Beware the Beast from Below

自分勝手に思い込んで

裏目に出ることよくあるけど

生きてゆきたい今日より明日へ

「ひとりじゃない」（Deen）

When I'm selflishly convinced about things

They often tend to backfire on me,

But even so I want to live on, more for tomorrow than today

"Not Alone" (Deen)

 
By now, I might as well rename the short shorts posts. The idea was to do shorter reviews on multiple things in one single post, but nowadays it's just the most recent volumes of Conan and Kindaichi Shounen every four months.

April is always a big month for Detective Conan. A new volume is usually released together with the annual film, and occasionally extra merchandise is released too. Last year had a new 3DS game for example. No games this year though, but a new volume was released mid-April (+ shipping and stuff usually means I'm two, three weeks behind with my review). Detective Conan 86 obviously does not have the impact the previous volume had (which was basically catharsis after many years of world building), but overall I thought it was an okay volume. The volume starts off with the conclusion to A Mystery Sunken in A Midsummer Pool, which started in the previous volume. The mystery of a dead body suddenly appearing in a hotel pool is surprisingly easy to solve, as I am absolutely sure I have seen the same basic idea at least two different times in other detective manga also. Nothing more than a filler story, even if we get another hint at the 'main' story, as it seems that everyone's favorite female high school student detective apparently has some (never before revealed) ties with one of the main characters of the series.

The second story, The Boy and the Nice Lady, has the Detective Boys discovering a dead body (when don't they!) in her apartment room. A little boy who had become friends with the victim was asked by her to keep an eye on her door as she was expecting three different visitors who could mean trouble. And she was right, for she was found hanging from the ceiling. The story is a bit more complex than the usual three-suspects-which-of-them-was-it and I definitely enjoyed it for that, though I was not that big a fan of the overall story (which seems overly convoluted).

The Inn With the Kamaitachi has Hattori and Kazuha join the regular gang as they investigate a photograph of a kamaitachi, shot at an inn in the Nagano Prefecture. The youkai appears to be running over a hot spring in the picture, which would definitely mean something supernatural is going on. Things start to get really creepy when people are indeed attacked by an unseen 'wind sickle' and finally, the old owner of the inn himself is killed by an actual sickle (the Grim Reaper kind of sickle). I have a feeling Hattori & Kazuha often appear in stories featuring ghosts, and they are usually fun. This one is OK; the main trick of the kamaitachi running over the hot spring is pretty ingenious, even if a bit unlikely and the overall atmosphere is good. The final story, The Kawanakajima Murder Case will continue in the next volume, but already shapes up as an interesting cop-killer story, as the members of a detective unit are killed one by one, with as most likely suspect, the one-eyed police detective Yamato.

Overall a decent volume with two amusing stories, though I have to admit that the last, incomplete story caught my attention the most. But with Aoyama's recent hiatus (because of an operation), I guess the release of the next volume, and the one after that, might take a while.

And as always, a new volume Kindachi Shounen no Jikenbo R ("The Young Kindaici Case Files R") followed right after Detective Conan's latest release. Volume 5 surprisingly starts with The Student Akechi Kengo Case Files, a short story starring series regular Superintendent Akechi in his younger years. In the past, Akechi has also starred in his own spin-off series in his high school, as well as his early police days, but this time Akechi appears as a second year university student. Akechi visits a university festival to find Rena, his old upperclassman at high school and nowadays a popular radio personality of the university radio club. Their old teacher is worried that Rena might be in some trouble and hopes Akechi can help her. Sadly enough, he's too late, as a corpse is found at the festival and Akechi suspects that Rena killed the victim to get out of said trouble. However, Rena has a perfect alibi: she was presenting a live radio show during the murder.

The story is short, but good. I thought the trick was quite ingenious, even if a bit predictable because it is not the first time Kindaichi Shounen has featured such a scheme (so it might be a bit easy to see through). The semi-inverted approach is something we often see in the shorter Kindaichi Shounen stories, though those are usually a lot more funnier too (this one is not particularly laugh-inducing). Oh, and two points: for those interested, Akechi Kengo is also starring in a currently-running spin-off series, but illustrated by a different artist. Two: This particular story had a rather big problem when it was originally serialized: due to the paper and ink quality, a large of part of the solution was actually unreadable in its original publication in the magazine Shounen Magazine (it was written on a blackboard, so white on black background). Not sure if someone got fired for that mistake, because readers probably would want to know the explanation of a murder plot.

