Hassle in the Castle

「坊や。お前は、悪魔（サタン）や死神、子鬼（ゴブリン）、不死者といった奇怪な化け物をどう思う？そんな悪魔や怪物どもが、この世に存在することを、無条件に頭から信じることができるか？」
『人狼城の恐怖　第二部＝フランス編』

"Kid, what are your thoughts about monsters like Satan, the Grim Reaper, goblins and the undead? Are you able to believe unconditionally in devils and monsters like that?"
"The Terror of Werewolf Castle Part Two: France"

The complete Jinroujou no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Werewolf Castle") review series:
1. What a Night for a Knight (Part One: Germany)
2. Hassle in the Castle (Part Two: France)
3. Nowhere to Hyde (Part Three: Detective)
4. Who's afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf? (Part Four: Conclusion)

Nikaidou Reito sure wasn't kidding with that longest detective novel thing. Jinroujou no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Werewolf Castle") is long. Really long. Really really long. Like, really, really, really long.

Well, at least I've passed the halfway mark! I'll refer to the review of the first book for an introduction to Jinroujou no Kyoufu and the review of Germany, the first part of the story, but to make a long (long!) story short: twin castles, the Silver Wolf Castle in Germany, the Blue Wolf Castle in France. A lot of people are murdered in the German Silver Wolf Castle in June 1970.

The second part France (or as the cover says: La Terreur Château du Loup-garou La Second Partie: France) urrrm... is set in France. Exactly like the title says. No surprises there. And indeed, like its twin castle, the Blue Wolf Castle is the stage for a wonderful massacre of lots of different people gathered at the castle. Add in a bunch of locked room murders, the suggestion of supernatural beings, underlying motives of the occult and odd architecture and you have all the ingredients of an interesting story. Or more precisely, part of a story.

Our narrator this time is a laywer called Laurent somethingsomething (I really wouldn't know how to write that name down in real French. Or even faux-French), who acts in the interests of a high-society club that wants turn Alsace back to German territory. One of the club's major sponsors is the current castle lord of the Blue Wolf Castle and a small party of the club is invited to visit him at his castle to discuss business.

So far, so good.

A couple of days before the trip, Laurent is contacted by an old friend, who introduces him to inspector Salamon (totally guessing the spelling of that name). Salamon tells Laurent the story of a secret Nazi project, an experimental astral body army. The people in this army are able to enter the bodies of dead people and then pass themselves off as the people they inhabit (they also have the power to temporarily recover from wounds and stuff, so the bodies won't rot while they live inside them). In their gaseous astral body form, they resemble wolves, thus their nickname "werewolf". After the war, three of these Nazi experimental weapons survived and continued their murdering spree, jumping from one body to another. Salamon has hunted down all but one of them, and he is sure the last werewolf is currently inhabiting the body of one of the people who are scheduled to go the Blue Wolf Castle. Laurent arranges things for Salamon to join the party to visit the castle, so they can hunt down the last werewolf together. And kill it with a silver bullet.

I raised an eyebrow. I wasn't sure what to expect from this.

When the party arrives at the Blue Wolf Castle (in June 1970), the story greatly mirrors the events seen in the previous book, like this was an alternate universe retelling of it. Like in the Germany chapter, the keys to the castle are stolen early on and everybody gets locked up in the castle. Both stories feature a professor who seeks the Spear of Longinus. People get shot down by a crossbow while trying to dig out of the secret hallway. Bodies disappear. The same locked room situation is mirrored completely from the previous chapter; the Blue Wolf Castle and the Silver Wolf Castle are twin castles and in both castles a double locked room murder is commited in the cellar, with the murderer leaving a decapitated body (and the head neatly placed on a wine table). And near the end of the story, a walking suit of armor is quite succesful in killing off any survivors.

There was also some new stuff though. France was a lot... bloodier than Germany, with more decapitations, de-handifications, de-legifications and stuff. There was a lot of chopping involved here. Interesting is the locked room murder on a woman, who is seemingly decapitated in mere seconds as soon as the doctor had closed the door on her. Or the locked room murder in the prison cell, where a body was lying as if trying to crawl towards the door. The crawling was probably kinda hard though, because his limbs were on the other side of the locked door. And unlike in Germany, the castle lord was indeed at home this time, as was his son (who wears a creepy mask all the time because of a skin-disease).

