The Quick and the Dead

"Bring out your dead!"

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" 

You know what's great about discussing a mystery set in a world that works like in a Japanese fantasy role-playing game? The fact this one isn't even the first I discuss here! We really should have more and more of them!

August Aberhein is the second son of an impoverished noble family, which means he will inherit nothing and have to earn his own living. As many in his situation, he ended up enrolling at the Knight's Academy and after graduating as the best fighter of his class, he's ready to go on adventures and pay off his school debt... but as a new graduate, he can't find any decent jobs. It is a period of relative peace, meaning none of the lords are currently hiring new knights for their troops, leaving August only one option: signing up for the Adventurer's Guild. Here he finds himself hampered by the fact he's a new member of the guild. Each member is offered quests based on their rank, and you start out at the bottom, ranking up the more quests you succesfully complete. However, the novice level quests pay out next to nothing, and it'd take decades for August to pay off his debt. After nagging the guild receptionist for a while, he's shown a listing posted by a Corpse Retrieval Service, which pays well and has no demands regarding guild rank. August hurries to the office, where he finds a young girl running the place. Glacia's business retrieves dead people from dungeons: dead people can be resurrected in churches, but the resurrection ceremony demands for the actual body to be present. Often, party members have to leave their dead comrades behind as they're already heavily injured in battle themselves by the monsters in the dungeons, and it's people like Glacia who go in the dungeons and collect these corpses for their clients before the bodies are mutilated/decayed so much the resurection ceremony is rendered impossible. Glacia hires August, who proves himself to indeed have a talent for fighting monsters off, but he's obviously not as clever as Glacia, who proves herself not only a wily businesswoman and capable support magician, but also a very keen detective who can spot whenever things aren't quite right. Taki Keisuke's Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou (2025), which also has the English title Pick up a Corpse in the Labyrinth and features illustrations by Kouzou Kazaru, follows August and Glacia as they go out, pick up corpses and solve mysteries along the way.

Death in mystery fiction is usually a permanent thing: it is usually what makes the act of murder a criminal one, an act that deserves investigation and a reaction fueled by justice. There are of course a few mystery stories where death isn't permanent per se (see for example Yamaguchi Masaya's Death of the Living Dead, translated by me!), but we can safely say the vast majority treats death as a permanent state. That is not the case in video games of course, where death is very often reset with just a push of a button or simply a "state" in a game that can be rewound via the use of a Phoenix Down or... visiting the church to have your party member ressurrected. The latter is of course a Dragon Quest staple and it's a Dragon Quest fantasy world that forms the basis of Ryuu's Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou: like in those games, death isn't permanent and the church can undo deaths with a ceremony, but unlike Dragon Quests, dead team members don't conveniently float behind you in a coffin as you make your way back from a dungeon. In Pick up a Corpse in the Labyrinth, corpses are just... dead people, with mass and weight. Often people die in dungeons because they're underleveled and one death soon leads to another as enemy attacks start focusing on fewer and fewer people, so people often have to leave their dead party members behind and flee the dungeon, lest the whole party dies. People like Glacia pick up these corpses upon the request of their clients, or if the deceased is insured against their death via the guild. While death is not permanent in this world, life is still a valuable resource though: the resurection ceremony uses a rare magic resource, meaning it does cost quite a lot to have a person resurrected and you do need someone to actually bring you to the church to do that: it means that while murder can be "undone", it is not viable to just undo every death, not even in the case of murder. 

Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou is an interconnected short story collection, in which August and Glacia encounter three different cases across three chapters, though there's an overarching storyline in which August, and the reader, learn more about Glacia's background. The first story, Housekigui no Ryuu ("The Jewel-Eating Dragons") shows us the first encounter between the stoic and proud August, and the money-obsessed and manipulative Glacia as they go on their first quest together. The quest itself sounds simple: they are hired by two adventurers, who lost a party member in a dungeon when they tried to get away with a jewel treasure. Fast dragon-monsters protect the jewels in this dungeon, and many adventurers underestimate their lethalness Glacia gladly takes the case, and during their first quest, we see how August and Glacia learn to work together to enter a dungeon, with August being a frontline fighter and Glacia casting support magic. As the story develops however and August and Glacia make their way to the corpse they're supposed to retrieve, we learn Glacia has figured out not all is "normal" about their objective, but what is this truth hiding beneath the surface?

This first story also serves as an introduction to the world of Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou: while most of it sounds a lot like Dragon Quest, author Ryuu of course introduces some specific rules regarding how resurrection works and what you actually need for the ceremony in order to craft their mystery plot. Because of that, the core mystery plot remains a rather simple one: it is awfully easy to guess what Glacia also suspects about the quest they're undertaking. Ryuu does make good use of the world, magic and its rules crafted for this book and certain things laid out here will become relevant in the remainder of the book too, but the plot itself is somewhat obvious, which makes this more a story that is remembered for the potential it shows for the rest of the book.

The second story, Zangeshitsu ("Confessional") has Glacia and August visiting the local church to have a corpse resurrected. Glacia is a long-time "customer" of the church's services, but even so, even August can sense some reserve from the clergyman and his clerks in their attitude towards Glacia, hinting at some stigma surrounding her background. Nonetheless, they are happier with Glacia than with their latest resurrection, a wealthy wannabe adventurer who uses his family's wealth to bully everyone around them and even brings people around him in danger, while he himself has the financial means to get himself resurrected all the time thanks to his life insurance. He bullies the clerks in the church too, which is why everybody is happy when they find him dead in one of the rooms in the church, especially as it appears he committed suicide: the church generally does not resurrect people who have chosen their way out of life, as that'd be a waste of valuable magic resources. Glacia however soon sees not all is at seems, and even sees a chance to profit from this death.

This second story is definitely more engaging, with more suspects, a clearer-defined mystery and a more inspired use of the fantasy world and its rules. Whereas the fundamental concept behind the trick of the first story always works in a "realistic" world, the trick in this story is more firmly grounded in the magic rules of this work, making it a more satisfying story to read. What Ryuu again does well is naturally introducing the magic elements in the story and then incorporating them into the mystery plot. While not all of the misdirection works for me personally, I do appreciate the more intricate plotting of this tale, as well as the way Glacia deals with this case, as we are again shown that she's not a detective per se: she simply sees business opportunities, which also happen to rely on her detective skills at times. 

The finale has a more ambitious set-up than the previous two stories: in Necromancy, the guild sends August and Glacia to join a party on an academic quest: because the place is so dangerous, the guild has decided to combine the necessary party members for two different quests together and have them work together. They are to visit the Inverted Castle, a castle which was once cursed by a powerful sorceror after the king cheated him on a deal: as punishment, the people in the castle were magically bound to the castle by a barrier, the castle itself was turned upside down and necromancy magic was used to make the people in the castle living dead. The latter deed in particular is quite grave: a dead person can not be resurrected if they have been manipulated as the undead, as the original soul is "bumped out" of the body if they're put under the power of a necromancer, making it impossible for them to come back alive. These undead now still roam the castle and make the place incredibly dangerous, as the undead are particularly nasty enemies that are hard to stop. The party is to explore the dungeon this castle has become for academic reasons, but August and Glacia's quest is different: they are to retrieve the bodies of two people dear to Glacia, who died in this castle and whose bodies have not been found yet. While they are exploring the castle however, one member in their party is found murdered, and oddly, all the clues left on the scene seem to point at Glacia as the murderer.

This last story in the collection feels like a proper culmination of everything that has occured so far, utilizing the magic rules and specific uses we learnt about in the previous stories and also featuring characters from previous adventures and expanding on the hints we've had until about Glacia's background. Which is perhaps why it's a bit disappointing this is just a short story: the Inverted Castle is a great setting for a finale, but as the book features no maps and this is ultimtely not a very long story (in a not very long book), it does feel like the castle could've been developed a bit more. We ultimately don't see (read) that much of the entire castle. After The Underground Maze of No Return in Isekai no Meitantei 2 and the labyrinth dungeon in Sword Art Online Alternative: Mystery Labyrinth - Meikyuukan no Satsujin, the Inverted Castle feels like a place that could've been so much more: had this story been a full novel, or at least a novella, we could've seen more of this upside-down castle, which could've served as the scene for more mysteries. Anyway, we have "just" one murder now, when the body of one of the party members comes crashing down the ceiling during a monster attack: Glacia's dagger is sticking out of the body and more importantly, the fact the body had been hidden in the floor above points at Glacia: the inverted layout of the castle (which has the stairs upside down too) means no other person in the party can climb a floor up, as only Glacia possesses levitation magic. With Glacia being the obvious suspect, the other fighters in the party soon turn against her, vowing to kill her to incapitate her. August is of course Glacia's only ally, but can he protect her against multiple enemies?

