (fake) solutions to the no-footprints-in-the-snow situation, but also flesh out the whole Buddhist temple background and its backstory. Obviously this is of importance to the core mystery plot, but the storytelling does a great job at actually being a story, and not just dumping info on the reader. And there's really a lot to process here: I could easily imagine this plot being worked out into a full novel. As the story unfolds, we learn the victim had his darker side too, and part of the mystery shifts to the question who he was going to visit with his mochi (rice cakes). This part of the mystery is quite original, and the clewing is really clever. It's almost blatantly telling you what's going on, but hidden so well you are likely to miss what Nemoto is trying to tell you.

Speaking of which, this story features a genuine Challenge to the Reader, and it even gives four major hints that really push you in the right direction, without giving the whole game away. As per custom, this comic is very generous in reminding you about things that had been said or shown earlier in the story: you always find proper page references when for example late in the story someone refers to an earlier testimony or about having seen something. Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura is always fair, but especially kind in the way it really shows you where every clue was and when it was mentioned.

The solution to the main problem of the no-footprints-in-the-snow is really original though and this alone makes this issue worth a read. While I know of variants with other impossible crime situations that use a similar idea, it's the way it's contextualized and set-up in this particular story that makes it a memorable story. The means are singularly unique to this particular story and its background story, yet properly clewed and foreshadowed. It is admitted in the comic itself that the probability of success is quite slim and practically, one could argue whether it was even possible for the murderer to actually pull that move off physically, but the sheer originality and also horrifying implications of this particular murder method make this one to remember.

Hagoromo no Kijo, the sixteenth issue of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, is in short another great entry in the series. I really hope that eventually, all the new issues of this series will also be collected into a standalone volume for sale on digital storefronts. As you may have noticed already, this was issue 16, while the earlier volumes I reviewed collected fourteen issues, meaning I already missed one story in this great series. Self-publishing a series of course has its merits too, but man, it does make it a lot harder reading this series!

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚（札幌の六畳一間）「怪奇探偵　羽衣の鬼女」

The House of Wax

"Wax on, wax off"

"The Karate Kid"

Never been to Madame Tussauds, now I think about it, even though there's a pretty prominent one close by I often pass by...

A few months ago, I learned of the existence of the manga Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura. Manga artist Nemoto Shou originally self-published these comics (under the doujin circle name Sapporo no Rokujou Hitoma) at comic conventions and other events, meaning they were only available to a limited audience, as self-published comics (in physical form) are usually printed in limited numbers for obvious reasons. Earlier this year however, publisher Bungeishunju (Bunshun) made the whole series available as e-books through all the major e-book storefronts in Japan. I've already reviewed the first two volumes, which collected the first four, and the subsequent five issues. Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura 3 - Routarou ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny - Mr. Wax") collects the following five issues and is for the moment, the last volume available. The premise is still the same: girl detective Sharaku Homura and Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke are the last members of respectively the Experiments Club and the Karate Club of Shimoyama Middle School, and they have a knack for running into crime: curious criminals with nefarious and often bloody plans and a knack for dressing up like a Scooby Doo villain roam the city Shimoyama, and it's up to Homura (with some assistance of Karate Kid) to solve the often impossible crimes. 

The opening story Mr. Wax is also probably the longest story of the whole series. Homura and Karate Kid run into a mysterious figure who goes by the name of Mr. Wax, a fitting name as his face is made out of... wax. Standing by a wax figure hanged from a tree, Mr. Wax says his revenge has only started, after which he disappears and when the police investigate the wax figure, they find a dead body hidden inside! While Homura and the police know Mr. Wax has more people on his list, their efforts to thwart the man fail, and a second victim is found in what appears to be a locked room situation: the victim was hiding inside the emergency shelter he had built in his garden, but when the police arrive, they find that the main room was filled with wax up to knee height! The victim was lying dead on top of the set wax, meaning he was killed after the room was filled with wax, but that also means that Mr. Wax couldn't have left the room, as the set wax would've blocked the only door out of the room and shelter! As Homura and the police investigate further, they figure out the connection between the various victims and Mr. Wax, but can Homura also solve the mystery of the wax room?

