Psycho

「つまりさ・・・・・、たとえばハリウッド発の映画を見ていて、一時間が経過してもまだヒロインの女優が登場しなかったり、ハイジャックもビルジャックも起きない、エイリアンすら現れない、そんなことがあると思う？」

「確実にありえませんね」

「推理小説を読んでて、総ページの半分が終わっているのに誰も殺されない、名探偵すら出てこない、そんな推理小説ある思う？」

「確実にありえませんね」

『サイコロジカル　（上） 兎吊木垓輔の戯言殺し』

"Ever heard of a Hollywood movie where one hour in, the actress playing the heroine still hasn't made an appearance, no hijack or building hijack has happened, not even an alien showing up?"

"That's absolutely impossible"

"Ever heard of a mystery novel where halfway through, nobody has been murdered yet, and the great detective still hasn't made an appearance?"

"That's absolutely impossible"

"Psycho Logical - The Killing Joke of Utsurugi Gaisuke"

I mentioned I had read the prologue of Arisugawa Alice's Sweden Kan no Nazo at least six times. I think I've read the prologue of today's book even more often! And of course, when I finally got through that hurdle, I sped through the story in record time...

Zaregoto series:
『クビキリサイクル 青色サヴァンと戯言遣い』 | Deheading Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense Bearer
 『クビシメロマンチスト 人間失格・零崎人識』 | Strangulation Romanticist: Human Failure - Zerozaki Hitoshiki 
『クビツリハイスクール　戯言遣いの弟子』 | Hanging High School - Disciple of the Nonsense Bearer
『サイコロジカル　（上） 兎吊木垓輔の戯言殺し』、『サイコロジカル （下） 曳かれ者の小唄』 | Psycho Logical - The Killing Joke of Utsurugi Gaisuke (Part 1) / Kouta's Bluff (Part 2) 

The narrator and Kunagisa "Dead Blue" Tomo make their way to the research facility led by Shadou Kyouichirou, which lies somewhere far away in the mountains. Their goal is get Utsurugi "Green Green Green" Gaisuke out of the facility. Utsurugi used be a member of Tomo's team of hackers which surprised the world several years ago, but is for some reason now working for professor Shadou. Forced to work might be a better expression. Anyway, negotiations with Shadou don't go very well, even if Tomo and the narrator do get a chance to have a talk with Utsurugi and everyone agrees to continue the talk the following day, but plans change when the following day, Utsurugi is found murdered in his own research building. And with murdered, I mean that his eyes were poked out with a scissor, his stomach was cut open and his arms sawed off. What's more baffling is that the logs show that nobody had entered or left their own research building, meaning that nobody could have murdered Utsurugi. Can the narrator and Tomo find out who killed "Green Green Green" and how the murderer managed to commit a locked room building murder in NisiOisiN's Psycho Logical?
 

Psycho Logical is the fourth book in NisiOisN (Nishio Ishin)'s Zaregoto (joke, nonsense) series and is split up in two volumes, Utsurugi Gaisuke no Zaregotogoroshi ("The Killing Joke of Utsurugi Gaisuke") and Hikaremono no Kouta ("Kouta's Bluff"). The zany light novel series stars an unnamed narrator who has a tendency to get into strange adventures and murder mysteries thanks (?) to his curious friends and acquaintances, among them the genius hacker Tomo and the "World's Strongest Private Contractor" Aikawa Jun. But despite all the locked room murders this series features, the biggest mystery remains the narrator himself. He has a distinct speech style where he talks around, in, out, besides and over any topic, earning him the name of "nonsense bearer". Add in the fact he is quite negative and easily lies to everyone (including himself and the readers) and you have one of the most unreliable narrators in fiction ever. I quite like his narration, but I can imagine it can be a bit tiring too and the fact you can never really get into the narrator's head, might be a bit distracting for those who want to focus on the story and the murders.

