Heads You Lose

青き空よ、果てしなき空

光がそこにある限り

熱く強く　俺達は生きてゆく

愛をかざし　守りたい

永遠の未来

『永遠の未来』　（アニメタル)

Oh blue sky, neverending sky

As long as light exists there

We will live passionately, strongly

Holding up love, I want to protect

The eternal future

"The Eternal Future" (Animetal)

And just as I had made plans to finish the book I'm reading now within the next two days, some new books are delivered. Temptation to start in new books... too...great..to...resist...

Yamada Fuutarou was a prolific writer of mystery and historical novels and is nowadays probably best known for his many historical, ninja novels (including Kouga Ninpou Chou, which set an example for battle manga later). He also wrote many novels set in the early Meiji period (usually referred to as meiji-mono/Meiji stories). Meiji Dantoudai ("The Meiji Guillotine") is one of these historical mystery novels. It is 1869, one year after the infamous Meiji Restoration, which meant the end of the Shogunate and restoration of imperial rule. The ports of Japan were opened for foreign visitors for the first time in 400 years, marking the start of modernization. The new government has its hands full with guiding the country towards industralization and catching up with the west, but also with the aftermath of the revolution and corruption within its own administration. The danjoudai, the Imperial Prosecuting and Investigating Office, is an office reinstated from the ancient Ritsuryo legal system, dedicated to hunt down and punish corruption and rebels. To help in their fight against evil, the danjoudai even imported a guillotine from France to instigate fear upon its enemies. Two of the danjoudai's stars are Kawaji Toshiyoshi  (who would later play a large role in forming the modern Japanese police force) and Kaduki Keishirou (who always wears a suikan). It was Kaduki who brought the guillotine to Japan, together with Esmeralda, a spirit medium and heir of a family of guillotine constructors. During their investigations, Kawaji and Kaduki come across crimes which seem impossible, from ghostly rickshaws to people being cut down by unknown, supernatural forces, but by summoning the spirit of the dead, Esmeralda always manages to bring light into darkness.

I hardly read any historical detective novels, but if they were all like Meiji Dantoudai, I would definitely be reading them much more often. For Meiji Dantoudai is a masterpiece. It's easily one of the best novels I read this year, and will also be remembered as one of the best mystery novels I've ever read. When I first heard people saying they liked Yamada Fuutarou's mysteries, I wasn't sure what to think of it (as I only knew his name from his ninja novels), but I apologize! I was wrong! There's nothing wrong with liking his mystery novels! If anything, why wouldn't you like them?!

I have to admit that Meiji Dantoudai has a slow start though. It is in principle a short story collection, but the first two stories just serve as an introduction to Kawaji, Kaduki, Esmeralda and a group of five lazy and corrupt rasotsu ('policemen', 'footsoldiers) who work are forced to work under Kawaji and Kaduki. By the time you've gone through them, you're already at a quarter of the book.

But then the stories really start and it is amazing. Meiji Dantoudai does exactly what I'd expect, what I'd want from a historical detective and pulls it off perfectly. The 'easy' part is probably putting the story in a certain historical context (or else the 'special' setting wouldn't really be necessary). Yamada is best known for his historical work, so it shouldn't be surprising to see that this part is done really well. Historical events and characters pop up in surprising ways in each of the stories, but never in a way as to overwhelm the main mystery plot. Kawaji Toshiyuki is a historical person too, of course, but the use of characters like James Hepburn's assistent Kishida Ginkou is also done very well, but never intrusive. The story is set just afer the Meiji Restoration, which was done with quite a bit of assassinations on high officials on both sides (those who wanted to restore imperial rule, and those opposing that), so one can imagine that both sides still had scores to settle. These events form an important background to Meiji Dantoudai and the way history is weaved with Yamada's fiction is really captivating. I guess the one thing I know that even gets close to this is Rurouni Kenshin (which is also set in Meiji, dealing with the aftermath of the Restoration), but Meiji Dantoudai is much more grounded in actual history.

Of course, a bit of historical knowledge does really add to the experience. I am the first to admit that I was unfamiliar with many names at first, but even without knowing everything and the precise details of every event refered to, you can still enjoy Meiji Dantoudai as a historical novel. Yamada's prose is great, really bringing the world to life both through 'plain' narration as well as well-written lines (←this is the sociolinguistician in me speaking).

