Just a Hunter

Love you, love you 世界は

ただ君だけ待ちつづけてるのさ・・・

The end of days!!

「鋼の救世主」 (JAM Project)

Love you, love you, the world

is just waiting for you

The end of days!! 

"The Steel Messiah" (JAM Project)

I finished the wonderful Dr. Sam Hawthorne series last year, but that doesn't mean I won't read more of Edward D. Hoch's mysteries. Today, a poor Hoch I bought around the time I bought my very first Sam Hawthorne book, and which had to wait until I finished that series.

Simon Ark is a mysterious man, who claims to be walking around Earth for two-thousand years now. He does more than just walking of course: his goal is to find and fight evil in all its forms. The protagonist, a journalist (and later editor), first meets Simon during the coverage of a mysterious mass suicide, where all 73 inhabitants of a small isolated village jumped off a cliff together. Since then, the two have become friends and while we never know for sure whether Simon is really as old as he says he is and whether the rumors of Simon once being a Coptic priest in Egypt are true, we do learn one thing about Simon in Edward D. Hoch's The First Casebook of Simon Ark: he sure knows about people and the evil schemes they can concoct. Simon travels the world researching the Occult and Supernatural and he occasionally comes across strange cases that seemingly involve Powers of the Other Side, but he ironically always proves that behind these strange, impossible murders, disappearances and other mysteries lurks not the devil, but simply the hearts of wicked men.

Yes, Tokyo Sougensha always has awesome covers for their Edward D. Hoch books.

Simon Ark was Hoch's very first series detective, as he starred in Hoch's 1955 debut story, The Village of the Dead. And because Simon Ark is already about two-thousand years old, a couple more or less years don't matter: Hoch had Simon Ark appear in stories all the way up to 2008, for a total of 61 adventures. The First Casebook of Simon Ark (the English title of Simon Ark no Jikenbo I) is the first of five volumes published in Japan that sadly enough don't cover the entire series yet. Each of the volumes contains a random selection of Simon Ark stories. This first volume for example features both Hoch's debut story from 1955, as well something more recent like The Faraway Quilters from 2003. These Japanese volumes are not based on any of the earlier English Simon Ark releases, as far as I know.

The Dr. Sam Hawthorne stories were highly standardized impossible crime stories, set mostly around one setting. While most of the stories were really good, they were practically all made with the same LEGO blocks and the background settings of the stories tend to seem very much alike. This is definitely not the case with the Simon Ark stories. Yes, most stories do feature some kind of supernatural or occult element, be it the mention of devils, some occult book or magicians, werewolves or other fantastic beings. But the stories are set all over the world, with different people and background settings and types of mystery. Sure, it's often an impossible crime, but definitely not always and the reader is always kept on his toes because you don't really know what's coming until you're actually in the story. It's something I kinda missed in the Sam Hawthorne series, so I quite enjoyed that in The First Casebook of Simon Ark.

I'm not doing write-ups on all the stories, because they are kinda short and I might spoil too much just by writing about them. But to pick a few out: Not really impressed by the opening story/Hoch's debut story, Village of the Dead. It has potential, sure, as it's a great setting (the mass suicide) and there are hints here and there about something really supernatural, but it lacks convincing power. The S.S.S. deals with a shady religious society which kinda reminds of the faux cults and psychics in Trick: the story is a great whodunnit for the amount of pages. Master of Miracles is probably the most Sam Hawthorne-esque story in this volume, with an impossible disappearance set in a small community (a woman and her car disappears from inside a car wash). Somewhat easy to solve, but quite entertaining.

Random thought: a globetrotting priest solving impossible crimes with a supernatural and occult tone.... Simon Ark is like a palette swapped Father Brown. Slightly darker Father Brown.

One of my earliest encounters with the mystery genre was Scooby-Doo! and I still love it when supernatural elements (or the suggestion of) make it into a detectives story. So you can imagine that I quite enjoyed The First Casebook of Simon Ark. But it's not just the occult tone of the series: while I have to admit that not every story is as good as the other, there are quite some well written mysteries collected in this volume and I think that most readers will be quite pleased with this first meeting with the mysterious Ark.

