Trouble in Eden

Wishing on a dream that seems far off

Hoping it will come today

"Lunar: Silver Star"

I am probably not the only person here with a sizeable backlog of unread books. In some cases, I just want to finish a different book first, so a book will get its turn soon, but in some other cases, I bought the book like ten years ago and still haven't read it, or I did get started on it, got distracted, and never finished it. And that's not all, as I have probably even more unplayed video games, and ironically, I have also a rather long backlog of... books I have read but haven't written a post about yet for this blog. I'm pretty sure that list is close to twenty titles now...

More than ten years ago, I bought an iPod Touch, and as someone who does play a lot of video games, I was of course also curious to the kind of games available on the hardware. Back then, mobile (smartphone) games were in that period where most games were still much smaller in scale than their console/handheld counterparts and where free-to-play was the most important business model, so the games you could find here were not especially impressive. One title that caught my attention in the Japanese storefront however was the free, mystery-themed novel game Loop the Loop: it was developed by the two-person circle sweet ampoule and it was a title that had also seen critical success on Japanese feature phones before it was ported to Windows and iOS. Seeing the positive reviews, I tried it when it was first released, and thought the premise was interesting... but as I didn't like playing games on my iPod that much, I stopped playing pretty soon. In the decade since however, I've basically gone through the same cycle multiple times. Every two, three years, I recall Loop the Loop and how it was received so well, so I install the game again, play it for one or two hours, and then eventually remove it again because I just don't like playing these kinds of games on my phone. It's actually silly how often I have played through the prologue of Loop the Loop. Meanwhile, the series would occassionally come to my attention again, as it has also seen many sequels, but also a manga adaptation in more recent years and a novel adaptation.

So earlier this year, I decided I'd finally get through Loop the Loop, but I decided to go for the novel adaptation, as I could see me finishing that sooner than the game. Added bonus was that the novel adaptation is written by kate, the original writer/creator of the game, so I could at least be assued it would be as close as it could be to the original game in terms of writing. Loop the Loop - Houshoku no Yakata ("Loop the Loop - The House of Satiation" 2017) starts with the news of a series of disappearances from a small town that has been going on for some weeks now. The most notable disappearance is Saeki Rei, a young, but highly succesful entrepeneur, so the disappearances are big news. Remi, the protagonist, is of course also aware of the disappearances, but never could he have imagined he would be one of the "victims" too: one day he doze off in a park, and the next moment, he finds himself waking up in a curious, Western-style manor without windows. There he is welcomed by Saeki, as well as ten other people: these are the people who have disappeared mysteriously. and they all turned up in this manor, but nobody knows how or why. With people like Karin, a web designer, Yuki, a college student and Jay, a musician, it doesn't appear there's any special connection between any of them, and it doesn't appear they were kidnapped or anything, as they all just woke up in the building, but there's nobody else to explain what they are doing here. Remi is told that they are in a very odd building, and only consists of a dining room below, an entrance hall without windows and doors, and twelve bedrooms, each with a sign of the zodiac. It appears all of them have a different zodiac, so they all have their "own" room. Saeki, who has been in this house the longest, explains to Remi that time passes by differently in this house compared to the outside world: some of them have already lived for months in this house, while judging by the stories they hear from the people who came later, only weeks have passed by in the "real" world. Remi also learns that this house has strange, magical powers, that can provide its inhabitants everything they want. The "owner" of each room can wish for anything they want before they open the door of their own room, and they find the item inside, as long as it exists and it fits in the room. Remi for example is told to think of his own room at home before opening his door, and inside he finds a perfect recreation of his own room, but he could also for example wish for a video game console, or books he hasn't read yet (as long as those books actually exist). The same works for their food: each plate is covered by a cloche, and you can conjure up any dish by thinking of it before lifting the cloche. The oldest members of the group thus assure Remi that life here is not as bad is it might seem at first and it is soon clear that most of the people here get along really well. This is also faciliated by the few house rules created by the oldest members, which are there to ensure everybody at least tries to socialize with each other, like having dinner together or telling people not to stay in their own room all day (something that is alluring to do as you can wish for anything).

