「君は一体、何者なんだい？」

「名探偵ゆく所に殺人事件ありさ」

『少女探偵金田はじめの事件簿』

"Where great detectives go, murder happens"

"The Casefiles of Girl Detective Kaneda Hajime"

Going over my bookcases, I finally noticed that some of my detective series feature rather strange detectives. And I don't mean strange in the sense of a strange personality. I refer to the unlikely detectives. Not the private detectives, not the police, not even the magicians or the laywers or anything. 'Cause it isn't very strange that they are capable detectives. Not even thieves or something like that. Just detectives who are just very unlikely to be great detectives. Yet they are. Famous examples would be Father Brown and Mrs. Marple. So I'll avoid those in this post, 'cause that would be to easy.

And I guess this is Edogawa Rampo's Shounen Tantei Dan's influence, but there's huge amount of young detectives running around in Japan. Conan (Detective Conan) is probably the most famous of these child detectives (being both child and a young adult). And Conan is actually still relatively normal as a child detective. As Kudou Shinichi, he wants to be a famous detective and by the time the series begins, Shinichi has already made a name for himself as a private detetective, so it's not strange that people come to him for help. The same holds for Conan, where most of his work comes via Kogorou. So it's not strange that he has a lot of work. So Conan is actually a bad example for an unlikely detective.

Kindaichi Hajime is more of an unlikely detective. He might be the grandson of Kindaichi Kousuke, but he is nothing more than just a somewhat underarchieving high school student. Besides his intellect, he has nothing. Not a special interest in mystery fiction (he is only in the mystery research club because he was forced into it), he has no other strange talent that assists in his detecting. Even though he has solved many cases, he does not want to be a detective like Shinichi in Detective Conan. It's not like he purseus cases actively: Hajime is just forced to solve crimes as he always happens to get involved with them. He detects out of necessity, not out of his own will.

With bukatsu (extracurricular activities in the form of clubs and circles) being an important part of the Japanese society (being like a practice stage for later human relations), it's not  surprising that quite some novels and manga feature a detective who is a member of a school's/university's mystery research club. As experts in the genre, these people are usually wonderfully genre-savvy, often resulting in discussion that refer to older, famous works. Student Alice, Mizuno Satoru and Nikaidou Reito and Ranko are good examples of this trope. But what about... an actual detective club at school.

Shoujo Tantei Kaneda Hajime no Jikenbo ("The Casefiles of Girl Detective Kaneda Hajime") is a little known parody manga and protagonist Kaneda Hajime is actually a detective only because she entered the Detective Club. Meaning she is only a detective because its part of her extra-curricular activities. When club activities are over, she goes home immediately, leaving any unsolved murders for tomorrow.Of course, the whole series is crazy like a bat, with a 40-year old 'boy' detective and a forensic pathologist who uses dead bodies as a ventriloquist's dummy when giving his autopsy report. For some reason, nobody knows this one-shot manga, even though it's pretty funny.

Usami-chan, one of the segments in the hyperactive supernonsensical Gag Manga Biyori series, is another parody of the genre: the rabbit Usami just likes to make calls to the police to report someone. That's the only reason she's a detective. She is good at it too, but that is also because the bear Kumakichi is always the one behind crimes like peeping on girls and stealing swimsuits. Yes, the premise is a bit strange and may sound lame and I admit that one needs a particular sense of humor to appreciate Gag Manga Biyori, but I think it's brilliant.

Even stranger are the protagonists from Himitsu Keisatsu Holmes ("Secret Police Holmes") and Tantei Gakuen Q ("Detective Academy Q").  Cause these kids actually have official authority to solve cases. For some reason, someone thought it was smart to give these kids official power, often even the power to overrule police authority. Which is just plain nuts. Heck, the children in Himitsu Keisatsu Holmes are still in elementary school! Yet they solve locked room murders and stuff! It's not like in Detective Conan, where Conan is technically a young adult who will try to keep the real children out of trouble. The kids here are really just kids. Which makes this series a bit frightening.

Tantei Gakuen Q's Q Class is slightly more realistic, as the five members in Q Class were selected by the famous detective Dan Morihiko himself, and are to be trained to be his successor. The members of Q class are a bit older, a bit wiser than the kids in Himitsu Keisatsu Holmes, but still. They are kids. With the power to take over any police investigation whenever they want. Which is silly. Of course, Edogawa Rampo's Boys Detective Club was even more insane (because it's Edogawa Rampo), with some children even carrying guns and stuff... but still.

I can't remember whether the protagonist in Karakurizouji Ayatsuri Sakon ("Puppeteer Sakon") still went to school or not, but his main occupation isn't a student anyway. Sakon is a young performing bunraku artists and together with his dummy puppet Ukon, he solves mysteries. Which are usually murders. Ignoring the fact that puppets are, together with clowns, the scariest things on this world, Karakurizouji Ayatsuri Sakon is also actually a horrible detective series. Not even Obata (Death Note)'s art can save this boring series. In the same Japanese culture-thingy-mode, we have the houkan Sharoku, who specializes more in coded messages than murder, but still an amateur detective with a somewhat surprising main occupation.

