"Objection!"

「ぼくの名前は、成歩堂 龍一。３ヶ月前に弁護士になったばかり、今日は始めての法廷だ」

『逆転裁判』

"My name is Phoenix Wright. I became a laywer just three months ago and today is my first time in court" 

"Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney"

Ever since I played first played Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney), I've considered it as one of the most memorable detective stories ever. Heck, I easily rank the series as more fun than a lot of 'conventional' detective fiction (books) and I always find it a shame that even though a lot of mystery blogs out there do seem to discuss movies (and occasionally audio dramas), they very seldom discuss videogames. The medium might be different, but it is certainly not one unfit for the genre and it is a shame a lot of readers seem to miss out on great stuff, just because it is in a slightly different medium (the same for detective comics like Conan by the way). The Gyakuten (Ace Attorney) series really offers a unique experience, which everybody should have tried.

I had missed seeing the Gyakuten Saiban live action movie when it was first shown in the Netherlands earlier this year, so had I wait for the home video release. Which was last week. In the near future, crime rates have risen so high, that a new judicial system has been implemented to cope with the problem. Under the Initial Trial System, trials will last for a maximum of three days, as to speed up the process. In these trials the prosecution and defense only have to focus on the question of the defendant's guilt, with the actual punishment being determined at a later stage. With the high turnover rate in this world, trials have also grown out to be a kind of high speed consumer good: trials are open to the public to view and the battles between prosecution and defense remind of the gladiator games in ancient Rome. Enter rookie defense laywer Naruhodou Ryuuichi, who has taken the grand case of defending Ayatsuji Mayoi (Maya Fey), who is accused of murdering her sister, who also happened to be Naruhodou's boss at the law office. Will Naruhodou be able to turn the case around and find the real murderer?

Gyakuten Saiban is a condensed version of the first game and a mighty interesting movie too! It is an actual good movie based on a videogame, though still not without its faults. One problem might be the fact that it tries very hard to fit in most of the first game in its two-hour run and especially the first 20 minutes of the movie can be hard to follow if you're not familiar with the original source, I think. It runs at a very high speed, with lots of happenings and most of all: Gyakuten Saiban features its own, particular and unique world, which might be hard to get into if you have not played the game. The above mentioned Intial Trial System is one, but Gyakuten Saiban also features some very unique character appearances (almost all of them being faithful reproductions of the game, including Naruhodou's spiky hair) and a distinct sense of comedy. The summary above might sound very dark and gloomy, but Gyakuten Saiban is definitely a comedy. It might hard to catch all that in the first half of the movie. Are you able to get into this world view, then you're in for a treat. A great comedy-detective with its own face and featuring some of the most memorable scenes in detective fiction. And a lot of fingerpointing!

If one is to compare this movie to the Takarazuka Revue musical, I would say that the latter actually feels closer to the videogames though. Despite the singing and dancing and added romance plots. Visually, the movie is much closer to the original, but the motions of the characters in the game were reproduced more faithfully in the musical. Which doesn't make it better automatically though: it's just that the dialogue and movements of the characters are much closer to the game in the musical than in the movie. Overall, the movie works much better as a stand-alone product though.

As a fan of the game, it is almost impossible for me to not compare it to the original. So I won't even try. The game is naturally quite a bit longer, so a lot of the human relations (Naruhodou - Mayoi, rival prosecutor Mitsurugi and police detective Itonokogiri) feel a bit downplayed in the movie, as there was just not as much time spent on it as in the games. But the visual designs of the characters made it all over perfectly and while the set design is very different from the more colorful videogames, I really like the darker look to the world, with the bright characters running around there. Director Miike also made use of a very cool way of showing the audience the evidence used in the trials, which is a crucial concept in the original game. It is one thing to say someone is wrong and to show him the supporting evidence for that, it is another thing to actually throw the evidence at that person's face. And the occasional use of the music from the videogame in the movie soundtrack is fantastic. At the right moments, you'll hear the great music that is so much a part of the Gyakuten series.　

I have mentioned countless of times that I absolutely love the Gyakuten videogame series. Heck, in a not-so-distant-past, I even wrote my bachelor's thesis about the use of role language in these games! The great thing about the detective plots in these games is the way they are told. We have locked room murders, seemingly impossible crimes and other 'grand' tropes, but there are also 'normal' poisoning cases and seemingly ordinary murder cases here, but even these latter 'simple' cases are made memorable because of how Takumi Shuu, the original creator, wrote the stories.

He mentions it in this essay, but there is an inherent contradiction in detective fiction: readers want to solve the mystery themselves, but they also want to get surprised. And now try to change that into a detective videogame. Players want to get surprised by the mystery, but the game must also be beatable, the player must be able to complete the game themselves. With fighting games, you might expect a player to train, but that is more difficult with detective stories. Well, Takumi wrote all of his stories focusing on contradictions. No matter how big the case, if we look at his storytelling as a sort of grammar, then the smallest unit in Takumi's storytelling is the contradiction.