Original title(s): Edward D. Hoch 『サイモン・アークの事件簿』: 'Village of the Dead' 「死者の村」 / 'The Vicar of Hell' 「地獄の代理人」 / 'Day of the Wizard' 「魔術師の日」 / 'Funeral in the Fog' 「霧の中の埋葬」 / 'The Man who Shot the Werewolf' 「狼男を撃った男」 / 'The S.S.S.' 「悪魔撲滅教団」 / 'The Touch of Kolyada' 「妖精コリヤダ」 / 'The Society of the Scar' 「傷痕同盟」 / 'Master of Miracles' 「奇蹟の教祖」 / 'The Faraway Quilters' 「キルトを縫わないキルター」

Death Comes as the End

"It's our problem - free philosophy Hakuna Matata!"

"The Lion King"

It took me almost two years to work up the courage / spirit to go through today's book. The prologue was just too dense to get through. Of course, when I finally got past the prologue, it turned out to be not nearly as bad as I had feared. 

A distressed call screaming murder brings the police to the doors of the mansion owned by the wealthy Jewish financier François Dassault. Dassault however refuses to let the local cops inside and uses his connections to get Inspector Maugars in his house, who will hopefully help hush up what Dassault calls an unfortunate lethal accident that happened on his premises. One of Dassault's guests tripped and hit his head on the stone floor, it seems at first sight, but when Inspector Maugars discovers a knife wound in the dead man's back and a broken knife with the SS emblem on it, the case turns into a murder case. And a screwy one too. For one, it seems that Dassault's guest was not a voluntary guests, as the lack of luggage, the bare minimum of furniture in the room and the locks on the door suggest. And even more crazy is that after questioning all those in the house, it seems the man was stabbed in a triple locked space: (1) the third floor room in which the victim was discovered was locked from the outside, the third floor can only be reached from the second floor (which also houses the safe with the room's key), and (2) the staircase to the second floor was under constant watch by several witnesses on the ground floor and finally, (3) the only exit out of the mansion was also being watched. And the case seems to be connected to a group of Yewish people who survived the concentration camps... A most difficult situation, but Yabuki Kakeru (friend of the Inspector's daughter Nadia) is convinced he can bring light to the case with his phenomenology in Kasai Kiyoshi's Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu ("A Locked Room for Philosophers", 1992)

Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu is the fourth book starring Yabuki Kakeru, a Japanese student of philosophy who solves baffling crimes and mysteries through phenomenology, i.e. the analysis of structures of experience and conciousness. It is worth noting that Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu was published almost ten years after the third entry in the series, and while I have not read any of the other novels, it is said that Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu is a turning point for the series with a slightly different tone. Oh, and the long period between the third and fourth book certainly didn't stop Kasai from starting Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu with a long prologue where Kakeru and Nadia talk in detail about their previous adventure, including delicious spoilers, and discuss a bit of philosophy, so Reader Be Warned: the first sixty pages of this book can be difficult to get through.

But then again, what is sixty pages of a story that consists of 1100 pages spread over two volumes? It's certainly not the longest detective I've read (hello Jinroujou no Kyoufu and Ankokukan no Satsujin), but short, it is not.

The triple locked room murder happens early in the story and is great. It has the allure of one of those matryoshka dolls, with a locked room in a locked room in a locked room and Kasai adds enough twists and turns and fake solutions to the plot to keep the locked room mystery entertaining. Especially the way in which series detective Yabuki Kakeru manages to use the Amazing Powers of Philosophy to solve the crime is fantastic and like most of the best locked room murders: the solution itself is actually amazingly simple. And as if that wasn't enough, the story features another triple locked space mystery, one that happened in the past in a concentration camp. While the solution to this past murder is not nearly as elegant as that of the first one, these two mysteries do keep Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu going at a good pace for a fairly good time.

A fairly good time, I stress, because I have to be honest, I didn't enjoy all of the book(s). While this was the first novel by Kasai Kiyoshi I have read, this was certainly not my first encounter with him. I think that anybody who does any serious research on Japanese detective fiction will come across his name very early in the process, as he is also the author of a seminal series of books on the history of Japanese detective fiction and basically impossible not to know if you want to research Japanese detective fiction through the fields of sociology, philosphy and literary history and even formalism. So this might be my first meeting with series detective Yabuki Kakeru, I have been familiar with Kasai Kiyoshi and his thoughts on detective fiction for a good six, seven years now and we haven't always been the best of friends. I have the same with Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu.