But good historical background alone does not make for a great mystery short story collection. But good prose and historical research aren't the only things to be found here. Meiji Dantoudai offers some of the best impossible crime situations in a historical setting. What is most impressive is that they all feature very Meiji-esque elements, which reinforces the historical detective element. America yori Ai wo Komete ("From America, With Love") for example has a great variation on the no-footsteps-in-the-snow trope, with a victim apparently having been driven by a rickshaw, without a puller. Just the rickshaws prints remain on the snow. The fact that the ghost of war criminal thought to have fled to the United States is said to be haunting the neigbourhood isn't making things less scary. Or what about Engankyou Ashikiri Ezu ("The Leg Amputation Telescope Illustration"), where the rare, modern object the telescope allows for surprising discoveries, including the accidental witnessing of a murder. Eitaibashi no Kubitsuribito ("The Hanged Man of Eitai Bridge") is a great alibi deconstruction story, where you really feel how smaller the world has become since the Meiji period. Comparing the alibi deconstruction plots in this story with stories like Matsumoto Seichou's Ten to Sen or Ayukawa Tetsuya's Kuroi Trunk and you'll see how a historical setting can offer much surprise to an old trope. Onore no Kubi wo Daku Shitai ("The Body That Carries Its Own Head") is in comparison a bit boring in its execution of a familiar trope, but once again makes great use of the setting. The best story is the first mystery Kawaji and Kaduki encounter though, Kaidan Tsukiji Hotel Kan ("The Tsujiki Hotel Ghost Story"), which features the best example of a mystery making the best use of its (limited) setting. The plot oozes Meiji-atmosphere, and features a trick that seems like something Shimada Souji would write (save for the fact Meiji Dantoudai was written much earlier).

In a way, I think that in a sense, historical mysteries don't differ much from other 'special' settings like a science fiction setting (like The Caves of Steel), a pure fantasy setting (like Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban or Snow White). As long as the reader is made aware of the characteristics of the setting (be it the absence of technology/knowledge of the present, or the presence of magic or robots), and is told what the limits are (i.e. rules for magic and robots, or what is available in a certain historical setting), a great, fair-play puzzle plot is always possible and can be made even more fun because it has a setting you usually don't come across. I for one really enjoyed Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban because it was a totally fair mystery story, which made great use of a device like magic. A historical setting sets limits on a fair-play plot, but also offers surprising possibilites you might not even consider because it utilizes technology/knowledge the modern man doesn't think of. Meiji Dantoudai is a great example of how to do it right.

And just as you think that Meiji Dantoudai has given you everything it has, the last story, Seigi no Seifu Wa Arieru Ka ("Can There Be A Just Government?") shakes things up by forming a perfect epilogue to the short story collection. It connects every short story up until now into one surprising, complete narrative, transforming the whole structure of the book. I have read a couple of connected short story collections, but never seen it done as good as here. The one thing I can think of that comes close is the videogame Gyakuten Kenji 2. With short story collections, it can be tempting to just read the stories in any order, depending on your mood, but Meiji Dantoudai really shows the potential of connected short story collections.

Meiji Dantoudai is in short a must read for any fan of the genre. It's a great mystery short story collection, it's a great impossible crime collection, it's a great historical detective, it's a great connected short story collection.... it does everything I would want from such a book, and does it excellently.Yamada Fuutarou has Kawaji Toshiyuki appear in some more of his other Meiji novels, and I will definitely make more trips in the future, to this fantastic past world Yamada writes about.

Original Japanese title(s): 山田風太郎 『明治断頭台』: 「弾正台大巡察」 / 「巫女エスメラルダ」 / 「怪談築地ホテル館」 / 「アメリカより愛をこめて」 / 「永代橋の首吊人」 / 「遠眼鏡足切絵図」 / 「おのれの首を抱く死体」 / 「正義の政府はあり得るか」

Butterfly in Shades of Grey

ゴキゲンな蝶になってきらめく風に乗って

今すぐ　キミに会いに行こう

Butter-Fly (和田光司）

I want to become a happy butterfly, and ride on the glittering wind

I am coming to see you now

"Butter-Fly" (Wada Kouji)

When in doubt of what to read, I usually go for something written by Edogawa Rampo or Yokomizo Seishi. Partly because I always have something unread of them lying here, partly because they're easy to get into. And yet that Edogawa Rampo pile never seems to shrink. The Yokomizo Seishi pile however is finally done for the moment; I still have two or three unread novels somewhere, but I have seen adaptations of them so I am not in a hurry to read them.

