『g@me.』

"No, I... it's just, I got confused..."

"And this is news?"

"Huh?"

"Just come out with both guns blazing... like you always do"

"Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney"

Because I won't make special posts for news or other news: English translations of Edogawa Rampo's The Strange Tale of Panorama Island (a crime story with a distinct fantastic element to it),  Case of the Murder at D-Slope (the first original Japanse locked room story) and The Fiend with 20 Faces (and Ashibe Taku's Murder in The Red Chamber) are set to be released by good old Kurodahan. Who are situated in Fukuoka. Yeah. And there is a library beneath the attic nowadays. And I still post at Criminal Element. But enough idle talk.

One of the weirdest essays I wrote for university was one on problems concerning reading comprehension within detective fiction. It was just for a Japanese language course and everyone was free to choose his own theme and while most people rewrote other essays/researches in Japanese, I for some reason chose to write a new essay on the topic. At first, I was actually planning to write something about how people read detective fiction and the implementation of that in videogames, but I really couldn't see me pull it off in Japanese. Or any language at all actually.

But I've wanting to write something on deduction systems in videogames for a long time, so why not now? Note, this is mainly on how deductions of the player are integrated into videogames, so I'll not go into topics like pixel-hunting and such. I'll only go into games that actually do expect some deducing by the player, even if it's just a little, so a game like Tantei Famicom Club is not discussed. And I hardly play PC games, so I won't discuss them. And finally, this is precisely not at all what I had in mind at first for this post, but I've been postponing it for months now, so I just came up with something that at least touches the subject. 'Cause that's how I roll.

Enough researches on reading comprehension in detective fiction indicate that readers of a (the same) detective story, often come up with a wide variety of deductions (see for example Kojima 1996, 1999 in the Attic). These differ in both width and depth; some ideas might have several layers of thought behind them, other just one. Some might be very original, some rather predictable.  And the same should happen with detective games, as long as we have (some kind of) puzzle plot. The problem is that while a book is pretty much a one-way trip that is pretty much automatic, games often give the player a certain range of freedom to move around. The same with detective games. Whereas the story in a book will always develop from point A to B to C, it's sometimes possible in games to move from point C to A to B. In fact, many gamers will find a game that's always lineair quite boring.

At certain points in the story (be it a book or a game), a check is made on the readers' deductions. In a novel it's often (though not exclusively) the ending, where the detective reveals his solution. The right solution. Compare it to your solution and you know whether you were succesful or not. In games however, this often results in a paradox. Game developer Takumi Shuu explains it in an article as follows:

"Mystery fiction and games.... at first sight, the two seem compatible, but they are actually very contradictive when you look at it from the position of a game creator. The theme of a detective is to 'unravel the mystery'. But on the other hand, you enjoy it the most when 'you're surprised when the mystery is unraveled at the end' ....  and this is actually the complete opposite. What you expect from a game is naturally 'to become a great detective and solve the mystery'. But if so, you neccesarily lose the enjoyment of being surprised at the end. A great detective can't explain his own deductions and get surprised by it... Just like that a magician can't get surprised by his own magic tricks. How can we overcome this contradiction? The key to mystery games lies precisely there...." (Takumi, 2010)

And indeed, most games don't cope with this paradox too well. Almost all games I know work with a model wherein the detective-character in the game lays out a deduction on his own and only allows input from the player at certain, select moments in the deduction. It's actually little more than a test of your deductions. As it would be quite impossible (@ the moment) to create a system that can react to every deduction possible made by man, they go the other extreme: they only check at certain points of the deduction to see if you have been paying attention. The problem with this model is that a lot of the deductions are done for you, you can only show your own ideas at certain select times, but the automatic part of the deduction often spoils a lot. Because the questions for the player have to be 'set up', the introducing sentences of the deduction often hint at a certain answer in advance. It's easier to look for the answer if you have a definite question. Say you think it was an alibi trick, but then you notice that all the questions are about strings and needles and bolts. It will probably influence your deduction.

In the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou (Nintendo Famicom/DS; Sony PSX/PS2/PSP) games, this is really reduced to the bare minimum, with many questions npothing more than mere tests of memory (questions like "who am I supposed to visit now?" are not rare).  Detective Conan - Rondo of the Blue Jewel (Nintendo DS) is also like this, with the character starting a deduction on his own and only checking with the player once in a while asking you to select the murderer, the murder weapon or something like that. A vaguer variant exists in Hayarigami (Sony PS2/PSP), a horror-adventure game that actually does allow the player some creative freedom. At certain points in the game, the player is asked to answer questions about the case. The player can answer with rational, realistic answers, or more supernatural answers. The story actually changes depending on the players' choices, resulting in either a rational explanation or a supernatural explanation for the stories. Here the questions are not so much testing (though they do test certain point that _have_ be filled in correctly), as much as giving the player the freedom to play around with the story.

Trick DS (Nintendo DS) works a bit different. The game basically also tests your deductions by comparing your ideas to crucial points in the automatic deduction, but the catch here is that you must select your answers beforehand. The player is forced to create in-game deductions. By combining cards (that represents things like possible weapons, crime scenes and other relevant information), deductions are made. The player has to pick out the deductions he thinks are right in advance before he can proceed into the automatic deduction sequence. The catch is that it's possible to make wrong deductions (thus possible to enter the deduction sequence with the wrong 'ammunition').

The system in Trick X Logic (Sony PSP) is probably the most like how people deduce while reading a real book. Here the player is also asked several (checking) questions, but just like with Trick DS, the player has to come up with possible answers on his own. This is done by selecting keywords from the text ("He can't read" and "He was seen reading a book"), in order to generate mysteries ("Why was the man reading a book if he can't read?"). This mysteries can be combined with other keywords to solve them, thus creating insights ("It was an imposter" or "He actually can read"). This can be done with contradicting pieces of text, but also with pieces of text confirming each other (creating 'facts'). Either way, by combining these texts, certain insights are made, which are used to answer the test questions.

