그리고 아무도 없었다

Four little Soldier boys going out to sea

A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

No, no, no, I'm not going to discuss South-Korean detective fiction from now on. The biggest hurdle being that I can't actually read Korean, despite having followed Korean language courses for 1.5 semester. I still want to visit the Detective Literature Museum in Busan someday, which still seems so much fun despite probably most books being in Korean, so maybe I should try a bit more. Or open my own museum here. Hmmm....

For some reason, a lot of Korean movies seem to have an international title, so I'll just refer to Geukrakdo Salinsageon ("Paradise Island Murder Case") as Paradise Murdered. A friend had given me this 2007 movie, saying it was something like a detective movie. A quick search on the internet told me it was a reasonably popular movie with an And Then There Were None plot that was reviewed mostly positively, so it seemed interesting enough at least. To watch it almost a year after I got it. Yes, I'm horrible.

The movie is set in 1986 and starts with the discovery of a decapitated head by some fishers on the mainland of South-Korea. It seems the head came from the nearby island Geukrakdo, where all 17 inhabitants have disappeared. As the authorities come to the island to investigate this mass disappearence, a flashback starts and tells the events of some days before. While seemingly an island true to its name of Geukrakdo ("Paradise Island"), with all 17 inhabitants living a simple yet good life there, the island soon turns into a living hell when one day two technicians working on the island are murdered brutally at a gambling party. With the local lunatic, who seems the most plausible suspect, missing and the island's only radio being destroyed, things become quite stressful on this paradise. Add a local legend of a ghost and a big pile of money that seems to disappear and appear at the worst moments possible and you can be sure that more and more people get murdered, until there were none left.

I'm not all too sure what to say about the movie. At one hand, the denouement and the main plot-twist was done reasonably well, being fairly hinted and actually the one I was expecting. And the other hand, the main plot-twist can be a bit unfair if you expect a true Golden Age detective, because Paradise Murdered isn't that. It's nowhere as neatly plotted as And Then There Were None, mostly hanging together by coincidences. Most events can be taken at face-value, because there really is nothing hidden behind smoke and mirrors. Rather than Christie's masterpiece, Paradise Murdered might be compared more reasonably to Edogawa Rampo's more pulpy works. With a healthy dose of violence, a bit of misdirection, the final plot twist that reminds very much of Edogawa's pulpy themes and a strange blend of humor and the occult mixed in the story, I think Paradise Murdered can be quite fun if you're into 1920's Japanese henkaku themes actually.

A masterpiece, this is not. It's not awful either and it probably appeals to the masses because of the slash horror theme combined with an And Then There Were None setting and an actual denouement scene, but on the other hand, you don't really miss out on anything by not watching this. 

Original Korean title(s): 극락도 살인사건

Nowhere to Hyde

「学問を一途に愛する人間はありがちなタイプですわね。私に言わせれると、一種の社会的逃避行動なのでしょう」
 『人狼城の恐怖　第三部＝探偵編』

"There are a lot of people who then devote themselves to their studies. If you ask me, I'd say that's like running away from society." 
"The Terror of Werewolf Castle Part Three: Detective"

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)

Last time on Jinroujou no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Werewolf Castle")! All members of a party visiting the Blue Wolf Castle in France, 1970 were killed one by one by some mysterious force. A ghost? A Nazi-Werewolf? The Devil?! Meanwhile, in the Silver Wolf Castle in Germany, a twin castle to the Blue Wolf Castle, a similar series of murders is commited! Are the murders spread across these two castles related to each other?! You'll find out in the new chapter of  Jinroujou no Kyoufu!

Ok, you don't really find out in this book. There is still one book to go.

The third part, Detective (the cover says: Dei (sic) Furcht in der Burg des Werwolfs Dritte Teil; Detektiv), starts on a somewhat mystical tone, as Nikaidou Ranko (and her brother/narrator Reito) seem to be getting a lot of signs lately all pointing to Germany, indicating that there is something for them to solve there. This feeling is also confirmed by a mysterious request by the Church, who asks the Nikaidou siblings to go to France to solve a case for them, hinting at some sort of connection between their request and Germany. When they find a small newspaper article about a certain mass disappearance case in Germany though, the two are pretty sure that this is what is calling for them.

