For Whom the Ball Tolls

Tempus fugit

Authors of mystery fiction often have certain tropes that are often found in their work. Many of them are about plotting techniques. John Dickson Carr is often associated with locked room murders and other impossible murders, while you're likely to find Queenian reasonings in the stories written by writers like Alice Arisugawa. It's often such tropes that actually attract readers to certain writers, as they know what they can expect from a certain book or writer. Another type of recurring tropes are not the actually plotting techniques, but story-related themes. Some might like to involve romantic subplots for example, or have their stories set in a certain place and time. Ashibe Taku is one of those writers who has a very distinct set of such story themes that you're likely to find in any randomly selected story by him and vice-versa, once you have read a few of his stories you'll immediately know the themes he likes to write about in his mystery stories. The easiest themes to identify are the literary and historical references in his stories. As far as I know, Murder in the Red Chamber is the only full-length novel by Ashibe available in English at the moment, but that too is an excellent example of his themes, as the book is based on the Chinese 18th century classic Dream of the Red Chamber, and naturally full of references to both the literary work itself, as well as historical references and research. The historical and literary references are naturally also found in his pastiche series The Exhibition of Great Detectives (1 and 2), which features crossovers between famous fictional detective, but even a book like Wadokei no Yakata no Satsujin ("The Japanese Clock Mansion Murders", 2000), set in modern times, will show off the literary and historical research does for his books. A third common trope in Ashibe's work is the city of Osaka, to be exact, the old Osaka, not the metropolis it has become now, but the old commercial modern city it became after the industrial revolution and that is now slowly disappearing as the current Osaka is becoming more like a gigantic metropolis like Tokyo. In works like Satsujin Kigeki no Modern City ("A Murder Comedy In The Modern City", 1994) he explores a bustling 1920s Osaka, while in Toki no Misshitsu ("A Locked Space in Time", 2001). he explores the change of Osaka by having his series detective Morie Shunsaku tackle two case, one set in the Osaka of 2001 and one set in the Osaka of the nineteenth century. One can easily sense Ashibe's love for the old Osaka in all of his works.

Of the works by Ashibe I have read, Oomarike Satsujin Jiken ("The Oomari Family Murder Case", 2021) is in a way his best effort in combining all the three themes mentioned above with a classic mystery plot and I am not the only one: the book recently won this year's Mystery Writers of Japan Award, and a few days after I finished reading the book, it was announced that Ashibe also won this year's Honkaku Mystery Award with Oomarike Satsujin Jiken (the latter together with Yonezawa Honobu's 2021 novel Kokuroujou ("The Castle with the Dark Prison") AKA The Arioka Citadel Case). So at least critically, Oomarike Satsujin Jiken has been received very well, and I myself can see why. Ashibe's works are featured on this blog relatively often, so I have read my share of his work and while I myself do like literary references, I can't deny that at times, the deep literary and historical references featured in his works are a bit too deep. Sometimes, parts of his work feel like they're screaming "Look, this is a really obscure reference only very few people will understand" at you, so his novels feel a bit too "for fans only" at times. This is not the case with Oomarike Satsujin Jiken, where the references to literature, the historical setting and Osaka do have synergy and really elevate the mystery plot, making the complete package a greater whole than the sum of its parts. It is one of Ashibe's best mystery books that makes good use of his favorite tropes, making it, at this moment, the go-to-book if you want try out his work and get a good idea of his writing, I think.