Kujiragi Yuu (nickname: Kujira/Whale) from The Accidents ~ Jikochou Kujira no Jikenbo ("The Accidents - The Casefiles of Accidents Investigator Kujira") doesn't have a occupation unrelated to the official authorities, but as nobody seems to know this series, I make an exception in mentioning it. I'm actually not sure which of his two jobs is his main occupation, but Kujira is usually found in his little toy store. But he's also working as a high ranking investigator of accidents. Whenever a plane crashes, a train rides off a bridge, a satellite stops working or even when a bride suddenly bursts in a ball of flame (yes, they all happen in this series), we have Kujira to investigate the cause of these accidents for the government. It's a bit like Master Keaton, with protagonist Keaton working as an insurance investigator, but while Master Keaton isn't only focused on Keaton's investigations, The Accidents is really only about the investigation of pretty impressive accidents. Which of course aren't always just accidents.

Writer-detectives are not rare. We have many, many mystery novel writers who detect themselves actually, like Ellery Queen, Jessica Fletcher, Arisugawa Alice and Norizuki Rintarou. We also have reporters, like Rouletabille and the reporters in Shimada Kazuo's novels. We even have someone like Mitsuhiko Asami, a freelance writer who specializes in historic research. He usually writes for travel magazines, but the crimes he encounters are actually related to his field of expertise.

Takano Seiya (Kuitan) however, is a writer of historical novels. Yet the crimes he solves are all food-absolutely nothing to do with his amateur sleuthing. Which is actually a bit strange.　He could have literally been anything.
related, whether it being related to the food itself, or the way how people work in restaurants, or even the cultivation of food. His expertise is the whole chain of food: from creation of food to the consumption of food. But like I said, his main occupation is writer of historical novels. His work as a writer therefore has

And to finish it off, the really weird amateur detectives. While Mitarai Kiyoshi did switch jobs to be become a full-time private eye in Mitarai Kiyoshi no Aisatsu, he started off as an astrologist. Who solved crimes. An astrologist. At least, a physicist like Galileo makes sorta sense as many crimes he assists in are sorta science-related. But the whole astrologist-thing isn't even really related to Mitarai's way of deducing, while Mitarai can be a bit vague and dreamy in normal conversation, his deductions are always as clear as any hard science.

And then we have travel agent Mizuno Satoru. Yes, a travel agent. Who is also a detective. Well, to Mizuno's credit, he was a member of the mystery novel club when he was a student and he was actually in practically all clubs, making him knowledgable about pretty much anything (but mainly otaku-fields like tokusatsu kaijuu). Writer Nikaidou Reito has actually two Mizuno Satoru series: one about his student years, the other about his time as a shakaijin, a contributing member of society (i.e. a working man). Of course, of all the jobs he could have, Mizuno chose to be a travel agent. Who occasionally detects.

And yes, I'm sure there are a lot more of these unlikely detectives, but I just picked out the ones I actually have in my bookcase. Because that makes things a lot easier. Not surprisingly, most of these characters originate from manga and anime, but that certainly doesn't make them less interesting. Well, except for Karakurizouji Ayatsuri Sakon, but that's because I really, really hate puppets. Now if the series was actually good, I might have been able to forgive the puppets....

Original Japanese title(s):
青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』 / 天樹征丸（原作）　さとうふみや（画）　『金田一少年の事件簿』 / あさりよしとお　『少女探偵金田はじめの事件簿』 / 増田こうすけ　『ギャグマンガ日和』 / 立神敦（原作）　犬木栄治（画）　『秘密警察ホームズ』 / 天樹征丸（原作）　さとうふみや（画）　『探偵学園Ｑ』 / 写楽麿　（原作）小畑健（画）　『人形草紙あやつり左近』 / 山田貴敏　『アクシデンツ -事故調クジラの事件簿-』 / 寺沢大介 『喰いタン』 / 法月綸太郎　作家法月綸太郎シリーズ / 有栖川有栖　学生アリスシリーズ・作家アリスシリーズ / 島田荘司　御手洗潔シリーズ / 二階堂黎人　水乃サトルシリーズ・二階堂蘭子シリーズ

「溢れる涙光る」

"There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader's trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded"

"Twenty rules for writing detective stories"

This has definately been a very active year for Conan-related media (as it's the 15th anniversary of the animation): besides the manga, anime and the annual animated movie, we were also treated to a new game, a live action TV special and a live action TV series. And now Aoyama Goushou is also going to release two new chapters of Magic Kaito?! While I really like Conan!KID, Magic Kaito!KID was always a lot more comedy-oriented and I felt the last chapter in Magic Kaito was a bit too dark for the series. I hope the new chapters are a bit more light-hearted. But anyway to continue with the weekly Conan media...

