Hello Mr. my yesterday

「古来より犯罪者による密室が築かれ、そして探偵により崩されていった」

『名探偵コナン　過去からの前奏曲（プレリュード）』

"Since ancient times locked rooms have been constructed by criminals, and deconstructed by detectives" 

"Detective Conan: Prelude From the Past"

Welcome to a new entry in Short Shorts, where the topics that don't convert to proper stand-alone posts are banished to. I actually wanted to post this Short Short later, because I usually gather at least three topics per post. But then I noticed I was already nearing the 200 character limit for the labels for this post with just two topics. Darn tags!

I really miss having a television in my room. I love Japanese variety programs (even if they are highly commercial and capable of rendering viewers brainless) and TV dramas. And this season in particular is full with interesting-looking detective series! A series based on Higashigawa Tokuya's Houkago wa Mystery to Tomo ni, a series based on Akagawa Jirou's Mikeneko Holmes no Suiri ("Calico Cat Holmes' Deduction")... and the one I am actually watching at the moment: Kagi no Kakatta Heya ("The Locked Room"), a series based on the three books in Kishi Yuusuke's Security Consultant Detective Enomoto Kei series (The Glass Hammer, Kitsunebi no Ie and Kagi no Kakatta Heya).

I'll admit right away that part of my enjoyment of the series derives from looking at Toda Erika playing the young attorney Aoto Junko. While there are some minor changes in the setting, the basic formula of this is still the same as the original novel series: attorney Aoto Junko (and her superior Serizawa Gou) come across suspicious suicide and accidental death cases. Their feeling tells them that it must have been murder, but these cases all occur in locked rooms. Enter security consultant Enomoto Kei (played by Arashi leader Ohno Satoshi), who with an expert knowledge concerning locks and other ways to lock rooms for their cases will find a way to open the locked rooms for our laywer duo.

It's pretty very rare for a TV series to focus completely on locked rooms (so it's not 'just' an emphasis on impossible situations), but Kagi no Kakatta Heya pulls it off perfectly. Which is also because of the fantastic source material. Especially awesome are the little models of the rooms Enomoto constructs every episode, which he then examines through a small fiber camera. It really feels like they did their best on this production, as this is an era where we usually go for easy-made CG models for these kind of reconstructions. Anyway, an awesome mystery series that has is a must-see for those people who especially like locked rooms. And Toda Erika.

And to get back to the TV-story: I also want a television to play videogames on. As of now, I just have to be content with my PSP and DS though and the last two weeks of April were mostly dedicated to playing Meitantei Conan: Kako Kara no Prelude ("Detective Conan: Prelude from the Past"), the newest Conan videogame. It's a direct sequel to last year's Detective Conan: Rondo of the Blue Jewel, featuring an almost identical game engine (with a few little new parts). Like the previous game, Prelude From the Past consists of a series of loosely connected cases which the player, assuming the roles of Conan, Shinichi and Hattori, has to solve. This time, the story concerns a case that spans over time (hence the title), Starting with a case Shinichi solved before he turned into Conan, and the culmination of that case in the present. Oh, and Kaitou KID appears fo no reason at all in the story. But he appears, so that justifies having him featuring prominently on the cover, right?

The gameplay is practically the same to Rondo of the Blue Jewel, so I refer to that review for the explanation of the deduction system. And if I concentrate on the story in Prelude From the Past, well.... it's also very similar to last year's game. The plots of the seperate stories range from the mediocre to the average, concerning impossible disappearances (which you will understand instantly) and crafty alibi tricks (which are not that crafty). The biggest problem however, is the slow, slow pacing of the stories. Most of the stories are not that difficult to solve, but it takes ages to go through all the dialogues in order to progress the story. The way the game feeds the player information is highly flawed. Compare to Gyakuten Saiban, where you still have to figure things out even after you formally finish your investigation: even as you are standing in court defending your client / accusing other people, you have to process new information. Plot-twists keep pushing you to the wall, forcing you to come up with new hypotheses and deductions on the spot. Which makes the story-telling of Gyakuten Saiban fast-paced and exciting. In Prelude From the Past, you are just talking, talking and talking, until you get to the point the game decides that is time to stop the investigation, after which it just leads your train of thought by asking questions that obviously point to the murderer.