In fact, the Trick X Logic system is IMHO the most natural, as this is exactly how people read detective fiction (at least people with some experience with puzzle plots). But even then it has to cope with that problem: you have the (leading) questions in advance, so you can work your way back to the answer. And that is something these games all have in common.

So what did Takumi Shuu (from the article) do? He turned it around in the Gyakuten Saiban / Ace Attorney (Nintendo GBA/DS/Wiiware) games. In those games, the player-character (and sometimes also the player) often has no idea what's going on. The player-character is just forced into situations wherein he is forced to strike back even though he has no deductions, no idea at all. He just looks for contradictions within a character's testimony and attacks him on those points, confident that by revealing one lie at the time, he will eventually arrive at the truth. Say a witness says he was watching TV while you have proof that there was an outage. You have a contradiction and you call your witness out on that, but you have no idea where this is going. In the beginning, the player-character (and the player) is just poking in the dark, hoping to find a weak spot.

And I really like this system for a game. The initial poking around is much more interactive than with other detective games, allowing the player to actually bumble around. The story often unfolds almost real-time, with the player-character getting new information every time he uncovers a lie and uses that to (immediately) alter his deductions. It's not like an exam like in the older deduction model. Which makes this system a lot more fun as a game.

Not to say that the old model is obsolete. The system used in Trick X Logic really holds a lot of potential, and if we would like... stick it into a multiple interactive storylines - structure like in 428 ~ Fuusa sareta Shibuya de (Wii/PS3/PSP), who knows what could happen? Deductions made by the player in one storyline that instantly change the development of the other (ongoing) storylines...

I really should finish some games one of these days. Like Glass Rose (PS2). Which is actually a Japanese adventure about a serial murder case in a 1920s mansion. I should like that game a lot more than I actually do....

Captured in Her Eyes

"ἐμὲ δὲ χλωρὸν δέος ᾕρει,μή μοι Γοργείην κεφαλὴν δεινοῖο πελώρουἐξ Ἀίδεω πέμψειεν ἀγαυὴ Περσεφόνεια."

"Ὀδύσσεια"

"And pale fear grabbed me lest wondrous Persephone would send forth from Hades the head of the terrible monster Gorgon"

"Odyssey"

Following an Ancient Greek course in Japan was kinda weird, but I did really enjoy reading stuff like Perseus again after so many years. Especially as Ancient Greek is not a language I read often. Which is a shame. The only use Ancient Greek nowadays has is when I am asked to fill in languages I know on forms and such (which did result in a funny scene when a friend and I had to register for a Chinese course in Japan). Or when I need introducing quotes.

Norizuki Rintarou's Nakakubi ni Kiite Miro - The Gorgon's Look ("Ask the Decapitated Head - The Gorgon's Look") (2005) is the most recent novel-length entry in the writer Norizuki Rintarou series. And it was received quite well in Japan actually: taking the first place at both the 2005 kono mystery ga sugoi! ("This mystery is great!") rankings and the honkaku mystery taishou ("The orthodox mystery price") rankings. Which raises expectations, right? Actually, I knew nothing about this novel except that it won those prices when I started with this novel. I didn't even bother to read the description on the back of the book. I just started knowing only that 1) it shouldn't be bad as it won some influential prices and 2) the cover was really creeping me out. Seriously, like she's looking into the depths of my souuuuuuul~

The contents are less creepy though. One day, when Rintarou is visiting a photo gallery held by his kouhai, he meets Kawashima Echika, a young smart girl who is the daughter of the famous sculpter Kawashima Isaku. He was once a big name in the art world, shocking the world with his daring Mother-Daughter Statue, a statue made by plaster-casting on his wife, at the time pregnant with Echika. He went into a slump several years ago though, but as he feels that his health will not keep up any longer, he decides to make his final work of art: a new plaster cast statue, this time using Echika as his model. Quickly after Echika and Rintarou's meeting however, Isaku dies of heart failure. The family then discovers something horrible: someone has entered the locked atelier and cut off the head of the statue of Echika. Fearing this might be some kind of warning, the family asks Rintarou to investigate.

And then people lie to Rintarou, Rintarou keeps falling for those lies, keep this up for 250 pages and then finally the cut-off head of a real person appears. And then another 200 pages of lies which Rintarou keeps believing for some reason, and then the conclusion.

The first 250 pages were really, really hard to go through. In the beginning, Rintarou is just investigating the disappeared head of the statue, going around following his leads. But pretty much everyone lies to him, and what's worse, he keeps believing those lies. Most of the book, it's: A lies to Rintarou -> Rintarou believes A -> discovers at a later stage that he had been lied to -> A tells truth (?) -> B lies to Rintarou -> etc.  You would think that a writer detective with quite some adventures on his resume would be a little less naive. Rintarou really keeps bumbling around and in fact could have solved the case much faster if he wasn't so gullible. I know Norizuki went for a Wrightsville-Queen, the imperfect great detective, when he created his character, but the Rintarou here does feel different from the Rintarou from the short stories. And it doesn't help that the murder in the book doesn't occur until halfway through, as all those people lying about a statue's head seems a bit silly.

The lies of course all tie in to the murder, eventually, but by then I was really bored by the novel. It does pick up after the murder, with little pieces slowly falling into place and I have to admit, the solution was pretty good. It reminds of the previous novel in the series, Ni no Higeki ("The Tragedy of Two"), but done better here. Whereas Shimada is at his best when he uses a grand trick to fool everybody, Norizuki is at his best when he comes up with a solution that can be solved by pure logic. Just by looking at what people know and looking at the gap between taken actions and actions they should take based on their knowledge, Norizuki arrives at the solution. Rintarou here is clearly following a latish-Queenian approach with his detecting. The solution did save the novel for me, which is saying much as I was really not having fun for most of the book.