There are quite some discussions on philosophy in this story, partly because Kakeru is in fact an international student in France to research philosophy, but an important philosopher who is Martin Heidegger in all but name also plays an indirect role in the plot and sometimes the characters start discussing the meaning of death and Dasein for a lot of pages and while I understand some do love philosophy, it's just not a field of interest to me. Especially not because I have read a lot of Kasai's ideas on philosophy in his academic works on detective fiction (the points he discusses in Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu will be very familiar to those who have read Kasai's Tantei Shousetsu Ron books). That said, I can imagine that someone with an interest in philosophy enjoying the discussions. I for example loved it when Kyougoku Natsuhiko wrote about folklore studies on youkai in Ubume no Natsu, which others might have hated. At any rate, philosophy does play a part in the themes of Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu, as the title A Locked Room for Philosophers suggests, so it's not just pedantry like in Kokushikan Satsjin Jiken. But considering this is a 1100 page story, with quite some talk on a discussion I do not particular like, so you can imagine I did find it a bit tiring. Heck, I think the book could have been half the length it is now and still work. But mileage may vary.

The funny thing about series detective Yabuki Kakeru is that he uses philosophy (phenemonology) to solve crimes. Which means he usually needs to see the whole phenomenon if he actually wants to analyse it. And yes, that in turn means he usually can't solve a crime until all elements of a crime have revealed itself. Kakeru can explain serial killings, but he can't stop serial killings because his method involves analyzing the meaning and connections of the whole picture. Kindaichi Kousuke also has a nasty habit of not being able to save anyone until the end of a case, by the way.

If you asked me if I enjoyed Kasai's Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu, I'd say "Yes, but...". It is a locked room for philosophers, which I am not, but the core locked room mystery is indeed well constructed. I am not sure whether it helped that I was already quite familiar with Kasai's academic works though. At one hand, it was kinda reading the same story again, but on the other hand, it did make the philosophic talk a bit more easier to follow because I knew where Kasai was going to. I think I might read some of the earlier novels in the series (which are less taxing, I heard), but I don't think I will read any of the later novels, if they all follow the tale as told in Kasai's academic work on detective fiction.

Original Japanese title(s): 笠井潔　『哲学者の密室』

Psycho

「つまりさ・・・・・、たとえばハリウッド発の映画を見ていて、一時間が経過してもまだヒロインの女優が登場しなかったり、ハイジャックもビルジャックも起きない、エイリアンすら現れない、そんなことがあると思う？」

「確実にありえませんね」

「推理小説を読んでて、総ページの半分が終わっているのに誰も殺されない、名探偵すら出てこない、そんな推理小説ある思う？」

「確実にありえませんね」

『サイコロジカル　（上） 兎吊木垓輔の戯言殺し』

"Ever heard of a Hollywood movie where one hour in, the actress playing the heroine still hasn't made an appearance, no hijack or building hijack has happened, not even an alien showing up?"

"That's absolutely impossible"

"Ever heard of a mystery novel where halfway through, nobody has been murdered yet, and the great detective still hasn't made an appearance?"

"That's absolutely impossible"

"Psycho Logical - The Killing Joke of Utsurugi Gaisuke"

I mentioned I had read the prologue of Arisugawa Alice's Sweden Kan no Nazo at least six times. I think I've read the prologue of today's book even more often! And of course, when I finally got through that hurdle, I sped through the story in record time...

Zaregoto series:
『クビキリサイクル 青色サヴァンと戯言遣い』 | Deheading Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense Bearer
 『クビシメロマンチスト 人間失格・零崎人識』 | Strangulation Romanticist: Human Failure - Zerozaki Hitoshiki 
『クビツリハイスクール　戯言遣いの弟子』 | Hanging High School - Disciple of the Nonsense Bearer
『サイコロジカル　（上） 兎吊木垓輔の戯言殺し』、『サイコロジカル （下） 曳かれ者の小唄』 | Psycho Logical - The Killing Joke of Utsurugi Gaisuke (Part 1) / Kouta's Bluff (Part 2) 

The narrator and Kunagisa "Dead Blue" Tomo make their way to the research facility led by Shadou Kyouichirou, which lies somewhere far away in the mountains. Their goal is get Utsurugi "Green Green Green" Gaisuke out of the facility. Utsurugi used be a member of Tomo's team of hackers which surprised the world several years ago, but is for some reason now working for professor Shadou. Forced to work might be a better expression. Anyway, negotiations with Shadou don't go very well, even if Tomo and the narrator do get a chance to have a talk with Utsurugi and everyone agrees to continue the talk the following day, but plans change when the following day, Utsurugi is found murdered in his own research building. And with murdered, I mean that his eyes were poked out with a scissor, his stomach was cut open and his arms sawed off. What's more baffling is that the logs show that nobody had entered or left their own research building, meaning that nobody could have murdered Utsurugi. Can the narrator and Tomo find out who killed "Green Green Green" and how the murderer managed to commit a locked room building murder in NisiOisiN's Psycho Logical?
 