Oomarike Satsujin Jiken starts with a short prologue set in 1906, when young Oomari Sentarou disappears mysteriously during a visit to the Panorama near Osaka's Namba Station. The disappearance of Sentarou, the heir of Oomari Pharmacy, was perhaps a sign to the immenent decay of the once well-known family of merchants. Decades ago, Oomari Pharmacy was a household name in Osaka when it came to medicine, but recently, they had moved to selling make-up too, which was a brilliant business move. The Oomari family lived in Semba, the commercial centre of Osaka, brimming with other merchants and their apprentices. Sentarou was never found, and years later, his sister Kiyoe and her husband Shigezou became the new heads of the family, leading the Oomaris during dangerous times. For over thirty years after Sentarou's disappearance, World War II would begin and eventually, Japan would involve themselves in the war too. It's during this time the decline of Oomari Pharmacy starts: importing make-up had slowly become impossible and the act of selling make-up itself was deemed a very anti-nationalistic deed, so it didn't take long for Oomari Pharmacy to get into financial problems. Once a name known throughout the city, by the time the war was in full swing, Oomari Pharmacy had only one real apprentice (a so-called "Decchi") left in the shop, where all they could do was sell amenity kits for soldiers. What was even more worrying was that the future of the Oomari family itself was uncertain. Second son Shigehiko, who was suppose to take the company over, had been drafted and sent away to the battlefield already, while oldest son Taiichirou, a doctor, had been drafted too as an army doctor. Taichirou's wife Mineko decides to move to the Oomari home during the war while awaiting her husband, where she gets badly along with sister-in-law Tsukiko, and very well along with her young sister-in-law Fumiko. All they can do is hold the fort until the war is over and Taichirou and Shigehiko return, but it is in 1945, in the last months of the war, that disaster strikes at the Oomari home. After an attack on Tsukiko, the body of patriarch Shigezou is found in his room, hanging from the ceiling. While it doesn't seem like anyone would have a reason to kill him, there are clear signs that indicate this wasn't a suicide or accident, but as times passes by, more members of the family are killed in gruesome manners. Meanwhile, Mineko, as the wife of the oldest son, finds herself being pushed into the role of the one carrying the family, but luckily she finds that her old classmate, Nishi Natsuko, is a training as a doctor at the local doctor, and she turns out to be a powerful ally as they both try to figure out who is killing the members of the Oomari family and why.

While the book opens with a very Rampo-esque trope (the visit to the Panorama), who was a very Tokyo-focused writer, Oomarike Satsujin Jiken quickly becomes a tale that focuses truly on the old Osaka that doesn't exist anymore: the traditional commercial district of Semba really comes alive in the pages of this book, with most characters speaking in the old Semba-dialect, utilizing a lot of local culture like the decchi apprenticeships in the plot, highlighting a lot of the cultural, social and economic changes as World War II starts to near its conclusion. Literary references are also plenty abound, though most of them are specially about mystery literature, as both Shigehiko and his young sister Fumiko are fans of mystery fiction and we see a lot of works of mystery mentioned, often with their old translation titles that aren't in use anymore nowadays. The tone the book takes betrays Ashibe's deep anti-war sentiments and makes the tale of the slow, but certain fall of the Oomari family even more tragic. Oomarike Satsujin Jiken is a mystery novel foremost, but it does a great job at presenting a "historical, war-time Osaka" novel, a theme Ashibe loves, and at least for me, the book had enough themes and topics I had never heard about that really made this an educational, and interesting read. Whereas historical or literary references in other Ashibe stories sometimes feel too much like references "by a fan, for fans", making them not as accessible to the general public, I think the focus on the fall of the Oomaris during the war and using the old Osaka as its backdrop works great, giving the book a much wider appeal (which might explain why it won the earlier mentioned awards).

And as I mentioned before, there's great synergy between these themes and the core mystery plot, which makes Oomarike Satsujin Jiken a memorable read. The book feels very much like a Yokomizo Seishi-novel when it comes to the structure of the mystery, and there's one murder that even invokes the grotesque murder scenes seen in the Kindaichi Kousuke series, with a body found inside a barrel with sake halfway through the book. But most deaths are not as "visually memorable" and to be honest, the actual murders themselves are often quite simple and you will likely have seen variants of them elsewhere. The first murder for example, where the victim is found hanging from a high ceiling, utilizes an idea that's quite common when it comes to these kinds of murders in mystery fiction. But Ashibe still makes this a very memorable scene, because the "props" used to create this murder are brilliantly grounded in the specific time and location of this book. The objects and ideas used for the murder in this particular book, are absolutely unique to this book, and make an otherwise familar idea still seem fresh, especially as they truly make the best of the historical setting. That is what happens throughout the book, and really helps elevate familiar ideas into something much better.