Perhaps the trickiest and most ambitious story of the whole series up until now! There's even more going on besides the locked wax room, but that part is definitely the most important one, and it's really good! Like the other murders of this story, the locked room mystery really makes good use of the wax theme, and while I have seen mystery stories that are sorta based on the same principle, this one is still very original. The concept of sealing a room with wax is pretty memorable on its own too: wax figures in mystery fiction aren't really original on their own anymore, but there are some really inspired takes on the wax theme here. The whodunnit aspects of this story are also great, with various hints (especially visual ones) spread throughout the tale, and it really forces you to pay attention to everything, as some are really well hidden.

With Mr. Wax almost filling half of the volume, the remaining four stories are relatively short. In The Blades of the Phantom, a director of a construction company is being chased by a masked lunatic wielding two knives. The man tries to flee, only to get into a train accident, which is witnessed by Homura and Karate Kid, who suddenly become the two new targets of the Phantom. A short story that has some neat visual clewing going on in regards to the identity of the murderer. The Tower of the Dead is much more entertaining: a thief called Spider has been stealing masks from various places for some time now, and the school of Homura and Karate Kid was also robbed of a rare African mask. A famous sculptor who used to go to the same school offers to make something else in return, and Homura and Karate Kid are invited to his home. The sculptor is also the creator of four noh masks, each representing one of the four basic emotions, but they are stolen by a thief. Everyone goes chasing after the thief, who flees into a tower which has a long history with violent deaths. As the tower only has one staircase up, they figure Spider is trapped, but to their great surprise, they can't find Spider anywhere in the tower: they have completely disappeared with the masks, even though there's no other exit! While practically speaking, this is a very risky way to create an impossible disapperance situation, the motivation is well-grounded, and on the whole, this is really an innovative way to disappear from the tower! Certainly one of the better short stories of this series.

In The Demon of the Underworld Marriage, Homura is kidnapped by someone wearing a demon mask, who says they're to arrange a marriage between Homura and Aiba Shimon, a writer who recently passed away. Having dug up Aiba's body, the demon says they'll arrange for Homura (who looks like Aiba's first love) and Aiba to "marry" so Aiba won't be alone in the underworld. Luckily for Homura, she's found just in time, but as she doesn't believe in monsters, she's convinced something's fishy about Aiba's death and the true motive of the Demon of the Underworld Marriage. The true intentions of the culprit mesh very well with the misdirection going on, and while the motive might be a bit easy to guess, it's still a creepy story with an original set-up. The final story, Fiend X, is about a letter the police received from "Fiend X", which indicates a dead body will be found at Shimoyama Shrine summer festival. Homura and Karate Kid help with the search, which ends in the haunted house attraction: the body of a woman who had been missing for a while was found inside a statue. From there the story works to a very quick conclusion, though that too involves some surprises. The identity of Fiend X is very well-clewed in a visual manner, and you want to hit yourself for not spotting them as soon as Homura did. While the story is rather limited in scale, it's still a good example of how this series makes excellent use of its medium.

As this is the last volume for the moment, this is a good time to look back at the series in general. It's an almost surprisingly well done mystery manga, that really shows what a good fair-play puzzle plot mystery should be like. The themes are of course quite classic, with impossible crimes like locked room murders, impossible disappearances and more, but also screwball stories like the Quiz Master story from volume 2. These mystery stories all feature original mystery plots that can impress any fan of the genre. What Nemoto does especially well throughout the series is making use of the medium: most of the stories have distinct, visual clews that are really well done: it's easy to miss them, but they are not mean or underhanded, like drawn really small or anything like that. In fact, often they're right in your face, but not in a way you'd notice it until it's too late, just like the best of clues in "conventional" mystery fiction. You really need to not just read the comic, but take the art in. This is also true for other mystery manga like Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo of course, but I have the feeling that these comics, especially Kindaichi Shounen, are sometimes less fair in their visual clewing, with very small details you have to zoom in on to get them. Nemoto feels more confident in his clewing in comparison.