Psycho Logical is the fourth book in NisiOisN (Nishio Ishin)'s Zaregoto (joke, nonsense) series and is split up in two volumes, Utsurugi Gaisuke no Zaregotogoroshi ("The Killing Joke of Utsurugi Gaisuke") and Hikaremono no Kouta ("Kouta's Bluff"). The zany light novel series stars an unnamed narrator who has a tendency to get into strange adventures and murder mysteries thanks (?) to his curious friends and acquaintances, among them the genius hacker Tomo and the "World's Strongest Private Contractor" Aikawa Jun. But despite all the locked room murders this series features, the biggest mystery remains the narrator himself. He has a distinct speech style where he talks around, in, out, besides and over any topic, earning him the name of "nonsense bearer". Add in the fact he is quite negative and easily lies to everyone (including himself and the readers) and you have one of the most unreliable narrators in fiction ever. I quite like his narration, but I can imagine it can be a bit tiring too and the fact you can never really get into the narrator's head, might be a bit distracting for those who want to focus on the story and the murders.

Setting-wise, Psycho Logical is similar to the first book in the series, Kubikiri Cycle: a locked room murder mystery with the narrator and "Dead Blue" Tomo in an isolated setting (Tomo wasn't present in the second and third book). Thematically, there are also similarities, including an on-going discussion on geniuses, but a quick look at the two titles immediately shows the biggest difference. Kubikiri Cycle was NisiOisiN's first book and was a murder mystery with quirky characters. As the series continued, NisiOisiN slowly expanded the world of Zaregoto and by Psycho Logical, one could say that the characters are the main, the murder mystery is just a side course. Psycho Logical gives a look into both the narrator's and Tomo's past and the relation between the two and the actual murder of Utsurugi Gaisuke doesn't happen until the very, very end of the first book. The focus of the series has definitely shifted by now and because I heard that the mystery element is all but gone in the last two titles in the series, I think this is the last time I'll do a Zaregoto review here.

Psycho Logical's locked room building murder is quite fun, I think though. Sure, it keeps in the tradition of a certain trope I already mentioned in my review of Kubikiri Cycle, but I quite enjoyed the idea behind the locked room mystery and is definitely quite original. And because I already did a spoiler section in that review, another one:

Spoilers for Kubikiri Cycle, Kubishime Romanticist, Kubitsuri High School and Psycho Logical!! (Select to read):

It's actually quite interesting to see how parts of the human body are being used again and again in this series: as a step, as a transporting vessel, as a key and now as a piece of rope (in the narrator's solution). I don't know if NisiOisiN is trying to say something, but the constant de-humanizing of the err... human body in this series is somewhat disturbing. Now that I think about it, unlike Danganronpa, practically all of the geniuses and super-humans in this series are mental geniuses. I guess that Aikawa Jun is a physical monster, but she is also feared for her mind and not just her raw power...

The setting of the scientific facility and the heavy security reminds me of Mori Hiroshi's Subete ga F ni Naru / The Perfect Insider. I don't think it's a really rare setting in mystery fiction (if anything, the use of keycards / logs / security cameras et cetera make it ideal for it), but I can't actually remember other stories with a similar setting except for that one Kindaichi Shounen story...

I will admit that I am overall a very pragmatic mystery reader. If you have browsed this blog, you have probably noticed that I mainly focus on elements like structure, plot and tropes. The way a story is written, let's say the literary qualities of a story, usually don't matter to me that much. But I absolutely looooooove NisiOisiN's writing style! The wordplay, his roundabout way of talking, everything. Each of his Zaregoto books have been filled with quote-worthy material (something I am very grateful for). And even if you're not very proficient in Japanese, it's still very readable: the vocabulary itself isn't very difficult, but NisiOisiN's just has a great sense of playing around with written words. Like the series title says, it's all nonsense and jokes, but great nonsense and jokes.

