End of the Line

今はもうレールだけが残されてるこの広場で

私はまだ列車を待ってる

この場所から離れゆく日　思い描き今日も待ってる

「Rusty Rail」（Garnet Crow）

At this square with only rails left

I'm still waiting for the train

I wait, thinking of the day I'll leave this place

"Rusty Rail" (Garnet Crow)

The upcoming And Then There Were None and Tommy and Tuppence series of the BBC might be the Agatha Christie TV adaptations that get the most attention in the Western world, but the last few months my attention was all focused on a certain Japanese production.

1933, Shimonoseki. Having successfully solved a murder case in a militairy camp, the great detective Suguro Takeru returns to Tokyo by the luxary sleeper express Touyou, which provides a straight connection between Shimonoseki and Tokyo. Because of full bookings, Suguro is unable to find a sleeping compartment on the train, but a chance encounter with his old friend Boku, who works at the Ministry of Railways, he managed to get safely aboard the Touyou Express. The train goes off in the night and Suguro and Boku enjoy a good meal in the luxary train, while meeting the colorful cast of fellow passengers. Among them is Toudou, an unpleasant businessman, who tries to hire Suguru to protect hem from a hidden enemy. Suguro declines, saying he only takes cases that interest him personally, as well as confessing to simply not liking Toudou, but the following day, the discovery of the corpse of Toudou in his sleeping compartment proves that he was indeed in grave danger. The express got snowed in, meaning the murderer must be one of the guests in the train, but who? It is up to great detective Suguro Takeru to solve this murder on the Touyou Express in the TV special Murder on the Orient Express (or Orient Kyuukou Satsujin Jiken).

Oh, what, Murder on the Orient Express? Yes, Murder on the Orient Express is a two-part 2015 TV special based on Agatha Christie's famous novel featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. That fact alone might be interesting to a lot of viewers outside Japan, but in Japan, I think this special was especially anticipated because Mitani Kouki wrote the script. Mitani Kouki is a playwright/director, originally connected to the Tokyo Sunshine Boys theater troupe. Known for his comedic style, he has directed some fantastic slapstick-inspired comedy movies like Radio no Jikan (AKA Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald), The Uchouten Hotel, The Magic Hour and Suteki na Kanashibari. One of his better known plays was Juuninin no Yasashii Nihonjin ("12 Gentle Japanese"), a fantastic parody on the courtroom drama classic 12 Angry Men. But he is also an important person in the context of this blog: he wrote Furuhata Ninzaburou, the fantastic Japanese Columbo and Ellery Queen-inspired TV show (he also wrote the novelization of the first season, a translation of the first chapter available here) and he runs an interesting TV show called Sherlock Holmes at the moment which features not actors, but puppets! Anyway, I've been a big fan of Mitani for quite some years now, so I was very curious to this marriage between Christie and him.

Mitani's Murder on the Orient Express is a two-part TV special, each part more than two hours long. The first "night" (episode) aired on Sunday, January 11th and introduced the viewer to great detective Suguro Takeru. As you can guess from the summary I gave above, the whole plot of the original novel was relocated to Japan and instead of a funny Belgian with a mustache, we know have Suguro Takeru, a Japanese detective with a funny mustache. While all names have been changed to Japanese names, the new names are actually quite close to the original names (Boku instead of Bouc, Hirude instead of Hildegarde etc.). And while some might think that these kind of changes are always for the worse, but I think that last year's The Long Goodbye proved that it can work out perfect.

In fact, the first episode is too loyal to the original work and especially the 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express. While the first episode is a pretty decent TV dramatization of the original story, it's almost impossible to detect Mitani's touch. Sure, there are the lush sets, the bright colors and the faces we've come to expect in a Mitani film (Nishida Toshiyuki, Satou Kouichi, Kobayashi Takashi and Yagi Akiko among others are familiar faces in Mitani movies). But almost everything, from the lines down to many of the camera angles and shots, seem to be inspired very much by the 1974 film adaptation starring Albert Finney. Nomura Mansai's Suguro Takeru (the Poirot substitute) is also very much like Finney's Poirot, down to the strange voice and occasionally weird expressions (though Suguro is even sillier than Finney's Poirot). In the end, I did not feel like this production did anything substantially better than the 1974 film production it obviously was imitating. There's some good acting going on (like the 1974 film production, this TV special also features an all-star cast), but I was not a fan of Suguro himself (who was arguably the worst of the cast).

As a detective story, I still think Murder on the Orient Express is a very enjoyable story. Sure, the impact it had originally might have weakened a lot because the story is fairly well-known, but I still love the dialogues between the varied members of the cast, the way the investigation develops and the shocking truth revealed in the conclusion. It's a timeless story, I think, and I enjoyed it this time too, even after having experienced the story countless of times in all kinds of media.

Interesting was the fact that Murder on the Orient Express consisted out of two parts though: the first part is a complete adaptation of the novel and covers exactly the same ground the novel and the 1974 film did. So what was the second episode?
 