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 7 ("A Bloody Inheritance Murder Among Bloody Relatives! Reveal the Mystery of the Kidnapping Trick!") is a very strange episode in the Conan-Canon. I didn't notice it until the preview for this episode, but Conan has very few kidnapping cases (though volume 72 actually had one..). At least, they don't occur often  in the manga, I'm not sure about the anime. You'd think that in a mystery series with a lot of children and even a heir to a zaibatsu conglomerate walking around unguarded, there'd be more kidnapping cases. I'm not sure whether Kindaichi Hajime encountered more kidnapping cases or not, but those cases were at least memorable. But anyway, Sonoko does get kidnapped in this episode actually.

Sonoko was just kidnapped for convenience however, as she happened to be with the real target of the kidnapper: Noguchi Yuri, (incredibly rich) daughter of the recently deceased Ramen King Noguchi. The kidnapper asks for a case full of diamonds as the ransom. Miki, Yuri's half-sister, agrees to pay the ransom. Not for Yuri's sake, but just to protect the company's name. She is supposed to place the diamonds in a briefcase and attach it to the big ad-balloon on top of the firm, letting it float in the sky. The police and Shinichi keep a watch over the briefcase and balloon, but nobody approaches it for over an hour.

After a hour, the kidnapper calls again, saying he has received the diamonds. Shocked, they get the briefcase back to the ground and discover that all the diamonds have disappeared from the briefcase! And because we want murder in a mystery (?), Miki gets killed while everybody is busy releasing Yuri from her holding cell. Because an impossible disappearance isn't enough.

Like I said, kidnapping cases seem more a case for Kindaichi Shounen (or maybe more specifically, Amagi Seimaru) to me and this case really feels like a mesh of some Kindaichi Shounen stories (and a bit Tantei Gakuen Q  ("Detective Academy Q")). The disappearing ransom trick was done much better in Kindaichi Shounen's short story The Ransom that Disappeared into Silver. The setting of the diamonds disappearing from a floating locked room in this episode is cool, but the solution to the disappearing ransom is just too obvious here. It's never a good sign when you figure out the trick of a mystery before it appears on screen, right? Well, I bet most people figure out the trick to the stolen ransom trick before it's even done!

The whole kidnapping-ending-in-murder plot was also done better in Kindaichi Shounen's Hayami Reika's Kidnapping Murder Case and Tantei Gakuen Q's Murder Collector. Both stories are written by Amagi Seimaru and share a similar trick, which is actually also sorta used in this episode, but not nearly in as interesting ways as in the mentioned stories.

So all in all, not an episode I like very much. The idea of a kidnapping case is good because it hardly ever happens in Conan, but the mystery itself is pretty boring. Focussing only　おｎ an impossible disappearance might have made the story better, as now it's a bit too much in too little time (something the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo live action series also suffered from actually: Young Kindaichi's Murder is a hectic story as is, but reduced to a 45 minute episode? It's nearly impossible to follow)

Soooooo, when are they going to introduce Hattori? The storylines from the manga? Don't tell me I have to wait for the finale for that....

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「血ぬられた骨肉の遺産相続殺人! 誘拐トリックのナゾを暴け!」
Date & Password: 2010.05.27; ダイヤモンド

「犯人は、あなたですね」

死んではいけないと長い夜も私は

あなたの名前呼んで朝を待つでしょう

「愛のバラード」 （金子由香利）

Thinking I should not die, I keep calling out your name

during the long night, waiting until the morning comes

"Ballad of Love" (Kaneko Yukari)

Like always, pattern-like behavior here is usually nothing more than a coincidence. Suddenly a lot of English in my post-titles? A week long of reviews of Western mystery novels? Reviews of debut works one after another? It's really, really nothing more than coincidence. To be totally honest: I usually select the next book to read on basis of... page count and readibility. I don't look at summaries, reviews, I don't plan for one review to fit thematic with a next review. I just estimate how much free time I have and how much one book should take.

So the fact that I'm discussing Inugamike no Ichizoku ("The Inugami Clan"), right after Akuma no Temariuta and Gokumontou is not because I wanted to do a Kindaichi Kousuke series this week. It wasn't because I procured all the Ichikawa Kon movies at the same time ('cause I didn't). It wasn't even because I refered to Inugamike no Ichizoku so often in my review of Akuryou no Yakata. Things just happened this way. Call it fate.

To start from the conclusion: Yokomizo Seishi's Inugamike no Ichizoku, is a masterpiece. And actually a masterpiece English readers can read, as a translated version was released many years ago already. Actually, The Inugami Clan is the very first Kindaichi Kousuke novel I read and I still love it. It has everything: a fight over an inheritance between the three families of the Inugami clan, a beautiful heiress, a series of murders with a sick meaning behind them and even a man walking around in a rubber mask  (is less funny than it sounds). What's not to like? The bloody battle for the inheritance family patriarch Inugami Sahei started with his devilish will is nothing less than sadistic and the truth private eye Kindaichi Kousuke uncovers makes this one of the best mysteries ever.

