The Dream

この世界が　きみを消し去ろうとしても　Resist！

ぼくが光　追い越して　きみを守るよ 

「 虹ノ矢ハ折レナイ」（A-set)

Resist! Even if this world attempts to erase you

I will overtake the light and protect you

"The Rainbow Arrow Won't Break" (A-set)

And in the series "What, you haven't played that game!?":  I'm still waiting for that Switch port of Umineko no Naku Koro ni so I can finally learn what Red Truths and things like that are...

ABIS (Advanced Brain Investigation Squad) is a top-secret unit within the Metropolitan Police Department which has access to an unconventional method of crime investigation. Using the Psync Machine, ABIS detectives (so-called Psyncers) can hook up their minds with those of suspects and others persons of interest and enter their subconscious dreams. While within these dreamscape worlds called Somnia, the Psyncer can observe the subject's dreams and memories and thus find clues and secrets that the subject may be hiding or not consciously be aware of. However, a Psyncer can only remain for a maximum of six minutes in a person's Somnium due to safety concerns, so it's imperative that a Psyncer can quickly extract the necessary information from these dream worlds. Date is one of the Psyncers of ABIS, and he has access to another technological marvel courtesy of ABIS: Date's prosthetic left eye is imbedded with the AI-Ball, nickname Aibou ("Partner"), a highly advanced artificial intelligence who can communicate with Date directly and provide him with special tools like X-ray and thermal vision, as well as several hacking and network utilities. Aibou also functions as Date's avatar while in a Somnium.

One evening, the horrible mutilated corpse of Nadami Shouko is discovered on one of the horses of the Merry-Go-Round of an abandoned amusement park. Shouko had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest, and her left eye had been removed. Date is put on the case because he himself was acquainted with Shouko: she's the ex-wife of Date's good friend Okiura Renju, as well the mother of Renju's daughter Mizuki, who due to circumstances has been living with Date for the last few years instead of with her own parents. Date promptly starts investigating the murder with the help of Aibou and the Psync Machine, but stumbles upon many trails: what has Shouko's murder to do with the Cyclops Serial Killings, a series of murders committed six years ago in which all the victims had one of their eyes removed too? Is Shouko's death related to her connection to the organized crime gang Kumakura Group and the powerful politician Sejima? Where has Renju disappeared too, and what does the net idol Iris AKA A-set from Renju's entertainment agency have to do with all of this? As Date delves deeper into the suspects' dreamscapes, he realizes that there's something much bigger going on than he could have ever dreamed of in the 2019 videogame AI: The Somnium Files for PS4, Switch and Steam.

AI: The Somnium Files was probably the biggest Japanese mystery videogame released last year, so some readers may be surprised it took me until now to play it. My excuse is that the release was too close to that of Dragon Quest XI S! One of the reasons many looked forward to this game was of course because it as the newest work by Uchikoshi Koutarou, best known for his science-fiction mystery videogames like the Zero Escape series. I'll be completely honest here and admit I never actually completed any of his games, so I didn't mind postponing my playthrough of AI: The Somnium Files. A few months ago, I wanted to play Kodaka's Death Come True as soon as possible, awhich was because I had played all of Kodaka's mystery output until then, but I know a lot of people have the same with Uchikoshi's videogames. He is a very popular developer when it comes to mystery videogames, so I wasn't surprised I saw a lot of people talking about AI: The Somnium Files when it was released, while I of course was still playing Dragon Quest XI S and trying to avoid spoilers!

Anyway, so I finally got around to the game, and it's been an interesting ride! Definitely not flawless, but ultimately, I think AI: The Somnium Files does present an entertaining mystery story with a science-fiction angle. Some flaws I experienced are system-specific by the way: the Switch version for some reason has severe difficulties loading assets during conversatoins during the second half of the game, which slows down like almost all scenes considerably and at times even prevents you from proceeding in the game, but I gather that this is not the matter on other systems. But setting that aside, AI: The Somnium Files is a good example of a mystery game (and story) that has some great ideas, but the execution isn't always consistent. As an adventure videogame, AI: The Somnium Files plays most of the time in a very familiar manner: you control Date as you move around various locations to talk with suspects, witnesses and other persons of interests to gain information and leads, while occassionally you also have to investigate crime scenes yourself too (with the help of Aibou's special functions) to find physical clues, all in order to move the plot. At set times however, you will also have to use the Psync Machine to enter the dreamscapes of suspects and witnesses to gain additional clues, and it's here where the game can become quite frustrating.

The Somnia are basically dreams, and the visual presentation is pretty awesome: each Somnia you visit is distinctly different and show you the weirdest happenings, like a fight with a gigantic polar bear or a Merry-Go-Round turning around at ludicrous speed in a creepy amusement park. Each Somnium also harbors so-called Mental Locks: by solving puzzles and breaking these locks down, Date can go even deeper in the subconsciousness of the subject to find the leads he wants. In these Somnium segments, you control Aibou directly as you walk around in the dream world to solve puzzles and break Mental Locks, but what makes these segments irritating is that the puzzles rely on 'dream-logic'. There's often no real logic to the puzzles in the Somnia (at best there's after-the-fact-logic) . The excuse is that it's all a dream, but that means that the player is just walking around in the Somnium, trying things out at random in the hopes that you'll solve a puzzle by being lucky. What makes this a frustrating experience however is that any action taken in the Somnium costs variating amounts of time, and you only have six minutes in total to break down all the Mental Locks. In the end, these Somnium segments just turn into tedious experiments of trial & error, where you learn to memorize that throwing a skull away will for some reason break down a Mental Lock and where you also learn that some single-use items have to be used at very specific times or else you can start all over again. It's such a shame that as a gameplay segment, these Somnium segments are so vexing, because the visuals are imaginative and they do an interesting job at setting up a mystery, as you're shown vague hints and clues everywhere, but you can't really say for certain what they mean at first sight because it's all presented as randomly connected threads in a person's dream.

The 3DS videogame Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Fukushuu no Rondo ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: Rondo of Revenge") also had these Escape Room segments with a timer on any action taken by the way and I hated them there too. But least there, the puzzles made sense (find a key, use on locked door), whereas in AI: The Somnium Files, the puzzles were only annoying, from start to finish. I don't think there was any puzzle in any of the Somnium segments that felt truly clever, at best just 'Oh, okay, interacting with this thing here in this way for some reason made that thing over there explode which will break a Mental Lock, lucky guess there.'

In general, I think the best mystery stories excel in information management, by which I mean it's important to control what information is available to what person at what time. A mystery plot that provides all the necessary clues to solve the crime at the very start of the novel, but then proceeds to meander for 600 pages makes for a bad mystery story, as it didn't feed the information to the reader in a manner to faciliate the plot as a whole. It's what I talked about in my article on the Challenge to the Reader: what clues are available to the reader at what point, and at what point can the reader or the detective deduce the solution to the mystery? Information management is also important to the characters within the fictional world, as knowledge dictates their possible actions, and if a character never learns a certain fact, they certainly can't act in a way that implies they know said fact. AI: The Somnium Files makes for an interesting case when it comes to this topic.

The story of AI: The Somnium Files will branch off in various routes depending on certain decisions you make during the Somnium segments. These routes are treated as basically parallel/alternate worlds and each of these routes will focus on different aspects of the crime and also feature completely different plot developments. The events on the same day may be completely different depending on the route, and some people who die in one route may live and be completely fine in another route. Obviously, none of the initial routes will provide for a satisfying answer to all the questions and you will need to explore all the routes in order to gain access to the final route with the complete solution to the mystery. It's while you're exploring the various routes that AI: The Somnium Files handles information management the best. All the routes will end up in completely different places and usually leave a lot of questions unanswered, but the answers to many of those mysteries can be found in other routes. The reason why person A betrayed you may never be explained in one route, but will be explained in another route for example. Or in the case of the brancing storylines, sometimes you understand why things happen in a different way after the branching point once you play through both branches and realize what the decisive difference was between those routes. The information fed to the player is thus spread across the various routes in the game, and that results in very satisfying development of the mystery plot. It's not linear in the sense that the player can choose to do most of the routes in any order they like and you can also choose to pause in a certain route to go to another, so it's likely I will have seen certain scenes/clues in a different order than someone else playing this game. AI: The Somnium Files shows how a videogame format can do interesting things with information management in a mystery story, showing clues and foreshadowing events in a non-linear manner to the consumer, creating a mystery experience that you can't get with a conventional novel. The various routes are also written in a way that each of them will reveal very different aspects about the murder(s) while also providing new mysteries, so you're constantly tempted to keep on playing.