Yokomizo Seishi was one of most famous Japanese detective writers, and his creation Kindaichi Kousuke is basically the quintessential Japanese private detective. A great number of Kindaichi Kousuke novels are still considered to be among the best of Japanese mystery novels (including Gokumontou, Honjin Satsujin Jiken and Inugamike no Ichizoku). And then there are the lesser known Kindaichi Kousuke novels. Mitsu Kubi Tou? Yoru Aruku? People might know them by name, but fewer have actually read them. Fushichou ("The Immortal Butterfly") is also one of the lesser known stories. There were once two wealthy, rival families in the town of Imizu, the Yabe family and the Tamatsukuri family. And like a Romeo and Juliet story, Shinichirou, the eldest son of the Yabe family, fell in love with Tomoko, daughter of the Tamatsukuri family. They even made plans to elope, hoping to escape through the set of caves that connects their houses, but their plans failed. Horribly. Shinichirou was held captured by his father, his younger brother was found stabbed to death in the caves and no sign of Tomoko: it was thought she must have killed the brother and then commited suicide by jumping in a deep crevice in the cave.

Twenty-three year later, the Tamatsukuri family plays host to three Japanese Brazilians visiting the home country: the wealthy heiress Mari, her mother Kimie and the companion Asako. The head of the Yabe family however swears he recognizes Kimie as Tomoko, and suspects she must have fled to Brazil all those years ago, only to come back to her family now. Private detective Kindaichi Kousuke is hired to investigate the case, but little did he know that the caves were to be the stage for a new murder.

Well, actually, by now he should know, because it more often than not that people start to die after Kindaichi Kousuke's arrival on the scene, a trait he shares with his grandson.

If I were to explain Fushichou in short, I would just say it reminds me of that one Kindaichi Kousuke classic, Yatsu Haka Mura. We have the two rivaling families, the backstory with murder and of course, the caves. Much of both stories happen within the caves (heck, half of the Yatsu Haka Mura game was just cave exploration...). Add in a bit of Yoru Aruku (sleepwalking) and Inugamike no Ichizoku (uncertainty about the identity of a person) and there we have Fushichou.

As a puzzle plot, it's decent and unlike Yatsu Haka Mura, actually done carefully with proper foreshadowing and hints. A bit too neatly maybe, as it's pretty easy to arrive at the solution of the puzzle. Also, the murder happens quite late in this novelette, with subsequent events following each other in rapid succession, making the first half a bit slow, and the second half a bit too fast. It's all in all a decent Kindaichi Kousuke story, with all the right elements you'd expect from such a story, but definitely not near the level of Yokomizo's best.

Fushichou is a novelette, and my copy also includes the short story Jinmensou ("The Face Sore") to fill up the pages of the volume. Kindaichi Kousuke is on a resting holiday together with his old friend inspector Isokawa, and one night, Matsuyo, one of the maids makes a suicide attempt, saying she has killed her little sister again during one of her sleepwalks. Her sister is indeed found dead later, but it seems Matsuyo she had an alibi for the time of her sister's death. The following day, Kindaichi and Isokawa start to investigate the history behind the sister, Matsuyo and the strange swelling on her body that resembles the sister's face.

A jinmensou is a swelling of the flesh that resembles a face. I first came across the phenomena in a famous chapter of the medical science fiction series Black Jack, but the Jinmensou is also known as a youkai, being a creature that manifests itself as face on someone's body. And it's creepy. In fact, most of Yokomizo's short stories don't do too well in the atmosphere department compared to his novels, but Jinmensou does it very well, with the creepy face, the suicide attempt and the sleepwalking (again!). The way Matsuyo's jinmensou is explained and how it ties up to the main plot is also surprisingly good.

As a puzzle plot, Jinmensou is not very special though. Actually, most of the story is spent on the explanation of Matsuyo and her sister's relation, and then the solution basically just presents itself. It is thus more a story where you just enjoy the atmosphere, rather than actively try to solve the crime. It's not a bad story by any means, but again not one of the classics.

Fushichou is an okay volume, but definitely not required reading material. It has the usual Yokomizo Seishi elements, but it misses that extra little bit that make it classic material. If you have already gone through all the major Kindaichi Kousuke novels and you want to start with the rest, then Fushichou is a decent candidate.

Oh, and I quite like the cover, actually. There are no transforming butterfly-humans in the story though...

