Training for Trouble

ねぇ忘れないでねblue bird

「blue bird」(Garnet Crow) 

Hey, don't forget me, blue bird

"blue bird" (Garnet Crow)

Earlier this year, I re-read the 5-volume manga series Gyakuten Saiban ("Turnabout Trial") by Kuroda Kenji (story) and Maekawa Kazuo (art), based on the comedic courtroom mystery videogame franchise Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney. While the short manga series did feature the familiar characters and settings from the videogames, the plots were created exclusively for this series by writer Kuroda Kenji, and in my review I mentioned how it's actually a very good mystery manga that could easily stand on its own and would also appeal to people without any knowledge of, or even interest in the videogames. The series was originally serialized irregularly between 2006 and 2008 in Young Magazine to cross-promote the 2007 release of the Nintendo DS game Gyakuten Saiban 4 (AKA Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney). 

In 2009, the spin-off game Gyakuten Kenji ("Turnabout Prosecutor") AKA Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth was released on the DS, which focused on the adventures of the prosecutor Mitsurugi (localized name: Miles Edgeworth), a rival character in the main series. The duo Kuroda and Maekawa were again made part of the marketing campaign, as they too started a new series based on this game. Gyakuten Kenji ran irregularly between 2009-2010 in Weekly and Monthly Young Magazine and consisted of eight stories collected in four volumes. In terms of setting, it followed the spin-off videogame: Mitsurugi is a prodigy prosecutor, who always teams up with the hapless police detective Itonokogiri (Dick Gumshoe) to conduct investigations at the crime scene to find the person they are going to bring to trial. While Itonokogiri often thinks the case is open-and-shut, Mitsurugi shows he's not called a prodigy for nothing by uncovering complex murder schemes based on his own investigations. After writing my review of the Gyakuten Saiban manga series, I also re-read this 4-volume series, but to be honest, I found the stories in Gyakuten Kenji not as memorable as the ones in Gyakuten Saiban and ultimately, I just didn't feel like writing anything about it.

So why am I talking about this series now? Well, Kuroda Kenji has been posting some of his unpublished stories/unfinished scenarios on his Note page for a while now, because he thought it would just be a shame if these stories would never see the light and be kept in the vault forever, despite all the effort he poured into them. And so, a few weeks ago, Kuroda also started posting the unpublished scenarios he had written for the Gyakuten Kenji manga! These scenarios were written over ten years ago, but ended on the cutting board. But now these ideas are given new life! I can only applaud such efforts to show the public this cut content, so obviously, I just had to write something about these stories, even though I haven't even written a review about the whole series.

Moesakaru Gyakuten ("The Blazing Turnabout") starts with a few cases of arson at the campus of Medaru Sports Academy, a renowed university with famous athletes who have won many awards. After another incident, detective Itonokogiri decides to visit the head of the school, Medaru Nozomu, in the hopes of learning more, but Medaru is very dismissive of Itonokogiri, assuring the police detective that these were not cases of arson, but just minor accidents of students not being careful with their cigarettes and things like that. It's obvious Medaru doesn't want the news to blow up, and he tries to get Itonokogiri out, but not before Itonokogiri has a chance to meet four of Medaru Sports Academy's finest, who will go an international event next month and are going to have dinner with Medaru now. That night, Itonokogiri hangs around the campus when he runs into one of the four students he met earlier, who has discovered a fire behind the training facility. They managed to extinguish the fire, but nearby, they find the strangled body of Kurama Manten, a gymnast who was one of the four students Itonokogiri met earlier that evening. Itonokogiri is convinced Kurama must've spotted the arsonist and was therefore killed, but when prosecutor Mitsurugi arrives on the scene and starts poking around himself, he discovers a very different motive for Kurama's death.

Those who have actually played the videogame Gyakuten Kenji/Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth might be able to guess why this story was canned. The title Moesakaru Gyakuten was originally intended to be the second story in the series, but the title sounded too much like the title of the final episode in the game it was supposed to promote: Moeagaru Gyakuten/Turnabout Ablaze. Kuroda didn't know about these details of the game, because he worked on the scenario before the game was released, but ultimately, this story was abandoned. A truly unfortunate coincidence and I'm happy he has now found a way to still release this story in a way. As you can see on Kuroda's Note page, it's just the core plot divided in scenes, with all the spoken lines of the characters and the important visual cues written out in detail. There's no art at all, and as far as we know, Maekawa never did create any art for this lost episode.

As a mystery story, The Blazing Turnabout is okay. I found the Gyakuten Kenji manga on the whole a bit disappointing, because I thought the turnabout theme of the series was never as strong as in the Gyakuten Saiban manga series. There were always elements of things turning out to be actually the other way around, but in the spin-off series, the moments always felt less impressive. The same can be said of The Blazing Turnabout: there is a really clever moment where Mitsurugi points out that one certain action of the arsonist-murderer was taken for a completely different reason than you'd first assume, but it feels detached from the rest of the mystery plot. A shame actually, because I love this turnabout part of this story! It reminds of two of my favorite stories in Puzzle Game ☆ High School in terms of what the real goal of the culprit was, and really challenges you to think outside the box. So the 'grand' turnabout moment the story works towards to is really good, even if it's not as grand as we've seen in the main Gyakuten Saiban manga series and admittedly, more hinting would've been welcome: Mitsurugi's realization kinda comes out of nowhere. Other parts of the plot make less of an impression: the identity of the murderer is awfully obvious because it's the one single character who's been given a trait to make them stand out, while earlier parts of the investigation feature very easy to spot "contradictions" or simply Mitsurugi receiving a report that outright tells him something is off. 

In hindsight, the "special school" setting of this story is pretty interesting: the 3DS game Gyakuten Saiban 5/Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies (2013) would eventually also feature a similar setting, though with a special law high school rather than a sports academy. I wonder if this chapter had been published, whether it would've worked the other way around too, and whether the writers for Gyakuten Saiban 5 would've refrained from using a school setting for their game.

Toki no Yakata no Gyakuten ("Turnabout in the House of Time") is an inverted mystery story, which is interesting because Kuroda never wrote any inverted stories for both the Gyakuten Saiban and Kenji series, and now we learn that he did actually write one, but he canned the idea! Tokita Shinnosuke is the founder of TOKITA, a luxury watchmaker. He is retired now, giving him time to spend with his antique watch collection. Or at least, that's what he hoped for, but his son Ryuuzu, who is running TOKITA now is ruining Shinnosuke's life work, and when he learns of Ryuuzu's intentions of selling the company, Shinnosuke decides to take his own son's life. At his own 77th birthday reception, Shinnosuke tells his guests he'll be leaving them for thirty minutes to wind his antique clocks, a daily routine he never skips. He however uses the time to kill his son, who was parked down the hill on top where the Tokita manor stands. When prosecutor Mitsurugi and police detective Itonokogiri arrive on the scene however, their investigation tells them Shinnosuke of all people couldn't have killed his own son in the blank periode of thirty minutes when he was alone, because he is in a wheelchair. Tokita Manor stands at top of a very steep hill, while his son was killed down the street, on the parking lot at the foot of the slope: the slope is too steep for Shinnosuke to safely descend on his own, and also far too steep to climb with his arm strength. Apartment buildings are lined along the hill street, so the image of an the old man struggling to climb the hill in a wheelchair would've been noticed by someone, while the less steep, but roundabout path would take much more than thirty minutes. So how did the man kill his son within half an hour?

