99.9

「まさかここまでとはな」

『名探偵コナン』

 

"I can't believe it has come to this..."

"Detective Conan"

Today is the release day of volume 100 of Aoyama Goushou's Detective Conan, one of the biggest detective franchises to have ever graced this world and while I'll still have to wait for my copy to be delivered, I figured this might be the best occassion to look back on this long, long-running series. It was in 1994 when high school student detective Kudou Shinichi accidentally became witness to a shady deal, got caught by two men of the Black Organization and fed an experimental drug that was supposed to kill him. Instead he was turned into a child and while staying low as "Edogawa Conan" with his childhood friend/love interest Mouri Ran and her private detective father Kogorou (who don't know his real identity), Conan tries to find a way to turn back into his old self and catch the Black Organization, figuring that the easiest way is to secretly help Kogorou solve as many cases as possible, as this will likely bring him on another lead connected to the Organization. More than 25 years later and 100 volumes down the story, Conan still hasn't succeeded in his goal completely, but readers have been treated to more than 300 different mystery stories that have been consistent in quality, with regularly brilliant entries. And I'm just talking about the original comic here! With an arguably even bigger animated series that adapts the comic, but also has original stories and an incredibly succesful series of annual animated theatrical releases, Detective Conan (or Case Closed as it's known in select regions) is commercially probably the biggest active detective franchise at the moment worldwide. 

When I reviewed volume 99 in April, I mentioned that "the special occassion is a great excuse to do a special Conan-themed post" and I got suggestions like a list of Top 10 stories/tricks or at a greater scale, looking at Detective Conan's influence on Japanese mystery fiction in general. But I think the suggestion to look back at when I started with the series and how my thoughts on the series have changed over the years, and how the series itself has changed over these years resonated the best with me. For while I haven't been reading Detective Conan since the very start, I have been with the series for about twenty years now, and it's also been a large part of this blog in general (it's the series with the most tag entries by far!). Heck, this blog probably wouldn't have existed without Conan: it was also the series that introduced me to a lot of mystery fiction, as the individual volume releases include an Encyclopedia of Great Detectives each time that introduces various fictional detectives, both Japanese and non-Japanese, and it were the names I first saw in these entries that got me interested in Japanese (prose) mystery fiction, and now many years later, there's this blog and I even translate these novels myelf. So perhaps it's time for a bit of reminiscing.

I don't remember the exact year, but it was around 2000 that I had my first encounter with the franchise through the second animated film: Detective Conan: The Fourteenth Target, which I still consider one of the best films of the series. It's an excellent introduction to the series, as it incorporates a lot of the recurring characters of the series (at that moment in time), but their appearances are actually heavily tied to the plot, as the film deals with a series of murders on people connected to Mouri Kogorou. The story is a nice serial killer whodunnit (with a very memorable motive for the murders!) that is tenseful and also cleverly connected to the background stories of the main characters, while also having just enough action to really sell the "theatrical release" feel. The film had me hooked, so then I watched the first movie, and from there I started reading the manga, which by that time was already around volume 35-40 in Japan. At the time, the easiest way for me to read Detective Conan, besides scanlations, was either through the French or German releases: German was infinitely easier for me to read than French and with the help of a friend (whom I'm ever grateful to), I found a shop that would actually import German comics for me and once in a few months I'd binge-buy Detektiv Conan volumes. Which incidentally also greatly improved my grades for German at school. Thank you, Conan.

So what was it that captivated me so? For me, Detective Conan: The Fourteenth Target was an eye-opener in the sense that it was the first original animated detective story I had ever seen that actually dealt with murder and death: besides some Sherlock Holmes cartoons and Basil of Baker Street (where there's no death), I had seen none. That combined with the James Bond-esque gadgets and occassional over-the-top action got me hooked, but the manga was more subdued in tone of course. Being a comic serialized in Shonen Sunday, it's no surprise it has clear rom-com roots, but the stories featured in the comic were also quite memorable as detective stories. Early stories like The Piano Sonata "Moonlight" Murder Case brought us to creepy islands with serial murders or to mountain villas with murderers who decapitate their victims. While the earliest stories might not be exceptional by any standard in terms of originality in plot, plots greatly improve after the aforementioned The Piano Sonata "Moonlight" Murder Case, with several brilliant tricks that could have featured in any classic of the genre: the impossible hanging of a monk that only a Tengu could have done is one of the more memorable early entries for example. One notable thing about Conan is of course that it's not always murder, and there are a lot of puzzle/quiz stories, or treasure hunt stories too, which help make the series feel diverse. One important aspect Detective Conan did perfectly since the beginning was the use of visual clewing: the visual format allows for different possibilities than the prose format and mangaka Aoyama's solid artwork has been used very deviously to literally place clues right in front of your eyes, and still you're likely to miss them. Readers who mostly read detective novels might have to adjust to Detective Conan at first, as it's not just the text in the balloons that's important, but also what is shown in a panel and how, but Aoyama's been great at using the visual traits of the medium. This is especially the case when it comes to stories that feature mechanical tricks for for example locked room murders: even complex Rube Goldberg-esque string & needle tricks are shown very naturally and often, the reader is given a better chance at solving these kinds of stories because they have a better idea of the actual layout of a room/building. I have a feeling these more "complex" locked room murders are more prominently seen in "waves": there were a lot of these impossible stories in Detective Conan like after volume 15, and after a few years you'd get a period with fewer of those stories, and then they'd be back for a while again.

One of my favorite aspects of Detective Conan however is that besides "classic locations" like manors, isolated islands and modes of transportation like trains and ships, the series is often very contemporary and urban, and that is also reflected in its mystery plots. This makes Detective Conan one of the most diverse detective series, because it can very naturally go to any setting and it still feels natural. Personally, I love the urban setting of Conan a lot. While the locations in the earliest stories often feel a bit "isolated", you already get a glimpse of modern urban when Conan is confronted with a murder case occuring inside a karaoke box, with people singing and going and out of the room all the time and once the animated series started and the first film was made in 1996-1997, Aoyama knew he had a hit at hand and started to build more on more on the fictional setting of "Beika Town", setting more and more cases in this fictional part of Tokyo. Because of that, we also see more recurring locations and with them, recurring characters. Detective Conan has a gigantic fictional world nowadays, because Aoyama does re-use locations and characters, so a classmate of Ran who's only mentioned in an earlier story might turn up for real another time with a case for Ran's father, or a television director who was a suspect in an earlier story might return in another story involved with the media. It makes the world feel alive, but also allows the series countless of possibilities to bring Conan to a certain setting. A series like Columbo or Murder, She Wrote also feature a lot of diverse story settings, but Conan has an ever wider range, as it also has a lot of stories featuring children. The contemporary, urban setting is also reflected in the mystery plots, which is also an aspect which sets Detective Conan apart. The series started in 1994, and we're now in 2021. The reader will know consumer society has changed drastically. Fads came and went, as did technology. In 1994, few people would have had internet at homes, then we went through dial-up modems on desktops with their iconic dial-up tune, then we got small i-Mode pages on select phones and now probably more than half of the readers of this blog are reading this very article on a mobile device. Unlike most detective series however, Detective Conan is a series that has been serialized from the beginning, being published at a pace of (in theory) one chapter a week. Because of that and the contemporary urban setting, consumer technology has always been a part of Detective Conan and it's a joy to read detective stories that don't pretend like modern technology like mobiles have made a detective puzzle story impossible because old tropes can't be used as-is anymore. Detective Conan embraces whatever modern society considers "the norm" and uses whatever is available to the modern man living in contemporary society to present an entertaining detective story. Tablets, the Internet of Things, smartphones, chat applications: why should a detective story pretend like we don't use these things all the time? In Detective Conan, modern technology is not a "cheat", but used in the same way as "telephones" or "trains" in Golden Age detective stories: the norm and nothing out of the ordinary for both the culprit and the detective. And because Detective Conan is such a long-running story with a rolling time-line (ergo: the story is always set in the same "present", whether it's a story from 1994 or from 2021), it also serves as an interesting reflection of how the world around all of us has changed too, and how it has changed the possibilities for the modern puzzle plot detective story.