The rest of the volume is filled with a good part of The Antlion Trench Murder Case, which has Hajime, Miyuki and newsreporter Itsuki trapped in basically the most ridiculously designed building ever in the middle of a desert. Seriously, the Kindaichi Shounen series has featured quite a lot of weird buildings For The Sake of Plot, and I can appreciate a well designed building, but I can't even start to enjoy this story because of how little sense the building makes. And the story does have some interesting points, with a professor doing research in fears and traumas and machinery monitoring everyone's vital signs. But just looking at the building makes my head hurt. Anyway, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R 5 has a good start with a short, but good story, but the longer one is just not as amusing.

And that was it for this short short. Hmm, I have the feeling these short shorts aren't as short as they used to be, so I might have to rework this corner the next time. 

Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌　『名探偵コナン』第８６巻, 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）　『金田一少年の事件簿Ｒ』第５巻

Bloody Murder

ただ人は振り返るもの

巡りあえた景色をそっと 

消えぬように とどめてゆく

「忘れ咲き」（Garnet Crow)

But people always look back

And stand still at the sceneries they've come across

Hoping they don't disappear

"Wasurezaki" (Garnet Crow)

Edogawa Rampo is commonly seen as the father of the Japanese detective story, but it was Kuroiwa Ruikou (1862-1920) who paved the way for the now succesful genre industry. Kuroiwa was a newspaper journalist/editor, writer and translator in a time of transition for Japan, who might have less 'name impact' than Rampo nowadays, but his name is still one you can't ignore. As a newspaper man, Kuroiwa had a clear political agenda and he also set up his own newspaper (the Yorozu Chouhou, one of the earliest gossip newspapers, aimed at the masses), which did quite well not only because of its accessibility and social criticism, but also because Kuroiwa published serial fiction in the newspaper, which drew quite a public.

Kuroiwa's translations were freely rewritten translations and often used to present his own political ideas. Among his serial translations are for example Dumas' Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (famously translated as Gankutsuou, "The King of the Cavern", still a common Japanese title for the book) and Hugh Conway's Dark Days, which became Houtei no Bijin ("The Beauty in the Courtroom"). He published over a hundred translations, many of them of detective novels, which is why Kuroiwa is considered one of the most important names in Japanese detective fiction history.

Kuroiwa eventually also started to write his own stories and Muzan ("In Cold Blood", 1889) has the honour of being not only Kuroiwa's first original detective story, Muzan is actually the very first original Japanese detective story (The alternate title is Sansuji no Kami, Tantei Shousetsu ("Three Strands of Hair, A Detective Story")). The short story starts with the discovery of a severely wounded corpse in a river in Tsukiji and two policemen are set on the case: veteran cop Tanimada and the rookie Ootomo. Based on the nature of the wounds and the knowledge he gathered in his many years in service, Tanimada deduces that the victim was killed in a row by a woman and quickly heads out to find la femme. Ootomo on the other hand focuses on the three strands of hair clenched in the victim's hands and using scientific analysis and logical reasoning, arrives at a different conclusion than Tanimada. Which of them is right?

I will admit right away that I think Muzan is more interesting as the first Japanese detective story than as 'a detective story' on its own, but it does has its interesting features. First of all, I find it extremely interesting that this story features not one, but two police detectives as the detectives. I had kinda expected a Great Detective and his Assistant in the spirit of Dupin and Holmes, but here we have two common cops, just on another case. Amusing is how Ruikou places the two detectives against each other: one veteran cop who 'knows' the world and takes on each cases trusting his own instincts, and a rookie cop, who despite his lack of experience, has a very sharp and keen mind and basically uses forensic methods to detect. The trope of two 'rival' detectives is one I have always appreciated, especially if both parties use different techniques to detect, and this is done wonderfully in Muzan. Ootomo is interesting as he has more in common with Great Detectives like Dupin and Holmes in terms of method, but still obvious just a man within the organization who needs to the support of his superiors to act. Tanimada on the other hand is not portrayed as just a hardheaded cop though, even in the juxtaposition with 'modern techniques', Tanimada shows that experience is indeed also necessary. Setting these positions as equal is something I had not expected and I was pleasantly surprised.

With Muzan, you'll also get a bit of the melodrama Kuroiwa was famous for in his (translated) novels. The ending consist of a long, a very long confession and explanation of how everything came to be and how the victim turned into a corpse and I have to say I thought this was quite boring, especially as it takes up a not unconsiderable amount of the total page count.

As a detective story in its own, I find Muzan an okay story, but nothing more than that. I like the concept of the two detectives, as said above, but the deductions feel a bit forced at times (especially those surrounding the three strands of hair!) and the ending is rather anti-climatic.