Publishing firm Kadokawa Shoten started releasing the Kindaichi Kousuke novels as paperbacks in the 1970s and Kadokawa Haruki had a brilliant idea when he followed his father up as the president of the firm in 1975: the Kadokawa company was to enter the movie industry, with a focus on making movies of the books it published. Cross-media promotion was the way to go according to Kadokawa Haruki. Kadokawa Shoten had a deal going on with movie studio Shochiku for a movie adaption for Yokomizo Seishi's Yatsu Haka Mura, but as that movie was delayed, Kadokawa Haruki pushed its own movie plans and one year later, a movie adaption of Inugamike no Ichizoku was released by Kadokawa Pictures. And there was much rejoicing.

For the film was a big succes. Kadokawa Pictures had pretty much gambled on Inugamike no Ichizoku, but it certainly payed off.  And that wasn't surprising. The movie was beautiful, with fantastic shots, great music and a grand cast. In fact, the movie is at least as great a classic as the original novel and one of the greatest mystery movies ever in my opinion. The film is very faithful to the original source material, but Ichikawa Kon's directing and the actors really add an extra dimension to the story. And the cross-promotion scheme of Kadokawa Haruki also succeeded: the movie was the second biggest earner that year in Japan and Kadokawa Shoten also profited from boosted sales of the paperbacks.

Ishizaka Kouji shines in this film: even though he was the seventh person to the Kindaichi Kousuke part on the screen, he was actually the very first to be faithful to the character of the novels. Ishizaka also added a lot of his own little touches to the character that other actors have taken over (especially the suitcase Kindaichi carries, which is a personal item of Ishizaka). For many people, Ishizaka is the definite Kindaichi. And funny: Yokomizo Seishi himself plays the Nasu Hotel owner!

In 2006, Ichikawa Kon released a remake of his own masterpiece (his final movie actually) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original. And surprisingly, Ishizaka Kouji once again starred as Kindaichi Kousuke! He was 35 when he played in the original movie, so here we had a 65 year old Kindaichi Kousuke. Nobody complained though, because everyone knew Ishizaka had to be Kindaichi. There was just no other way around it. Katou Takeshi also played his familiar detective in charge again (though this time, he's called Todoroki instead of Tachibana), while other actors from the original came back in other roles (as Yokomizo Seishi isn't alive anymore, Mitani Kouki played the Nasu Hotel owner!)

The remake is actually very faithful to the original, with many shots copied 1:1 from the original movie. I still prefer the original version a bit, but the two movies are really so much alike that it mostly doesn't matter which one you see. There are some slight differences though of course and Ishizaka Kouji intentionally played Kinidachi in the remake as an older, more wiser Kindaichi in the remake. If you happen to be able to see both movies: compare the eye-movements of Ishizaka during his confrontation with the murderer. The whole scene is shot pretty much the same, but this is definately a different Kindaichi. And yes, I'd rather seen Ichikawa Kon film a new Kindaichi movie with Ishizaka rather than a remake, but what's done is done.

Inugamike no Ichizoku is, whether you choose the novel or one of the movies, a great mystery. It's regarded as one of the masterpieces in Japanese detective fiction and all formats will show why. I myself am even inclined to prefer the '76 movie over the original novel! Actually, the world needs more of these grand scale classic movie mysteries!

Original Japanese title(s): 横溝正史　『犬神家の一族』

Which Witch is Which?

「青白く光る女の幽霊。美しい謎の女の肖像画。夜中に廊下を歩き回る甲冑の亡霊。黒魔術の化粧をされた首と手のない死体。そして、鍵のかかった殺人現場。消失した犯人　―　ふん、まさにこの《悪霊館》という奴は、幽霊の巣窟に違いない」

『悪霊の館』

"The pale glowing ghost of a woman. A portrait of a mysterious beauty. The ghost of a suit of armor that walks the hallway in the middle of the night. A head- and handless corpse that shows signs of black magic. And a locked murder scene. A murderer who has disappeared.  Hmm, this Palace of Evil Spirits really seems like a den for ghosts"

"Palace of Evil Sprits"

I'll admit that my pile of unread books is quite big when compared to normal standards, but if I ignore the non-mystery books and the Edogawa Rampo paperbacks, the pile isn't that absurd anymore actually. I brought back about 60 unread mystery novels back from Japan last year and there are about 10 novels left. Which means I'll allow myself to buy new Japanese novels in the mere future. Yay!

I had already gone through all my Norizuki Rintarou and Arisugawa Alice novels and this week I finished my last Nikaidou Reito novel. For some reason or another, I've been reading the Nikaidou Ranko series in a very roundabout way. And contuinity is actually quite important in this series. The basic premise is the same for every novel, with narrator Nikaidou Reito teaming up with his genius (adopted) sister Nikaidou Ranko solving grand grotesque cases, but the characters in this series actually grow up (they start out as high-school students in Jigoku no Kijutsushi, but are university students in Jinroujou no Kyoufu) and they often refer to previous cases, sometimes even nearly spoiling the solution to them. For example, pretty much every reference to Jigoku no Kijitsushi (the first novel) in subsequent novels kinda reveal who the murderer is in that novel.  Maybe I should learn to read things in order.