I think the biggest problem I had with the beginning of the story is that the quest for the statue's head seems a a bit too open. The head is gone, yes, but it is not clear whether this is connected with any (upcoming) crime or not, or whether it is just a prank or something like that. There is no feeling of urgence to the matter. It feels too much like an aimless investigation in the beginning, which only gets a clear goal when the murder is commited. Which makes for a bit tedious reading. Germany and France (Jinroujou no Kyoufu) were also a bit boring in the beginning, as both books starts with a lengthy introduction of the characters and the history of the castles, with the murders happening in the latter part of the stories. A story which lacks a clear direction, is just hard to get into for me. Compare to Soutou no Akuma ("Double-headed Devil"), where the murder(s) also started rather late in the story, but the beginning was a lot more exciting with an investigation and infiltration of a quant village. For me, the faster a murder, the better.

Of course, subject matter also plays a role. Jinroujou no Kyoufu may have a slow start, but I did really like the medieval legends and such in the beginning of Germany. While I like the part on Medusa /Gorgons in Nakakubi ni Kiite Miro - The Gorgon's Look, art is really not my thing. Or at least not sculptures. For me, the best mix of an interesting topic and detectives is still Kuitan. Because you can't go wrong with food.

This was the last Norizuki novel I had actually (well, 'cept for Ni no Higeki, but I already know the radio drama, so I know the story already). As I placed a purchase restraint on myself for Japanese novels this summer, I will have to wait at least a month before I will get some new books. Which might or might not include Norizuki. I'm having fun with Queen's Calendar of Crime, so Norizuki's Horoscope of Crime might be interesting...

Original Japanese title(s): 法月綸太郎　『生首に聞いてみろ』

「オレには見えてきたよ。この事件のたった一つの真実ってやつがね」

「ラブは０だと？笑わせんな！芝の女王に言っとけ！０は全ての始まり！ そこから出発しねぇと何もうまれねぇし、何も達成もできねぇって・・・そう言っとけ！」

『名探偵コナン』

"Love is worth zero points? Don't make me laugh! Tell the Grass Court Queen this:  everything starts from zero! Nothing will happen, nothing can be achieved if you don't start from there!"

"Detective Conan"

Oh, look, Keyhole TV still works despite the change to exclusively digital broadcasting in Japan. The quality of the stream is still horrible though... And in other news: why is it taking me ages to finish a book? Maybe because it took almost half the book before anything of interest happened? As episodes on the Conan live action series are pretty short, people usually die rather fast luckily. Anyway, on with the review of this week's episode of Meitantei Conan - Kudou Shinichi e no Chousenjou ("Detective Conan - A Challenge Letter for Kudou Shinichi").

Meitantei Conan - Kudou Shinichi e no Chousenjou (Detective Conan - A Challenge Letter for Kudou Shinichi)
Episode 1 (July 7, 2011): Before he turned into Conan, the high school detective solved the mystery of the adultery murder!
Episode 2 (July 14, 2011): The locked room murder commited on air! Reveal the secret cursed by the psychic
Episode 3 (July 21, 2011): Murder Case in a Locked Courtroom! Reveal the Trick of the Hostess Murder
Episode 4 (July 28, 2011): Perfect Crime! Murder Notice at a Wedding, Reveal the Locked Room Poisoning Trick
Episode 5 (August 5, 2011): The Glamorous Murder Trick of the Actress who lost her Memory - Perfect Murder at the Summer House
Episode 6 (August 11, 2011): The Magnificent Murderous Kiss of Twenty Beauties! The Murderous Intent Hidden in the Murder Equation!
Episode 7 (August 18, 2011): Inheritance Murder Among Bloody Relatives! Reveal the Mystery of the Kidnapping Trick!
Episode 8 (August 25, 2011): A Woman's Determination, Revenge on the Molester! The Murder Trick hidden in the Security Camera
Episode 9 (September 01, 2011): Hattori Heiji and the Mystery of the Invisible Locked Room Murder Weapon! Deduction Battle between the Detectives of East and West
Episode 10 (September 08, 2011): The Mystery of the Body that Moved 200 KM Within An Instant! Reveal the Perfect Crime Scheme of the Evil Woman
Episode 11 (September 15, 2011): A Kiss Is the Reason for Murder, A Revenge Murder After 20 Years! The Mystery of the Perfect Alibi
Episode 12 (September 22, 2011): I Killed Her! 3 Single Murderers? Reveal the Mystery of the Fake Murder!
Episode 13 (September 29, 2011): Ran Dies! The Final Challenge of the True Criminal to the Genius Detective - Reveal the Mystery of the White Room

The case Shinichi, Ran and Kogorou are asked to remember in episode 4 (subtitle: "Perfect Crime! Murder Notice at a Wedding, Reveal the Locked Room Poisoning Trick") is a poisoning case during a wedding reception Kogorou was organizing for his acquaintances. Shinichi was forced to help Kogorou behind the scenes with the party (because of a batsu game, Shinichi couldn't refuse any requests that day) and quickly discovered some underlying tension between the the bridge, the groom and a (female) friend of the groom. It was pretty clear that there was something going on with the groom and his friend, though Kogorou seemed rather oblivious to it. Until it hit him hard in the face, as the friend suddenly died during the reception after drinking a cocktail. It was murder of course.