Muzan is interesting as a point in detective history because of its existence, rather than for its contents, but for anyone interested in Japanese detective fiction, I think it does provide an amusing short read. You can read the text at Aozora Bunko (the Japanese Project Gutenberg), though those who have never read Meiji-period literature before might find it a bit hard to get through.

Original Japanese title(s): 黒岩涙香　「無惨」

The Grandest Game In The World

"Suppose he's one of those very clever coots you read about in detective stories-"

"Especially yours," muttered the old man.

"-especially mine," nodded his son, "And Rex's, and John's, and Miss Christie's, and other practitioners of the delightfully improbable. And suppose he's playing a game with you-- us."

"The Player On The Other Side" (Ellery Queen)

Just a few more Queens left before I've gone through them all!

The four York cousins all had their own 'castle' in the corner of York Square, a private place that symbolized continuity, decency and all things proper, right in the middle of New York. A will of Nathaniel York, Senior (who was the York) bound the four to the Square, but great financial benefits awaited them for being chained there. Of course, you can only inherit if you're alive and anyone who has read any detective story can guess what's going to happen. With the board set and our pieces in place, the invisible opponent moves his first piece: Walt, the handyman of the Yorks, is sent a letter by "Y" who asks him a favor. A deadly favor. Ellery and Inspector Queen first learn of this game in progress with the murder on Robert York and Ellery takes the seat on the other side of the board to detect The Player On The Other Side (1963).

The Player On The Other Side is a late Ellery Queen novel, ghost-written by Theodore Surgeon and extensively revised by both of the Queen cousins (Dannay and Lee). For what it is worth, it does feel like a regular Queen most of the time and builds on the themes that had been going on in the 'proper' Canon in an interesting, if not always  satisfying manner.

The novel starts with Ellery lamenting that time and technology has caught up on him and that he, as a detective, is not needed anymore. The York case brings Ellery back in the game, and it's a game he is very familiar with. Whereas a lot of Queen novels featured twist endings where it is revealed that everything, including a scapegoat murderer, had been manipulated by the real murderer, we are told right away in The Player on the Other Side that Walt is being controlled by "Y", the titular Player on the Other Side. It does bring a slightly different dynamic to reading this Queen for me, because I usually read later Queens　distrusting everyone and everything like I'm suffering from paranoia, as I always anticipate a twist ending.

I do have to say though, The Player On The Other Side, feels a bit predictable, even in its twists and turns. A lot of elements have been used in earlier Queens already: a private square in New York has been used already in the series (The Greek Coffin Mystery), just like the slighty disfunctional family (There Was An Old Woman), a family called York (The Tragedy of Y), mysterious letters sent to the victims ("The Mad Tea Party", The Finishing Stroke) and like I mentioned, the Manipulator (would be kinda spoilerish to mention specific titles, I guess). I guess that this story is exactly what Ellery wished for, 'a case like always', but it feel too familiar at times.

Loyal Queen readers won't have any trouble figuring out most of the mystery behind the letters sent to the victims, I think, as it's a theme that popped up quite often in later Queen novels (in fact, I thought it kinda strange that it took Ellery that long to figure it out). Overall, I don't dislike the solution, but it is definitely not perfect: the hinting is a bit weak and while I am usually the last to complain about motives, especially a Queen novel, this time the motive behind the murders is quite important to the solution, and it's... well, not convincing here. Thematically, I can see where the Queen cousins and Surgeon were heading for and I do like the idea, but I feel the execution could have been a bit more neater, a bit more clearer.

Overall, The Player On The Other Side is a decent Queen novel though, ghost-written or not. I do think it's a novel better read in the context of other, later Queen novels, or else the solution might seem a bit too farfetched, but on the other hand, a lot of elements do seem a bit too familiar if you've read more Queens. All well, three more Queens to go!

Scarlet Hills

「ラーメン、つけ麺、僕イケメン！　オケー！」

『イケメン部＠花見』（爆笑レッドシアタースケッチ）

"Ramen, Tsukemen, I'm a good looking man!"

"Good Looking Men Club@ Flower Viewing Festival" ('The Laughing Red Theater' sketch)

I usually write my reviews within a week after finishing the book, but this one has been waiting for almost three weeks! And it actually has to wait for almost half a year before it's published online... Ah, the fate of reviews of books that aren't timely to begin with...