How is this implemented? In 'normal' fiction, the reader is presented with a big problem (i.e. a naked body found in a department store), with the detective going here and there looking for clues and presenting his conclusions in the denouement. In the Gyakuten games, there is still the big problem, but the road towards the final solution is cut into little pieces, the contradictions. You assume the role of Naruhodou in most of the games and during the trials in the game, witness make statements which usually contain something that contradicts the evidence you have. Why did that witness say he was watching TV, even though I have a report that there was a power shortage? Why did that witness say the defendant hit the victim with his right hand, even though he is left-handed? These may seem like small problems, but eventually, these little problems lead back to the main problem (usually murder). So the player is expected to solve these little contradictions one by one, which in turn slowly lead towards the truth. If a conventional detective works towards the solution of a problem once, than the Gyakuten games are a constant series of little solutions, that in turn lead to the solution of the main problem (like this).

What makes this so fantastic is that the player is never bored. Everytime you manage to explain a contradiction, you find yourself in the particular situation of having brought forth a new contradiction by solving the previous one (and usually, these new situations are not particularly saving your case). You are constantly challenged with new problems that you need to solve on the spot, and your back is against the wall practically all of the time. There is a sense of pressure and with constantly changing circumstances, this is a prime example of presenting a detective story, which often can be quite boring if sticking to the murder-investigation-denouement model, in new and exciting ways.

ADDENDUM: The way the characters keep throwing new evidence towards each other, leading to new contradictions and views on the murders is reminiscent of the way Columbo often spoke with his suspects: coming up with small contradictions, allowing the suspect to present a plausible explanation, which in turn led to new contradictions. In that sense, it is not new per se, but the tempo of Columbo and Gyakuten Saiban is very different, with the little confrontations regarding contradictions in Columbo being more of a tool, while it is a fundamental part of the storytelling in Gyakuten Saiban.

Anyway, sorry for this sidetracking, but this type of storytelling is also present in the movie, which makes it a very interesting kind of detective movie: it is much more action-packed than a movie like Green for Danger or The Devotion of Suspect X, and I don't mean action-packed in the sense of the Sherlock Holmes movies. It is action-packed because the detective plot is presented to the viewer with a distinct rhythm, which allows those with a quick head to think along (or even out-think) the protagonist, which is one of the joys of detective fiction. But unlike 'conventional' detective movies, where you have to wait until the ending, Gyakuten Saiban keeps you on the edge of the seat, constantly bombarding Naruhodou and you with new problems to solve. Like the videogame, this feels like a new format for detective movies, very strongly related to thrillers/adventure movies, despite being an orthodox detective movie!

Hmm, this review definitely lost its direction halfway through. But anyway, this is definitely a must-see for fans of the videogames and it works as a standalone comedy detective movie too, though it might be hard to get in the beginning. If you're able to get accept the unique world of Gyakuten Saiban, then you're in for a great movie which brings a new dynamic to detective movies!

Original Japanese title(s): 『逆転裁判』　

「Justice for True Love 君だけのために」

「人はなぜ傷つけるくせに 許されたいの?」

『君がいるから・・・』　(西脇唯)

"Why do people hurt other people, even though they want to be forgiven?"

"Because you're there..." (Nishiwaki Yui)

Backlog... growing... Doesn't seem to stop.... Must write to reduce.... write to reduce...

All well, I get to borrow the TV a little week longer because of circumstances, so I guess less detective fiction, more games this week. Note to myself: I still need to write the reviews, because playing games only stops the initial problem from becoming worse.

The first words in Norizuki Rintarou's Yoriko no tame ni ("For Yoriko") set the tone for the story: August 23, 1989. Yoriko died. The 17 year old daughter of Nishimura Yuuji was found strangled in a park near her school. The police think it was the work of a sexual maniac who has been active in the area for some months now, but Yoriko's father has doubts about this line of investigation and a long search leads him to whom he thinks the real murderer is. And after stabbing 'his' murderer to death and leaving a note explaining everything to his wife, Yuuji commits suicide. Or at least, he tried to commit suicide, but he was saved in the nick of time, though still in a coma. Writer/detective Norizuki Rintarou gets his hand on the final words Yuuji left behind before his suicide attempt and discovers some hints in the manuscript that point to a totally different truth behind the death of Yoriko.

Norizuki Rintarou is a writer who is strongly influenced by Ellery Queen. The use of a writer-detective protagonist with a police inspector as a father is a clear example of this, but Norizuki is also a Queen-reseacher who specializes in what he calls 'the Late Period Queen problems': meta-problems concerning the role of the detective in fiction, as addressed by Queen himself in many of his later novels. To reduce it to two main points: the detective (and the reader) can never say with absolutely certainty that he has access to all of the hints and clues that lead to the truth. Except for the (meta) explanation that the writer at one points abritrary decides that the story should end and thus isn't going to offer any new hints. So the solution the detective offers at the end of a story can never be guaranteed to be correct. The second point is that the detective himself is not a omnipotient figure with no relation to the murder drama: his presence alone already has presence on the actions of the other players of the tragedy and who is to say that the real murderer hasn't calculated for the interference of a detective through the use of false hints?

Many of the New Orthodox writers in fact deal with these Late Period Queen problems (Maya Yutaka for example), but with Norizuki it kinda stands out because he seems to be mostly exploring this theme in his novels and not in his short stories. His short story collections are very much like the stories in The Adventures of Ellery Queen, stories that focus on the puzzle element. Norizuki's novels however deal more obvious with the darker themes of Queen, and therefore feel very different from the short novels. With the exception of the first novel in the writer Norizuki Rintarou series maybe. Maybe. It's a grey-line there. Yoriko no Tame ni is definitely more like Namakubi ni Kiite Miro than Yuki Misshitsu.