The second episode, which aired the following day on Monday, January 12th, is actually an inverted detective story and tells the complete story of Murder on the Orient Express the other way around, from the viewpoint of the murderer(s), starting with the motive and then all up to how the murder was prepared, committed and consequent happenings on the Touyou Express. It's a daring move, as I don't think there are many adaptations of mystery stories that suddenly change a 'normal' detective story in an inverted one.  Also, storywise it necessary has little to add to the story told in the first episode. but I thought this second episode was pretty decent. I can't say too much about it, because it would obviously spoil who's guilty of the murder in the Touyou Express and the set-up, but freed from the shackles of the original story and film, Mitani finally manages to sneak in a little of his own touch. A lot of Mitani's movies are about 'backstage' worlds: Radio no Jikan was about the production of a radio drama, The Uchouten Hotel about a hotel staff. So 'backstage' of a murder actually fits Mitani's interests quite well. It is definitely not the witty, chaotic comedy you usually associate with Mitani, but there are some heartwarming and funny scenes in there that are definitely Mitani, and still fit within the world of Murder on the Orient Express. The moments were Mitani and Christie both have a chance to do their thing at the same time are sadly enough quite rare, but those rare moments are definitely highlights. Also, I think that Mitani came up with better explanations for some of the events in Murder in the Orient Express than Christie did in the book, which are explained in this part.

I suspect that Mitani actually wanted only to do the second episode. Like I said, he has experience with 'backstage' stories, as well as inverted detective stories with Furuhata Ninzaburou, so I can totally imagine him proposing the inverted take on Murder on the Orient Express, only to be told by the higher-ups they want a 'normal' take of the story. So he then made two episodes.

The special has some great music tunes though and I was kinda surprised to see Kusabue Mitsuko in the role of Countess Todoroki (Princess Dragomiroff in the original): she often starred in Ichikawa Kon's Kindaichi Kousuke films. The overall production value is fairly good.

In the end, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed in Mitani Kouki's Murder on the Orient Express. As a mystery story, I still enjoy it a lot, but the first episode is basically a copy of the 1974 film, with little new to add. Mitani's writing is nowhere to be seen and Suguro can be a bit irritating. The second episode on the other hand is highly original, being an inverted take on the story. It's here where he managed to add a bit of himself, but still, I have questions about the necessity of this episode, because most of the information given here, we already figured out in the (orthodox) first episode. The first episode is probably fun if you have not read the original novel or haven't watched the 1974 film, others can just skip to the second episode, I think.

Original Japanese title(s): Agatha Christie (原）、三谷幸喜（脚本） 『オリエント急行殺人事件』

The Phantom Fingers

"You don't stand a ghost of a chance, Yugi, because..."

"How many times are you going to use that line?!"

"Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged"

Almost through my backlog of Japanese translations of (originally) English novels! I'll probably still occasionally get one if the original release is hard to get, but I have to say, it feels good to see the pile disappear, as it usually takes a lot more time / effort to go through a translated book.

The return of actress Vera Vane from Hollywood to her husband's side, the famous best-selling author Amos Cottle, is reason for a little party at his publisher's. To be exact: everyone who knows Amos is desperate to keep Vera away from Amos, because she has a rather negative influence of the drinking kind on him and they try to keep her happy with the party. A game of 'two-thirds of a ghost' is played (a quiz parlour game), but the guests discover at the end of the game that Amos Cottle has written his last word and has gone to join the heavenly scribes. Unwillingly though, it seems, as someone slipped some cyanide in his drink. Among the guests is the famous psychiatrist/criminologist Dr. Basil Willing, who will act as our detective in Helen McCloy's Two-Thirds of A Ghost (1956).

Through A Glass, Darkly was the first McCloy I ever read, about two years ago, and I quite liked the mystery with a supernatural twist. Two-Thirds of A Ghost has been in my to-be-read pile for a long time now, as I think I bought my used copy not long after reading Through A Glass, Darkly, but you know how things go. The first thing that I thought interesting was that the series detective, Dr. Basil Willing, actually acts as a series detective! Might sound strange, but I tell you, Willing's appearance in Through A Glass, Darkly is rather bland and subdued and during a book club discussion on the book, we found that actually most people didn't realize that Through A Glass, Darkly was a series novel starring Basil Willing ('wait, he's the protagonis?!'). Anyway, this time we actually see Dr. Basil Willing employing his grey cells from a relatively early stage in the story on and he keeps in charge throughout, so no confusion there.

What might seem a bit confusing, is the direction of the investigation in the early parts of the story. With a poisoning and a parlour game, I thought Two-Thirds of A Ghost would be about figuring out how someone managed to poison Amos during the game, but the main focus of this novel lies not there, but on a different problem that I'd better not reveal here. Willing's investigation is instead focused on literary detection: we follow him as he reads memos, notes, letters, book reviews of Amos' books and other texts, which also appear in the novel itself. And of course, through a close reading of these documents, Willing will discover something shocking that leads to the murderer of Amos. Literary detection is not an extremely rare thing in mystery, though the whole literary background of Two-Thirds of A Ghost does add to the experience. Literary detection is also usually not the most prominent mode of detection in most mystery novels, but I quite like the somewhat meta-method of mystery-solving.

Other examples I've discussed on the blog are the bibliomysteries Biblia Koshodou no Jikentechou ("The Casebook of the Antiquarian Bookstore Biblia") and Murderer's Items, which are often about the contents of the books in the spotlight. The most extreme example is Yumeno Kyuusaku's Dogura Magura, which might be about a madman trying to unravel a mystery through documents written by himself. Or another madman. Or maybe it was all a dream. Let's stop talking about Dogura Magura now before I get sucked into its spiraling madness once again.

McCloy makes great use of the literary background and it's not only just the mode of detection. There's also room for some literary criticism and topics like 'true literature', authorism and 'what sells' are featured quite heavily during the discussions between the actors of this story. Yet these discussions never feel unnatural, nor does Two-Thirds of A Ghost feel too much as a vehicle for McCloy to spout her thoughts, as these topics are naturally of importance to characters like literary critics, agents and publishers. I liked the final confrontation with the culprit also connected with these themes at some level, just like how Through A Glass, Darkly's ending also interacted in a meaningful way with its overal supernatural theme.