Anyway, Akuryou no Yakata (the covers says "Palace of Evil Spirits") is the fourth novel in the Nikaidou Ranko series. The book starts with a scene borrowed stolen from Yokomizo's Inugamike no Ichizoku: the whole Shimanuma clan, comprised of three different families who live in different buildings inside the Shimanuma mansion, is gathered around the deathbed of the Shimanuma patriarch. The will she leaves is as devilish as that of old Inugami Sahei in Yokomizo's classic: she is practically forcing the heir of the main family, Takuya, to marry the heir of one of the branch families, Miyuki, if the main family wishes to keep its wealth and power. They have one year to decide whether they will marry, or else the money will go to one of the branch families. The problem is, Takuya wants to marry his cousin Mari.

Skip to one year later. The deadline of the will is nearing and Takuya has finally agreed to marry Miyuki. Mari has been dumped and there is a tense atmosphere in the Shimanuma mansion, which for everyone's convenience is nicknamed the Palace of Evil Spirits. And then one day, murder! A truly grotesque scene is found inside Mari's locked bedroom: the naked,  head-, finger- and toeless body of a young woman lies in the middle of the room. A sword is sticking out of her body. The body itself is placed inside a pentagram, surrounded by a circle of torn up books and to finish the scene: four suits of armor surround the dead body, with their backs turned to her as if to protect her. Besides the obvious problems like how the locked room was made, how the murderer managed to move four suits of armor from the gallery to the room and the meaning behind all the black magic stuff, there is another important problem: is the victim Mari.... or her twin sister Sari?

At this point, you'd think that Nikaidou has done enough for the atmosphere, but as if a creepy locked room isn't enough he also includes: 1) a walking suit of armor that attacks people in the mansion, 2) a clock tower that seems to attract suicides, 3) the mystery of the whereabouts of the previous owners of the Palace of Evil Spirits, 4) a ghost of a woman who roams the third floor of the mansion and 5) the curse of a witch. And not creepy, but he also sqeezes in a two-chapter police procedural in the novel. Just to keep things interesting. Or just to fill all 850 pages of this brick novel.

A lot of Nikaidou's novels are quite long and while the effort usually pays off, the novels usually start out immensely boring. The first chapter of this novel is one big family-line and it pretty much killed the book for me. I picked up the book again after a month and the second chapter was better, but pretty much a complete copy of Yokomizo's Inugamike no Ichizoku. Get past that point though and you get a story that develops at the speed of light and that is interesting until the end. Which is not too surprising considering the ridiculous amount of sub-story lines and at times a lot seems rather unnecessary, but Nikaidou mostly manages to keep everything together (although admittedly, only barely at times).  He has trouble keeping things realistic at times though, with some actions taken by the murderer and some 'deductions' by Ranko asking for a lot of suspension of disbelief.

Nikaidou specializes in locked rooms and other impossible situations and this locked room was a very entertaining one. The trick is deviously simple, but it fits so perfectly with the story. The pseudo-historic background of the story is also interesting and is something Nikaidou works with quite often. In fact, Akuryou no Yakata feels a lot like an Ur-Jinroujou no Kyoufu. A lot of elements from this novel are found in that Giant, including the whole Medieval esotorism theme, the walking suits of armors , the grotesque locked rooms, pseudo-historism and immense list of characters. Some supernatural elements are also found in both novels (not with a direct influence on the story, but for example Ranko is often foretold to be an extremely powerful force in the battle against evil).

Akuryou no Yakata is an entertaining locked room mystery, but it has a bit too much going on for its page count at times. Getting rid of a few story-elements could have made this book a third shorter and just as powerful. Or he could have made the novel longer and gotten more out of some of the elements. Akuryou no Yakata therefore feels like a transition novel at times, a work that floats between the 'normal' long novels of Nikaidou and the next book in the series, Jinroujou no Kyoufu.

Maybe now is a good time to read a bit more of Nikaidou Reito's Mizuno Satoru series...

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人 『悪霊の館』

「ラブは０・・・いくら積み重ねても惨めに負けるだけ・・・」

なるべく傷つけぬよう傷つかぬように

切なさもほらね押し殺せる

愛だと名付ければそれが愛だといえる

『忘れ咲き』 (Garnet Crow)

Look! So I won't hurt you or myself,
 I can even supress my own sadness!
If I would call this love, I could say that this is love

"Wasurezaki" (Garnet Crow)

Re-reading Conan for the big series overview was fun, but it also took quite some time, that could have been spend on other material. And there is enough material I still want to read/watch/listen. So I won't make a habit of re-reading / reviewing material I read in the past. It would just take too long, even if it would be fun to discuss classics like The Greek Coffin Mystery, the Father Brown stories or 813 (I have a loophole for 813 though!).