Setting-wise, Psycho Logical is similar to the first book in the series, Kubikiri Cycle: a locked room murder mystery with the narrator and "Dead Blue" Tomo in an isolated setting (Tomo wasn't present in the second and third book). Thematically, there are also similarities, including an on-going discussion on geniuses, but a quick look at the two titles immediately shows the biggest difference. Kubikiri Cycle was NisiOisiN's first book and was a murder mystery with quirky characters. As the series continued, NisiOisiN slowly expanded the world of Zaregoto and by Psycho Logical, one could say that the characters are the main, the murder mystery is just a side course. Psycho Logical gives a look into both the narrator's and Tomo's past and the relation between the two and the actual murder of Utsurugi Gaisuke doesn't happen until the very, very end of the first book. The focus of the series has definitely shifted by now and because I heard that the mystery element is all but gone in the last two titles in the series, I think this is the last time I'll do a Zaregoto review here.

Psycho Logical's locked room building murder is quite fun, I think though. Sure, it keeps in the tradition of a certain trope I already mentioned in my review of Kubikiri Cycle, but I quite enjoyed the idea behind the locked room mystery and is definitely quite original. And because I already did a spoiler section in that review, another one:

Spoilers for Kubikiri Cycle, Kubishime Romanticist, Kubitsuri High School and Psycho Logical!! (Select to read):

It's actually quite interesting to see how parts of the human body are being used again and again in this series: as a step, as a transporting vessel, as a key and now as a piece of rope (in the narrator's solution). I don't know if NisiOisiN is trying to say something, but the constant de-humanizing of the err... human body in this series is somewhat disturbing. Now that I think about it, unlike Danganronpa, practically all of the geniuses and super-humans in this series are mental geniuses. I guess that Aikawa Jun is a physical monster, but she is also feared for her mind and not just her raw power...

The setting of the scientific facility and the heavy security reminds me of Mori Hiroshi's Subete ga F ni Naru / The Perfect Insider. I don't think it's a really rare setting in mystery fiction (if anything, the use of keycards / logs / security cameras et cetera make it ideal for it), but I can't actually remember other stories with a similar setting except for that one Kindaichi Shounen story...

I will admit that I am overall a very pragmatic mystery reader. If you have browsed this blog, you have probably noticed that I mainly focus on elements like structure, plot and tropes. The way a story is written, let's say the literary qualities of a story, usually don't matter to me that much. But I absolutely looooooove NisiOisiN's writing style! The wordplay, his roundabout way of talking, everything. Each of his Zaregoto books have been filled with quote-worthy material (something I am very grateful for). And even if you're not very proficient in Japanese, it's still very readable: the vocabulary itself isn't very difficult, but NisiOisiN's just has a great sense of playing around with written words. Like the series title says, it's all nonsense and jokes, but great nonsense and jokes.

Overall, I quite enjoyed Psycho Logical. Sure, the murder mystery appears quite late in the story, but it is a fun, even if simple locked room murder and the narration is still absolutely fantastic. But, as it seems the mystery element basically disappears in subsequent books, I think this will be the last time I'll write about the Zaregoto series on this blog, even if I might still read them just to see how the series ends. But for now, I've read enough nonsense.

Original Japanese title(s): 西尾維新  『サイコロジカル　（上）　兎吊木垓輔の戯言殺し』  / 『サイコロジカル　（下）曳かれ者の小唄』

「戯言だよな・・・」

広いこの世界に自分はたった一人しかいない。

別にいい。

孤独は好きだ。

虚勢ではなく。

虚勢でも。

『クビキリサイクル 青色サヴァンと戯言遣い』

I am all alone in this wide world.

But I don't care.

Because I like loneliness.

It's not a bluff.

Even if it is a bluff.

"The Deheading Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense Talker"

I am still holding out quite well without new books, I think. It's been almost two months now and I still manage to update semi-regularly. For those wondering, this situation will continue for still another couple of weeks. And it will make sense in hindsight.