The two things I did like of this game: the story is actually written in a way that it does not upset Conan-canon (unlike the TV drama) and the introduction of the game is hilarious with an unexpected person being pointed out as the murderer. In all other aspects, it's a clone of the previous game, but I personally liked the overall story of Rondo of the Blue Jewel better than Prelude From the Past.

And yes, Short Shorts are usually less interesting to read. Ah well, at least tomorrow's post is slightly better.

Original Japanese title(s): 貴志祐介（原）　『鍵のかかった部屋』, 『名探偵コナン　過去からの前奏曲（プレリュード）』

「からすなぜなくの」

There simply must be a corpse, and the deader the corpse the better

"Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories"

Wow, it's been almost two weeks. Maybe I should update more often. I actually have read and played and seen quite some things the last few weeks, but there is a proble with the conversion of my experiences into written words. As in I have several half-written concept posts and I don't think any of them are going to work the way they are written now. But because I am lazy and really want to get them out of the way, I'll finish them all the way they are. Today. Before noon. Though the posting will be spread. There. I said it. And so it will be.

[addendum] You know what, I am not going to finish them before noon. Mainly because I think I will just throw most of them into a future short short post. That is way more efficient. 

I think I already mentioned we sometimes have reading club-esque sessions at the Kyoto University Mystery Club. It's pretty much what you expect: the leader of the sessions chooses a novel the attending members have to read, the leader presents his opinions about the book and then members can state what they thought about the book and the presentation. The level of discussion is actually quite high, with people coming up with stories on the spot that would have been better than most of the reviews I write.

Last week we discussed Kanou Tomoko's debut work Nanatsu no Ko ("Seven Children"). Within the novel-universe, there is a novel called Seven Children written by Saeki Ayano, which is about the strange events the young boy Hayate encounters. And with strange events I don't mean bloody murders, but just small events that may make you think "?!". One stolen watermelon. Blue crayons being stolen. Little occurences to which most people would shrug. But not for Hayate. And luckily for him, he has a little girl friend, Ayame, who has a wonderful knack for pointing out why or those strange events happened. The university student Irie Komako is a big fan of this novel and lately she has encountered a bunch of little mysteries herself too! As these mysteries remind her of the stories in Saeki's Seven Children, Komako decides to write Saeki a fan-letter, telling her also about her own experiences. But it seems like Saeki is no less a detective than her own creation Ayame, as Saeki's reply letters always explain the strange mysteries Komako encountered!

Nanatsu no Ko is a representative work in the subgenre of 'everyday life mysteries'. I am not really sure whether there is an equivalent English term for this subgenre, but it basically refers to mystery stories.... that you encounter in your daily life. Yes, I just repeated the words in the term. Anyway, the mysteries you find in this short story collection are not murder and other foul crimes, but just odd occurences. 99% of the people would just shrug and forget it. If there was a proper use for the word 'cozy', it would be for this subgenre. Because this is really cozy. Just events that anyone really could encounter. To be honest, I did find it a bit lacking (murder please), but I can definitely understand why people would like this light, almost feel-happy, mystery subgenre.

I usually go with a story-by-story summary/review for short stories, but I am afraid they would tell way too much because of the story-within-a-story setup (which would require me to write a lot). Like I mentioned, while I thought there was definitely a nice feeling to the stories, I found most of them lacking. The problem here is that there is almost no way back once you fall into the trap of becoming one of the 99% of the people who would shrug at the mysteries presented here. Which is what I had somewhere around the fourth story. I thought the best story to be the fifth story, Ichimannisennengo no Vega ("The Vega of 12000 Years Later"), which features a gigantic plastic dinosaurus disappearing from a department store, only to appear at the playground of an elementary school. Which was actually probably the story that seemed the least like a problem you'd encounter in real life.

I did like how this short story collection actually featured a storyline that developed over the course of the seperate stories, which is something I actually like very much. I also liked the rather light-ish approach of the two detectives Ayame (in the novel-within-the-novel) and Saeki. They practically never say it was like this, but they always carefully propose solutions that might be correct. It's just a guess, but I think it might be like this. It fits the light-hearted tone of this volume perfectly and is actually quite refreshing to see, being used to the absolute confidence most great detectives have. Finally, I think this is actually an excellent book for getting people into the mystery genre. Nanatsu no Ko can be read perfectly as a 'normal' book, but it is also constructed very good as a mystery actually. I might not be a fan of the content, but the way the stories are structured, the way Kanou weaves her hints into the plot is really good and it never feels unfair.