You don't really have "fancy" murders here, no locked room murders or mysteries that are solved through lengthy Queenian chains of deduction, but Ashibe manages to make each of the murders really feel like they could only have been executed as such in the time and place showcased in the book. And while this does mean some historical knowledge is required to really solve the mysteries yourself, all the clues are brilliantly hidden within the narrative, which is what makes Oomarike Satsujin Jiken a very satisfying read. What really makes this a memorable mystery story though is the motive of the murderer both in the broad and narrow sense of the word. By which I mean, the murderer's motive is only understandable considering the historical time/location of this book, but also the reason why the murderer chose to commit each murder in a particular way, is only understandable given that historical context. All the murders might seem a bit underwhelming taken seperately, and might even seen nonsensical at times if you just take them as is, but they make so much more sense and convincing when explained through the historical background, resulting in a motive that is truly unique to the Oomari family in Semba in the 1940, and murders that are commited in a way that is also unique to the 1940s Semba setting. I’d say the balance between the mystery plot and the common Ashibe tropes is done better than in a lot of Ashibe's other works (not going too far into a specific field), and it's this balance, and the synergy between these themes that make this book the best "Ashibe-esque" mystery novel he has written.

Oh, and just a little bit of trivia, but a somewhat curious amateur detective called Houjou Koushirou appears early on in Oomarike Satsujin Jiken, who will make a lot of readers think of Kindaichi Kousuke: this character is actually named after mystery author Houjou Kie! The book also has a lot of little references to other characters (series) by Ashibe. though I only caught a few of them (like Osaka-bred Tsuruko from the Modern City series), so in that perspective, there's still a lot in this book only long-time Ashibe readers will notice.

So as someone who has read quite a few books written by Ashibe Taku and enjoyed most of them too, I think Oomarike Satsujin Jiken might be the book where he managed to combine all his personal tropes and the mystery plot the best. It is undoubtedly a work that could only have written by him, addressing all the specific themes he likes, and he uses those themes to tell a gripping mystery story set during World War II that really comes alive because of the historical setting. I think a lot of people who like the Yokomizo novels for their historical context, but aren't too big a fan of the grotesque, will probably like this novel a lot too, as it does address similar themes like the decline of a family along generations and the effects of the war on society.

Original Japanese title(s): 芦辺拓『大鞠家殺人事件』

Murder in F Sharp

"How do you go about writing a detective story?"

- ""Well, you forget detection and concentrate on crime. Crime's the thing. And then you imagine you're going to steal something or murder somebody."

"Dial M for Murder"

When it comes down to it, I do really like reading series though, not because of recurring characters per se, but because it gives me a framework (settings/themes) of what I can reasonably expect. Which is why I often stick with series and seldom seem to try "new" things.

The Box of Genesis is a coffin-like box created in medieval times, of which it is believed it can make objects appear out of nowhere. While most believe it is an urban legend, its powers were proven to be true in 1982, when a German scientist who managed to obtain the Box of Genesis held a reception to show the Box off. Early in the party, a reporter asked to take a look inside, and everyone saw the Box was empty. The Box was left in the middle of the room, with the party going on around it, until near the end of the reception the reporter asked to have have another look inside. To the shock of everyone present however, they found a cut-up corpse inside the Box of Genesis, even though the Box had been right in the middle of the reception all that time and nobody could've just walked up to the box to put a bloody body inside without anyone noticing. While for some time, the police suspected its new owner of foul play, they never managed to figure out how where the body had come from, cementing the legend of the Box of Genesis. 