But there are also times where AI: The Somnium Files does really weird things with how it handles information given to the player and the characters, which does hurt the mystery tale a bit. The mystery plot overall is quite amusing by the way and the way the story uses the branching "what if that happened instead" routes to show the player all kinds of clues is pretty ingenious. But most of the information that set-up to the major story reveal regarding the New Cyclops Serial Killings is shown relatively early on in the game and I think the attentive reader will be able to make an educated guess about what direction the story will eventually take due to the early telegraphing, even if the game tries to mystify you by throwing all kinds of related, but less important mysteries at you in the various routes. That said, once you realize what is going on, it's still interesting to see how all the various scenes from the different routes fall in place and make sense in the context of the grander mystery. But AI: The Somnium Files also strangely does some clumsy things with information management: at certain points, the game simply stops the player from proceeding, prompting you to try out other routes first. The reason being that allowing the player to proceed then would provide them with very vital information that would explain too much, so it's designed to prevent you from learning that information too soon. The problem is that such blockades only makes sense from a meta point of view, with the developer trying to shield the player, but in-universe, it doesn't make any sense to have the story stop there with the characters all frozen in place because the player isn't allowed to move on yet. It's a very awkward way to control information flow, allowing a player access to a route initially, but then forcefully stopping them midway because they aren't allowed to know something yet! Even weirder is when at one point Date seems to know things only the player should know: the player did go through all the alternate routes and saw the clues/information offered there, but Date the character did not, as from all the character's POV, they will always only experience one single, linear route. In some games that utilize stories with branching storylines, this is explained through plot devices like time travel, allowing a character to travel back in time with the knowledge from other timelines), but in the case of AI: The Somnium Files, it's just careless information management. Control about what characters know what when is a pet peeve of mine in mystery fiction, so it was rather disappointing to see AI: The Somnium Files mess up there, as I found it really distracting.

 
Oh, and setting the topic of information management aside, I have to repeat I really like the core concept of the plot of AI: The Somnium Files, but some of the details in the story do seem really... rushed. Some mysteries shown in the various routes are only there to show the player some kind of cliffhanger, even if it doesn't really make sense for those events to happen story-wise. Even worse is when some characters have to act like complete idiots at certain points in the backstory to even make the plot work. The core idea of the story is great, but some parts of the tale are kept barely hanging together and require some characters to act really weird at certain points in the story or even go against what is mentioned only a few moments earlier!  Like with that one character being portrayed as some kind of insane, but calculating mastermind, but then we learn they also took certain life-changing decisions on nothing more than a whim without any real justification for why they'd act like so careless.

There are also some parts of the game where everyone's mileage will vary. I liked most of the characters, though some of them have awfully little screentime. There were a few action-focused scenes with Quick Time Events which felt a bit useless and I also felt the City Hunter-esque sex jokes fell flat, as they usually came out of nowhere and felt horribly out of place. These jokes were also mostly used during the action scenes, making these whole sequences stand out in the bad sense. I loved the many references to other mystery videogames and popular culture though! References to Machi will always earn a game bonus points, but that reference to Murder on the Mississippi totally caught me off guard (ha!).

I found AI: The Somnium Files to be an entertaining science-fiction mystery game that on one hand shows how the format of a videogame can present a unique mystery tale in a manner a novel can never match, but on the other hand the game also shows at time how frustrating a videogame can be, both technically as well as in terms of oddly designed segments. The core mystery plot is interesting, though some details are sloppily handled, making AI: The Somnium Files a game I do want to recommend to people interested in a science-fiction mystery, but it's not a game I would recommend to 'general' mystery fans who have never played a videogame.

Original Japanese title(s): 『AI: ソムニウムファイル』

Queens Full

"Off with his head!"

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Repeating myself here, but I love this type of cover for short story collections, where each of the stories included is represented properly on the cover, instead of only the cover story.

Tsukatou Hajime's short story collection Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery", 2019) is the latest entry in the series starring Minami Mikikaze, a professional photographer with a knack for solving crimes. And fans of the mystery genre can probably guess the theme of the stories collected in this volume based on the title. For yep, all of the four problems Mikikaze encounters in these tales are of course inspired by Ellery Queen's novels, to be exact, the Nationality novels. This is the first time I've properly read anything by Tsukatou by the way (read a random short story once) and it's my first time with Mikikaze too, but apparently, the Mikikaze stories do follow a kind of chronology. This volume makes a few references to past cases for example, and other events in Mikikaze's personal life that may or may not have been discussed in more detail in previous books, but in general, I think most readers won't have any problems starting with this book, especially as the four stories here do form a set on their own. In the first story, we are told that Minami Mikikaze has been playing guide for Elizabeth Kittridge in Japan. This forty-or-so woman who speaks a kind of Japanese is not only a prominent forensic investigator in the United States, but also the daughter of Ronald Kittridge, the surgeon who successfully conducted Mikikaze's heart transplantant. Beth is now in Japan to attend an international symposium and workshop program on criminal forensic investigation. Part of the program involves having international investigators attending criminal investigations of the Japanese police so both sides can learn from each other, and Beth has chosen Mikikaze as her assistant, because Mikikaze has made a reputation for himself as an amateur detective.

Beth and Mikikaze are first sent to a self storage facility in Aru Roma Boushi no Nazo ("A Roman Hat Mystery"), as a body was found in one of the storage units. The many fancy hats, hat stands and magazines on hats suggest that the person who rented this unit, a "Shirai Yoshihisa", was simply a hat lover, but the police were already aware that "Shirai Yoshihisa" was involved with a drug smuggling ring, which was smuggling cocaine into Japan inside fancy brand hats and hat stands. There's much at stake with this investigation, but there are many little things that bother the investigators. For example, there's camera footage of Shirai entering this unit and him being followed by another person who later fled the scene, but who was this person? While the police is convinced this has to do with cocaine, they can't find any drugs inside the unit, and another mystery is the fact that (missing) bloodstains suggest something was taken away from this unit, but the police has no idea what that was or why they didn't see the object in the security footage of the culprit fleeing.

This story obviously takes some minor cues from Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery, but is in general a completely original story (the Roman Hat in this story is actually a hat from Rome for example, while in The Roman Hat Mystery, the Roman comes from the Roman Theatre). While the story itself has little to do with Queen's novel, the underlying plot does feel very Queen-esque, in the sense that the investigation focuses a lot on objects, and what you can deduce based on the state of the objects found at the crime scene. For example, Mikikaze and the police detectives hold discussions about what the object could be that was taken away from the crime scene, and why they didn't see the culprit carrying it with them as they fled the scene on the security footage. The plot involves several of these moments, where the detectives let their thoughts loose on the physical circumstances of the crime scene and the logical implications, which is of course the modus operandi of especially the early Queen novels. This story, as well as the following three stories, are less about whodunnit or howdunnit, but about explaining the mysterious circumstances of each crime scene, and the actions the murderer took (based on the crime scene). However, unlike Queen and for example Arisugawa's work, I'd say that the stories in this volume are less about chains of deduction, at least, they're not about strongly connected chains of reasoning. There are some ideas about this story I absolutely love (for example, why the murderer went as far as to hit the victim multiple times in the head or why the scissors on the work bench were left there) that really belong the Queen school of mystery, while other parts of the mystery (like the missing object) are less interesting. The various elements of the story sometimes feel a bit... not disconnected perhaps, but not as connected as I'd have wanted them to be. The result is I'm not sure how I feel about the story, because some parts are so meh, while other parts are absolutely great.

A problem shared by all the stories in this volume is the writing style though. It's hard to explain what it is, but Tsukatou often jumps a few minutes ahead and has the characters discuss all kinds of things that seem slightly vague to the reader and after that section, the narration catches up and explains how they got to that point (which explains the vague allusions in the earlier dialogue). It's a story device you often see in detectives, especially in the conclusion when the detective suddenly unveils the identity of the murderer, and only after that, the narrative explains how the detective laid their trap, but these stories, it happens too often: Tsukatou does this 'jump a bit forward, have some dialogues that include facts the reader hadn't heard about yet and then explain afterwards' thing few times per story. It's like you're being driven around in a car, but the car speeds up for no reason, only to turn around and do the same part slowly once again. It's jerking you around all the time, which makes enjoying the stories a bit difficult. At first, I thought it was just me needing to adapt to Tsukatou's writing style with the first story, but it happens in all four stories.