As for atmosphere, I'd really recommend this series to fans of Edogawa Rampo. With murderers dressed up in all kinds of manners, and the rather fantastical backstories and murder methods, it's clear where Nemoto gets his inspiration from. There's a certain nostalgic tone prevalent here that works with the type of story, and it's something you can also sense in works by for example Rampo, but also Nikaidou Reito (who is also obviously inspired by Rampo's work). There is of course something silly about murderers dressing up like Snake Men or wearing wax masks or pretending to be the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, but it works in this series, because there's a sort of children's literature vibe to it all, that is earnest in its intention to simply entertain the reader.

Anyway, as I understand it, the Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura series will continue as a self-published comic, so for the moment, Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura 3 - Routarou is the last volume available as an e-book. I hope that publisher Bunshun will publish a fourth story collection once enough issues have been self-published by Nemoto, as this has been a really fun mystery manga, and I can't wait to read more!

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚『怪奇探偵・写楽炎 3 蝋太郎』

Crime in the Queen's Court

"Not quite. Actually, it's from Carroll's other book, Through the Looking-Glass. And to complete the title?"

"Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There."

"The Mad Tea Party"

Two reviews with Alices in one week?!

Last week, I reviewed the first volume of Nemoto Shou's comic Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura. This series was originally a doujin manga, meaning it was self-published by Nemoto himself (under the doujin circle name Sapporo no Rokujou Hitoma) in very small numbers, sold at events etc. This meant few were actually able to read the comic, but earlier this year, Kaiki Tantei - Sharaku Homura was made widely available in the e-book format thanks to publisher Bungeishunju. I enjoyed the first volume a lot, so my expectations for the second volume were obviously quite high. Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura - Youki no Kuni ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny -  The Land of the Wondrous Beauty") collects the next five issues of this series about girl detective Sharaku Homura and Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke. As the last members of respectively the Experiments Club and the Karate Club of Shimoyama Middle School, the two are forced to share a classroom for their club activities, but more often than not, the two end up chasing after curious criminals who like to dress up like Scooby Doo villains while committing impossible murders and other baffling crimes.

This second volume derives its subtitle from the opening story, The Land of the Wondrous Beauty, which is absolutely nuts. Homura finds her one day chasing after a rabbit with a watch, but she falls in a hole and loses conciousness. When she finally wakes up, she discovers that she has shrunken to a miniature size and wandered into a curious land. When she is finally captured by a soldier resembling a playing card, and confronted with the Queen of Hearts who breaks both of Homura's hands, Homura realizes to her shock that she's in Alice's Wonderland! Homura is helped by Alice herself to escape from Wonderland, but then another girl from Homura's school is captured by the Queen, as well as Homura's parents, and a priceless gem owned by the girl's jeweler parents is demanded as a ransom. Advised by both Homura and the police, the parents refuse to hand the jewel over, and keep it in a highly secured room of which both the door and the glass case in which the jewel is held is locked. Yet the people from Wonderland manage to steal the jewel from under the noses of its owner, the police and Homura herself!

Did I already say this story is nuts? The opening of this tale is really weird, with Homura wandering into Wonderland, and while this series has had its share of weird villains in weird dress, having the Queen of Hearts as the main opponent is more than strange in a detective tale. This is a tale of mystery however, and as we have come to expect from Nemoto, it's also a well-structured, and always fairly clewed puzzle plot mystery. The premise is crazy, but the logic used to explain how the jewel was stolen from its double-secured room is both clever and surprising, explaining also why the set-up of this tale is a bit on the longer side (and of course, there's a logical answer as to why Homura ended up in Wonderland). The ending of the story, when Homura and the police have cornered the criminal reminds a lot of Edogawa Rampo pulps, with a crazy chase inside the culprit's lair that is strangely enough incredibly large. I mean, why steal a jewel when it's obvious your secret lair you used for your evil schemes costs you a lot in the first place...

Quiz Master is a shorter story, where Homura is kidnapped by the titular Quiz Master, who challenges Homura to an epic battle of... quizzes! If Homura manages to answer three questions correctly, she'll be released, but for each wrong answer, a suit of armor holding a lance will move closer, and with the third wrong answer, she'll be made in to shish-kebab. The catch is that the Quiz Master's questions are incredibly nitpicky, so Homura does her best to stall for as long as possible until help arrives. The main clue pointing to the identity of the Quiz Master is something I should have picked up, though it could have needed a bit more to really make it a good clue. The explanation as to how Homura managed to get help is a lot better, and the clew is deviously well-hidden.