Saeki and Takuto, one of the older members, also try to figure out why they are in this house and what this house exactly is, but unfortunately, they don't seem to be having much success. Still, life in the house isn't that bad, and Remi finds new friends while living with everyone. But one day, the absolutely unthinkable occurs: one of them is found murdered in his own room. But why? Aren't they all friends in this house? And why would anyone kill another in a house where you can wish for anything you want. It soon becomes clear that the friendship of the inhabitants of this house isn't as strong as they initially thought, but with no way out of this house, what can they do to esnure it won't all collapse because of this murder?

Okay, so when I played the game version of Loop the Loop, I never did even get to the murder, I always abandoned the game much earlier! Anyway, the setting of this game is pretty interesting. Colorful people from various backgrounds waking up in a strange, closed-off house without knowing why they are there, and this resulting in a murder might sound familiar, especially in a post-Danganronpa world, but this game actually predates Danganronpa. And there's a lot of potential here, with the idea of a house that can conjure up anything (up to a certain size) just by wishing for it, and also special rooms, which have a few special features that will excite mystery fans, as they can instantly see that those rules will probably be important to the mystery: the rooms are sound-proof in one direction (you can hear people outside in the hallway, but people outside can't hear people inside) and the rooms also automatically clean up any garbage once you close the door behind you, and everything in the room disappears completely if the owner is gone. With rules like these, and the closed circle situation, the reader is obviously made to anticipate an interesting mystery story that involves these fantastical elements...

...But Loop the Loop doesn't really deliver in that regard. Partially, because it soon becomes clear the focus of this book is not on the murder mystery, but more on character interaction, seeing the (fairly fleshed out) inhabitants of the house react to the murder and ultimately figuring out what the motive for the murder could be. There's surprisingly little focus on the actual murder investigation. With the fantastical rules being such an important part of the setting, you'd think the author would try to make clever use of it, but ultimately, it's fairly subdued. Besides a few obvious uses like "well, the murderer could have just wished for any murder weapon, because you can wish for anything in this house", there's perhaps only slightly clever instance where the fantasy rules are used, and even that example is probably just one of the first ways to use the rules to come in mind in the first place, so it's not really shocking. What's worse is when some of the rules you thought were absolutely true, turn out to not be absolutely true, which is a pretty big no-no in mystery fiction with a supernatural element. Though I guess Loop the Loop isn't really meant to be puzzle plot mystery, but more a suspense story. Still, I have to admit I was pretty disappointed to see how a promising setting like the House of Satiation with its unique rules, was ultimately not used for a devious puzzle for the reader to solve. 

The novel version consists of two volumes by the way, and the storyline The House of Satiation ends about halfway the second volume. The rest of the second volume consists of a very brief novelization of Episode 0, a prologue story also set in the House of Satiation. This is pure suspense with no actual mystery solving for the reader to do, and it's an interesting read to learn more about a certain character, but it again wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. The Loop the Loop series is quite long now, with like eight entries or something close to that, so these two books cover the (chronological) first two episodes.

So ultimately Loop the Loop - Houshoku no Yakata wasn't exactly what I had been hoping it would be for over a decade. While it has a very promising closed circle situation reminiscent of Danganronpa with its mysterious house that can provide its inhabitants with everything they can imagine, the application of that concept for its mystery plot is rather limited.  It's not even really a fair mystery by the time you get to the end. The focus of Loop the Loop definitely lies on its cast of twelve diverse characters and seeing them grow into a family, and then seeing how the family slowly breaks apart after the murder. I doubt the manga adaptation is very different, so I don't think Loop the Loop is a must-read in any medium if you're specifically looking for a puzzler. Of course, if that's less of a concern to you, it's a fairly entertaining piece of suspense and the game version is free anyway, so you might as well try it out then. 

Original Japanese title(s): kate 『Loop the Loop 飽食の館』