Shina Soba Kan no Nazo - Mainaa Kyouto Mystery ("The Mystery of the Chinese Noodle House  - Minor Kyoto Mysteries") is a short story collection by Kitamori Kou and the first volume in his Minor Kyoto Mysteries series. Arima Jirou used to be the most succesful thief in West-Japan, but a chance meeting with the head of the Daihikaku Senkouji Temple in Kyoto brought him back to the path of the righteous, and now he lives as an temple assistant at the temple. Despite his turn, Arima still gets sucked into criminal cases, not rarely because of his friendship with the local journalist Orihara Kei. Strange cases brought by Kei, temple visitors getting killed, his past catching up on him and other incidents: Arima is confronted with one case after another, but he wouldn't have been able to become the greatest thief in the past if he wasn't in possession of a great set of brains, as well as very useful ties to the underworld of Kyoto.

I was actually looking for ramen-related detective stories (like these) when I came upon this short story collection (shina soba is an alternate nomens for ramen), which seemed even more interesting because it was set in Kyoto (where I have lived). I had never read anything by Kitamori Kou though and this read was kinda a gamble. And looking back, I have to say it was a fairly succesful one, though not without some minor gripes (one it being that ramen don't really appear in this collection!). Where it does succeed, is in being a "Kyoto mystery". Seldom have I read a book to which the term "topographical mystery" applies as good as Shina Soba Kan no Nazo. Because of Japan's history of limited travelling until the late 19th century, most regions have very distinct dialects and customs. In this volume, basically all the stories involve some kind of specific Kyoto custom or tradition in a believable, relevant way (and also important: in a fair way; the reader is never at a disadvantage if he has no prior knowledge). It's delight as an ex-Kyoto citizen to see local customs be given the spotlight like this, but it's also quite educational and I learned quite a bit about Kyoto folkways.

In Fudou Myouou no Yuutsu  ("Melancholy of the Acala"), Arima discovers a dead gangster in what is basically the temple's backyard. He naturally wants to know why a corpse was there and with a bit of help of Orihara Kei, manages to connect the victim to a small communal bath house, which has been troubled of all kinds of rumors lately. The story makes some strange jumps on its way to the conclusion and a 'sorta' twist at the end falls flat because it needed a bit more expansion, but the use of the public bath in this story is quite good and I wish it had been rewritten just a bit to really make use of that idea.

Ikyouto no Bansan ("The Last Supper of a Heathen") is all about sushi, sushi of mackarel (saba) in particular. Orihara Kei suspects there's a big story behind the recent death of an artist and sends an undercover Arima to find out more. The discovery that a plate of sababou (a kind of mackarel sushi) from Arima's usual joint was on the table points Arima to the right direction. Again some strange jumps in the story (would someone really murder for that?!) and this time, the trick is a bit harder to figure out because the knowledge is slightly less common, but still a great use of local food customs in a mystery story.

The Daimonji fire is probably the best known of Kyoto's three festivals and forms the setting of Ayu Odoru Yoru Ni ("On the Night Ayu Dance"). A female visitor to the temple whom Arima quite liked was killed on the night of the Daimonji and thrown at the garbage collection point behind the Kyoto Tower. An angered Arima vowes to find the murderer, for which he needs to break a perfect alibi on the night of the five big bonfires in Kyoto. Good use of the Daimonji festival in the story, though some parts of the alibi trick are quite silly and could never have been pulled off like that. Reminds me of another story set in Kyoto where the Daimonji are of vital importance, but it would kinda spoil it if I mentioned the title...

Mizumori Ken, a mystery writer, is invited by an university (and sponsored by Orihara Kei's newspaper) to hold a lecture. He disappeared just before the lecture though, leaving behind a dead professors in a lake of paint on campus. Thus begins a search for him in The Wrong Man ("Funyoi no Hito"), one of the two stories I didn't really like. Mizumori Ken is obviously a parody of author Kitamori Kou himself and he has fun depicting himself as the most horrible writer ever, but the mystery plot is rather disappointing. One part of the story is actually okay (with the professor in the paint pool) and not nearly as stupid as Kitamori seems to claim it is in his prose, but part of the solution depends on knowledge that isn't even Kyoto folkways anymore, but even more local and it was not even hinted at. So very few people would ever figure that out.