Eventually, the Box of Genesis found a new owner in Japan. The art collector Iwakura is also the owner of the Alphabet House, a mansion in the mountains that used to house missionaries. Long ago, these missionaries placed sculptures of some letters of the alphabet in the courtyard, and subsequent owners all added similar sculptures, and by now, all 26 letters of the alphabet are found in the mansion's main building, its annex and the courtyard that connects the two buildings. Iwakura often has house parties, and it's in 1998 that he invites a rather curious bunch, from a private detective to a doctor to Mikutsuki Miyuki, an actress in the theatre troupe Polka, who is accompanied by felllow actress/roommate Miiko and "De", a friend with a mysterious past. "De" has lost all memories of his past, but is a brilliant detective specializing in impossible crimes, hence his name "De" (from "Detective"). Once they arrive at the Alphabet House, the guests learn that their host isn't present yet, though the two part-time servants he has hired have all the instructions they need to entertain his guests. But Miiko hears from one of the guests that their host Iwakura might actually have been murdered some months ago already, leading to the question who actually invited them here. The guests also find the Box of Genesis in the large hall in the annex, and one of the people present happens to know about this out-of-place artifact (OOPart), telling them about the legend and the 1982 murder. The following morning, one of the guests staying in the annex can't be found anywhere there, despite the lack of footsteps in the snow in the courtyard, meaning they must still be in the annex. The Box of Genesis is missing. When the guests move to the main building, they find the Box of Genesis in the large hall on the second floor of the main building... with the murdered missing guest inside! But how did the victim, and the Box of Genesis go to the main building without leaving any footprints in the snow in the courtyard? The people are still wondering about what has really happened when another murder happens and a decapitated head appears inside a locked Box of Genesis. Can De figure these murders out in Kitayama Takekuni's Alphabet-sou Jiken (2002), which also has the English title The Case of Alphabet? 

I have read more than a few mysteries by Kitayama, but in a way, my reading of him is also very limited, as everything I have read of him fall into just two series: either it's his own four-novel Castle series, or it's the work he has provided for the Danganronpa franchise, like the Danganronpa: Kirigiri novels. Kitayama's best known for his technically-constructed locked room mysteries, with ingenious (and slightly over-the-top, ridiculous) mechanisms that create these impossible situations, and this aspect of his work is very clearly visible in the above-mentioned two series. Alphabet-sou Jiken was originally published in 2002, being a revised version of a novel he had written before his professional debut. The book had been published in a label of publisher Hakusensha, which was surprising to me, as it was not a publisher I immediately associate with mystery novels, even though they have mystery manga (like the classic Puzzle Game ☆ High Schooi). The book had been out of print for a long time, but saw a re-release by a different publisher in 2021 with a brand-new cover, and I figured it'd be an interesting way to read something beyond the two series I already knew.

Which is why it surprised me that thematically, Alphabet-sou Jiken is basically a side-story to the Castle series. There's a brief mention of a legend of the "Six Daggers of the Headless Knights" in this book, which is a recurring motif in the four books in the Castle series: while the settings/characters of those books are all completely unrelated, they do all refer to legends concerning cursed daggers and headless knights. But besides the cheeky reference, I'd say Alphabet-sou Jiken also feels very close to the Castle books in terms of atmosphere, with somewhat stange, almost cartooney characters and a distinct, fantasy-like vibe that delves into themes of fate and destiny, as well as a focus on legends. Had this been touted as a "full" spin-off of the Castle series, I would have believed it, and as this book was written before Kitayama's professional debut, I can't help wonder whether this book served as a prototype in terms of characterization and world-building for the Castle books, or whether he added these elements later when he revised it for the publication. One of the more obvious parts is early in the story, when one of the characters remarks the setting they are in is basically a detective story, and the character proceeds to destroy/damage the landline phone and the mobiles of the people present to intentoinally create a closed circle situation, to intentionally tempt fate so a murder will happen. This is also why, together with the harsh weather conditions the following day, the people inside the Alphabet House are not able to send for help immediately after the discovery of the murder. This is the type of meta-action we've seen in the Castle series before (especially 'Alice Mirror Jou' Satsujin Jiken), which have a distinct, fantasy-mystery-like atmosphere, but the first time you come across it in Alphabet-sou Jiken, it is rather surprising. Some may not like these kind of characters/actions, but it's another reason why I thought this book was basically a stealth entry in the Castle series.