The seemingly impossible murder is original, as Glacia's guilt relies on her knowledge of a certain magic spell, which seems a bit strange if you're not really used to mystery fiction set in fantasy/science-fiction worlds, but it works very natural here. Of course, the solution to this conundrum also relies on clever use of the established rules to magic, and again, I do like how Ryuu took the time to tell and show to the reader how everything works over the course of several adventures, because it makes the payoff to seeing how the magic is used here more rewarding. Meanwhile, Glacia and August are also dealing with the fact they're being hunted by the rest of the party as the suspect on the murder (and her ally) and here the book does take on the form of a more "conventional" fantasy-action story, but fortunately, Ryuu does also make great use of its world to set-off a few clever turnarounds, that are nonetheless properly foreshadowed and clewed. The motive for the murderer for picking Glacia specifically as the fall-girl is also memorable, being one that really only makes sense in this specific world.

For those interested in RPG-inspired mystery stories by the way, besides the aforementioned Isekai no Meitantei series and the Sword Art Online book, there's also Hayasaka's excellent RPG School.

On the whole Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou is a pretty amusing book. It certainly uses an original premise, with a team that's just there to retrieve dead bodies in order to resurrect them: a premise that seems to go against the whole idea of a murder mystery as you can simply undo every murder and then ask the victim what happened, but Ryuu does a good job at explaining why it's not a "go-to" solution to every mystery in this book. While the book is a bit short, meaning some themes and settings are left not explored as deeply as I had hoped, the overall book is worth a recommendation, showing the fun possibilities that arise when you mix the mystery genre with other genres and their tropes.

Original Japanese title(s):` 龍圭介（著）、構造飾（絵）『迷宮で、死体を拾う』

The Sign of the Four

"Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three."

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

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. 

Ichikawa Yuuto is an author whom I have discussed a few times on this blog: he won the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award with Jellyfish wa Kooranai (The Jellyfish Never Freezes. 2016), which would become the first book in the Maria & Ren series, one I enjoy very much. While Jellyfish was thus his "official" debut as a professional writer, he had actually already self-published a lot of books, which he would sell at events for self-published materials. These books are published under the name "Anonymous Bookstore" and in fact, Ichikawa still sells those books as Anonymous Bookstore at events. When I visited such an event in 2025, I decided to buy the first volume of the series Quartette Danse, which also has the English title Welcome to Our Quartette!  This first volume was first published in 2005 according to the copyright page, with my copy being from the 12th run dating 2025. So Ichikawa was already doing these books at least a decade before he won the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award!

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.

Original Japanese title(s):  市川憂人（無名文庫）『カルテット・ダンス』:「カルテット・ダンス」/「ロックトルーム・ランジェリー」/「ティストーティング・ベーカリー」

Spooky Space Kook

I start running in town, with the bright sun in my back

"I want to shout I love you" (BAAD) 

 

眩しい日差しを背に　走り出す街の中 

「君が好きだと叫びたい」(BAAD) 

It was funny to see everyone trying film that iconic opening of the Slam Dunk opening theme on the seaside part of the Enoshima Electric Railway when I was there...

UFO Oodoori ("UFO Avenue" 2006) by Shimada Souji consists of two novellas about his series detective Mitarai Kiyoshi and his Watson Ishioka Kazumi. While this is the 23th book in the series to be published and the series had seen some changes it its set-up, the two stories collected in this book are set in the earlier periods of the timeline, when Mitarai Kiyoshi and Ishioka Kazumi were still roommates and Mitarai still being focuses on buidling his career as a consulting detective before moving on to becoming a neurologist as in some of the later books. While scale-wise, these stories have little in common with the long epic novels in the series like Memai ("Vertigo") and Nejishiki Zazetsuki ("Screw-type Zazetsuki"), they do share a theme of being mysteries revolving around perception of curious events: each of these stories are about someone witnessing an event they honestly believe to be supernatural or fantasy-like, with the surprise lying in Mitarai being able to come up with a completely rational explanation for what they saw and still vouch for his witness' sanity and accuracy in testimony.

The title story UFO Oodoori ("UFO Avenue") for example revolves around an elderly lady living in Kamakura stating that one night, she saw aliens fighting among each other in the mountain on the other side of the avenue she's living at. She mentions this on a television show, and now her son is trying to get her into a retirement home, fearing she might have gone dotty. A little girl living in the neighborhood, who is close to the woman, swears the elderly lady is still completely lucid and doesn't want her to leave, so she travels alone to Yokohama to visit Mitarai, hiring him to find out what happened. Mitarai and Ishioka go to Kamakura, using the Enoshima Electric Railway to visit the lady to interview her on what she saw.  When they have a look at the place where the battle supposedly took place, Ishioka is surprised there are indeed signs of something having happened here, as they find big holes in the ground. They also learn that only nights before she saw the aliens do battle in the mountains (wearing space suits, using strange rifles and even a UFO flying nearby), a neighbor, Ono, passed away under curous circumstances.  The man had been found dead in his bedroom by his fiancee: the room had been locked from the inside, and for some reason the door and windows had been sealed with tape. Furthermore, strips of tape had been hanging from the ceiling. The man was also dressed rather oddly for a night's rest: he had been found with a helmet on, a scarf around his neck, gloves on his hands and his body completely wrapped up in sheets. Ono turns out to have had a fight with his ex-boss and even attacked his boss with a pipe, but the police couldn't nab him for it. Ono had been afraid for revenge since, but was this the way in which he protected himself from attacks? Or was this get-up defense for aliens? Mitarai becomes more and more intrigued by these events in Kamakura, but is he really after aliens, or is there more behind this?

Spoilers: it wasn't aliens. Not this time. 

As always, Mitarai pretty much guesses the solution as soon as he learns the details of the case, with most of the time spent on asking questions to confirm his ideas and to insult and irritate the local police as he accuses them of stupidity and makes vague comments about who to watch out for. and where they can find traces of the truth. The story is fun to read though, with Mitarai and Ishioka meeting a colorful cast of characters despite the novella not being that long. There's also a nice focus on the ancient capital Kamakura and the area surrounding the iconic Enoshima Electric Railway. I happened to have visited Kamamura and Enoshima for the first time in my life earlier this year, of course also riding the Enoshima Electric Railway, which is characteristically integrated, and nearly absorbed into the local environment, with the very narrow tracks often just running just a dozen centimeters away from the surrounding houses. Author Shimada often likes to flaunt with his knowledge of things he researched in his stories (in this case explaining why these houses are so close to the tracks), but it works pretty well here because he keeps it quite modest due to the length of the novella and it of course relates in a certain way back to the mystery. The explanation behind the locked room mystery of Ono's death is not very surprising in a vacuum, but I like how Shimada doesn't use it... in a vacuum: it's only a starting point which then leads to other mysteries handled in this tale which I find more inspiring, with ultimately a very human motive being all of it (that said, what Ono did to protect himself was a bit... odd. You'd think there'd be better and safer ways to accomplish what he needed to do). Then we have the aliens of course: again, just hearing the explanation of what it was on its own isn't really shocking, but I really like how Shimada clewed the set-up and how it all ties together to one big tale, with all the "alien" proof having perfectly normal and rational explanations behind them. Shimada does this too in his other "fanciful interpretation of otherwise explanainable events" stories, but the other stories tend to be novels and there the stories become very convoluted, asking for a lot of suspension of disbelief: the chain of events in UFO Oodoori is far more compact and feels more convincing because of it.