This is a truly interesting story to read as a scenario for a comic, because its greatest moment, when Mitsurugi reveals to the reader how Shinnosuke did manage to kill his son within the thirty minutes, is definitely designed to be seen as a comic book panel! You really feel that this plot was written with the visual medium in mind, because it works towards a fantastic shot where you suddenly see how simple, but brilliant Shinnosuke's trick was to get to and back from the crime scene in time while in a wheelchair. The 'turnabout' theme is again not particularly strong here, but as a short mystery story, it definitely has interesting ideas, even if the clewing is a bit too crude (culprit dropping crucial piece of evidence on floor is not really exciting). But the basic idea of how Shinnosuke managed to create a "secret route" to kill his son is really original, and would've looked great on paper.

After posting the scenarios of the two unpublished comics above, Kuroda followed up with one final surprise. In 2007, Kuroda wrote the first original short mystery prose story for the franchise: Gyakuten Saiban - Gyakuten no Kakehashi was a fun novelette-sized impossible crime story that followed the same format as the Gyakuten Saiban manga, focusing on the courtroom adventures of Naruhodou Ryuuichi (Phoenix Wright) and Mayoi (Maya Fey). Kuroda apparently had plans for a second novelette story, and had hoped to have the two stories published as one single volume, but that dream never became reality, so the plot for this second story was put away, until he posted them on his Note.

Gyakuten no Michishirube ("Turnabout Signpost") is a direct sequel to Gyakuten no Kakehashi, and starts at Yatabuki's noodle stand, where Mayoi, Kanae and Yatabuki are thrilled to see the show by the popular five-man comedy act The Green Monsters tomorrow, to be held at the Twins Hotel where Gyakuten no Kakehashi took place. The Green Monsters have been an enormous hit and consist of five people dressed as monsters with green as their trademark color. The five also had completely different careers before they switched to comedy: Monster King was a stuntman, Monster Queen a model, Dracula a doctor, Wolfman a guitarist and Franken a wrestler. Mitsurugi stops by the noodle stand however to bring bad news: Monster King has died, and the circumstances suggest that Monster Queen killed him. Last night, the five members had been drinking together in Monster King's suite room until late. When the party was over, Dracula, Wolfman and Franken left the twelfth floor, as the two suite rooms on the twelfth floor were occupied by Monster King and Queen. Guards had been posted at the elevator because Monster King has a stalker, and they swear that after Dracula, Wolfman and Franken left, only King and Queen remained on the twelfth floor. Later that night, Dracula, Wolfman and Franken went outside to the court to rehearse their act, when they witnessed how Monster King plunged to his death, having fallen from an old emergency door on the twelfth floor: the door had been in disuse and locked because the emergency stairs had been removed so the door led to nothing, but someone had forced the door open and Monster King fell through that door. Because the three heard him cry for help before he fell, they know it's not a suicide, and because Queen was the only other person on the twelfth floor, she's the main suspect. She however maintains she's innocent and hires Naruhodou as her attorney.

Wow, this was surprisingly fun! While the plot is mostly dialogue and there are some segments that would need to be worked out in more detail in terms of setting clues up, this scenario definitely had potential to have been an interesting locked room mystery! The story revolves around two 'locked spaces', being the twelfth floor of the Twins Hotel as a whole, as well as Monster King's suite room with autolock and the mystery revolves around who could've broken through those locked rooms. The argument goes back and forth in the courtroom as at one moment Naruhodou manages to avert suspicion away from his client, while the other moment a new witness appears who points the arrow back at Monster Queen: exactly like you expect from the series. The plot is slowly revealed in the trial, and the grand trick used by the killer to kill Monster King is definitely the kind of idea you'd expect from this series, with a proper "turnabout" theme, and I've loved to have seen this story worked out completely. I do have to say the plot does work better when you imagine the scene visually, so it's a bit weird Kuroda planned this as a prose story, instead of using the idea in the manga series... Though to be honest, this story does mirror some concepts from another story already featured in the manga.

I wouldn't consider either Moesakaru Gyakuten or Toki no Yakata no Gyakuten hidden masterpieces that had been wrongfully been kept away from us, but they are reasonably entertaining short mystery stories that would've been perfect additions to the published Gyakuten Kenji manga series. The prose story Gyakuten no Michishirube would've been very entertaining as a mystery story too, so it's such a shame Kuroda never got to release his own Gyakuten Saiban volume together with his earlier Gyakuten no Kakehashi. Anyway, as full-fledged "extra" stories revealed ten years after these series originally, I quite enjoyed reading them. But most of all, I can only say I love the idea of creators digging up old material that have gone unpublished/were cut for various reasons like this and making them available to the public. Obviously, I don't expect them to actually work the whole thing out, but even scenarios like these are fantastic material!

Original Japanese title(s): 黒田研二『逆転検事 ヤンマガ版未発表脚本』『逆転裁判 小説版未発表プロット』

The Landing Ticket

朝だ始発だ電車が走る

5時半発の埼京線 

遙か遠くの会社を目指し

今日も電車が走る

It's morning /  The first train / The train is running

The 05:30 of the Saikyo-Line

On my way to the company faraway

The train is running today too

「電車で電車でGO!GO!」（Junkie As Machine/Zuntata)

I try to read at least one novel a year (partially) set in the city of Fukuoka. The first review of last year was Gekisou Fukuoka Kokusai Marathon - 42.195 Kilo no Nazo for example. I started with today's book because the summary mentioned Fukuoka as part of the alibi, but sadly enough, the reader doesn't actually get to visit the city themselves and the few mentions to the city are pretty sober. Ah well, I'll still count this as my 'one-in-a-year' as the story, at one point, does revolve slightly around specific Fukuoka geography.

Disclosure: I have translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle.

One morning, Yukari receives a call from the police with horrible news: her older sister Megumi (her only living relative) was found murdered in her holiday villa near Lake Yogo, just north of Lake Biwa. Megumi and her husband were to stay there a few days starting the day before, but business had prevented Shinichi from leaving his antique shop, and Megumi, who had arrived at the villa early, would spend the first night alone at the lake. She was murdered the following morning, and the police had discovered her body thanks to an anonymous phone call. Because her life insurance seems rather extravagant, the police and Yukari suspect that Shinichi killed his own wife with the help of his twin brother Kenichi, but the twins have perfect alibis: on the morning of Megumi's murder, Shinichi recalled he had an earlier made business appointment, and he took the Shinkansen train south to Fukuoka to meet with a collector there. Twin brother Kenichi too had been on a business trip that morning, travelling by train all the way up north to Sakata in Yamagata. Both arrived at their destinations in the afternoon, and several witnesses confirm having seen the two men at their respective routes at various points like the station. Yukari confides her suspicions about her brother-in-law with the mystery author Sorachi Masaya, a mutual friend of both Megumi and Shinichi, and Megumi's former boyfriend during college. Together they hire a private detective, who can't seem to find anything suspicious about Shinichi. The investigation runs into a wall until several months later, another body is found at the Lake Yogo villa. Another anonymous phone call leads the police to a body with the head and hands removed. The police is quite sure that the body belongs to either Shinichi or Kenichi, but both men have disappeared and it's impossible to tell which brother the body belongs to.