So, what do we have in Yoriko no Tame ni? It starts with why the character Norizuki Rintarou is involved with the case in the first place. He is in fact asked to investigate the case because he is a famous detective. People are bound to starts rumors if a famous detective is on the job, and certain people have an interest in covering up the scandal surrounding the death of the young schoolgirl and her murderer. So Rintarou is initially only asked to acts as a rumor-starter, because of his function as a detective. He is just a polital tool . Which deals with point 2 mentioned above, the influence of the detective on the story and the reactions of the characters.

Also related is the puzzle plot in this novel. Which is actually quite vague and weak. Rintarou starts to have doubts surrounding Yuuji's deduction after reading the manuscript, but it is based on one sorta-defendable point and another fairly weak point. The rest of the story is also based on a lot of guesswork and a bit of psychological analysis, which is very different from the early pure-logic-based Queenian stories as we see in Arisugawa Alice's Student Alice stories. It also makes Yoriko no Tame ni feel more like a Higashino Keigo story than a Norizuki Rintarou story, to be honest. But as said, it can be explained as Norizuki purposely avoiding 'hard' evidence, as that is more easier to fabricate than psychological analyses. If one can't trust the evidence, all the detective can do is hope his reading of the suspects is correct. Because of this, there are also less 'big' detective tropes in Norizuki's novels like closed circles and locked rooms (both available in Yuki Misshitsu though, and a locked room in Ichi no Higeki, but not as a main problem in the latter). The novels focus more on core families and bigger human relations and the drama that springs forth from that.

A lot of academic literary research on detective novels like to play with the analogies between reader=detective, writer=criminal and text=crime in the genre. In that sense, having a detective doing his investigation by reading a text (Yuuji's manuscript) could also be considered an unbelievably meta-plot device. Or maybe I am seeing too much into this. Fact is though that Norizuki seems to like this plot device of having his detective reading texts, as this is also used in the later Ni no Higeki. A more direct influence might be Shimada Souji's Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken, which features a similar plot-point (and with Shimada being a major influence in Norizuki's rise as a professional writer).

In the afterword to this story, Norizuki 'confesses' that Yoriko no Tame ni was actually 'just' a lengthened version of a short story he had originally written during his years in the Kyoto University Mystery Club. The title and the beginning and end are the same, with only the middle part being fleshed out more to bring it up to novel length. It's fun to see that he already worked with Queen problems then, but like one can sense from this review, I am not that enthusiastic about it. Which is why I wrote this lengthy about everything but the actual story. I find Yoriko no Tame ni interesting as a Norizuki Rintarou novel, but not as a novel per se. Though I am probably quite alone there, with international versions being published of this book and this week rumors of a possible South-Korean movie version even popped up.  

Yoriko no Tame ni is admittedly a page turner, it hits all the right emotional switches and the final scenes contain enough revelations to entertain a fan of the genre. In fact, most readers won't probably catch the nonsense I wrote above and will be able to enjoy it as a Higashino Keigo-esque, core-family-centered drama mystery. But for me, it's just too different from Norizuki's puzzle short stories and that is what I like about him.

Original Japanese title(s):  法月綸太郎　『頼子のために』

Prescription: Murder

診てみて。はやくよ！ 

いや、でも、診た感じで、脂肪のおかげで、内臓までは届いてないんですよね。

マジで？ 

えぇ、よかったですね、デブで。 

「さされた男」 (サンドウィッチマン） 

Take a look! Now! 

- But from what I've seen, the knife hasn't reached the organs because of your body fat. 

Really?! 

- Yes, you're lucky to be a fatty. 

"The Stabbed Man" (Sandwichman sketch) 

A doctor solving impossible problems? Surely we're talking about Black Jack?!

No, we're not. We're talking about Sam Hawthorne. But to start off with a small correction: I said earlier that Edward D. Hoch's Ellery Queen pastiche The Circle of Ink was the first Hoch I ever read. Now that I think about it, I had read Hoch's Queen pastiche The Reindeer Clue (in The Tragedy of Errors) before. Which still meant that I only knew Hoch from his Queen pastiches. So I picked up Sam Hawthorne no Jikenbo I ("The Casefiles of Sam Hawthorne I") last weekend to fix that blind spot in my education. This is a Japanese version of Crippen & Landru's Diagnosis Impossible in theory, collecting the first thirteen stories of Hoch's Dr. Sam Hawthorne series, with two important differences. One is that this first volume also contains the short story The Long Way Down as a bonus, which is not part of the series. The second point is that while there are only two collected volumes of the Dr. Sam Hawthorne available in English, the whole series is actually available in the six volumes of Sam Hawthorne no Jikenbo. Which probably means that I am going to read the whole series in Japanese, as it make take quite some time before the rest of the series is collected in English!

Sam Hawthorne is an old family practitioner, who tells the reader about the adventures he had when he was still just a young doctor, starting in 1924 in Northmont, a New England town. You'd think that this would be a quiet little town, but for some reason all of the world's most brilliant criminals seem to have gathered here, if the amount of seemingly impossible crimes is something to go by. Men who disappear from covered bridges, kids disappearing from schools, a murdered man found in a just-sealed time capsule, not the kind of crimes you would expect in Northmont. It is at least as unsafe here as in Cabot Cove. The inhabitants are just lucky that young Sam is quite good at solving the impossible.