Original Japanese title(s): 横溝正史 『不死蝶』: 「不死蝶」 / 「人面瘡」

Little Wing

「世の中甘くみてるなら安心だ。どこにも光がないと絶望してるより」

『麒麟の翼』

 "I'm relieved you can still look lightly at the harshness of society. It's better than only feel despair without any hope of light"

"The Wings of the Kirin"

As always using this first paragraph to say something random: I had played Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon only once, when it was first released and remembered it as the game where you had to solve a crate pushing puzzle every two minutes. But thinking I might have just made it seem more horrible in my memory, I played the game again recently. But it turns out Broken Sword 3 was indeed riddled with crate puzzles. Sigh. But now back to today's topic.

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

It is said that Nihonbashi is where all roads start in Japan, being the starting point of the Edo five routes. To Aoyagi Takeaki, Nihonbashi Bridge meant the ending point of his life. Aoyagi was stabbed in a underpass near the bridge, but for some reason walked, staggered all the way to the bridge, without asking for help from anyone, only to pass away in front of the winged Kirin statue on Nihonbashi bridge. Why was he so anxious to get to the Kirin statue? Around the same time, a young man Yajima Fyuki is found holding Aoyagi's belongings, but he is hit by a car during a chase by policemen. How are the two incidents connected? Kaga Kyouichirou from Nihonbashi station sets out once more to find what tragedy lies behind this all in Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin").

As you can see above, I've reviewed most of Higashino Keigo's Kaga Kyouichirou series, though it's not just novels; the reviews of the books until 2000's Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake are all based on the novels, but I wrote my thoughts on Akai Yubi and Shinzanmono based on their TV adaptations starring Abe Hiroshi as Kaga Kyouichirou. Kirin no Tsubasa (2012) is the motion picture set in the same series, with the same actors / production team behind it.

As a mystery film, Kirin no Tsubasa leaves a lot to be desired for. Like Shinzanmono and Akai Yubi, most of the film you'll be seeing scenes of how those left behind (Aoyagi's family and Yajima's girlfriend) are coping with their losses and how the police investigation forces them to rethink what a family is. Kaga is always there, doing his work, but he serves more like a bridge between these more emotional scenes. This was admittedly also the case with Shinzanmono and Akai Yubi, but they worked in their own, specific ways: Shinzanmono was a TV show, so you had a conclusion of some sorts every episode (every episode a small mystery was solved), while Akai Yubi was an inverted detective, where you know the family in focus was actually involved with the crime, so you had a sense of suspense watching how the family stuck together in an attempt to deceive Kaga. With Kirin no Tsubasa, you're just watching and waiting for something to happen. And you will have to wait for a long, long time for anything to happen (but crying and yelling).

And then the production team suddenly remembered this is a mystery film and they have a dead guy in their story. In the last thirty, forty minutes of the film, the viewer is suddenly presented with a lot of information and developments which kinda come out of nowhere, without proper foreshadowing and hinting. And before you know it, the case is solved.

I was stumped.

The last half of the film basically said,  "A large part of the first part of this two hour film you're watching, well, you can forget about that. That one character we paid so much attention to? Forget her. We will too. Oh, you need clues? Well, we kinda forget them in the first half, so we'll show them to you now, right before we use them to progress in the story. That way, you can't say there were no hints!". Storylines pop up from nowhere, and a lot of the parallel storytelling and linking up to the Winged Kirin statue disappear. As if you're watching two different films.

Kirin no Tsubasa in the end is more of a character study than a proper mystery film, and while Higashino Keigo's works often walk along a vague line of mystery/character drama, I can't help but feel that either he, or the film production committee went overboard with the human drama stuff. Of course better for the general public and the Shinzanmono, Akai Yubi and Kirin no Tsubasa productions might indeed purposedly focus more on human drama, but even within this set Kirin no Tsubasa feels off.

But this might be said of the Kaga Kyouichirou series in general. The earlier novels like Sotsguyou are classic puzzle plots, and Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita and Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita are fun puzzle experiments due to those stories not having a proper solution (i.e. the hints are there and it is possible to deduce the murderer, but names are not mentioned in the text itself), but the last few entries in the series are lighter on mystery and heavier on drama. Though that might be because I only saw the adaptations.

Shinzanmono had a whole season to flesh out the city of Ningyouchou as a setting and did that wonderfully; Kirin no Tsubasa had only two hours to do the same and it didn't work out that well. Nihonbashi bridge does form an excellent starting point of the film, and it is wonderful how the story keeps leading us back to this starting point of all roads, but even though the rest of Nihonbashi is also important to the story, there is just too little time to really present it as a believable setting; they're just points on a map. A shame, because I thought setting was one of the things Shinzanmono did really well.