As for the mysteries in this book, I felt the book does feel less refined than other works by Kitayama, probably because it was based on an older story. Most importantly, the two plot elements of the Box of Genesis and the alphabet structures in the Alphabet House feel completely unrelated, and you keep wondering why the book is about these two things: a box which can conjure objects out of nowhere, and a house with letters of the alphabet spread across the two wings and the courtyard. These are two completely different themes, so it just feels weird this book is about these two curious themes. I would've liked it if there was some kind of stronger backstory linking the two parts, rather than just "the current owner of the Box of Genesis also happens to be living in the Alphabet House." This book is fairly short, but I think it would have benefitted from more pages, allowing to build a stronger link between these elements and flesh out some of the events more.

As for the mysteries, I think the solutions are a bit simply, and perhaps undeveloped at times. For example, eventually, De also decides to tackle the 1982 case and he proves the cut-up body appearing in the Box of Genesis during a reception wasn't magic, but foul play, but the trick used there is in concept perfectly fine, even if simple, but doesn't quite practical, as it'd be easy for anything to go wrong with that method, (especially timing!), resulting in a botched plan rather easily. I do like how the fundamental concept of this trick is used in a very different, but related way in one of the 1998 murders, even if the method used there also seemed rather risky and prone to early discovery. The biggest mystery in this novel is of course the first 1998 murder, where the Box of Genesis and the first victim manage to disappear from the annex and reappear in the main building in one night, without anyone leaving any footprints in the snow in the courtyard. This part of the mystery is probably fairly easy to solve if you've already read a few Kitayama novels: it's the kind of trick he likes to use, and especially once a certain prop is introduced in the story, it's rather easy to guess how the murderer managed to pull the thing off. I think the misdirection that's pullled off here is interesting though: while I do honestly think it's easy to guess what happened even now, I think it is hidden in a way that can works best in its current form, in prose, in the letters on the page. If you'd visualize everything, I think the trick would have been even more obvious, so I did like that, because I only realized how really easy it'd be to guess the trick if you actually saw everuthing. That happens quite often with Kitayama's work I suppose, because of his love for more mechanical tricks, utilizing space and making use of moving object in general.

The ending has a nice bitter-sweet taste to it, like we often have in the Castle series (another similarity!). I like how the ending, almost surprisingly, does address some of the lingering questions I still had, specifically why these people had been invited to this party, and the themes of romance, fate and destiny touched upon in this ending are also themes we see developed more further in the Castle books, cementing Alphabet-sou Jiken as a proto-entry in the series. If you like the tone of those books, you'll definitely like this book too.

So in the end, I did not manage to move away from my familiar corner of Kitayama Takekuni's work by reading Alphabet-sou Jiken. It fits perfectly in the model of the Castle novels I already knew, but I do think I enjoyed the book more exactly because of it. As a mystery novel, Alphabet-sou Jiken does feel a bit lacking compared to the other Kitayama novels I've read: the tricks used are a bit simple and practical problems are ignored a bit too easily. Had it been a longer novel, some of these problems could've been helped I think, though I guess that ultimately, the four Castle novels are exactly that: more developed versions of the story found within the pages of this book. I wouldn't consider this book a must-read, but definitely interesting for those who have already read a few Kitayama works, to see what they can recognize in this work.

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦『アルファベット荘事件』

The Cyclone

" Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't you think?"