The stories are quite short and I don't think I could write about them without giving too much away, so I'll write a bit more generally about them. My favorite stories of the collection are The Problem of the Old Gristmill (documents disappearing from a safe which was being transported on a train), The Problem of the Haunted Bandstand (a man being stabbed to death in the middle of a bandstand, with the murderer disappearing in front of the eyes of the band and the public), The Problem of the Voting Booth (a man being stabbed while inside a voting booth with observers everywhere), and the bonus track The Long Way Down (a man jumping off a building, but not reaching the ground until almost four hours later!). These stories, but the others too, all show what a great imagination Hoch had, presenting the reader with fun and alluring impossible crime situations.

The first word I had in my head after finishing this volume was craftsman. Hoch's output was tremendous and that may be a reason why most stories are constructed very similar. A lot of the impossible crimes center around a person being under constant observation, with a murder/disappearance happening in the only moment the person escapes observation. Even the hinting in most of the stories is very similar, with the stories being easier to solve as you read more of them, as you start to see parallels in the ways Hoch tells his stories and how he plants hints.

But this is not a bad thing. With many writers, this could be a serious flaw, but Hoch was a craftsman. Tremendous effort went into each story in order to give the reader something new every time. The problems might be very similar abstractly speaking, but the situations he came up are sure to pique anyone's imagination and you always feel like you have gained something by reading the stories.

Which is also because Hoch slowly builds up the town of Northmont as he was writing the stories. There is continuity in these stories, with characters from the town reappearing, with events in the past being referenced to, with distinct references to the time and place of the stories (1920s New England), creating a living setting for Hawthorne's adventures. It makes the stories feel much more personal. And on the other hand, it makes things really disturbing, as the ratio of supercriminals in this little town is very alarming.

Anyway, this is a very entertaining collection of impossible crimes and I will definitely pick up the rest of the series!

By the way, there is an audio drama available of The Problem of the Locked Caboose, produced for the EQMM podcast. It's a fun one, so I recommend a listen!

Original title(s): Edward D. Hoch 『サム・ホーソーンの事件簿』I: 'The Problem of the Covered Bridge' 「有蓋橋の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Old Gristmill' 「水車小屋の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Lobster Shack' 「ロブスター小屋の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Haunted Bandstand' 「呪われた野外音楽堂の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Locked Caboose' 「乗務員車の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Little Red Schoolhouse' 「赤い校舎の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Christmas Steeple' 「そびえ立つ尖塔の謎」　/ 'The Problem of Cell 16' 「十六号独房の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Country Inn' 「古い田舎宿の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Voting Booth' 「投票ブースの謎」 / 'The Problem of the Country Fair' 「農作物祭りの謎」 / 'The Problem of the Old Oak Tree' 「古い樫の木の謎」 / 'The Long Way Down' 「長い墜落」

「世界はそれでも変わりはしない」

「教えて下さい・・・運命とは定められたものでは・・・」

『幻想水滸伝』 

"Tell me the answer. Is fate unchangeable?"

"Suikoden"

My way of dealing with a slightly worrying backlog of half-written reviews is apparently writing reviews on other material and pretending there is not a pile waiting for me. I have a nagging feeling that this is not the right solution.

April, 28th. The time: slightly before 10:00 AM. The location: Tokyo, Shibuya. In front of the Hachikou statue, across of the famous Scramble Crossing, stands Osawa Hitomi with a big suitcase of money. Precisely as ordered by the kidnappers of her sister Maria. Plainsclothes are naturally all over the place, keeping an eye on Hitomi and the money. Everyone is on edge. Will the deal be succesful? Will Maria be released? Will the police catch the kidnappers? With Scramble Crossing being one of the busiest, if not the busiest crossing in the world, will the police be able to protect Hitomi from any possible harm from the kidnappers?  But as the clock slowly nears the all-important 10:00 AM, nobody in the city even expects that this will become the most dangerous day in the history of Shibuya. The day a terrorist organisation threatened to set a deadly virus free in the city.

Nobody does. Not Minorikawa Minoru, a hotblooded reporter on the search for a new scoop in the streets of Shibuya. Not Kanou Shinya, a young and idealistic rookie detective who is also one of the plainsclothes watching Hitomi. Not Endou Achi, an ex-gang leader who has just spotted a particularly nice-looking girl in front of the Hachikou statue. Not Osawa Kenji, father of Hitomi and Maria and a renowned virus researcher, who is on hold in his home. And not Tama, a mysterious person running around in an animal suit, who seems to have lost his / her memory. These five persons are all gathered in Shibuya and little to do they expect that their destinies are intertwined and their actions will eventually save the city. Thus begins the amazing game experience that is 428 ~Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de~ ("428 ~In A Sealed Off Shibuya~").

428 gained quite some fame as one of the few games to have scored a perfect score in the Japanese game magazine Famitsu. Starting it as a Wii game, it got ported to the PSP, PS3 and even iOS recently. I will start off with saying that this is not a proper mystery game. Yes, it is developed by Chunsoft and it is a sound novel, which should naturally remind players of fantastic mystery games like Kamaitachi no Yoru and Trick X Logic. But this is not a mystery game. You are not solving a murder, you are not trying to find evidence that points to the criminal. No. None of that. And despite that, and despite my rule of keeping this a detective-fiction focused blog, I still make an expection for 428. Because it is definitely one of the best games I have ever played and more people should know it. And it has just enough ties with the mystery genre.