In The Scorpion Code, Homura and Karate Kid happen to walk right into a desperate struggle for power within the notorious Scorpion Gang. The boss of the gang wants to retire, and he has made a secret code that leads to the hiding place of the majority of the gang's loot. The one who solves the code, will become the new leader of Scorpion. The other gang members just want to get their hands on the loot however and don't care about the future of the gang, and try to capture their boss to make him hand over the loot just like that. While on the run, the boss runs into Homura and Karate Kid, and he confides into them the secret code, which they now must solve before the other Scorpion members get there. It's a relatively simple code-cracking story that is fairly clewed, but it does lack a sense of genuine wonder or surprise that most of the other stories do offer.

In The Distorted Face, a man with a horribly distorted face is popping up in various parts of Shimoyama City, asking the directions for a home of a certain old man. The old man used to be a robber, and one day, he tried to steal a bulldozer from a construction site to use in a robbery. He was discovered by someone at the site, but he killed the man by crushing his head with the bulldozer. He fled abroad a rich man, and returned when the statute of limitations expired for his murder. With each sighting of the man with the distorted face obviously out for revenge, the old man becomes more anxious, and in the end he decided to stay inside his locked house the whole day. Yet one night, when the police is staking the house out, they suddenly hear yelling, and when they break into the house, and into the locked bedroom, they find the old man dead, and with obvious signs of a horrible fight having happened inside. Yet the man with the distorted face is nowhere to be found, and logically, he could never have entered the house in the first place, so how did he assault the old man? A well-clewed story, and while the impossible angle isn't very surprising, the hinting is good, and Nemoto does a good job at giving a good reason for why there's a locked room in the first place.

Paintings of the Dead has Homura being hired to solve a weird puzzle: her client owns a painting by Ikichi Taken, a painter who was so obsessed with the idea of making a painting of the dead, he stole the corpse of a young lady to make paintings of the body as she'd rot. He was captured, but one of his paintings, still in the early phase of the rotting process, came into the hands of Homura's client. He has been threatened by a mysterious figure who says they'll complete the painting by having the corpse decay even further. The painting is held in a small storage room, with the painting secured to the wall. While Homura, Karate Kid and the owner stand guard in the room with the door as its only opening, the lights go out, and when they return, they find that the corpse in the painting has indeed changed, with more of the flesh decayed! Nobody could've entered through the door during the blackout, as they would've noticed, and the painting couldn't have been switched out of its frame in that short a period, so how did the painting change? A brilliantly thought-off story: the explanation is so simple once pointed out, but oh-so-devious, and excellently hinted. The horror-vibe of the story also helps, and the whole thing works towards a really creepy ending.

I forgot to mention it in my first review, but while these volumes collect the original self-published comics of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, these e-books also contain some exclusive material, with some stories (like the title story) featuring brand new epilogues that shed some new light on the culprits and their motives.

So this second volume of Kaiki Tantei Homura Sharaku is again excellent mystery comic material. While most of the stories do have a similar vibe because of the trope of the 'dressed-up villain' with insanely complex plans that are a bit silly if you think about it, the mystery plots are usually really entertaining and precisely what you want in a puzzle plot story. Many of the hints are visual, making excellent use of the medium. A difference between this volume and the first is definitely diversity: from the crazy opening theft story to a code-cracking story to a short like Quiz Master: there's a lot more variety here, which serves as a welcome change after the first volume. Only one volume left!

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚『怪奇探偵・写楽炎 2 妖姫の国』

Classic Creep Capers

"Can't sleep! Clown will eat me!"