Ah, the search for the method of poisoning, a true Conan staple! In the nearly 20 years Conan has been active (which accounts to like almost one year within the series?!), he has encountered many, many, many ways of poisoning people. Some of them very ingenous. The method in this episode is not particularly exciting though. Actually, the trick itself is pretty good and clearly integrated into the story-setting. However, why did the murderer went through that much trouble to execute the trick?  The trick, in its most basic form, can be done without leaving that much evidence  / witnesses. Which is, I assume, what you want if you are a murderer who does not wishes to get caught. So why make the trick worse by adding in stuff that actually leaves evidence / witnesses? As if the writer of this episode came up with a decent enough trick, but couldn't find out how to come up with clues that would point to the culprit.  The trick / setting however is indeed something you wouldn't normally see in Conan (the manga), I think. I wouldn't say that Kudou Shinichi e no Chousenjou is a truly adult series (it really isn't), but I can kinda see what they meant with the 'nightly Conan' premise (the same with the concept of love hotels in the last episode).

The ending of the episode is rather exciting though. Up until now, Shinichi, Ran and Kogorou moved from one room to another, entering passwords that correspond with the cases Shinichi encountered on the dates asked. This time however, they are asked to answer with a date on a question. Something goes wrong during this and the room goes all danger! danger! with red lights flashing and moving cameras and other cliffhanger ending cliches. Does that mean that the story in the next episode is important and will tie up with the overall storyline of our heroes being captured?

Oh, and I just noticed that the cases are not presented in chronological order.  Maybe some code-cracking with putting all the passwords associated with the dates in order later on in the series?[/speculation]

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　工藤新一への挑戦状』　サブタイトル「完全犯罪! 結婚式で殺人予告、密室毒殺トリックの謎を暴け」
Date & Password:  2010.05.31, キス

『Unlucky Men in the Rain』

「空想の翼はますます広がるようですね。まるで、自分が乗った車はとうに崖から飛び出しているのに、それに気がつかずに懸命に運転しているよう」

「お子様アニメのギャグですね。その場合、車輪の下に地面がないことに運転手が気づかなければ、車は走り続けることが可能だ、という約束ごとがあります」

「あなたは気がついてない？」

「前しか見ていませんから」

「下をご覧なさい」

「目的地についてから見ます。そこに地面があれば、途中でも地面の上を走っていたことになります」

『双頭の悪魔』

"You're spreading your imaginary wings even more. It's like you focused on driving a car, without noticing that you have driven off a cliff already"

"You mean like a gag from a cartoon, right? But it's a rule that as long as the driver doesn't notice that he isn't driving on firm ground anymore, the car will continue moving"

"You haven't noticed it yet?"

"I am only looking in front of me"

"Please look beneath yourself"

"I'll look when I have arrived at my destination. If there's ground there, then it means I have been riding on firm ground"

"Double-Headed Devil"

No. Nothing has changed. Even having read Jinroujou no Kyoufu, I still think that 700 pages for a book is quite long. Especially if it takes a long time for people to actually die.

Arisugawa Alice is a familiar name here, but this novel is not part of the Arusigawa novels I usually read actually. Arisugawa has two main series, with me usually discussing the Writer Alice novels. In those novels, criminologist Himura Hideo and mystery writer Arisugawa Alice work together and solve crimes. Arisugawa other main series is the Student Alice series. In this series Eito University Mystery Club members Egami Jirou (head of the club) and Arisugawa Alice (a normal student and aspiring writer) work together and solve crimes. To make it more confusing: student Alice writes the Writer Alice novels, while writer Alice writes the Student Alice novels. So each Alice is just a fabrication of the other Alice.

Yes, it can be quite confusing.

Soutou no Akuma ("Double-Headed Devil") is the third novel in the Student Alice series (because I never read anything in order, it seems). Events of the previous novel have seemingly made a big impact on Eito Mystery Club member Maria, as she takes a long break from university and goes back to her parents in Tokyo. After a while, she sets out on a trip through Japan, hoping to get over the events and she winds up in Kisara village in the Kouchi prefecture on Shikoku. The mountain village is actually quite famous all over Japan as it's a very queer village:  the wealthy Kisara had bought the village (and named it after himself) as an outer heaven for soldiers artists. Artists were invited to live with him in the village, giving them the chance to cultivate their arts without having to worry about work and money. Kisara himself has died, but his widow still runs the village, with a bit over 10 inhabitants according to her husband's wishes. The village is also very keen on privacy, not allowing anyone to enter. Maria herself just happened to strain her leg just as the inhabitants wanted to throw her out of the village, but the people were kind enough to help her and allow her to stay until her leg healed.

But this was two months ago. And while she had contact with her parents in the beginning, letters and phone calls slowly started to stop, making them very anxious about what's happened with Maria. Her father therefore requests the other Eito Mystery Club members to go to the village and find out what's happening there. The four remaining members, including Egami and Alice, of course want to help. Stuff happens though, and it results in: Egami and Maria get stuck in Kisara Village, with the other EMC members in the neighbouring village, because the connecting bridge collapsed due to a storm. And it's during the same storm that dead bodies are found on both sides of the river!

First thing that I noticed: Egami Jirou is a much more likeable character than Himura Hideo. Whereas Himura Hideo verbally abuses (writer) Alice whenever there's a chance, Egami is much more like a normal person. He is much more like the senior you want to have. I was a bit disappointed though that the EMC members, despite being mystery club members, didn't really talk about detective novels / writers. I don't know about the other Student Alice novels, but you'd think they would talk a bit more like... the students in Jukkakukan no Satsujin or the dialogues Ranko and Reito have in the Nikaidou Ranko series. You know, referencing both famous and lesser-known stories as they investigate the murders. The EMC members aren't dumb (not at all!), but you'd think they'd be more genre-savvy.