So what makes this game so special? It's just a sound novel adventure, some will say. You know, where you read a lot of text and you sometimes get to make a choice that influences the outcome of the story. Which is totally true. The same holds for 428. What makes this such a special game, is the way the story is told. There are five protagonists like I explained above. They all have their own goals, their own lives at the start of the game. You, as the player, can start with any scenario and see what happens. But, and this is a major but,  do realize that every scenerio is connected to each other. Just like how time is a continuous flow of small actions, just as how a butterfly at one of the world can cause a storm at the other end, realize that anything you do in one scenario, has possible effects on some other's story. It is a bit like the famous The Simpsons episode, 22 Short Films About Springfield, with interlinking storylines that develop simultaneously.

The earliest example of this interesting way of telling the story is when you start with police detective Kanou's storyline and see a suspicious man heading for Hitomi. Thinking he might be the kidnapper, Kanou arrests this man. But it turns out that this man is in fact Endou Achi, who was only trying to hit on Hitomi! In this case, both scenarios end with a Game Over: Kanou having made the wrong arrest, while Achi ends up spending the whole day at the police station. This is the very first instance of this interconnectedness in the story, but now imagine that this holds for all five protagonists. All storylines happen simultaneously and hurrying in a taxi with one protagonist for example, might lead to a traffic accident with another protagonist on the run for a hitman! The smallest actions can have tremendous effects on another person's life and it is up to the player to make the correct choices, to influence the destinies of all five protagonists so they will save Shibuya.

It's a brilliant idea and worked out even better! There are about 100 different endings (most of them bad endings) and everytime you try to make just the right corrections, just the right choices to ensure that every persons' scenario can continue. But the bad endings never really feel that bad actually, with a lot of the early bad endings just being hilarious, while others always give you a fair hint to what choices you have to make to continue the story. To help you, the scenarios can be viewed as a handy flow-chart, where you can see every development in every storyline at every point in time (which is also handy to see which scenario is likely to have influence on another). In fact, I contend that it is actually better to get a lot of bad endings in this game. By coming across all the bad endings, you as the player realize how every little action, how every little word can have effects on others. Realizing that everything has meaning really makes this game a special experience.

And the story is just fantastic. The writing is witty, fun and if you think about the amount of endings and possible scenerios, it is just mindblowing! And while I said that 428 is not a proper mystery, there is a bit of a fairly hinted mystery as the story nears its ending, with the terrorist attack under its way and the five major protagonists (and great supporting cast) moving to save the city. There is a spin-off sequel anime series, CANAAN, but I strongly you not to see it before playing 428, as it will spoil some of the best parts of the game.

Would this system work as a proper mystery game? Not sure. Chunsoft already played with the concept of multiple characters in Kamaitachi no Yoru X3, but the storylines were not intertwined as heavily as the ones in 428. The amount of detail (in time) in every scenario also makes a narrator=criminal trick a bit difficult, though one might possibly conceive something with a closed circle situation and multiple protagonists, changing their destinies in ways so they don't panik and start killing off each other. Or something like that. I am definitely not a creative writer.

While Kamaitachi no Yoru portrayed its characters with blue silhouettes, 428 makes use of real actors and still photos. Which really bring the city of Shibuya alive. The actors actually acted for these photos by the way, saying their lines, moving as if they were shooting a movie, all to ensure that every emotion would come across. And I would say that they succeeded. It is kinda strange if you realize that they filmed every scene, meaning they could also have made 428 in an actual movie. Yet not one actor's voice is heard throughout the game.

The funny thing is though, I bought the PSP version about two years ago and I loved it then. In fact, it is the first sound novel I ever played, before Trick X Logic and Kamaitachi no Yoru. A quick search on this blog actually showed that I already mentioned playing this game in December 2009 (which means it's almost three years ago!) 428 is what got me hooked on the genre. Or at least, on Chunsoft's sound novels. And I had played it on-and-off between then and now, but for some reason I never got around to actually finishing it. Maybe I just didn't want it to end. Maybe I wasn't borrowing a TV where I could play it on a bigger screen. Of course, if I hadn't met a friend who borrowed me her TV, I might not have finished this game this week, which in turn would mean that I wouldn't have written this post, which...

I can only conclude this post by repeating that 428 really is a very special game. The sense of satisfaction you get from succesfully changing everyone's destinies so they help each other in accomplishing a greater goal is undescribable. Realizing that anything you do might have the greatest positive effects on someone else's life is a very mysterious feeling, a feeling a normal novel could never conveyed this good. This is a prime example of having writers and developers knowing exactly what they want to accomplish with their story, what they want to tell the reader/player and coming up with the perfect medium to convey that message.

Original Japanese title(s): 『４２８ ~封鎖された渋谷で~』

「扉の前で立ち尽ちつくすちっぽけな背中に気づいて欲しい」

There is not much to go on m'sieur

- On the surface, no. But what lurks inside the subconcious? If the door can only be opened...

Are you serious m'sieur? I thought your interest in psychic detection was purely academic..

"Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars"

I usually just play the association game in my head when looking for opening quotes and posts titles, but I kinda forgot I had bought two books with the word door in the title. As if I can come up with that many mystery-related references to doors...

Paul Halter is a favorite in the mystery blogging world it seems, and I too enjoyed The Night of the Wolf immensely. Though I also have to admit that I actually remember very little of it. Only that it was awesome. Anyway, it was about time to read some more of Halter, so why not start at the beginning, with his first novel?