I'm still not sure whether I'll proceed in Nisioisin's Zaregoto ("nonsense, babbling") series, but I can sure go back! It's been a while since I read the first volume, Kubikiri Cycle: Aoiro Savant to Zaregotozukai ("The Deheading Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense Talker"), so it was about time to fresh up on this quirky locked room mystery. Wet Crow's Feather Island is the home of Akagami Iria, who has been effectively exiled by her family to the island. As things can get boring on a secluded island, Iria has the custom of inviting geniuses to her island (even paying them to come!) to enjoy their company. Genius artists, genius researchers, genius cooks... she collects geniuses from all fields. This time, the young IT-specialist Kunagisa Tomo is also invited, with her friend the narrator being dragged along too to the island. The narrator has a hard time living with all these geniuses, but the relative peace of the place is disrupted horribly when one day Kanami Ibuki, the genius painter, is found murdered in her room. Decapitated. Iria suggest to wait for the arrival of another guest, Aikawa, who is supposed to be genius in all fields, including detecting, but the narrator and Kunagisa have no intention of staying longer on the island than is needed (mainly because Kunagisa hates to change her schedule), so the two try to solve the murder themselves.

As this novel was originally conceived as a mystery light novel featuring moe characters, I have to admit I find it hard to just recommend this to readers. People familiar with anime, manga (or Japanese popular culture in general)? No problem. People who mostly read classic, traditional mysteries from the Western world without an inkling of Japanese popular culture? This might not be the best first choice for you. You might have trouble keeping up with the outrageous and over-the-top characters, the pop-culture references and the seemingly hyper-active storytelling. The simultaneously immensely dark, but humorous tone of the novel might even seem schizophrenic. As a light novel, this is heavily targeted at (Japanese) adolescents, and some might have trouble getting into that mindset without any background information.

If you manage to get that mindset though, you'll come to the conclusion that Kubikiri Cycle is awesome. The mystery, which features multiple locked room murders (and decapitations!) set at an secluded island is certainly enjoyable, if admittedly not very original. There are some interesting twists and turns in the story though and the reason for the decapitations is pretty horrifying (and therefore memorable). It is a very modern way to look at a reason for a decapitation in a detective story and you'd wonder whether NisiOisiN read critic Kasai Kiyoshi's seminal works on (Japanese) detective fiction to come up with such a reason, but it will stick in your mind. Actually, now that I think about it, there is a tendency visiblewith all of the murders in NisiOisiN's Zaregoto novels I've read until now that builds strongly on this idea. NisiOisiN keeps on exploring the ideas utilized in the murders in Kubikiri Cycle in the subsequent novels in this series.

Spoilers for Kubikiri Cycle, Kubishime Romanticist and Kubitsuri High School!! (Select to read):
The human body is reduced to a pure object (of convenience) in the first three Zaregoto novels, lacking any notions of 'humanity': in Kubikiri Cycle a body is used as a 'step', in Kubishime Romanticist the human body is used as a vessel to carry something around and in Kubitsuri High School part of the human body is used as a simple doorkey.
End Spoilers

But the biggest mystery of Kubikiri Cycle is the narrator. The unnamed narrator (one of his nicknames is Ii-chan, but his name is never made known in the series) transforms a 'normal' mystery story into something amazing. The narrator seems to describe himself as a Watson to Kunagisa's Holmes, but I don't think Watson was as unreliable a narrator as Watson. As a person, the narrator is an exeggaration of what probably what many young adolescents at times feel (I at least do!), being the ultimate passive person who just goes with the flow of everything, who just agrees (or disagrees) with everything if it allows him to avoid a conflict of any kind with other people. The narrator is smart, but in his attempts to avoid conflicts, he will, without even thinking anything of it, feign ignorance and lie to his friends, enemies, the readers and even himself. Imagine such a person narrating the story. A lot of the time, you will be more interested in seeing what makes this guy tick. By which I do not imply that the murders are boring, but as you see everything through his eyes, you will be asking yourself what kind of person the narrator really is. This is as much a character study as a mystery, but that is certainly not a bad thing.

Kubikiri Cycle also shows what a master of words and thought the writer NisiOisiN is. Most of the story consists of direct dialogue and the way NisiOisiN plays with words and allows dialogues to change from serious investigation to philosophy and other topics in such a free and natural (but often confronting) way is really impressive. I have to admit thought that a lot of the natural feeling to NisiOisiN's writings disappears when read in English. Rereading Kubikiri Cycle in English made me realize that the distinctive switching between dialogue and inner monologue that NisiOisiN utilizes so much is just distracting in English, as well as the fact that whereas speakers of dialogue in Japanese can be made clear through character-specific speech-patterns (i.e. with the help of speech markers, sentence ending particles etcetera), this is hard to accomplish in English and it results in some very confusing dialogue at times as you don't know who is supposed to be talking. Yes, I like writing about role language in translation.