Like I said in the beginning, this novel is long. But I have to admit, it manages to keep your attention quite well for practically the whole story. The story develops at a steady pace due to the double investigation on both sides of the river with Egami as the main detective on one side, and the three remaining EMC members on the other side (with Maria and Alice being the narrators for the respective sides). In fact, there are so many developments in this story that Arisugawa didn't insert one, not two, but no less than three Challenges to the Reader in this novel! It reminds a bit of The Greek Coffin Mystery:  the story develops further even after several important plot-details have been revealed by the deductions of the detectives. The difference of course being that three challenges are genuine challenges and not false solutions. The three challenges don't feel gimmicky and actually aren't gimmick and truly fit with the story Arisugawa is telling.

The puzzle-plot is pretty interesting (with a murder in a cave-maze, 'creative artists' as the suspects and a Queen-ish investigation into a letter that has disappeared), but a bit on the easy side, I thought. Arisugawa should have used the myth of the two-headed river-dragon better though. The story as it is though, is still very good and it's not very surprising that (at some time) Arisugawa Alice chose this novel as his own best work (I prefer 46 Banme no Misshitsu released a year earlier though) The logical structure of the deductions on both sides show the Queenian influence on Arisugawa and he certainly manages to come up with a puzzle plot that holds that tradition high.

Like most of the Student Alice novels, this story has actually been made into a movie, a direct-to-VHS release. Can't find any video sources though. But now I come to think about it, this story would make for a pretty entertaining movie.

The writing style in Writer Alice and Student Alice series seem quite different too. Whereas writer Alice can be quite sarcastic in tone (not in Himura's face though), student Alice does feel like a student with his own set of problems. As I have only been reading Writer Alice stories until now, the writing style in this novel feels surprisingly fresh. Maybe switching between the two series is the best way to read Arisugawa? What totally bugs me in both series is the fact both Alices speak Osaka dialect, but don't write/think in it. Why? (yes, I am interested in role language. Probably nobody else cares about this...)

Now to procure the other Student Alice novels...

Original Japanese title(s): 有栖川有栖　『双頭の悪魔』

「これでピースは揃った。後は真実を証明するだけ」

"The truth will always find a way to make itself known. The only thing we can do is to fight with the knowledge we hold and everything we have. Erasing the paradoxes one by one… It's never easy… We claw and scratch for every inch. But we will always eventually reach that one single truth. This I promise you"

"Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All"

As TV goes exclusively digital in Japan from tomorrow on, I guess I can't watch the Conan drama live anymore through Keyhole TV? *sigh* The third episode in the series feels a bit better than the previous two episodes: it's still troublesome at some points, but it's going the right way.

Meitantei Conan - Kudou Shinichi e no Chousenjou (Detective Conan - A Challenge Letter for Kudou Shinichi)
Episode 1 (July 7, 2011): Before he turned into Conan, the high school detective solved the mystery of the adultery murder!
Episode 2 (July 14, 2011): The locked room murder commited on air! Reveal the secret cursed by the psychic
Episode 3 (July 21, 2011): Murder Case in a Locked Courtroom! Reveal the Trick of the Hostess Murder
Episode 4 (July 28, 2011): Perfect Crime! Murder Notice at a Wedding, Reveal the Locked Room Poisoning Trick
Episode 5 (August 5, 2011): The Glamorous Murder Trick of the Actress who lost her Memory - Perfect Murder at the Summer House
Episode 6 (August 11, 2011): The Magnificent Murderous Kiss of Twenty Beauties! The Murderous Intent Hidden in the Murder Equation!
Episode 7 (August 18, 2011): Inheritance Murder Among Bloody Relatives! Reveal the Mystery of the Kidnapping Trick!
Episode 8 (August 25, 2011): A Woman's Determination, Revenge on the Molester! The Murder Trick hidden in the Security Camera
Episode 9 (September 01, 2011): Hattori Heiji and the Mystery of the Invisible Locked Room Murder Weapon! Deduction Battle between the Detectives of East and West
Episode 10 (September 08, 2011): The Mystery of the Body that Moved 200 KM Within An Instant! Reveal the Perfect Crime Scheme of the Evil Woman
Episode 11 (September 15, 2011): A Kiss Is the Reason for Murder, A Revenge Murder After 20 Years! The Mystery of the Perfect Alibi
Episode 12 (September 22, 2011): I Killed Her! 3 Single Murderers? Reveal the Mystery of the Fake Murder!
Episode 13 (September 29, 2011): Ran Dies! The Final Challenge of the True Criminal to the Genius Detective - Reveal the Mystery of the White Room

Episode three (subtitled "Murder Case in a Locked Courtroom! Reveal the Trick of the Hostess Murder") starts again with Shinichi, Ran and Kogorou locked in the white room. They learn nothing new about their situation, but at the least the case their kidnaper wants them to remember is a good one. July 09, 2010. The day defense laywer Kisaki Eri was summoned to court. Not as a lawyer though, but as an important witness. A hostess called Reika (one of Kogorou's favorites) is accused of stealing money, but Reika claims she was at a totally different place on the time of the crime. She claims to have been in the love hotel area in the Haido ward and that she saw Kisaki Eri entering a love hotel there with a man (enter an exploding Kogorou who cries about adultery and stuff) . Thus, if Kisaki testifies she was there at the time of the crime, Reika goes free. Reika is not a particular likable defendant though, even going as far as making Eri angry as Reika makes comments on the old man Eri accompanied to the love hotel. Eri makes a finger gun motion, saying that Reika should back off, or else bad things might happen.

Like Reika being shot through her head. Nobody can believe their eyes, but it seems like Eri just killed the defendant with her finger. Kogorou laments the fact that two women fighting over him led to murder (and is promptly taken away), while Shinichi comes to a surprising conclusion before the eyes of everyone: he says that it's clear the Kisaki Eri was the killer! (Cue Ran making a mom-speech)

Eri isn't the killer of course. The episode was a mix of good and bad ideas: the whole concept of a person dying through a finger gun motion is fantastic, but the trick behind is rather predictable. Furthermore, the trick relies way too much on coincidence. So the solution was sadly enough not as inspired as the image of the murder. I did like how the episode actually had quite some misdirection built into it, leading into something that almost seems a layered solution. The episode on a whole feels better than the first two episodes though. The whole image of Eri killing a defendant with her finger still overpowers the disappointing solution and the story feels a bit more complex compared to the much simpler previous two episodes.