Through a friend, Ranko gets hold of the terrifying report of a mental patient who is supposed to be the only survivor of the mass dissapperance, claiming that that the whole party was all killed in a place called The Silver Wolf Castle (see Part 1 Germany). Ranko and Reito make up their mind and take up a long-standing invitation of the French government to visit the country (for services rendered in the past) in March, 1971, as this would allow them to go to Germany more easily to look into the case. In the course of their investigation, it seems that someone has been cleaning up the loose ends of the case, as almost anyone who knew anything about the case seems to have died rather suddenly in the half year since the incident. The Silver Wolf Castle also seems non-existant. It’s almost a wonder that Ranko does get hold of a very important clue in the form of the diary of a certain laywer, who tells of a similar series of horrifying murders in the Blue Wolf Castle (see Part 2 France). With all the events in The Silver Wolf Castle and The Blue Wolf Castle known at this point, Ranko and Reito start to make progress in their deductions on the happenings in the Werewolf Castle, but it also seems that someone is watching them.

With two And Then Were None scenario’s discussed in the previous two books, we finally start detecting here. Most of this book is made up by discussions by the main characters on how the events could have happened. Both Ranko and Reito are enthousiastic mystery readers, and indeed, I have to admit that the two constructed their theories in exactly the same way I did, by looking at what the events were and trying to compare it to similar events in other novels (which are referenced to often). Many of the theories proposed thus passed my mind too, but like them, at this point, I still can’t find an all encompassing explanation. It’s still bits and pieces, theories that work for this, but not for that. It’s just too big; locked rooms, the setting of the two castles, mysterious comments on the architecture of the castles, the similarities (and more importantly) the differences in the events In the two castles, the motive… the scale of this story is just unbelievable.

I still don’t really like Ranko as a character though. She has more personality compared to Bara no Labyrinth ("Labyrinth of Roses") but I think the ‘problem’ I have with her is that is a lot like a Van Dine,  really smart and good at everything that she does, but narrator Reito does little more than to confirm that. A sarcastic tone would have helped a lot on how Ranko is presented in the story. While Reito does, very occasionally, make a sarcastic comment about Ranko, most of his observations of her dwell on how absolutely fabulous her hair looks or what kind of dress she is wearing or how she crossed her legs before she spoke. Reito and Ranko are not blood-related (Ranko is adopted), but I am really sure how I’m supposed to read Reito.

But there is only one book left! I’m still not totally sure how this is going to turn out (this part ends with a sort of a cliffhanger), but I’m quite confident that Nikaidou will finish this in a way worthy of the title longest detective novel in the world. I’ll try make the final review a more overall review of the whole series; I’m pretty sure that these single reviews don’t do justice to the scale of the whole story. And I’m mostly writing these partial reviews to serve as a reminder to myself on what happened anyway.

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人　『人狼城の恐怖　第三部＝探偵編』

「全部分かったで」

「そんなに時間はかからん。女心と違うて犯罪心理はわかりやすいから簡単や 」

『名探偵コナン蒼き宝石の輪舞曲（ロンド）』 

"Won't take long, that! Unlike a woman's heart, criminal psychology's easy to understand, ya know!"

"Detective Conan Rondo of the Blue Jewel"

Suddenly realized that the 15th anniversary of the Meitantei Conan anime is awfully a lot like the 10th anniversary of Trick: we have a movie, a television special and of course, a video game. And me getting caught up with all of it. The Conan game is a long awaited one actually, as it had been a while since an detective adventure Meitantei Conan game was released. Well, except for 2009's the crossover DS game Meitantei Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo. But that was a crossover, so it doesn't count.

 

The team responsible for that last, rather fun game is also the developer of this year's Meitantei Conan Aoki Houseki no Rondo ("Detective Conan Rondo of the Blue Jewel"). Mouri is asked to find out who the stalker is of actor Katsuragi Touma, star of the tokusatsu show Onimar. Onimar is a rival show of Kamen Yaiber and its popularity has grown recently because a real life Onimar has been delivering corrupt politicans to the police. Mouri and the kids are invited to the set of Onimar, but tragedy strikes when Katsuragi falls of a high wall during a stunt, dying instantly.