I like the overall themes of Two-Thirds of A Ghost, though I have to admit that especially in the first half of the novel, I was kinda bored as the story didn't seem to move at my prefered speed. But I guess your mileage may vary on that. On a thematic level, this is a good novel though.

Cloudy Skies

「あの、私は今から鹿児島にいくのですけど、どちらに行かれるのですか？」

「一緒だ！　バカかてめえ。　鹿児島行きの便だろ、これ」

 『哀川鳥』 （サンドウィッチマン）

"I'm going to Kagoshima today. Where are you heading?"

"The same place of course! Are you stupid?! This is the plane to Kagoshima!"

"Aikawa Chou" (Sandwichman sketch)

Am I the only person who for a long time, kept confusing Freeman Wills Crofts and R. Austin Freeman? Also, I keep writing Will instead of Wills!

The retired Andrew Crowther's daughter Elsie has been in an accident in Paris, and now the old man, his son-in-law and granddaughter are on their way to France on (Freeman Wills Crofts') The 12.30 From Croydon (1934). When they arrive in France though, they discover that Crowther has not survived the jump over the pond. Flashback some weeks earlier, where we learn about Crowther's nephew Charles Swinburn and the imminent danger his factory is facing because of the Great Depresson. Pleading with his wealthy uncle doesn't help, as Crother thinks Charles isn't doing his best and he should try harder. But trying harder won't help a business that will go belly-up in maybe two weeks, so Charles decides that to save the factory, his employees and the chance to marry his love, Crowther must die, so he can inherit. Charles concocts an intricate plan to poison his uncle, which succeeds, but after the crime other problems pop up he hadn't foreseen, one of which the famous Inspector French.

Two years ago, I read Freeman Wills Crofts' Mystery on Southampton Water and I loved the thrilling inverted adventure. In fact, I loved it so much I bought The 12.30 From Croydon soon after finishing that book (a Japanese translation because I was in Japan at the time). And it took me over two years to read it. Well, it took me three days once I actually got started, but I have read the prologue at least five times the last two years... I should probably just read Crofts in English, instead of an old Japanese translation...

Anyway, so the only other Crofts I've read is Mystery on Southampton Water, which is very similar to The 12.30 From Croydon: they were published in the same year (1934), both are inverted mystery stories starring Inspector French, both are about a man trying to save a business in trouble, both plans initially work, but other unforeseen problems pop up that force the protagonist to take emergency measures..  So I am very tempted to compare the two novels, and in my opinion, The 12.30 From Croydon is the less entertaining one. Not that it is bad, but it I find it less alluring. One of the reasons I liked Mystery on Southampton Water was the tension of the story and the presentation: it starts out as an inverted mystery with spy-thriller theme, jumps to a police procedural part starring Inspector French and turn jumps back to a second inverted mystery plot, and even though the writing style (in the Japanese translation) was very bland and dry, I was still captivated from start till finish.

The 12.30 From Croydon however sticks with Charles for practically all of the story: French appears a few times, but he is only allowed to talk about his investigation in the final two chapters of the novel. Until that part, we just follow Charles in his adventures and even though there are some thrilling events after the murder on Crowther, especially past the 70% mark when everything starts to fall apart, the story misses a kind of tension because the reader doesn't know why everything is going wrong. Suddenly the police is very suspicious of Charles, and neither he nor the reader knows why. It just happens and the reader and Charles just have to sit still and accept it all. Of course, Inspector French does explain how he first came to suspect Charles in the end, but I didn't like the way the story suddenly switched to a very passive role for Charles.

In Mystery on Southampton Water, we saw a lot more of Inspector French's investigations, so we knew why he started to haunt the suspects. It's the same with Columbo: after the murder, the murderer and Columbo usually share screentime and we see how both sides react to each other. Tension is created, because the reader is aware of what is going on at both sides (to an extent), like seeing a chess game. In comparison, The 12.30 From Croydon is like watching a chess game where you only see the white pieces and you're only told what happened and where the opponent's pieces were after you lost the king. Emphasis lies on the criminal's psychology and the thoughts he has as he reacts to each new development, which can be fun, I guess, but I personally prefer the excitement of seeing how both sides react to each other, rather than just one side of a game with an inverted mystery.

The 12.30 From Croydon is an okay inverted mystery, but so many of its elements are featured in the more amusing Mystery on Southampton Water, I am tempted to say you're better of reading that novel than Croydon. If you're more into criminal psychology and so, Croydon might have more to offer than Southampton though.

F Album

「命題は証明された」

『すべてがＦになる』

"The proposition has been proven" 

"Everything Becomes F"

The TV series in today's review ended just before Christmas, but an animated adaptation is already planned for later in 2015. And there's a reasonable chance I'm going to watch that too.

Subete ga F ni Naru ("Everything Becomes F") is a 2014 TV series based on the S&M novel series by Mori Hiroshi. The series borrows its title from the first book in the mystery series (reviewed here) and adapts five of the ten novels (each story consisting of two episodes). Like in the original novels, Subete ga F ni Naru is about the often impossible crimes the duo Saikawa Souhei (assistant-professor in Architecture) and Nishinosono Moe (student) encounter (thus the name S&M). Moe is the one who gets interested in cases and tries her hand at solving them (helped by the fact her uncle is a high-ranking police officer), while Saikawa is usually just dragged along against his will. It is always Saikawa however who solves the crime, though he only does so because he is interested in the problem itself and wants to know the answer (and is not particularly interested in denouncing the murderer).