I have seen some mystery bloggers approach Detective Conan who seem more familiar with American comics, not realizing that Conan is a serialized, on-going series that is released in chapters. Without that knowledge, the fact that stories are often "cut off" only to continue in the next volume might seem weird, but that's what happens with an ongoing story. For the fact that the series features an ongoing narrative is of course also quite unique for a detective series. Some stories form a set together, like a budding love story between the police detectives Takagi and Sato that develops over the course of several stories involving the Homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, while the phantom thief KID appears once in a while in heist stories with an impossible crime element. While the bulk of the cases in this series have no direct relation to the overall main story, Conan's path has crossed that of the Black Organization a lot of times in these 100 volumes and the story has grown to a much larger scale than you'd suspect readin the first volume. The ongoing serialized nature of the series has allowed for some memorable stories that take their time build up foreshadowing/clues. As I mentioned before, when I started reading the manga the Japanese release was around volume 40 and I remember that the Halloween story in volume 42 was one of the biggest events of the series, showing off what Aoyama could do with this format: while on the surface, the story involves a murder case happening during a Halloween party, the reader is also treated to a grand face-off between Conan and a member of the Black Organization, which recontextualized a lot of the events that had occured until then. While the attentive reader might have noticed something had been brewing for the last few years, it was at this point that Aoyama revealed he had been plotting this confrontation for years, hiding relevant clues and information necessary to solve the plot here in various previous stories, even stories that at first sight seemed irrelevant to the overall plot. The way Aoyama showed how he could patiently build a proper detective story over the course of many years was impressive and he'd use this technique more often in the rest of the series, where he'd have larger storylines develop over the course of many years and very different stories. The Scarlet Series in volume 85 for example was the conclusion of a storyline Aoyama had been working on for 7 years, dropping hints and clues now and then and allowing the reader to deduce the thing themselves, but even if you guessed what was going on, it was still incredibly satisfying to see Aoyama pull off the thing succesfully.

As mentioned before though, the series has changed a lot over the course of these years. My first encounter was through the films. While the first one I saw was The Fourteenth Target, the first one I actually saw in Japanese theatres with a friend was The Raven Chaser, which was already more thriller-ish in tone than the early movies. Especially the last ten years, these films have grown out to be (explosive!) action spectacles and the quality of the core mystery plots may vary a lot depending on the year: the mega-hit Zero the Enforcer was very unlike any other Conan film for example, but was a very entertaining political thriller and while The Crimson Love Letter follows the format we know of beloved early films like The Fourteenth Target, Captured in her Eyes and Countdown to Heaven, a film like The Fist of Blue Sapphire was more action-focused. While the manga has seen less drastic changes in tone in general, you can definitely feel changes as you go through the volumes. For example, you'll see more stories that build up the fictional world after volume 20 and after the aforementioned Halloween story in volume 42, Aoyama starts working more often on similar storylines covering several years, using minor stories to drop hints as he builds towards a climax. You're also more likely to see "classic" mystery settings like manors in the woods, small islands etc. in the first half of the series, with more urban stories in the second half of the series. Character popularity also changes, and it's often easy to pinpoint when a character suddenly explodes in popularity, because you'll see a lot of them then, even if they don't really add much to a story.

But that's perhaps the strength of Detective Conan: while the puzzler core with a rom-com tone is always intact, the series has always been quite diverse in what it offers to the reader in terms of style of detective story, offering both a broad selection, but also a selection that changes with time, and if you're a fan of puzzlers, it's likely you will find at least one story, or a set of stories, that will suit your taste. Whether it's inverted mystery stories, cozies, locked room murders, pure whodunnits, howdunnits, stories using modern technology, stories set in isolated, old-fashioned places, closed circles, political thriller, folklore-based mystery, non-lethal crimes or even non-criminal mysteries of everyday life, and anythng you can think of, there's probably at least one story in the manga, or the extended animated universe that will appeal to you. And despite that range, everything still feels like it's part of one Detective Conan franchise, and while not all stories are as strong as others, the quality of the plots is also fairly consistent.

Anyway, this is enough of me reminiscing about what got me first started on the series and why I have been following the series for over twenty years now, and still looking forward to each new release. Many readers of this blog are also fans of the series I know (the Conan posts always attract most commentators), so to celebrate the release of volume 100: what are your favorite Conan stories? What are your Top 10 stories/tricks? What got you into the franchise? Any memorable happening related to Conan? Feel free to talk about anything Conan-related in the comment section, and try to be generous with your use of ROT-13 spoiler tags, as a courtesy to all the readers here!

The Secret of the Scarlet Hand

"That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a testimonial!"

"A Study in Scarlet"

The book of today has a gorgeous cover! This is the cover for the 2020 revised pocket version by the way.

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders.

Saeko's life changed the day she learned her parents who brought her up, weren't her real parents. As long as she could remember, she had always been Izumi Saeko, so it was a shock to hear that she was born Munakata Saeko, and that after an incident that took her parents and her sister's lives when she was still little, she was raised by the Izumis. The Munakata clan is an influential family in the city of Aizato, about two hours away by train from Tokyo, but there are few living members left: only Saeko's grandfather and her (childlesss) aunt Chiyo, which is why Saeko is now brought back to the Munakatas as the heir. As per family tradition, Munakata Chiyo is the current director of the Seishin Girls Academy, a prestigious boarding school that has prepared the girls in the upper-class society for their future duties for generations. As the heir of the Munakatas, Saeko too is of course required by her aunt to enroll in Seishin, but the moment Saeko arrives there she's having regrets. Unlike her old school, Seishin Girls Academy is located in the middle of nowhere, with gates keeping outsiders out and all the sudents inside. Saeko also quickly learns that life here is nothing at all like the free life she had always enjoyed: there are strict rules about how to behave, what to wear and what they can own and as a transfer student suddenly arriving in this new environment, she quickly also realizes there's a distinct hierarchy among her fellow students, with the 'madonna' Aya at the absolute top. Everyone here seems to have adapted completely to the strict life here, which makes Saeko feel quite uneasy. Saeko's roommate Kei on the other hand doesn't seem to fit in quite well with the other students, but to Saeko, Kei seems one of the few normal girls here. For some reason however Kei refers to herself as a Witch. With Kei as her roommate, Saeko seems to think she might make it through her time here, but only one day later, Kei is found dead in a special room in the dormitory whcih is usually kept locked: thirty-five years ago, a wealthy student of the academy stayed in this extra spacious room, and she too claimed she was a witch. But one night, she committed suicide in the bathroom and the room has remained sealed since, fueling rumors among the students. Kei too was found burned alive in the bathroom of the sealed room, like a witch. This event is of course enough to greatly disturb Saeko, but she's given no time to recover as more and more murders occur on the grounds of the Seishin Girls Academy. Due to her period, Saeko's also been feeling unwell lately, sometimes passing out or even losing memory of what she was doing moments before, and that's not helpful as the other students slowly start to suspect the new transfer student of the murders in Ayatsuji Yukito's horror mystery novel Hiiro no Sasayaki ("The Scarlet Whispering" 1988).