In short, not my cup of tea, but certainly a well-constructed light-hearted 'cozy' short story collection.

Original Japanese title(s): 加納朋子　『ななつのこ』:　「スイカジュースの涙」 / 「モヤイの鼠」 / 「一枚の写真」 / 「バス・ストップで」 / 「一万二千年後のヴェガ」 / 「白いタンポポ」 / 「ななつのこ」

The Adventure of the Comic Book Crusader

"Now, like shonen manga there's only one story that really works for shojo manga"

"ONLY ONE?"

 "That's right"

 "The heroine screams 'I'm late, I'm late,' while running out of her house (because she's clumsy)!! There are no alternatives to this beginning!! Another important detail: she has to be chewing on a piece of toast!!"

"Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga"

Totally grabbing this chance to talk about Thermae Romae. Because this review is related to manga. And Thermae Romae is a manga. About the Roman and Japanese bathing cultures. Which sounds strange. And it is! But it is hilarious! The story follows the Roman bathhouse architect Lucius, who is a bit of a slump. One day, he gets transported to modern-day Japan, where he learns about the Japanese bathing culture (sentou, onsen etc.) and brings back those ideas back to ancient Rome. And now it's a live-action movie too! It's a hilarious movie (also because Abe Hiroshi stars as Lucius) and definitely worth a view. And you even get a bonus-manga with both Lucius and Abe Hiroshi if you go the theaters now. In Japan.

But now back to the review. Which like I said is related to manga. Komori Kentarou's Lowell-jou no Misshitsu ("The Locked Room in the Castle Lowell") starts with the duo of Hori and Megu lost in the woods. They end up in a mysterious house, where an old man sends them into a shoujo manga. Yes, you read that correctly. The two are transported into the world of the comic series The Locked Room in the Castle Lowell, with Meg (Megu) starring as a poor village girl who gets chosen as the new bride of the prince of Castle Lawell (she gets dumped though) and Holy (Hori) being the second prince of Castle Lowell. And then a lot of things happen which you would expect in a shoujo fantasy comic, with magical beings, fights to the death, fights for love, wars between tribes and finally, a locked room murder (ok, the latter is not a staple of the shoujo manga. It should be though). It is up to the King of the Stars, the current head of the Detective Department in the castle, to solve the murder on the replacement bride-to-be in the tower room which was locked and under constant surveillance. And how are Megu and Hori supposed to get back to the real world?

Komori was awarded the Rampo Prize for this novel at the very, very young age of 16. Which is quite an accomplishment. And I admit, the novel is fairly well written, though certainly not without its faults. For example, Komori spends a lot of time creating a background story for the castle and everything that is really interesting, but of absolutely no importance to the locked room murder. Heck, it is not even of importance to most of the story. It therefore feels like a waste of time for this particular novel and as the murder doesn't even happen until the last third of the book, I kinda wonder whether this was really necessary. I would have loved to have seen either those story elements incorporated more strongly with the main mystery, or have seen Komori worked out his background story into a different story.

The locked room murder of this novel is sorta famous if you move in the right circles and is certainly highly original, but definitely unfair if you are expecting a normal mystery. In my mind though, Komori set it up a bit too obvious and I already suspected what was going to happen even before the murder actually happened (hey, if you have to read more than 200 pages to get the murder, you have time to think), but I can totally imagine why someone would overlook this solution. I thought it was an interesting locked room murder, but I definitely this would have worked out much better as a short story (or even as a real comic), rather than a novel.

And as I was writing this, I thought: but who would expect a normal mystery of a story that starts with two people getting sucked into a comic book?  Maybe this is just a fair mystery. Hmm.

And apparently it is obligitory to insert a locked room lecture in a debut novel. Was it really needed here? No. Did it pull me out of the 'manga'-fantasy-world with its references to Carr and Rampo? Yes. I once thought that locked room lectures were super-special-awesome, but everybody has one nowadays (even if the story does not really ask for one) and very few actually add something new to the discussion. It feels like a chore to read them lately, to be honest.

The comic book-angle is pretty hilarious at the beginning of the story, with Meg for example being surpised how much handsomer Hori has become as the comic character Holy, or how everybody's eyes cover one third of their faces. And like I said, the background setting and all are precisely what I expect from a fantasy shoujo manga, though I have to admit that I actually haven't ever read one. Except for Banana Fish. Which is kinda different. But I totally imagine Red River to be something like The Locked Room in the Castle Lowell (Note: I probably have no idea what I'm talking about).