Oh, and don't forget about the mystical Nazi-Werewolf-Astral-Body-thing who can possess dead bodies! How much that adds to the fun!

Yeah, I wasn't too keen on that plot point. Seriously, Nazi-Werewolves?

But France was mostly something like an alternate universe of the events that happened in Germany. Like the previous book, it's quite exciting with all the people dying in locked rooms, following every step of every person using the map of the castle (eight pages!), the themes and stuff, but it was also a bit tedious to go through the events again. The same locked room is used in both castles and there are many parallels in the characters that are in both castles during the events. I understand that's the point behind it all, the castles being twin castles and it probably all tying up to one grand trick and all, but that doesn't make the read less tedious. Luckily, the next book should cover the arrival of great detective Nikaido Ranko who will solve this grand case! Well, at least, she makes a beginning, I guess, as I can't see her solving everything in the third book in a series of four. That would be a bit silly.

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人　『人狼城の恐怖　第二部＝フランス編』

「金田一さん、事件ですよ！」

「金田一先生、青酸加里とするといよいよ先生が・・・・」『悪魔の降誕祭』

"Mr. Kindaichi , if it's cyanide, does that mean that you finally..."
"The Devil's Christmas"

I think this is the most trouble I've had with reading and collecting my thoughts on a book. In fact, if I'm to believe my notes, I started this particular book almost two years ago and I just finished it last month. And it still took me a month to gather up the energy to write about it. Even now, I'm not sure how to write this down.

And how surprising that is! In theory, Kindaichi Kousuke no Shinbouken ("The New Adventures of Kindaichi Kousuke") should be great, as it has everything I love. It's a 1) short story collection featuring 2) Kindaichi Kousuke. With Yokomizo Seishi writing masterpieces like Inugamike no Ichizoku ("The Inugami Family") and Honjin Satsujin Jiken ("The Daimyou's Inn Murder Case"), I was allowed to have some expectations for this book, right? I should be enthousiastic about Kindaichi Kousuke no Shinbouken, like I'm about the other Yokomizo Seishi works reviewed here, right?

Well, no. With the books I had read until now, Yokomizo always came up with a great setting for the story, backed up by good~great structuring and detective plots. With these short stories, Yokomizo has great premises, but he never manages to work it out to a satisfying detective plot. At least not at the same level as his novel-length books. It might be fair to say that this particular set of stories is special within Yokomizo's corpus, as the stories in Kindaichi Kousuke no Shinbouken, together with the stories in Kindaichi Kousuke no Kikan ("The Return of Kindaichi Kousuke"), have all been rewritten in later years. Like how Christie worked out The Second Gong into Dead Man's Mirror, Yokomizo has rewritten all the stories in these two collections, often using the same titles (i.e. there are two versions of Akuma no Koutansai etc.). So maybe he did make the stories better. But the stories as they appear in this book, are very disappointing.

Akuma no Koutansai ("The Devil's Christmas") starts with a rather agitated woman contacting private eye Kindaichi Kousuke for a consult. She is very eager to meet him as soon as possible, as she feels that someone might die soon, but as Kindaichi is tied up with business until the evening, he arranges for her to wait in his office until he returns. When he returns that evening as arranged, Kindaichi is in for a surprise though: his client lies dead in his bathroom, poisoned. Who would be so audacious as to kill someone in the office of great detective Kindaichi Kousuke?

This story shows exactly the pattern that pretty every story in this collection had: great premise (a murder in Kindaichi's office?!), poor execution. The decisive clue is very poor, the plot is boring and the remake didn't help much, as far as I know. The remake has been made into a drama CD, starring (my favorite) voice actor Kamiya Akira. Which is a rather particular choice. But anyway, you'd wonder why this story of all the Kindaichi stories.