The mysteries often have an impossible angle to them and also often feature a scientific tone to them. The first novel, Subete ga F ni Naru, is well remembered as groundbreaking as a scientific mystery novel, as it incorporated elements like computers, networks, viruses and virtual reality in its plot, which was all relatively new technology to consumers when the book was first released in 1994. Mori Hiroshi has an engineering background, which apparently often comes back in his books (I haven't read enough of his work to really add to that).

The series makes a fairly solid start with Tsumetai Misshitsu to Hakasetachi - Doctors in Isolated Room ("The Cold Locked Room and the Scientists - Doctors in Isolated Room"). Saikawa and Moe are visiting a research laboratory where they witness an experiment conducted in a super-cooled room, with lab assistants walking in and out the room in body suits. Saikawa and Moe join the little afterparty, which turns into a grieving party, when they discover the bodies of two lab assistants who had participated in the experiment inside a locked segment of the experiment room. The problem: from the moment the experiment started until the afterparty, the single entrance to the experiment room had been under constant observation, so how did the bodies get inside?

This was published as the fourth book in the S&M series, but was actually the first story Mori wrote: the manuscript of Subete ga F ni Naru just happened to win a prize, which became his debut novel (he had to shuffle with his stories because of that). Anyway, the setting is pretty cool (observed experiment, bodies popping up out of nowhere) and while it's quite easy to roughly guess what has happened, I think as a first episode, Tsumetai Misshitsu to Hakasetachi does a great job at presenting a solvable, but not too easy locked room murder, as well as introduce the major characters of the series. I just thought it a bit of a shame that the supercooled room wasn't of real importance to the mystery plot: I had kinda hoped that supercooling something was part of the mystery. Because you don't see that often.

Compared to the first episode, Fuuin Saido - Who Inside ("Sealed Once More - Who Inside") feels a lot more old-fashioned. No scientists and experiments, but a cursed box and vase which has made several victims inside a locked room. During a visit of Moe and Saikawa to the family, the curse takes another victim, so the two decide to solve the mystery. There is one part of the mystery I absolutely love for several reasons. I have actually also played with a similar trick in my head, so it was pretty cool to see a possible way of using it in a detective story, but I also managed to catch on it quickly because of that. The 'type' of trick is something I'd associate more with Mori's 100 Years series, but it works quite well here too. I thought the rest of the story not particularly memorable though and the mystery around the cursed box a bit too unbelievable.

I refer to my review of the novel if you want to know more about Subete ga F ni Naru - The Perfect Insider ("Everything Becomes F - The Perfect Insider") in detail, but in short, it's about the murder of the genius scientist Magata Shiki (who will turn out to be a pivotal figure in all of Mori's series), who until her escape from life lived inside a locked room inside a laboratory on an island. Moe and Saikawa happen to be in the facility when the dead body of Magata wearing a wedding dress is discovered, but no murderer is found inside the room where Magata had lived half her life. And what was the meaning of the words she spoke to Moe: they'll meet when everything becomes F?

Underwhelming might be the word I'm looking for. This is a TV drama, so it has budget limitations, but I had always imagined something... grander and more hi-techy from this story than what was presented here. I do have to say, part of this is because the drama is set in modern days, while the book was originally published in 1994. In twenty years, concepts like computers, networks and Trojan Horse viruses have become common knowledge in society, but they talked about these things in this episode like it was all magic, even though it's set in 2014. It just doesn't work. Also the first episode did way too little to set-up the story, resulting in something that felt rushed. As a mystery story, Subete ga F ni Naru is still fairly cool (even if not completely fair in my opinion), but I feel this adaptation could have been much better.

I do have to say, re-experiencing the story made me realize Subete ga F ni Naru is thematically a lot better than I had remembered. Not that the themes are presented particularly well in these episodes though, it definitely needed more screentime to really develop. But it reminds of Kyougoku Natsuhiko's Mouryou no Hako ("Box of Goblins") in a certain way at the core, which is not a bad thing at all.

Suuki ni Shite Mokei - Numerical Models ("A Figure of Ill-Fortune - Numerical Models") starts with the murder on a model actress (and decapitation!) in a locked room during a figurine convention. The obvious suspect is the only other person inside the locked room, but he happens to also be the main suspect of another locked room murder that happened at the same time at his university. What follows is a mystery story that is more focused on motive than the circumstances of the double locked room murder (which is actually rather simple) and while not bad per se, these two episodes are easily the weakest of the whole drama. I do have to admit, the setting of figurine collectors is an interesting one and while it is quite different from 'usual' business of the S&M series, I quite enjoyed seeing this background.

The final story Yuugen to Bishou no Pan - The Perfect Outside ("Limited and Very Little Bread - The Perfect Outsider") gives us a parade of impossible crimes commited in an amusement park: a body disappearing from a church, a woman killed in her hotel room with the police standing in front of the only exit and a man stabbed by a ghostly walking armor during a virtual reality demonstration. The only thing Moe and Saikawa do know is that Magata Shiki (who appeared two stories earlier) is behind this all. The episode itself is okay, with a rather daring solution to all of the murders that is elegantly simple, but I have the feeling that it just didn't work really well as a TV episode. I usually try to look at tricks & stuff in mystery fiction seperate from the plot, but this was definitely a story that would benefit a lot from better synergy between the mystery and the theme/story and I have the feeling that this is in fact the case for the novel. I suspect that simplifying the plot for 2x50 minutes just didn't work well for this story, as the story felt a bit underwhelming, despite obvious points of interest that could have been much more (the same holds for the adaptation of Subete ga F ni Naru by the way).