Hmm, I couldn't write as much about this book as I had expected. Though now I think about it, it's not that strange though. Two-third of this novel is just a shoujo manga (but in prose), so not of particular interest here, while the actual murder is interesting and original, but I can't write too much about it without spoiling the surprise. Aaargh.

And I have ABSOLUTELY no idea how the cover is related to the contents. Is that a heart? And... what... Uggh.

Original Japanese title(s): 小森健太郎 『ローウェル城の密室』

Death on the Moor

 「なんだったら、僕が手伝うよ」

「 ありがとう。でも、初めは自分でやってみるわ。ほら、シャーロック・ホームズだって、なんでも自分でやるでしょ。ワトスンはただそばにいて、うろうろするだけだわ」

『高校殺人事件』

"I'll help you if it's OK with you"

"Thanks, but I want try it by myself first. You know, Sherlock Holmes also did everything himself. Watson was just hanging around doing nothing"

"High School Murder Case"

I already mentioned it in my review of Matsumoto Seichou's Ten to Sen ("Points and Lines"): I am not particularly a fan of his writings. I love Ten to Sen, but that is sadly enough only one of the few orthodox detectives Matsumoto wrote, as Matsumoto became famous as the pioneer of the shakai-ha (social school) that dominated the Japanese detective novel market until the late 80s. It might be a fantastic movement if you're into police proceduals and (relatively) realistic depictions of post-war Japanese society, but I prefer the locked room murder in the haunted mansion.

So I was not sure what to think about Koukou Satsujin Jiken ("High School Murder Case"). It was recommended by someone at the Mystery Club as an interesting juvenile detective novel. Which in itself was quite surprising, as I didn't even know that Matsumoto Seichou wrote juvenile fiction. Even more surprising was the fact that Koukou Satsujin Jiken was also supposed to be an orthodox detective novel! As such, this novel was very different from most of Matsumoto's works and when I came across the book for a mere 105 yen at my local bookstore, I thought I might as well take the chance. Originally serialized under the title of Akai Tsuki ("Red Moon") between 1959-1960, the story is set at the Musashino plains (Tokyo). We are first introduced to the high school student Konishi, nicknamed Noppo. Noppo would have been simply be characterized as a gothic nowadays, with his love for writing dark and edgy poems that are about despair, death and everything nice. And one day, he is found dead, strangled and thrown into a pond in the forest. Together with another dead body. The narrator Yajima and Noppo's other friends feel compelled to avenge Noppo's death and start an investigation into who killed Noppo and why.

The first thing I thought: wow, the narrator talks in a rather non-juvenile way. No juvenile talks like that nowadays and to be honest, I doubt that high school students in 1959 talked like this. I mean, I am aware that language changes and that especially youth language is very fast with changes, but all of the characteristics of the narrator's speech pattern are what is nowadays considered characteristics of elderly men in fiction. Did it really change this much in 40~60 years? It was really distracting at any rate and it certainly didn't feel like a young narrator telling me the story. The narration is also very dry and it was harder to get through the book than I had expected.

But to get more into the contents: it is very clear that this was a serialized story. Some parts are repeated over and over (explaining what happened earlier in the story), which really should have been edited in the final version. Matsumoto also seems to have written this story without a real outline, as he makes things up just as he goes. The result? A bland adventure story about how a boy goes out suspecting mysterious people who keep popping up for no particular reason until his supersmart cousin comes to solve the case in no time. The reader probably already solved the case 100 pages earlier, as there is absolutely nothing surprising to the plot. Oh, also note that Noppo's other friends have practically no function in the story and are highly inter-changeable. You'd wonder why Matsumoto bothered to give them all names and tried to give them personalities in the first chapter, when they are treated as one single entity (THE FRIENDS) the second chapter on.

Koukou Satsujin Jiken probably kinda worked as a juvenile detective novel when it was published. Kinda. But then you remember that you could also be reading Rampo's Shounen Tantei Dan or something like that and you realise how much Koukou Satsujin Jiken fails. The novel lacks a youthful, a playful heart. It misses the fun the Koigakubo Academy Detective Club novels have for example. Which are incidentally also set in Musashino. This is really Matsumoto Seichou trying to write a juvenile detective novel. Which at least in this time and age does not feel as a juvenile novel.