Which is more-or-less the theme of this volume for me, for each story definitely has some fantastic ideas that revolve around deductions based on objects, but there are almost always elements that seem underdeveloped, as if there's no synergy between the various ideas in each story. Aru France Oshiroi no Nazo ("A French Powder Mystery") is set right after the previous story, as Elizabeth and Mikikaze are called as observers to the murder scene of Yata Sonoe, an eighty-year old lady who moved in the upper circles of society, but of whom the police knew was a ranking member of the same drug smuggling circle of the previous story, together with her deceased husband. Sonoe was found this morning by her nephew's wife, who did Sonoe's housekeeping each day. The strangled Sonoe was found in one of her drawing rooms, lying on the couch. The floor around the couches however was covered by white powder: during her futile struggle with the murderer, Sonoe hit a container of powder foundation (from France, not the French Department Store), which covered the whole floor. While the room also has some interesting evidence for the police waiting on a table further down the room in the form of actual cocaine, they have to wait until forensics is done with the room. Meanwhile, Mikikaze and the police detectives try to figure out what the murderer did in the room, based on the (vague) traces left on the powdered floor. I love the main idea behind what the murderer did after the murder in order to elude the police, and makes great use of the titular noun, but the build-up to the reveal feels a bit underwhelming. You have parts where the detectives discuss their ideas but they ultimately don't go anywhere, while the most important fact you should know if you want to have any chance of solving this story, isn't revealed to the reader until Mikikaze's already explaining everything, leaving you with the feeling like you've been cheated. Great premise that also gives meaning to having this story be a direct continuation of the previous, but the execution is slow and at times even tiring.

At this point, you think, neat, the whole collection is connected and about this cocaine smuggling ring, right? Well, wrong. Only the first two stories are connected like that. The other two stories do feature Elizabeth again during her stay in Japan, but are in no manner connected to the cocaine storyline. Which was really weird, for each time, I was totally expecting someone to be uncovered as being involved with drugs in the last two stories. Sorry to all the characters I suspected!

The Dutch Shoe Mystery was about the Dutch Hospital, but Aru Holland-Gutsu no Nazo ("A Dutch Shoe Mystery") is actually about Dutch shoes, that is, wooden shoes. Elizabeth and Mikikaze are the guests of Ootsuki Mikako and her husband Tadashi. Tadashi is the head of the South Shinano General Hospital, and the hospital, and the Ootsuki's personally, are involved with an NPO that focuses on international organ transplants. A child at the South Shinano General Hospital is awaiting such an operation, and they're filming a short movie at the Ootsuki residence to encourage the boy, but also to use as a PR movie. Elizabeth is here because of her father's reputation, while Mikikaze was also invited as he himself had a weak heart as a child, and he has fully recovered now he himself has undergone such an operation. Other guests include the head of the NPO as well as the Ootsuki's nephew and his girlfriend. Everyone is invited to stay that night, some of them sleeping in the main building, some in the annex. Early in the morning however, Mikikaze has a visit by Mikako, who found her dead husband downstairs. He was wearing one wooden shoe from Mikako's clog collection kept in the annex, while the other clog was used to hit Tadashi on the head to kill him. The only footprints in the garden that connects the main building and the annex are those of the wooden shoes leaving the annex, meaning Tadashi must've been in the annex in the night and that he left the building with a pair of his wife's clog, but why? He never wore clogs unlike his wife, and what was he doing in the other building in the first place? And is the murderer someone in the main building, or from the annex? A lot of deductions revolving around the clogs footprints, how Tadashi must've gotten his hands on the clogs and how he crossed the garden. For those into object-focused, reasoning-focused mysteries, this is arguably the best story in the collection, and I really did enjoy this one, but there are a few points in the story where you, as the reader, have to guess what happened, because you are unlikely to see through the whole deal solely based on the physical evidence left. Funnily enough though, I like one of the theories mentioned halfway through the story even better than the actual solution: while it's pointed out that it wouldn't have been practical, it's a solution that could've been salvaged pretty easily (the introduction of one simple tool alone would've been enough). The 'punchline' of the story is Queenian, I agree, though I don't really like how it was used here.

In Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery") is set at a small forest camp site, where Mikikaze is joined by five Art students from his alma mater. These students belong to Professor Yamashita's class, who will join this study camp later, but on the first day, Mikikaze is to teach the students the finer points of making photographs of raw nature. After the workshop, the group have dinner and drinks together, and eventually everyone leaves for their cottages. The following morning however, Mikikaze is awakened by one of his students, who has made a horrifying discovery: a decapitated body was hanging from the T-shaped signpost near the entrance of the camp site (just like in The Egyptian Cross Mystery). While there's no head, the students seem to recognize the victim as one of their fellow Art students based on his clothes and characteristic fingers and limbs. What's surprising is that the head is found not that far away from the camp, so it was not cut off to hide the victim's identity. While a confession from one of the students soon clears up why the victim was here near the camp in the first place, Mikikaze is still bedazzled by the case, and while the police, accompanied by Elizabeth, soon arrive, they stumble upon the same problems as Mikikaze: why was the body hung from the signpost, why was the head cut off if not to hide the victim's identity and why was the decapitation done in a place relatively close to the camp site and not somewhere deeper in the forest? Again, I think the main concept, the decapitated corpse, involves some really good ideas that also give way to interesting chains of deductions (for example, the direct reason for hanging the body from the signpost and why the murderer didn't find a better place to cut the head off), but other parts seem almost disappointing in comparison (the direct cause for wanting to hang the body from the signpost is bloody brilliant, the underlying cause why the murderer came into the situation to need to do that was silly. And the motive for the murder....).

I still find it hard to say what I really think of Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo. Each of the stories has outright fantastic ideas and interesting chains of deductions, but the writing style is something you need to get used to, and far too often, the stories don't feel entirely cohesive and evenly thought out, with some ideas/parts of the story coming across as afterthoughts, while in other cases, the other elements that should be supporting the main concept, feel like side-branches that go other directions. Considering the ideas I found here, this volume would've definitely made it into my top ten reads for this year had they been worked out a bit better. It's still a very good story collection, especially if you like these Queen School-style stories that focus on chains of deductions based on the physical state of the crime scene/evidence, but as it is now, whether Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo's will end up in my end-of-year list is very dependent on what I'll come across the following months.

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『或るエジプト十字架の謎』： 「或るローマ帽子の謎」 / 「或るフランス白粉の謎」 / 「或るオランダ靴の謎」/ 「或るエジプト十字架の謎」

When the Cicada Calls

"The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up."

"Revelation 8:7" (King James vers.)

I've never been invited by vague acquaintances to come to a remote island, but I'm pretty sure I'd never accept the invitation, because odds are I'm going to either get killed, or at the very least have a horrible few days with everybody around me dying.

The eight months that have passed since the horrible events that occured in her family home the Glory Manor have given Manami the time to move on with her life. She became friends with the freelance photographer Kanou Erika when Erika visited the Glory Manor to take pictures of the stately building and Erika decided to hire Manami as a temporary assistant. The two are headed for Komura, a small private island off the coast of F(ukuoka) and S(aga). The island is the home of the beautiful twins Ichinose Saori and Kaori. Gigantic cliffs surround the whole island, with only a small inlet allowing access to land. Most of the island is covered by a thick forest, but the hollow clearing in the center and the small hill there offer space to both the Ichinose home and a small chapel. Most people would find this island inconvenient, but not for the parents of the twins: their mother in particular was an extreme devout follower of the Roman-Catholic Church and believed truly that the Apocalypse would come: the island was where her family would await the End of the World. Saori and Kaori were both brought up with these ideas from her mother and had barely seen anything of the world outside the island, until their mother died. Kaori went to study art for a while in Tokyo, but returned to the island suddenly. But now she has sent invitations to seven people she met during her time in Tokyo, and one of the invitees is Erika, who decides to drag Manami along. It turns out that one of the seven invited guests couldn't make it, making Manami the seventh guest.

A small motorboat has been prepared to bring the party in several trips across to Komura Island, making Manami, Erika and a college student the first group to reach the island. As they arrive at the peer, they can make out the silhouette of Saori or Kaori far off, but she disappears immediately. When the three arrive at the house, they find a note from Saori welcoming them, and saying that she had to get out for a minute and will be right back. But neither Kaori nor Saori show themselves even after the remaining guests have been brought over from the mainland, so the seven guests decide to explore the house. In Saori's room they stumble upon a letter addressed to them, vowing to avenge what they did to Kaori and prompting them to take a look in the freezer in the kitchen. Inside the freezer, they find the horrifying, yet dazzling sight of the frozen corpse of Kaori, gently positioned in a praying pose. The guests realize this isn't just some joke, but the phone lines are cut and the boat to pick them up won't come until a few days. They suspect Saori is still somewhere on this island and hope they can reason with her, but decide to rest for the night. The smell of smoke wakes the guests during the night however and when they trace the source to the garden, they find the burned corpse of one of the guests, with a miniature trumpet stabbed in their chest. One of them realizes this is a reference to the Apocalypse as described in The Book of Revelation, when the angel would sound the trumpet seven times, signifying another apocalyptic event each time. As time ticks on, more and more victims fall in ways that invoke Revelation, but the hunt for the murderous Saori remains fruitless. Several days later, the police act on an anonymous call and arrive at the island, only to find six bodies and an unconscious Manami, who somehow survived the onslaught. She contacts Father Sakura again, as she hopes he can provide answers again in Kotoukan Satsujin Jiken ("The Murder Case of the House of the Remote Island, 1998).