All in all, Subete ga F ni Naru was a fairly decent mystery series. I haven't read enough of the original novel series to comment on how the adaptation was (though I do remember being surprised at Saikawa being a Windows user in the TV series), but I do have the feeling that some of the more interesting parts of Mori's books (themes like the exact sciences and parts about conciousness) didn't really work out that good on screen and at times the series did feel a bit lacking. That is, while the TV series was okay, I could catch glimpses of themes and ideas that I'm quite sure are developed better in the original novels. An adaptation doesn't have to be an 1:1 copy of the original, of course, but with Mori's stories, I often feel that his mystery plots do benefit a lot from supporting themes. If you have the chance, I think the books have much more to offer, but if the TV series is your only choice, it's an amusing enough adaptation.

Original Japanese title(s): 森博嗣（原）　『すべてがＦになる』

The Purloined Letter

「何となれば、探偵小説において、第一の容疑者は九部九厘まで決して犯人ではないからである。数々のもっともらしい証拠を、その物語の残りの頁の厚みが、全能神のごとくに粉砕する。 （風太郎曰く、誰か、環に紙を綴じた、探偵小説用の円い書物を発明する人はありませんか？」

「厨子家の悪霊」　（山田風太郎）

Because in mystery novels, the first suspect is almost certainly never the murderer. No matter how much unmovable evidence there is, it will all be smashed in pieces by the wrath of the remaining number of pages of the story. (Is there someone who can come up with a round-type of book especially for detective novels, with the pages bound like a ring?, says Fuutarou). 

"The Evil Spirit of the Zushi Clan"  (Yamada Fuutarou)

Happy New Year! I'm kinda ridiculously far ahead with writing reviews, so I'm writing this very first post of the year 2015 in August of 2014. Who knows what happened between my writing this post and it appearing online?!

Kyozou Inraku ("Virtual Carnal Pleasure") collects nine of Yamada Fuutarou's early short stories, originally published in the period between 1947 and 1953. Unlike the Yamada Fuutarou short story collections I've discussed earlier on the blog (Meiji Dantoudai, Youi Kinpeibai), Kyozou Inraku is just a random collection of short stories, without any connection whatsoever between them storywise. Formwise, these early stories do already feature certain familiar tropes Yamada Fuutarou likes to use in his later detective stories and is thus quite interesting for those who want to dig a bit deeper into Fuutarou's writings. A notable omission in this collection is Yamada's debut story, Daruma Touge no Jiken ("The Darma Pass Case"), which dates from 1947, like many other stories in the collection.

One interesting motif in this collection is the use of letters as a plot device. Almost all stories feature a letter in one way or another and some stories consists even only out of letters, presenting the mystery and solution in one or multiple epistles. The opening story, Ganchuu no Akuma ("The Demon In Her Eyes"), for example, is one long letter, written by the narrator to his brother to explain his sudden flight from home. Like so many with Yamada's stories, his tale is that of unrequieted and unfulfilled love and it takes a while before a mystery of sorts presents itself to the reader. The basic premise is one Yamada Fuutarou simply loves and often reuses in different forms, and while this effort wasn't bad, Yamada has certainly written better variations on this story.

Renzai ("Sin of Love") consist out of a series of letters written to "Yamada Fuutarou", a certain famous mystery writer. An old school mate tells Yamada about how he happened to have met his old sweetheart, how sad he was to hear she was already married and the mysterious murder of the woman's husband some time later. He implores Yamada Fuutarou to help clear his sweetheart's name, who is the main suspect because she was the only other person in the house during the murder. The impossible crime aspect of the story is a bit unbelievable, but it works in the world Yamada has sketched within these letters and the story is actually quite well written, with the tone of each letter changing slightly, and with the reader's view on events described in previous letters changing with each subsequent letter.

I can't talk too much about Rounin ("The Wax Person"), as it kinda spoils the interesting points of the story, but it starts with the narrator receiving a letter from a friend who has recently died; the letter was written before his death. The truth behind his death becomes clear as he reads the letter. This story is more a horror-mystery story than a pure mystery story, despite the presence of a locked room mysery, but I quite like it.

Shisha no Yobigoe ("The Call of the Dead") is where Yamada Fuutarou goes Inception with the letter motif: it is (1) a story, where in (2) a letter is read, which chronicles past events, in which (3) another letter is read. So a story within a story within a story. The focus of everything is the second-level story, about the ex-husband who had been receiving letters from his deceased wife every week after her death for some years. The letters were without a doubt written by his dead wife, but can one really believe that the postman of Hades makes his round all the way to the world of the living? The mystery makes use of a familiar Yamada Fuutarou trope, but I liked it how it was done here and this story is fun to read, because as you go deeper in each level, you gain new questions and answers about the previous level. Kinda like how the consequent letters of Renzai work.

Letters are also used in Zushike no Akurei ("The Evil Spirit of the Zushi Clan") and Kokui no Seibo ("The Madonna Dressed In Black"), but less prominently: letters are usually just used to deliver the truth, rather than being a formal part of the story structure. Zushike no Akurei ("The Evil Spirit of the Zushi Clan") reminds of Yokomizo Seishi or Takagi Akimitsu, with twisted family relations, family curses about a one-eyed dog, logical chains based on the criminal's actions, but is nonetheless very Yamada Fuutarou-esque story. A lot happens within the just short of hundred pages though, a bit too much: by the end of the story, you'll have lost count of the number of surprise twists.

Kokui no Seibo ("The Madonna Dressed In Black") on the other hand is a very different kind of story, about a man and his relation with a female medical student who has to sell her body to feed her and her baby. The man especially feels attracted to the gap between the girl 'in the light' and the girl in bed. It would kinda spoil the story if I go on, so I'll just stop here, but once again a letter explains everything about a mysterious event later in the story. Truly shocking, it is not, but I liked the writing of the story: Yamada Fuutarou does these kind of stories about almost fetish-like love quite well.