Magic Mirror (1990) is the third full-length novel by Arisugawa Alice, after Gekkou Game (1989) and The Moai Island Puzzle (1989). It was also his first novel that wasn't part of any series, and while I have read quite a lot by Arisugawa by now, it took me until now to read a non-series work by him. While his first two novels were clearly written in the spirit of Ellery Queen and the school that puts emphasis on logical reasoning, Arisugawa's third outing takes inspiration from F.W. Crofts, Ayukawa Tetsuya and (early) Matsumoto Seichou, being a mystery revolving around uncrackable alibis and an emphasis on time tables. In fact, like often seen in Ayukawa and Matsumoto's work, we actually have real train time schedules featured in this book. It's one of the elements that set Magic Mirror apart from the two earlier novels starring the student Alice, which are patterned after the more fanciful "good old closed circle on an isolated island/area closed off after a volcano eruption" tropes, while Magic Mirror is a a bit more realistic in tone (don't worry, it's still a puzzle-oriented mystery).

The first half of the novel revolves around the attempts of various parties trying to figure out whether Shinichi on his own, or with the help of his twin brother, killed Megumi and by extension, how they managed to have a perfect alibi for the time of the murder. Shinichi seems the most suspicious at first, but witnesses have seen him purchasing a ticket to Hakata Station, buying gifts at the station and he arrived in time at his business relation's place in the afternoon and a similar story holds for Kenichi. A large part of this mystery is solved early on in the novel by one of the characters, though the theory is still imperfect due to the existence of one piece of evidence. Due to that, the character has to abandon their theory for the moment, but this final hurdle is actually relatively easy to solve for the reader. While you can solve it "in a perfect" manner by actually examining the time schedules etc. included closely, I bet most people can instinctively make a good guess about how that piece of evidence was cooked (and check afterwards with the schedules). So this part is a bit easy, because a good part of the trick is already presented to the reader early on, while that last step is not as hard as the story pretends it to be. This murder feels the most 'realistic' in the sense that a lot of the mystery revolves around real time tables of means of transportations and real Fukuoka geography, so if you liked Matsumoto's Points and Lines, you'll feel right at home here.

The second murder, of the unknown decapitated body, is a lot more interesting though. What is interesting about Magic Mirror is that it starts off telling you there are twins involved. Usually, you'd think having twins in a story about a perfect alibi would be very, very cheap. In Magic Mirror, even knowing twins are involved doesn't mean you'll instantly figure out how Megumi was killed, and the plot device of the twins is turned upside down in the second half of the novel, when we are presented with a body which belongs to one of the twins, but you don't know which. This part is a bit more engaging: there's a part where Sorachi is convinced the man suspected by the police must be innocent, so he tries to find evidence to support that man's flimsy alibi of having been drinking at various places on the night of the murder. This part features a small, but nicely foreshadowed trick hidden within the man's testimony about his movements. But the murder on the unknown victim itself also proves to be an interesting murder: it makes fantastic use of the notion of twins, utilizing them in a very original manner to do something. I can't say too much because that would spoil the game, but I really like how the culprit used the fact that Shinichi en Kenichi were twins to completely befuddle the police investigation. I also like the one slip-up the murderer made that forced their hand as a concept, but as it was used here, it did feel like a bit too much coincidence: the murderer would have made a pretty brilliant plan for the murder, but goofed up at rather silly and trivial moments.

I have mentioned this novel before in this blog, as this novel is probably best known for its Alibi Lecture in the penultimate chapter and in my post on taxonomies/typologies/lectures, I made a short translation of the points raised in that Alibi Lecture. The Alibi Lecture is of course inspired by Doctor Fell's Locked Room Lecture, but the funny thing is that this is actually a lecture: Sorachi is invited by a college mystery club to hold a lecture on the Alibi Lecture he wrote in one of his novels, and in this chapter, Sorachi explains the types of tricks used in mystery novels to create a perfect alibi. Like in most novels featuring such trope lectures, it's an implied Challenge to the Reader to see if they can guess what kind of trick this particular novel is using, and perhaps even guess if this book is using a completely new type of solution. The Moai Island Puzzle featured a short Dying Message Lecture by the way. Obviously, both murders use some kind of alibi trick, and I don't consider it really spoilers to say that Arisugawa has of course come up with variations that are original on their own, and like it should be, the Lecture functions as both a solid clue to the reader (as it helps people not familiar with these types of stories), as a clever piece of misdirection (diverting the reader's attention by onlylisting what is seemingly possible, while pointing away from the actual solution).

Usually when I finish a novel, I have a fairly good idea of what I actually think of the story, and that also influences how I write the review. With Magic Mirror, I have to admit I was less enthusiastic about it when I first finished it, but as I am writing this review the following day, I notice I'm a lot more positive about the book now. While I think the final 'obstacle' in solving Megumi's murder is far easier than the book pretends it to be, I find that Magic Mirror does a really good job at utilizing the themes of the perfect alibi and twins in mystery fiction: it poses alluring mysteries to the reader that incorporate the fact we all know twins are involved and the second murder especially is interesting because of that. The result is a novel that keeps up a good pace from start to finish and which should entertain fans of the perfect alibi story.

Original Japanese title(s): 有栖川有栖『マジックミラー』

I, Said the Fly

Three wise men of Gotham

Went to sea in a bowl

And if the bowl had been stronger

My song had been longer

Anyone read The Poe Clan? Not a formal mystery tale, but I really like the Cock Robin story there...

After writing three short story collections and one novel about the adventures of the mohawk-bearing punk police detective Kidd Pistols, his girlfriend Pink Belladonna and the crazy murder cases they handled in Parallel Britain on an almost annual basis, author Yamaguchi Masaya decided to pause the series for a while. Which explains the title of the fourth short story collection: Kidd Pistols no Saitei no Kikan or as the English title on the cover says: The Fuckin' Return of Kidd Pistols. This 2008 volume was long-awaited, as the previous book (The Self-Conceit of Kidd Pistols) was released thirteen years earlier, in 1995! Nothing much has changed though in these thirteen years, so we still find ourselves in Parallel Britain, where criminal cases are usually handled by members of the Masters of Detectives Assocation. As the only two detectives assigned to Scotland Yard's National Unbelievable Troubles Section (NUTS), Kidd and Pink are often put on the type of cases that require the extraordinary skills of MDs like Dr. Bull (disciple of Dr. Fell), but despite his anarchist looks and sarcastic attitude, Kidd is actually in possession of a rather sharp mind, and it's usually Kidd who manages to solve the weird cases they come across, exactly because he's a punk who won't conform to rules and is used to thinking outside the box. This fourth volume collects five new adventures with Kidd and Pink.

All the short stories in this series are patterned after Mother Goose rhymes, and the title story of this book is themed after one of the best known ones. Dare ga Cock Robin wo Korosou ga - Kidd Pistols no Saitei no Kikan also has the English title Who Killed Cock Robin, I Don't Care and introduces us to Robin Cockrill (Count Manford), and his wife "Lady Dove" Sophia. Dr. Bull is visiting his former student Cockrill, who has a collection of weapons. The Manford Manor consists of a main building flanked on both sides by two towers, but all parts are not directly connected. As impoverished nobels, the manor's maintenance is subsidized, though in return, they have to receive viewers a few times per week. Cockrill's weapon collection is therefore found on the top floor of one of the towers, while the corresponding room in the other tower showcases the family jewelry. While Cockrill and his wife are showing Dr. Bull, Kidd and Pink the jewelry exhibition room, the count explains he's been into Japanese archery lately. But unable to grasp the spiritual aspect of Japanese archery, Cockrill has been having arguments with his teacher Robert Jakuemon Komadori lately, so they made a bet. Jakuemon is to fire an arrrow from the weapons exibition room in the other tower into the jewelry exhibition room to prove his skill. Given that the distance is over a hundred meters, it's very unlikely he could pull it off, and indeed, the experiment seems to fail. As an archer's courtesy however, Cockrill also fires an arrow back to the other tower. When the party decides to go to the weapon's exhibition room however, they find it locked from the inside. The door is broken down, and inside the room they find Jakuemon dead, with an arrow in his body. It seems impossible that anyone could've shot Jakuemon with an arrow as he was high up in this room, but Cockrill seems intent on claiming his arrow must've actually crossed the hundred meters to kill his master. That also seems very unlikely, but how was Jakuemon then killed so high up?