Last week I reviewed the first volume/story in the short The Case Notes of Father Sakura series, noting it was an enjoyable mystery story with a genuine Challenge to the Reader, a tale that should especially appeal to readers of Kindaichi Shounen as it had several thematic similarities. I also wrote I was going to read the second volume soon, which I definitely did: this review may be posted a week later, but I read the second volume the night after I read the first. Kotoukan Satsujin Jiken originally started serialization in Afternoon in August 1997 and was later compiled into a single volume in 1998. It's quite lengthy too, more than 300 pages compared to the 250 pages of the first volume, which is one of the more notable similarities it has with Kindaichi Shounen, which also features relatively long stories in comparison to other mystery manga.

Anyway, last time we had a locked room murder in a creepy manor, this time we have an And Then There Were None-inspired story, with a closed circle situation on a remote island with only one house and a chapel on it. The story follows Manami as she experiences the horror in Komura Island and in general, the story makes for an interesting pair together with the first volume. Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken had a plot that took its time to build things up and there were only two murders (and the second occurs quite late too), but we have a lot more deaths in this one. It shouldn't surprise you that this volume is a lot more thrilling to read, with all the gruesome murders patterned after Revelation, and the suspicions of the characters flying all over the place, never sure whether their opponent is Saori, one of their own or perhaps someone completely different. As the number of survivors dwindle, the remaining characters obviously start to harbor doubts against each other, resulting in the tense climax which ultimately leaves Manami the only living survivor on the island. This story is about a hundred pages longer than Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken, but it certainly never feels like it's too long.

That said, one can make the argument that a lot of Kotoukan Satsujin Jiken feels far too familiar. Most of the murders committed could've been anyone's work, whether by Saori or one of the remaining survivors, so for a long time, the plot is "simply" about the deaths, giving the reader little material from where they have to deduce the truth. For most of the time, this just feels exactly like And Then There Were None (where most murders 'just' happened and could've been committed by anyone), only here we have Revelation as the theme instead of a nursery rhyme. Now I think back to The Decagon House Murders and The Jellyfish Never Freezes, which are both also And Then There Were None-inspired stories, and realize they manage to avoid the same pitfall by using a dual narrative structure (disclosure: I translated The Decagon House Murders etc. etc.). The Decagon House Murders juggles between chapters set on the island and the mainland, while The Jellyfish Never Freezes juggles between chapters set before and after the murders. That allows for more depth and diversity in the story and while not every And Then There Were None-inspired story can benefit from such a dual narrative structure, having something to differentiate it from the same core plot structure can definitely help.

After the dust has settled, Manami is visited by Father Sakura in the hospital, who is told all the events as experienced by Manami and the reader too is challenged to solve the murders and figure out who killed the six victims on the island. It's a shame that this riddle is relatively easy to solve because one scene in the story stands out: the exact same thing happened with Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken. While not nearly as obvious as in the first Father Sakura story, one early scene in this volume does point to a specific group within the characters mentioned throughout the story and after a while, you'll soon realize only one character within that group can be the murderer. After that, it's not hard to reverse-engineer all the murders, as like I mentioned, most of the murders could've been committed by most characters. It's definitely a fair mystery though (fit for a mystery story with a formal Challenge to the Reader) and I do like it that there are a few more hints dropped throughout the story that point to this character as the culprit, which are actually more subtle/cleverer than the primary one, and the way you have to combine a certain early event with a very late event to arrive at the definitive answer is also well-plotted. In terms of the "model answer" of how to solve the case, the process in Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken is more impressive, while as a story, Kotoukan Satsujin Jiken is a far more gripping experience, also when talking about the background story.

But I had fun with Kotoukan Satsujin Jiken too, so it's kinda a shame I'm already through the complete The Case Notes of Father Sakura series! I wonder why writer Aoki and artist Ogawa only did two stories, as in terms of quality, it's been a fairly consistent and amusing ride and I would've loved to see more of Manami and Father Sakura. I liked the apocalyptic imagery of this volume and I can only imagine what this series would've been if it had delved more into the more occult side of the Bible as a theme for the murders! Anyway, I guess I'm back to finding more mystery manga gems in Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar. 

Original Japanese title(s): 青木吾郎 (原）, 小川 幸辰（画)『桜神父の事件ノート (2) 孤島館殺人事件』

Murder, She Wrote

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, 

Moves on 

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Verse 51, Edward FitzGerald translation)

Oh man, this cover is gorgeous! Definitely a contender for the best cover of the year.

Higashigawa Tokuya's short story collection Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda ("I Have A Mystery I Want You To Read", 2020) brings us back to Koigakubo Academy: a quaint private high school in Kokubunji-shi, Tokyo which offers both a curriculum for 'normal' students as well as a special curriculum for students in the entertainment industry like idol singers. It's April and our unnamed narrator has just started his new life as a high school student. Hoping to join the Literature Club, the boy finds himself in front of a prefab container building hidden in the shadows behind one of the school buildings. Knocking on the door with the sign LITERATURE CLUB, he's promptly ushered inside by a beautiful third year student with long straight black hair, who introduces herself as Mizusaki Anna, club president of the Second Literature Club. It turns out there are two literature clubs at Koigakubo Academy and that the sign outside does say "Second" in very, very small print. The 'normal' Literature Club is where they talk about literature, while the Second Literature Club has a more prestigious goal, as the amateur writers here all focus on making a professional debut themselves as an author. Another shocking realization is that Mizusaki Anna is actually the only member of this club. But things were already set in motion the moment our narrator knocked on the door and stated he wanted to become a member of this Literature Club. Anna locks herself up with the narrator inside the club room and kindly allows the newest member of the Second Literature Club to read her works of fiction: a series of short detective stories starring Mizusaki Anna, a beautiful, talented, brilliant yet kind high school student of Koigakubo Academy who solves all kinds of murders and other impossible crimes set around the school...

Higashigawa Tokuya is best known as a writer of humorous detective series, which combine snappy dialogues and slapstick comedy with cartoonish characters with surprisingly well-plotted puzzle mysteries that brilliantly use comedy as misdirection. I've enjoyed all the series I've read by him a lot, like Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de ("Mystery Solving Is After Dinner") which was a multimedia hit about the female police detective Houshou Reiko, who was in fact the stinkin' rich heiress of the Houshou Group. Her sharp-tongued butler Kageyama always manages to solve her cases (while totally belittling his mistress), but he waits until after dinner to explain the mystery. And then there's the series set in the fictional town of Ikagawa-shi, about the (mis-)adventures of the private detective Ukai and his assistant Ryuuhei who always end up involved with impossible murders despite... well, perhaps because their best 'efforts' to stay out of trouble. But my personal favorite series has always been the stories set around Koigakubo Academy. Up until now, Higashigawa had two connected series both set at this school: the two Koigakubo Academy Detective Club novels were about Tamagawa, Yatsuhashi and Akasaka of the titular Detective Club, a club for people who want to become detectives (not to be confused with the Mystery Club of the same school, where they write mystery novels). The three are 'talented' in getting involved with murders set around the school. The Houkago wa Mystery to Tomo ni (After School, Together With Mystery) books on the other hand focused on the adventures of Kirigamine Ryou, the vice-president of the same Detective Club, who not only has the talent to miraculously avoid running into the characters of the main series, but she also gets involved in a lot of comedic, non-murder related mysteries set around the campus, like theft cases at the school or students getting knocked out at school by unknown figures. Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda introduces a new angle to the Koigakubo Academy setting, with the two members of the Second Literature Club as its focus. While we don't see the main characters from the Detective Club in this book, we do see a few familiar faces (like teachers) and other names dropped throughout the short story collection, so for fans of the Koigakubo Academy books, Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda is a must-read! I myself wasn't even aware this book was going to be published until two, three days before the release, but I knew instantly I needed this book as soon as possible.

Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda is a short story collection, where each story features a story-within-a-story. The narrator runs into Anna every two, three months at which point she makes him read one of her mystery stories featuring the sliiiiightly fictionalized "Mizusaki Anna", the best-thing-since-slice-bread club president of the wonderful Second Literature Club who in all her modest glory manages to solve murder after murder at Koigakubo Academy. The name of the fictional "Mizusaki Anna" is written differently from the real Mizusaki Anna in Japanese by the way. The thing is: Anna's stories have room for a lot of improvement. Anna's always waiting for neverending praise whenever the narrator's done reading, but he usually showers her with tons of comments about how messy the story is: from the lack of explanation for the motives to incorrect details, unfounded character motivation or even questions about the viability of the murder schemes. The weak excuses Anna spouts during these sessions seldom convince the narrator, but as the year passes by, he becomes more and more interested in reading Anna's farfetched mystery stories, even if they are as ridiculous as ever.

The opening story, Bungeibuchou to "Ongakushitsu no Satsujin" ("The Literature Club President and The Murder in the Music Room"), introduces the reader and the narrator to Anna, who offers the narrator "The Murder in the Music Room" to read from her Koigakubo Academy Case Files 20XX (Tentative Title) series. One Spring afternoon long after school hours, "Mizusaki Anna" decides to return a book she borrowed from her Literature teacher and visits him in his classroom in Main Building A. She's told that that he had borrowed it from the music teacher and peeking outside the window across the inner court, they see the light in the music room in Main Building B is still on. Anna's asked to return the book straight to the music teacher, so our beautiful and kind protagonist makes her way across the inner court to the music room, where she's promptly tackled by a dark figure fleeing the room. Inside the music room, Anna finds the strangled, lifeless body of the music teacher. Anna quickly notifies her Lit teacher and they also get a hold on everyone hanging around in the inner court, which includes some suspicious figures. But how did the assailant disappear from the school grounds without being noticed by anyone in the inner court?

This is a weeeird story to rate, and that holds for all the stories in this collection. For this story-within-a-story is deliberately written by Higashigawa to be full of little mistakes, unexplained parts and leaps in logic. Anna's story has to feature all kinds of things that allow the narrator to comment upon later on, so "The Murder in the Music Room" is by design a mystery story that feels sloppy. That said, the core idea of how the culprit managed to escape the inner court is fun, and well-clewed too, but you definitely have to roll with it, because like the narrator at the end points out, there are plenty of unaddressed plotholes. And that's usually the case with this series: the core ideas of each story can be used for interesting mystery stories, it's Anna who can't make the best use of them.

It was already the rainy season by the time the narrator crosses paths with Anna again in Bungeibuchou to "Nerawareta Soukyuu Buin" ("The Literature Club President and The Targeted Handbal Club Member"). Anna's "kind" enough to lend an umbrella to the narrator, but not before they swing by the club room first, where the narrator is forced to read The Targeted Handbal Club Member. In this story, the ever-wonderful "Mizusaki Anna" leaves the club room late, only to find a student lying unconscious on the ground near a tree on the school grounds. The handbal club member had been waiting for the rain to stop all this time inside the handbal club room, but when the rain finally stopped and got out to leave for home, he was knocked out from behind by an unknown figure. He did manage to grab a button from the assailant's shirt though before he fell, and miraculously, the two people still at school at this hour (a student and a teacher) both miss a button from their shirts. The problem soon focuses on which of these two could've attacked the victim: the victim left the club room soon after the rain stopped, but at that time, both suspects were busy with club activities, with other people as their witnesses. Anna however is convinced that one of the two is the assailant.

Interestingly enough, this second story already feels more fleshed-out than the first one in terms of writing, as if Anna took the earlier criticism to heart. Anyway, both the reader and the narrator's comments on The Targeted Handbal Club Member are more than justified (Anna for example didn't realize that it's very unlikely both the teacher and the student had the same shirts with the same button, so a simple comparison of the buttons should suffice), but as for the core ideas, I do really like the mystery presented here. Both suspects seem to have a perfect alibi for the time of the crime, so how did they manage to attack the victim? The idea itself is pretty simple, but it's fleshed out adequately to give a reason for why the trick was used and ultimately how it connects to the attack on the victim. The funny thing is that Higashigawa obviously could've used the same idea to write a more robust, tighter mystery story, but he purposely choose to have Anna write an imperfect mystery story. Like I said, this book is a weird experience, as all the stories are intended to attract criticism.

Bungeibuchou to "Kieta Seifuku Joshi no Nazo" ("The Literature Club President and The Mystery of the Vanishing Girl in Uniform") is set during the summer holiday, when the narrator notices Anna is making use of the school pool all by her own. While she's off swimming, he's handed her tablet with the story The Mystery of the Vanishing Girl in Uniform. On a summer day, "Mizusaki Anna" runs into a few acquaintances at campus: the Theater Club president Narushima and the (First) Literature Club president Tanada. They're having a chat at the rest area, when they notice the figure of Kurihara Yuka, a member of the swimming club, walk into the pool dressing room across the rest area. This is soon followed by a scream, which attracts the attention of the three club presidents. They see a girl in an unknown school uniform flee the dressing room, and inside they find Yuka as well as the dead body of the club captain. Realizing the girl who has just escaped must be the murderer, Anna darts out out together with Narujima, and finally spot the girl in the unknown school uniform running inside the shared club building. They're just a few seconds behind, but inside, they can find no trace of the mysterious girl: while there were a few people in their own club rooms inside this building, including girls, they were either dressed in the Koigakubo Academy school uniforms, or not girls at all. And considering how close Anna and Narujima were, none of the girls could've gotten dressed in another uniform anyway. So where did the murderer disappear to?

One of the better-written tales of this collection, even if you consider the fact that Anna's stories are meant to be full of little mistakes. The story does remind me a bit of one of my favorites from the first Houkago wa Mystery to Tomo ni volume and like the narrator points out in the story, the reason behind the disappearing act of the girl is a bit farfetched, but I like the trick: while it's fairly complex in terms of what is done by the culprit, the necessary puzzle pieces to put you on the right path are presented without too much smoke and mirrors to the reader and to be honest, I always have a weakness for school/university-based mystery stories set in club rooms/buildings. Again, this is a story that could've made for a tighter, more convicing mystery story with some minor re-writing, but it's not written in that way on purpose. I personally love the whimsical tone of these stories, but I can't deny that these stories are full of things that make you wonder: "Hey, but this was written here, and now you say that... That doesn't make any sense!" Some might find it distracting, though having something to bug Anna about is part of the charm.

The Koigakubo Academy fall school festival is ongoing in Bungeibuchou to "Hougannage no Kyoufu" ("The Literature Club President and The Terror of Shot Put"), and an unlucky fall brings the narrator to the nurse's room, which is now occupied by... Anna, who is assisting the school nurse, who is now out on the field treating someone's injury. In the meantime, Anna decides to give the narrator something to read: The Terror of Shot Put is set not at Koigakubo Academy, but at nearby Ryuugasaki High: the beautiful, unfallible, beloved "Mizusaki Anna" had brought the members of the Second Literature Club to Ryuugasaki High to mingle with their Literature Club. The meeting was  a huge success and now Anna was still hanging around in the school library with Kitahara Shiori, Ryuugasaki High's Literature Club president and Anna's bestie. Outside on the wet sports ground, they notice Ichikawa, a not very well-beloved member of the Track & Field Club, crossing the pitch, when suddenly, from behind the sports equipment storage, a black round projectile flying through the air. It hits Ichikawa right on the head, who falls to the ground. It takes a few seconds before people outside notice Ichikawa lying on the ground, but they find he has been knocked unconscious. The projectile turns out to be a put (the ball from shot put). Anna soon gathers her witnesses, but is stumped: she and Shiori saw the projectile coming from behind the equipment storage, but the people who came from that direction lack the strength to be able to throw a put 10 metres through the sky and hit Ichikawa that hard. Meanwhile, the person who could've thrown the put so far was nowhere near the place from where it was thrown, so who did throw the put at Ichikawa?

Funny little references to the greater Koigakubo Academy setting here, with Ichikawa very obviously being Ryuugasaki High's counterpart to Koigakubo's Adachi Shunsuke, the not very popular track & field member. The Terror of Shot Put also reminded me of the second Houkago wa Mystery to Tomo ni volume, which had two stories focusing on similar concepts. Anyway, I think this is one of the best examples of why this collection works: the idea behind how the put was thrown is pretty ridiculous and it would not have worked in a serious mystery story. Any reader will be able to raise dozens of objections regarding the workability of the trick as it's really just not doable. But, it works here because of the story-in-story-structure, with Anna always writing stories that leave a lot of room for improvement. She always has some basic idea that can work in a mystery plot, but which is also a bit silly, but by making these tales stories-within-stories and having the narrator and Anna argue about the 'little details', Higashigawa is able to use such an idea despite its sillyness.