After writing the first three novels in his House/Yakata series, Ayatsuji decided to try his hand at a different genre for the first time, resulting in Hiiro no Sasayaki in 1988, a book that is more focused on horror than on mystery (though there's a mystery plot there). Nowadays, Ayatsuji is also known for his horror novels, and the horror mystery Another is arguably his best known work across the world due to its various adaptations, but Hiiro no Sasayaki is when he first fused the horror genre with a mystery plot. I'm personally not a real horror fan by the way: I don't watch horror movies at all for example, nor do I really play horror games (soooometimes I play horror sound novels). I do like reading horror manga once in a while, like by Umezu Kazuo and Itou Junji (yeah, those are not really original choices), but that's about it with me and horror. Despite that though, I didn't need the dediction in this book to Dario Argento to realize the main inspiration for Hiiro no Sasayaki, for even though I haven't even seen the movie, it was clear that this slasher horror mystery set in a closed-off girls academy and talk about witches was greatly influenced by the famous giallo film Suspiria.

 Oh, and to go off a minor tangent. I recently read the manga 13-gatsu no Higeki ("The Tragedy of the 13th Month") by Miuchi Suzue, the shojo manga giant best known for Glass Mask. This manga too is about a young girl suddenly being sent to a girls boarding school, slasher murders and a witch cult. I read this manga soon after Hiiro no Sasayaki, so I obviously assumed the same inspiration source, so imagine how surprised I looked when I learned that 13-gatsu no Higeki actually predates Suspiria by several years!

So Hiiro no Sasayaki takes strongly after slasher horror films. It has a creepy atmosphere throughout, with almost doll-like female students who under the burden of the strict school rules and a kind of caste system, all seem to resemble each other in an attempt to "not stand out", people hiding secret pasts from Saeko, gruesome murders that happen across the school (each murder is portrayed from the POV of the victim) and a Saeko who is suspected as the murderer not only by her fellow students, but Saeko even has doubts about herself as she keeps having these moments where she just blanks out and finds herself waking up somewhere hours later. And of course, usually a murder occurs during those moments. The book provides a thrilling, speedy read that follows the familiar horror film tropes and as the story develops, things start to escalate even further until it reaches the haunting climax.

But, I hear you asking, is it a mystery story? For I don't have the habit of discussing non-mystery stories here. It's a surprisingly difficult question. Hiiro no Sasayaki's focus definitely lies on the slasher horror plot, but there is a mystery plot beneath all the blood. Part of the story revolves around Saeko (and an ally) trying to figure out what really happened to Kei in the bathroom and the subsequent murders and while the climax doesn't really have a "here we have clue X, clue Y and clue Z, and that's why A is the murderer" scene, it does have that moment so typical of Ayatsuji's plotting where previous parts of the book suddenly take on a completely different meaning and you see the whole book was plotted and written in a way that was probably cleverer than you had first expected. I think that if you start reading this after the House/Yakata series, the difficulty level is fairly low and you'll be able to make an educated guess as to the final revelations regarding the killer, but if you were just expecting a bloody slasher, you might be pleasantly surprised by what the book has in store. Still, don't be mistaken, you'd best read this book as a horror story, that also uses mystery genre writing conventions to give the reader the 'shock ending' we all expect from a horror movie, and you shouldn't expect a mystery story with people calling themselves Ellery, Carr and Agatha talking about the limitations of the genre here.

As a palate cleanser, I did enjoy reading Hiiro no Sasayaki though. It's not a genuinely surprising horror mystery story, but it reads incredibly smoothly and as a horror slasher, it basically gave me what I'd expect of the genre, plus some minor elements that make it recognizable as specifically an Ayatsuji work. There are two other books in this series and while I won't be binging them, I expect I'll return to this series in the future anyway.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人『緋色の囁き』

Elementary

"人は何かの犠牲なしに何も得ることはできない"

『鋼の錬金術師』 

"You can't gain anything without any sacrifices."

"Fullmetal Alchemist"

This reminds me, I probably should finish the original Fullmetal Alchemist (not Brotherhood) anime series one day...

2000 years ago, Hermes, son of God, was sent from the guardian star Nibiru to the planet to teach the people. Before Hermes left again, he bestowed upon the humans Seven Divine Secrets and if humans could solve all of them, they themselves would be able to reach the realm of God. It would take nearly two thousand years before humans would finally solve the first secret. Hundred years ago, Magnus was the first person who managed to conduct elemental transmutation, making him the first alchemist. The brilliant Magnus traveled across the planet, coming up with brilliant inventations based on alchemy and paving the way for future alchemists. In the decades since, some people have learned to master the art of transformation and these transformers are able to change the shape of objects, but actual alchemists, who can transmutate objects at the elemental level are much rarer: with time, people realized there are always only seven alchemists on this world at the same time. These alchemists are of course considered human treasures and most of them devote their lives to research the remaining Six Divine Secrets.

While some humans have obtained the gift of tranformation, which allows them to change the shape of objects, only alchemists are able to transmutate objects at an elemental level, making these people very valuable human resources. It's for that reason that kingdom of Astarte has created Alkahest, a special military unit especially for Theresa Paracelsus, one of the current seven alchemists. Following earlier events, she arranged for Emilia Schwartzdelphine to be assigned to her unit as her assistant, though most of the time, Emilia is just busy keeping his boss focused on her work. Alkahest's mission is to conduct research on alchemy and to uncover the Seven Secrets, and it is for that reason Theresa and Emilia are sent on a mission to the Mercury Tower, a tower made completely out of mercury! The building was erected by Hermes himself two thousand years ago, using unknown alchemy to keep mercury in a semi-solid state and one century ago, Magnus also lived for while in the Mercury Tower. The army caught rumors that one of Magnus' secret still resides within the Mercury Tower and that other, rival parties are already on the move, so Alkahest are sent to the Tower too. The tower lies between the borders of the kingdom of Astarte and the empire Bahl and is therefore controlled by the "neutral" Church of Sephirah. When Theresa and Emilia arrive at the tower, they are welcomed by Priestress Sophia Ashton of the Church and her two assistants, but they also learn there are more visitors, including the alchemist Nicolas Flamel and his assistant, who are on the exact same mission for the Bahl army, but there's also a reporter and a unit of the Church Knights present, who are all investigating rumors of disappearing pilgrims who have visited the Mercury Tower. A storm cuts the Mercury Tower and the little island it resides on off from the outside world that night, and with little clues to go on, the alchemists decide to continue their search for Magnus' treasure the following day.

The next morning however, the people in the tower are shocked to discover that two people have been killed: the reporter and the head knight. But they soon realize this is impossible due to the characteristics of the Mercury Tower. The outer and inner walls of the Mercury Tower are literally made out of a body of mercury floating in the shape of a tower. Usually only an alchemist would be able to manipulate mercury to create a door opening there, but Magnus had installed special devices of his own design next to each room that can also temporarily create an opening in the mercury, allowing normal people to open doors too. However, only one single person's handprint can be assigned to a room's "lock" and these devices can't be operated from inside a room during the night. This is what makes the two murders impossible: the victims couldn't have opened the doors to their own rooms to let the murderer in themselves because the "locks" don't work during the night, nor could the murderer have opened the doors of the victims' room from the outside, because only the registered user of the room can operate the lock to a specific room. Everyone realizes that only alchemists could've gained entry to the victim's rooms during the night without using the locks and by forcing an opening in the mercury walls, but why would the two alchemists present here use the one method that'd give themselves away? Realizing there might be a dangerous murderer lurking among them, Theresa and Nicolas decide to forget about their mission for the moment and focus on the crime: whoever solves the murders first, will be allowed to take Magnus' secret back home once everything is settled. Who will be the victor in Konno Tenryuu's Renkinjutsushi no Shoushitsu ("The Disappearance of the Alchemist", 2020) which also has the English title Alchemist in Mercury Tower?