So, to continue with the pattern. Shinigami no Ya ("Death's Arrow")'s premise: a professor has promised to allow the suitor who is able to hit a floating target in the sea with an arrow to marry his daughter, somewhat reminiscent of Nasu no Youichi of the Heike Monogatari, or the bow-shooting of Penelope. Kindaichi Kousuke is asked to witness the event. Two of the three suitors miss, but the final suitor wins the hand of the fair lady. However, soon after these events of the losing suitors is killed. But who'd have a motive to kill the losing suitor, rather than the winning suitor? The execution: a story that starts great with the historical references, but actually turns boring as soon as the murders happen. Wut? That's never a good sign.

Kiri no Bessou ("The House in the Mist") doesn't even have a good premise. If I say that Kindaichi is asked to visit a house in a thick mist, finds a corpse there, but when he goes off to the police and gets back, the dead body is gone, well, I think most people can imagine how the story progresses and ends. Because it most probably is going to be exactly like that.

Hyakkushinfu ("Collection of One Hundred Lips")'s premise: a woman is found dead, stuffed in the trunk of a car. Police investigation reveals that she was one of the victims of the Collection of One Hundred Lips scandal, when earlier that year a popular singer was murdered and it was discovered he had made a notebook, complete with nude pictures, of all the lovers he had.  Had she murdered of the singer because of the book and was she killed in revenge? Execution: seriously, the hint/solution doesn't even make sense. At all.

Aotokage ("The Blue Lizard") is a story that is actually sorta good, both in premise and execution. The only one. A serial murderer is running around city, who ties his female victims, kills them and draws a lizard on their body. It seems that his victims all go the hotels with their murderer on a voluntary basis and the man always manages to disappear from the hotel, so the help of Kindaichi Kousuke is needed to solve the case. The execution: a decently clued story, maybe a bit hard to believe at one particular point, but could well be extended/rewritten into a fairly good story.

In Majo no Koyomi ("The Witch Calendar"), Kindaichi Kousuke is invited to　look at a play of the legend of Perseus in a letter that pretty much says somebody will die. And someone does. One of the Graeae dies on the third day during the performance. With intimate relations going between pretty much everyone in the troupe, the motive seems the biggest problem for Kindaichi, but once again the execution, especially the hasty ending, seems to break up an interesting looking story. 

Haato no Queen ("The Queen of Hearts") starts with the visit of wife of a tattoo artist to Kindaichi, who thinks her husband didn't die of just an accident, but was willfully murdered. A bit before his death, her husband was asked to give an unconcious girl the exact tattoo on the exact same place as a picture. He had to do in all secrecy and he didn't even know where the house was where he made the tattoo. As he was run over with a car a bit later, his wife suspects that something sinister is going on. When later a woman is found murdered with exactly that tattoo, it doesn't take Kindaichi long to suspect a substitution of identity, but the question of who this body exactly remains. For a story where you can predict most of the plot-twists, it is actually pretty OK, with a decent ending. Once again, I can see possibilities for this story to develop with some rewriting.

I really hope that Yokomizo's short stories aren't all like this. While my expectations of Kindaichi Kousuke no Kikan ("The Return of Kindaichi Kousuke") aren't high now, I hope that the other short stories/novelletes of Yokomizo reach the level of his masterpieces. 

Original Japanese title(s): 横溝正史　『金田一耕助の新冒険』、「悪魔の降誕祭」/「死神の矢」/「霧の別荘」/「百唇譜」/「青蜥蜴」/「魔女の暦」/「ハートのクィーン」

『事故現場で弁当を拾い喰い！！』

「王将といえば、 餃子！！餃子と言えば王将！！」
『喰いタン』

"Oushou is gyouza!! Gyouza is Oushou!!"
"Kuitan"

And I welcome thee back, use of the 'food' tag! The tag hadn't been used since I returned from Japan and while food is still in the blog description, the strike-through kinda implies it's not really part of the blog anymore. Which it, usually, indeed isn't. I'll be sure to use it more often when/if I return to Japan. But! There are reasons to why I never deleted the word 'food' from the site description completely. One was because I still expect I'll someday post pictures of ramen bowls and gyouza and stuff again. But it also served as a reminder to myself to discuss one particular series.