The episode is a bit strange though in the Conan continuity: Shinichi shouldn't have met Eri in long time since Eri and Kogorou started to live seperately, so that makes this episode (and the special) err... non-Conan-canon? The fact Satou and Takagi interact with Shinichi on a friendly basis also bugs me a bit, but not as much as the Eri-thing, as that was actually a crucial plot-point for her introduction story in the series.

The other strange thing was that this episode was totally different from what I expected it to be. With a) Kisaki Eri being a laywer, b) this being a detective show, c) the episode set in a courtroom and d) the anime having special Kisaki Eri, laywer episodes, I was expecting this to be more like an orthodox courtroom mystery. However, as the detective =/= laywer in this episode (the role being reserved for Shinichi of course), it felt more like a normal mystery. It feels like a nice setting has gone a bit to waste.

The next episode doesn't like particular excting actually. So no real expectations from my side for that, but I wouldn't mind a bit more expansion on why Shinichi, Ran and Kogorou are locked in the white rooms by now.

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　工藤新一へのう挑戦状』　サブタイトル「密室法廷で起きた殺人事件! ホステス殺害トリックを暴け」
Date & Password: 2010.07.09; クチベニ

『The Coincidence of the Two Events on a Night with a Full Moon』

「えー、じゃーあなたもホームズファンだったの？」

「ちゃうちゃう。このツアーに応募したんは工藤に会えるかもしれんと思ったからや。それにオレはコナン・ドイルよりも、エラリー・クイーンの方が・・・」

『名探偵コナン』

"So you are a Holmes fan too?"

"Nah. I just applied for the tour 'cause I thought I might meet Kudou again. I like Ellery Queen more than Conan Doyle anywa..."

"Detective Conan" 

Two things got me into Ellery Queen: his Nationality novels, which are great pieces of orthodox detection. And his short stories, which are great pieces of orthodox detection. Hmm. Anyway, since I've read all the Nationality novels, I'm now concentrating on the remaining EQ short stories before moving on to the remaining EQ novels. Of which there are not many left.

I had come across Q.B.I: Queen's Bureau of Investigation -style stories in Q.E.D.: Queen's Experiments in Deduction already and I thought they were brilliant! Yes, the stories are very short, some barely 5 pages, but leave it up to Ellery Queen to fill those 5 pages with a great puzzle plot. Most of the stories could have been extended easily and they would still have made wonderful detectives stories, but it's the extreme brevity of the stories that make them so impressive. Not a single word gone to waste. Everything is plotted carefully, and distilled to the core of the problem, without comprimising the readibility, as the witty writing is still very much intact. In fact, much of Queen's humor derives from abrupt contridictions of earlier statements, so the short, to the point style of the stories really complement Queen's humor. The carefully plotted story-structure combined with this wit make the Q.B.I. (style) stories rank amongst my favorite detective stories.

In Money Talks (Blackmail Department), an Sicilian woman is being blackmailed over an indiscretion commited in her youth. The mother isn't particular well off, but her daughter is an upcoming opera star who would suffer gravely from any scandal. The mother suspects one of three lodgers is the blackmailer (conveniently with initials A, B and C) and asks Ellery to help her. Which he does, by having a keen eye for detail and a bit of inspiration.

In A Matter of Seconds (Fix Department), a boxer is kidnapped just before his most important match. The kidnappers are very careful though, they work solely through proxies, demaning one proxy (who happens to be Queen) delivering the money to another proxy (a famous newsreporter), who will then hand the money over the kidnappers. If done as told, the boxer will be returned in time for his match. Queen however wouldn't be Queen if he would just do as he was told.

In The Three Widows (Impossible Crime Department), a widow gets poisoned in a seemingly impossible way. Room was locked, food and everything was prepared by the victim herself, the works. Main suspects are her two stepdaughters (who happen to be widows too). It's a pretty classic-style story, but a very ingenious one. It's also a Queen-ish solution for that. Conan has a lot of howdunnit poisoning stories, but they seldom, if at all, have this kind of solution.

"My Queer Dean!" (Rare Book Department) is every thing Queen: an ingenous short story featuring three suspects, a dying message and rare books (though the suspects aren't conveniently named A, B and C). Dying messages were a Queen specialty and they are almost always fun. Like this one.

Driver's Seat (Murder Department) reminds of Halfway House, with an investigation concentrating on the coming and going of cars to the crime scene. The three (living) Brothers brothers all have a reason for wanting their sister-in-law dead, but which of the three was it? Like always, Queen manages to excel in these which-of-the-three stories.

A Lump of Sugar (Park Patrol Department) is a dying message story, with a man dying with a lump of sugar in his hand. The solution? A surprising one. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine actually made a short radio-drama podcast of it, so listen to it! 

For some reason, I find the introduction of Cold Money (Open File Department) is very memorable.

THE HOTEL CHANCELLOR in midtown New York is not likely to forget the two visits of Mr. Philly Mullane. The first time Mullane registered at the Chancellor, under the name of Winston F. Parker, an alert house detective spotted him and, under the personal direction of Inspector Richard Queen, Philly was carried out of Room 913, struggling and in bracelets, to be tried, convicted, and sentenced to ten years for a Manhattan payroll robbery. The second time -ten years later- he was carried out neither struggling nor manacled, inasmuch as he was dead.

What was Mr. Phillly Mullane doing in Room 913? Where did the money of the payrol robbery go? Who killed him? A lot happens in this story, making events feel even faster than other Q.B.I. stories. I don't why, but this story feels a bit... different from others. Maybe because it's less clear what the puzzle is until late in the game, maybe because the solution seems so obvious.