This is the second book in this steampunk fantasy mystery series by Konno Tenryuu: I decided to start with this one because the second book seemed to have been received more favorably, but I have a feeling that wasn't really the best way now, as this second book does spoil a few details of the first book I think, and in other regards it seems to skip over things that are probably explained in more detail in the first book. So if this reviews manages to pique your interest in this series, you may want to start properly with the first book.

So, when you think of alchemy and Japanese pop culture, it's impossible to not think of Fullmetal Alchemist. If you've been into anime and manga somewhere in say the last fifteen years, you'd have to have at least heard of the mega-hit that was Fullmetal Alchemist. You'd think that if anyone was going to make an anime/manga/light novel about alchemy now, you'd try to differentiate yourself from Fullmetal Alchemist in some way, right? At least, that was what I thought, but after the first few chapters, you realize that this book is about two protagonists who have a secret goal they want to accomplish which is why they joined the royal army because they need the connections to accomplish their goals and that in this world, alchemists are so rare and powerful they are used as human weapons by states, you'll probably realize that Renkinjutsushi no Shoushitsu doesn't even try to be very different from Fullmetal Alchemist's premise. What I really thought was shocking was the depiction of alchemy in this book. Fullmetal Alchemist came up with one of the more iconic and unique ways to show off alchemy, with alchemists placing their hands on objects with transmutation circles and transmutating objects accompanied by special effects. Renkinjutsushi no Shoushitsu keeps talking about alchemy from the start, but I was getting really worried when it never explained how alchemy was conducted in this world. By the time I arrived at the scene where... indeed, they conduct alchemy by placing their hands on the object they want to transmutate and you have the flash of light and everything, well, that was what I feared the most. I wonder whether the author really thinks that the way alchemy was portrayed in Fullmetal Alchemist is a standard way to depict alchemy, because the whole book seems to assume that the reader will know alchemy is conducted like that, even though it's a specific Fullmetal Alchemist trope. Perhaps there's a whole generation out there that thinks that alchemy as shown in Fullmetal Alchemist is the standard!

But back to the story itself. As a mystery novel, Renkinjutsushi no Shoushitsu of course has a unique premise as it's set in a world where alchemy exists, and this particular story is set inside a tower with mercury walls, which is probably a one of a kind! The impossible situations in this novel are therefore based on unique premises: normal humans and transformers can't transmutate mercury, while alchemists can transmutate mercury, but the two alchemists present have no reason whatsoever to have to committed the murders using transmutation, as it'd immediately give themselves away (each alchemist would know of themselves if they are innocent, so that'd immediately put the suspicion on the other alchemist). The mystery of how the victims were killed in their rooms/moved out of their rooms, combined with the plot of Theresa and Nicolas competing to solve the case first results in a book that's interesting to follow from start to finish as it basically always has something new to surprise you with. At first, the exact workings of alchemy and the doors of the Mercury Tower might be a bit vague, but it does result in a book that keeps you guessing and as more and more becomes clear, you'll be able to make more informed guesses as to how it was all done.

The book is surprisingly packed with interesting fake solutions and a fairly dense plot, and by the end, the reader will also be pleasantly surprised by the finale that reveals that Renkinjutsushi no Shoushitsu is not only a fun and memorable locked room murder mystery, it's also a mystery novel that only works because of its fantasy premise, with alchemy as its main pillar. The ideas used in this book to pull off the impossibility only work in this universe, but it's set-up well and the attentive reader is offered a very fair chance to solve it themselves. What some readers might find a bit disappointing is how the story does feel 'in progress' in some regards, with some minor plot points obviously written to tie in with future novels in this series, but Renkinjutsushi no Shoushitsu can be enjoyed as a standalone locked room mystery if you just look at the core puzzle, and it's a great one that reminds of writers like Shimada and Oosaka.

By the way, I think most will have noticed by now, but the names in this novel are a bit... cliche. From Paracelsus to Hermes, Nibiru, Nicolas Flamel, Magnus and other names like Hohenheim, Astarte and Sephira: you'll have heard of all of them in relation to alchemy, religion and other esoteric fields of interests and at times, these uninspired names will even make you think of some lazy fanfic, but some readers might be more bothered by this than others. The banter going on between the lazy (but woman-loving) Theresa and Emilia (who has his own problems to deal with because of a personal connection to Nicolas' assistant) is probably easier to digest for most readers.

Anyway, Renkinjutsushi no Shoushitsu is an enjoyable locked room mystery that makes brilliant use of its fantasy setting, but it's also clearly "an entry in an ongoing series" so you might want to begin with the first novel or wait for more to come so you can read more in one go. It's a series I'll be keeping an eye on though, as I thought the core mystery plot of this book was clever, surprising and memorable, showing once again that mystery fiction doesn't need to be realistic to be fun and satisfying. The book arguably does have a lot of trouble to feel unique in terms of atmosphere because how it doesn't even attempt to hide what media influenced it, but the core mystery is definitely unique and one to leave an impression.

Original Japanese title(s): 紺野天龍 『錬金術師の消失』

The Baited Trap

"I, Hercule Poirot, am not amused."

"The Hollow"

So this game was released earlier this week, but for some reason the price of this game in Japan is just a third of the MSRP in Europe, selling for just 1500 yen instead of 35-40 euro...

An earlier encounter left an impression both on Angeline van den Bosch and Hercule Poirot, a patrol officer of the Belgium police force, so when Angeline found herself in trouble, she decided to write to now Detective Hercule Poirot, hoping he would be able to help her. After the death of her father Viscount van den Bosch, Angeline was raised by her mother Cassandra and while there had been financial troubles in the past, the illustrious Van den Bosch name seems to have regained its place among society, and the upcoming marriage betweeen Angeline and Gedeon Demir will only strengthen both families and their social status. However, Angeline has been receiving blackmail letters threatening to reveal a family secret unless she pays. She has no knowledge of any hidden secret and her mother also denies everything, perhaps too strongly even. Other socialites have been receiving blackmail letters too, so it might indeed be nothing and just an attempt to get money out of her, but worried, Angeline invites Hercule Poirot to a private party to celebrate her engagement with Gedeon at the Van den Bosch estate. Poirot makes his way through the heavy snowfall to the manor, where he meets various family friends and business acquaintances who all seem to be hiding more beneath their superficial pleasantries. But Poirot has barely started his investigations into the blackmail matter when the British Major van Hagen, an old family friend of the two Van den Bosch women, is found stabbed to death in his study, with the weapon missing. With the phone lines also down because of the heavy snow, it's up to Poirot to find out who murdered the Major and the crime's connection to the blackmail letters in the game Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases, released in 2021 on PC/PS4/PS5/MacOS/XBox One/Switch.

I am not absolutely certain, but I think this is the first game based on Agatha Christie's famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot that is not an adaptation of an existing novel, but a completely original story (there have been official licensed Poirot books by new writers of course. Like the title suggests, this game is actually a prequel, set in the times when Poirot was still a police officer in the Belgian police force and long before he had to move to England because of the Great War. It's a period the original stories don't talk about that often (most notably the short story The Chocolate Box), so in theory, it's an interesting period to set original Poirot stories and I guess origin/prequel stories in particular are popular. I wonder whether it's a coincidence that this game's release window is pretty close to Frogwares' (far more ambitious looking) Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, which is another prequel game based on a famous fictional detective...

Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases is created by Blazing Griffin, the studio that also made Murder Mystery Machine, a game I wrote about a few weeks ago and which also features a character named Cassandra. Huh. The gameplay and mechanics of Hercule Poirot: The First Cases are a clear sign of this pedigree, as it is quite close to Murder Mystery Machine in design. You control a young Poirot as you question the various suspects and look for evidence in the rather spacious Van den Bosch manor, which is presented with an isometric point of view (unlike Murder Mystery Machine however, you are not able to change the angle of the camera). Relevant information/hints/evidence are are all memorized by Poirot in his brain, and by using your little grey cells, the player has to find connections between relevant pieces of information to bring order among the chaotic sea of information. All the information you gather is automatically organized in so-called "mind maps", which gather all the relevant information pertaining to a certain goal (for example, all the information on the blackmail affair is stored in the "blackmail mind map"). By connecting certain relevant facts yourself on this mind map, you're able to generate new insights or questions to ask your suspects. Connecting two contradicting statements from two suspects allows you to press both characters further on that point for example, or you might uncover a motive by connecting a seemingly innocent mention to a character's past to another fact you learned. People familiar with games like Frogwares' more recent Sherlock Holmes games or Gyakuten Kenji/Ace Attorney Investigations will feel at home here, as do the people who have played Murder Mystery Machine. As expected of a licensed product however, Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases plays a lot more streamlined than Murder Mystery Machine, and personally, I liked that better. The mind maps are already organized in an easy to read manner this time, allowing you to focus more on the actual thinking rather than struggling with dozens of posts-its. Each information point also has a short description, which really helps a lot with conveying what the context exactly is, as Murder Mystery Machine only had the words without any descriptions. And each mind map in Hercule Poirot: The First Cases shows how much connections are still possible to make and shows what actions you haven't followed up on yet (you migh have generated a new question to ask someone, but not done that yet). 

The mind maps are still quite enjoyable as a mechanic that allows the player to really follow the logical process of the detective and it works especially well with a character like Poirot, who prides himself on order and method.. Because the player has make the logical connections themselves and everything is visualized in a clear manner, you do really feel like you're piecing the case together yourself. There are also some other minor gameplay moments where you need to coax a suspect in revealing information by using different questioning approaches (some people fall for flattery, others need a bit of pressure), but you'll be spending most of the game eyeing the mind maps trying to find the correct connections. Sometimes, the connections can be a bit frustrating to find (why do I have to connect *these two* nodes, instead of the other, similar-looking one?), but the game never punishes you for getting things wrong on the mind map,  so you can brute-force yourself through them.

As a mystery story, Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases covers familiar ground in a fairly competent manner. The story reminds a bit of Murder on the Orient Express, with the Van den Bosch manor is snowed in, a surprisingly international cast of characters and even the murder mystery plot takes some minor cues from it, while some themes touched upon even remind of Agatha Christie's work in general While the game does a good job at letting the player make all the logical connections themselves and I'd say that ultimately, the mystery plot, while not really original, is perfectly servicable, I would say that the set-up for the second half of the game is rather clumsy: the game will try to present a plot twist halfway through that is supposed to serve as the driving force for the plot of the second half of the game, but is introduced in such an awkward manner it basically gives the whole story away at that point. Simply shifting around when certain plot points or pieces of evidence are introduced to the player would have resulted in a much more interesting detective story, while now the game basically reveals its hand by just dropping all its cards on the table for a second.

But there is one thing where Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases drops the ball hard, and while it wouldn't hurt any other game, one could almost call it a lethal mistake here: this game doesn't feel like an Hercule Poirot game at all! We're supposed to play a younger Hercule Poirot and sure, he has a moustache and he does mention his little grey cells, but that's it! Nothing about the character in this game, nothing about the writing in this game besides "his little grey cells" and the name indicator that says Poirot, would make you think you're playing a game based on the Poirot series. Not a single remark about his moustaches, never mentioning his love for symmetry or wanting to tidy things up: if you'd just look at the character's lines without any names, you'd never know this was supposed to be a young Poirot. And it's not like there are no opportunities to do so in a natural way. In a scene in the library, you examine some books and Poirot mentions his love for travelling. Why not sneak in a reference here that he'd love to visit Egypt some time? Why not some sly remark on the English and their food when he's speaking with the British characters? Why no funny remarks about a brother when he's talking with Gedeon about his brother? There's nothing that even feels remotely like Poirot here. Earlier this year, I played the game adaptation of The A.B.C. Murders, which as a mystery game was inferior to this game, but at least it had little details that made you feel like Poirot, like having Poirot curse when he walked through a puddle or being able to click on every mirror in the game so Poirot would check whether his clothes were tidy. 

I'm also rather confused about the time period this game is supposed to be set in. Given that this game is about a young Poirot in the police force who is still not very famous (save for his shooting incident), you'd expect this game to be set around the 1890s, but it feels like it's at least one or two decades later, considering the style of clothes of the characters as well as the style of furniture. References to "the war" involving the English army which every Belgian apparently knows about confuse things even more. The writing certainly isn't trying to actually sound like it's set around that time (and at times, it just sounds like... 2021), which doesn't help things either.

So Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases ends up being a very strange game. It is quite enjoyable as a mystery game that focuses on the logical steps necessary to solve the crime, and while the story and setting don't feature anything remarkably original, the end product is a capably made mystery game that does a good job at making the player really feel like they are piecing the mystery themselves. At the same time however, the game does not do a good job at making you feel like the titular Hercule Poirot. In fact, if you're somewhat familiar with the character and the books, you might end up like me, wondering constantly why the game is so intent on not feeling like a Poirot game. The license doesn't seem to do anything at all: from a pure story and gameplay POV, I can't say the game benefits at all from the Poirot license, while at the same time, the game does nothing to interfact meaningfully with the character Poirot and the many stories featuring him at all. It's a trap very few games based on existing licences fall into: ending up as a game that would have been better without the license. So curiously enough, I'd say that Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases is an interesting detective game, but it would have been more interesting without the Agatha Christie- Hercule Poirot in the title.

Sea You, Sea Me

" You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there"

"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"

Honestly, the water color covers of the pocket reissues of this series are so much better than the original comic-like covers...

Tanabata "Kick" Kikuno miraculously managed to (help) solve two major cases soon after her posting to the Homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, even though she was just intended to be a "pretty face" and now the attempt to mix her up in an international scandal failed, some people above her in the command chain are becoming very nervous, as at this rate Kick might climb the career ladder faster than them. Kick's boss Fushimi advises her lie low for a while and tells her to take a holiday. She decides to go to Hachijou-jima, and even Chika and Ryou (her former fellow members of the idol group Blue Sky G) as well as her current colleagues Higashiyama and Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi decide to fly over for one day to fish together. It's not fish they find at sea though, but an old boat floating around with a decapitated head. Holiday becomes work as they quickly notify the local police. Based on the currents, it appears the boat came floating from Kikakujima, a small island nearby with about three hundred inhabitants. Kairyuuji Shinji, the younger brother of the current mayor whose family has ruled the island for generations, had already been reported missing and the decapitated head is indeed identified as Shinji's. Because Shinji's body is still missing and it's determined Shinji was on the island until his disappearance, it's decided to set up an investigation HQ on Kikakujima and because the islands around here still fall under Tokyo jurisdiction, Kick's unit is sent to the small island to find Shinji's body and catch the murderer. 