Welcome to post war England! Welcome to a small unnamed village, where we find the three befriended households of the Darnleys, the Whites and the Stevenses. The titular door of Halter's La Quatrième Porte (The Fourth Door) refers to the door to an attic room where Mrs. Darnley had supposed committed suicide (which was completely locked) some years ago and since then it has been said that she haunts the room. The rumors chase away tenants in the Darnley house at a regular pace, until the arrival of the Lattimers. Alice Lattimer claims to be a psychic and says that Mrs. Darnley was murdered. In an attempt to contact the ghost of Mrs. Darnley, Patrick Lattimer agrees to spend the night in the attic room, which is sealed with wax and the imprint of a rare coin. The next the door opens however, the corpse of a total stranger lies on the floor.

When in doubt, refer to Monty Python. So I guess I think this novel is ... splunge ("it's a great-idea-but-possibly-not-and-I'm-not-being-indecisive!"). I am not sure how to put my thoughts about this novel into words. But as this blog still hasn't implemented direct psychic transmission, I guess I will have to try. The main "problem" I have with this novel is... that I had already guessed the set-up and the solution of the locked room mystery, before I had even opened the book! (No, this is not an attempt at making it look like something impossible)

Seriously, the first idea that popped into my head when I first glanced at the cover, looking at the words The Fourth Door was the correct one! There is joy to be found when you read a detective novel and you slowly build your own theory as to what happened, but it is a bit boring to see that the first, the most simple and basic thoughts you have about the novel turn out to be correct. Like Takumi Shuu points out, there is something inherently contradictory to the detective novel, as readers want to get surprised by the writer, but they also want to solve the mystery themselves. In this case, I wasn't surprised by the solution, but I also didn't feel challenged by the mystery as I already had an idea by the time I opened the first page! I couldn't even feel smug about it, as it wasn't as like I had solved it based on the text. Most of the time while reading the book, I did try to find hints to disprove my gut feeling, but all in vain. This is probably a very personal experience and the trick might be fun if you haven't seen it before, so you probably want to check other reviews for somewhat more objective views on it.

I had already seen variations on the same trick several times before, which an sich is not that rare and that doesn't instantly mean that a trick will turn out to be disappointing in another novel but to be honest, I thought that the variations I had seen were implemented better in those cases too. Which ties in with another 'problem' of La Quatrième Porte. For someone hailed as the modern Carr, there is awfully little atmosphere in the novel. Everything was described in a drab, boring way and little is done with the supernatural angle of the story. Sure, they talk about ghosts and stuff, but it feels like it is quickly disposed as a solution to the impossible murder and the absence of pressure, of fear is really a loss for such an impossible murder.

Though, and here I go to what I liked about the book, there is a perfectly good reason for the sober way of narration of the novel. It is tied to the narrative structure of the book, which is really fun. Halter utilizes a really amusing method of introducing his series detective Dr. Twist and I would say that the narrative structure is definitely the most memorable part of this novel. Twist appears in a very surprising way and while Halter's method of having a meta discussion with The Great Old Giants is different from the method of authors in the New Orthodox movement, one can feel the same kind of education and meta-conciousness among all of these writers.

The problem here is that this narrative style does explain the sober narration, but that doesn't make the narration more compelling. Here we have another contradiction, because what Halter wants to achieve with his narrative style, does inherently not mesh well with what he should achieve with the plot. In the end it depends on what the reader deems more important, which is again quite personal. Like I said, I thought it a shame the narration didn't succeed in conveying the supernatural to me, but I can definitely see why that happened and I think that Halter at least succeeded in coming up with a very entertaining narration style for his story.

As both writers focusing on impossible crimes, both Paul Halter and Nikaidou Reito are often called modern Carrs (though the latter seems to prefer the moniker Japanese Halter) and they do have their share of similarities. Impossible crimes, stories set in post-war societies ('the good old days'), the supernatural, you'll find them in both authors' novels. Nikaidou, despite his focus on impossible crimes, is walking along the other side of the supernatural/grotesque side of things though, aiming more at Edogawa Rampo than Carr as a writer. And despite my reservations about the direction Nikaidou has been heading for the last few years, I do feel that Nikaidou knows what he is aiming for as a writer, the sort of story he wants to write. I am not sure whether Halter is really aiming to be an modern Carr and there is little I can say based on the on novel and one short story collection I've read by Halter, but La Quatrième Porte does fall a bit short of Carr because of its somewhat ambiguous goals, in my opinion.

So, yeah. I think La Quatrième Porte is splunge. Monty Python, saving people with a limited vocabulary since 1969.

P≠NP

"If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man”

Judges 16:17

It was actually about time for me to get my hair cut. For some reason, I really hate having my hair cut, though there is always a time when even I have to admit that things are getting out of hand. And into my eyes. Though I do wonder why I can't find those cheap 1000 yen barbers here in Kyoto: you couldn't get anywhere without seeing one of those in Fukuoka. And how is this related to today's book? Well...

It is probably more usual to get to know your future wife by taking the same classes at university, or having a common friend or meeting at a party. Asukai Kyou and Miyuki first met beneath the apartment of Mishima Satsuki, a famous writer-illustrator who was also supposed to have psychic powers. Was, because she had been murdered moments before Kyou and Miyuki met. Kyou happened to have witnessed the murder from across, as he was setting his telescope up for an exciting night of stargazing. Miyuki happened to have found the body, together with Satsuki's sister Yuumi, as they had come to visit Satsuki at her apartment. And Satsuki, our murder victim, just happened to have her hair cut after she was killed.