The Myna Birds (Embezzlement Department) is another story that has been dramafied by Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The first one actually. A Myna bird snitches on a trio of no-goods, with one of them having killed a man. Ellery picks up on the birds words and interpretates it like only Queen can. And maybe Phoenix Wright. Who also has a history of using birds as witnesses.

In A Question of Honor (Suicide Department), a Scotland Yard officer has messed up a blackmail transaction of the utmost importance to be conducted in the States and commits suicide. Or did he? Things are seldom what they seem in Queen, or they might be exactly what they seem, but nothing more.

The Robber of Wrightsville (Holdup Department) is the longest story in the collection and in some ways, the most satisfying. It is the story that reminds that appeals the most to that Queen-trope of deducing the criminal's characteristics and comparing it to the list of suspects. A robbery of a payroll check is what Queen is asked to investigate in Wrightsville, and the story is a very well structured one. 

An impossible disappearance is what bothers Inspector and son Queen in Double Your Money (Swindle Department). 'Double-Your-Money' Grooss had been making a fortune scamming people in his investment plans (in fact a pyramid scheme), so Inspector Queen, Velie and Queen came to scare him a bit, hoping to find proof of his swindle. Grooss however manages to disappear from his office, with only two exits. The window, which was locked (and they were several stories high), and the door, which was watched by the Queens and Velie. With Grooss' investors / victims getting into a panic as they realize their money is gone, Ellery is forced to work at full speed to find out how Grooss got away.

Miser's Gold (Buried Treasure Department) is precisely what the title suggests it to be: a treasure search money. To be precise: the money left to Eve and Dr. Ben by Uncle Malachi, an old miser. It should be on the premise somewhere, but they just can't find it. The only clue is some vague hinting made by Malachi when he was still alive. Queen luckily has a gift for finding things that don't want to be found.

More impossible situations in Snowball in July (Magic Department). A train from Canada with an important witness who can put Diamond Jim Grady behind jail on board disappears between stations, despite the enormous effort made to avoid this (including several fakes). They say Grady can work magic, but can he really make an entire train disappear? A classic, but difficult problem to tackle, but I think that Queen has come up with my favorite solution for this conundrum!

In The Witch of Time Square (False Claimant Department), two men appea  claiming to be John Gaard, nephew of miss Wichingame, a well-off lady who wishes to leave everything to her only relative. As the real John Gaard lived most of his life in Korea and China, with the war and political ties not helping in background enquiries, Wichingame has a hard time finding out who the real John is. Enter Ellery. The solution is a rather familiar one (was it in another Queen short too?), though the clueing was pretty good.

In The Gambler's Club (Racket Department), members of an anonymous gambling club have trouble deciding whether the newest tip is a genuine or not. The writers of the letters hasn't been wrong until now, but asking the members to just bury a lot of money and to expect returns on that is kinda strange. The three members who have the letters ask Queen for some advice, who surprsingly says it's a sound investment. Has Queen gone mad?

By the time I arrived at GI Story (Dying Message Department), I had seen several dying messages in this collection, why is this the only story in the dying message department? Anyway, the two letters GI pretty much can mean anything or nothing at all, but Queen using his superior logic to come up with the one interpretation that unanimously points to the killer of old Clint. 

In The Black Ledger (Narcotics Department), it's Queen who does the impossible. Ellery is supposed to bring a black notebook from New York to Washington D.C., in it every name and adress of the important drug dealers in the country. The owner of the notebook wants it back (for obvious reasons) and snatches Ellery of the moment he leaves the police department, searching him completely. Not even Ellery's insides are safe. Yet, they can't find any sign of the notebook or other writings on him and decide that Ellery was just a diversion. Ellery of course did had the black ledger with him, but how did he accomplish the impossible?

The title pretty much tells you everything. Child Missing! (Kidnaping Department). A kid has disappeared, but a look at the ransom note tells Ellery pretty much everything. One clue is pretty much impossible to get for non-inhabitants of the USA (and even then, it's doubtful they'd know, I think), but when Ellery gets the ball rolling, it's a nice enough story.

A lot of stories, but they are all fun. Like said, these stories present complex puzzle plots despite their length and because none of them are bad and there are quite some stories collected here, the collection as a whole feels simply wonderful. A must-read.

And as I'm writing anyway, Queen's Full! Also a short story collection, but very different from set-up. Here we have three novelettes and two short stories, rather than a series of very short stories. The three novelettes remind of the short stories in The Adventures and The New Adventures of Ellery Queen, which is never a bad thing. The two short stories are more in the vein of the Q.B.I. stories, yet distinctly longer. It's an amusing collection overall, but I do have to say that this collection is the most... mundane of all the Queen short story collections I've read. It misses the real complexity of the two Adventure collections and it also misses the rapid-fire bursts of ingenuity found in Q.B.I. and Q.E.D. (as well as the Puzzle club stories in The Tragedy of Errors).

The Death of Don Juan is like a condensed novel-length Queen story, with an interesting crime scene (the leading actor of a stage play is killed during the break in his dressing room), a dying message which seems to point to the heroine of the play and the type of killer we quite often see in Queen novels. A very nice short story.

E=Murder is a short dying message / impossible crime story, with a scientist working on a top secret government project being killed in a room under guard. The only clue left is something that resembles the letter E. Queen comes up with his trademark 'multiple interpretations for the message, but only one makes sense in the context' solution. But a bit too open for interpretation for my taste.

In The Wrightsville Heirs, Bella Livingston is killed, leaving her fortune to her stepchildren Sam, Everett and Olivia. Or so everyone thought. To everyone's surprise Bella's solicitor announces that Bella had changed her will in favor of her companion Amy. Queen can't prevent that attempts on Amy's life are made (even though she manages to survive luckily), but redeems himself by finding out the murderer on Bella and the would-be murderer of Amy.