Shina Soba Kan no Nazo ("The Mystery of the Chinese Noodle House") was the title that lured me to this collection and was easily the most disappointing of all. Mizumori Ken seeks the help of Arima to help two Italians find their son, who is living somewhere in the city. The very, very vague hint "I live in a Chinese Noodle house" actually does bring Mizumori Ken on the trail of the Italian, but Mizumori also discovers a dead man in the house next door, who seems to have died in a locked house. The story basically consists of two parts, the first about solving the strange description of the Italian's house, the second about the murder. The first part is horrible. No way anyone is going to arrive at that solution with those words, unless you have a godlike Author hovering above you to dictate your actions. It's not even 'haha, that's so stupid, but I can still laugh about it' or 'it didn't really work out but I can understand what you were trying'. It's just bad. The second half is not as bad, but still a bit vague on the crucial parts, making it a bit unfair.

Izakaya Juubei ("The Izakaya Juubei") is where Arima and Orihara Kei spend a lot of time to talk about their investigations in these stories, but this time the bar is also the start of a new adventure. The owner of the place is worried about his fellow disciple: the two of them had trained together at the original Juubei restaurant, and later each went their own ways, taking the name 'Juubei' with them for their own restaurants. But lately, his 'brother disciple' seemed to have thrown away his principles of good food and has switched over to cheap, mass-produced food for the masses. The owner asks Arima to check whether the rumors are true and through The Powers of Fiction Coincidence, Arima also stumbles upon a murder case. Again a lot of weird jumps in logic and story flow that make this story a bit hard to enjoy (in fact, I mostly read through because it was set near where I used to live).

Overall, I'd say that the idea of the Minor Kyoto Mysteries series is better than its execution. There are some moments where local customs and the mystery plot really come together, which give this collection a great local flavor. But most of the stories have some gaps and jumps in their storytelling (how did he figure that out? How did he get that piece of information? Why did it happen like that and not in another way?) that make it difficult to feel completely positive about them. I especially had that feeling as I continued in the collection and I think the latter half is a lot weaker than the first half of the book. The parody of Kitamori Kou himself in two stories was also not enjoyable at all either, though it might be funnier if this wasn't my first novel by him, I think?

Shina Soba Kan no Nazo is the first of the two volumes that make up the Minor Kyoto Mysteries and I do really like the concept, so I might try the second volume sometime later, though I really, really hope the plots are cleaned up a bit this time. As for people who want to read more about Kyoto in fiction though, this is a great place as it features a lot of local folkways you usually don't come across in 'grand' fiction set in Kyoto.

Original Japanese title(s): 北森鴻　『支那そば館の謎』: 「不動明王の憂鬱」 / 「異教徒の晩餐」 / 「鮎踊る夜に」 / 「不如意の人」 / 「支那そば館の謎」 / 「居酒屋　十兵衛」

Violet Cocktail

たった一度だけでも抱いてしまった希望

君の手の中で踊るのは未完成な音色

『未完成な音色』 （Garnet Crow）

A glimpse of hope I had dared embraced only once

But what's left dancing inside your hands is an imperfect tone of color

"An Imperfect Tone" (Garnet Crow)

This is one of the books I'm really interested to see in an English translation. And you really have to read the last chapter of this book to understand that.

Kamiki Raichi is a seventeen-year young beauty, whose appearance is enough to rouse the most primal and sexual urges of every man who places his eyes on her. Raichi is very aware of that and thus earns quite a lot of money with the practice of enjo kousai, or 'compensated dating'. Which theoretically does not always mean sexual services, but in the case of Raichi, she is definitely performing a lot of sexual favours for her clients. She has a flat fee of fifty thousand yen a time for any client, but she chooses her clients carefully. She also has five special regular clients, for whom Raichi has reserved one day of the week for all of them (she is off in the weekends). These regular clients all have their own toothbrush in Raichi's apartment, all in a different color. What most of her clients don't know is that Raichi is also quite intelligent and while her work occasionally causes her to get in dangerous situations, she always manages to think her way out and solve a crime or two on the way out. In Hayasaka Yabusaka's short story collection Niji no Ha Brush - Kamiki Raichi Hassan  ("Rainbow Toothbrush - Kamiki Raichi On the Loose", 2015), we are given a glimpse in the lives of Raichi and her clients.

Hayasaka Yabusaka's debut novel, Marumarumarumarumarumarumarumaru Satsujin Jiken ("The ???????? Murder Case", 2014), was quite a surprise last year. The main trick was shocking and I will probably remember it until the end of days, but I was also quite surprised at the erotic scenes in the book. The sexy Raichi had quite a few erotic adventures over the course of the novel, but the shocker was that those scenes were actually integral part of the detective plot. Vital clues, important hints, all kinds of important points of the plot were skillfully and carefully hidden within the descriptions of Raichi's bed-activities and the sex scenes were thus not simply there 'for the sex'. Niji no Ha Brush is the second book in the series, released just a half year after Hayasaka's debut and continues with Raichi's adventures.