Fast forward six years and we are at the proper beginning of Ayatsuji Yukito's Meifuusou Jiken - Satsujin Houteishiki II ("The Howling Wind Mansion Case - Murder Equation II"). Kyou and Miyuki are happily married now and Miyuki is supposed to go to a small middle school reunion, where they're going to dig up a time capsule they buried ten years ago. Kyou was supposed to go with Miyuki (as she wanted to show off her police detective husband), but an accident prevents from Kyou from going himself. As Miyuki had been bragging a long time about Kyou, she sees no other way around it than dragging along Kyou's twin brother (also called Kyou) to fool her friends. Yuumi also appears at the reunion, held at the Howling Wind Mansion, but strangely enough looking and acting exactly like her murdered sister. Complete with the whole psychic powers thing and so. And just liked her sister, Yuumi ends up being murdered. And even more mysterious, the murderer cut off her hair after murdering her, just like what happened to Satsuki.

The sequel to Satsujin Houteishiki continues the slightly lighter, more humorous tone (most of it deriving from the switch of the Asukai twins) which sets it apart from Ayatsuji's Mansion series. You might be fooled by the title (I was!), expecting a story where the setting of the Howling Wind Mansion would serve an important part in the atmosphere of the story and where the mansion itself might play a big role in the mystery itself. I mean, this is an Ayatsuji novel and he did add in all those maps in for some reason, right? I was thus quite surprised to see that the mansion itself played a very minor role in the story and I really wonder why the story wasn't titled something like Murder Equation II - The Problem of the Cut Hair, in the same vein as the first book in the series?

Because that is what makes this story fun. Why was the victim's hair cut? It mimicks the main problem of the first novel (where the victim's arm and head was cut off for some mysterious reason) and in that sense, the two Murder Equation novels really feel like a set, as they address the same type of mystery. But while the two main problems are very similar, the execution of the two novels are very different. I think I like the main idea in the first novel better, but the overall structure in Meifuusou Jiken - Satsujin Houteishiki II is much better.

I had already said in my review of Kotou Puzzle that it is hard to explain what is so great to a logical chain in detective novels, as opposed to for example a locked room trick. But that is exactly what is so great in Meifuusou Jiken: Ayatsuji has constructed a great logical chain that leads to the murderer (which in turn leads to the mystery of the cut hair). I think this might be a remnant of his experience at the Kyoto University Mystery Club: a lot of the stories written there are solved according to a Queenian elimination method (the murderer has X characteristics, and then you cross-compare those X characteristics to the suspects). In this novel, Ayatsuji has constructed a logical maze that really messes with the readers if they only employ the elimination method, showing fake weak points at several points that are only meant as traps to lure in the reader's deduction. It might not be a surprise if I say that this is actually the first novel by Ayatsuji to include a proper Challenge to the Reader and he really did his best trying to fool the reader (without becoming unfair).

I really liked this part of the novel, but the logical maze does weaken the position of the cut hair as the star of this story. At least to me. Which is why I prefer the way the main mystery (the cut up body) is handled in the first novel, while said logical maze and the way it in the end ties up to the problem of the cut hair makes this story overall better than its predecessor.

The Murder Equation novels have a distinct literary grammar: in both novels data files are inserted between the chapters, which contain character profiles, reports on the crime (like autopsy reports and such). It does kinda break the illusion of the fictional world, but one might say that this is what Ayatsuji likes to do: experiment with ways of narration. His Mansion series for example often feature two-dimensional narratives. I think that one of the reasons his novels are so pleasant to read is that Ayatsuji constantly tries different ways to present his stories and also in a way that the style of presentation is relevant to the mystery he has constructed. In the Murder Equation series, the data files do convey a feeling of pure fairness to the reader, really challenging you into solving the puzzle yourself (and boy am I happy I had written something similar in my review of the first book: it always feels nice to know you're not contradicting yourself!).

The Murder Equation series is on hold at the moment, though I think that Ayatsuji did once state he would like to do a third one in the series. The series is quite different from his Mansion series, and I do prefer the more geeky, meta-approach to the detective story in that series, but the Murder Equation books are sure to entertain any fan of the genre.

Ah, my backlog of reviews to be written is still horrible though, and it is certainly not going to shrink with the pace I've been reading with lately... You might expect to see something American in Japanese, something Japanese in American, something French in English, a holocaust of a family or the self-destruction of a family in the following days/weeks/months* (*delivery times might change depending on unforeseen circumstances, including, but not exclusively, videogames, incapability in channeling the writing muse, forgetfulness and slacking. Though it's probably the latter).

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人　『鳴風荘事件　殺人方程式　ＩＩ』

Death wears an Orchid

Okay. I'll take a bunch of those white ones.

- I wouldn't do that if I was you.

No?

- They are lillies, m'sieur. Some people associate them with death...

Yikes! Thanks for telling me. What other flowers do you have?

- Dahlias?

What do they signify?

- Insecurity.

Hmm, I don't want to give her the wrong idea about me.

"Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars"

Please tell me the answer, is fate unchangeable? Yes, I will have to return this TV in a few weeks. Though I love playing games on it. Though I didn't really like Suikoden II as much as I did Suikoden I.