You know what, I don't even feel like writing more about Koukou Satsujin Jiken. It's really not worth the read. I'll just keep on re-reading Ten to Sen over and over again (oh, and I happened to have finally bought a Japanese copy of Ten to Sen, which features photos of the important locations of the story :3)

Original Japanese title(s): 松本清張　『高校殺人事件』

"The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic"

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

This post is slightly better then posting a picture of my pile of unread books, but only slightly. Yes, I am still reading books, but not so fast. Now I think about it, I really should buy a nightstand lamp one of these days.

So I've been a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club for a little shorter than a month now, but it is been a blast. And oh-so-relevant to this blog. Like I mentioned before, many important writers in the New Orthodox movement of detective writing originate from this club, having honed their writing (and deductive!) skills through the club activities and is thus considered an important breeding ground for future talent too. Famous old members include Ayatsuji Yukito, Norizuki Rintarou, Abiko Takemaru, Maya Yutaka and Ooyama Seiichirou, and that is when I limit myself only to writers whom I have discussed in the past already! And even more interesting, many novels of the writers mentioned above are actually based on stories originally written within the Mystery Club. So I thought it might be interesting for those outside of the club to hear about how story publication activities work within the club.

The writing activities of the Mystery Club are roughly divided in three kinds: the 'Guess the Criminal' original stories, original stories published in the internal Mystery Club Communication magazine and the annual publication Souajou (also known as Souanoshiro), which is sold at the november festival of Kyoto University. The last week, the new members were challenged with some of the older 'Guess the Criminal' stories, which are probably exactly what you'd expect them to be. Members are given a short story (fewer than 10 pages) including a Challenge to the Reader, which they have to solve within an hour. During that hour, members can go to the writer to check whether their deductions are correct. If incorrect, the writer might give some hints to push the reader towards the right direction. At the end of the session, everybody is given the final part of the story featuring the solution. It is also the time for the readers to comment on the story, so the writer can learn from it. For reference, Norizuki Rintarou's Yuki Misshitsu and Abiko Takemaru's 8 no Satsujin amongst others were originally Guess the Criminal scenarios.

And it's friggin' awesome. We did two stories this week (which I won't discuss in detail as I assume these stories are meant for members-only), but they were really good stories. As in really really good. Considering the history of the club, it shouldn't surprise that the set-up of these stories were very classic, invoking all the right tropes, without feeling dated. It was fun to see my fellow members scribbling on the pages, underlining suspicious utterances and pieces of text. Heck, it sometimes even pays off to bounce off ideas with other members! My opinion of the stories we did last week might be a bit skewed because both of them felt very Queenian, with especially Friday's one being a classic puzzle based on deducing all the characteristics the murderer had to have, but even without my Queen glasses, these stories should be considered great in set-up, hinting and writing and in my opinion could have been published as proper stories. Just imagining that the Mystery Club has a whole database of these Classic stories that non-members will probably never see is just strange. By the way, I solved both stories only partly. Yes, I definitely want to solve at least one story before I leave Japan.

I do have to admit that these Guess the Criminal scenarios are also the things that are keeping me from reading books here: it's not like I don't read detective stories anymore: only that I can't really post about them.

I am less familiar with the two other publication activities of the club (hey, I've only been here a month), but the Mystery Club Communication is a members-only magazine, featuring short essays on the genre and stories by the members. It also seems like it is a sort of an excercise for the annual publication Souajou, which also features essays and stories by (all) the members, but is naturally also subject to much harsher editing, with the word Shuraba (field of Asuras; bloody battlefield) apparently being the default term for the crunch-time leading up to the publication. With the harsher editing, it shouldn't come as a surprise that many of the famous writers' stories are also based on the stories they managed to publish in Souajou (including Maya Yutaka's debut work, several of Norizuki Rintarou's short and longer stories). In fact, publishers also seem to be interested in Souajou, as they might be able to discover a new writing star!

There are some other regularly repeated activities at the club, but I might write about them at a later stage.

「白だ・・・」

あの日僕ら胸に残る夢を描いた

だからここで君に祈るよいつも笑顔で

『ハルウタ』 (いきものがかかり)

We drew a dream that stayed within our hearts

That is why I pray to you here, always with a smile

Spring Song (Ikimonogakari)

It is a sacred ritual by now. Going the theaters in April to see the newest Conan movie whenever I am in Japan. It usually also includes finding people to go with me and finding the right time / day to suit everyone's schedule and me looking a bit too often at the movie trailers, but I am happy to report that this year the operation was succesful this year too. Though I have to admit that it took me a bit longer than I had hoped (*gasp* I didn't even see the movie in the first week!)

Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker starts with an explosion and many others follow. A mysterious bomber (well, it would be not as interesting if the bomber's identity was known at the start of the movie...) contacts Kogorou, telling him a riddle that is supposed to lead to the whereabouts of a bomb that is planted somewhere. Conan is of course the one to solve the riddle and while the movie might present it like a big surprise, it doesn't take a genius to take the hint of the trailer's big focus on a football match and stadium (and the fact that several J-League professionals have a guest appearance as voice actors) to deduce where the bomb is located. This is only the start of the movie though and it is up to Conan to find out who the mad bomber is and to foil his/her evil (?) plans.

The tone of this movie really feels like a continuation of the tone set in the previous movie. Both movies feature a very compact cast, so none of that fanservicey appearances of Hattori, KID or the Black Organisation. Both movies also feature some ridiculously awesome skateboarding sequences by Conan (though that trend actually started in Lost Ship in the Sky). It's like the director feels compelled to come up with even more impossibly awesome stunts with every new movie (though nothing beats the ridiculous skateboarding [and landing] in the Conan vs. Lupin III TV special). The last few movies in general feel a bit more action-oriented than the older movies (though the movies in general are a lot more action-oriented than the manga), which might or might not be a good thing.

Part of this sense of action/suspense derives from the football-setting of this movie. A lot of the story is told during a football match, with scenes of Conan's deductions/skateboarding scenes/awesome stuff being interspliced with shots of the football matches, which are animated quite dynamically for a series that is usually actually very slow and static. It is almost like watching two screens at the same time, one with Detective Conan and the other with Captain Tsubasa. Which is actually quite fun. What is also interesting is that the whole movie feels like a football match, with two distinct halves and a rest in the middle. Don't know if it was a coincidence, but considering that football imagery plays a big part in the story, I am tempted to think that the director did this on purpose.

As a detective movie, The Eleventh Striker is not that exciting though. Looking at the story structually, this is actually an interesting story with a neat trick pointing to the identity of the mad bomber, but certainly not something that should have taken two hours to tell. Most of the time is indeed filled with action scenes and LOADS OF EXPLOSIONS. Which is fun in the theaters, but I do kinda miss the more traditional detective movies like The Fourteenth Target and Captured in her Eyes. Though I have to admit, there was not a single moment I was bored.

Like I mentioned, this movie features several J-League professionals starring as voice actors, as this movie was produced with the cooperation of the J-League (yes, you should think of this movie as a promotional vehicle for the J-League and football in general). The trend of guest voice-actors in Conan movies started some years ago, but it is still something that remains very annoying. At one hand, the guest voice actors are actually voicing themselves, so I should not complain, but they could have tried to... be a bit more livier when reading their lines.

And a last bit on the music. Not too big a fan of this year's remix of the Detective Conan theme. I love Ikimonogakari's ending theme Haru Uta though!

Oh, and don't worry. At the end of the movie a teaser was shown for next year's movie. A ship drifting at the sea kinda reminded me of Strategy Above the Depths, but we'll have to wait for next year to see what's coming...

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　11人目のストライカー』

「読者から読者への挑戦！」

「ココからよむと犯人がわかるよ。まず、推理してみよう！」　

古書店で購入した『水車館の殺人』に挟んだあったノート。

"The identity of the murderer is revealed beyond this point.Try to deduce it yourself first!"  

 A note found between the pages of a second hand copy of The Water Mill House Murders. 

Aaah, Kyoto University Mystery Club, curse you for introducing me to even more writers and books I want to read! And actually having them in your room! The Mystery Club room is actually pretty awesome now I've taken a more detailed look at it. There are _a lot_ of novels crammed in the bookcases there, including interesting books like rewritten versions of Queen's The Dutch Shoe Mystery and Berkeley's The Poisoned Chocolate Case, for children.

And the people are cool too. Showing the note quoted above I found in my second hand copy of Suishakan no Satsujin, a senior described it very gracefully as "a challenge from a reader to the reader!". If there's no Challenge to the Reader in the book, you make one yourself, the previous owner of my copy must have thought. I really appreciate it though!