The opening story, Murasaki wa Utsuroiyuku Mono no Iro ("Purple Is The Color That Changes"), starts off right away with a murder that reminds you this is a Hayasaka book. A secretary is found murdered in the office, her upper-body in undressed state and leaning over a copier. It almost appears like a scene from a porn film. The strange thing about the crime scene however is that the copier has made twelve photographs of the breasts of the victim, all about one hour after another. The murderer must have made those boob-copies him (or her)self, as the copy machine has no timer function and the blood spots made by livor mortis on the copies show they are really made of the victim herself. But why do such a crazy thing? One of the suspects is the victim's boss, but he has an alibi as he spent some fun time with his mistress. Who to the surprise to the police officer in charge is Kamiki Raichi. And he is surprised because he too is one of Raichi's regulars. The reason behind the breast copies is actually a neat variation of one of the old patterns of detective fiction, but it is actually 'camouflaged' pretty well, I think. The trick itself too is a good modern update to an old trick and works quite well in this story. A fairly solid beginning of the volume. Also: there's some great hinting spread throughout the story to a certain reveal that is quite original.

Ai wa Sekaijuu no Jeans wo Someteiru Iro ("Indigo is the Color Dying Jeans All Over the World") details the first encounter between Raichi and the police officer who also appeared in the previous story. Raichi happened to be in a love hotel where a murder had happened. While the police did find video material of the murderer and the victim entering the building, and of the murderer leaving the building, the face of the murderer was sadly enough not visible. Bored with waiting, Raichi points out a fatal flaw in the police's thinking and quickly helps the investigation towards the right direction. Quite a short story and rather simple actually. It tries to play with social conventions, but I think that in this time and age a lot of people would have thought of this solution. Not nearly as shocking as that of Hayasaka's debut work.

Ao wa Umi to Manicure no Iro ("Blue is the Color of the Sea and Manicure") on the other does manage to come close to the shock-effect Hayasaka's debut novel had. Raichi is on the look for a girl who was also into enjo kousai, but who lately appears to have disappeared. Raichi traces her to a mansion in a remote fishing village, where the girl has joined a sexual cult, centered around a massively-shapen leader. Raichi stays one night, but the leader is murdered in a locked room that night and suspicion falls on her as the only new face around.

And it's fairly brilliant, if a tad silly. I doubt anyone would guess the main twist at the end of the story in advance, yet there are actually quite a lot of hints pointing towards it. It also fits with the erotic, at times slightly vulgar and shocking tone of the book: I doubt this trick would work in any other series, and I don't think I would have been able to accept it so easily if it had been any other series. This is a story, a trick that only can be done with Kamiki Raichi and that's a good thing.

Both Midori wa Suirishousetsu Goyoutatsu no Iro ("Green is the Color of the Purveyor of Detective Novels") and Ki wa Okane no Nioi no Iro ("Yellow is the Color of the Smell of Money") are very short stories (10 pages?), that deal with simple problems: in Green, Raichi thinks someone has hidden a camera in her apartment, while in Yellow, she tells about why she once ripped up the money she had received from a classmate who wanted to have a turn with her. Green is a fairly well-clued story that once again works towards a shocking truth, but Yellow is not as strong: one particular hint is good, but the conclusion is not really rewarding, nor does the story feel as tightly plotted as others in the book.

Daidai wa ??? no Iro ("Orange is the Color of ???") and Aka wa Kamiki Raichi Jishin no Iro ("Red is the Color of Kamiki Raichi Herself") form a set, with Orange first apparently being an episode from Raichi's past, and Red a story that asks the question: who exactly is Kamiki Raichi? What follows is a strange story I really can't write too much about, but let's say it's a neat meta-ending to the volume. Twists after twists are presented to the reader, all properly hinted across the book and the story works as a showcase for the kind of logic Hayasaka utilizes throughout this volume. It's a fairly fun and interesting experiment in deduction, but ultimately feels a bit lacking because there just obviously is no real conclusion to it all. Fun to see how to hide hints and to do deductions, but as a standalone story, a bit lacking.

Niji no Ha Brush - Kamiki Raichi Hassan was all in all a fairly solid continuation of the Kamiki Raichi series. The type of logic employed in these stories follow the reasonings we know of writers like Ellery Queen, but the erotic touch to the stories manage to set the series apart from other detective series, as well as the sometimes crazy ideas Hayasaka comes with (crazy in a good sense of the word). It manages to shock, but always never just for that purpose: beneath Raichi's sexy appearance, there is really a well-plotted detective story, and definitely worth reading, even if it misses the oomph of the first novel.