The mystery element of the Zaregoto series weakens as it continues. The second volume, Kubishime Romanticist, moves away from the closed circle situation on an island and replaces it for a story set in the city of Kyoto, but I find Kubishime Romanticist overall the better experience, as the story is much better suited to NisiOisiN's style of storytelling and it also involves a (relatively) more personal story for the narrator. Heck, I consider it one of the most amusing books I read last year! I wasn't too big a fan of the third volume, Kubitsuri High School, but even with the lesser detective plot, it was a good showcase of NisiOisiN writing talent.

So Kubikiri Cycle is an entertaining locked room mystery, that can become really addictive if you happen to like the narrator, but it might be hard to get into for people with no knowledge at all of Japanese popular culture. And for people who compulsively use quotes from books to for post introductions, it is also a treasure chest of highly quotable material. But now I am just talking nonsense.

Original Japanese title(s): 西尾維新 『クビキリサイクル 青色サヴァンと戯言遣い』

Primitive or Abstract

「信用できるかどうかは問題ではない。問題は、裏切らないかどうかだ」

『クビツリハイスクール　戯言遣いの弟子』

"It is not a problem of trusting or not trusting. The problem is whether you'll betray or not"

"Hanging High School - Disciple of the Nonsense Bearer"

Sometimes, the hardest part of writing a post is not finding time to read a book, or finding time to write a review. Though those are actually problems I do have at the moment. Sometimes it's not even finding the inspiration to write an x amount of words. Sometimes it's just finding a good topic for the introduction that can serve as a bridge to the main topic. So when I don't have ideas for that, I write stuff like this as an introduction.

But to be honest, I was not even sure whether I should write about Kubitsuri High School - Zaregotodukai no Deshi ("Hanging High School - Disciple of the Nonsense Bearer"), the third entry in NisiOisiN's Zaregoto series. Why would I consider not writing about it, even though I discussed the excellent previous Zaregoto novel? Well, I hinted at it in the last part of that review, but even though the Zaregoto series starts out as a funky modern pop-orthodox mystery, the series slowly moves away from that premise. That change is very noticable in Kubitsuri High School, which strangely at the same time feels like a logical continuation of the last novel, as well as a drastically different novel. But as I have no other material to post about at the moment (I need time to read books!) and it does include a locked room murder, strictly speaking, I figured I might as well discuss it.

Kubitsuri High School - Zaregotodukai no Deshi starts with Aikawa Jun, nicknamed the World's Strongest Private Contractor, asking (mentally blackmailing) the narrator to help her rescueing a friend of hers. Yukariki Ichihime wants to leave her girls' academy, but circumstances make it difficult to do that without help. The narrator is not entirely sure what that means, until he discovers that the school Ichihime is attending is actually training the students to be... assasins. Every student is trained in martial arts and the use of weaponry. And the students have the mission to hunt down Ichihime, making it kinda difficult for her to leave the school.

The narrator and Aikawa manage to sneak into the school and make contact with Ichihime, but when they sneak (break) into into the principle's office, they discover that the principle has been killed. Or rather, sawed into pieces with a chainsaw. And they are pretty sure the room was completely locked before they entered it. Aaaaaand, they also realize that they have been set up, because anyone would suspect them of being the murderers, seeing as they are intruders and Aikawa used brute force to break into the office. Who is trying to frame them and why?

But in reality, the locked room mystery is not really a big mystery. The basic trick for this novel's locked room mystery is really primitive and cliched, and the smoke and mirrors of Kubitsuri High School are not nearly as effective as that of the previous novels. On the other hand, a lot of the mystery surrounding the locked room in Kubitsuri High School is done excellently by NisiOisiN's (and the narrator's) precise choice of words and playing with readers' expectations. It is amazing how easily NisiOisiN changes the meaning of a sentence by simply adding stress to words. NisiOisiN really makes wonderful use of the so-called ambiguity of the Japanese language. Japanese is a language where a lot of information can be left out as much is assumed between the speakers. For example, one does not have to repeat the topic of a sentence every time. NisiOisiN's word-tricks / word-plays make use of these assumptions, luring you into linguistic assumptions that are false. It is pretty difficult to do effectively, because a reader only has to take only one step back to see the linguistic trap, but NisiOisiN cleverly never allows you to take that one step back, always keeping you close to his fantastically written text.