I haven't read the original novel, so I don't know how faithful the Kirin no Tsubasa film is to the original, but it does not work as a mystery film. It just doesn't. It drags on, it offers little payback and the things that made Shinzanmono work as a human drama - mystery film hybrid, are precisely the elements that are not present in this production.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　（原）　『麒麟の翼』

Paging the Crime Doctor

Primum non nocere 

Not sure whether I was influenced subliminally or not by the subject of this review, but I have been playing the classic game Theme Hospital lately. Many, many moons I played the game, but never finished it. And now., many years later.. it's still a fun game. I play a lot of games, but I have never really gotten into strategy/management games... except for this game, and Rollercoaster Tycoon. Maybe I should read a detective featuring a rollercoaster...

A year ago, I reviewed Edward D. Hoch's Diagnosis: Impossible, the short story collection featuring Dr. Sam Hawthorne solving the most incredible impossible crimes. Well, to be exact, it was the Japanese version of that collection, which added an extra Hoch story. Also, there have only been two Sam Hawthorne collections published in English (I have been told a third is on its way), but the complete Dr. Sam Hawthorne series has been available in Japanese for years. Which is also sitting here in my bookcase. And so we move on to the third Japanese volume, which has the English subtitle of Diagnosis: Murder 3 - Further Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne. General practictioner Dr. Sam Hawthorne has been living in the small New England town of Northmont for a long time now, which has proven to be a great home to him, despite a rather big part of the population consisting of mastercriminals who specialize in impossible crimes and a declining population rate because of said crimes (murders). But a town is just a part of a greater country, and thus we see nationwide socio-economical changes like Great Depression and the Prohibition form the background of this set of Dr. Sam's adventures.

This is either a hard to describe short story collection, or a very easy one.. It's basically the same as the first collection. And the second. One might have noted that this review is about the third collection. Where's the review of the second one? Well, I had skipped writing one, because I couldn't think of anything to add to my review of the first collection! I could have reposted that review, just swapping the titles. And to be honest, I could have done the same for this third collection...

Which probably makes it sound like Further Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne is a boring set of stories, but again, it isn't! It's a very solid collection of wonderfully constructed impossible crimes, each of them a great example of how to write a mystery short story! The way Hoch manages to present a new impossible crime and flesh out the background setting every time perfectly in just that amount of pages per story is amazing! Many writers would commit an impossible crime to have such a talent.

The 'problem' is that Hoch manages to keep a fairly high standard, every time, always.  The first collection is not much different from the second or the third. They're all good, but it would be difficult to describe the differences between the collections, because there are few. Sure, I could do a short summary of every story, but I once again choose not too, because considering the length of the stories and their set-up, it would be very easy to spoil some of them. But they are good. Of course, not every story is as good as another, but the 'lesser' ones are good stuff. In Further Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne, I liked The Problem of the Snowbound Cabin (well, snow + impossible crime = you can guess), The Problem of the Invisible Acrobat (acrobat disappearing during act) and The Problem of Hunting Lodge (murder scene without foot prints), but every story is worth reading.

The fact is though that a lot of the stories are actually very similar. Like a Scooby Doo episode, you can guess the following is present. 1) Sam Hawthorne meets a fellow townsman whom we have never met before, but Sam is acquainted with (in same cases a recurring character). Said character is involved in way or another with whatever the title of the story is. 2) Sam is witness to the impossible crime. He usually just happens to be there (often doing his rounds). There is a moment where all witness lose sight of the subject or object of the crime. 3) The trick behind the impossible crime was done in that split moment nobody could have seen anything, be it a switch, or setting off a mechanism. 4) The story ends, and Sam alludes to his next adventure. Most adventures follow this scheme, making it easy to guess what's going on. If you'd just read the stories seperatedly, this might not seem to obvious, but as every collection has about ten stories you read in one go, yeah, this pattern tends to become obvious.

And now I noticed I already said this in my review of the first collection. Aaah. Like I said, the collections, and thus the reviews, are not very different....

Well, there are some minor changes. The background setting of Northmont keeps developing throughout the stories. Minor storylines like Sam's car and his assistent keep popping up, providing a lively world in which all these crimes happen. And while I said all the stories are very much alike (also in their high standard), there are some little surprises here and there, like stories like fake solutions. Which considering the length of the stories, is actually amazing. To do a great impossible crime story, in a believable setting, and a fake solution, all of that in a limited amount of pages...