Original Japanese title(s): 早坂吝　『虹の歯ブラシ　上木らいち発散』: 「紫は移ろいゆくものの色」 / 「藍は世界中のジーンズを染めている色」 / 「青は海とマニキュアの色」 / 「緑は推理小説御用達の色」 / 「黄はお金の匂いの色」 / 「橙は？？？の色」 / 「赤は上木らいち自身の色」

Rain Man

I walk down the lane

With a happy refrain

Just singin', 

Singin' in the rain

"Singin' in the Rain"

Now I think about it, I don't think I have that many books with a bright yellow cover...

It's raining cats and dogs, but as the Kazegaoka High School Table Tennis Club trains under the roof of the old gymnasium, it's business as usual. While the school also has a more modern gymnasium, this building is still used by several of school clubs, like the Table Tennis Club, the Badminton Club and the Theater Club. With the last classes finished, people walk in and out the old gymnasium preparing for their club activities. Table Tennis club members are doing warming up excercises while the Theater Club prepares the stage and raises the curtain. But to the shock of all in the gymnasium, the rising curtain reveals the stabbed body of the Broadcasting Club president on stage. A preliminary investigation by the police however reveals that this murder was committed under impossible circumstances: all the entrances to the gymnasium were observed or blocked since the time the victim entered the building, making this a locked building murder! Fearing that the police might accuse the Table Tennis Club captain as the most obvious suspect, Yuno, a fellow member, asks the help of genius student Urazome Tenma, a second-year who according to the rumors actually lives in the high school. The highly intelligent, anime otaku agrees to help (for a price) and sets out to solve the locked room murder in Aosaki Yuugo's debut novel Taiikukan no Satsujin ("The Gymnasium Murder", 2012).

The book also carries the alternate English title The Black Umbrella Mystery, which invokes the Ellery Queen spirit the book is indeed going for. In fact, the marketing slogan for Aosaki Yuugo is "the Heisei period Ellery Queen", which should give you an idea about the type of mystery you can expect from Taiikukan no Satsujin. And yes, a black umbrella is of importance to the plot.

Man, I've been waiting for years for the paperback version of this book to be released! Aosaki debuted in 2012 with this book and it caught my attention immediately: it had a very bright and catchy cover (the hardcover and paperback versions have different, but similar covers), the title was a funny parody on Ayatsuji Yukito's Yakata series and Aosaki was a follower of the Queen school of logic and reasoning. Still, if possible I try to get the paperback versions, so I waited until 2015...

And starting with the conclusion: Taiikukan no Satsujin is indeed a great mystery novel in the Queen tradition. Well, a locked room mystery might not seem Queen-ish, but the way the impossible murder is solved is definitely done with our beloved logical reasoning. In fact, I think Taiikukan no Satsujin is a good effort in conciling the logical reasoning type of mystery with the more mechanical type of locked room murders. Genius student Tenma logically deduces when the murder must have happened, the actions the murderer took after the deed and the only method by which the locked room murder must have been completed. The actual method of achieving the locked room murder is a bit disappointing, to be honest, as it felt a bit simple, but nothing but praise for the way with which it is proven that this was the solution, as it is a a great deductive piece of work. And for the fans: there's a proper Challenge to the Reader included!

And I think I've mentioned it earlier, but I have a weakness for mystery novels set at schools. I love the energy and wacky antics in Higashigawa Tokuya's Koigakubo Academy Detective Club series for example and there is a similar atmosphere in Taiikukan no Satsujin. The various students have funny dialogues with each other and the school dynamics come quit alive within the pages of the book. A minor point I have is the amount of students appearing in the story though: while they are actually practically all of them of importance to the mystery, I still couldn't shake away bad memories from the Insanely Homogeneous Student Group of 17(!) from Arisugawa Alice's Gekkou Game. Still, I think Taiikukan no Satsujin shows that juvenile characters doesn't mean juvenile mystery: Taiikukan no Satsujin is probably one of the complex plotted mysteries I've read this year and has the sort of logical complexity rarely seen outside of Japan nowadays.

Aosaki is a very young writer (born 1991) and it shows in his protagonist Urazome Tenma, an anime otaku who secretly lives in the high school. A lot of his dialogue is filled with references to anime and manga and while I am certainly not unfamiliar with those topics (heck, I write professionaly about those topics outside this blog), I have to admit that I didn't get all of the references, especially as many of them seem to refer to more 'recent' anime (I've rather conservative taste in that respect). Anyway, I can easily imagine that the characters in Taiikukan no Satsujin appeal better to a younger public, rather than the people who have been following the genre for more than three, four decades.

Anyway, I enjoyed Taiikukan no Satsujin a lot and I hope the paperback version of the other novels in the Urazome Tenma series follow soon. And as Aosaki is still very young, I am rather curious to see how his style will develop in the following years.

Original Japanese title(s): 青崎有吾　『体育館の殺人』

Face Death (Duel)

「人生はゲームです」

『バトル・ロワイヤル』

"Life is a game"

"Battle Royale"

I know both Colosseum and Coliseum are both right, but I always find the latter spelling just... strange.

Seven men and women find themselves trapped inside a small building called the "Summer House". None of them have any memory of how they got there. An unknown 'host' of the party tells them the reason behind their abduction through a computer: they are to participate in a competetive murder game. A killer is amidst the participants and it is up to the rest to identify the identity of the murderer (or be killed). At the same time, the same game is held at a different building (the "Winter House") with seven other people. The only way to be released from the game (and win heaps of money) is to identify the murderers of both houses. The group that doesn't win will be eliminated (in the 'from life' meaning). Each house is given one hint to the identity of the murders and a computer and webcam to communicate with the other house and so a thrilling game of detecting and survival begins in the 2004 mini TV series Kyokugen Suiri Koroshiamu ("The Ultimate Deduction Colosseum").

Kyokugen Suiri Koroshiamu ("Extreme Deduction Colosseum") is a four part TV series based on Yano Ryou's debut novel, with which he won the 30th Mephisto Prize (for more about the Mephisto Prize, see this review). To have your debut novel produced as a TV series in the same year is quite a feat and I have to admit, the premise of the story is quite interesting. A classic closed circle situation, combined with a competetive game element where each groups tries to extract as much information from the other group without giving too much away (because you need to deduce both murderers before the other group does). A bit like the Mafia/Werewolf game. So I went in with some expectations.

But what I got was proof that a good idea does not lead to a good production. Or in this case, two okay ideas (the competetive survival detection game and one part of the solution) do not make a good production. For this could have been a great show about a closed circle situation with Liar Game-esque elements. But it isn't. Kyokugen Suiri Koroshiamu is a boring show that never manages to really develop the ideas it has and instead drags on and on with one bad twist after another.

Tense closed circle situation of knowing you're locked in with a murderer? It would have been nice if the characters would have been fleshed out more and if they would actually put a bit more effort in 1) trying to discover the murderer and 2) trying to defend themselves. Competetive element with the other group where it pays off to lie to the other group? Would have been nice if we'd seen a bit more of the other group and had more (competetive) interaction with them. Finding the two murderers? The unknown host gives the participants hints to the identity of the murderers, but basically nobody bothers to think about the hints until the end of the show, because it's the end of the show and they need to wrap up the story (let's just ignore the fact the hints are kinda meh and the ending is quite horrible). The novelty of the solution hinges on two ideas, one of which predictable and highly improbable to succeed in the context of this story, one of which a semi-good idea, but it feels like Yano just had one good idea and padded the rest of the story out with underdeveloped elements he picked up from here, there and everywhere.

I haven't read the original novel, so I don't know how many of my complaints are Yano's responsibility and to what extent the production team behind the TV show is to blame, but going by reviews of the novel, it seems that the original novel is indeed kinda disappointing and that the TV show made no real improvements.

And Kyokugen Suiri Koroshiam is something I could have really liked, had it been done better. The people-kidnapped-and-forced-to-find-the-murdered-among-them-game plot device for example is something I quite enjoyed in the Danganronpa games. Groups in a competetion for surivival where lying is a very important strategy was what made Liar Game so awesome. Buildings with weird architecture is what drives Ayatsuji Yukito's Yakata series. But Kyokugen Suiri Koroshiam does not even come close to these productions.

So yes, Kyokugen Suiri Koroshiam was disappointing. It's a dreary show that never impresses, never surprises, heck, it hardly even attempts to keep the viewer's attention. And I find it disappointing the show never really develops the potential it had, but I find it even more disappointing that is just isn't an amusing show. I'd rather have an average, enjoyable series with little potential to grow beyond what it gives you, than a boring series with nothing but virtual potential.

Original Japanese title(s): 矢野龍王（原）　『極限推理コロシアム』