Kasa wo Oru Onna ("The Woman Who Broke Her Umbrella") is a story that has been adapted for television in 2015, and it was in fact the very first time a Mitarai Kiyoshi story had been adapted. I have discussed the special in the past, and I liked it overall: you can find my thoughts here. I still adore the story set-up. Ishioka tells Mitarai about a story he heard on a radio show where they discuss strange happenings and the DJ tries to come up with an answer. A few nights ago, during a rainy night, the listener happened to look outside his window to see an attractive woman in a one-piece dress walking down the road towards a crossing. The woman placed her umbrella on the road and hid herself. When the first car drove around the umbrella, she adjusted its location and this repeated itself until a car had run over the umbrella, bending it completely. She then picked the umbrella up, but then walked back in the direction she came from. The DJ didn't manage to come up with a satisfying explanation for this strange series of events and neither can Ishioka, but armchair detective Mitarai quickly focuses on a few key actions of the mysterious woman and boldly proposes a theory that poses the woman was involved in a serious crime. When they read the local news of where the radio listener was living, they find out there had indeed been a murder in an apartment building nearby.

This is still a fun armchair detective story, where Mitarai comes up with a daring hypothesis involving murder, based on what sounds like the strange, but ultimately innocent story of a woman who broke her umbrella in a roundabout manner. The manner in which Mitarai develops his theory, or at least, show to Ishioka how he did that, by asking Ishioka key questions about the story is great. The Nine Mile Walk format works great for this mystery and you can really feel how it slowly turns into something sinister. After the initial set-up of the story and Mitarai showing his main conclusions, the story actually changes perspectives, as it then follows the woman in question. We learn she has a motive to kill a certain woman, because that woman caused the death of her mother during a bus hijack incident: while it was the hijacker who directly caused the death, it was the completely selfish and unwarranted action of the woman, a bus passenger, who pushed the hijacker to the murder. After learning this fact, the daughter swore revenge for her mother. While this narrative seems to cinch the deal for the reader regarding Mitarai's deductions, the reader is then treated to a surprise, as some facts we learn in this narrative, don't match up to what Mitarai's conclusions pointed to, which adds a new layer to the mystery for us the reader, while logically, Mitarai shouldn't be aware of that, so the question is how they'll then figure out the whole truth in the end.

While the initial set-up of the woman breaking her umbrella is great, the second half of the story that explains the discrepancies between Mitarai's initial conclusions and the truth as the reader knows it, does rely on a bit on coincidences adding up. I'm not sure whether this is the case, but it feels like this second half was only added as an expansion on an original, shorter story, which may add layers of complexity, but also feels forced in some ways, with some plot elements also mirroring the other tale in this collection, which may make it feel repetitive in some manners. The first half of the story is really worth it though and I personally find it one of the more memorable Mitarai novellas.

So taken on the whole, I think UFO Oodoori is a pretty decent collection with Mitarai Kiyoshi. While not reaching the "I'm going to throw this book at the floor while screaming 'no way' in joy" heights of some of the novels, it's a solid showcase of Mitarai in the armchair (or leisurely working)  detective mode, with mysteries that seem inexplicable at first but which only a genius like Mitarai can figure out in seconds. I'd say that Kasa wo Oru Onna is the better mystery story of the two, while the title story has the best sense of location. 

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『UFO大通り』:「UFO大通り」/「傘を折る女」 

Summer Apocalypse

夏の幻

瞳閉じて　一番最初に君を思い出すよ

『夏の幻』(Garnet Crow)

 

A summer illusion

When I close my eyes the first time I remember is you

"A Summer Illusion" (Garnet Crow) 

For some reason a lot of the books I discuss this year seem to feature blue a lot on their covers...

Setsuna no Natsu ("A Fleeting Summer", 2025) is a short story collection by Nanakawa Kanan. The book is named after the title story, but the five stories collected in this book are unrelated, though they all share a melancholic tone. This is my first time reading something by Nanakawa by the way, who debuted via the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award in 2008 and seems to specialize in short stories. I decided to read this book because it was shortlisted for the 2026 Honkaku Mystery Award: the winner of the award hasn't been decided yet at the time of writing this post, but by the time this post goes up, the winner should not only already have been decided, but the actual ceremony will probably have been held too. So perhaps it'll turn out this book actually won the award!  

Setsuna no Natsu ("A Fleeting Summer") was originally published in 2018, and tells the story of two women who are volunteering near a recent disaster site. They're staying at a small inn, where they become acquainted with Nahoko, the daughter of the inn's owners. Nahoko tells the guests about her late uncle Ichito and one of the things he left behind: not a bottle ship, but a bottle "desk", with a book on it. A poem is written on the open pages of the book: "Honey-sweet candy / Oh those dear eyes of yours / A fleeting summer". Apparently, the poem was made in reference to an experience Ichito had when he was in middle school and the explanation is written in the rest of the book, but it's impossible to turn the pages of the book inside the bottle and he would never explain more about the poem to his niece. Nahoko did learn more about what had happened to his uncle in the past. After his father's death, he and his mother moved back to his mother's paternal home village as soon as Ichito finished middle school. His maternal family is related to the Amikura family, who are the most prominent family in the village, owning much land in around nature-rich countryside village. While Ichito initially has trouble blending in with the other children in the village, it's his friendship with Mizuha that soon helps him get used to live here in the countryside with the other kids. Mizuha is a distant cousin, who due to deaths and childless marriages, was taken in (together with her little brother) by the Amikuras as the future heir of the family. The two slowly become closer over the course of the summer, until a faithful day. One day, Mizuha and the local gang of boys were playing in a boat on the lake, when Ichito pushed Mizuha in the water. She became angry, so she swam to the nearby small island owned by the Amikuras. She went into the small lookout house there and sent the boys away, telling them angry to keep away from her property. The boys eventually returned home, but when Ichito learned Mizuha hadn't returned by the evening, he became worried and rowed to the island, to find Mizuha safely there. While they were there however, a tsunami occured, keeping them stuck on the island. The tsunami become more powerful, and by the following day, the village had been flooded and there had even been casualties. But what about this event had prompted Ichito to write a poem about it?

This is by far the longest story in the collection, taking about one-third of the whole book, but it's a very interesting set-up. The flashback scene is by far the longest section and tells a coming-of-age story of a boy who basically falls in love with a girl he meets in the countryside over the course of the summer, until a tragedy hits the village, forcing the girl to grow up and step up as the future heir of the Amimuras. There isn't a clearly defined mystery here for a long time, even if we hear about some casualties of the tsunami. The framing story then brings us Nahoko and her two guests, who start speculating about what the poem can mean. Once they realize the poem hides a message hinting at some crime that had been committed by someone during that summer, they start to speculate about what that crime could've been. The result is a captivating trip into the nostalgic memories of the boy, with small events being used to bring clever theories about what could've happened. The deductions presented utilize clues that are both based on physical clues, but also on the personalities and characterization, and while I'm not always a huge fan of the latter type of clues, I'd say it works out really well here in this tale, and that combined with the physical evidence, I'd say this story does a great combination of these often polar opposite type of clues. The story surprisingly has room to offer multiple solutions, all which color the summer memories of Ichito in a different manner, and it's the last one that hits hardest. The atmosphere of this story is absolutely fantastic though, and that's perhaps true for all the stories in this book: a strange kind of melancholic, cozy atmosphere is present in all these stories, even though they can become quite dark.

Mahou no Apron ("The Magical Apron") is a very short story, where the town's Civil Affairs office is contacted about by a neighbor about their worries about a family of four (a mother with three children) living nearby: the children have been loud lately, and there are worries of neglicence. When the people from the office visit the house in the evening, they find the mother is gone. When they ask the oldest daughter whether their mother is working, she only answers their mother is gone to run an errand: an excuse the civil workers have heard earlier, as the family is receiving an allowance from the town, which of course has restrictions to side-earnings. These segments are interspliced with parts that follow the children's mother as she tries hard to keep the household running while earning money, and while it is hard, the love she gets from the children is what keeps her going. However, the civil servants discover that this is no usual case as they dig further. While the story on its own is pretty memorable, I can't deny the ending is a bit predictable. The misdirection isn't as effective as I would have wanted it to be, meaning the "twist" that came was the one I assumed would be the fake one. It's a good "story" but as a "detective" story, I would have loved a twist that went one step further.

Senyakou ("A Journey of a Thousand Nights") tells the story of Masami, a teenager, who has to stay with his aunt while his mother is travelling abroad to her boyfriend. His mother's family is, simply said, a mess: Masami's mother Eri was the second daughter to grandmother Hinata, who had three children. Divorces, new boyfriends, children running away from home and grandchildren who were adopted eventually led to  a strange household. Even Masumi doesn't really understand what's going on, but his grandmother Hinata passed away some years ago (he never met her), and now he's going to live with his aunt Asano and his cousin Nonno, who's the daughter of his oldest aunt Akari, but has been officially adopted by his grandmother. During his stay, he slowly starts to learn these two family members he barely ever met before, but things slowly start to turn into a nightmare for Masumi when someone starts haunting the house: Akari, who is apparently vivid her mother Hinata took Nonno from her and now determined to get to Nonno.

By now, the 'missing father figure' device is becoming quite apparent in these stories. This story was originally published in 2021 and it's actually only this story and the title story that were originally published elsewere: the other three stories were written especially for this book. This story feels very much like a horror story, almost like Higurashi, with a young man moving to a new environment and while things seem normal at first, it slowly turns into something frightful as an unknown figure starts haunting the house. That said, I had really trouble getting into the story first because of the insanely complex family relations of the family, which also seemed a bit ridiculous at time. The story works towards a climax with a solution that... can be guessed pretty easily. I think author Nanakawa does a great job at presenting this story as a family tragedy, but the twist prepared for the reader is ultimately based on a phenomenom seen very often in real-life, which makes it easy to recognize. The writing and the atmosphere painted in the story does do a lot of heavy lifting in still making this a good story to read.

Watashi to Watashi no Imouto ("Me and my younger sister") follows a primary school teacher, who is fascinated by the school diary one of the pupils writes: Maria writes about a sister... which she isn't supposed to have. The more the teacher starts digging into why Maria would be writing about a sister who doesn't exist however, the more dangerous things become for herself... Another broken family story, because why not? Again, this story has a slight horror tone, as Maria writes extensively about talking with her younger sister, although the records show she has no living siblings.... but she does have a still-born twin sister. It's a bit of a shame that like in the second story Mahou no Apron, the story doesn't rely much on deduction: the truth is often just discovered by the narrator just appearing at the right place at the right time. In this case, the truth is absolutely horrible, and I can't even imagine why Maria would agree to do the thing she did at the end, considering the way we are also told she acted previously. The misdirection, due to an extra layer, works better in this story than in Mahou no Apron, which are both similar stories in terms of length and their focus on family bonds, though both are relatively simple tales.

The final story, Land's End, tells the story of a taciturn, attractive woman who has moved to a small factory town at the far end of Hokkaido, working in a small boxed lunch shop and living in the smallest and cheapest flat she could find. She has no hobbies, no friends, only living from day to day. She also doesn't read the newspapers, so the only news she hears, like the recent murders on women, come from the chatty boss. One day, the woman loses a broach and it's her neigbor who brings it to her: a slightly older man who is very much like her, reserved and with no apparent goal in life. It turns out both have similar interests in music though. They bond, and with every day, their relation changes: he comes buy his lunches at the shop, while she visits him in his room to chat about music. But what brought these two figures to this town, at the far edge of the world, and where will their future bring them?

The most melancholic story of the volume: the narrator seems to have no purpose in life, though we aren't told until the end why, and much of the story is about following her as she slowly starts to bond with her neighbor. It's at the end we learn there was more about these two getting to know each other, and surprisingly, we are presented some pretty decent deductions based on actual physical and otherwise Queen-esque clues. I had expected this to be more like one of those Yamada Fuutarou stories like Taiyou Kokuten where we learn "something had been brewing" beneath the surface of a different kind of story: usually those stories don't really rely on chains of deductions based on actual clues/testimonies, so it was surprising to see it utilized here, and in an effective way too. While the first part of the truth might not come as a huge surprise, I do like how Nanakawa prepared a very well-thought off conclusion based on that truth, a story conclusion that holds a few surprises of its own. The ending is absolutely perfect, not just for this story, but for the whole book itself, with a glimpse into a more hopeful future in an otherwise melancholic world.

As I said, this was the first time I read something by Nanakawa, but the book certainly piqued my interest. The stories all have a distinct vibe, feeding the reader melancholic feelings, but fortuately the stories also always end on... well, perhaps not a hopeful tone, but there's always slivers of light that make it through. Some of the stories here are mystery-wise a bit simpler than I personally like, but the actual stories/syuzhet are always captivating and the better entries in this book also contain surprisingly well-constructed chains of reasoning, while staying true to the more grounded worlds of these stories. This was a very introduction to Nanakawa's work and I expect to see more of their work on this blog in the future.

Original Japanese title(s):  七河迦南『刹那の夏』:「刹那の夏」/「魔法のエプロン」/「千夜行」/「わたしとわたしの妹」/「地の涯て（ランズ・エンド）」

Mecha Mutt Menace

"Well, my friend, robots cannot kill, their prime directive..."

- "I know, I know, I know, it's the first program that's laid into any robot's brain, from the simplest Dumb to most complex Super Voc. But suppose... suppose someone's found a way of bypassing it."

"Doctor Who: The Robots of Death" 

We've seen more and more uses of AI as devices in mystery plots the last few years, though I think the best/most memorable uses of them in mystery fiction are still when they use the gap between real humans and AI to create clues etc. I've seen a few examples in the last few years that worked really well.

Utsugi is a young man in possession of a strange device, left to him by his deceased parents when he was a child, and his "partner" ever since. At first glance, it might appear like a small dog or a black cat: it is roughly the same size and has four limbs. However, its body is completely smooth, and once you look closer, you realize it also has no face. It is in fact a standalone robot with highly sophisticated AI built into it, even though it speaks in a very mechanical manner like "REP / UTSUGI / UKN / ANALYZE / TP8.7", a language which only Utsugi can interpret perfectly. While it is known that the name of the AI is Excimer, other details about "her" are shrouded in mystery, though the technology used to create her and her body suggest they might be the product of some experiment with military purposes. Excimer is a completely standalone machine, meaning it can't interface with other devices directly, meaning they can't safely examine how its built. Excimer only recognizes Utsugi as her administrator, and "friend". This is an important distinction, as it is directly connected to Excimer's purpose: the AI is specifically built to detect murderers and it will treat any murderer who is trying to keep their crime a secret as an immediate threat, prompting Excimer to execute them on the spot with any or all of its installed weapons, including knifes and firearms. Utsugi now runs a detective agency, with Excimer as the detective. Utsugi has no detecting skills himself, but he is needed to interpret Excimer's deductions and more importantly: he has to issue an emergency command to Excimer once Excimer tries to kill a murderer. We follow Utsugi and Excimer as they tackle five cases in Matsushiro Akira's short story collection Tantei Kikai Excimer ("The Detecting Machine Excimer", 2025).

I mean, I guess a black box on legs can be a challenging idea for a captivating cover image, but I am also not a very big fan of the current cover now as it really humanizes the robot too much... I mean, the Jameson-type robots in Ghost in the Shell can be be cute, so it's not like having just the box robot would necessarily be boring... 

The book opens the curtains with Open the Curtain, which has Utsugi visit Shindou on the recommendation of Professor Yakushi, who is examining Excimer. Shindou is an old study mate of Professor Yakushi and runs a company involved in AI technology, so Yakushi thought Shindou would be interested in meeting Utsugi, and more importantly, Excimer. Utsugi arrives the Shindou residence on a warm day, carrying Excimer in a backpack. Because Shindou had not been told much about Utsugi, he at first doesn't understand why Yakushi wanted him to meet Utsugi, but he soon realizes what Yakushi's intentions were once he learns about Excimer. The flagship product of Shindou's own company is not as sophisticated as Excimer, but a lot more practical: SILK is an AI that functions as a controlling system for all of your smart home appliances and technology, allowing you to give verbal or even non-verbal commands to control everything from the lights to the curtains or warming something up in your microwave. As Shindou and Utsugi discuss SILK and Excimer's respective uses though, Excimer starts to act weird: she has detected Shindou is a murderer and is about to kill him, but Utsugi can just stop her in time. But how did Excimer find out Shindou's a murderer during a short chat?

The reader gets a good idea of how Excimer works in this opening story: it is a detecting machine, but that is not Excimer's main purpose. Therefore, she is actually not keeping Utsugi up-to-date on her deductions, and will decide on her own to eliminate a threat. It is only once Excimer's deduction processes have identified a murderer without doubt, that she'll move in for a kill, but it's also only then she agree to tell Utsugi about what thinking process led her to the murderer. That leaves Utsugi with only a very small window of opportunity in which he can have Excimer explain her deductions: if he's too early, Excimer won't explain her (unfinished) deductions, if he's too late in issuing a "don't kill" command, Excimer will already have killed the target. Open the Curtain works as a short, but effective introduction to how this all works, as we see Excimer only become dangerous once enough clues have been shown, and while some clues were a bit obvious to see, I do like one line of clue a lot, as it fitted perfectly with the theme of the AIs. It's a pretty brilliant clue, that is used multiple times in several ways in a very short scene, yet it doesn't stand out at all. It's also a uniquely modern type of clue, which I really like. The aftermath of the deduction scene is also great, and really sets up the tone for the rest of the book. 

Lost and Found introduces us to a new main character: Misa is a student who studies under Professor Yakushi and she's been offered a part-time job as the "scribe" of Excimer: she's to accompany Utsugi and Excimer and write down everything Excimer says and does as part of their research into Excimer's technology. On the day Misa visits the detective agency of Utsugi to introduce herself to Utsugi and Excimer. It turns out Utsugi owns the whole building, using one floor as his own agency and renting the other floors out. Employees of a trading company housed on a lower floor go up to the rooftop during their lunch break. They happen to look down at the empty lot behind the building, where they see a dead man on the ground, with a ladder next to him. Due to building violations, the empty lot is actually inaccessible, as it is completely surrounded by buildings on all four sides. It thus appears the man tried to cross from the rooftop of one building to another, perhaps in a burgling attempt, and then fell to his death, but is that really the case?

This is I think the longest story in the collection, and it's definitely the most complex one. The mystery revolves around whether the victim's fall was an accident (it wasn't), and if it wasn't, who pushed the man to his death? The victim turns out to be an ex-employee of the trading company, who had been fired for embezzlement, so the police suspect he was trying to break into the building via the rooftop: the building opposite the empty lot has been empty for a while, so he could easily get to the rooftop of the empty building, and then use a ladder to climb across the empty rooftop, to the rooftop of the building owned by Utsugi. While Misa and Utsugi did hear a thud during their talk, they soon suspect it was faked to create an alibi, but who then committed the crime? The story's length is used in a good manner, allowing Misa to also act as a would-be detective, offering good suggestions and theories. Her presence is certainly needed, because Excimer won't openly theorize before she gets a chance to kill the murderer, while Utsugi isn't trying to be a detective at all, leaving everything to Excimer or the police (the police works with Utsugi/Excimer, but also know how dangerous Excimer is, so it's a reluctant team-up each time). So having Misa act as a Watson Plus, with her own theories helps flesh out the story a lot, especially, as we later learn, her presence actually does have influence on how Excimer's conduct throughout this case. The solution is not mechanical in terms of how the culprit killed the victim precisely, but it does involve a plot with a lot of moving parts/necessity of good timing and is overall a very competently constructed puzzle. I do like how Excimer is shown as more and more unhinged with each story: here we learn Excimer actually actively occasionally just shows short glimpses of her answer in order to entice the police and Utsugi in letting her meet the suspects personally, which gives her better opportunities to exterminate the murderer once she has identified them! The final reveal of what clue helped Excimer determine the truth of what happened is absolutely brilliant by the way and it is this moment that for me best exemplifies the potential of Excimer as a brilliant, but amoral detective.  

Don't Disturb Me has Excimer examining a past incident, involving the young brother of one of Misa's childhood friends, Fuuka. When they were very young, Fuuka's parents were invited by a friend to stay at their newly opened seaside hotel. Fuuka and her brother Haruto were still very young, and had never stayed at a hotel before. Misa was also invited, as was Riichirou, a friend of Haruto. The trip to the hotel was rather long for the children however, and Haruto was still sleeping when they arrived. Their parents brought Haruto to their hotel room to sleep some more, while the other three children went playing in the neighboring room, which had a connecting door to Haruto's room. The parents went to the lounge with the friends. However, while the other children were playing and the parents were away, Haruto fell down the balcony of the room. While it was believed to be a tragic accident, with the young Haruto waking up alone drowsy in a hotel room and accidentally falling down the balcony, about 15 years later, Fuuka now wonders who of the people at the hotel was hiding their murderous intent from the others. She asks Misa to present the problem to Excimer to see if she can solve this mystery.

Interestingly, Don't Disturb Me is the very first Excimer story: this story was originally serialized in 2024, and the other four stories in this book are written especially for the book release. The story has an interesting angle as it is mostly a flashback, following very young children who get involved in a tragic accident involving the youngest child. It's from this account Excimer manages to figure out the truth of what happened exactly and how anyone could've made Haruto fall from his hotel room, as it was technically a locked room: the corridor-side door not only locks automatically, but was also latched from inside. The connecting door between the two rooms was unlocked, but could be observed by the three children playing in the other room. And the balcony-side too can't be accessed without leaving any traces. The story places some neat clues, though I do think these stories that rely on children's testimonies/interpretation of events can be a bit hit or miss, as it is difficult to write convincingly and yet fairly that a child thought X or Y and that that had effect on the mystery. Especially when they are young and children grow up fast, it's hard to pinpoint an exact age range where you can fairly expect a child to understand or not understand X and incorporate that in a mystery plot. So that always keep bothering me when I read these kinds of stories. The theme of the past mystery however is well incorporated into the framing story of this tale, and it's a very decent entry in this collection. 

You Have Control gives us a huge shake-up and shows us what can happen when Utsugi isn't there to control Excimer. One late evening, Utsugi (and Excimer in his backpack) are walking Misa back to her flat after working on a case. They meet a few of Misa's acquaintances/fellow flat residents along the way, but when they arrive home, they find a cut-off body part: a hand. Utsugi turns out to be bad with bloody bodies and passes out at the sight, but he did this at the worst time possible: Excimer is already determining who the killer is! Misa just has enough time to grab the backpack with Excimer inside and runs to her flat to lock the robot inside her room, while she tries to call the police and Professor Yakushi to see what she should do. Meanwhile, she can hear Excimer cutting the backpack open with her installed knife and trying to break out of the room in order to exterminate the threat (= the killer). Because only the now unconscious administrator can command Excimer to pause her attack and ask her about her deductions, Misa realizes she has only one option left in order to stop Excimer's murderous tendencies: she has to figure out for herself who the murderer is, and convince them to give themselves up so Excimer won't see them as a threat anymore.

The idea of this story is absolutely great, and there's a lot of tension going on as we have seen in previous stories Excimer will not lie to people, but will manipulate them in order to get an opportunity to kill a murderer. I think what is interesting is about this story is that Excimer acts as a "deductive clue" here: in reality, we know that a random murder that happened on the street doesn't mean the suspect has to be one of the people we just happened to meet outside on the street. It could be anyone whom we just happened to not meet in the city. In this instance though, the reader is informed the killer is someone we met in this story, because of Excimer's reaction. Of course, Excimer's deductions are also based on actual clues we saw in the story, but because she's such an advanced AI, the story could still get away with saying Excimer managed to solve the case based on what she saw/heard/sniffed, plus a probability calculation, giving her an edge over us humans in determining wether the killer does happen to be one of the people we met on the street. The murder itself is a bit silly to imagine, as the way the hand got cut off feels almost comic-like, but the premise of the story is just so great and it stays so exciting until the very end, I actually liked it better than the previous story.

The final story, Just a Machine, is not a straight mystery story, but acts as the collection finale. The story starts with the theft of Excimer by an unknown figure, which immediately sets off the alarm bells at the police station and Professor Yakushi, as they are all too aware what harm Excimer can do if she happens to come across a murder on the street without Utsugi's supervision. The story however then starts revealing more about Utsugi and his past with Excimer, and the mystery of how Excimer works. The story neatly picks up some strands of clues planted in earlier stories, revealing something had been brewing without the reader's knowledge, but to be honest, it's not that huge of a deal, and a lot of readers might have guessed the general gist already even if it had not been clewed. I do like how this story acts as a finale to the book.

Tantei Kikai Excimer is a short, but solid collectionthat admittedly is helped a lot by the great premise of Excimer as an unscrupulous detective AI: the stories are their best when her goals and abilities are used to shape the actual mystery plot and the way the story develops. The core mystery plots in this book are overall solid, but sometimes a bit too short or limited in scope, but having Excimer working on them usually does elevate them. It'd be interesting to see how Excimer would evolve, if sequels are to come.

Original Japanese title(s): 松城明『探偵機械エキシマ』:「Open the Curtain」/「Lost and Found」/「Don't Disturb Me」/「You Have Control」/「Just a Machine」 

Mind Over Murder

If I'm not back again this time tomorrow

Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters

"Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen) 

Disclosure: I have translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle.

Every Saturday, a handful of regulars gather at the bar April in the hopes Jizoubou will visit them again. Jizoubou is a yamabushi, an ascetic hermit who generally conducts his spiritual training in the mountains, but he sometimes comes down to... have a drink in a bar with other people. Because he's just human. Jizoubou's travels bring him to various places, where he meets even more people and for some reason, he has a knack for getting to know people just before a murder occurs in their vicinity. Jizoubou often relates these tales of murder to his friends at April, and as it turns out, it's always Jizoubou who ended up solving the case for the police. Each time, his fellow bar friends try their hand at solving the case too based on Jizoubou's retelling of the events, but none of them ever manage to match the brilliance of the travelling hermit in Arisugawa Alice's 1996 short story collection Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou ("The Wanderings of the Yamabushi Jizoubou").

As per custom, publisher Tokyo Sogensha usually adds an English title inside the book, which may be a translation, but often is a completely original title. In this case, the English title is Bohemian Dreams, after the cocktail served to Jizoubou. I wonder who comes up with those titles each time.

 Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou collects seven short stories that are all quite short and they all follow the same format. Each story consists of six segments, of which the first and last act as the framing book-ends: the first section sets up how Jizoubou ends up relating one of his old adventures to his friends at April, while the last section is dedicated to a few guesses by his friends, until Jizoubou finally gives the trick away. That means that each story only has four sections devoted them, and as you can guess, each story is pretty simple in structure, usually with one main trick that makes up the mystery. That said, most of the stories are pretty clever considering how short they are, and the overall book is quite enjoyable, even if after a while the stories do feel a bit samey. That does make it difficult to discuss the stories in detail though, as they are really very short: in some cases Jizoubou's story basically ends with the discovery of the corpse. So in this review, I'll only very briefly discuss the stories and highlight the points I liked about some of them.

The book opens with Local-sen to Cinderella ("The Local Line and Cinderella") which is indeed one of those stories that seems to spend all its time on the buildup, and then we learn about a murder, after which the story immediately returns to April, with the bar attendeed trying to guess what happened. In this case, Jizoubou had been s and he managed to catch the last train on a minor local train line back to Akino, the nearest city connected to the major Japan Rail network. He happens to share this last train with the actress Hoshimoto Mai and her entourage: Mai hails from the mountain village of Douno, the terminal station of the local line, and had been visiting her home town. The following morning, Jizoubou learns a murder had occured in the last train in the direction of Douno (so the counterpart to the train Jizoubou took to Akino): a stranger had been found stabbed in the train. Jizobou comes up with an explanation for the murder that is very clever: while the trick itself might sound familiar in some ways, Arisugawa manages to hide it well within the limited page count, and the application of the concept in this specific story is original enough to leave a very positive impression. In a way, the second story, Kasou Party no Yakata ("The House of the Masquerade Party") uses a similar underlying concept for its trick, even if the execution and the surrounding story is completely different. The set-up is prett funny though. Wandering in the mountains and in search for shelter, Jizoubou ends up at a manor where they're having a costumed birthday party, and other guests, assuming he's dressed up, help him inside. During the party, two costumed men are found dead in a room upstairs, one strangled and the other hit on the head. Witnesses had kept an eye on the door, and there seems to be no clear suspect, as only the two victims entered the room until they were discovered. I like the trick here, even if it's more a trick that seems feasible on paper than in real-life. I only realize in hindsight, as I'm writing this, that some of the underlying dynamics of this story and the first story are similar, but definitely not in a way that it's clear right away or that this story feels like a rehash in anway.

Gake no Kyouso ("The Cult Leader on the Cliff") has Jizoubou trying to help a man, whose girlfriend has fallen under the spell of a charismatic cult leader, who resides inside a cave in a cliff. Jizobou assists the man as he tries to find a way into the cave, but this attempt goes wrong and his attempts to save his girlfriend are also rebuted by the girlfriend herself. The following day however, Jizobou returns to find the cave half-collapsed: a bomb had been set off in the meditation chamber, killing the cult leader! But how did the culprit plant a bomb there, as it went off in the morning and his disciples sweeped the room earlier? The solution is simple but well foreshadowed, and I like the setting of a mountain sect/cult leader, as it fits the yamabushi motif of Jizoubou.

Jizoubou easily makes friends, so it's not rare for him to get invited for dinner, but seldom to one where one of the guests ends up poisoned! In Doku no Bansan ("Poisoned Dinner"), Jizoubou is invited by a friend to dinner, which is also attended by some other guests/family relatives. During dinner, one of them keels over, and it turns out his beer had been poisoned. But who did it? I love the trick behind this tale: it's so much not a mechanical trick, but a brilliantly psychological one, but even within the limited amount of pages Arisugawa has, he manages to very convincingly portray these characters in a way, that explains in a satisfactory manner how the murder was committed. I can imagine the same trick used in a full novel, but still, it wouldn't have the elegant simpleness of this version.

In Shinu Toki wa Hitori ("You Die Alone"), Jizoubou tells the story of when two hoodlums tried to pick a fight with him, but he was saved by their former boss: they used to form a gang of organized crime, but their boss has washed his hands clean and started a small bar. His former followers however still haven't quite gotten used to normal life yet. To apologize, the boss invites Jizoubou to his bar and offers him a drink. When the boss goes into his private office for a moment, a gunshot rings. Jizoubou and a former follower enter the office to find the boss shot and signs of someone having fled the office through the back door. Outside however, they can find a pistol, but also witnesses along all the alleys that swear they didn't see the murderer flee their way. So how did the killer escape? The trick behind the vanishing shooter is simple, but the story is quite memorable due to the underlying motive of the murderer: it is established very well, again, despite the limited amount of pages and it's surprisingly convincing. 

In Wareta Glass Mado ("The Broken Glass Window"), Jizoubou is invited to the home of a man hunting for truffles, When his host excuses himself for a moment to retreat to his study, a loud voice can be heard, and Jizoubou and the host's wife hurry to see what's happened: the host is lying dead on the floor with his head bashed in, one window broken and glass lying outside, as well as a book from the collection of the host. The matter seems simple: there was a struggle, a book was thrown at the assaillant and missed, and the host was killed. Or was that really the case? This is an interesting story, in the sense the murderer does something very over-the-top in order to create what is in essence a very simple trick, only made complicaed because of the 'over-the-top' thing. It's a bit silly to go so far, but it works. I wish it was clewed a bit better though, because I think the idea itself is good, only this is an example where I think the limited page count works to the story/trick's disadvantange.  

Whereas the previous stories were all serialized in magazines originally, the final story Tenma Hakase no Shouten ("The Ascension of Doctor Tenma") was written especially for the book release and it is therefore also a bit longer than the magazine stories. Wandering around in the forest, Jizoubou meets with an inventor who has been working on odd creations like a remote controlled boomerang. This inventor is later found dead in the early morning, apparently having fallen to his death from the cliff behind his house/lab. Footprints were left in the snow behind the house and they show how the inventor weaved a path from his house to the cliff, right above the spot where he was later found dead. He was found by someone passing beneath the path on his morning routine and at first glance, it appears this was nothing but a tragic accident, but of course, Jizoubou has different ideas. Because this story is a bit longer, we also have more/deeper theories proposed by Jizoubou's friends at April, which make this a more complex story. The trick revolves around something that seems a bit out of place in the world of this series, especially when we have a travelling hermit as our detective, and the trick itself is a bit simple to guess I think once a certain prop is introduced in the story, so I don't think it's the strongest tale of the collection, even if it's not that different in quality from the others.

Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou is a fairly solid, if simple short story collection by Arisugawa. Because each story is very short, there's simply not much room to paint really deep or complex stories, which results in most of these stories ending up as tales that revolve around one single thing, but most of the time, Arisugawa actually manages to make full use of the space he does have to bring satisfying stories with plots that are crafted with consistency and confidence. Few stories in the collection will probably manage to make an ever-lasting impression, but it's a quick and entertaining read that always retains a good level of quality when it comes to the mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 有栖川有栖『山伏地蔵坊の放浪』: 「ローカル線とシンデレラ」/「仮装パーティーの館」/「崖の教祖」/「毒の晩餐会」/「死ぬ時はひとり」/「割れたガラス窓」/「天馬博士の昇天」 

Tricky Business

Ah Why Why Ah Tell me why you hold me

"Why" (Color) 

Serializations of novels or short stories have become quite rare globally, but the format is still quite viable in Japan, with many novels/short story collections still being serialized first before they are actually published as books. Or in some cases, stories remain in serialized form. Ooyama Seiichirou is an author who specializes in the short story format, and nearly the entirety of his creative output is serialized in magazines in both physical and digital formats first before they get a book release. I have for example discusses his series like Watson-ryoku/The Watson Force, Alibi-kuzushi Uketamawarimasu/The Clockmaker Detective and Akai Hakubutsukan/The Red Museum, which are classic examples of Ooyama first publishing four or five stories in magazines first, before they are collected as one book, occasionally with Ooyama adding one original story for the book release. However, if you take a look at his (Japanese) Wikipedia, you'll notice some of the stories he's been serializing have not seen a collected release yet. For example, in the past I have reviewed a short story in a series where an actor specializing in villain roles turns out to be a gifted amateur detective, and while Ooyama has already released enough stories in this series to fill a volume, it has not seen a book release yet.

The same holds for the series I am discussing today: Wayama Yawa no 5W1H Jikenbo ("Wayama Yawa's 5W1H Casebook") consist of five stories Ooyama wrote between 2022 and 2023 for the magazine Shousetsu Tripper. The fifth story was in fact also announced in as the "final" story in the serialization, making this a finished story, but even now in 2026, there's no sign of a collected release being considered. And that's a shame, for the five stories have been very entertaining! As the title of the series suggests, each story in this series is centered around the five Ws (Who, what, where, when, why) and the one H (how). The series detective is the titular Wayama Yawa, a young, petite woman in her early twenties, who is absolutely fantastic at her work, with the catch being... that she's working somewhere else every time. For Wayama has nothing but admiration for all the kinds of work to be found in our modern society, so she tries out something each time (and always masters the profession in seconds). Each story follows new characters as they get entangled in mysterious incidents (sometimes criminal, sometimes not), with Wayama somehow getting involved too because of whatever new job she's doing now, and of course solving the case in an instant.

In a way, this series reminds me a bit of Awasaka Tsumao's A Aiichirou series: there, the titular amateur detective isn't the focal character either, as each short story focuses on a different cast, and then Aiichirou happens to get involved too, either in his role as travelling photographer, or because he happens to have found a different job for a period. 

Oh, in case you are wondering what the illustration is featured in this review? It is an illustration that accompanies the title page of the first story of this series as featured in the magazine Shousetsu Tripper, though I don't think it is specifically related to Wayama Yawa no 5W1H Jikenbo. At least, I'm pretty sure Wayama doesn't look like that, and none of the other stories have such illustrations.

The first story, Dochira ga Saki ni Shinda ka? ("Who Died First?"), opens in the hospital, where Futagawa Eisuke, director of Futagawa Funerals, drawing his final breath. Present are his wife Tomiko, his nephew Takashi and his wife, and Nagadate Michio, the corporate solicitor. Not present is Eisuke's younger brother/father of Takashi, Yuusuke. Nagadate is surprised Yuusuke isn't present at his brother's deathbed, but Takashi explains he hasn't managed to reach his father at home. Eisuke and Yuusuke never got along and indeed, before their wealthy father died, he wrote a will that put all of his fortune in a trust: Eisuke and Yuusuke would only inherit his money once they were both respectively 62 and 60 years old, to ensure they wouldn't try to kill each other in order to inherit everything. The two brothers therefore started avoiding each other for many decades, wtith Eisuke becoming a succesful funeral director, while Yuusuke remained an unsuccesful painter. Some years ago, their father's inheritance was finally released, but the brothers remained estranged. The day after Eisuke's death, Yuusuke still can't be reached at home, so Nagadate and Takashi drive to Yuusuke's remote home to check up on him, but there they find... Yuusuke dead in the bath tub. It appears Yuusuke too died yesterday, though the coroner can't determine a specific time of death. However, Nagadate instantly realizes the order of the death of the brothers will become a matter of great importance to Takashi due to Eisuke's will, in which he bequeaths one quarter of his tremendous wealth to Yuusuke and the remainder to his wife Tomiko. If Eisuke died before Yuusuke did, that quarter of his inheritance will first go to Yuusuke, and because of his death, then go to Takashi. However, if Yuusuke died first, Tomiko will inherit everything from her husband, while Takashi will only inherit from his not really well-to-do father. The moment Nagadate tells his new employee Wayama Waya about this conundrum however, she senses they have to work fast to prevent a murder from happening...

This story poses a very interesting problem, and in a rather devious way poses a double problem: the title in English ends up focusing on the "Who?", but of course, from the set-up you'll also see the problem presented is very much about "When?". One thing I have to say about this story that holds for all five stories is that these stories are very short, so it's hard to write a lot about them without giving too much away. I really like this story though! Ooyama actually adds this extra mystery at the end by having Wayama declare she sees a potential murder coming, so that leaves the reader with the question of which of the two brothers died first and also the question of who Wayama thinks is going to be murdered and why. There's some very cleverly hidden misdirection in this short tale, and while I don't always like unanswered questions in mysteries, this one has one I can live with very easily, as it really adds an ironic twist to the theme of the tale.

The second story, Doko de Orita no ka? ("Where Did She Get Off?"), a lawyer Shinpei is trying to locate a potential witness who can prove his client is innocent of a robbery. The problem however is that this witness can't be found, even though in theory, locating the person should be easy: according to the client, at the time of the crime, he ran into a woman dressed in ancient garments, like she had just come from the  Heian period. However, despite the police's best efforts, they can't find the woman nor any other witnesses who saw her that day. Until Shinpei discusses the case with his cousin Yuuna, a college student. It turns out that when Yuuna took the bus back home after her exam yesterday, that woman was already on the bus. Yuuna dozed off and woke up just before her own stop, by which time the woman had already gotten off. Yuuna and Shinpei decide to locate the woman and try to interview the bus driver who drove that bus yesterday, but it just so happens yesterday was that driver's last day before the start of his extended leave today after decades of being dedicated to his job. The new driver has not seen the woman in question unfortunately. This leaves Yuuna and Shinpei getting on and off at every stop between the university and the stop near Yuuna's home to see if they can find any clue leading to the woman, but then the new bus driver, a young woman called Wayama Yawa, has a suggestion for them... A relatively innocent story with no real crime as the main mystery, which adds some variety. There's some funny circular reasoning going regarding the woman: the reason the woman was dressed in very traditional garments is likely related to the bus stop where she got off: do you have to deduce why the woman was dressed the way she was and from there deduce where she got off, or do you have to deduce where she got off, and based on that location deduce why she was dressed like that? It's a bit of both of course. While the woman being dressed like that is a bit strange, I think there's one main hint given in the story that allows for a natural, intuitive guess why she's dressed like that. I am more of a fan of the clues that allow the reader to guess at what stop she got off and why, as that is a multi-layered one that also cleverly includes Wayama herself in the mystery.

In Nani wo Takurandeiru no Ka? ("What Has He Planned?"), the narrator is a former test driver who lost his job after gamble problems, but his skills allowed him to secure a very unique job: a transporter. Transport objects or persons from A to B and he's paid enough to accept the fact that some of these jobs aren't always safe. This time, he's asked to drive a wealthy hotel owner called Kureta Kouzou and one of his possessions from Tokyo to Karuizawa. The object in question is the Cretan Cat, a figure dating from the fifteenth century which is said to bring fortune to those who cherish it, and misfortune to those who don't treat it well. It has changed owners during the last few centuries, and has been the possession of some of very succesful people indeed. Kureta had purchased the Cretan Cat for a pittance after its previous owner died, but now two people are after the Cat: the nephew of the previous owner who sold the Cat to Kureta not knowing its true worth, and a high-ranking police official who might even use the power of the police to get his hands on the Cat in order to climb to the top. The driver and Kureta are joined by a hired bodyguard... a young small woman called Wayama. While the driver first thinks this must be a bad joke, he soon learns the woman is indeed suitable for the job, so the three drive off in a car especially prepared by Kureta, racing to Karuizawa via local roads. They get ambushed along the way, but Wayama not only finds a way out, she also immediately deduces which oppenent is behind the operation. 

Again, while this is a short stories, it's cool to see Ooyama use Wayama in all kinds of scenarios, this time in a more action-oriented story. There's of course a kind of hard-boiled atmosphere at play in this story with the first-person narration and a McGuffin in the form of the Cretan Cat, which again is very unique compared to the "everyday life mystery"-esque setup of the previous story. This story spends quite some time on the set-up of explaining who the narrator is and the backstory of the Cretan Cat, so by the time we get to the ambush, there are really not that many pages left to really develop the mystery. Guessing the mastermind behind the ambush is thus not very difficult simply because of the small scale of the story, though I like the motive behind the ambush: it's not simply greed that drives the culprit, but something more unexpected, despite it being fairly hinted at. Of course, that is the main problem of the story as proven by the title, but because most of the story is more focused on the who and how of the ambush, the question of why/what the goal was doesn't pop up until relatively late.

Naze Mainichi Ippon Dake Kau no Ka? ("Why Does She Buy Just One A Day?") is a variant on the famous real-life story of mystery author Wakatake Nanami: she worked at a bookshop when she was in university, and every Saturday a man would appear with twenty 50-yen coins, exchange those coins for a 1000-yen bill and leave again. She never figured out why that man did that, and her story has become the topic of two anthologies with both professional and amateur detectives providing a possible solution to her problem, and other writers have also utilized variations on this problem, like Ooyama here. The narrator works at Trico Mart, a convenience store and due to a lack of employees, often ends up working a shift all alone. For the last few weeks, a woman has been coming to the story every single weekday morning at forty-past-seven to buy one thing: a pencil priced at 95 yen. It is the only thing she buys every time she comes. The question of why has been weighing on the narrator's mind for some time, so he brings it up to the manager, but he has no idea either. The manager does bring good news: he has hired a new employee, a young woman called Wayama Yawa. When the narrator starts "training" Wayama the following day, he soon realizes she's a very fast learner. When he happens to mention the story of the pencil-buying woman, she asks him to guess why the woman would be doing that. The answer he arrives at, and the answer Wayama arrives at however are quite different. While the set-up is basically simply an inverted version of the 50-yen coin problem, I really like the problem presented. The narrator's main theory is actually quite interesting. Obviously, his one will end up wrong, so it's supposed to be a false theory, but I wonder how many people would have arrived at this one: his theory is built on a certain characteristic that is apparently present in convenience store registers, but I wasn't aware of that! The Wayama theory is of course far more interesting: the first part of her theory is pretty easily guessed, but the "jump" to the latter of her theory is a bit more difficult. Mystery fans might guess this "jump" rather easily as it is a trope that's sometimes seen in mystery fiction, but I think an extra hint to guide the step from the first half to the second half just a bit more cleaner, as making that connection is a bit more difficult without knowledge of that trope. Still, I think it's one of the better stories of the series.

The final story is Kyouki wa Douyatte Idou Shita no Ka? ("How Was The Murder Weapon Moved?") is set on the "Labyrinth", a so-called event train consisting of three carriages. The first and third carriage are normal carriages for passengers, but the second carriage has been completely stripped from its seats and instead, walls have been placed in the carriage to create a labyrinth, challenging passengers to find their way from the first carriage to the third or vice-versa. They change the layout of the labyrinth periodically, providing train fans even more reason to take this train frequently. It's the first time Hirokawa Daisuke is travelling all alone (knowing his parents wouldn't like this) and he's been having the time of his life. He recognizes one of his fellow passengers as Ootsuki Shinichi, the famous puzzle designer who also designed the labyrinth in this train. When the train conductor, a young woman in her twenties, announces someone has thrown paint on one of the walls of the labyrinth and that therefore she asks passengers to not use the labyrinth anymore, Daisuke is relieved he already explored the labyrinth. He dozes off. When he later wakes up, the conductor is here again, checking up on Ootsuki, who is sleeping in the seat in front of Daisuke. Or least, it appeared he was sleeping, but Wayama soon discovers Ootsuki is in fact dead, and the syringe cap lying on the floor seems to suggest a certain method of death. Then a passenger from the third carriage makes his way through the labyrinth, telling Wayama he found a syringe underneath his seat. The police soon discover that syringe was indeed used to give Ootsuki a lethal injection. However, an examination of the security camera in the labyrinth carriage show only Wayama made her way through the labyrinth between the time Ootsuki was last seen alive and then found dead, so how did the murderer move the syringe from the first carriage to the third carriage?

An impossible crime as our last story, and one in a rather fanciful setting too! Having worked on the English translation of Ayatsuji Yukito's The Labyrinth House Murders, I of course have a soft spot for labyrinths and I can't conceal my slight disappointment at the realization  Kyouki wa Douyatte Idou Shita no Ka? didn't feature a map of the labyrinth even if it's not directly needed to solve the mystery. This story is slightly longer than most of the other stories, so it has some more room for fake solutions, which is always appreciated. I think this case actually has one of the more outlandish tricks used in Ooyama's books (who is usually fairly realistic, and focuses more on the logic needed to solve the problem), so that actually came as a pleasant surprise, and it really helps sell the unique location. Still, it wouldn't be an Ooyama if the trail leading to the solution wasn't mostly built around logical deductions based on the crime scene and the actions taking by the people involved: a lot of theorizing is done on the reason why the syringe was moved to the third carriage after killing Ootsuki in the first place, and it serves as a first step towards the solution, which is clever, though it immediately points at one single character as the culprit, so it's a bit of a double-edged sword.

By now, you should know that I thoroughly enjoyed this series by Ooyama, and it's such a shame it hasn't been collected yet as a volume, as it can be difficult to obtain the stories now, as you can only find them in the magazines where they were serialized. I really like how unlike a lot of Ooyama's other series, we don't have a series detective (or "detective enabler", in the case of Watson-ryoku) who gets involved in most of their cases because of their profession/expertise (police detectives, alibi-cracking expert, locked room expert): Wayama can be in any role, and her stories can be about anything, from an impossible crime to a relatively cute story about where someone got off the bus and within these five stories, we already got a wide variety of characters, settings and problems. It would be so cool to see this series continued in the future...

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎　「どちらが先に死んだのか？」/「どこで降りたのか？」/「何を企んでいるのか？」/「なぜ毎日一本だけ買うのか？」/「凶器はどうやって移動したのか？」