But for some reason or another, I suddenly developed the urge to write about Higashino Keigo's Yougisha X no Kenshin ("The Devotion of Suspect X"). So I did. Yougisha X no Kenshin is the third entry and the first full-length novel in the Galileo series. For me, it's a book of memories. It was the very first book I read in Japanese. Armed with a dictionary, I spent an obscene amount of time deciphering the novel. For a first-year student who had just finished the elementary level lesson material, reading a complete novel in Japanese was perhaps a bit ambitious. Every three words, I had to open my dictionary to look up some word or expression. It took me months to get to the final page of the book. But it was worth it. Yougisha X no Kenshin was a great story that really impressed me. Earlier this year, an English translation was released and going through the book again, my opinion on the novel didn't change: Yougisha X no Kenshin is a great story.

The previous Galileo stories were about crimes that were connected one way or another to the exact sciences. Sometimes it was about a murderer who used some high-tech machinery to kill his victim, sometimes it was about some ghostly apparation that turned to be some natural phenomena. Science still plays a big role in Yougisha X no Kenshin, but no death-lasers to be found here. The story starts with a murder commited by single mother Yasuko and daughter Misato. The victim, Yasuko's ex-husband, was really asking for it, but still, murder is murder. Mother and daughter are still dazed, the stiff is still warm, when suddenly their neighbour, the maths teacher Ishigami knocks on their door. He knows what has happened and says he wants to help the two. Luckily for them, Ishigami is a real genius and he gets rid of the body and whips up a perfect alibi for the two in no time. The police on the other hand are having trouble finding the murderer (though they do suspect the mother/daughter duo) and detective Kusanagi decides to ask his old friend Yukawa, a physicist nicknamed Galileo, for help. And just to make things more dramatic, Yukawa and Ishigami are actually old friends too, each acknowledging the other as a true genius on their own respective fields (physics and mathematics).

I could write about the big Yougisha X no Kenshin controversy (with big players like Nikaidou Reito and Kasai Kiyoshi), which was about whether this novel is a true orthodox detective and whether the hints were fair enough (and thus whether it was fair that this novel won the Honkaku Mystery Grand Prize). But I won't. All I know is that I enjoyed this novel when I first read it in 2008 and again when I read the translation in this year. I don't think that any discussion on the book will change my opinion about it. It's a very engaging mystery novel that anyone can enjoy. Unless you're an old sour grumpy critic.

Higashino Keigo is always quite strong in characterization, as human relations are often the emphasis of his mystery novels. Actually, his novels often turn out to be some kind of orthodox mystery romance psychological thrillers. Which totally explains his popularity in Japan. But anyway, in Higashino novels, people usually commit murder out of love, to protect the ones they love or because their unrequited love turns into grudge (See for example Seijo no Kyuusai ("The Saint's Salvation") and Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")). But even though this is a common theme in Higashino novels, the way these themes are used  in Yougisha X no Kenshin is exceptionally good. Inverted mysteries often need both a detective and a murderer you can root for. People can easily root for cops like Columbo or Furuhata Ninzaburou, so it might be a bit harder to create a symphathetic criminal. But it's almost insane how much the reader will root for Yasuko and Misato, how much the reader hopes that Ishigami succeeds in protecting his neighbours.

Note that the whole fact that I address a topic like characterization and human relations here is very strange. I mean, for someone who loves robot!Ellery Queen and the supershort Q.B.I. stories, you'd expect I don't pay much attention to those kinds of themes. Which is totally true. So the fact that I actually talk about them in a review, means that I was quite impressed.

This novel was also made into a movie in 2008 (the TV series based on the previous books was very popular). Actually, the reason I started with the book was because I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. The movie itself is pretty good too: the TV series had some cheesy elements, but the production team luckily got rid of that to fit the story's more dramatic tone. Tsutsumi Shinichi is unfairly billed as a supporting role, as he really steals the show with a heartbreaking Ishigami (and I love the ending song, Saiai).

I doubt whether I'll ever be able to look at this novel without the Nostalgia glasses on, but I'd like to think that this is a great novel, even without those glasses. 

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『容疑者Ｘの献身』

「きちがいじゃが仕方がない」

「備中笠岡から南へ七里、瀬戸内海のほぼなかほど、そこはちょうど岡山県と広島県と香川県の、三つの県の境にあたっているが、そこに周囲二里ばかりの小島があり、その名を獄門島とよぶ」

『獄門島』

"Seven ri south of Bicchuu Kasaoka, around the middle of the Seto inland sea, about where the three prefectures Okayama, Hiroshima and Kagawa meet, there is a small island barely two ri wide and its name is Prison Gate Island"

"Prison Gate Island"

Like I mentioned in the review for Yokomizo Seishi's Honjin Satsujin Jiken ("The Daimyou's Inn Murder Case"), secondary literature on the genre often include spoilers on novels. Which is of course totally acceptable if that specific plot-point needs to be discussed for the writer's argument. And like I mentioned in the same review, I have spoiled myself on same (extremely) famous Japanese detective novels in the past, as I hadn't expected I would be able to read them any time soon (and the academic articles did look very interesting).

