The Myna Bird Mystery

「この悪魔を向こうにまわして闘うものは、小林少年を団長とする少年探偵団です。『怪人二十面相』をお読みになった方は、少年探偵団がどのようなものであるかを、よく御承知でしょう。あの十人の勇敢な小学生によって組織せられた少年探偵団、団長は明智探偵の名助手として知られた小林芳雄少年、その小林少年の先生はいうまでもなく大探偵明智小五郎です」

 『少年探偵団』

 

"It is the Boys Detective Club, led by young Kobayashi, that will fight with this demon. Those who have read "The Fiend with Twenty Faces" are probably well aware of what the Boys Detective Club is. The Boys Detective Club that consists of ten brave elementary school students, with detective Akechi's famous assistent young Kobayashi Yoshio as its head and the teacher of young Kobayashi is of course that great detective Akechi Kogorou."

"Boys Detective Club"

As I focus mostly on (Japanese) detective fiction here, I don't often write about comics here. Well, of course, Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo are mentioned enough here and I might one day write about lesser known gems like Shoujo Tantei Kaneda no Jikenbo ("Girl Detective Kaneda Hajime's Casebook") or the almost Mythbusters-esque reversed-engineering hybrid-detective The Accidents, but I read enough manga that's not directly detective-related. One of my favorites is still Tezuka Osamu, who is probably on everyone's list (if you have any taste, that is). From his earlier works, to his full-blown series, from Astro Boy to Human Metamorphosis, I read everything. Which is also why Nikaidou Reito's Collector no Fushigi was so awesome. A detective about collectors of Tezuka Osamu manga? Now that I think about it, as series detective Mizuno Satoru is an otaku, would that mean that this novel could somehow bridge the gap between detective readers and manga readers?

Anyway, Tezuka Osamu pretty much wrote everything, so yes, he has some works in his collection that feature the words detective. I am a bit careful not to call them detective manga, as I equalize that to the Japanese term suiri manga ("deduction comic"), which more or less implies the orthodox model of fair play. One of the more often quoted "detective" manga by Tezuka Osamu is Ken-1 Tanteichou ("Chief Detective Ken-ichi"), a short series that ran from 1954 ~ 1957. Protagonist of the series is Kenichi of course, the original protagonist in Tezuka's star system. Like the title of the manga implies, Kenichi, a young boy, is the head of a big detective agency with 26 branch offices all over Japan. Kenichi is a master in disguises, karate and is always assisted by the Myna bird Donguri, who is able to imitate any voices it hears (and record and replay dialogues, gather up birds for big attacks, etc.). As head of the agency, Kenichi travels all over the world, solving cases like locked room murders, mysterious kidnappings and even bizarre happenings like radioactive fish popping up on a mountain.

I'm not going to summarize the stories, as the official Tezuka Osamu site has an absolutely excellent summary page for the series. So I don't see any need for me to try to write something that will turn out to be inferior anyway. I do have to say that my pocket edition doesn't have the final story (Incident of the House Spiders) included.

The stories in form are a bit like Edogawa Rampo's Shounen Tantei Dan series. Which isn't too strange: the Shounen Tantei Dan series became really big after the war, so Ken-1 Tanteichou was released in a time when children's detective fiction was quite popular. Kenichi certainly reminds of young Kobayashi, as young capable detectives. Who carry guns (seriously, WHO ALLOWS THESE CHILDREN TO CARRY GUNS? IN JAPAN OF ALL PLACES?!). And their disguises. And the use of birds as partners. The Baker Street Irregulars were used because they didn't attract attention, but both Kenichi and Kobayashi are actually known all over Japan as great detectives and were clearly written as characters children could look up too. Kenichi also has his own nemesis in phantom thief Mouseboy, a master in disguises who reminds of certain other phantom thieves (more the latter than the former though).

In execution, Shounen Tantei Dan and Ken-1 Tanteichou are very different though. Shounen Tantei Dan was written as kids' adventure novels, but they were still written by Edogawa Rampo. Who was an authority on detective fiction. He knew what he was doing. Tezuka on the other hand, was a master in story-telling, but certainly not an authority on detective fiction. Ken-1 Tanteichou is an amusing series, but most of the stories are really just old-fashioned Tezuka SF spy adventures Metropolis and Lost World or 'normal' spy adventures like Herge's Tintin. Stories like Treasures of Gandhara and Showa Shinsen-gumi are very much stories in the vein of Tintin. The Case of Landownership on Mars and The Case of President Pero's Hidden Treasure are much more like 'normal' detective stories, but clearly written by the very creative mind of Tezuka, with the more fantastic elements overpowering the 'detective' elements. A lot of fantasy (Evil Indians escaping by climbing away on a rope; giant magnets etc.), evil societies and the like, it's really an early Tezuka work and it shows in both the story-telling as well as the art.