Overall, I quite enjoyed Psycho Logical. Sure, the murder mystery appears quite late in the story, but it is a fun, even if simple locked room murder and the narration is still absolutely fantastic. But, as it seems the mystery element basically disappears in subsequent books, I think this will be the last time I'll write about the Zaregoto series on this blog, even if I might still read them just to see how the series ends. But for now, I've read enough nonsense.

Original Japanese title(s): 西尾維新  『サイコロジカル　（上）　兎吊木垓輔の戯言殺し』  / 『サイコロジカル　（下）曳かれ者の小唄』

End of Rain

"Oh shit, it's dim sum time!"

"True Crime - Streets of LA"

I know some people like to collect their books from the same publisher / with the same style. With English releases, you can often choose between (at least) an UK and US release, so sometimes you gotta pay attention when purchasing books. I myself usually don't mind what edition I get, by the way. Still, I find it quite surprising to see that even though I own less than ten Judge Dee novels, they come from like four or five different publishers...

The Chinese Gold Murders was about Judge Dee's first appointment as a town magistrate in ancient China, but by the time of Robert van Gulik's Murder in Canton, Judge Dee has worked his way all the way up to Lord Chief Justice. Only special cases can bring the judge and his subordinates outside the Imperial City, and the disappearance of a court censor is such a case. Judge Dee and two of his faithful fellows Chiao Tai and Tao Gan, make their way to the southern harbor city of Canton, where the censor was last seen. The search for the censor is made difficult because of the delicate political and social circumstances of Canton: many Arabs reside in the city for the trade, as well as a great number of the Tanka people. Can the judge find out what happened to the censor?

I should probably do some research on books before purchasing them, rather than just going by the cover. I was unaware that Murder in Canton would be (chronologically) the last in the series. I haven't read the Judge Dee books in order, and it's not really necessary to do so (in fact, I read them criss-cross), but I had kinda wanted to keep this book for last. But ah well...

To be honest, I found Murder in Canton to be one of the less entertaining novels in the series. Sure, the basic premise is still the same, even if Judge Dee is in a higher position now: like always, he's new in town, he has his small group of subordinates with him and he gets involved with three mysteries that end up connected. No surprises there. Well, except for the fact that because Murder in Canton is set so late in the Judge's career, some of his faithful followers have other obligations that prevent them from joining Dee on his new mission (but that happened in some other novels too).

I wasn't too charmed by the novel's mysteries though. All the Dee books are about the Judge investigating multiple mysteries at the same time (because it wouldn't make sense for the highest judicial and investigating official in a district to work on only one case at a time) and the first couple of books had these mysteries intertwine in suprising ways. But these mysteries, even though connected at some level, were often seperate storylines. Murder in Canton is promoted again as being a story of the Judge investigating three cases, but it is clear right from the start that these aren't three storylines that happen to be connected, they are all one and the same plot, just different ends and I wonder why Van Gulik so desperatedly tried to sell it as three mysteries again.

Of course, this wouldn't be a problem per se, but I thought that the (single) story of the disappeared censor was a bit chaotic and boring. Coincidence has always been a staple of the Judge Dee series, but Fate must have had a very busy day with Murder in Canton, and the story seems to meander a bit aimlessly in the middle part of the book. Also, some stories might work with midget assassins and foreign assassins and I'll admit that at least the special setting of Canton makes it somewhat more plausible, but still, I had to raise an eyebrow (figuratively speaking. I can't actually...). The confrontation at the end of the story is a great effort at bringing the cool logic of a Van Dine school novel in an usually more vague, intuition-based series, but it lacks a bit of convincing power, both seen as a 'logical' deduction scene, as well as a classic 'Judge Dee' confrontation scene.

I liked the multi-cultural aspect of Murder in Canton though, something also seen in some of the other novels (like The Chinese Maze Murders). And atmosphere and random trivia on ancient China is something Van Gulik, a famed Sinologist, always excelled in and he delivers in this novel too. No worries about that.

Overall I'd say I thought Murder in Canton was a mediocre Judge Dee story. It has some points that make it special, especially as it's set as the last novel and thus ties up some of the characters overarching storylines, but as a standalone mystery novel, I thought it a bit disappointing compared to earlier efforts.