A story that didn't turn out as great as I had hoped it would be. The very limited circle of suspects makes it easy to guess who's probably the guilty party (especially after a certain intermezzo), and once you know that, it's also fairly easy to guess how the impossible murder was committed. The trick behind that is also predictable for fans of the genre. I guess the most interesting part was seeing how the story included the parts of the Who Killed Cock Robin rhyme as a story theme, but as a standalone mystery tale, we've seen much better locked room mysteries in this series.

Alibi no Awa or Bubbles of Alibi is a very short story, set outside Parallel Britain for a change. As the various Masters of Detective have been taking the credit for Kidd's exploits, it didn't take that much pressure for Kidd and Pink to blackmail their boss to give them an extended holiday. While enjoying their vacation in a holiday resort in Australia however, the two punk detectives are asked by the owner (a friend of their boss) to assist in a murder investigation. Chiang was a wealthy businessman who was having a holiday with his adopted triplet sons. Their three brothers each run a different branch of the Chiang empire, but they had messed up big, and Chiang was going to have them know about that really good during their stay here. When Chiang's body was found dead on board of their cruiser, it was only natural his sons became the main suspects, but they have an alibi. While their father remained on the cruiser, the three sons were out scuba diving and at the time of the murder, they were staying in one of the various "underwater houses" of this resort, providing a place for divers to rest up a bit at the bottom of the sea. While the brothers are indeed seen on the security footage of the underwater house, it appears there are always only two of them simultaneously on the screen as they walked around in the house, which gives the police the idea that one of them committed the murder on the cruiser, while the other two pretended to be three for the camera. The solution is very simple, with a simple slip of the tongue, and ultimately, there's very little that makes this short tale stand out.

In Kyouso to Shichin no Nyoubou no Nanabukuro no Naka no Neko or Gur, Seven Wives and Cats in Seven Sacks, Dr. Bull, Kidd and Pink are on their way to St. Ives when they are stopped at the outskirts of Capeville, right in front of the lonely nine-mile road leading to St. Ives. Asking around, they learn that there's a small sect in St. Ives called The Lost Sheep, led by a certain Ferchi. Seven women (and their children) live with him, and all consider them Ferchi's wives. The women's families obviously want to save the women from Ferchi and have formed a little group to watch Ferchi's every step, though legally, there's little they can do. However, today's different, as the team in St. Ives saw him leaving town in his big truck, and more importantly, they saw children in the back in sacks. Having an excuse now to arrest him for child abuse, the group arranges with the Capeville police to have him detained the moment his car arrives there. The nine-mile road from St. Ives to Capeville is just one long stretch, flanked on one side by the Dover Sea, and on the other side by a steep cliff, a remnant of old mining days. With men on both sides of the road, Ferchi has no way to go. But after an hour, Ferchi's truck still hasn't arrived in Capeville, so curious, the men decide to check the road out, only to find a crashed truck around the midway point. While Ferchi and some of the women are around, the group is surprised to learn there's no sign of the children. Ferchi claims there never were children in sacks in his car, and shows that while he had sacks in his truck, they were filled with cats (which they were going to bring to a shelter) and litter sand. The men in St. Ives know they saw and heard children though when the truck left St. Ives though, so where are they know?

Interesting story in the sense that the solution of the disappearing children is fairly simple to think off, especially after one fairly crude piece of foreshadowing, as well as the set-up for the conclusion where Dr. Bull makes a very short lecture about impossible disappearances. But I really like how it's all fleshed out into a full story. The misdirection with the sacks filled with cats is absolutely brilliant and fits wonderfully with the solution of the disappearance. It's a story that is designed to be very fair, I think, with perhaps a bit too obvious clewing, but I've rather have that than a story that genuinely assumes you to think of the most ridiculous things based one minor clue and then pretends it's being fair. And there's even a nice surprising endgame to the story, which makes this tale overall the most consistent and tightly-plotted story of the whole collection.

Nezumi ga Mimi wo Sumasu Toki (When Mice Listen) is another short one. Kidd, Pink and Dr. Bull are enjoying a performance by the band Three Blind Mice, featuring three blind musicians. Their old manager "Cat Fish" who made off with their money some years ago has returned, having learned Three Blind Mice is going to sign a record deal and still in possession of their (valid) contract. During the performance, Cat Fish is killed, but how could any of the three blind man have done that? The trick... is not pure science-fiction perhaps and can work in some contexts, but even despite the admittedly well-intended attempts by Yamaguchi to ease the reader into the conclusion, the trick behind the murder still feels out-of-there. 

Interestingly enough, Chou Kodomotachi no Ansokujitsu or A Sabbath of Super Children feels fairer, despite it actually featuring supernatural elements. In this story Kidd and Pink are reunited with the Master of Detective Beverly Lewis (from The 13th Detective). Beverly has received a letter by "Monday," one of the children living the Royal Research Laboratory for the Supernatural. This institution researches children with supernatural powers like telepathy and teleportation. Some months earlier, Beverly was investigating rumors of child abuse there, though she could not find any evidence to support those claims. But today she found a note by the child with the code name "Monday" in her inbox, where he pleads for help because he will be murdered at five o'clock on Monday. Beverly, Kidd and Pink travel to the Research Laboratory to see Monday and figure out what's going on. Kidd and Pink learn at this Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters that the children here do indeed have various supernatural powers, ranging from mind reading to psychokinesis. When they're finally ready to meet Monday however, they're told he's in his room. They find his brother Sunday in front of the room, seemingly puzzled by the locked door. When they break the door open, they find Monday has died inside the locked room. An alluring story, as it first presents itself to be a kind of locked room mystery with a supernatural angle, but you soon learn that the powers of each of the children is fairly limited and can not be used to straight-out create a locked room murder, so then the story changes into something else: how to use each of the children's special abilities to solve the murder? As a standalone locked room murder, this story is nothing special, but once it moves beyond that, it's a really good story that uses the special abilities to do a very different kind of mystery story (explaining it would be spoiling it too) and both the clewing and the misdirection is really good here.

Weird to see actual supernatural powers in this series by the way, though I have always had slight problems envisioning what's possible and not in Parallel Britain. It's supposed to be mostly the same as comtemporary times, but in the videogame adaptation of The 13th Detective (which was how I first got into the series), you also had a talking intelligent robot and stuff like that, so I always imagined Parllel Britain to also be slightly more advanced than ours, or at least a bit different.

Kidd Pistols no Saitei no Kikan is on the whole not a bad collection per se, but I do feel it misses a genuine standout story. The previous volumes all had at least one story that was really worth reading and then some others that were good as "side dishes" to that main course, but this fourth volume doesn't really have a highlight story that feels as a pure must-read. Again, I wouldn't label this volume as a bad mystery collection, just too tame, especially compared to earlier volumes. But anyone who has come this far and is still having fun with Kidd and Pink should also read the fourth volume,  and with only one more volume to go, I'll obviously continue reading the adventures of Kidd and Pink.