Kyozou Inraku ("Virtual Carnal Pleasure") is one of Yamada Fuutarou's better known stories. Actually, all of the stories in this collection are well known, but this one in particular. A woman who has swallowed mercury is brought to the hospital by her little brother-in-law. The woman used to work there as a nurse and everyone is curious to what has happened. It appears the woman's husband was responsible for this, but why? What lies behind this initial event is a wonderful, but absolutely frightening spiraling madness which only Yamada Fuutarou could have come up with. Seldom have I seen such a motive, such twists in such short a story! It reminds of Rampo's ero-guro-nonsense ideas, but this goes deeper than Rampo, and the story actually works quite well as a fair-play detective story. Probably the best story in plotting and execution. And it has one of those titles that make absolutely sense in hindsight.

In Sayounara ("Farewell"), a town is evacuated and sealed because of the discovery of the Black Plague in a dead mouse. Two veteran cops who patrol the town think something fishy is going on and they get the shock of their lives when they realize that this certain part of the town, is built precisely the same as a town they both remember very well: ten years ago, during the war, they were trying to arrest two persons just as US bombers flew over the town and destroyed it completely. A whydunnit that isn't much of a mystery, but a very heartwarming, and heart-rending story.

Kiiroi Geshukunin ("The Yellow Boarder") is strangely enough a Sherlock Holmes-pastiche. Like Shimada Souji's effort, this is a funny crossover with Holmes and the famous writer Natsume Souseki, who had studied in London. Holmes and Watson take on the case of the mysterious disappearance of a certain Mr James Phillimore, whose name should sound familiar to Holmes readers. What follows is a story with many twist and turns, murder and a surprising ending, but I liked it more as a detective story than a Holmes pastiche. Not to diss Holmes, but this story was way too complex for a Holmes pastiche. As a mystery story, it's great though, I just don't think it really fits the form of a Holmes story.

EDIT: The Holmes story is available in English by the way.

As a collection, Kyozou Inraku has some great stories, but one can't deny that a lot of the nine stories resemble each other. Yamada Fuutarou really likes letters, twisted love (sometimes of the sadomasochistic kind) and a certain kind of story structure I can't specify for fear of spoilers, and while he can certainly do great things with these ingredients, it can become a bit boring if you are served the same constantly. I wish the editors had made a more varied selection of stories (of course, if Yamada Fuutarou's short stories are really all alike, then there's not much they can do, I guess...). I wouldn't recommend Kyozou Inraku as an introduction to Fuutarou's short stories (Meiji Dantoudai and You Kinpeibai are much better), but if you have already read some of his works and want to move to his earlier works, Kyozou Inraku is an okay volume. 

Original Japanese title(s): 山田風太郎 『虚像淫楽』: 「眼中の悪魔」 / 「虚像淫楽」 / 「厨子家の悪霊」 / 「蠟人」 / 「黒衣の聖母」 / 「恋罪」 / 「死者の呼び声」 / 「さようなら」 / 「黄色い下宿人」

The Scarlet Letter

賑やかなこの街の空に思い切り張り上げた声は

何処か遠くの街に居るあの人へのHappy Birthday

「Happy Birthday」　（杏子）

I cry out loudly to the skies above this lively city

To that person somewhere in a faraway city Happy Birthday

"Happy Birthday" (Kyouko)

 
The previous post was actually meant as the last update this year, but the mailman decided differently. This time, the real last update of 2014, a Short Short post with a selection of great drawn and animated mystery from Japan. Also, I have to mention it again: why do they always release Kindaichi Shounen and Detective Conan on or around the same day?!

Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R 4 ("The Young Kindaichi Case Files R 4") continues the Fox Fire Float Murder Case which started in the previous volume and is a surprisingly well-made story. The news of the death of a childhood friend brings a group of ex-boy and girl scouts back together, now all grown up as high school students. One of them is Hajime, grandson of the famous detective Kindaichi Kousuke, who still has fond memories of a camp trip many years ago (in which the kids got lost for two days, and Hajime managed to save one of the girls who was bit by a poisonous snake). But death seldom rides alone, and during their stay in the little village, more of Hajime's friends are killed, with all murders being 'decorated' following local fox legends. It is obvious that one of his friends must be the murderer, but who and why?

When I say that The Fox Fire Float Murder Case is a good story, I mean that in the sense of its dramatic qualities. As a mystery story, I'd have to say that it's not a particularly strong story: the tricks the murderer performs are not difficult to guess and even the identity of the murderer is incredibly easy. And like always, the motive is Revenge Because of A Tragic Past. What did I like about the story then? Well, it's neat to see that Hajime is actually part of the Tragic Past. Usually, we see a murderer crying about something horrible (s)he had to suffer because of the victims and we're presented with some sort of long flashback that is supposed to get you emotionally (the mileage on the effectiveness of that may vary). This time however, flashbacks to camp are spread throughout the story, in the form of Hajime talking about his own past. It makes the actual narrative-aspects of the story much more enjoyable, as we have a murderer from Hajime's own personal circle (in the past). The ending in particular is fantastic. The personal angle been done before, for example in The Yukikage Village Murder Case, but like in that story, The Fox Fire Float Murder Case feels fresh because it approaches the series' formula from another angle. The mystery plot is a bit weak, but overall I think this was a solid story that continues the quality of the R series.