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"

Bill the Lizard has done it again! Last time we saw our not very bright lizard from Wonderland, he got lost and somehow arrived in the Hoffman Universe (a literary universe featuring the creations of German author E. T. A. Hoffman) and got involved in a murder case there. That case got wrapped up and Bill was ready to travel again back to Wonderland, but this time, he finds himself wandering through a desert. Exhausted, he collapses near the end of the desert, where he is found by... a girl called Dorothy, a lion, a scarecrow and a Tin Man. Bill is rescued by these four, and he's brought to Ozma, Queen of the land of Oz, who as one of the few people capable of using magic in this world, might be able to help Bill find a way back to Wonderland. This is a great relief for Imori, a Japanese student in the "real" world. Bill and Imori are two sides of the same coin: both "dream" they are the other whenever they sleep, and while the two have completely different personalities, the two do share memories. Imori has been aware of this two-way avatar system for a long time now and previously, he also met other people at his university who too have avatars in the dream world. After Bill's arrival on the land of Oz, Imori runs into the human avatars of Dorothy and Jellia Jamb at his university, Dorothy, and Juria, with whom Imori argues about the way Queen Ozma rules the kingdom.

While Dorothy and the others suggest to Bill he might as well stay in the Land of Oz, Imori is determined to have Bill return to Wonderland, so the people in Oz try to figure out where Bill came from and look for a way to send him back.  It also happens to be the birthday of Queen Ozma, and a great party is prepared at the castle, but then tragedy strikes! Dorothy is found murdered in her room in the castle, and Jinjur, who was guarding the castle entrance, was also brutally killed.  Bill's adventures in the Hoffman Universe however taught Imori that if a person dies in the dream world, whether it's Wonderland or the Hoffman Universe, their counterpart avatar in the real world also dies. Imori learns that the real-world Dorothy has also died in a freak accident at college, as well as a person who was likely Jinjur in the Land of Oz. Jellia Jamb is tasked by Queen Ozma with the investigation into the death of Dorothy and Jinjur, but she soon realizes that only a select few people, specifically Dorothy's friends, would have been let into the castle, because there were strict security measures set in place due to Queen Ozma's birthday party and the many guests invited from all the corners of the world. Meanwhile, Imori and Juria try to investigate the death of Dorothy in the real life, which brings them in contact with other human avatars of people from the Land of Oz, but to their great surprise to also run into a person who claims they killed Dorothy, but who are they in the Land of Oz? That's the great mystery Imori and Bill have to face in Kobayashi Yasumi's Dorothy Goroshi (2018), also known as The Murder of Dorothy. 

Dorothy Goroshi is the third book in Kobayashi's Märchen Murder series which started with Alice Goroshi (which I absolutely loved), followed by Clara Goroshi. Kobayashi sadly enough passed away in 2020, which makes the next book, with Tinkerbell, also the last one in the series. Alice Goroshi introduced the concepts of dual worlds, shared dreams and the avatar system, though both Clara Goroshi and Dorothy Goroshi are set before the events of the first novel. I'd recommend strongly to read these books in publication order however, as while these stories don't straight-out spoil the events of the previous book(s), they do build on the mechanics of the avatar system, and revelations that were considered shocking in Alice Goroshi, are taken for granted in subsequent novels, meaning that the first novel is a lot easier to solve because a lot of the clever trickery employed there are used as "common knowledge" in the following books. If you'd read Clara Goroshi before Alice Goroshi, you'll find out a lot of the "reveals" in Alice are mentioned casually in Clara, taking away a lot of the surprise and that's also true up to an extent for Dorothy and Alice.

I didn't really know the works of E.T.A. Hoffman before I read Clara Goroshi, and still enjoyed it a lot, so I wasn't too worried when I started with Dorothy Goroshi, despite me not really knowing the Oz series. Which might be a bit odd? While I guess the Wizard of Oz and all the novels are probably a corneerstone of American culture, I have fairly little history with The Wizard of Oz, and I haven't even seen the groundbreaking film. In fact, I basically only know the 1986 anime Oz no Mahoutsukai (known in English as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), and it's not like I even saw very much of that, though I guess a lot of people my age would recognize the Dutch theme song (which is really catchy!). But even as an Oz-novice, basically only aware of Dorothy and her posse and some other references like Kansas, yellow brick roads and things like that, I did enjoy the world and characters portrayed in this novel, which is also thanks to the funny dialogues Kobayashi writes. These books are very dialogue-heavy with little narration, and often have the screwball characters going on and on with nonsensical conversations (often with the clues to the mystery cleverly hidden there). I suppose some readers might find the repeating jokes and constant misunderstandings a bit tiring, but it really sells the crazy setting of this series and the writing makes this novel a really light read. It's quite effective at quickly drawing the various characters and the specific fictional world of the novel, so even if you don't know Wonderland, E.T.A. Hoffman or Oz at all, you'll be right at home.