Mysterious Eyes

気が付けば求めていて

同じじゃない愛すれ違う

形のないものに焦がれて

true heart of mystery eyes 

「Mysterious Eyes」　（Garnet Crow）

You were looking for it before you realized it yourself

And passed by a different kind of love

Longing for something without any form

True Heart of Mystery Eyes

"Mysterious Eyes" (Garnet Crow)

TheJapanese silver screen often features mystery films, but most Japanese mystery films are usually spin-offs of TV series (which in turn may be based on novels/comics). It's seldom to see a novel-to-film adaptation that skips the TV series stage, so I was fairly surprised by the subject of today's post!

Rinda Rika is the 'All-Round Appraiser Q', a specialist in appraising everything and anything. From the price of jewels to the authenticity of documents, she can appraise anything thanks to her amazing powers of observation and knowledge about pretty much anything. These powers also helped her uncover a jewel heist-in-progress. The owner is very thankful and reveals he is the Japanese agent who is arranging an upcoming visit to Japan from none other than the Mona Lisa. He sends Rika to Paris and the Louvre to take a test for determining the local curator be in charge of the Mona Lisa during its stay abroad. Rika passes together with Ryuusenji Misa, a specialist in art and they undergo even extra training in recognizing the real deal and fake paintings back in Japan, where people are eagerly awaiting the smile to arrive. But there is some secret hidden within the eyes of the Mona Lisa which proves even difficult to Rika in the 2014 film Bannnou Kanteishi Q: Mona Lisa no Hitomi, or the official English title: All-Round Appraiser Q: The Eyes of Mona Lisa.

All-Round Appraiser Q (Bannou Kanteishi Q) is a fairly popular novel series by Matsuoka Keisuke and while The Eyes of Mona Lisa is the first time the series made the jump to live-action, it's actually based on the ninth book (of twelve) in the series. Why an adaptation of a late entry in the series? Well, The Eyes of Mona Lisa was co-produced in both Japan and France, so they needed a France-related story, I guess. The film does feature some elements of the other volumes; a lot of the backstory as portrayed in the film, as well as Rika's first meeting with the journalist Ogasawa Yuto, is taken from the first volume.

As a detective series, All-Round Appraiser Q is not a particularly fair one. Like Sherlock Holmes' infamous Sherlock Scans, most of the deductive developments in the plot are made only possible because of the All-Round Appraiser's incredible powers of observation coupled with even more incredible and detailed knowledge about the most random things and events. There is no way a normal human being (the viewer) is supposed to solve this on their own and the series is more focused on making Rika look absolutely awesome with all her deductions.

Which can work fairly well. The Eyes of Mona Lisa for example has a great opening scene that shows off Rika's observational and deductive powers. It's not fair at all, but it does a good job at letting the viewer know how Rika's mind works and how she makes her deductions. Sherlock showed us that even super-complex-deductions-that-the-normal-viewer-can't-do-themselves can be fun if presented well and it works for The Eyes of Mona Lisa too most of the time.
 
 The middle part of the film is a bit slower, with less mystery-solving and a lot more normal art appraising, but is helped by a rival-figure in the form of fellow curator Misa. I guess that the dynamics are the same as in 'normal' rivalry in detective fiction and appraising is a lot like detecting, but because you don't see any reasoning of why and why they think picture X is fake and picture Y is real, the middle part can feel bit a boring. The finale brings everything together though and even though there are some hiccups in the plot, overall, I think The Eyes of Mona Lisa works as a light mystery film with an emphasis on the characters. Which is probably true to the original novels.

This film does feature some nice shots (of the pieces of art), and I think this was the first Japanese film to be shot at location in the Louvre. While story-wise, the narrative doesn't always provides the viewer with much to look at, luckily most of the visuals manage to do a reasonable job.
 
Hmm, now I think about it, a mystery story filmed at the Louvre about a secret hidden within the Mona Lisa... Sounds kinda familiar. The Eyes of Mona Lisa is quite different from The Da Vinci Code though, from how the story is told to the stakes in each story. The rather slow middle part of The Eyes of Mona Lisa is pretty much the opposite of cliffhanger-marathon The Da Vinci Code...

All-Round Appraiser Q: The Eyes of Mona Lisa is a fairly amusing mystery film that has an interesting angle with the art appraising story. And the Mona Lisa of course.  The plot occasionally stumbles over its own feet and for some, the appraisal angle can be a bit boring, but nice visuals and the not-too-heavy story did provide me with two hours worth of entertainment.

Original Japanese title(s): 松岡圭祐（原）　『万能鑑定士Ｑ　モナ・リザの瞳』

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.