His first year at Koigakubo Academy is almost over and he hadn't seen Anna for some months now, so while the narrator won't admit it, he's quite happy when he spots Anna before she graduates in the final story: Bungeibuchou to "Ekkusuyama no Alibi" ("The Literature Club President and The Alibi on Mt. X"). Anna tells him she's going to show what she's been working on for these last months and shows him The Alibi on Mt. X, the last story in Koigakubo Academy Case Files 20XX (Tentative Title). This story starts with "Mizusaki Anna" returning home late one evening. There's a shortcut through a thickly overgrown hill which locals call Mt. X (Ekkusu) and while it's dark, Anna has a flashlight in her bag, so she decides to take this path anyway. However, Anna finds a woman lying on the ground and when she tries to help the woman get up, she realizes the woman's been stabbed with a knife. The woman utters the name "Ogiwara Yuuji" before her consciousness fades. After calling for an ambulance and the police, Anna learns that the woman's called Miho and that she had been on a movie date with Masaki Toshihiko, whom she met at the restaurant where she works. After the date, she got off the train at West-Kokubunji Station alone, which is just a ten-minute walk away from the place where she's found. It turns out that her boss at the restaurant is called Ogiwara Yuuji, and that this man had been interested in Miho too. However, Ogiwara has an alibi for the stabbing: he was in his regular pachinko parlor at the time Miho got off the train and walked into Mt. X. Anna however is convinced Ogiwara did it despite his perfect alibi.

The core trick behind the perfect alibi of Ogiwara (yes, he did it, Anna explicitly tells the narrator he's really the one) is one that should sound familiar, as it's usually seen as a 'not-viable' solution or just a joke solution. In any other mystery story, you would dismiss it as being either cheap or unfair, but it works here in this volume due to the presentation: this final story has an extra surprise in store for the reader and the narrator that works in conjunction with the alibi trick, and I have to say: I like the big surprise! It's really well-hidden and the misdirection planned by Anna and Higashigawa is truly devious. The stories in this volume were released seperately first before being bundled, but due to the references to past stories in this tale, it's definitely recommended to read these five stories in one go and in order. If it was just the story-within-the-story, this would've been a rather mediocre mystery, but it's the overarching story with the narrator and Anna arguing about the stories and life outside the stories that really make this a memorable end to the volume.

I still have trouble identifying what makes Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda such a fun read though. Anna is definitely a great character, who starts out as a mysterious, but hilarious character and whose fictional counterpart is even funnier to follow because of her portrayal in the stories is incredibly positive. These slightly larger-than-life characters are of course Higashigawa's bread and butter, but Anna's certainly a character I'd love to see more. The stories-within-stories are quite odd to read, because they're full of plotholes and wouldn't have worked if they had been presented as is, but with the narrator constantly pointing out those plotholes and commenting on how the stories don't work logically in each subsequent story, I have to admit I slowly moved to Anna's side of the discussion. So what if there are minor plotholes? So what if it's not realistic? Ultimately, mystery fiction is just fiction, it's supposed to be plain entertainment and yes, Maximus, I am entertained! The core concepts and plots of Anna's fictional works are fun even if not realistic, and they do make for some highly amusing and captivating mystery fiction. In a way, Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda is a secret love letter to the mystery genre, showing how ultimately, mystery fiction may be about deductions and logical reasoning and puzzles, but that it also has to be entertainment. The way these stories do make you want to read the next one even though you already know you'll be nitpicking every plothole is a weird sensation. Unlike anti-mystery novels like the infamous trio Oguri Mushitarou's Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken (1934), Yumeno Kyuusaku's Dogura Magura (1935) and  Nakai Hideo's Kyomu he no Kumotsu (1964), Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda has a very positive outlook on the mystery genre while it also clearly shows that a mystery story will never be perfect in all its details.

So yep, Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda is definitely one of my favorite reads of this year. It has such a unique angle to the mystery story, and I absolutely love the protagonist Anna: both the "real" Anna who appears out of nowhere in front of our narrator as well as the highly fictionalized Anna who appears in The Koigakubo Academy Case Files 20XX (Tentative Title). The individual stories can be quite silly and like the narrator, the reader is likely to be noticing one plothole after another, but Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda's greatest accomplishment is that in the end, you won't care about that, because man, this volume is fun!

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉『君に読ませたいミステリがあるんだ』：「文芸部長と『音楽室の殺人』」/「文芸部長と『狙われた送球部員』」/「文芸部長と『消えた制服女子の謎』」/「文芸部長と『砲丸投げの恐怖』」/「文芸部長と『エックス山のアリバイ』」

Angel of Death

「…君…もしかしてアケルダマの…」

『栄光館殺人事件』

"Are you... perhaps from Akeldama...?"

"The Murder Case in the Glory Manor"

I haven't spent much time in Nagasaki, but it was funny I could instantly recognize the town in today's volume, even though it's only decribed as "N." The trams especially gave it away.

On the outskirts of the city of N(agasaki) lies the Glory Manor: it was only a few centuries ago that kakure kirishitan (underground Roman Catholics) lived in secret on these grounds and later, a person in the Tokoyoda clan bought the manor as well as the countless of religious art pieces and relics of the members of the church. The spacious garden is riddled with stone statues of religious figures, and the interior of the house is also full of crosses, Maria-Kannon figures and other valuable pieces of religious art. As their parents are no more, the sisters Manami and Ritsuko live here together with their grandfather and clan patriarch Kousuke, as well as their uncle Kensuke and his family. Manami is trying to get out of the dreary house as soon as possible: life at the Glory Manor is neigh insufferable, not just because of her good-for-nothing uncle, but especially because of her controlling grandfather, who is about to ruin older sister Ritsuko's life for good. Ritsuko is only twenty, but Kousuke has arranged for Ritsuko to be married into a powerful family right away, robbing her of any chance to live a life of her own, and that same fate awaits Manami in a few years. A special gathering is scheduled for the twenty-eigth of December, where Ritsuko and her fiancé are to exchange their engagement rings to seal the deal. Among the invitees are the family friend and doctor, as well as the young Roman-Catholic priest Sakura Souichirou, who is here to convey blessings to the engaged couple, as his religious mentor has close ties with the Tokoyoda clan. Despite the joyous occasion, grandfather Kousuke seems to have trouble getting out of bed that morning, but the maid can do much about it: while she has a spare key, her master's bedroom is also bolted from inside. After noon however, everybody becomes worried and they break the door down, only to find Kousuke lying dead on his bed, his head bashed in with an art piece of Jesus on the Cross. But curiously, they also find the windows facing the garden bolted from the inside (even covered in spider webs), meaning the man was killed inside a locked room! The police finds the house has more than enough suspects: from Manami and Ritsuko whose lives were being controlled by their grandfather to uncle Kensuke, who was about to be thrown out the house together with his family. Even Father Sakura is suspected, but he is the only one who can see through all the mist and bring forth the truth in Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken ("The Murder Case in the Glory Manor" 1997).

2018's Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar was a highly informative work on the history of mystery manga and it has helped me identify a lot of interesting titles. My attention was especially drawn to the period of 70-80s, with the works of female artists like Hagio Moto, Yamada Mineko, Maya Mineo and Takashina Ryouko writing the earliest original puzzle plot mystery manga which would pave the way for Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, Detective Conan and Q.E.D. in the early to mid nineties. But there are of course also plenty of mystery manga created after the great turning point, and one of the titles mentioned in Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar stood out in my eyes. The Case Notes of Father Sakura was a short series created by Aoki Gorou (writer) and Ogawa Koushin (artist). The limited series that first introduced the reader to the silent priest Sakura was serialized between 1996-1997 in the comic magazine Afternoon with the title Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken as a single story, but Father Sakura would return again later in 1997 for a serialized sequel, which completed the two-volume series.

What caught my attention however was not the promises of locked room murders or anything like that. What made the description in Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar stand was the mention that this comic featured a formal Challenge to the Reader. Series like Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, Detective Conan and Q.E.D. do have faux Challenges as the protagonists have key catchphrases that indicate when they have solved the crime (meaning the reader can do so too at that point) or they make use of the division in chapters to convey when all the clues are there, but I am a big fan of the formal Challenge to the Reader, where the author speaks directly to the reader to indicate that now all the necessary clues are available and you can logically deduce who the killer is. Having a Challenge to the Reader creates expectations of a mystery story that is written and structured in a particular way, so I was quite excited to try this short series out. In this series, the Challenge to the Reader is framed as the writer of the manga, Aoki Gorou, addressing the reader, as he recounts a tale he has been told by Father Sakura himself.