Diamonds in Paradise is another dying message story, but provides more satisfaction than E=Murder. A diamond thief is caught redhanded and in his attempts to escape falls of the stairs. As Ellery asks him where the stolen diamonds are, the thief says 'diamonds in paradise' and dies. An enigmatic utterance, but Queen comes up with a perfectly fine interpretation of the thief's final words.

The Case Against Carroll is in fact very much like a certain The Adventures of Ellery Queen (the TV show) episode. Ok, in a totally different setting, with totally different characters and a totally different plot, but the main idea is the same. Anyway, Caroll Hart is arrested as the main suspect of the murder on his senior associate, having motives (multiple!), means and opportunity to do it. He has one ace up his sleeve though, a witness who will vouch for his alibi, but he does not want to reveal this unless he has absolutely no other choice. Things don't go as Carroll want though (with the signed statement of the witness missing and the witness herself skipping town). Ellery has taken an interest in the case, but doesn't seem able to help Caroll. At least, not in the way Ellery wants. I like the story quite a bit, though I have to admit it's mainly because it reminds so much of that Ellery Queen TV show episode (which is one of my favorites).

Queen's Full is a good story collection by any standards, but it somehow pales in comparison to the other collections. Which is saying something about the quality of the Queen short stories. At first I was thinking of also discussing Calendar of Crime too, but that would make this post even longer than it is already. And let's be honest, it's too long the way it is now already.

The Burning Court

「火を以って火を制す」

『劇場版トリック霊能力者バトルロイヤル』

"Control fire with fire"

"Movie TRICK Psychic Battle Royale"

Yes, I still read books. Occasionally.

Shimada Souji's Kakei Toshi ("The Burning Metropolis", 1989) is, to me, a very peculiar novel. Up until now, all the Shimada novels I've read either featured a master-detective one way or another. The stories featured impossible crimes, locked rooms, detectives who uses their heads instead of their feet and mouth. That was the only Shimada I knew. Kakei Toshi is quite different. It's practically a detective novel of the social school, yet with a distinct classic touch to it. A hybrid mystery, if you will. It totally caught me by surprise at any rate (proving that I hardly read the description on the back of books when I purchase books in Japan. I do little research beforehand too).

The year: 1982! The place: Tokyo! Inside a burnt down building near Yotsuya station, the dead body of the security guard is found. At first it seems like he was just a victim of the fire, but the police discovers that the man was knocked out with sleeping pills, which were probably put in his late night snack. Police detective Nakamura thinks the fire might have been a smokescreen for the murder on the guard and starts to check into the victim's background. Nakamura discovers that the victim had been living with a woman, his fiance actually, but it seems she has cleared out of the apartment. No clothes, no pictures, not even fingerprints. Nobody knows who the woman was, not even her name. Nakamura starts a search for the woman, but how do you look for a woman you know nothing about in a metropolis like Tokyo? Things get worse when more cases of arson occur in the city and it seems they have a serial arsonist running around.

The story is mostly like a police procedural in the spirit of Matsumoto Seichou, with a detective doing his work on his feet, checking out every single clue that might lead to his prey. Nakamura by the way, is a police detective who occasionally appears in other Shimada stories as a secondary character (for example in Shissou suru Shisha). The way Nakamura looks for the mysterious woman is really social school-like, as Nakamura slowly finds out where she comes from and how she has lived her life over the last few years, moving all over the big metropolis Tokyo from one apartment to another. The way Nakamura goes around every single place she lived and worked (and the occasional social commentary) is something you'd never expect in a Shimada novel if you'd only read Mitarai novels, I think. Like I said, I was surprised.

On the other hand, Kakei Toshi also reminds of those orthodox missing link detective novels like The ABC Murders and Cat of Many Tails. As more and more arson incidents occur, Nakamura tries hard to find how the arsonist is picking his targets. He's sure the arsonist isn't just setting fires randomly, but what is he trying to accomplish? What's even more surprising is that almost all fires start out... in a locked room. The fires couldn't have been set in those rooms, yet they are. The locked room problem is not as big as you'd think it is though (I think most readers will pick up the clue), but it was a nice surprise. The missing link however is very impressive. I really really want to discuss it as it concerns a topic that interests me, but alas, the rules of the game forbid me mentioning it. Even though pretty much every single review on the novel seems to mention it (usually in an oblique way, but still).

As the story is set in Tokyo, the arsonist is quite busy and the mysterious woman has lived all over Tokyo, the reader is treated to a very extensive trip throughout the city. Unlike Cat of Many Tails, where Manhattan, despite the class differences within the city, seemed to move like a single entity, the wards in Tokyo never lose their individuality and the story makes for a very nice vehicle for Shimada to comment on Tokyo as a city and its individual wards. The story makes for a very amusing reading for people interested in urban sociology. Kawamoto's Misuteri to Toukyou ("Mystery and Tokyo"), a book on the image of Tokyo as it appears in mystery novels, actually starts with a chapter on Kakei Toshi (note that at least that chapter isn't that good though; it's mostly a summary of the story, so full of spoilers and the points Kawamoto makes are actually made fairly clear in Kakei Toshi itself, so he adds very little to the conversation on the novel; see also the attic).

It took some time for me to switch over the hybrid-detective-reading-mode, but Kakei Toshi is a pretty interesting detective story. I do have to say that I doubt this novel could become succesful outside Japan: so much of the novel's strong points depends on its description of Tokyo, I doubt it would appeal to people who have never been there / don't know the social image the city and its wards have / don't have some knowledge of the history of the city.

Addendum: oh, there's a drama-version. That might be interesting.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司　『火刑都市』 / 川本三郎　『ミステリと東京』