Original Japanese title(s): 山口雅也『キッド・ピストルズの最低の帰還』:「誰が駒鳥を殺そうが - キッド・ピストルズの最低の帰還」/「アリバイの泡」/「教祖と七人の女房と七袋の中の猫」 /「鼠が耳をすます時」/「超子供たちの安息日」

An Exercise in Fatality

 かっこいいかはわからないけど

おさえきれない夢をみたんだ

「胸がドキドキ」(The High Lows)

I don't know if it's cool

But I had an uncontrollable dream

"The Pounding of my Heart" (The High Lows)

Given that that only one single new volume of Detective Conan was released this year, and that this year's theatrical release Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet was pushed back to a 2021 release due to the pandemic, it's been a very disappointing year for Detective Conan fans, with nothing new to enjoy. And yes, I know the collected volumes of the spin-off Detective Conan: Wild Police Story are being released in these last two months of the year, but as far as I know, it's not a mystery series, so I'll probably not be discussing them here, even if I'm going to get those volumes.

So the last few months, I've been watching anime original episodes of Detective Conan on and off, i.e. episodes which are not based on the original comic, but which are especially written for the animated series by a varied team of writers: some are specialized screenplay writers for Detective Conan, some are freelance screenplay writers who write for a variety of shows (not just mystery shows) with no fixed attachment to Conan, and sometimes there are special guest writers like mystery author Ookura Takahiro who also wrote the 21st Detective Conan film The Crimson Love-Letter. I started looking for the more interesting anime original episodes about two years ago, and as you may remember, I've come across a few genuine gems.

Detective Conan anime original episodes

 

Scenario by Ochi Hirohito: 

88-89: Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken ("The Villa Dracula Murder Case")  

184: Noroi no Kamen wa Tsumetaku Warau ("The Cursed Masks Laugh Coldly") 

379-380: Hitou Yukiyami Furisode Jiken ("The Case of the Furisode of the Hot Spring Hidden In The Snow Darkness")  

603-605: Koureikai W Misshitsu Jiken ("The Case of the Séance's Double Locked Room") 

905-906: Nananengo no Mokugekishougen ("Eyewitness Testimony, Seven Years Later")

 

Scenario by Hashiba Chiaki

208: Meikyuu he no Iriguchi - Kyodai Shinzou no Ikari ("The Entrance to the Maze: The Anger of the Giant Statue of the Heavenly Maiden")

Scenario by Mochizuki Takeshi

210-211: Gosai Densetsu no Mizugoten ("The Water Palace of the Legend of the Five Colors")

214: Retro Room no Nazo Jiken ("The Mysterious Case in the Retro Room")

 

Scenario by Saitou Kenji

159-160: Kaiki Gojuutou Densetsu (The Legend of the Mysterious Five-Storied Pagoda)

 

Scenario by Mikami Koushirou

730: Kanpekisugita Figure ("The Figure That Was Too Perfect")

753: Share House no Shikaku ("The Blind Spot in the Share House")

859: Kurayami no Sangaku Route ("The Mountain Route in the Darkness") 

Obviously, not all anime original episodes are anything near memorable. Most of them are passable, but usually not special enough to make me want to write a review about them. The stand-out episodes I have reviewed until now on the blog do have one major point in common: length. The episodes I've discussed are either two-parters (or even a three-parter) or one hour specials, meaning these episodes have quite some time to set-up a proper mystery and work towards a satisfying conclusion with proper clewing. And it's a lot harder to do that within the confines of one single twenty-minute episode. Most single-part anime originals usually have problems to present a mystery that's deep enough to make an impression in that short period of time, so few of them really make an impression. But as I have the feeling I've already gone through all of the must-see anime original Detective Conan episodes, and there's a Detective Conan shortage this year anyway, I thought I'd discuss a few of these single-part anime original episodes. Most of them have interesting ideas or settings even if sometimes undeveloped or slightly rushed.

Oh, and before I forget this point: I do have to say that Detective Conan is a fantastic fictional world for anime original episodes. There's not only an insanely rich cast of secundary characters but it's also rich in established locations and habits, and any screenwriter can easily fit any idea they have into the world of Detective Conan. Want to write something about a videogame company? Have Dr. Agasa and the Detective Boys visit it. A mystery plot set at a television studio? Have Mouri Kogorou appear in a television show. In a university? Ran visiting someone who graduated from Teitan High. Country house murder? Kogorou, Ran and Conan are out driving and get lost. Seriously, practically any setting will work in Conan and feel completely natural.

Episode 214 Retro Room no Nazo Jiken ("The Mysterious Case in the Retro Room") was originally broadcast on November 20th, 2000 and written by Mochizuki Takeshi, who also wrote the enjoyable two-parter Gosai Densetsu no Mizugoten ("The Water Palace of the Legend of the Five Colors"). Mouri, Ran and Conan are on their way to Dolphin Land, when they become acquainted with a group of three women at the station. The women are old college classmates who are going to have a nice day together. A fourth member of the group is staying at the renewed Dolphin Hotel and the plan is for the three to pick this Naomi up and go enjoy Dolphin Land. Naomi has a room on the Retro Floor, where everything is decorated in a retro Japanese inn style. When they arrive at Naomi's room, they find a Do No Disturb sign hanging from the door, but Naomi does not answer her friends' calls and when they try the door, it's not locked. Inside they find the corpse of Naomi, who has been stabbed. Her hotel room is decorated in a retro style complete with traditional furniture, old-fashioned snacks, and a coin-operated television and it's the latter which is important: the television switched off right as they discovered the body, and the television runs for exactly one hour on one 100 yen coin, and you can only insert one coin at a time. The police suspects therefore Naomi was killed soon after she started watching television, but Conan soon realizes that the murderer could've faked this alibi. While it's fairly easy to guess who the killer is, I have to say I really like the retro room setting, as well as the trick used by the killer to fabricate an alibi for the time of the murder, as it makes optimal use of the prepared props, leading to an original color variation on a trick that's otherwise very familiar. Funny thing is how the incriminating piece of evidence is actually also becoming a bit retro nowadays. Things changed a lot in the twenty years since this episode first aired!

Episode 730 Kanpekisugita Figure ("The Figure That Was Too Perfect") first aired on February 22, 2014 and was written by Mikami Koushirou, a screenplay writer who also works on television dramas. Dr. Agasa and the Detective Boys are visiting a figurine/diarama exposition. Mitsuhiko is in particular impressed by the work of Kitajima Masahiro, a professional modeller. It's Kitajima's body which is found in one of the backstage rooms, and with some help of the Detective Boys, the police soon find three suspects in Kitajima's girlfriend, a rival modeller and a sleazy magazine writer, who were all three present at the event. The police however can't find the murder weapon with which the victim was stabbed, and none of the suspect should've been able to get rid of a weapon that size without anyone noticing. The solution to the hidden weapon is really original and works fantastic in this setting. It's a bit of a shame the episode didn't have a few more minutes to present this more as a Queenian problem, with a grand search of the whole complex to emphasize the impossibility of the murder weapon disappearing. I really like the trick, but the episode kinda undersells the problem, which makes it not as memorable as it could've been.