With the murders in Wonderland, Alice Goroshi served as a great vehicle to lay out the rules of the avatar system and the dual worlds, and like I mentioned before Clara Goroshi was succesful in taking those basic rules, and build further on that to present a mystery plot that brought a new twist to those rules. I have to say that Dorothy Goroshi felt a bit disappointing in that regard, as this third novel doesn't feel like yet another step forward, but it basically runs parallel to Clara Goroshi. The mystery is also very focused on the question of who could've entered the palace, but this limits the number of suspects a lot, and I think that whole a certain piece of misdirection regarding the murderer is clever in theory, it's rather undeveloped in this novel: it's not brought up very often, so the attempt kinda falls flat, as the surprise really hinges on the fact whether the misdirection had been conveyed to the reader succesfully within those sparse moments, or not. In my case, the misdirection never managed to settle firmly in my mind, so I was constantly wondering why something wasn't mentioned, until I realized at the end that the book had tried to sell me on an idea early on without success. I imagine that if this misdirection had succeeded on me, I'd have found this book more surprising/enjoyable, That said, I did enjoy how the analysis of the Land of Oz and its characters through the eyes of Bill/Imori a lot and the book does succeed in portraying the Land of Oz as a place that seems perfect for a good bloody murder to happen!

I still think the first novel was the best at selling the dual world set-up though. In Alice Goroshi, you first had the hard split between the Wonderland characters and the real world characters, but as the story continued, the counterparts would slowly grow to resemble each other more, making for a (purposely) confusing cast. Both in Clara Goroshi and Dorothy Goroshi though, there's never that hard split between the real world characters and their dream world counterparts, with everyone already being aware of how the dual world system works etc., and a lot of the investigation/discussions seen in the real world just feel like an extension of what happens in Oz, rather than really looking at events from a different (more grounded) angle.

Overall though, Dorothy Goroshi is still an enjoyable mystery novel though, even if it is not as surprising anymore as the two novels preceding it. If you liked the previous two novels, or just like the idea of reading a murder mystery set in the Land of Oz (who doesn't!), this will provide some hours of good entertainment, but if you were never a fan of the nonsensical conversations of the earlier books, you'll definitely not find anything to change your mind. As metioned, the fourth book in the series is also the last, and I'll definitely will read Tinkerbell Goroshi once the pocket release is out!

Original Japanese title(s): 小林泰三『ドロシイ殺し』

Paint Me a Murder

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind

"Colors of the Wind" (Vanessa Williams)

I really shouldn't be writing reviews four months after reading the book...

It is around the turn of the century, when Akitsuki Kazumi's father passes away. Going through his belongings, Kazuo finds an old painting of a manor on a cliff, but part of the upper layer has faded away, revealing a hidden painting, of a man being hanged. The family hopes the painting is worth something, but they are told it's not a particularly valuable painting. Despite that, they receive a rather curious offer: a man called Higami Kouichi is willing to pay much more for the painting than it's actually worth, but a Akitsuki family member has to deliver the painting personally, at an address in Yokohama, the international hub of Japan now it has opened its borders at the end of the 19th century. On his way to the address, he gets lost in labyrithine Yokohama, he's found by Shizuka, a maid of Russian descent who works at the Higami residence. He's surprised when he's brought to the outskirts of the town and crosses a suspension bridge to a cliff to find the manor in his painting! