While the Clock Ticked

 Are you death or paradise?

 Now you'll never see me cry

There's just no time to die

"No Time to Die" (Billie Eilish) 

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders, The Mill House Murders, The Labyrinth House Murders and of course, The Clock House Murders.

In 2024, Hulu released a wonderfully produced live-action adaptation of The Decagon House Murders. It just so happened I actually was going to meet author Ayatsuji Yukito the day after it was released, so I binged the series the night before, so I could actually talk about it to him. Like many others, I too was curious how they were going to actually film the book, as it is a very difficult work to adapt for certain media, but the result was honestly really, really good. So when I learnt last year they were going to do an adaptation of The Clock House Murders in 2026, I was thrilled: given how good The Decagon House Murders was, I have only high expectations for this new release, which was released this very week. Obviously, The Clock House Murders is a book dear to me: not only because it's easily one of my favorite books in the series, I also did the English translation of the novel, so I spent a lot of time on, and with the book. 

The live-action series releases today (Friday 27th), so I haven't seen the series yet at the time of writing this post. While they released the complete The Decagon House Murders series on the release day two years ago, this time they are splitting the release across two batches, with the first six episodes presenting the main problem released this week, and the last two episodes, with the solution, releasing next month. So I might binge everything next month in one go. 

To celebrate the release of this adaptation, the literary magazine Shousetsu Gendai (published by Kodansha, the Japanese publisher behind Ayatsuji's House books) featured a The Clock House Murders special in its March 2026 issue, with not only interviews with Ayatsuji, Arisugawa Alice and one of the main actors of the series, the magazine also featured no less than five (!) original "House"-inspired mystery short stories, written by as many authors. 

The first story featured is Aosaki Yuugo's Kubisogiyama no Kaiten Yashiki ("The Revolving Manor on Mt. Kubisogi"). The titular Revolving Manor is one of the six manors built by the legendary architect Kurotsubo Shinku. This particular building stands on Mt Kubisogi in the Hyogo Prefecture, and is best imagined as one of those revolving restaurants that offer a 360-degree panoramic view. The "entrance" of the house is actually just an elevator shaft: the elevator that leads up to the circular house built on top of that shaft tower. The house consist of three "rings". The fixed outer ring is the outer wall of the building, and is made of acrylic: the whole outer wall functions as a window, offering a panoramic view. The middle ring is built right against this outer window/window and holds most of the rooms, liking a sitting room, study and bedroom. This ring slowly revolves clock-wise, meaning each room not only has an amazing view, this view actually changes depending on the time! The inner "ring" is the static center of the house around which the second ring revolves, holding the elevator entrance, bathroom and kitchen.

The house is currently owned by Nishikubo Hiroyuki, who runs a make-up company. He and his wife are visited by a crew from a magazine on architecture for an article on the house. The crew are to stay for the night at this unique creation by the enigmatic architect Kurotsubo. The members all stay in a different room. The following morning however, a gigantic hole is found to have been carved out of the acrylic window. It's clear it wasn't just broken by accident, but someone actually bothered to open a hole in the outer wall. Down on the ground, at the base of the elevator shaft, they find one of the crew members lying dead, seemingly having fallen through the hole down the tower. Everyone is perplexed by the situation: did someone kill him and then cut a hole in the window to dump the body downstairs? But what purpose could that have?

This story is actually a sequel to an earlier Aosaki story, which features another house (The Glass Manor) by the architect Kurotsubo. I have the book, but I haven't read it yet. But it's no problem if you start here. The house in this story is actually pretty "normal" all things considered: I can easily imagine someone wanting a revolving house in the mountains with the complete outer wall acting as a window so you can always enjoy the view! It's not a particularly long story, which is why I was surprised Aosaki manages to pack quite a lot into the story, from a secondary storyline involving the narrator to a few (very short) wrong theories and then we have the actual explanation of what happened and it's... pretty hilarious if you visualize what happened and how the victim found their death. It's not mind-blowing good, but I do like the story for its subdued silliness and I'd love to see a live-action adaptation of this! I think Aosaki could even have gotten away with just that one main idea, so I do appreciate it how he decided to still add some more story details that weren't that necessary.

Ibuki Amon's Tsubaki Fujin no Subarashii Yakata ("Madam Tsubaki's Wonderful Home") is a historical mystery, as we may expect from Ibuki. Set in Manchukuo, we follow private detective Tsukisamu Sanshirou (also appearing in this collection), who is hired to find the brother of a young woman. When their father died, the whole family fortune was stolen by their uncle. The young woman and her mother managed to find some work to earn a humble living, but her brother ran away. He became a robber and eventually made it to the position of captain within his gang of robbers: his robbers already took revenge on their uncle. His sister had not seen her brother in a decade, but recently got a letter saying he had been wounded and was now recovering in a strict medical institution run by a Mrs. Tsubaki: patients aren't allowed to write or receive any letters, but he managed to get one of the suppliers to deliver a letter to his sister for him. He would write again later on, but she never got more news from him and when she asked the deliveryman to go ask at the institution, he was found out by guards and beaten to death. Tsukisamu happens to know Mrs Tsubaki from his time working for the railway ministry. He decides to pay the institution a visit, and is shown a truly wonderful place where wounded Manchurians, from criminals, to simple women and children, are slowly nursed back to health with all the love and care they need... but Tsukisamu knows there's something wrong about the house and the intentions of Mrs. Tsubaki.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a bit disappointed when I realized the "house" in this story was not as important as in the other stories in this feature: the focus of the mystery lies more on the intentions of Mrs. Tsubaki and why she is running this hospital. As one can expect from Ibuki, it's a great historical mystery though, set very firmly in the time period and setting of the story, which is of course also fairly original as you don't have many present-day mystery writers anymore who use Manchukuo as a setting. The motive for Mrs. Tsubaki's actions is set-up wonderfully and eventually, Tsukisamu arrives at a heinous plot hiding within Tsubaki's seemingly wonderful hospital. Less of a "add-clue 1-and-clue 2-to-arrive-at-answer 3" mystery, more of a "given-these-remarks, can-you-imagine-why-someone-would-do-this?" type of mystery, but still well-done.

Kesshoukan no Satsujin ("The Crystal House Murders") by Ooyama Seiichirou is set in November of 1990 and first introduces the reader to a group of friends, consisting of Ryouta, Kouji, Shuuichi, Rikka, Maki and Satomi. They are staying at the Crystal House, a small hexagon-shaped hotel in Hokkaido. They have been friends since primary school, and still meet once in a while even now they're all adults. The Crystal House is owned by Ryouta and not in business just yet, but he's giving his friends a sneak peek at his new business adventure. The friends have a pleasant night in the Crystal House, surrounded by nothing but nature and snow, but the following morning, Rikka is found murdered in her room: her head's been bashed in and for some reason, her left hand has been cut off. Rikka has always been the mysterious one of the group, with strange powers of clairvoyance, but is that why she got killed? When they try to call the police, they find the line's dead. Is the murderer someone from outside, or is it one of the friends, and why was the victim's hand cut off? 

This is probably my favorite story in the feature, partially because the story feels the most like a story inspired directly by Ayatsuji's House series, with a few cool nods like the cut-off hand, as well as a great set-up of the narrative: the tale actually starts with a news report detailing how the Crystal House went up in flames and how everyone but one person staying at the hotel had died: one person made it out alive and was saved by the emergency services, but is seemingly suffering from amnesia, with no recollection of the events that led to the deaths of all the people in the hotel. This "book-ending" mystery of who the survivor actually is, and what their role was in the deadly events that occured inside the Crystal House starting with Rikka's death, add a great extra layer to the mystery. The mystery of the cut-off hand, as said, invokes a few moments from Ayatsuji's house series, but the way Ooyama develops this clue feels much more Queenian than Ayatsuji would generally do. So even though the "prop" is the same, Ooyama definitely makes best use of his own expertise, using the cut-off hand for a proper physical-clue-based chain of deduction. I really like what he does with the Crystal House here as a setting too, giving it a unique vibe, and the whole tale feels really complete.

Shasendou Yuuki's Goumonkan no Satsujin ("The Torture House Murders") has the WeTuber Kugi Hikage and her assistant visiting the Torture House, as Kugi is best known for visiting houses with a nasty background stories. Twenty years ago, Horikoshi Toutarou, the original owner of the house kidnapped a few people to torture them to death in his basement with his collection of torture device. One victim managed to escape eventually and notified the police, leading to Horikoshi's arrest. The house, now known as the Torture House, was later bought by Nukube Ikurou and he had an exact copy of the Torture House built next to the original. He has preserved the original Torture House and has a caretaker there keep an eye on things, while he lives in the copy. As this copy houses his collection of antique wares, he has dubbed it the Antique House. He has invited a few people interested in the Torture House and the torture devices kept in the basement to view them, with Kugi as one of his guests. The tour is to be held the next day, but when Nukube doesn't appear in front of the Antique House the next morning as agreed upon, the group crosses a snow-covered field to head for the Torture House themselves. The caretaker there states he did see his master come to the Torture House yesterday. He had assumed Nukube had returned to the Antique House for the night, but the complete absence of footprints in the snow suggest Nukube never left the Torture House. When the group enter the dark basement, they find a dead Nukube, who has been clearly tortured to death, with his joints and bones broken. Unfortunately for the caretaker, it seems that he's the main suspect as he was the only other person in the Torture House last night.

Setting-wise, I really love this story, as the backstory of the Torture House is really cool, as well as the idea of an Antique House full of weird curiosities. It's why I am a bit disappointed that due to the way this story was structured, one person stands out a bit too much as the only viable suspect, which immediately limits the ways the murder could've been committed. The story does make cool use of the torture theme though. I also like the idea of how Kugi manages to trap the murderer in principle, but the way it is written now, the clue depends very much on trivia, while I think it could probably have been written in a way to be a bit fairer towards the reader, if they happen to not have certain knowledge.

The last story, Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken ("The Black Arrow Mansion Murder Case") by Takemoto Kenji, is one I'm not going to discuss in detail. The story is about the detective Norimuzu Rintarou who's asked to look into the disappearance of the owner of the Black Arrow Mansion in Saga Prefecture. Some readers will probably already have realized it by now, but this is a full-on parody of Oguri Mushitarou's Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, one of the most notorious anti-mystery novels from Japan. Takemoto goes full throttle here, doing not only direct mirrors to scenes from that book, but the story is also absolutely brimming with countless of literary references that may or may not be real and characters who don't speak like humans but like... well, I guess, like AI that tries to sound smart and well-read. The story is basically only fun if you know the original Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken and recognize what this story is mirroring exactly. For Takemoto does that really good, it feels as frustrating to read as the original! (Considering the author's intent, this is praise).

Overall, I think this The Clock House Murders feature in Shousetsu Gendai was pretty fun though, and it's great seeing all these authors doing a take on a house-based mystery. I'm looking forward to watching the live-action adaptation too. If you haven't already though, please consider reading the English translation of The Clock House Murders too, as it's really a great mystery novel!

Original Japanese title(s): 青崎有吾『馘殺山の回転屋敷』/伊吹亜門『椿夫人のすばらしい家』 / 大山誠一郎『結晶館の殺人』/ 斜線堂有紀『拷問館の殺人』 / 竹本健治『黒矢館殺人事件』

Limits of Truth

"My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.”

 "Forrest Gump"

"There must be something comforting about the number three, people always give up after three," Sherlock said in the episode The Lying Detective from Sherlock, and indeed, who would've thought I'd need to bring out the old The Three Great Occult Books tag out again, considering I already discussed all three books already? But as Sherlock pointed out, sometimes it's not just three.

The Three Great Occult Books
Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken (The Black Death Mansion Murder Case) (1934)
Dogura Magura (1935)
Kyomu he no Kumotsu (Offerings to Nothingness) (1964) 

The Fourth Great Occult Book
Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku (Paradise Lost Inside A Box) (1978)

The declaration of Naru (nickname: Niles) that he planned to write a detective novel came as a surprise to his circle of friends. The members of the group, consisting of his twin brother Ran (nickname: Holland) and approximately ten other friends and acquaintances, had a love for mystery fiction in common, and affectionately referred to each other as "family". Nobody really knew what Niles' intentions were behind writing a novel using the "family " as the characters, and many of the family members looked forward to the novel titled How Was The Locked Room Made? That is, until a real mystery happens among the group of friends, and it appears this tragedy was already predicted by the events in Niles' novel. As Niles continues writing his novel, reality and fiction cross each other, with occurences in Niles' novel having an impact on the murder investigation in the real world, and vice versa. What is real and what is fiction in Takemoto Kenji's Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku ("Paradise Lost Inside A Box", 1978)?

The term sandaikisho, or The Three Great Occult Books, refers to three Japanese mystery novels considered to be the pinnacle of the anti-mystery genre, written before we readers all got used to terms like Post-Modernism, meta-physical mysteries or even anti-mystery. The books take on the form of a mystery novel, but deny the possibilities of the genre, basically taking the genre conventions to the extreme to show its limits. The term Three Great Occult Books is actually a play on the Four Great Classics from Chinese literature, but give another meaning to the word ki: In Chinese, the same word is used in the context of "outstanding", but in this Japanese instance, the word is used in the meaning of "strange", "occult" or "deviant".

Oguri Mushitarou's Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken (1934) for example pretends to be a story about the investigation into a series of murders in a mansion, but is actually the ultimate pedantic novel. It's Philo Vance on crack here, as the detective takes up any occasion to blab about topics including (but not exclusively) occultism, mysticism, criminology, religions, astrology, astronomy, psychology, heraldry, medicine and cryptography. Symbolism is what drives the novel, as the detective keeps relating anything he sees or hears to some obscure topic in any of the aforementioned fields, resulting in an outrageously farfetched deduction.... which also turns out to be correct. It basically ridicules the concept of solving crimes based on evidence and logic by presenting incredibly farfetched deductions based on obscure facts and symbolism. Yumeno Kyuusaku's Dogura Magura (1935) in turn did away with the notion of reality in general: there is no straightforward narrative here as the reader, and the protagonist who might or might not be a mental patient is presented with contradicting documents, records and accounts from which they might or might not construct a murder case that might have happened in the past. Finally, Nakai Hideo's Kyomu he no Kumotsu (1964) is what Berkeley's The Poisoned Chocolates Case never dared to be: an utter deconstruction of the possibilities of deduction by having a group of people deduce the most fanciful, yet convincing theories about a death that might not even be a murder, and about a series of hypothethical murders that may or may not happen in the future because they think serial murders are more interesting and fun, while holding onto rules and tropes like having to come up with murder tricks that are completely original. Every theory seems plausible and the perfect solution until the next theory is introduced which seems even more brilliant, until the reader realizes that at this point any theory seems plausible, with no guarantee something is right.

And now to get back to the topic of this review: while the aforementioned books are referred to as The Three Great Occult Books, Takemoto Kenji's Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku is often considered the fourth book, as it not only derives a lot of inspiration from the three great books, but also continues the tradition of being an ambitious anti-mystery novel. The reader should be warned when reading this, as it has absolutely no intention on playing straight with the reader. The novel takes on the form of a mystery novel, but is closer to a post-modern experiment. That said, many Japanese mystery authors have cited this book as having great influence on them, including Ayatsuji Yukito and Inui Kurumi.

Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku is in short the cumulation of The Three Great Occult Books: it takes something substantional from each of those books to weave its own story of murder and mystery. The most iconic trick it plays on the reader is the fluid form of reality and fiction. In the prologue, Niles explains he's going to write How Was The Locked Room Made?, a novel based on real-life, featuring his friends as the characters. But from that point on, the reader is thrown into a mystifying maze, as they are presented with two contradicting narratives: in the uneven chapters, the reader is told one of the "family" members was murdered inside a locked apartment, and that the even chapters are excerpts from Niles' novel How Was The Locked Room Made?. But in those same even chapters, the family members are presented with an impossible disappearance from a locked room, and the events in the uneven chapters are considered to be from How Was The Locked Room Made?. Both narratives thus claim to be reality, and that the other is fiction. What makes things even more confusing is the fact that Niles' book is stated to alternate between chapters based on events that really happened to the "family" and Niles' own story, which means that basically all chapters included in the book are from How Was The Locked Room Made? and that characters sometimes refer to certain chapters that are supposed to be accurate accounts of "their" reality.

It's basically Inception.

The dual narrative structure, both accusing the other of being How Was The Locked Room Made?,  means that characters who die in one narrative, might still be alive in the other and vice-versa. For example, a character called Hikuma is the murder victim in the first chapter, but the same Hikuma is still very much alive in the second chapter, as both narratives consider the other fiction. It leads to the unique situation of having a character detect his own (fictional) death, as the even-chapters Hikuma himself is also curious as to how he died in the uneven chapters. Characters can also act differently across narratives, as Niles' characterization might not be perfect at times. Sometimes events that happen in the fictional world do also happen in the real world, strengtening the link between the two and blurring the boundaries. This play with the narrative and the characters, where you never really know what is real and what is fiction is similar to the effect Dogura Magura had, and at a certain point, the reader doesn't really mind anymore what's real or not. It's a very weird, alienating effect that gives this novel a unique feel.

The many battles of the wits from Kyomu he no Kumotsu are another form of the inspiration for Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku. In Kyomu he no Kumotsu, the characters entertained themselves by comparing their theories about the (hypothetical) murders with each other, setting up special rules like "only original ideas", "no accomplices" and "there have to be multiple murders". These battles of the wits were the driving force behind the plot, as we were presented I think at least four seperate elaborate solutions times four murders each. The "family" members in Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku do the same (they even say they are inspired by Kyomu he no Kumotsu), as each of them hopes to outsmart the others with some brilliant deduction about the mystery they're facing (the murder in the even chapters, and the disappearence in the uneven chapters).We are shown quite a lot of fairly interesting possible solutions to the impossible situations, and it's here when Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku feels most like a "normal" mystery novel, with people trying to solve the mystery. Some solutions are pretty neat actually, and could've worked perfectly for a standalone impossible crime story. That said though, it is also clear it's inspired by Kyomu he no Kumotsu and The Poisoned Chocolates Case, as each plausible theory is easily discarded by the reveal of some new fact, and replaced by another plausible theory, which in turn is also proved to be wrong, etcetera ad infinitum. Nothing is straightforward in this novel.

Indeed not, because the novel also borrows the pedantic mode from Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken. While not as vexing as in that book, the theories of some characters in Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku do feel very pedantic, referencing obscure topics from psychology, chemistry and even esotericism. Some characters will first go on on such themes for four, five pages, only to explain how that concept has parallels with their own situation, and then the application to show how they eventually arrived at their solution. I was relieved to see it never went as crazy as in Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, but this indulging in seemingly useless trivia can be quite hard to get through. Even Philo Vance would find it intrusive.

The title as the Fourth Great Occult Novel for Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku is definitely not undeserved. While it features common mystery novel tropes like locked room murders, impossible disappearances and a whole slew of imaginative solutions that would've been well-received if used in a normal mystery story, the tone of the anti-mystery genre still reigns at the end. The greatest prank it pulls on the reader is that it never lets you know what is real and what is fiction. You are never given certainty about what case you're supposed to be investigating (if there's any case at all), you don't know which characters are supposed to be dead, who is supposed to be alive or that they're supposed to be Schrödinger's cat. It is an extremely strange book, though I did like it. In terms of atmosphere, it resembles Kyomu he no Kumotsu a lot, which was by far my favorite of the Three Occult Books. Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku does leave you with a feeling of senselessness, as if it all had been for nothing, as it was just fiction, but as that was obviously what it set out to do, I can live with it. I would never recommend this book to someone with a "normal" interest in mystery fiction, but it might be interesting for someone who wants to delve more into post-modern mystery novels.

Original Japanese title(s): 竹本健治　『匣の中の失楽』

「論理の旋律は必ず真実を奏でる」

１．アカシャに書かれていることは全て事実。ただし犯人はウソをついている可能性がある

２．動機の強い弱いは重要ではない

３．トリックや犯人は、超能力や宇宙人など超常的な事象によるものではない。冥界の住人も、現世の事件に一切関与していない

『TRICK X LOGIC』

1. Everything that is written in the Akasha is true. However, there is the possibility that the murderer is lying.

2. It is not important whether a motive is strong or weak.

3. Tricks and criminals are not supernatural, like psychic powers or aliens. The inhabitants of the underworld are not involved with incidents in the world of the living.

"Trick X Logic"

More games!

I think I bought my PSP in the winter last year, but I have to honestly say I haven't played it that much this year. Strangely enough, the PSP games I have cleared  are all detective games. Weird. You'd think I'd clear something like Warriors Orochi faster than a game that actually requires me to read.

I've already covered the first season of PSP game Trick X Logic in an earlier post, and I won't go into the specifics of how this game works here, neither the details of the story as it's all there. Trick X Logic Season Two is exactly the same as the previous season, except for the stories of course. As my previous post was mostly about how the game works, I'll discuss the stories of Season Two more deeply this time. Once again, all of these stories are loosely linked by the story of prosecutor Yoshikawa trying to solve his own murder by reading underworldly Akasha (crime records) and young camera-woman Tsukasa who keeps getting involved with murder cases.

As the problem- and solution-chapters of Bourei Hamlet ("The Ghost Hamlet") by Kuroda Kenji were divided among Season One and Two, I started this season just checking whether my deduction was right. Which it was. The story was a very interesting one, with a man, dressed as the Phantom (of the Opera) being killed at a costume party. His murder is caught on CCTV, but it seems his murderer was... an armor of suits. Was it the Ghost of Hamlet that killed someone? With a gun?! I had a lot of fun with this story, and I think that came from the fact I'm somewhat familiar with Kuroda, due to his manga adaption of the Gyakuten series ("Ace Attorney series"). If you read this story as a Gyakuten story, everything makes sense.

Bloody Mary no Nazo ("The Mystery of Bloody Mary") by Takemoto Kenji starts with a famous detective writer visiting a hotel. Several fans knew he would visit this hotel and have booked their own rooms there too. Add in some other suspects, and you're all set for a Murder of a Detective Writer. Hardly an original premise, but it's usually entertaining. Which it was, but this story certainly didn't offer something original or innovative. A decent story, but nothing more than just a decent story.
 
Maya Yutaka's Rifling Murder is one of those stories I don't know whether I should love or hate. With a man being killed in his cottage on a small island, with the trajectory of the bullet suggesting the murderer was flying (or "Being sniped by a man hanging from a helicopter!"), it certainly has an interesting concept. The solution however, while adequately hinted at (well, that's pretty mandatory with this game), borders on the fantastical. It's not impossible, but quite improbable.