This Japanese volume also contains a bonus Hoch story, The Nile Cat. It's a short crime story about figuring out the motive for a crime. Short, but good. Not much to tell about without getting into spoilerific territory.

In short, Diagnosis: Impossible 3 - Further Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (the English release will probably feature a different title, I guess?) is a great impossible crime short story collection. If you liked previous collections, you're bound to love this one too. If you got bored by the formula though, you won't find anything new here.

Original title(s): Edward D. Hoch 『サム・ホーソーンの事件簿』Ⅲ: 'The Problem of the Hunting Lodge' 「ハンティングロッジの謎」 / 'The Problem of the Body in the Haystack' 「干し草に埋もれた死体の謎」 / 'The Problem of Santa's Lighthouse' 「サンタの灯台の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Graveyard Picnic' 「墓地のピクニックの謎」 / 'The Problem of the Crying Room' 「防音を施した親子室の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Fatal Fireworks'「危険な爆竹の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Unfinished Painting'「描きかけの水彩画の 謎」 / 'The Problem of the Sealed Bottle'「密封された酒びんの謎」 / 'The Problem of the Invisible Acrobat' 「 消えた空中ブランコ乗りの謎」 / 'The Problem of the Curing Barn' 「 真っ暗になった通期熟成所の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Snowbound Cabin' 「雪に閉ざされた山小屋の謎」 / 'The Problem of the Thunder Room' 「窓のない避雷室の謎」 / 'The Nile Cat' 「ナイルの猫」

Three Days to Heaven

思い出はいつもキレイだけど

それだけでおなかがすくわ

「そばかす」　(Judy and Mary)

Memories are always beautiful

But my stomach feels empty with just that

"Freckles" (Judy and Mary)

And because I always use this first paragraph to talk about random topics: Broken Sword 5 - The Serpent's Curse Episode 1 was great! Muuuuuch better than the previous two games, and a great, humurous adventure on its own. But now I'll have to wait another two months before the final episode is released.... And talking about stories split up in two volumes...

I had a lot of fun with the game Danganronpa and its sequel Super Danganronpa 2 is probably the best detective game I played this year. The story of a group of students of the Hope Peak's Academy forced to commit the perfect murder and the surviving members trying to find the murderer in classroom trials was incredibly exciting, and this quirky mix of Battle Royale, Gyakuten Saiban and the psychedelic atmosphere proved to be a great hit in Japan, which in turn spawned a mountain of related merchandise and other releases. Among them is the novel Danganronpa / Zero (written by Kodaka Kazutaka), which serves as the prequel to the games. Set in a time when Hope's Peak Academy was just a school for super class students, when people weren't forced to kill each other yet.

Or maybe not. A certain incident has happened within the grounds of Hope's Peak Academy, leading to a very big group of unhappy students, despite the school's council efforts at a cover-up. The situation is looking grim and it seems like a violent storm might take over the school any day. But Otonashi Ryouko has little to do with that. Mostly because she is suffering from severe amnesia, which causes her to forget pretty much anything, including the tension in the academy. The only thing she remembers is her friend, Super Class Neurologist Matsuda, who is treating her. But it seems that even her forgetfulness might not be enough of an excuse, because despite her best efforts at not getting involved, Ryouko seems to be unable to avoid getting in the center of events. What is the incident that caused this, and what has it to do with her lost memories?

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. How to talk about Danganronpa / Zero. First of all, forget about reading this before playing Danganronpa. Heck, you might even consider playing Super Danganronpa 2 first. Sure, this is the prequel and set before all of the events in those two games, but it also spoils a lot of the plot twists you're supposed to uncover yourself in those games. Most important of all, despite being a prequel, Danganronpa / Zero will spoil the identity of the big bad of the first game. Furthermore, Danganronpa / Zero is actually quite badly written, so you really need the background information available in the games to even start thinking about enjoying Danganronpa / Zero. Many references and allusions to certain events and characters only make sense if you have played the games, and the world setting as presented in Danganronpa / Zero is very vague, showing just a glimpse. It's basically impossible to get a clear idea of the world of Danganronpa through just this novel, even though it's a pretty important aspect of the story.