Like mentioned, the emphasis of this book is on the locked room mystery though, but on the escape of Ichihime and the interactions between the narrator, her and the other students trying to capture Ichihime. Like always, the narrator appears as a very hard-to-understand person (even though it is written in the first person), easily lying to everybody (including himself). His interactions with Ichihime, who calls herself the narrator's disciple, are fun, but do not feel nearly as satisfying as the narrator's interactions with his fellow-students in the previous novel. Kubishime Romanticist had brilliant discussions and observations, Kubitsuri High School was just funny. Interesting was also how the school is first described almost as a character itself, basically a gigantic locked space where students are held and with such an enigmatic structure that everybody keeps getting lost in it, but that kinda faded away near the end (which is a shame!).

The previous novel also featured some fight scenes, but assassin high school girls fighting each other (and the narrator) with weird weapons? Yes, we are definitely moving towards a more animanga-esque story now. Yes, I know the previous novels had hints to that too, but tsundere assassin high school girls fighting each other with weird weapons is very in-your-face animanga-esque element. I really liked the off-beat characters and wonderful dialogues in the previous novels, as the balance between those elements and the mystery elements was perfect in my opinion, but in Kubitsuri High School, the mystery element has moved quite a bit towards the background. Which at one hand seems like a logical continuation of the previous novel, but I had really prefered the style of Kubishime Romanticist.

And thus I am not sure whether to continue this series. I like NisiOisiN's writings, but I don't think I like the Zaregoto-world enough to continue reading it if it is going to move away from Kubishime Romanticist's form even further.

Original Japanese title(s): 西尾維新 『クビツリハイスクール　戯言遣いの弟子』

「すいません、キムチ丼大盛り、ご飯抜きで」

つまり、ぼくはここ一ヶ月ほど、「お、こりゃおいしい」という感覚に出会っていないのだ。ものを食べるたび、なんだか物足りないような、大事な何かが欠けているような、そんな気分になるのである（省略）

どんぶりいっぱいに盛られたキムチの山。これを食べ切って尚現在の味覚を維持できるほどに丈夫な舌などこの世に存在すまい　（省略）　

「いただきます」　呟いて、一口目。「………」　これは。結構、キツい （省略）

そろそろ限界なのだろうか。舌先どころか頭の中まで麻痺しまじめ、自分が一体何をしているのか、そう言えばぼくは一体だれだったのか、誰ってどういう意味だったのか、そもそも意味って何だっけ、そんなことも分からなくなって頃 （省略）

ぼくはキムチの最後に一切れを口にした。舌、と言うか口の中は完全に参っている。恐らくこれで、明日からは《ご飯がおいしくない》などのワガママを吐かすことはなくなるだろう

『クビシメロマンチスト 人間失格・零崎人識』

So this last month, I hadn't felt the sensation of  'This tastes good'. Every time I ate, it felt like it wasn't enough, like something important was missing (...)

A bowl with a pile of kimchi. No tongue in this world strong enough to retain its tasting abilities after eating all of this (...)

I muttered a 'I humbly accept'. The first bite. '...' This. Is. Going. To. Be. Hard (...)

Reaching my limits. Not only my tongue, but my head too has started to feel numb. What am I doing? Or rather, who am I, what's the meaning of who and what does meaning mean, it was about when I started to lose my comprehension of even that, that... (...)

I placed the final pieces of kimichi in my mouth. My tongue, no, my entire mouth had given up. From tomorrow on, I'll probably never say something like 'this doesn't taste good''.

"Strangulation Romanticist: Human Failure - Zerozaki Hitoshiki"

Maybe I should stop with the habit of reading several books at the same time. As I switch books in and out of my reading schedule rather regularly, sometimes a book gets switched out of the schedule without getting back in. Usually because I forgot I was still reading that book. Or was I just ignoring it? Anyway, I think I have read the first 100 or so pages of NisiOisiN's Kubishime Romanticist - Ningen Shikkaku Zerozaki Hitoshiki ("Strangulation Romanticist - Human Failure - Zerozaki Hitoshiki") about two or three times by now. And they were funny every time. Don't know why I never finished the book though. Until now, that is.