I like detective fiction. And I also like food. Especially food in Japan (note that I'm not saying Japanese food; 'cause there is a big difference). And as it happens, there are also quite some detective manga in Japan. And there are a lot more gourmet manga available. About all sorts of food. And thera re really a lot of series. But I'm pretty sure there is only one series that combines both of these themes: Kuitan (a contraction of the two words kuishinbou ("gourmet") and tantei ("detective")). An idea so absolutely ridiculous that it actually works out quite well. Quite tasty (only the manga though; the drama is bad. Avoid!).

Protagonist Takano Seiya is a historical writer by profession. While he's quite popular as a writer, he is horrible at actually keeping deadlines, much to the despair of assistant Kyouko and his publishers. The biggest problem of Takano: he just can't stop eating. He eats everything that tastes good. And quite a bit of it too. Takano shoves away 50 bowls of ramen away as a lunch (which reminds me I once witnessed somebody eating about 70-80 plates of sushi at Sushi Ichiba in Fukuoka. His three friends together probably had only 30-40 plates...). With eating taking a lot of his free time, there just isn't a lot of time left to actually work.

Besides his writing and eating, Takano also often assists the police in criminal investigations. His expertise lies, naturally, in food-related crimes, so you'll often see him called in at murders at restaurants and the like. So how does he use his expertise of food to... detect? Well, did you know that sushi made for delivery is made differently than the ones made in restaurants? Or that ice water works well for gyouza skins? Or that the bikes delivering Chinese food are designed differently from the ones delivering udon? Or that if you boil ramen together with udon, the taste of the udon will suffer from it? Need fingerprints? They might be hidden within a cooked egg! You'd be surprised how much clues are left in food!

Takano's knowledge of all the ingredients of a dish, how people prepare the food, how restaurants work all help him in solving cases ranging from murders, but also theft and in Conan-like hostage situations. Conan might use his wristwatch to knockout a suspect, but nobody but Takano can use a Cup Noodle to disarm a suspect. After which he eats the rest of the noodles. Don't be surprised if Takano 'accidently' eats the food left at a murder crime scene either: you should never let good food go to waste and dead people usually don't eat anymore. And like I said, you'd be surprised how much can be detected from looking at what and how someone ate right before he died. In detective fiction, food is usually only investigated for poison, but how often do you see food being used for alibi tricks?

Experienced detective readers might be trained experts of recognizing locked room tricks, alibi tricks, the workings of rigor mortis and know precisely which poisons taste bitter and which are odorless and how effective they are, in short, they might know a lot about things most of them won't see in their everyday life. Yet, it's not nearly as entertaining and down-to-earth as the food theme in Kuitan. I am pretty sure I'll come across gyouza more often than cyanide. At least, I hope so. While a lot of the tricks and explanations rely on semi-obscure information, it's always very interesting and often actually applicable to real-life. The series often feels more like a gourmet manga with a detective twist, rather than a detective manga with a gourmet twist, but I think it's a really fun series for people interested in a) detective manga, b) food (Japanese food culture) and c) both.

And it's just totally awesome to have actually tasteful pictures in a detective manga, rather than the bloody chopped up corpses and stuff. You really shouldn't read this on an empty stomach.

Of course, with gourmet manga (and detective manga) not doing it particularly well outside of Japan (the same with sports manga), I doubt that Kuitan will make the jump to a western country.

Original Japanese title(s): 寺沢大介 『喰いタン』

『氷点下15度の殺意』

"And have I not cause for such a feeling? Consider the long sequence of incidents which have all pointed to some sinister influence which is at work around us."
"The Hound of the Baskervilles"

While I mostly read and review Japanese detective novels here, it doesn't mean that I don't read English detectives. It just means that I seldomly read English detectives. Which in turn doesn't mean that I don't like them. On the contrary, there is still much I really want to read. But with a gigantic tower of books looking down on me, I try to be a bit more careful with any new purchases. And that means I don't really get to read many English detectives nowadays. I kinda wonder why I bought that Japanese Holmes story collection last year though. And mental note: I still have to procure a copy of Queen's The French Powder Mystery this year.