One of the problems of the story as it is told, is it lacks any sense of direction. We're introduced to the amnesiac antics of Ryouko, and then stuff just happens to her. A lot of stuff, including murderous attempts at her life and Ryouko being framed for a murder. And Ryouko just flows along with the events. The whole story is seen from a very passive point of view, which is a bit hard to believe considering the seriousness of the events. Sure, Danganronpa always had a bit of a weird atmosphere ("Oh, one of us got killed... the murderer is among us... wanna go on a date? I have a present for ya!"), but Danganronpa / Zero takes a long time to get an interesting point. Add in that Ryouko's narration is a bit... tiresome to get through and you might understand why even though it's a very short story, it's pretty hard to get through.

As a detective novel, it's a bit strange too. The Danganronpa games were basically courtroom dramas in the spirit of the Gyakuten Saiban games; uncovering the murder through debates, finding contradictions and coming up with over the top deductions. The atmosphere might be pop'n psychodelic, but the mysteries are as classic as you can get, with the player/detective slowly getting closer to the truth. Danganronpa / Zero is nothing like that. Stuff just happens, and then the truth is suddenly revealed. And to be very honest, the truth that was revealed wasn't too surprising either, as I suspected that at the end of the first volume (of two), though I have to say that the hints were laid down very neatly.

As a mystery novel, Danganronpa / Zero is a bit disappointing. As a stand-alone novel Danganronpa / Zero is impossible. You really need to have played the first Danganronpa (and preferably Super Danganronpa 2 too) to even want to understand it, and even then it's just a mediocre story. It gives a bit more background information, but nothing groundbreaking. This is really just for the hardcore fans who just need to have more Danganronpa in their life.

Original Japanese title(s): 小高 和剛 『ダンガンロンパ　 / ゼロ』

St. Ellery Slays the Dragon

"I'm sorry, Beau," said Mr. Queen in a gentle voice. "My specialty is murder, not romance."

"The Dragon's Teeth"

And as I was writing this review, bad memories of the ending of Broken Sword 3 were revived in my mind. But yay, Broken Sword 5 will be out tomorrow!

Millionaire Cadmus Cole had spent most of the last 18 years on sea, so Ellery Queen and Beau Rummel were quite surprised to find the illustrious man in the offices of Ellery Queen, Confidential Investigations. Ellery (and specifically him alone) is hired for services to be rendered in the future, but Cadmus refuses to tell him what he'll have to do, saying he'll know when the times comes. After the death of Cadmus, Ellery discovers that he is hired to find the two heirs of his will. One problem though: his appendix has burst, forcing Beau to take up the job under the name of Ellery. The suspicious circumstances of Cadmus Cole's death on sea, and his will which bestows his fortune upon his two nieces, who in turn must live together and never marry, give Beau and Ellery enough trouble to fill the pages of The Dragon's Teeth.

A Queen novel that starts out a bit strange, but manages to get back on trail just in time for the conclusion. First of all, the structure of The Dragon's Teeth is a lot like The Door Between: a woman in distress, a private eye trying to protect and falling in love with her, and Ellery staying most of the story in the background. Sure, Ellery appears more often here, and we know he works together with Beau, but still, these Queen novels with surrogate detective figures are weird. Of course, even in The Roman Hat Mystery Ellery wasn't that prominent present, but Beau in The Dragon's Teeth, and Terry in The Door Between are just characters that seem to be created to attract a new audience who want a more romantically involved and impulsive hero. The book also has a fairly small cast, a trait it shares with The Door Between too.

The first half of the story feels like Yokomizo Seishi's Inugamike no Ichizoku (or chronologically speaking, the other way around). The will that determines the marriage life of its beneficiaries, the tension that exists between the two nieces, the legal trouble and discussion about identities... As if Cadmus Cole, and Inugami Sahei after him, followed a course in making wills that will lead to a lot of trouble, and very possibly murder. Which reminds me, testaments, lawyers and the legal world seem to appear quite often in Queen novels now I think about it.

Ellery appears a bit more often near the end though (after a murder) and the novel becomes a lot more fun because of that. The conclusion, though not as impressive as in his earlier novels, does show elements of the Queen deductions we've all come to love. Like in so many of his novels, the state of certain items and their location is very important, and like I noted in my review of The Roman Hat Mystery, there seems to be fetish for objects in these novels,  as it's always deductions surrounding singular items that take the spotlight in the end. The murderer is also a type of person that seems to appear a lot in Queen novels, so experienced readers might even be able to guess the murderer's identity based on his/her role in the story(but of course, it's more impressive if you can actually build a logical case against said person, rather than just meta-guessing).