Kubishime Romanticist is the second volume in NisiOsiN's Zaregoto series, a light-novel series that starts out as a sorta-mystery series, but it seems like the mystery element fades out as the series progresses. It's been about three years since I read the first volume, Kubikiri Cycle, but I remember it as novel that was, in some ways, genre-deconstructing. The locked room mystery with a headless corpse was interesting yes, but the biggest mystery of the novel was definately the narrator. A young 19-year old student. He was relatively smart, but as he is constantly surrounded by geniuses, he didn't stand out particularly. Or maybe he did stand out because he was so relatively normal. Although, normal, he was a bit dark at times. A bit inhuman. A bit of a liar. In fact, our narrator is a very unreliable narrator.

Anyway, Kubishime Romanticist is set about a month after the events of the first book, with our narrator back at university. While eating his all-kimichi breakfast/lunch, he is approached by Mikiko, one of his classmates (because of his bad memory, he doesn't remember her though). He's invited  (forced?) to go to a small birthday party of Tomoe, one of his other classmates (and he doesn't remember her either). With nothing else to do, he agrees and spends a relatively pleasant night. The next day however, he hears that Tomoe has been found strangled to death in her apartment. Oh, and in between, our narrator also met and became sorta friends with a serial killer who has been active in Kyoto. To keep things interesting.

The second volume in the series already feels less focused on the mystery, though the solution is still fairly hinted and still makes for a very interesting novel. Kubikiri Cycle definately felt closer to the old 'secluded-island model', while Kubishime Romanticist is a lot more open, being set in Kyoto. With a locked room mystery, a mysterious message left at a crime scene and perfect alibis for everyone, this novel is still pretty classic, but is quite clear that the murders are is not the focus of the book.

For once again, our narrator is the biggest mystery of all. I also had this feeling with Kubikiri Cycle, but Kubishime Romanticist is more like a novel about the narrator, about his view on the world and on human beings, who just happens to come across mysteries. Which he doesn't really need to solve actually. He usually does though. But let the reader beware: the narrator is not a fair person. At first sight, he seems like an somewhat aloof person with maybe a bit dark, pessimistic personality. The reader will often think he knows more than our narrator, as it seems like the narrator has little common sense (or more preciselly, feels less inclined to adhere to common sense). But the narrator knows a lot more than he tells the reader and he easily lies to the people he knows, the readers and even himself (the narrator is usually fair enough to admit he's lying when he's called out on it though).

I really love this novel though: the narrator, as a detective-like person, is really interesting and NisiOisN's writing style is just awesome. The novel tends to walk across a bunch of genres and themes, from philosophical themes to sheer comedy (the part with the kimchi quoted above is hilarious when read in context), but NisiOisN pulls it off very good. I tend to prefer stories that are (very) focused on the plot-structure and tricks, but NisiOisN manages to convince me of the possibilies of the modern mystery novel. Or am I only praising the novel because I feel a kindred spirit in the narrator? Seriously, some lines said by the narrator feel just all too familiar. I am not as dishonest as him though. I think.

Whereas the narrator worked with genius IT-specialist Kunagisa in the first novel, she hardly appears in this novel. I don't really like her as a character (neither do I like Aikawa), so I was pretty happy the focus in Kubishime Romanticist was on the narrator and his interactions with other people in a relatively normal environment. I haven't read the following novels yet (though I have Kubitsuri High School somewhere), but I guess that as the series' focus changes to action, characters like Kunagisa and Aikawa will pop up more often. Which is a shame, I think, for I think I like this novel exactly because it's relatively normal, with the just the right amount of mystery, philosophical themes, action and humor. I really don't hope that this series changes into some sort of harem-series with all kinds of super-powered/smart girls fighting and stuff (<- though I have to admit, I know nothing about how this series will evolve beyond the fact that the focus changes, so it might stay this awesome).

Original Japanese title(s): 西尾維新 『クビシメロマンチスト 人間失格・零崎人識』