In general, Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken is a good mystery story, that however perhaps could've been tweaked to make for a better challenge. Story-wise, the volume follows a familiar formula: a hated family patriarch who is killed in a creepy house, everyone in the family has a reason to want to kill the man, etc. The volume is about 250 pages long, so similar to a regular serial in the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo series, but that's actually quite lengthy for a mystery manga, as single stories are seldom this long. It works great for Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken though, as it takes its time to set the scene and work in all kinds of clues over the whole length of the story, without the tale ever feeling too dragged out. Some of the visual clewing is really clever too: some hints are shown very early in the story, before anything has even happened, but it's definitely fair to show it to the reader at this point already (it's shown a few more times later on too) and it shows that Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken is a tightly plotted story from start to finish.

It's therefore such a shame the second murder in the story gives so much away! Just before the reader is presented with the Challenge to the Reader, a second killing occurs, where someone is stabbed in the back and thrown off a balcony, but the presentation here is so obvious any reader can instantly guess who the murderer is! Some of the clues are well hidden in the visuals, but you don't even really need to identify those clues because the whole thing is telegraphed so obviously to the reader, and once you guess who the murderer is in this second killing, it isn't hard to work out the way this character fits in with the first murder. Which is a shame, because I really like how the reasoning process surrounding the  first locked room murder ultimately leads to the identity of the killer, and this alone (so without the second killing) would've been pretty good too. The solution to how the locked room was achieved is not super complex, but I like how it's set-up so the attentive reader can figure it out without expecting the reader to be some kind of genius who miraculously thinks fo the solution by combining obscure hint A and obscure hint B. But what makes Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken an interesting story is how it builds on that solution and some other facts uncovered during the investigation and how a logical trail is laid out for the reader to follow. Even if you manage to solve the locked room conundrum, you'll still find a few crafty contradictions blocking your path. We see the bread and butter of the Queen school of detective fiction here, as you have to consider the logical implications of those contradictions, the actions or inactions of the killer that could've caused those contradictions and the underlying reasons for that, and only by considering all of that, you can make a logical argument against the killer. So it's such a shame the second killing makes the identity of the murderer so painfully obvious, as the way the story was built around the first killing is quite good and perfect for a mystery story with a Challenge to the Reader.

The way Roman-Catholic motifs are incorporated in the story is kinda weeeeeird by the way. Father Sakura's first appearance involves him talking randomly about Akeldama and the Glory Manor is supposed to hold all kinds of art objects involved with Roman-Catholics but we also have a stone statue of Abaddon in the garden for some reason. Abadddon! It's almost like they want to take the occult angle, but the themes are not going nearly far enough to really be about occultism, so it just comes across as really weird Catholicism in this story.

But for what it's worth, I think Eikoukan Satsujin Jiken was an entertaining, and at times very well plotted mystery story which did suffer from a less thought-out second half. While the characters themselves and the storytelling can be a bit on the dry side, I think the volume is a good example of a carefully plotted mystery story that also makes use of its inherent visual properties. I think that people who like the Kindaichi Shounen series because it features longer stories, will also appreciate this series as it also has a similar tone. I have the second volume with Father Sakura waiting for me too, so I'll be sure to check that one out soon too.

Original Japanese title(s): 青木吾郎 (原）, 小川 幸辰（画)『桜神父の事件ノート (1) 栄光館殺人事件』

Beautiful Ruin

「所詮始まりの終わりは終わりの始まりなどではなく、どうしたところで始まりの終わりでしかない。その後に終わりが始まるかどうかは、結局は終わってみないことには分からないのだ。」

『サイコロジカル 兎吊木垓輔の戯言殺し』

"After all, the end of the beginning is not the beginning of the end. Ultimately it's nothing more but the end of the beginning. Whether the end will begin afterwards, is just something we won't know until the end begins.'

"Psycho Logical - The Killing Joke of Utsurugi Gaisuke"

Ha, I knew the cover for this volume would connect to the previous one!

Sixteen-year-old Samidare Yui and thirteen-year-old Kirigiri Kyouko may appear to be normal students of a Girls Missionary Academy at first sight, but they are also both officially registered detectives who have solved many crimes. A curious murder case at the Sirius Observatory first brought these two girls together and in the few months that have passed since, the two have become best of friends. But the two are also united in their fight against the Crime Victim Salvation Committee, a secret organization that sells perfect murder plans and the means to commit them to crime victims, their family and/or loved ones looking for revenge. However, while the Committee draws up these intricate murder schemes, they will also invite a detective on the scene who will attempt to solve the murder and catch the culprit. This game of wits where the Committee arranges for both a criminal and a detective to be present and forearmed is dubbed the Duel Noir and this clash is broadcast to the Committee's financial sponsors as a form of entertainment. The last few months, Yui and Kirigiri have managed to inflict heavy blows to the organization and their sickening games by defeating the executive members of the organization and with that, the Crime Victim Salvation Committee is near destruction.

Kirigiri receives one final Duel Noir challenge: in the next 168 hours, a locked room murder will occur in the Sirius Observatory, where her battle against Crime Victim Salvation Committee started. Kirigiri and Yui travel back to the cold, snowy place there they first met, but they find they are not the only visitors. Three other "0" Class detectives (the highest class) are also present. The three detectives are all after the immense fortune managed by the Committee, as they have received information that the Crime Victim Salvation Committee is about to fall and that the Committee's financial resources are hidden within the Sirius Observatory. Kirigiri and Yui notice the Sirius Observatory has undergone quite some renovation since their last visit, one of the changes being a special door that only opens if five different persons register their biometric data in the system. The five enter the renewed Sirius Observatory, which is shaped like a five-pointed star, with five triangle-shaped rooms surrounding a main hall. The five detectives learn they have to chain themselves to each other in order to start the system inside the observatory: each chain is twenty meters long and connects to the right hand of a person at one end, and to the left hand of another person at the other end. Everyone is thus connected to the person next to them, and the chains themselves are also connected to the doors of the guest rooms in the building, meaning everyone is chained tight to the building itself too. Putting the chains on reveals a two-meter-wide pillar of ice is standing right in the middle of the main hall, holding a little black box in the centre: presumably the box will hold both the key to unlock these chains and the whereabouts to the Committee's fortune. The other three detectives are desperate to get their hands on the box, but the pillar of ice forms a formidable obstacle, as there are no tools to be found inside the observatory, and most of the furniture either burns badly, or is bolted down to the floor.

Little is achieved the first day and when the night falls, the five detectives learn that they all have to sleep in seperate rooms, which are all locked automatically until the morning. Not complying with these rules results in the detonation of a bomb, so they have little choice. The following morning, the doors are unlocked again, but they find one of them has been murdered in their room during their sleep! But how is this possible? All the guest rooms were locked automatically, there were no footprints in the frost on the floor of the main hall, the windows were locked from the inside, there were no footprints in the snow outside and the twenty-meter-long chains on each person's arm only allow little freedom of movement outside the observatory itself, so none of them could've sneaked out through the windows anyway. Chained to each other and with little food and water left for the following days, Kirigiri and Yui have to work fast to identify the murderer and escape this icy observatory in Kitayama Takekuni's highly anticipated Danganronpa Kirigiri 7 (2020).

For this volume is the long-awaited finale to the spin-off prequel series of the videogame series Danganronpa. The references to the main series are fairly lite by the way and knowledge of the games is not really necessary to read this novel series which focuses on the past of the popular character Kirigiri Kyouko. Kitayama Takekuni started in 2013 with this series, but the release schedule was rather irregular: sometimes we had two volumes within a year, sometimes nothing in over two years, so you never knew when the series would continue. He finally managed to finish this series now, on the tenth anniversary of the Danganronpa franchise, and I'm happy he did, because I do like the series, but the long wait between certain volumes was really frustrating.