Detective Conan 85 is a volume I've been waiting for for a long time. It's already been half a year since the previous volume?! I remember a time when the wait between volumes was about three months. Anyway, this is the volume fans have been waiting for for years. Literally. The Scarlet Truth Revealed gives answers to questions first raised in volume 58, which was originally released in 2007! While after seven years, I think most of the faithful readers had already guessed most of the truth behind the infamous Raiha Pass Incident, which has been the main propulsion for the plot of Detective Conan the last couple of years (especially with the confirmation they put in Detective Conan: Dimensional Sniper), but it was still a pleasure to read this story: once you realize how carefully Aoyama has built this story, the hints he hid throughout the years, it's just amazing.

Seriously, think about it: for seven years, Aoyama has been carefully leaving hints and clues, spread across a variety of 'minor' and unrelated stories, all as a build-up to this moment. Seven years! And the hints have been completely fair, but at the same time I doubt anyone had figured out Aoyama's master plan in details. I too had guessed most of the truth behind the Raiha Pass Incident, but I had overlooked quite some little details that showed how careful Aoyama planned this story, but also how fair he has been these seven years. It's too bad this is a difficult story to 'just' recommend: as a detective story, purely looking at its qualities as a mystery story, the whole Raiha Pass Incident story (starting in 2007) is a fantastic story. But because it is spread across different minor stories, it's also near impossible to ask someone to 'just' read it: you'd have to go through almost 30 volumes of Detective Conan to get the full effect! (But the pay-off is incredible).

The volume also contains The Trap of the Headless Shogi Player (coded message based on shogi terms and another Traffic Agent Yumi love story) and A Mystery Sunken in A Midsummer Pool (dead body suddenly appearing in a hotel pool), but they are just boring compared to The Scarlet Truth Revealed. Wait, no, The Trap of the Headless Shougi Player is boring even without the comparison.

To commemorate the twentieth birthday of Detective Conan, a TV special was broadcast on December 26. Titled The Disappearance of Edogawa Conan - The Worst Two Days in History, this special was not only 'just' an anniversary special, it was also heavily promoted as being based on a script by film director Uchida Kenji. The special starts with Conan witnessing a suspicious deal going on in the local public bath, but before he's able to do anything he... slips on the floor and hits his head. The two mysterious men, one the infamous hired killer Kondou, the other a tricksman called The Ad Lib Dragon, abduct Conan (claiming to bring him to the hospital), but in True Great Television tradition, they discover that Conan has lost his memory because he hit his head. The two men are apparently busy with some kind of big deal, and they are told by their boss to bring the now helpless Conan along, as a child will come handy for their plans. Meanwhile, Haibara and professor Agasa find out that Conan has been kidnapped by dangerous people and try to locate him.

I am divided about this TV special. It is definitely a good mystery story. I've never seen anything by Uchida Kenji, but I loved the mystery plot and especially how it played with the viewer's expectations. Neat scene cuts, fairly well pacing (the middle part is a bit boring, but there's a reason for that) and good stuff is done in the ninety minutes runtime. As a mystery movie, I can easily recommend this to any viewer. On the other hand, I am pretty sure this was not originally written for Detective Conan. This was just a story Uchida had and rewrote to add in Conan and the gang. Most of the story is actually about the legendary hitman Kondou, the current job and the other crooks involved in the business and you can just feel that Conan was just added to the original story. So I quite liked it as a standalone mystery story, but not really much as a Conan story, as the Conan link was just so obviously added in the plot at a much later stage.

But in the I-definitely-liked-this category: the first half has an almost unbelievably active Haibara. The first half could easily have been called Detective Ai. Actually, make me a Detective Ai special!

And that wraps this post and this year up!

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）　『金田一少年の事件簿Ｒ』第4巻、青山剛昌　『名探偵コナン』第８５巻、青山剛昌（原）　『江戸川コナン失踪事件　～史上最悪の二日間』

Turnabout Memories - Part 4

"I have to go over everything that's happened. I have to remember" 

Another Code R: Journey into Lost Memories

Because there is a rule that blogs need lists at the end of the year, my annual lists of stuff as the final update this year! Read quite a lot this year. More than this blog can handle, actually! I think I've mentioned a couple of times that I've been working a bit ahead since early this year (around March), but would you believe that at a one review per week schedule (which is the usual pace here), I already have enough reviews lined up to last me into the second half of next year? I probably need to do something about that, maybe post twice a week (even if it doesn't really attract more viewers on the whole), or something else, but at this rate, I'll have two years worth of reviews standing by by the time I'll make my end-of-year-list next year! For this post, I'll only choose titles that have actually appeared on this blog already.

Anyway, onwards to the lists! As always, it's a mish-mash of categories I just feel like writing about.

Best Project Outside The Blog!
The Lure of the Green Door

Well, the best project outside the blog is obviously getting my translation of Norizuki Rintaro's The Lure of the Green Door published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. A rough version of it had been posted on this blog a long while ago, but now it's been officially published. More of these projects in the future hopefully. And a special mention of a short essay I wrote for Kyoto University Mystery Club's Whodunit Volume 5, which is a best-of collection of guess-the-criminal stories written by members between 2000~2014 (and some of the contributors have become professional writers in the meantime).

Best Detective Conan Film Seen in 2014!
Detective Conan: Dimensional Sniper

Hey, I usually see only one Detective Conan movie this year, but this year (or technically, late last year), there was also the Lupin the Third VS Detective Conan crossover film. At the best moments, Lupin the Third VS Detective Conan is the more enjoyable film perhaps (read: whenever Conan and Jigen are pretending to be father and son), but overall Dimensional Sniper is the better film hands down.

Best Courtroom Mystery Read/Played in 2014!
Kawaramachi Revoir (Van Madoy) 

Always an interesting subgenre, and this year, I got through four of them. Berkeley's Trial and Error, Henry Cecil's Settled Out of Court, Van Madoy's Kawaramachi Revoir and the videogame Yuuzai X Muzai (Guilty X Innocent). Trial and Error and Settled out of Court were both great parodies on normal court mysteries and especially Settled out of Court was unexpectedly great, but I still choose Kawaramachi Revoir, because of the more complex deduction battles between prosecution and defense, the way it forms a finale to the Revoir series and the daring trick performed in the last trial.

Most Interesting Game. Played In 2014! But Probably Older!
Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Tomoshibi ga Kienu Ma ni (Detective Jinguuji Saburou: Before The Light Fades) (PSX)

This year's detective games I played were a bit uneven. Games like Tantei Gakuen Q (GBA) and Web Mystery (Dreamcast) were just bad, while a game like Detective Conan: Phantom Rhapsody just didn't quite do what it should've done. For me, the final choice lay between Sherlock Holmes - Crimes and Punishments, which was a very enjoyable Holmes game with lots of potential with its deduction system and Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Tomoshibi ga Kienu Ma ni, which was the accumulation of all the games in the series before it. In the end, I think I enjoyed Tomoshibi ga Kienu Ma ni the best: Crimes and Punishments aimed very high, but some missteps led to a gap between the ideas behind the game and the final product. Tomoshibi ga Kienu Ma ni on the other hand does everything it had set out to do in a fantastic way and makes a better impression as a whole package.

Oh, as for other non-detective games this year: Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi S (Scary Stories That Happened at School S, PSX), Kurohyou 2 (Black Panther 2, PSP), E.X. Troopers (3DS) and Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii) were all great.

Most Interesting Never-Before Read Author! Of 2014
Kim Nae-song (with Main) 

Okay, within any given year, I actually seldom read new writers, so the list of candidates isn't very long anyway. Authors I had never read before until this year include Yamaguchi Masaya, Henry Cecil, Jan Apon (of whom I read no less than four novels this year!), Amagi Hajime and Hayasaka Yabusaka (and some others). But the one I had the most fun with, and whom I want to read more is the author considered the father of the Korean detective story, Kim Nae-song. Main was a great detective-adventure, which might have been not extremely strong in the puzzle department, but I just loved the energy that went into it. The fact that Kim wrote both in Japanese and Korean, is also interesting and I'm pretty sure we'll see more of him on the blog.

The Best 'Trick'! Of 2014!
Trick TV Special 3

I love the ending of Trick - Final Stage, the last film in the long-lived comedy-mystery series, but overall, from the comedy to the mystery plot, Trick TV Special 3 was the better Trick production and one of the best episodes in the series ever.

The Best Trick! Of 2014!
Anraku Isu Tantei ON AIR (The Armchair Detective ON AIR) (Arisugawa Alice, Ayatsuji Yukito)

I love what is usually called a 'trick' in Japanese, though the meaning is a bit wider than the usual English meaning. From the actual mechanical trick to a locked room murder to simply the trap set by the author on the reader, it's all a trick. When I try to write my thoughts of a book, I often tend to write about the originality of a trick and how it was used in the story. Anyway, I read stories with some great tricks this years. From an original locked room in Abiko Takemaru's Ningyou wa Tent de Suiri Suru to the excellent usage of the format of the story (in this case; a voiced reading) in Norizuki Rintarou's Satsujin Pantomine, from the famous The House in Goblin Wood by Carr to the also infamous impossible Diecide in Amagi Hajime's Takamagara no Hanzai. Or what about the inverse mystery about something as trivial as stolen cakes in Yonezawa Honobu's Charlotte Dake wa Boku no Mono, or the absolutely shocking trick that almost seems to come out of nowhere in Hayasaka Yabusaka's  Marumarumarumarumarumarumarumaru Satsujin Jiken. But I chose a TV production this time because it made so good use of its visual format. The thing pulled off in Anraku Isu Tantei ON AIR is one of the reasons I do reviews about detective fiction in any medium, rather than just focusing on books.

The Most Difficult Book Read. Ever!
Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken (The Black Death Mansion Murder Case) (Oguri Mushitarou)

Books you want to have read, but don't want to read? That's this. It might be hailed as one of the Three Occult Books of Japanese mystery fiction, it might be an example for a lot of modern Japanese detective novels, but oh, it's almost unreadable. The evil offspring of a detective novel and an occult encyclopedia. I read a comic version of the same book last month by the way and that was almost normal, but that in turn kinda went against the crazy atmosphere of this book.

The Just-Ten-In-No-Particular-Order-No-Comments List

• Youi Kinpeibai (The Bewitched Plum in the Golden Vase) (Yamada Fuutarou) 
• Kawaramachi Revoir (Van Madoy)
• Egami Jirou no Dousatsu (The Insight of Egami Jirou) (Arisugawa Alice)
• Main (The Demon) (Kim Nae-song)
• Ikeru Shikabane no Shi (Death of the Living Dead) (Yamaguchi Masaya)
• Settled Out of Court (Henry Cecil)
• Handoutai Tantei Machina no Miteigina Bouken (The Undefined Adventures of Semiconductor Detective Machina) (Morikawa Tomoki)
• A Aiichirou no Tentou (The Fall of A Aiichirou) (Awasaka Tsumao)
• Trial and Error (Anthony Berkeley)
• Sweden Kan no Nazo (The Swedish Mansion Mystery) (Arisugawa Alice)

And that's it for this year! But like I said in the introduction, I have way too many reviews already lined up for posting, so this blog will go on like always also in the new year.