It doesn't take long for them to find Shinji's body inside the cabin of one of the fishing boats of the ship graveyard on the other side of the harbor, but the cabin is locked with a chain and padlock from the inside, meaning that the only one who could've locked the door was... Shinji's dead, headless body. This notion of a body rising to lock the door reminds some people of the rumors surrounding Kikakujima: just two generations ago, the islanders lynched a doctor who was said to be conducting human experiments in search of the secret of eternal life on this island, giving the island the nickname Mad Science Island. But while Kick and her team look for clues, more murders occur that seem to have an impossible angle, like Kick and Higashiyama witnessing a burning woman falling into the sea, but when they fish her up, they find she was stabbed hours earlier! With administration ready to demote Kick the moment she makes a mistake, the only option left for her is to solve the case and catch the killer in Katou Motohiro's Kikagakujima no Kioku - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! ("Memories of Mad Science Island - Those Who Make The Arrest Win!" 2019).

This third novel in the series about the former-idol-turned-police-detective Kick by Q.E.D. and C.M.B.'s Katou Motohiro is set immediately after the second novel, and it definitely pays to read these novels in order, as the subplot of Kick's management superiors trying to find some excuse to get her away from Homicide is directly tied to what happened in the second novel, and continues here. I first read the second book in this series, Quantum Man Kara no Tegami - Tsukameta Mon Gachi!, which I thought was the best complete work of Katou I had read until now, more enjoyable than his better known works Q.E.D. and C.M.B.. Kick as an underdog character was infinitely more interesting than Touma and Shinra in Q.E.D. and C.M.B. respectively. The real Holmes character in this series is the data analyst Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi, who acts as a kind of armchair detective because he usually solves the cases based on the mails Kick sends him. Because of this, Kick might initially remind the reader of the female sidekick characters n Q.E.D. and C.M.B. due to her athletic talents, but she's actually quite intelligent and more often than not, she'll solve a large part of the mystery on her own. She's therefore much more fun to follow, being not as brilliant Touma and Shinra in Q.E.D. and C.M.B., but still able to move the plot with both her mental and physical abilities. The political plot surrounding Kick's position are also naturally woven into the mystery plot, which is really entertaining: her bosses want Kick to fail and are ready to jump on every mistake and even use the media to get her out of Homicide, which at times limits the moves Kick can make, which ultimately influence how the plot develops. It's a great way to incorporate Kick's personal story to the ongoing series of murders, as sometimes the murderer sees an opportunity that basically only exists because Kick can't move around freely without worrying about her job.

Kick's position as a protagonist different from the girl sidekicks we see in Q.E.D. and C.M.B. is also noticable in this book, with "Angler" only popping up once in a while on the island, while most of the plot of Kikagakujima no Kioku revolves around Kick's investigation. After the discovery of the locked room in the abandoned fishing boat, suspicions arise that the murderer may be focusing on the members of the Kairyuuji family, the de-facto rulers of the island. In the past, Kikakujima used to be a penal island and the Kairyuuji family acted as the island chiefs, but even now, the islanders all accept Kairyuuji Mitsugu was the mayor, like his father before him. While the island is quite small, there has been a small influx of outsiders lately because they're digging for precious metals in the sea, with lots of people taking the ferry to and from Hachijou-jima daily, so the investigation into Shinji's murder isn't going as smoothly as you'd expect on a small island. The two previous novels were distinctly urban, so it's interesting to see how this series now tackles the Yokomizo Seishi setting of an isolated community, while still being firmly set in a contemporary setting. The book focuses a lot on Kick's digging into the family history and the interpersonal relations of the current members in search of a motive and this aspect combined with the small island with a secret history (there's also a neat map!) definitely reminds a bit of the Kindaichi novels.

When it comes to the individual murder mysteries of Kikagakujima no Kioku, most of the concepts are perhaps a bit simple when viewed seperately. The locked cabin on the fishing boat for example is solved very easily by "Angler" early on in the story and while the following murders on the island (yes, more and more murders occur) usually have an unexplicable element to them initially, these minor mysteries about the murders are usually cleared up fairly soon. Kikagakujima no Kioku is therefore much more enjoyable seeing everything come together, as while the seperate parts don't surprise the reader too much, it's the story that's created with all of those concepts that makes this book a perfectly enjoyable entry in this series: there are a lot more twists and turns than you'd initially expect and the book also makes great use of the island setting to present a story that is at one hand very familar in detective stories (as said, the isolated community setting), but it's also a story that actually uses the characteristics of this specific setting to make the mystery plot possible in the first place: the story wouldn't have worked the way it did had it been set elsewhere. The book eventually builds up to a nice confrontation with the murderer where it's revealed a lot more was going on than appeared at first sight, and it also manages to hit those typical human drama elements you see more often in Q.E.D. and C.M.B. than in  Conan or Kindaichi Shounen.

Kikagakujima no Kioku - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! was thus another solid entry in this series and I think that on the whole, it's still the series by Katou Motohiro I manage to enjoy best overall. This entry on one hands builds on the subplot of the previous novels, but also brings something completely new by moving Kick and her unit away from the metropolis to a tiny island, bringing the type of story I hadn't expected with this series. While the mysteries taken seperately are not mindblowing, the overall story told is entertaining and manages to captivate the reader, so if you pick up this book, you're sure to have a good time.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩『奇科学島の記憶 捕まえたもん勝ち!』

Through the Looking Glass

You could not see a cloud, because 

No cloud was in the sky: 

No birds were flying overhead--

 There were no birds to fly

"Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There"

Gee, was it only last year I read the previous books in this series? Feels like two, three years ago...

Real estate mogul Hugh Sandford is one of the wealthiest men in the country and lives with his daughter in the penthouse occupying the top floors of Sandford Tower, a 72-story high tower in the middle of New York housing department stores, offices and residential floors (unoccupied at the moment). Unknown to everyone however Sandford also has a secret collection of rare animals hidden in his penthouse, only accessible through a hidden passage. Two-headed animals, animals on the verge of extinction: he has everything, but the pride of his collection are his Glass Birds, beautiful beings that manage to mesmerize everyone lucky enough to ever see them. As his collection is very, very illegal, Sandford only shows his collection to the people most loyal to him, like Travis Wineberg of SG. Sandford's forte may lie in real estate, but he's also the owner of SG, a glass manufacturing company which developed from the little glass factory of his late wife's family. SG has been experimenting with glass with variable refraction and transparency and while not all experiments have been succesful, SG's joint research with the scientist Ian Galbraith of M University has finally led to a working prototype of a glass panel of which they can change the transparency, which could for example be used in houses for optimal lighting, but then switched "off" for privacy. It's early in 1984 when Sandford invites Travis, his assistant Chuck, Ian and his girlfriend Cecilia to his penthouse to celebrate the invention of the special glass, but his guests are knocked out and wake up in... a closed off secret floor with many rooms in a weird layout. The four find they are locked together on this floor together with Sandford's housekeeper Pamela, who informs them they are all being kept here by Sandford and that even she doesn't have a key to unlock the doors leading away from this floor. The only message she has from her master is "that they know why they are here." Unable to understand why they are imprisoned the four roam the floor, but after a loud cry, the walls of all the rooms suddenly turn transparent, allowing everyone to see everything on this floor. And they find one of them is murdered in one of the rooms! But curiously enough, they don't see any murder weapon lying around nor a bloody murderer, even though they can see everything present on the floor due to the transparent walls, making it impossible for anyone, and anything to be hidden. After a while, the walls turn opaque again, but where did the murderer go to?