Nikaidou Ranko and her stepbrother Reito should by now be familiar with readers of this blog. Or else I refer to the Ranko tag. The Nikaidou Ranko series might be a sorta of an acquired taste, the more I think about it. Set in post-war Japan, Nikaidou clearly aims at a sort-of modern Edogawa Rampo story-telling with his novels. Weird, grotesque murders and situations that seem like a continuation of the grand master himself. This becomes more clear as the series continues (see Akuma no Labyrinth), but I have to admit, it does get harder to really get into later Nikaidou. I mean, what starts out as a honest bit of Rampo homage, has been giving us destined detectives, cannibals and Nazi-Werewolves (I will never drop this point) in slightly more recent entries. I haven't even started in the more newer novels, for sheer fear of what Nikaidou might have turned to the series into.

But to get back to the book: Yuri Meikyuu ("Labyrinth of Lillies") is the first short story collection featuring Ranko, with three rather long short stories. It starts off with Russia-Kan no Nazo ("The Russian Mansion Mystery"), which in turn starts with the regular meeting of the Murderer's Art club (a mystery club) to which Ranko and Reito belong. This time, the meeting is about mysterious events the members themselves have experienced in their life. The final member to tell his story is old man Speer, a Jewish-German who had fled from Germany to Japan during the war and who used to be Ranko and Reito's teacher. Speer tells the club that he used to work as a spy after World War I in Russia and one day, he was supposed to deliver vital intellegence to the Blizzard Mansion, a mansion hidden somewhere in Russia's snow fields where blizzards just won't stop. He manages to fulfill his mission thanks to the help of some fellow soldiers and is invited to stay a bit in the Blizzard Mansion. But the following day, the complete mansion just disappears. Speer still has no idea what happened to the mansion, but Ranko has an idea about what happened.

An impossible disappearance of a building! Queen's The Lamp of God is of course mentioned and while there are few variations in the story-types involving disappearing buildings/trains/etc., I still liked this story, mainly because how the story was told and because Nikaidou added a little touches to tie it up to the historical background (post WWI Russia, the revolution etc.). It works well as a short story and I was quite pleased with it.

Misshitsu no Yuri ("Lilies in the Locked Room") is about the locked room murder of a writer in her apartment. The murder was actually recorded on audio-tape, because the victim was dictating a manuscript when the murderer visited her apartment, but does it also proof to be a clue to the murderer? No, not really actually. But the thing I actually want to say the most about this story is: the basic ideas behind this locked room murder is precisely the same as a story I had been playing around with in my head for two years now. Heck, I sorta tried it in real life too. Heck, I even mentioned it at the time on this blog (point V)!

This story predates my idea and I never actually wrote it, so I am not complaining. In fact, one of the reasons I never wrote the story (besides the fact that I can't write) was because I couldn't never seem to work out in a satisfying way. It would always end up as too obvious. And I am sorta happy to say that Nikaidou also didn't really succeed with this story. Which is actually very, very low of me. But still. I actually think Nikaidou made it worse, because the clues he left pointing at the murderer and the way the actual locked room is set up, make no sense at all. There was no reason for the murderer to do all that. Especially if you realize that by creating the locked room, (s)he was actually leaving more clues incriminating him/herself! Anyway, I guess I'll abandon this idea for a while, though I still want to use it one day...

The last story in the collection is more of a short novellette, called Gekiyaku ("Strong Poison"). And yes, it's a reference to Sayers, even though the contents of the story are more related to Christie. The story is about a poisoning murder done during a bridge party, with Reito as one of the attending guests. It's a bit more complex than Christie's story, with eight people spread over two tables and a bit of walking around by the dummies, but yes, the basic idea is the same. How was the victim poisoned and by whom. Ranko wasn't there at the party, but an examination of the score cards (like Poirot and a hint of Vance!) gives her a good idea about who the murderer is.

A fairly mediocre story. The inclusion of the bridge rules as a sort of intermezzo was sorta strange, as it broke up the flow of the story. Of course, the story had a very, very tedious beginning with the victim making lots enemies, just so we could have a nice cast of suspects. The ending of the story is surprising though, with an incredible amount of plot-twists and multiple solutions, that almost seem too impressive for just a short novellette. Actually, it doesn't just seem too impressive: it simply is. A look at other reviews showed that a lot of people thought that it was unneccesary complex. Not in the sense of logic, but just in the sense that Nikaidou tries too hard to surprise the reader with several solutions presented one after another. I wouldn't say simple is best, but in this case, simpler would have been better. And shorter. Seriously, this story could have lost half the page count and still work.

All in all a not very impressive collection. I only really enjoyed the first story, which feels the most like a Nikaidou story with its detailed historical background and the more gothic atmosphere. Which is what he does best, I guess. Maybe I should continue reading the series to see whether he managed to get rid of the Nazi-Werewolves.

And yes, another bland review, presented by Lack of Sleep, I Want to Play Videogames and of course Mediocre Books Lead to Mediocre Reviews. But from what I've read until now, I think I will be a bit more enthusiastic about Hoch's Hawthorne series. A bit. And to wrap things up, I pose the question: why is there a complete Sam Hawthorne collection available in Japanese but not in English?

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人　『ユリ迷宮』: 「ロシア館の謎」 / 「密室のユリ」 / 「劇薬」