"The Simpsons"

In Japan, there's a very lively market for self-published works, commonly referred to as doujin works. You can find doujin material in any form, from fanzines (doujinshi) to self-published videogames, music to audio dramas, and the contents can also be either based on an existing IP (say, a fanfic comic based on Detective Conan or parody games of Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney), to completely original material from the doujin author themselves. While nowadays, a lot of doujin material is also sold in digital format, there are still many, many doujin circles that publish their work in physical format, and half of the fun of making a doujin comic is sending off the data files to a professional printer and binder, and then bringing your box of freshly created booklets to a convention or some other event to sell the fruits of your labor yourself, meeting with each and every customer. Indeed, the biggest anime/manga/game related event in Japan is in fact Comiket, an event that is held twice a year, where countless of doujin authors sell their newest, self-published creations. Comiket nowadays attracts half a million guests, so that shows there's a market for self-published work. For some artists, self-published doujin is a first step in getting a contract with a large publisher to become a professional artist (there are a lot of professional mangaka who started out in the doujin scene), while others simply publish doujin as a hobby. And you also have professional mangaka who are still active in the doujin scene, as a self-published comic is something distinctly different from one published by a large publisher.

Nemoto Shou is one of those professional mangaka who's still active in the doujin scene (under the doujin circle name Sapporo no Rokujou Hitoma/A Single Six-Tatami Mat Room in Sapporo). For about ten years now, Nemoto has been self-publishing a mystery comic series titled Kaiki Tantei ("Detective of the Uncanny") which has been quite well received among those who have read it, but due to the scale of self-publishing, the number of people who were actually able to read his comics was obviously quite limited. Fukui, author of the excellent Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar, also mentioned this was a title to look out for: he wasn't able to include it in his excellent history of mystery comics because at the time of writing, these comics were still self-published, but thanks to the efforts of publisher Bungeishunju (Bunshun) and the wonders of the digital world, Nemoto's wonderful mystery comic was finally made widely available in the major e-book stores in Japan in April 2018. The first of the three volumes is titled Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura - Hebi Ningen ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny: The Snake Man", 2018), which collects the original first four issues.

The first story, The One-Eyed Clown, introduces the reader to the two protagonists and the basic setting. Of all the school clubs at Shimoyama Middle School, two are forced to share one classroom for their club activities, because both clubs are on the verge of extinction, each having only one member left. Scientific-minded Sharaku Homura (yes, that is a play on Sherlock Holmes) is the last member of the Experiments Club, while the one-year younger Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke is the last member of the school's Karate Club. While the two have widely differing interests, the two do share the same inquisitiveness into the many odd incidents happening in and around town. For example, as of late, an one-eyed clown has been seen attacking people near Shimoyama Middle School, so the two decide to check it out, but little did they know this would turn into a gruesome, and baffling mystery, as the clown not only kills one of the school's teachers by impaling him (further proof that clowns are, in fact, evil), the clown also manages to disappear twice from what seems to be an inescapable situation!

The art and the comedy in the first few pages is a bit deceptive, but as the story continues, it's easy to see the similarities between Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo. Both focus on murderers who like to dress up like Scooby Doo villains, and both series are actually quite gruesome. With Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, one could guess from the art (especially in the earlier volumes), but man, I was surprised by that first impaling in this story! What follows is an excellently plotted mystery story that might be a bit simple, but it's written and drawn in such a capable manner, I can't but enjoy this series. There are two distinct impossible disappearances in this story: one wherein the clown manages to disappear from an alley with a dead end, and one where the clown disappears from a classroom. The first is simple (it's the first mystery in this story, and Homura solves it immediately), but it has an excellent visual clue, which also signifies the importance of visual clues throughout the series overall (more on that later). The disappearance from the classroom is much better. It is in principle a very easy trick (again excellently clewed), but what would practically be a very clumsy manner to fool the detective becomes a very memorable locked room situation due to the reason why the clown disappeared from the room in the first place. I really didn't see that one coming! Fantastic way to turn a simple idea into something much, much more.

This first story has a lot of visual clues, making excellent use of the comic format. It's also clear that Nemoto loves to play fair with the reader: he even refers to specific pages and panels to show he plays absolutely fair. For example, in the case of the clown disappearing from the classroom, Karate Kid suggests the clown might've been hanging from the ceiling, but Homura says it's impossible, and then we see a flashback to an earlier panel, where we see the room from a low angle aimed at the ceiling! This panel is particularly good, as the focus is aimed at Homura trying to turn on the light switch, but it also conveys the information nobody's hanging from the ceiling. Nemoto is quite good at hiding clues and foreshadowing in these panels by the way, as we'll also see in other stories. The identity of the clown is a bit obvious, also because of these visual clues, but overall I'd say this first story was really entertaining.