Mouri clearly didn't succeed in his job of protecting Katsuragi, but it seems there is more going in on the set of Onimar and it's all connected to the real-life Onimar (who has delivered a dead man to the police in the mean time) and the mysterious jewel Blue Dahlia. The Blue Dahlia is an Macguffin within the Onimar series, but it seems that an actual jewel named the Blue Dahlia exists(ok, it's a Macguffin within the game too). While Conan investigates the Onimar case in Japan, Kansai high school detective Hattori Heiji is invited by the brother of the king of Andel, together with other famous detectives and treasure hunters, to come to Andel. Here Hattori discovers that there is a connection between the royal family of Andel, the story of Onimar and the Blue Dahlia. It's up to the two detectives to solve this international case. Oh, and Kaitou KID is also on the cover, so yeah, it's not really a spoiler to say he makes an appearence too.

Like the Gyakuten series, or its spiritual predecessor, this game has several chapters, each featuring its own storyline (murder), but are also strongly interconnected through the overall storyline. Also like its predessor, this game switches between chapters starring the two protagonists (Conan & Hattori). Starting with the incident at the movie set, we are also treated to a locked room murder in a pharmaceutical research center, a dead body hanging from a castle tower, a murder within the Shinkansen, a murder seemingly commited in the room of the king of Andel and it all comes together in the Tokyo Sky Tower (=Tokyo Sky Tree). Most of these stories are quite decent actually. While you won't find groundbreaking new tricks here, it's pretty much on par with the (short) stories you'd usually see in the manga.

The stories are just kinda hindered by clumsy story-telling/implementation into the story flow of a video game. Meitantei Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo had the same problem actually; the individual stories, as well as the overall story were quite decent to actually good, but it was a bit hampered by clumsy game design. The game very seldom allows you to walk around on your own, instead keeping you on a very rigid path. It was like the developers weren't able to translate the story well to a game, so it almost always forces you into a certain direction. You also notice it from the context-sensitive button in the menu, that changes from Conan's suspenders to Conan's skateboard, his wristwatch and more depending on what the story requires it to be. The arbitrary use is very annoying and we don't need a full explanation every time the context-sensitive button changes. The partner selection system seems also a bit abritrary; as I can't imagine that the story would change much, depending on your partner it seems the only things that changes with your partner are a couple of throw-away sentences.

Anyway, the game is like most Japanese adventures; you walk around from screen to screen, interacting with characters to procure information (Three types: character profiles; testimonies; evidence). Sometimes you're forced to combine two pieces of information to create a new one, but it's mostly reading. And then you go into a grand finale of course, explaining what kind of tricks have been used and who the murderer is.

The 'confrontations' with the murderers are quite similar to ones in the Gyakuten series; you usually start an attack by finding a lie in something the suspect says (based on evidence) and reconstruct what happened, slowly filling in a big flowchart that shows the truth behind the case. While I like the idea of a flowchart, the implementation in a video game is a bit dubious: even if you only have an empty flowchart, you can still see that certain relations must exists between items; making it rather easy to just guess what should go into the empty spaces. On the other hand: if you do it like they did it in this game, where it's only possible to see the flowchart when it's filled in completely, then I question the use for it; I know what it says 'cause I filled it in just moments ago. So when is a good time to implement a flowchart in these kinds of games?

All in all it's a decent detective game, but it really feels like that with a bit more polishing this game could have been a great game. The game just has all kinds of design and story-pacing issues that aren't game-breaking per se, but it all adds up. The game is technically and graphically really like its predecessor, from the music to the way of telling the story and even the menus, but it seems the team hasn't improved on it at all. These are all the same problems I had with Meitantei Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, so it feels like a missed chance.

And the game's a bit easy. I understand that these Conan games are aimed at a rather broad public, so they usually turn out on the easier side of things, but it'd be nice if they would make a more difficult Conan game once in a whole. I mean, even kids of six who started reading Conan from the beginning, would be adults now (ah, eternal youth!).