One of the few English-language detective novels purchased this year was Hake Talbot's Rim of the Pit. With the novel ending rather high in best locked room mysteries lists and the writer being a magician himself, expectations were naturally a bit high. Luckily excellent, Rim of the Pit was excellent. And the Rambling House edition even features the original crime scene map on the backside cover. Which is something reprints of older books occassionally miss. Yes, I'm looking at you, Leonaur's Philo Vance omnibuses. Having a map on the backside cover is actually brilliant, as you don't have to look for the right page all the time.

A seance session held in snowy New England to contact the ghost of the medium herself (to negotiate logging rights. With the ghost), ends in the possession of one of the party by the ghost and a locked room murder. Add in disappearing footprints in the snow and a flying ghost (the Windigo) and you have a nice pile of impossible situations. It is up to Roger Kincaid (gambler, adventurer, survivor extraordinaire) to solve the case.

The main strength of this novel is no doubt its atmosphere. New England forms a snowy background for some genuine creepy happenings. The build-up to the murder(s) is done very well and while I feel that not all the impossible situations are resolved as satisfactory as others, Rim of the Pit is still a very strong novel. I've seen the remark in several reviews, but Rim of the Pit is a very Carr-ish non-Carr. Which is indeed true. The supernatural, the impossible situations, it all screams Carr. Except for the solutions, there Carr remains the master.

I have to admit though, with a flying ghost, the snowy background and the constant wandering of the characters and splitting up of the gang, I personally first associated the novel with Scooby-Doo. Seriously though. Stop. Walking. From. A. To. B. And. Back. It is very, very confusing. Ah well, at least they didn't had those Scooby Doo corridors.

The Rambling House edition also features the short story The Other Side, but I personally didn't like it at all. The story itself is a bit like a Chesterton story with a religious confidence trickster, but it's a bit of a let-down after the excellent novel.

The cover of this book is super creepy by the way. Which is why I always keep it turned away from, like I do with my Queen's And on the Eight Day and Uchida's The Togakushi Murders. Scary faces are scary.

「自分を信じられない自分は、いったいなにを信じて生きればいいというのだろう」

「人にはそれぞれ、生きかたというものがある。百人いれば、百通りの生きかたがあり、おそらく人は、自分以外の人間の生きかたをうまく理解できないだろ う。彼女と僕はお互いに、一般てきに範疇からはみ出している特殊な生きかたをしていた。つまり、入手した死体の写真を見せ合うような、生きかただ。」
『GOTH』

"People all have their own lifestyle. Every single person has his own way of life and is probably not able to understand the way of life of someone else but himself. She and I had a lifestyle that was different from the normal categories. A lifestyle where we showed each other the pictures of dead bodies we got an hold of."
"GOTH"

I suspect I have serious problems with concentration. I just can't focus myself on a single activity for a long time. I wrote my thesis by writing a bit for one section, than writing a bit for a different section and going back and forth, changing everytime I thought it was getting boring. In the end, I just swept all the little parts together in a semi-coherent text. I do the same with my blogposts by the way, which explains why sometimes (often?) my texts seem to be a bit incoherent. I have the same with books. I seldom read a single book at any given time, but always several at the same time. Which means that I often can't seem to finish a single book in one week, but then suddenly three or four books are finished the next. Which is kinda what happened now. Don't think I'll discuss everything this week though.

But first an easy one. I reviewed the first part of Otsuichi's GOTH earlier, so now the second part, GOTH - Boku no Shou ("GOTH: My Chapter"). Which I actually planned to do right after the first review, but yeah, sometimes stuff happens. For more background information, I refer to the previous review. Nothing has changed for this volume though, so it's still about the nameless narrator and Morino Yoru, two students who have an interest in death. And murders. And murderers. The two of them have a knack for finding murderers, though they don't really have any interest in turning them over to the police. They'd rather just shake a murderer's hand. This part contains three short stories, just like the previous volume.