Me no Kabe no Misshitsu ("A Locked Room with Walls of Eyes") by Ooyama Seiichirou is maybe the most ambitious story of the whole bunch. In this story, the owner of a building is found killed in his office. But strangely enough, no murderer is seen entering the office through the door (there is a camera), nor through the window (witnesses). What makes this story so interesting, is that everything up to the discovery of the corpse is written from the viewpoints of the suspects, switching between them. One of the rules of the Akasha is that everything that is written there is true. The only exception is that the murderer might be lying (in conversation). Therefore, a sentence like "He thought that was strange" is true, while an utterance of "That's strange" might be false. Making use of these Akasha rules, Ooyama has neatly written one of the better stories of Trick X Logic.

Y no Hyouteki ("The Target of Y") is probably the story that attracts most attention. Written by Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice?! That's like Queen and Carr collaborating on a story! The story itself felt very Trick-ish, with a sun-worshipping cult-like new religion and the second patriarch being killed while he was performing the daily Southern prayer. Who killed him, and more importantly how? The prayer was held in a special court, locked from the inside with only his two most trusted followers besides him. Neither of them seems to have done it though. This religious element as well as the solution also remind of Chesterton and it's all in all a very neat story. The solution is somewhat spoiled by the title (which is a very Arisugawa-like title!), but like the previous story, one of the better ones. Well, it has to be! I'm not sure how the two worked on this work though. While I'm fairly well-read with Arisugawa, I'm not that far with Ayatsuji and it's hard for me to point at something and say, 'well, that's clearly Ayatsuji there'.

The final story, Kanzen Muketsu no Alibi ("The Absolutely Perfect Alibi") by Abiko Takemaru is a rather simple story compared to the previous two. The story obviously is about breaking an alibi, but the solution is an old, old one and thus a somewhat dissappointing ending to a fun series.

Well, it's not the ending actually, as there is also a bonus story (you unlock a chapter for every story you clear). Bousou Juliet ("Juliet Running Wild") by Kuroda Kenji is once again that is so obviously inspired by the premise of the Gyakuten series, I wonder whether he was planning to use this in the Gyakuten Saiban/Gyakuten Keji manga originally. Here, a man, Shuuhei gets crushed between his own car and a truck. Tsukasa, who was sitting in the backseat of the car, swears the car started to accelerate on its own, killing Shuuhei. She remembers the story she was told by Shuuhei. When he bought the car, the seller said it was called Juliet and that the previous owner had commited suicide. The car was still looking for its owner. Did the car run over Shuuhei? And why? This bonus story is just a normal story, so there is no looking for keywords/mysteries/insights here, but Kuroda Kenji did manage to slip in a Challenge to the Reader here and somewhat hard to believe at a certain, crucial point, it's a very nice bonus story.

The worst of the lot, has to be the overall storyline though. Yes, Yoshikawa "solves" his own murder, but in such a ridiculous way, it's not even worth mentioning. Tsukasa as the sole link between every story also feels very forced and didn't really add something for me (especially the obligatory "chief inspector Marunouchi suspects Tsukasa did it" scenes every single time were horrible). Maybe it bugs me that much because I have been praising the Gyakuten series for good overall storylines, but I expected something better from Chunsoft. You know, the company known for writing stories and sound novels.

Trick X Logic, basically being a interactive novel written by several big names in the world, is still very entertaining though and hope Chunsoft will use this deduction system with a few tweaks in future detective games though.

Original Japanese title(s): 『TRICK X LOGIC』/ 黒田研二　「亡霊ハムレット」/竹本健治　「ブラッディ・マリーの謎」/麻耶雄嵩　「ライフリング マーダー」/大山誠一郎　「目の壁の密室」/綾辻行人 & 有栖川有栖　「Yの標的」/我孫子武丸　「完全無欠のアリバイ」/黒田研二　「暴走ジュリエット」

「君ね、決め台詞のない名探偵なんて、存在価値がないも同然だよ」

"But what is often called an intuition is really an impression based on logical deduction or experience. When an expert feels that there is something wrong about a picture or a piece of furniture or the signature on a cheque he is really basing that feeling on a host of small signs and details. He has no need to go into them minutely - his experience obviates that - the net result is the definite impression that something is wrong.But it is not a guess，it is an impression based on experience.", Hercule Poirot, "The ABC Murders"

Upon my return, I discovered I had a bigger gaming and detective fiction backlog than expected, so it was nice (and more efficient) to have something that was both a game and detective fiction. Trick X Logic Season One was a game I bought only days before I left Japan (because I have wa~hay too many point cards), but that doesn't mean it was just chosen on a whim. I had been actually looking forward to this game for some quite time.