Mikami Koushirou was also responsible for episode 753 Share House no Shikaku ("The Blind Spot in the Share House"), originally broadcast on October 4th, 2014. Ran's visiting Yayoi, a former student of Teitan High who's graduated and now living in a share house while going to college. Ran likes the idea of living in a share house, but also learns it's not all sunshine. During her stay, she's witness to a fight between two of the other residents: Katsuko has telling lies to their landlord, accusing Suzuki of peeping in order to get him (the only man in the house) out, figuring it would be more convenient if there were only women here. Katsuko and Suzuki both go upstairs to their own rooms, while Yayoi and the other resident Yasuko take turns in taking a shower and keeping Ran company in the kitchen/dining room until her father picks her up. A cry by Suzuki has everyone running upstairs, where they discover that Katsuko's been murdered in her room. Because Katsuko and Suzuki were the only one upstairs, and Ran had clear sight on the hallway in front of the staircase from the kitchen, Suzuki becomes the only suspect, but as the title of the episode spoils, there's a blind spot. This is an episode with a lot of potential, but which sadly doesn't work quite as well as it could've. The trick used to create the blind spot is good, but the presentation is done in a way so it's not exactly clear what's going on until it's revealed in the conclusion, and it's not completely fair to the viewer. In hindsight, you could probably guess how everything fitted together, but considering this is a twenty-minute show, the presentation could've been a bit more generous towards the viewer, while in return one other clue could have been less obvious. A weird episode, as it's a story that really works well in the short runtime, it's just that the presention is intentionally not showing something that they could've shown without attracting to much attention in the first place.

By now you'll have noticed I was specifically watching episodes written by Mikami. Episode 859 Kurayami no Sangaku Route ("The Mountain Route in the Darkness") aired on May 13th, 2017. Dr. Agasa has taken the Detective Boys out on camping on a mountain. At the mountain lodge, they become acquainted with another group staying there. The group of four used to be one of five, but one of them died three years ago, falling off a mountain and since that accident, the remaining four have been climbing mountains together on this day to commemorate their deceased friend. Takemi is the odd on out in the group: the egoistic woman had gone out climbing alone at night three years ago, and their friend only died because he went after her. Takemi's attitude has not changed since however, and after another fight with the other three, she decides to go down the mountain and camp near the river on her own, while the other three sleep in the lodge together with Dr. Agasa and the Detective Boys. The next morning, Genta decides to check up on Takemi all the way down with his binoculars, only to find that she's been stabbed to death. They run down the mountain path to make their way to Takemi, who's beyond rescue. Her backpack is found a bit further down in the forest, suggesting someone killed her and then took her backpack as they fled. During the police investigation, the three friends are also investigated just to be sure, but it becomes clear none of the three friends could've killed Takemi: Conan saw them late at night when they held a small service for their deceased friend, and after that time, it would've take ntoo much time to go down the mountain path, kill Takemi, take the backpack to the forest and climb the mountain again before the others would start on breakfast at the lodge. Even the weather balloons one of the friends brought with him wouldn't be any help, as they can't lift a person and there are too many left anyway. Conan however soon figures out what the secret route is the murderer must've taken to kill Takemi and make it back in time. The trick is pretty simple to guess, especially once the props of the story are introduced, but I think the scriptwriter did a good job at introducing several false solutions to distract the viewer within the twenty minute limit and the trick used by the murderer itself is also pretty original. It's a story that works really well within the time limit, as I couldn't even imagine how you'd want to expand on this in a meaningful manner. One thing this episode shares with the other Mikami episodes I discussed however is that Mikami does like to leave certain clues (especially objects) very clearly for Conan and the viewer to find, and often you wonder why the murderer didn't think of cleaning up better, because sometimes it's like they're literally lying everywhere. I guess that's a problem of the runtime, but some clues are just left on the crime scene as is for no apparent reason save for the twenty minute limit.

One final episode I want to highlight was written by Yamatoya Akatsuki, best known for his work on Gintama. Episode 961 Glamping Kaijiken ("The Curious Glamping Incident") was broadcast a year ago on November 30, 2019 and is about Ran, her friend Sonoko and Conan going out glamping. They have a fun time at the camp, but at night, they hear a cry from the group of four next door, and when the three come and check, they find a dead cross-dressed man with awful make-up on his face, a piece of crab in his mouth and a piece of paper in his hand. What happened here? I should probably warn you that I'm not writing about this episode because it's a good mystery story. It's not. It's just the craziest anime original episode I have ever seen. It doesn't even try to make any sense. The writer probably just came up with the wackiest murder scene he could think of and then tried to make something out of it, but it doesn't even remotely hold together and when the episode is over, you'll realize the writer has forgotten to address a lot of story details that really beg for explanation. But this episode is absolutely HILARIOUS because it's unapologetically nuts and the characters are all acting like complete psychos.

Anyway, I hope this post will be helpful to the people who want to try out some Detective Conan anime original episodes and don't know where to start. I'd definitely recommend trying the specials/multi-parters by Ochi first, but after that it can be a bit trickier and it really depends on what kind of stories you like. For I will say this, the anime original episodes can be very varied, in terms of setting but also of atmosphere. I'll probably do these anime original episode write-ups once in a while, but I do hope I'll be able to write about some new Detective Conan releases soon...

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン』214話「レトロルームの謎事件」 / 730話「完璧すぎたフィギュア」/ 753話「シェアハウスの死角」/ 859話「暗闇の山岳ルート」/ 961話「グランピング怪事件」

The Greenhouse Jungle

薔薇が咲く 薔薇が散る

君の中に 僕がいる

「薔薇が咲く 薔薇が散る」（愛内里菜）

Roses bloom, roses scatter

I live inside of you

"Roses Bloom, Roses Scatter" (Aiuchi Rina)

Huh, I'd swear that when I read The Jellyfish Never Freezes, this series didn't really have a set series title yet, but now apparently the series is named after the series detectives. Not original perhaps, but at least it's a clear title.

The blue rose has been considered the Holy Grail of horticulture, but sometimes miracles happen. Twice even. When the news broke that a pastor had managed to grow a genuine blue rose by coincidence in the church greenhouse, people with green thumbs and academics alike were baffled and figured the man must have had a bit of help from above. What really surprised everyone however was the press conference of Professor Tenniel the following day, who too announced they had succeeded in creating a blue rose titled Abyss and the genetics scholar also seemed to imply that the pastor's blue rose was very unlikely to be a genuine blue rose. Police inspectors Maria and Ren of the Flagstaff Police Station didn't have much to do after the events concerning the inventors of the Jellyfish, but immediately after the two consecutive announcements of the blue roses, they are approached by their colleagues over at Phoenix and asked to, discreetly, poke around both Professor Tenniel and pastor Cleaveland and their blue roses. Figuring something must be up, Maria and Ren visit the two and ask some questions, but as they had no idea what was about, the two detectives can hardly be blamed for the subsequent murder on Professor Tenniel. All the people attached to the professor's lab were to attend a conference in the state of A that day, and as the professor had a second home there, the professor and one of the students would be staying there the night before, to prepare documents and drive from there to the conference. When the professor didn't arrive, the police was notified, and the two 'lucky' officers stumbled upon a horrid sight: bloody words were written on the inside of the doors of the greenhouse in the back garden, and inside, they found the head of the professor with the greenhouse key, together with the bound and gagged student. And to top off the mystery, the greenhouse had been locked completely from inside when the police found the victims. The doors and windows were all locked from the inside, and while they could theoretically be manipulated with strings, the problem is that all the greenhouse windows and walls are covered by long, interlocked rose vines: their combined weight, thorns and vulnerability make it impossible for anyone to have left the greenhouse through any place but the door, but the bloody letters on the door make it clear the doors were not opened after writing the message, and the greenhouse key was found inside the professor's mouth. The case is mysterious on its own already, but then Maria and Ren are shown fragments from a diary dated one year earlier retrieved from a house that had gone up in flames recently and they are shocked to learn how this diary details how Professor Tenniel had succeeded in growing a blue rose and was murdered in a greenhouse. Maria and Ren have to find the missing link that connects the old diary, the murders and the blue roses in Ichikawa Yuuto's Blue Rose wa Nemuranai (2017), which also has the English title The Blue Rose Never Sleeps.