Meanwhile, an investigation into the smuggling of rare animals from M(exico) has brought Maria and Ren of the Flagstaff Police Station on the trail of Hugh Sandford and they travel to New York, to Sandford Tower to have a talk with him. They don't get to meet him, so they start their own investigation at the tower, trying to find out if there's some way Sandford could smuggle animals unseen into his penthouse. While Ren's off questioning the people working on the department store floors and the service elevators, Maria decides to climb the emergency stairs all the way to the top to see if she can break into Stanford's penthouse, but halfway up a bomb explosion occurs on the residential floors of Sandford Tower. Ren is forced to evacuate the building with everyone else below, but Maria is trapped on the higher parts of the emergency stairs as the fire caused by the explosion rages on below her. But who planted the bomb and what does this explosion have to do with the ongoing murder case in Sandford's secret floor? Maria, Ren and the reader are challenged to figure out what is happening in Ichikawa Yuuto's 2018 novel Glass Bird wa Kaeranai, which also has the English title The Glass Bird Will Never Return.

The Glass Bird Will Never Return is the third novel in this series featuring police detectives Maria and Ren, after The Jellyfish Never Freezes and The Blue Rose Never Sleeps, two books which ranked among my favorite reads last year. The books are set in a kind of alternate universe in the late 70s/early 80s, with the "Jellyfish" (a zeppelin-like airship) one of the biggest change in history. Each of the books focus on a different scientific (sci-fi) theme: the vacuum airsac of the Jellyfish was a major theme of the first novel, the second focused on the illusive blue rose and this book of course has the glass panes which can be turned transparent and opaque again in an instant. While it's kinda sci-fi, the inventions are kept practical and realistic enough to not feel fantastical at all. This book also follows the same dual structure of the previous books, with the story alternating between chapters that focus on the people of SG being murdered one by one on a floor with glass walls with changeable transparency, and chapters that focus on Maria and Ren as they investigate Sandford Tower and then get involved in the bomb explosion in the tower. The Glass Bird Will Never Return is definitely the most thrilling entry in the series up until now, with the chapters about Maria desperately trying to escape the fire while being trapped on the upper floors of Sandford Tower adding a sense of real-time danger we had never seen before. You should read these novels in order though, as The Glass Bird Will Never Return also makes a few references to earlier novels.

I do have to say that after the murders in The Jellyfish Never Freezes and The Blue Rose Never Sleeps, The Glass Bird Will Never Return will feel a bit familiar and it never manages to be as surprising as the previous books. By now, the reader already has a good idea of how Ichikawa likes to use his dual narrative structure to present a mystery plot, jumping back and forth between the two narratives to make the situation more baffling than it actually is. It's done competently here as expected, but there's definitely also a bit of coincidence going on to make the mystery more baffling than it actually is. When it comes to the actual murders of the people being detained on the hidden floor with walls that can turn transparent, I think the biggest "problem" is that it's ultimately a very limited set-up: there are very few characters here, who die too soon after another and while the idea of the "impossible mystery" of the survivors not being able to find the murderer even though all the (inside) walls are transparent and you can see every nook and cranny on the floor, you can never shake off notions like 'perhaps there is a hidden passage' or 'perhaps there are some shenigans going on with the transparent walls'. When the solution of how the murderer managed to kill everyone and roam the floor completely unseen is finally revealed, I think some readers will think it's a cheat, while others might well, not exactly shrug, but not be very surprised by it because it had still been one of those 'perhaps?' solutions in their mind. I like the core idea of the trick of the disappearing murderer, but due to the very limited situation of The Glass Bird Will Never Return, this impossible element of the story seems to be less surprising than it could've been. For this plot to work, the murderer also decided to concoct the most convoluted murder plot to accomplish something that could have been done infinitely times easier and your mileage may vary on how willing you'll be to accept that.

The Glass Bird Will Never Return is more than just the (semi-)impossible murders though and I think that taken on the whole, the book is a lot of fun to read. There's the mystery of the Glass Birds that have escaped their cages and a lot of the plot also revolves around Maria and Ren trying to figure out how Sandford managed to bring his illegal animals to his penthouse without anyone in Sandford Tower noticing. Late in the novel, Maria and the reader stumble upon the aftermath of the series of murders on the floor with the animal cages, and there's not a survivor anywhere in the penthouse, which leads to a new mystery: how did the murderer escape from the burning Sandford Tower penthouse unseen and unnoticed? The book keeps on adding smaller mysteries all the way to the end, making it a very fun read as the mysteries keep piling up until the final chapter.

So while I think that at a micro-level, The Glass Bird Will Never Return has fewer truly surprising/impressive elements to its plot compared to its two predecessors, I think that on the whole The Glass Bird Will Never Return is a well-plotted mystery novel, that is perhaps even the most entertaining entry in the series to read, as it's also the most thrilling one with focus on how the events unfold in real-time. As the third novel, some parts will feel a bit familiar perhaps as all three books follow the same story structure, but it's definitely a solid read that will entertain fans of the series.

Original Japanese title(s): 市川憂人『グラスバードは還らない』

Homicide Trinity

Something old, something new, 

something borrowed, something blue

Time to use the rarely used short shorts tag again! Many years ago, I thought I'd use the Short Shorts corner to collect multiple, unrelated short reviews and other observations in one single post, usually when I felt I couldn't fill out a full post about one topic. But I seldom use the tag now, as I often just give up on writing a post of something if I feel I can't write a full post on a subject. But as the topics of today are all games and they kinda form a nice contrast as they tackle the idea of a mystery game in different manners, I guess I can use the tag again now...

The Mysteries of Ranko Togawa: Murder on the Marine Express (2021) is the first entry in what is planned to be a series of mystery novels on PC by Spanish developer 1564 Studio. The titular Marine Express, no relation to the Osamu Tezuka animated movie, is a newly developed submarine train connecting California with Japan. The elite St. Joachim Academy for girls has booked seats for its classes on the maiden voyage of the Marine Express, offering their (rich) students an opportunity to learn about marine biology during a one-of-a-kind school trip. However, not long after they have left California, the unexpected happens: the body of one of the teachers of St. Joachim is found in his compartment, stabbed to death. The main suspect is a student whom was rumored to have been in a relationship with the teacher. Ranko Togawa and her bestie Astrid however think there's more to this crime, which seems confirmed when more attacks and murders occur in the running underwater train. Everyone is locked up with the murderer inside the running Marine Express until they reach Japan, so it's up to Ranko to quickly find out who the killer is.

I think it was the title that first caught my attention of this visual novel: the name "Ranko Togawa" reminded me of Edogawa Rampo of course, and I think the Marine Express animated movie by Tezuka is pretty neat (the adaptation in the GBA game Astro Boy: Omega Factor too!), so it was only natural I decided to try it out. This game is a relatively short kinetic visual novel, meaning there is no real gameplay and you're just reading the 2-3 hour long story. As a mystery story, it's presented fairly competent, though the plot is not incredibly surprising: a lot of the twists and turns will seem somewhat familiar because they don't vary much from the known tropes of the genre. There's a PlayStation game released only in Japan titled Murder on the Eurasia Express (1998) that has a similar story setting, with a murder occuring on a long-distance train with female students of an elite school, and because of the similar background story, some of the story beats in The Mysteries of Ranko Togawa: Murder on the Marine Express do remind of Murder on the Eurasia Express: I guess this is a result of both games making use of similiar 'building blocks' so it's not strange they'd end up with similar story ideas too, but because of that, I had a pretty good idea of what was going on early on. I also thought it was a shame the idea of a closed circle situation in an underwater express felt underplayed at times. After a few fish-related jokes at the start of the game, you don't really get the sense anymore this is a train running at high speed underwater. The game is split up in various scenes and chapters, and just having short cut scenes/'eye catchers' that show the train moving underwater and perhaps an Indiana Jones-style map showing the current location of the Marine Express in the ocean wedged between the story scenes would've sold the setting much better. I did love the graphics, music and the writing of this game though. The pixel art of this game is fantastic, and the slightly larger-than-usual sprites really make the characters come to life, and the banter between the colorful cast of characters is quite enjoyable too. There's also a group chat that is updated occassionally for some extra (optional) dialogue to read, though players who want to focus on the mystery can choose to ignore that. The core mystery plot of The Mysteries of Ranko Togawa: Murder on the Marine Express will probably not surprise more experienced readers of the genre, but it has a lot of spirit and I'm definitely interested in seeing more of this universe.