This volume makes it clear right away that this is really the grand finale to the series: the story goes full circle by returning to the place where the series first started, we go more in-depth in the past of the novel-exclusive character Yui which was mostly alluded to in the first volume and even the core mystery plot feels like a grand finale, as it cleverly incorporates elements from previous stories. Five detectives locked and tied up in the Sirius Observatory, every detective being given a stash of cash money and the existence of rules governing their movements during the night, other elements originating from the obstacles faced during the trial of the Twelve Locked Room Temples (volumes 3, 4 and 5): nothing is spoiled from these earlier volumes, but the faithful reader will definitely notice the little references here and there to the whole Danganronpa Kirigiri series, with certain ideas and concepts from earlier murder plots making a reappearance, making this specific case really feel like the end point of the story. It's an interesting way to a finale in a mystery series: thinking about it, I don't think I have ever read a final story in a detective series that so cleverly incorporated elements mystery plots from earlier stories in a meaningful manner: Kitayama obviously isn't doing these references just because he's out of ideas and rehashing old material, he's intentionally making you recall earlier events and tricks to give you the "grand finale feeling," but also to play tricks on the reader, daring them to guess how he'll cook those ingredients this time to fool them.

The mystery plot itself is the kind we've come to expect from Kitayama: we have all these grand gimmicks like all the people being changed to each other and carefully thought-out settings that limit the movement/possible actions of all the actors in the tale (the dimensions of the observatory and the available furniture) and of course there's the Kitayama Special: the very silly, but highly entertaining locked room murder that depends on some mechanical trick that involves the layout of the setting. Interesting is how it uses the Sirius Observatory from the first volume in such a different manner: while the building is slightly renovated, it's still the same basic place, so I wonder whether Kitayama had already planned to use this place as the finale and knew he'd use this spot for two different stories, or that he came up with the trick for this novel at a later stage. For the idea is really fanciful and almost cartoony, but I really love the impossible locked room murder in this story, as it's just the type of ridiculousness I want from my mystery fiction and it fits perfect with the location. One thing I always like about Kitayama's locked room murders is how you often the trick can always be explained visually. Most of the books I've read of him, including this series, feature a lot of diagrams, and often there's that one diagram that explains all the magic in just one simple figure, even if the concept and execution is fairly complex. The same here, where all the little things and hints suddenly fall in their right place the moment you see the corresponding diagram. The idea also works wonderful with all the side-elements Kitayama introduces for this story and it even allows for some really nice deduction scenes that are less about "somehow guessing how that ridiculous trick was done", but more about layered logical reasoning based on the evidence we see before us and the logical implications of the actions taken by the characters. This volume and volume 2 were the longest volumes in this series, and they were also by far the best parts of this series.

This volume even finds room to add in false solutions and actually tell a genuine story, which some of the previous volumes really struggled with: volumes 3 until 5 especially were far too short and often felt like lengthy summaries of a mystery tale, rather than actual stories that could stand on their own. It didn't help that they were also written in a way that certain cases weren't solved within the same volume, but would carry over to the next one, but even if you'd ignore that, it can't be denied that most of the locked room murders we see during the Trial of the Twelve Locked Room Temples lacked depth because it had to handle a lot of locked room murder cases within limited page numbers, while something with the length of Danganronpa Kirigiri 7 really shows what this series could have done. Danganronpa Kirigiri 7 takes the time it needs to properly end its tale of how Kirigiri and Yui bonded over the course of this series and to set things up for the events of the first Danganronpa videogame. Oh, and for Kirigiri fans: ever wanted to know the backstory of why Kirigiri wears gloves? It's here!

Danganronpa Kirigiri has been a series that did not always live up to its potential. While the core impossible murder plots were always interesting, the hasty middle part lacked depth, making the series feel more like a work-in-progress at times. Danganronpa Kirigiri 7 however brings the series back to form in its long-awaited finale, and it was worth it! A great conclusion with much-appreciated references to past events/murder plots and a genuinely well-built up ending to the tale of the besties Yui and Kirigiri. At one hand, I'm happy this series has ended now, especially in this form, but I have to admit I'm sad we won't see the duo of Yui and Kirigiri anymore, as the whole franchise has moved on already, and it's unlikely we'll ever even hear references to Yui, as she's a character exclusive to this novel series and Kirigiri's story in the other media (games/anime) is now over. Danganronpa Kirigiri might not always do what you want it to do, but in the end, I'm glad I decided to read this series, and that's not even said only as a Danganronpa fan.

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦　『ダンガンロンパ　霧切り７』

Overlooked Tick Tock

I'm late! I'm late! I'm late! 

And, when I wave I lose the time I save

"I'm Late" (Alice in Wonderland)

Which reminds me, I still have to finish reading that short story collection where all the stories feature unreliable narrators. And yep, they still manage to fool you despite the warning...

Earlier this year, I reviewed two short stories that are set to appear in the second volume of Ooyama Seiichirou's Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service"). I loved the first volume about the visits of the unnamed narrator (a rookie police detective) to Mitani Tokino of Mitani Clockmakers, a young woman in her twenties who not only sells and repairs clocks, but also offers a special alibi cracking service. The focus of one single series on cracking alibis was not only fairly unique, but the quality of the stories was also rather high and the television drama broadcast earlier this year was an entertaining adaptation of the source material. Ooyama started working on the "second season" of this series last year, and you can read the review for the first two stories of the second volume here.

At the end of that review, I said I wasn't sure whether I'd do more seperate reviews of these stories, as I suspect the standalone book release will feature an originally written story exclusive to the volume, so I'll be purchasing it anyway, but when the third story was released three weeks ago, I just had to read it and I figured I might as well write the review. While the whole series is built around cracking perfect alibis, Tokeiya Tantei to Ichizoku no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and a Family's Alibi") manages to feel fresh due to its original story structure. It's almost like the previous story, Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi with Too Many Witnesses"), was an experiment or trial, as that too featured a two-act structure, though it's worked out in more detail this time. The narrator has an interesting problem for Tokino. Usually they have a good idea who the murderer is, but can't prove it because of a perfect alibi, but this time, the police investigation has led to three suspects with perfect alibis and they don't know which of these three did it. The elderly Fuzai Kenichi was found stabbed to death in his living room after the weekend when the housekeeper came for work. The victim had retired early and accumulated a nice fortune through daytrading. As he had no family of his own and his siblings had already passed away, suspicion soon falls on his next of kin: his niece and two nephews. The famous actress Ukawa Makie, Asakura Shouhei (a former French cook) and Ida Yasuaki (basketball coach) were all summoned to the police station and asked about their alibis for the time of the murder, but all three of them could account for their movements. Ukawa Makie had been in her second home with her manager and while she had gone on a stroll on her own, she couldn't have made it  from her second home to her uncle's home and back in the time she was gone. Asakura Shouhei had received a parcel and signed for it during the estimated period, and he too lived too far to have made it to and back either before or after signing for the parcel. The same holds for Ida Yasuaki, who had been videochatting with a friend-colleague to talk about basketball teaching methods.

This first part already proves to be an original take on the formula, as this time, Tokino and the reader don't even know who the murderer is likely to be, making this an alibi-based whodunnit. Tokino has to determine which of the three offered alibis could've been fabricated, and more importantly, how. Ooyama makes this an interesting problem by not just pointing at one alibi and claiming that this was the only one that could've been faked, but also considering the other alibis in detail: he offers plausible hypotheses about the other alibis first, but also shows how they couldn't have worked in this situation. The tricks here used are basic, but well-implemented and the way they are discarded works convincingly enough. This helps set up Tokino's line where she says she knows which alibi she could crack, meaning that's the only alibi that could've been fabricated in her eyes. The trick used here is, as often in this series, very simple in concept, but always worked out in a very practical manner. It doesn't feel farfetched and the attentive reader can definitely guess what happened once Tokino's given the first few clues to the narrator/reader.

The story however takes a completely different turn when in the second act, the person accused by Tokino manages to prove they could not have committed the murder and soon after, this person ends up dead themselves too. Suicide is suspected at first, but then the police starts to suspect the real murderer committed this act too, and interestingly enough, the two remaining suspects have no alibi this time (as the death occurred in the middle of the night). The narrator doesn't feel much for visiting Mitani Clockmakers again to ask Tokino to solve the same case again, but Tokino is determined to finger the correct person this time after her earlier mistake. The second half is a tad unbelievable as the murderer's plot only makes sense by assuming the police will make a certain discovery and in reality, the police only made that discovery only because of Tokino, so what would've happened if there was no Mitani Clockmakers? I do like the two-act plot though, as it's pretty devious and the trap of the murderer is well-thought off, only it does require the presence of a person like Tokino to point the police in a certain direction, and that makes this story a bit too meta.

Overall though, I think Tokeiya Tantei to Ichizoku no Alibi is another entertaining and well-plotted addition to the second season of The Clockmaker Detective series and it's interesting to see how Ooyama's also experimenting with the story structure formula to bring a bit more diversity in a series which is ultimately just about one single thing. Reminds me though, I really hope he returns to The Locked Room Collector one day....

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と一族のアリバイ」