Anyway, today is another book written by an alumni of the mystery club, namely Ayatsuji Yukito. I've already reviewed his awesome Jukkakukan no Satsujin in a long away past: Suishakan no Satsujin ("The Water Mill House Murders") is the second book in Ayatsuji's series featuring amateur-detective Shimada Kiyoshi and murder cases set around weird buildings designed by the late Nakamura Seiji (as introduced in the first novel). The Water Mill House is a castle-like building deep in the mountains of Okayama. The building derives its name from the three big water wheels set at the side of the mansion (to generate electricity). Its owner is Fujinuma Kiichi, son of the famous painter Fujinuma Issei. A car accident many years ago left Kiichi with a disfigured face, forcing him to wear a rubber mask during the day to hide his monstrous face (yes, Ayatsuji is aware of the classics of Japanese detective fiction). It is also the reason why he lives so secluded, with only his (very) young wife and some servants living with him in the Water Mill House.

Every year, a small group of acquaintances visits the Water Mill House to enjoy the many paintings of Kiichi's father that are displayed throughout the mansion. An impossible disappearance, murders and the theft of a painting make the 1985 visit an unforgettable one though. While not everyone is particularly fond of the idea, the annual visit to the Water Mill House is repeated again the following year, but this time an uninvited guest shows up: Shimada Kiyoshi, friend of the person who disappeared last year from this mansion and who wants to know the truth behind the incidents one year ago.

A lot of people seem to prefer this book to Jukkakukan no Satsujin, though I don't know really why. I for one prefer the mystery club students of the first book and the main trick too. By which I don't mean that Suishakan no Satsujin is a bad book, but I didn't like the setting as much as its prequel and this book is a lot easier to solve (especially if you have read the first book). The first book, admittedly, is hard to beat in my eyes. Suishakan no Satsujin is an excellent book actually, which especially excels in creating atmosphere by the gothic description of the Water Mill Mansion (and the Sukekiyo-esque owner of the mansion), which must be horrifying with all those pictures hanging on the walls. Or maybe I am just weak to that sort of things. I also suspect that Tantei Gakuen Q's storyline featuring the genius artist Kuzuryuu Takumi, including a set of buildings he designed, is partly inspired by the architect Nakamura Seiji of this series, as both series see the buildings as a place that attract abnormal (criminal) activity. And both architects love making secret passages and stuff.

But it must be said that when viewed abstractly/structurally, Suishakan really resembles the previous book a lot. Which makes the deciding factor for my personal views on Jukkakukan no Satsujin and Suishakan no Satsujin very dependent on the more aesthetic ways with which Ayatsuji dressed up these similar story-structures and like I said, I like the more recognizable and genre-savvy setting of Jukkakukan more than the more standard / gothic mystery setting of Suishakan. 

The story-telling structure of the book is pretty interesting though: the story switches between chapters set in the past (1985) and the present (1986) and is usually set up in such a way that it starts in the present time, with detective Shimada Kiyoshi asking about some events that happened last year, which are then explained in detail in the chapters set in the past. The trope of a detective solving a case that happened in the past is certainly not new, but the way it unfolds in this book works surprisingly well. In most examples I can recall at the moment, the detective in the [PRESENT] hears bits and pieces about the [PAST] case until he suddenly learns all of the [PAST] case in one turn (i.e. by finding a police file, someone telling him about it or something like that). Here it's much direct (for the reader) and therefore more engaging. Because new murders happen during Shimada's visit to the Water Mill House in the [PRESENT], the chapters set in the [PAST] and [PRESENT] also form symmetrical pairs (with events in one time period mirroring the other), much like how the Germany and France chapters of Nikaidou Reito's Jinroujou no Kyoufu resembled each other. And for those who play videogames: just think of any game with dual worlds (i.e. present/past worlds, light/dark worlds), like some of the Legend of Zelda games or something like Chrono Trigger.

And it is actually funny that this book doesn't feature an actual Challenge to the Reader (except for my own personal challenge from a reader to a reader), as structurally it would have fitted perfectly there. I understand from a writer's perspective that you would choose whether or not to insert one (and because the previous book didn't feature one, Ayatsuji might have been hesitant in adding one here), but the note I found in my copy really did add an extra dimension to the whole story structure, I have to admit!

Anyway, fun book, but I still think Jukkakukan is better. And now, to look for something in my bookcase that is not written by an OB/OG of the Mystery Club! (Also because we're doing guess-the-murderer with scenarios written by club members on Monday anyway)

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人　『水車館の殺人』