The murder happens quite late in the novel, which is a bit of a shame. I admit there's a lot going on to satisfy the reader for the moment, but I really liked the way all of his earlier novels featured murder quite quickly (see my reviews of the nationality novels starting with The Roman Hat Mystery). Which reminds me, I have given up on writing a full review of Queen's The Scarlet Letters, but that had the same problem: a very, very late murder and unlike The Dragon's Teeth where the hints pointing to the murderer were spread across the story, most of the important clues of The Scarlet Letters (including a dying message) appeared after the murder, as if they had forgotten to write them. (Add in the problem of Ellery and Nikki babysitting a couple in marital trouble for 80% of the book and you'll see why I hesitated with writing a full review on The Scarlet Letters. This paragraph is the review).

Location-wise, The Dragon's Teeth shows a bit of Queen's past books. From the millionaire living on sea (like in The Egyptian Cross Mystery), the mansion just outside of New York City (The Hamlet from the Drury Lane novels, Hollywood (from The Devil to Pay and The Four of Hearts) to good old New York City (most of Queen's novels), it's a mishmash of familiar locales. I am personally more a fan of the confined settings like the theater, department store and hospital, but ti's hard to deny the 'Queenesque' quality of the elements found in The Dragon's Teeth.

The Dragon's Teeth was definitely as bad as I had first thought. It's not a masterpiece, and the premise of a fake Ellery and the late murder are not that alluring, but the ending is what you'd expect from a Queen novel.

The Cosmic Turnabout

Wishing on a dream that seems far off

Hoping it will come today.

Into the starlit night,

Foolish dreamers turn their gaze,

Waiting on a shooting star

"Lunar Silver Star Story"

Oh, I had forgotten to mention it, this month will probably consist of reviews of mostly Western detective fiction, because of coincidence and the prolonged procrastination of writing reviews.

I had already heard James P. Hogan's Inherit the Stars, the first novel in the Giant series, described as a science fiction mystery novel, but still, I was quite surprised when I discovered it had ranked in the Tozai Mystery Best 100, beating titles like The Egyptian Cross Mystery and Le Mystère de la chambre jaune. So why not, I thought when I saw the book going for almost nothing at a second hand bookstore. It's the actually-not-that-far-off-anymore year of 2027: man has conquered the moon. Bases are built all over the surface and commercial flights are available. But the moon still has a big surprise in store for mankind. One day, the corpse of a man dressed in a spacesuit is found on the moon. But nobody on the moon has been reported missing, and with no idea where the unknown corpse dubbed Charlie came from, carbon dating is done on the body and his equipment. Results: the corpse is over 50.000 years old! Physicist Victor Hunt is asked by the United Nations Space Arm to help in figuring out where Charlie comes from and what he was doing on the moon.

Like I noted in my review of Asimov's The Caves of Steel, I have read only one or two science fiction mysteries, and they were always written as fair play mysteries. Like with fantasy mystery fiction, as long you know 'the rules' of the world, you know what's possible, then making a fair play mystery is possible in any kind of background, whether it is a world where witchcraft exists, or a future with humanoid robots (or both). But they were all clearly written as classic mystery novels.

Inherit the Stars on the other hand is first of all a hard science fiction novel, and secondly a mystery novel. The two themes are strongly intertwined, but Inherit the Stars with its grand scale investigation into the history of Charlie, with specialists from all fields of science, from mathematicians to linguisticians and biologists, with theories about disappearing species and space travelling is relatively heavy. Don't expect a simple, personal murder or an alibi trick in Inherit the Stars, Charlie's mystery serves to talk about human kind and its future.

But that doesn't make the mystery of Charlie less captivating. Now that I think about it, there are alibi tricks in Inherit the Stars, as how can Charlie and his space suit have existed in a time when humans weren't fully evolved yet? The solution to it all is quite memorable too, especially considering the scale of it all, but once again it feels closer towards science fiction than a fair play mystery (though it is definitely able to arrive at the solution based on the hints). I guess that The Caves of Steel did the same, but Inherit the Stars goes a bit deeper into science fiction fields than The Caves of Steel, I think.

Inherit the Stars isn't exactly my kind of detective novel, but the mystery of 50.000 year old Charlie is indeed very interesting, and the solution, while a bit 'different' from what you'd expect, makes quite the impression.