I assume that most Western mystery readers became acquianted with the exploits of the Chinese magistrate Di Renjie through the Judge Dee novels by Robert van Gulik, but van Gulik isn't the only person who has written detective fiction based on this historical person. Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders is a 2019 PC game developed by Nupixo, and like van Gulik's writings, involves a highly fictionalized version of Di, a young magistrate who is appointed to become the head criminal investigator of the capital Chang'an by Wu Zetian, the first and only empress of China. He is put personally by Wu on the case of the murder of Linfei, a woman who was strangled and whose heart had been cut out. The previous magistrate had tried to pin the murder on the victim's father, but the empress suspect there might be a political plot behind this to weaken her (still fragile) hold on the Dragon Throne, so she wants Di to investigate thoroughly. But while Di is investigating the case, more women are killed in Chang'an and the mysterous killer leaves threatening notes and roses behind at each scene, signalling a crazed killer is on the loose.

Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders is basically the complete opposite of The Mysteries of Ranko Togawa: Murder on the Marine Express in terms of gameplay. The latter was a kinetic novel, where you could only read, Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders on the other hand is an old-fashioned point & click adventure, where you search for pieces of evidence on the screen and talk with various witnesses and suspects to piece the crime together. The game is about 3, 4 hours long and with only a few simple inventory puzzles and one or two parts where you might have to pixel hunt, it's also not a challenging game, but it is quite enjoyable. While Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders utilizes a minimalistic graphic style, it works surprisingly well to create a historical Chinese setting (which is one you don't see in games often anyway!) and the story is also quite unique, making full use of the specific historical background. The prologue for example focuses on an international scandal when a Korean ambassador is killed during treaty discussions at a Chinese manor, while the main game does a great job at really making you realize you're playing a mystery game set in the time of Wu's rule. Each chapter is bookended with a segment where the game tests whether you made the right interpretation of all the evidence you found up until then, and while these segments are far from difficult and basically only checking whether you were paying attention, the presentation is quite good and help make the player feel like they're really solving a crime. Definitely one to try out if you like van Gulik's Judge Dee novels!

Murder Mystery Machine is a game originally released for mobile platforms in 2019 in episodic format, but the complete "first season" was released on PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch in 2021. In comparison to the previous two games, Murder Mystery Machine is the game most focused on letting the player solve a crime themselves. In this game, the player takes on the role of Cassandra, a rookie police detective who is assigned to the District Crime Agency as the partner of Nate, who makes it very clear he doesn't need a partner and especially not someone who just graduated from police academy. Their first job is the investigation into the death of a local politician who was gaining momentum lately. After solving their first job succesfully together, Cass and Nate slowly learn to know each other better as they get to work on more cases, but their investigations also lead them on the trail of a big conspiracy and it seems the only persons they can trust, are each other. Or not?

The presentation is the first thing that stands out in Murder Mystery Machine: each episodes is divided in several scenes, and each scene ("location") is basically an isometric diorama and you control Cass as she interrogates witnesses and searches each nook and cranny for clues. Each diorama is in 3D and you can turn the scene around to look at the scene from a different angle, sometimes revealing evidence that had been hiding behind a blind spot initially. This reminds of a game like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, which had some brilliant puzzles that revolved around the player turning the level around and looking at it from various angles. In Murder Mystery Machine however, the idea basically remains the same the whole game: sometimes something is hiding behind a blind spot and you're only able to see it if you turn the diorama around, but that's it, the way this idea is used in the first episode is the same way they use it in the last episode. These dioramas look great though and the presentation remains great start to finish. You finish a scene and move on to the next once you have obtained all the neccessary evidence/testimony and answer the core questions of that scene. This is done via an interesting deduction board mechanic.

You basically have all the relevant information on post-its, which you are free to organize any way you want. By linking related nodes with lines, you're able to generate new insights or questions. For example if you have a node about a pistol, and a node about a body that was shot, you can connect those two pieces of information, leading to a new insight that the pistol was indeed the murder weapon. Or you can also connect contradicting information, like A claiming B can vouch for their alibi when B denies such a thing. Connecting those pieces of information would allow you to confront those two people with your new insight. Eventually you'll arrive at certain 'big' nodes, which allow you to answer the scene's main questions like "Who is the main suspect" or "Who has a motive for the murder". While it is required to answer the main questions correctly in order to move on to the next scene, the game doesn't actually punish you when you make incorrect connections between nodes: it will not say that connecting node A and B is unneccessary or punish you for that. This means that if you have a good idea of what is going on, you can keep your board pretty neat because you'll only make the necessary connections between the nodes, while someone just guessing will have a horrible mess of a board, with countless of lines connecting one node to another. Depending on the scene, you'll easily have thirty, forty different nodes which can all be connected to each other, so things can become very cluttered with lines if you are just guessing and not making deliberate connections between nodes. The game can be confusing though, with nodes that have similar information, but you're required to connect specific nodes even though the other node basically says the same. I played this game on the Switch by the way, and organizing your board can be rather frustrating with a controller (and for some reason the Switch touchscreen can't be used!). This gameplay mechanic probably works really easy with touchscreen or mouse, but it's unnessarily complex with a controller.

The game has some replayability as it rewards you if you can find all the relevant connections in each scene (you don't need to make all the necessary connections between information nodes to answer all the main questions in each scene) and the game does become more difficult with each case, as you accumulate more and more information, making each board much more complex due to the possible numbers of connections. The cases themselves aren't very complex, but I like how the game really makes the player make all the deductive connections themselves, allowing the player to make each logical step themselves instead of being a passive experience. The plots of Murder Mystery Machine are often fairly straightforward, but even so, they do make you feel like you're really a detective yourself as you yourself have to connect all the relevant facts to arrive at the right conclusions. The eight episodes are connected through an overarching storyline which develops in a rather predictable manner to be honest, but as an overall package, Murder Mystery Machine is an enjoyable detective game, especially for those who really want to be working on a puzzle themselves.

Developer Blazing Griffin Games is also working on a Poirot game coming out in two weeks by the way, so I'm definitely going to check that one out too!

So a short post this time, with short write-ups on short mystery games.  The Mysteries of Ranko Togawa: Murder on the Marine Express, Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders and Murder Mystery Machine were all quite different as mystery games, and they all had different things to like about them. I guess I might as well ask the other gamers here if there are mystery games they have enjoyed lately, or whether they are looking forward to a certain title? I already mentioned the upcoming Poirot game, and I still have to find time/money to get me the new Shin Hayarigami and perhaps Tantei Bokumetsu... And if you have played any of the games discussed today, what were your thoughts?