For the Conan fan, this game also offers some bad mini-games (the same as in Meitantei Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo actually), 15 jigsaw puzzles of the movie posters and (actually fun!), a Conan quiz. Which in contrary to the main game, is really hard! I mean, questions like What's the name of the old lady Kogorou and the others picked up on their way to the Twilight mansion? and Which day of the week did Mitsuhiko skip radio taisou? and What class did Conan transfer to at elementary school?. That's pretty hardcore. Even I say that, someone who has Japanese, English, German, French, Dutch and South-Korean versions of Conan.

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン蒼き宝石の輪舞曲（ロンド）』

「悲しい恋人たちの伝説を秘めた悲恋湖が今また繰り返された伝説を悲しんで」

「はじめちゃんならどうする？　あたしとはじめちゃんが同じような目にあったら・・・」

「うーん　そーだなあ　俺だったら・・・　考えるだろうな・・・」

「考えるって何を？」

「２人とも助かる方法をさ！！」

『金田一少年の事件簿　悲恋湖伝説殺人事件』

"What would you do, Hajime? If you and me were in the same situation..."

"Hmmm, I would... I would probably think..."

"Think of what?"

"Think of a way to save the both of us!!"

"The Casefiles of Young Kindaichi The Tragic-Love-Lake Legend Murder Case" 

Does it mean I'm not cut out to be a detective, if I don't attract murder while traveling with the train/night bus/plane/boat? I mean, I'm pretty sure there are some equations like: 

A) IF: detective is in a closed circle situation AND: other people are present THEN the probability of someone dying nears 1.

B) IF: detective is in a moving closed circle situation AND: other people are present THEN the probability of someone dying nears 1 at a faster rate than A.


Or something like that. Imagine my disappointment when I flew to Japan, or when I took the boat to Busan without any incidents. In contrast, Kindaichi Hajime seems to have it quite easy. Going on a schooltrip? Someone dies. Going to the wedding of a friend? Someone dies. Work? Someone dies. Heck, he can't even go to school without someone dying. And we haven't even put Kindaichi in a moving object!

Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Yuurei Kyakusen Satsujin Jiken ("The Casefiles of Young Kindaichi: The Ghost Ship Murder Case") is the second original novel by Amagi Seimaru and actually quite OK. With Kindaichi and Miyuki on the last trip of a super-cheap cruise (accompanied by Inspector Kenmochi and his wife who happened to book the same cruise as a wedding anniversary trip), you can be quite sure something is going to happen. And indeed, commanding crew is disappearing from the ship one by one. It doesn't take long for Kindaichi and Kenmochi to discover the disappearances are foul play (well, blood on the wall *kinda* suggests foul play), but how the men disappear? Or should they believe the rumors that this ship is a ghost-ship?

Of course not. But a certain ship of the past does make a return in this story. In one of the earlier stories of the manga, the wrecked cruiseship the Orient was the event that served as the motive for a series of murders. This novel tells the whole story behind the Orient incident and is therefore interesting for people interested in the Kindaichi Shounen lore. It's not as big as in Conan, but it's there.

The story follows the ordinary Kindaichi Shounen formula, which was to be expected. This was the first novel however to feature a Challenge to the Reader by Amagi though, which was quite welcome (even though Kindaichi's catchphrase "The mysteries have been solved" has the same function within the story). And the main trick used in this novel is quite neat actually, as it's a trick that really makes use of its ship-setting, rather than a trick that can be used anywhere and just happened to be used on a ship. Yet I can't help but think that it's slightly unbelievable with the technology this day and age. I'm not too familiar with ships though.

And before I forget it, I LOVED the bookmark I got with the book. In Japan, you usually get a little bookmark with every book. Most often, the publisher inserts a piece of paper with their logo or something. Sometimes bookstores offer them when you buy a book. Bookmarks designed specifically for a certain book are not super-rar, bu certainly not common. What was so awesome about this bookmark is that it features a dramatis personae (including character portraits). Many novels still include a dramatis personae in the beginning of the book, but including it on the bookmark is so simple, yet so ingeneous. You don't have to flip through the pages everytime and it makes the bookmark actually useful! Well, besides that bookmarking function it also has naturally. Bookmarks <3

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸、さとうふみや　『金田一少年の事件簿　幽霊船客殺人事件』

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』