Earlier this year, I reviewed Ichikawa Yuuto's debut novel The Jellyfish Never Freezes, the first novel in this series and you may remember I liked it a lot. It was a novel that was quite open in showing where it took its inspiration from: Like Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders/Jukkakukan no Satsujin (Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murders), The Jellyfish Never Freezes followed a dual narrative structure, with two simultaneously developing narratives in alternating chapters: the reader jumped back and forth between chapters that portrayed the serial murder case in real time, and chapters set a few days after, focusing on the subsequent police investigation. The Blue Rose Never Sleeps does the same: we follow Maria and Ren's investigation into the blue roses and Professor Tenniel's murder in the so-called "Blue Rose" chapters, while in the "Prototype" chapters, we follow the story of a boy named Eric who ran away from home and was taken in by Professor Tenniel and his family.

Mystery stories with such dual narrative structures often feature some kind of narrative trick aimed at the reader, urging you to assume certain connections between the two narratives even though they are not there in reality, or the other way around. The revelation that the two characters by the same name in the two narratives were actually different people or something like that is then sprung at the end on the reader. The Blue Rose Never Sleeps however starts off making it quite clear there's something not right between the two narratives. The names and people Maria and Ren find in the diary are very similar to the people involved in the actual murder case, as is the theme of the blue rose, but there are all kinds of minor differences with reality, and a large part of the mystery revolves around figuring out why the narratives are so alike, and yet not the same. It's pretty refreshing to see a mystery story which tells you right away there's something wrong between these two narratives. The reasons behind these discrepencies as revealed are at times a bit farfetched (wait, that was all done just in the hope that something else would occur?), but I have to say I was quite amused by the dual narrative and even though I was ready to suspect everything, I still didn't quite manage to evade that piece of misdirection that was created due to the dual narrative, even in essence, it's fairly simple (and even if you saw through the misdirection, there was still a lot more the reader needed to solve).

Early in the novel, the reader is 'treated' to a mini-lecture by Professor Tenniel about genetics, DNA and how to create blue roses. It can be a bit technical, and while you don't need to have a PhD in genetics to be able to solve the mystery in The Blue Rose Never Sleeps, one part of the plot does kinda involve a "Oh, by the way, this could be done with genetics too!' surprise which no reader is going to guess. It's a bit unfair, and while not directly involved with the locked room murder in the greenhouse, it's definitely an important building piece, so readers might feel a bit cheated there. The locked room murder itself is interesting. The trick the murderer used to escape from the locked greenhouse covered in thorny vines falls a bit in the mechanical category and the set-up to the reveal of the trick could've been more comprehensive, but I do like the idea and it definitely fits the theme of the roses. There are more mysteries that build upon this locked room mystery by the way: at one point, the student witness actually sees the dead professor inside the locked greenhouse, but is knocked out. When the police later found her, she was tied up inside the greenhouse herself, but that means the murderer unlocked the greenhouse to put the student inside and sealed the greenhouse again. Ichikawa skillfully builds several mysteries like that on top of the actual act of murder itself, making The Blue Rose Never Sleeps a fairly complex novel, with the locked room murder only a part of the whole picture.

You could say the book not only has a dual narrative, but also a dual mystery, as ultimately, the motive behind the murder remains quite vague until the denouement. Like I mentioned above, the backstory can be come across as slightly farfetched and contrived, but on the whole, I do like how everything tied together and how you kinda end up with a second mystery plotline. I guessed the second part of the mystery and who was behind it, but it wasn't really based on any clear evidence: I wasn't really happy when it was revealed my gut feeling was right, as I had no proof and that feeling didn't improve when Maria did manage to point out all those little things I missed that proved who the culprit was!

The Blue Rose Never Sleeps was another satisfying mystery novel by Ichikawa after The Jellyfish Never Freezes. While the sequel uses the dual narrative structure too, its application is quite different, and unlike the first novel, which took inspiration from And Then There Were None and spy thrillers, The Blue Rose Never Sleeps feels more like a "conventional" mystery story focusing on an ongoing murder investigation. Personally, I think I liked this novel better, but they're both great reads, and I do hope the third novel will see its pocket re-release soon!

Original Japanese title(s): 市川憂人 『ブルーローズは眠らない』

番外編： The Decagon House Murders Released Once More, with Feeling

Five years ago, Locked Room International released The Decagon House Murders, my translation of Ayatsuji's monumental 1987 novel Jukkakukan no Satsujin, about the members of a university mystery club who plan a visit on an abandoned island, only to be killed by a mysterious killer one after another. It would be the first novel of the so-called shin honkaku (new orthodox) movement in Japan, which was a call for authors and reader to return to intelligent puzzle plot mysteries. Many writers would follow in the wake of The Decagon House Murders, making it one of the most important novels in recent detective fiction history in Japan. The release of the English-language version of The Decagon House Murders was of course a personal milestone, but putting it in the wider context, for many it was probably also their first steps into shin honkaku, and since then, I've been fortunate enough to be able to work with Locked Room International to bring more Japanese mystery fiction to the English-language world (In case you missed it, take a look at The Red Locked Room!). Since its release, The Decagon House Murders has seen some interesting and positive reviews. Personally, I have to admit that the Dirda piece in the Washington Post back in 2015 still made the most impression on me, especially as it really helped the word honkaku spread.

For some time now, Pushkin Press has been publishing Japanese mystery fiction, with prominent writers like Shimada and Yokomizo seeing both new translations, but also re-releases of older translations that had gone out of print. Some of the readers may have been aware of this already, but Pushin Press required the rights for The Decagon House Murders some time ago. And now their version's out! At least, I believe the e-book is available right now, while the physical book will follow in only a few weeks. It's a re-release, but the text has been brushed up by the new editors, and some help from myself of course and it's got a nifty new cover. Seriously, Pushkin has been hitting home-runs with these covers, and the first I was contacted over this new release, I couldn't help but be utterly excited about what kind of cover it would get!

Pushkin Press is based in the UK, so the e-book is out now and the physical release follows in the first week of December, while I think the US release is scheduled for next year, though that's kinda a moot point since you can just order anything from internet nowadays... Anyway, if you were still wondering about gifts for the holiday season, or just something to read yourself in the upcoming darker months, why not The Decagon House Murders?

The Case of the Caretaker

 'T is strange,—but true; for truth is always strange;

Stranger than fiction; if it could be told 

"Don Juan"

The Mysteries! Newcomer Award is essentially the sister award to the better-known Ayukawa Tetsuya Award: both awards are organized by the same publisher and are meant for unpublished works of authors who haven't made their major debut yet as writers. The Mysteries! Newcomer Award is meant for short stories, while the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award accepts full-length novels/short story collections. Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winners are obviously published as standalone book releases, while in the case of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award, publication means being published on paper in the mystery magazine Mysteries! and as a seperate e-book release. Almost exactly one year ago, I reviewed two Mysteries! Newcomer Award winners together and I already noted that there at least seemed to be a wide range in the stories, as the situations/type of mystery in those stories were quite different, but both very satisfying stories. Still waiting for that second story of Yukashina by the way...