Wristcut Jiken (Wristcut) ("Wristcut Case: Wristcut") is chronologically the first story of GOTH, as this is the first story where the narrator and Morino become... friends? Friends is a big word. Allies? Partners in crime?  Anyway, the town is haunted by a murderer who cuts off the hands of his female victims. The narrator finds out his teacher is the murderer and sneaks into his house to steal the murderer's collection of hands, but his teacher finds out who stole his hands (and thus who knows his horrible secret). Murderers driven to despair often resort to violence. This one does too.

In Tsuji (Grave) ("Soil: Grave"), Saeki has the strong urge to... dig holes. Well, it's not as much as just digging holes, rather than digging holes so he can bury people in it. Alive. Of course, these victims don't stay alive for long. He usually keeps his urge under check by planting trees in the holes he digs, but he has already buried a neighbourhood boy once. And this time he has captured someone, with according to her school ID is a certain schoolgirl we readers know.

The final story, Koe ("Voice"), revolves around Natsumi, who lost her sister some weeks ago. Her sister was found slaughtered, chopped up in pieces in an old abandonded hospital. One day, Natsumi is approached by a mysterious high school student who gives her a tape, with a message from her sister, recorded moments before she was killed. Natsumi will be given the rest of the message if she comes to the hospital where her sister was killed, where she will meet the same fate.

By now, Otsuichi's stories have become very predictable. A 'shock' ending might work all six times if at least the trick was different every time, but the same trick is used all the time, so Otsuichi lost me a bit there. The stories themselves are still entertaining though, great horror/mystery stories with really creepy scene depictions. And as it's one of the few relatively new Japanese mystery books translated into English, I would recommend it to anyone. But who were the people who favored GOTH over Norizuki Rintarou no Kouseki for the Orthodox Mystery Price?! That's just plain nuts.

I wonder how Otsuichi's Zoo will be. As far as I know, that a normal horror anthology (so I'll not discuss it here), but I might enjoy Zoo even more than GOTH, as I won't think about the Orthodox Mystery Price.

Original Japanese title(s):　乙一『GOTH - 僕の章』「リストカット事件 Wristcut」/「土 Grave」/「声 Voice」

What a Night for a Knight

「もちろんだとも。幽霊の出ない古城など、何の価値もない！」 
『人狼城の恐怖　第一部＝ドイツ編』

"Of course. Who would need a castle without a ghost!"
"The Terror of The Werewolf Castle Part One: Germany"

The complete Jinroujou no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Werewolf Castle") review series:
1. What a Night for a Knight (Part One: Germany)
2. Hassle in the Castle (Part Two: France)
3. Nowhere to Hyde (Part Three: Detective)
4. Who's afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf? (Part Four: Conclusion)

And so it begins. I've mentioned often that I prefer short detective stories over longer stories here. It might have something do to with my inability to focus on one single thing for a long time, it might have to do with my love for tricks (and short stories == more tricks in the same amount of pages). Whatever the cause, I usually have to plan when I read a long novel. And I had been postponing it for some time now. But now I've finally started reading it. So there's no turning back now. I've started in The World's Longest Detective Story (@ time of publishing).

Nikaidou Reito's Jinroujou no Kyoufu ("The Terror of The Werewolf Castle") is a monument in Japanese detective writing. The story was published from 1996 until 1998, divided in four separate books (Germany, France, Detective and Conclusion), around 700 pages each. So it's long. It's really, really long. To compare: most Japanese detective novels I have are around 300-400 pages, with some exceptions that reach into the 600s. Jinroujou no Kyoufu is no push-over and certainly something you have to prepare for. Well, at least if you usually read short stories.

So what's it about? I'm not totally sure at the moment, as the story is split in several parts. The main problem in the story is the so-called Werewolf Castle. In fact, the Werewolf Castle is a collective name for two identical twin castles, one called the Silver Wolf Castle, the other the Blue Wolf Castle. The two castles face each other, with not only a deep gorge seperating the two, but also the German-French border. The Silver Wolf Castle is on German territory, the Blue Wolf Castle on French. Twin castles are a rare thing as is, and thus many myths are connected to the castles. It was even thought for a long time that the twin castles didn't exist at all. But they do. And they are the stage for a truly horrifying story.