Takeshi had only just joined the Karate Club as its second member in Village of the Bloodsuckers, when he died together with his father in what seems a simple case of food poisoning, but during the funeral service, Homura and Karate Kid learn that something sinister might be going on. The Kibasawa family are the descendants of Kakure Kirishitan, people who continued to practice Christianity underground during its ban in the Edo Period, and they have a fortune in gold coins as their family treasure. Lately, a figure resembling a vampire has been seen around the village, who says he came over from Europe to Japan centuries ago, but was defeated by the ancestors of the Kibasawas back then. Now he has returned to take revenge and steal the treasure. Takeshi's father held one of the two keys that lead to the treasure, but that key was stolen. Takeshi's uncle has the last remaining key to the treasure, but despite Homura and Karate Kid's efforts, Takeshi's uncle is murdered in front of Homura's eyes with an iron maiden. Homura suspects that a human, not a vampire was responsible for these deaths however, but the two main suspects both have perfect alibis for the murder of Takeshi's uncle....

It's going full Kindaichi Shounen now, with a bloody murder with an iron maiden and a semi-impossibility due to the perfect alibis of both suspects. The alibi trick is a bit easy to guess as the fact that something happens to Homura a few times is enough of a hint to get you on the right track. It is perfectly well-clewed though, and the misdirection is also well thought-off. There's a dying message too that points directly at the murderer, but it's rather straightforward if you happen to know a certain word, or practically impossible because you don't happen to know that specific word, so it's a not particularly clever dying message.

The Dancing Dead is a very short story, that is more horror than mystery. Homura and Karate Kid are visiting a small fishing village to look for rare starfish, when they learn about a cliff that's a popular spot for people to commit suicide. There they find a figure dressed as Ebisu, who kills a person who had just decided not to commit suicide. A clumsy slip of the tongue allows Homura to deduce who this Ebisu is, but this part is extremely simple. The rest of the story deals with a direct, physical confrontation with this murderer.

The final story included is The Snake Man, which is the name of a mysterious figure creeping around the more rural, eastern part of Shimoyama City. Homura and Karate Kid are introduced through a newly arrived transfer student to Saikawa Kenji, a classmate at his previous school. There are plans to open a large shopping mall in the eastern part of Shimoyama City, and the land owned by the Saikawas is needed for that, but the Saikawas are warned by the Snake Man not to sell their land. The Snake Man is the manifestation of the curse of a legendary giant snake, which was defeated by an ancestor of the Saikawas. To appease its spirit, the giant snake was enshrined in a small shrine inside a cave, with a long corridor of torii gates (painted green, instead of red) marking the entrance to this cave, similar to Kyoto's famous Fushimi Inari. At first, the Snake Man seems to be a creepy, but ultimately harmless being, though Homura and Karate Kid are witness to it being able to run over water. Later, the Snake Man turns out to be quite harmful, as the realtor who wants develop the shopping center is found dead in the garden of the Saikawas. The realtor's hands are cut off, and when everyone makes their way to the underground shrine, they find the realtor's hands inside a small container decorated by snakes. Homura suspects one of the Saikawas committed the murder, but she has one problem: none of the Saikawas had enough time to bring the realtor's hands to the cave after the murder, which means they all have an alibi. The way the murderer gives themselves away is a bit of a cliche, but the semi-impossible angle of how the hands were brought into the cave is pretty original, even if a bit obvious (though that is also partially because it's very similar to a faulty theory proposed earlier in the story). And while all these stories have a surprisingly dark aftermath, I'd say this story had the nastiest aftertaste.

This volume of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura was really surprisingly well done, providing a very entertaining mystery manga. The stories do follow a somewhat similar formula with the dressed-up supervillain vs detective set-up, but as a mystery story, this manga is really good, being absolutely fair, with original plots and a fairly unique artstyle. I'm really happy this series is now widely available as e-book, because the old, physical doujin format of self-published booklets meant that only very few people were able to get their hands on these books. I already have the other volumes purchased, so expect more reviews in the future!

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚『怪奇探偵・写楽炎 1 蛇人間』