Which for the most part is pretty boring for Tezuka's standards. Many pages that only have four or 6 big frames and practically nothing that would suggest that Tezuka would come up with brilliant framing like in Phoenix. Sometimes movie/cartoon-like effects are used, like when someone tumbling changes in an image of a airplane propellor turning, or (classic Tezuka) slapstick moments to break off the tension, but I would say that something like Crime & Punishment was way more experimental than this.

The series is pretty fun for someone interested in Tezuka's early adventure stories, but I don't recommend it to someone who got attracted to this manga just because of the word 'detective' in the title.
  
Original Japanese title(s): 手塚治虫 『ケン１探偵長』

The Finishing Stroke

「・・・・昔、この店の店長が言ってました。「人の身体がたんぱく質やビタミンの成分でできているように人の心は時間と思い出の成分でできている。だから自分の昔を思い出すことは現在（いま）の自分の本当を知る事なんだ」って。「自分の心がどんなモノからできあがっているか」。その事を思い出すんだ」
『金魚屋古書店』

"The owner of this shop used to say this. 'Just like how the human body is composed of proteins and vitamins, the human soul is composed of time and memories. That's why looking back at yourself in the past, is to get to know who you really are in the present." You have to remember it. 'What made me what I am?"
 "The Kingyo Old Book Shop"

Bara no Labyrinth ("Labyrinth of Roses"), a short story collection starring his main detective, Nikaidou Ranko. Having read an earlier book starring her, the awesome House of Vampires and some non-Ranko short story collections by Nikaidou, I was expecting much of these stories. Just looking at the titles of the stories made me excited. The Phantom of the Circus? The Face-Eating Monster? The Blazing Devil? How could it not be great, I thought.
Contuining my Nikaidou Reito reading spree, I first took up

Which was a big, big mistake. With only mediocre stories and even a bad story (rabies?!), I was genuinely shocked. I actually had trouble making my way through this book and with every story was hoping it would improve, but it was not to be. Not even once did I get the feeling Nikaidou was really trying with this collection. While nowhere near Murder in Monkeyland-horrible (which would be an accomplisment, I guess...), it was just disappointing how different it was compared to other stuff I read written by him.

Not too fond of the protagonist either. I can't remember how it was handled in House of Vampires, but Ranko is so bland (besides being a super-smart university student), I don't understand why Nikaidou is using her. Heck, if Nikaidou wasn't writing about how beautiful her hair was and how Ranko could've been a model (Every. Single. Story.), you wouldn't even know she was a girl. She might as well be a man. Or a ghost. Or a computer. She is just...there.

Luckily, he made up for it with Kikounin (Collector) no Fushigi ("The Wonders of Collectors"). It was the book I would have written had I been a writer. And had I not been genre savvy enough to see how blatantly self-referencing this book was. Being the story about a) a group of Tezuka Osamu fans who b) also collect rare manga and c) and one of them gets robbed of his rare books and murdered in a locked room, it was like Nikaidou looked straight in my mind when writing this.

And what if the locked room was nothing special? What if the detective was once again Mizuno Satoru, the super Otaku bishounen, who never really gets developed enough. The dialogue, which show how much a Tezuka expert Nikaidou Reito himself is, is full of information on Tezuka, manga releases, the world of rare book collectors and just plain fun to read. For manga/bibliophiles. Visiting bookshops in groups in hopes for that rare find? Done that in real life. Looking for obscure releases? Done that. I have read detectives which touched the subject of bibliophiles, but as this was actually about manga, Collector no Fushigi was even closer to home. Seldom have I read a book which was so recognizable and so much fun. I would have Gary Stue'd myself in this story, had I been the writer. Although I could indeed recognize myself in that victim. Besides the being dead part.　

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人　『バラ迷宮』/ 「サーカスの怪人」 / 「変装の家」 / 「喰顔鬼」 / 「ある蒐集家の死」 / 「火炎の魔」/ 「薔薇の家の殺人」;　『稀覯人（コレクター）の不思議』