In the first part, Germany (or as the cover says: Dei (sic) Furcht in der Burg des Werwolfs Erster Teil: Deutschland), a group of people are invited by the current castle lord to spend some days at the Silver Wolf Castle. The group is a varied one, with aristocrats, university professors, musicians and actresses amongst the visitors. The stay at the castle seems fun at first, the party being welcomed warmly by the lady of the castle (the lord had been called away on business) and her servants, but the fun quickly turns into horror when they get locked up in the castle and people die one after another. The first death seems like an unlucky accident, but the second incident, where an husband and wife are found decapitated in a locked room, leaves little doubt; someone, or something is killing them all. Add in a bit of poisoning and a crossbow shooting shadow. But who is the murderer? Is it someone from the party? Or one of the inhabitants of the castle? Or maybe a ghost? Or the Devil himself? For who else but the devil could have made a suit of armor kill somebody in a locked room and then disappear again into thin air? As fewer and fewer people are left, they start to suspect each other, but that is still not the end to the terror of Werewolf Castle.

Because this was only part one. Which was long. Very long. But a lot happened. It's even a bit information overload. It starts with a retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, makes a detour to werewolf legends and the Spear of Longinus, adds in the complicated political situation of Werewolf Castle (being in both Germany and France) and the creepy Silver Wolf Castle with hidden passages and suit of armors on every floor, and I think Nikaidou might also work out the World War II / Nazi regime point a bit. Oh, and there's the 'main' story too. So yeah, a lot to keep track of. But I enjoyed the book quite a bit. The locked rooms presented are very interesting and while I complain somewhat about all the themes in the book; I do like them and I'm curous how it'll work out in the end. I only have a problem with the names. Readers of Japanese will understand me, but reading a book with names only in the katakana script is very, very hard on the eyes. And while I usually can imagine what the name is supposed to be in English when written in katakana, I often have no idea with German names written in katakana (yes, German names are quite different from Dutch).  Funnily enough, a lot of Japanese reviewers comment on how hard it is to remember all those foreign names.

But everything up until now was only part one. Of four. I'm not even halfway in the story. This is just the very beginning of the story. So there is no solution or anything to the murders here. Just the main problem. I'm not even sure whether I already have all the clues necessary to solve the case. Suffice to say, I haven't any clue at this stage. The second part, France, is probably set in the Blue Wolf Castle in France. It seems that the detective, Nikaidou Ranko is slated for an appearance in the third book and only solves the gigantic case in the last book. So I have still a long way to go.

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人　『人狼城の恐怖　第一部＝ドイツ編』

「犯人は・・・・・・・・・・人間です」

 「わけなんているのかよ？人が人を殺す動機なんて、知ったこっちゃねーが…人が人を助ける理由に…論理的な思考は存在しねーだろ？」
『名探偵コナン』

"I don't need a reason. I don't know about people's motives for killing others, but people don't need logical reasons for helping others."
"Detective Conan" 

I like Meitantei Conan ("Detective Conan"). I really, really like Meitantei Conan. You might even say that Conan made me what I am today. I started reading manga actively after reading Conan. I got to know Ellery Queen through Conan. I started reading Japanese detectives thanks to Conan. And yes, you might even say that it was thanks to Conan, that I started my current Japanese studies.

So to me, Conan will always be a special series. Going to the movie theater to see Tenkuu no Lost Ship (Lost Ship in the Sky") last year will always be a fond memory. Watching Shikkoku no Chaser ("The Raven Chaser") in my room with too many people was immensely fun. But it was also all part of a ritual I just had to do. Conan has influenced me, and by extension, events in my life too much (for a comic!) to consider just as a normal series you get easily in and out of.

So I lament the fact I can't go to the newest movie, Chinmoku no Quarter ("Quarter of Silence"), which was released yesterday. Breaking a two year tradition. This year luckily is the 15th birthday of the Conan animation, so in celebration to that, they made a new TV-drama special, so I at least had something to watch.