Honjin Satsujin Jiken was one of the novels I had already spoiled for myself before I started reading it (though I enjoyed it immensely despite that). And the same holds for Yokomizo Seishi's Gokumontou ("Prison Gate Island"): I already knew the basic plot and the solution to the story thanks to an (interesting) article by Sawana on the adaption of nursery rhymes in Japanese detective fiction (see the attic). Gokumontou is the second novel in the Kindaichi Kousuke series and certainly one of the most famous Japanese detective novels of all times.

And Gokumontou (1977) also happens to be the third movie in Ichikawa Kon's Kindaichi Kousuke film series starring Ishizaka Kouji as private eye Kindaichi. Yes, this movie was released the same year as the second movie in the series (Akuma no Temariuta), indicating how popular the character had become in Japan. The boom was so big that Kindaichi also started to appear on TV that same year, with the Yokomizo Seishi TV-series starring Furuya Ikkou as Kindaichi. Because a TV-adaption of Gokumontou was shown just slightly before the theatrical release of Gokumontou, Ichikawa changed the ending of the movie so the public could still have fun guessing whodunnit.  In fact, Yokomizo Seishi himself appears in the trailer of Gokumontou, saying that even he doesn't know who the murderer is!

Kindaichi Kousuke is asked by a friend to go to the titular Prison Gate Island, a small island in the middle of the Seto Inland Sea. Kindaichi is supposed to inform the Kitou family that Kitou Chimata, the heir of the Kitou family, has sadly died during his repatriation after World War II. Just before he died, Chimata seemed to have feared something terrible, crying out that his three sisters will also die if he died. Kindaichi's friend was a friend of Chimata and he hopes that Kindaichi won't just inform the Kitou family of Chimata's death, but also find out what Chimata meant with those words and if they are true, he hopes that Kindaichi can prevent the sisters' demise.

Arriving on Prison Gate Island, Kindaichi encounters the elements which would grow out to be the typical Kindaichi background setting. 1) A secluded mountaineous area with small village communities that don't particularly like strangers. Prison Gate Island is quite some way from the mainland, resulting in a very tight community on the island. This is also seen in other Kindaichi novels like Akuma no Temariuta and Yatsu Haka Mura. 2) Power struggles between wealthy and powerful main and branch families. The Kitou family is the most important family not only on Prison Gate Island, but is known on all the islands in the neighbourhood. With the heir dead, major changed are expected in the power-balance on the islands. These power-battles are also seen in Akuma no Temariuta and Yatsu Haka Mura. 3) The fear of repatriated soldiers who may have gone mad during the war. With the war just over, people are a bit afraid of ex-soldiers, who may have developed a lust for blood in the war. The war is often mentioned in the Kindaichi novels, but this particular motif is also used in Inugamike no Ichizoku.

The three sisters of Chimata, who are next in the line of succession in the main Kitou family, also seem a bit mad actually, or at least a bit immature for their age. But that doesn't really matter, as they die. Or to be precise: they are murdered. In hideous ways. One sister is hanged upside down from a tree, another is found inside a gigantic temple bell, while the third is found dressed in a priest's clothing. Kindaichi clearly fails in protecting the girls, but he sure isn't planning to let the murderer escape. The problem is:  as an outsider, people seem relunctant in cooperating with him. The policeman explains it rather simple at the beginning of the story: the villagers don't trust outsiders and they'd rather lie about thefts, saying they misplaced it or something, than report the theft to the police. It almost seems unclear who Kindaichi's biggest enemy is on Prison Gate Island: the murderer or the inhabitants.

Gokumontou is considered as one of the masterpieces of Yokomizo and I totally concur: this is one of the most entertaining detective stories I know. Yokomizo was a master in creating an eerie traditional, closed community setting and the same holds for this story. But the most impressive has to be the plot structure, which like Honjin Satsujin Jiken invokes a part of traditional Japanese culture and is expertly woven into the plot. The main hint that points to the murderer is actually just as brilliant and in fact one of the best hints I've seen in a detective ever. It's just too bad that due to circumstances in Japan, it's actually very hard to use this hint in the current modern society. I actually heard they censored the hint in some TV broadcasts of this movie. Which is a bit... annoying if you want to solve the murders yourself.

As a movie, Ichikawa Kon continues the high standard he set with the previous two movies. The movie has some fantastic shots of the island that really convey the feeling of a secluded island. Ishizaka Kouji is still strong as Kindaichi Kousuke, while personally, I love the return of Sakaguchi Ryouko in the series: she played the talkative maid at the inn in Inugamike no Ichizoku, and she plays a similar role in this movie. The changed murderer in the movie was taken up quite big at the time: it seems that besides Yokomizo Seishi appearing in the trailer, special signs were placed at the theaters saying they had a different murderer! In retrospect, the change isn't as big as they'd want you to believe and it sadly changes some of the symbolism in the original story.