About 400-500 entries are accepted each year for the Mysteries! Newcomer Award, but even with those The two numbers, there's no guarantee a winner is declared: there have been years with no winning work, like 2011 and 2016. This year however, we have no less than two winners of the 17th edition of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award. Interestingly enough, the authors of the two works were both called Ooshima. However, one of them changed their name between the announcement of the winners, and the publication of the stories in the October 2020 issue of Mysteries!, so the fact that two Ooshimas won the same award in the same year, will be forgotten in the near future...

Anyway, so while Ooshima Kazuhiro won the award, it's now the name Yamato Hironori which accompanies the story Kamu Roujin ("The Biting Senior"). Konori Ken works at the Care & Social Welfare Section of City Hall and is one day visited by Kadota, who runs Yuimaru, a small day care services for the elderly. Each morning, they pick up their clients at their home to bring them to a central location where the seniors are taken care for during the day, and at the end of the day, they bring everyone back again. Yesterday however, an incident happened with Takizawa Ryoujirou, an elderly man in a wheelchair who's suffering from Alzheimer and can't speak anymore. The man is usually very peaceful and docile, but yesterday he suddenly bit the arm of the poor caretaker who was trying to put a bib on the man at lunchtime. While the woman was wearing a uniform, the man bit her so hard the bite marks were clearly visible on her arm and Kadota even had to bring her to the hospital. When Kadota later informed the daughter-in-law of what had happened however, she accused the caretaker of having messed up somehow, leading to the biting incident, and she said she'd bring her father-in-law to another daycare service. Kadota wants to know why Takizawa suddenly bit her employee, also because he fears the incident might be repeated even if Takizawa would go somewhere else, and asks Konori to investigate the incident.

This is certainly not a situation you're likely to see as the main mystery in a detective story! With a 'vague' problem like "why did the old man bite a young caretaker?" and the theme of the care for the elderly, you might be tempted to assume that this will be a mystery story that's more interested in exploring social problems, but it's actually surprising how Yamato does manages to write construct this premise into a proper puzzle plot story with clues and all. Granted, a lot of the clewing is a bit crude: one section in particular stands out like a sore thumb because you know that those few sentences are only there because they are to serve as a clue and once you see that, it's honestly not hard to figure out why old Takizawa bit the caretaker's arm. But still, Kamu Roujin is written as a proper mystery story, structured around the attempts of Konori to find a plausible explanation for Takizawa's sudden change in temperament and constantly stumbling upon facts that seem to deny his suggestions, until he finally manages to put everything together and even organize for a very satisfying denouement scene. Given that the story revolves around finding a motive for the "crime", it can definitely be difficult to present a convincing enough reason for the "culprit" to have done something and also present it in a way that allows the reader to figure it out beforehand based on clues, but it's done fairly well here. And I'd definitely want to see more of the premise of a municipal care service offical detective explored in a short story collection!

The other winner of the award was Ooshima Kiyoaki's Kagefumitei no Kaidan ("Ghost Tales of the Kagefumi Inn"), which is like the complete opposite of the motive-focused Kamu Roujin with its realist angle. Umeki Kyouko is an author of real horror stories, which she approaches from an investigative and folklore angle: she not only writes about these stories about ghostly appearances, but also interviews the people who actually experienced these supernatural phenomena and also attempts to pose her own interpretations of these odd occurances, analyzed from a folkloristic point of view. A few days before the new year starts, her younger brother is sent by their parents to check up on Kyouko in Tokyo and bring her some new year treats from her parental home. When there's no answer to the doorbell, he uses his own key to get inside the apartment, where a horrible sight awaits him. His sister is taped tight to her office chair and her eyes have been sewn tight with her own hair. While she remains unconscious in the hospital, she's fortunately going to survive the ordeal. But who did this to her and why? Her brother suspects it has to do with the new story she was working on, about the Kagefumi Inn in the Gozu Hot Spring region close to their parental home in the Tochigi Prefecture. A few weeks ago, Kyouko stayed there to investigate the ghost stories connected with the annex in the Japanese garden of this inn: while it's not in use anymore as a guest room, it appears that people staying the night (like staff members) there will receive an anonymous phone call on their mobile at 02:17 a.m. and if you take the call, some freakish misfortune will befall upon you in the near future. The brother decides to stay at Kagefumi Inn himself to see what his sister worked on exactly. The owners of the inn have heard of the incident with Kyouko too and are very willing to help out the brother, and there's even an exorcist staying in the annex at this very moment to see if there's really some ghost hanging around there. The brother is invited by the exorcist to come at night to the annex room to see if there's really a phone call at 02:17, but when the brother arrives at the annex, he finds it's locked and when he peeks inside through a gap in the window blinds, he finds the exorcist is lying dead in the room, with both his eyes scooped out of his skull! The owner and the brother break in through the window, but to their surprise they find all the doors and windows of the annex had been taped tight with demon-warding seals and that no person could've escaped from this room after taping every exit shut from the inside. So was it a ghost who killed the exorcist?

So this story is also a horror story, or perhaps I should say that Kagefumitei no Kaidan is mostly a horror story? Throughout the tale, the reader is presented with various supernatural and scary situations, some through the eyes of the narrator (the brother of Kyouko), some through the excerpts from the manuscript about the ghost stories happening at "K Inn" which Kyouko had been collecting. Stories about ghostly telephone calls, about children's voices coming out of nowhere, about monsters roaming the garden of the inn. But as this is a detective story, you'd expect most of these phenomena would be explained right and that there's perhaps one supernatural part that's left vague on purpose? Kagefumitei no Kaidan is the exact opposite: most of these phenomena will remain unexplained as supernatural horror stories, while only a small part of the tale will actually be explained in a rational manner. The result is a strange story where a locked room murder is solved in a classic manner by presenting a rational explanation supported by proper clewing, while at the same time we're also asked to accept the stories about ghostly children hiding between the dining tables at K Inn. The locked room murder where everything's been taped tight is a classic situation now and while the solution is okay and I like the clewing for it, it's pretty difficult for that part of the story to really leave a lasting impression considering we also have really nasty situations with the eyes sewn shut and eyeballs being pulled out of the head and stuff. The atmosphere is fantastic, with the jumping between the brother's narrative and the manuscript of Kyouko and overall, Kagefumitei no Kaidan is a good horror story, with a decent locked room murder plot included, but don't expect a straightforward mystery story where everything is explained at the end.  

The two winners of this year's edition of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award probably couldn't have been anymore different, but I guess that shows how diverse the mystery genre could be. Kamu Roujin was a story I wasn't sure I would like when I first heard about the premise, but I have to admit I liked it a lot more than I had expected. Kagefumitei no Kaidan too was different from what I had expected, with a more distinct focus on the horror angle, but I did enjoy it as a nasty-feeling scary story with a locked room murder hidden in there somewhere too. It'll be interesting to see if these two authors will release more in the future, as both of them have found fairly unique angles with their stories.

Original Japanese title(s): 大和浩則「噛む老人」 

大島清昭「影踏亭の怪談」