Two live action TV-drama specials were released earlier in 2006 and 2007, both starring Oguri Shun (Shinichi) and Kurokawa Tomoka (Ran). The first, Kudou Shinichi e no Chousenjou ("The Challenge Letter to Kudou Shinichi") was a story set some time before Shinichi turned into Conan, while the second, Kudou Shinichi no Fukkatsu!  Kuro no Soshiki to no Taiketsu ("The Revival of Kudou Shinichi! Confrontation with the Black Organisation") was a great story actually set after Conan had turned into Shinichi and as the title subtly suggests, the Black Organisation makes an appearance too. The first special was decent, but I really liked the second special with the Black Organisation, which had all the excitement you'd normally get only from a Conan movie.

This year's special, Kudou Shinichi e no Chousenjou - Kaichou Densetsu no Nazo ("The Challenge Letter to Kudou Shinichi - Mystery of the Monster Bird Legend"), broadcast last Friday, takes a step back in time and is set 100 days before Shinichi turned into Conan. Shinichi, Ran and Ran's mother are invited by Sonoko to visit a business relative's place, the Wakura family in the village of Juugoya. A local legend tells of a giant bird, a monstrous bull-headed shrike that, like the normal-sized version, has the habit of impaling its prey on trees for storage. The normal shrike usually impales small lizards and the sort on twigs, the giant monstrous type impales humans. Tree-shaped pillars have been erected all over town in the town, used for praying to the giant bird. The protagonists arrive just right in time for a big festival to appease the bird in a few days. Appearently, the bird is not too happy though, as people are found impaled on the tree-pillars one after another. It's up to the high-school-detective-not-turned-into-elementary-school-detective Shinichi to solve the riddle of the monstrous bird (hint: it is not a real monster bird killing people!).

I don't think I've ever discussed acting or something here before, but I'll make an exception. Mizobata Junpei and Kutsuna Shiori took over the roles of Shinichi and Ran for this special, but I really, really felt the two of them didn't set the characters as well as Oguri and Kurokawa. Especially Katsuna wasn't as much a Conan's Ran, rather a Kindaichi Shounen's Miyuki. Combined with Otsuka Nene's strange portrayal of Ran's mom (why would she need a funny character trait, suddenly?) made this special a bit harder to watch, for me, than the previous two. And this is ignoring the fact that I'm pretty sure that Shinichi hadn't seen Ran's mom for some time before she showed up in the manga, which would make her appearence/interactions with Shinichi here errm... impossible? Jinnai Takanori is luckily still there with his funny portrayal of Mouri Kogorou. A bit over the top, but he's convincing as a human-version of the cartoon.

The story itself was more Kindaichi Shounen, than Conan to be honest. Giant monstrous birds, small villages, local legends. Heck, it even had an old lady yelling tatari ja ("it's the curse!"). Even the trick to the murders, which was kinda too easy to see through, was more mid-Kindaichi-ish than Conan. But what made this special especially un-Conan-ish, was the dynamic between Shinichi and Ran. With Shinichi still his normal age and no sign of the Black Organisation, his relation with Ran is precisely the same as that of Kindaichi and Miyuki in the Kindaichi Shounen series. If you mention a live-action TV drama show featuring two high school students walking around in villages solving murders involving old legends with a romantic subplot, well, that's Kindaichi Shounen and not Conan.

Of the three TV specials, I think this one was the weakest. The second special is the best, no doubts about that, and while this TV special had a better detective plot than the first TV special, it misses the Conan feeling the first did had. The characters and acting was more Conan-like in the first special than in this one. It's too bad though. While I like the original two Kindaichi Shounen live action series, I have to say that the feeling in that series was quite different from the manga, with more emphasis on humor and a bit of Tsutsumi Yukihiko's distinct directing style. The first two Conan specials with Oguri in the other hand, really felt as a part of the Conan-franchise. This third special feels like an extra I don't really need.

Hopefully, I'll be able to see Quarter of Silence before next year's movie is out =_=.

まさか・・・『踊る』の青島！？

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　ドラマスペシャル　工藤新一への挑戦状～怪鳥伝説の謎～』