This visual novel, developed by veteran Chunsoft, caught my attention because many big-name Japanese detective writers collaborated on it. Seven writers wrote ten scenarios for the game, with the reader being forced to solve the mysteries themselves.

The premise: after being pushed off of a building, prodigy prosecutor Yoshikawa Itsuki wakes up in Hell. Where the judge of human souls, Yama, asks Yoshikawa for his help with some unsolved cases. Yama usually reads a record of human deeds, the Akasha, to pass judgement on human souls, but in some cases he can't figure out whodunnit just by reading the Akasha. Hence the need for Yoshikawa's mind. He is to read the Akasha and figure out the culprit. If he cooperates, Yama promises to return him to the land of the living.

Cue the scenarios of the detective writers. Season one consists of 5 and a half stories, being 0) Yubisasu Shitai ("The Pointing Corpse", credited to Chunsoft), 1) Nusumerata Figure ("The Stolen Figurine", written by Abiko Takemaru), 2) Akari no Kieta Heya de ("In the dark room", written by Takemoto Kenji), 3) Yuki furu Joshiryou nite ("At a snowing Women's Dormitory", written by Maya Yutaka), 4) Setsudan sareta Itsutsu no Kubi ("Five Necks Cut Off", written by Ooyama Seiichirou) and the story part (no solution chapter) to 5) Bourei Hamlet ("The Ghost Hamlet", written by Kuroda Kenji). The stories all feature classic detective themes like dying messages, impossible disappearences, cut up bodies and alibi tricks.

In practice, you get to read a story (or for the lazy: listen to a reading of the story!), with no conclusion. Then you select keywords from the text ("He can't read" and "He was seen reading a book"), in order to generate mysteries (the previous keywords might lead to "Why was the man reading a book if he can't read?" for example). This mysteries can be combined with other keywords to solve them, thus creating insights ("It was an imposter" or "He actually can read"). Finally, these insights are used to answer the questions of who- and howdunnit.

It's like a more advanced version of Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney); reading the text you'll find suspicious sentences, which you pursue further. The difference being the scale: whereas Gyakuten Saiban usually gives you 5 pieces of testimony a time, Trick X Logic will give you a 200 page story to find all the clues. And the mysteries and insights you find while reading the story? A lot of them are plausible, yet false. This combination-of-hints-to-produce-hypotheses system is kinda reminiscent of the Trick game (not related), only at a much higher level.

Which is also the frustrating part of the game: at times you'll figure out what happened and how, but have severe problems finding the right combination of keywords out of a 200 page story. It's a complaint I hear a lot about Gyakuten Saiban, knowing what happened without knowing how to activate the story flags to actually proceed. I personally never had any problems with that in Gyakuten Saiban, but let's say that a 200 page version of that is indeed very vexing.

I certainly had fun with this game; the stories were fun, production values are quite good for the budget price at which this game is sold and I am looking forward to the second season. However, at times it was kinda frustating to actually find the right keywords and mysteries within the story to complement the (correct) ideas I already had in my head. Still, I guess this is the closest you can get to a one-on-one conversion of a classic detective novel to a game.

Original Japanese title(s): 『TRICK X LOGIC』/チュンソフト　「指さす死体」/我孫子武丸　「盗まれたフィギュア」/竹本健治　「明かりの消えた部屋で」/麻耶雄嵩　「雪降る女子寮にて」/大山誠一郎　「切断された五つの首」/黒田研二　「亡霊ハムレット」