Just like Inugamike no Ichizoku and Akuma no Temariuta, Gokumontou is an excellent murder mystery film. Even though this movie was released the same year as Akuma no Temariuta, the quality hasn't suffered a bit and this film is at least as fun as that one. But actually, all Ichikawa Kon / Ishizaka Kouji Kindaichi Kousuke movies seem to be this good.

And no, I'm not actually planning this as a review series of the Ichikawa Kindaichi movies: things just happened to work out this way.

Original Japanese title(s): 『獄門島』

「俺は愛のために人を殺さない。でも愛する人を、絶対に死なせない」

「お客さん、探偵でしょう」

「メイ探偵だ。メイを忘れてもらっちゃ困る」

『名探偵コナン　工藤新一への挑戦状』

"Mister, you're a detective, right?"

"A Great detective. Don't forget the Great"

"Detective Conan - A Challenge Letter for Kudou Shinichi"

Doing these weekly reviews for Meitantei Conan - Kudou Shinichi e no Chousenjou ("Detective Conan - A Challenge Letter for Kudou Shinichi") is fun, but also quite difficult. Writing reviews is hard enough, but with books, or complete series you usually have enough material to write about. However, it's quite hard to write something substantial about a single episode of a running series. It's like writing a long post on a single short story. Depending on the story, it can be done, but that's rare. The same with these episodes. Meh, at least I have a whole Conan review database to refer to when discussing Conan-related media...

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

Last week's episode was not really enjoyable, so I wasn't really looking forward to this week's episode, but it actually turned to be OK-ish. In episode 6 ("The Magnificent Murderous Kiss of Twenty Beauties! The Murderous Intent Hidden in the Murder Equation!"), the whole 'a nightly Conan' theme of this series comes back as the story is set within a hostess club. The main Conan series often refers to these clubs as a place where Kogorou likes to spend some time, but I think this is the first time that a hostess club is used as a setting. Which is somewhat understandable, as you can hardly bring in Conan or the Detective Boys to such a place.

Anyway, Shinichi, Ran and Takagi have been following Kogorou to a hostess club on request of Ran's mother (Takagi was needed to get Shinichi and Ran, who are minors, inside). Kogorou is one of the two participants in a drinking game with all 20 hostesses. The hostesses are all lined up in the club and the participants take turns in choosing girls. Each turn, they can choose up to three girls, who will give them a kiss and pour wine in their glass. With each turn, the participants move up in the line of hostesses. The winner is the one who chooses the twentieth hostess, the no. 1 hostess in the club, who will give a kiss to the winner. Kogorou loses, but the real loser is probably the no. 1 hostess, who dies after drinking the wine that was poured out by the hostesses during the game.

Another poisoning story?! That was my first thought. Which wasn't making me very happy, as the previous two episodes were also poisoning stories and they ranged from OK-ish to bad. But luckily, the focus of this story was different from the previous two stories. Those stories focused on the direct poisoning method, how the poison entered the victim's body. This is actually how a poisoning story in Conan usually turns out to be, the search for the item that was used to introduce the poison in the victim's body (see for example, Kaitenzushi Mystery (Conan 63) or China Town - Deja Vu in the Rain (Conan 34).

In this episode however, the focus lay on the method the murderer used to manipulate the drinking game. It made the episode feel quite fresh compared to the previous two stories, which were essentially Queen-ish search stories. This change made this episode feel quite fresh, something the series was really needing by now. I won't say that this episode's trick was very good or anything, but it was original enough for this series and I could totally see this trick being used in the main series (be it in a different, non-hostess club setting). And that's maybe the most important for a series carrying the Conan brand, it has to fit the main series' atmosphere. Poisoning stories for example wouldn't be as fitting for a Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo series (unless it was one of many tricks used by the murderer).

The episode also had a distinct Galileo-ish atmosphere: mathematics and Descartes play a big role in the story, as the trick used by the murderer was fundamentally based in mathematics and one of the suspects is actually a mathematician. I really wouldn't be surprised of the scriptwriter was influenced by Higashino Keigo's scientific detective series when (s)he wrote this story. The episode also reminds me of a series like Liar Game, which relies heavily on mathematics, game theory and all kinds of sciences in explaining the awesome things the characters do to win games.

The main story (with Shinichi, Ran and Kogorou trapped) seems to be moving on too, as Shinichi and Kogorou manage to save Ran by retrieving the antidote, but Kogorou gets seperated from Ran and Shinichi in the process. Kogorou still has the spoon he took with him in episode two, so he might use that in one way or another. Or am I just too fixated on that spoon.

I'm also very happy to see that the next episode isn't a poisoning story! Kidnapping stories are not rare in Conan, but for some reason I associate a kidnapping story more with Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, than with Conan. Even though young Kindaichi only handled like two or three kidnapping cases in his career, with most of them ending in murder...

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「美女20人の華麗なる殺しのキス! 殺人方程式に隠された殺意!」
Date & Password: 2010.06.10; デカルト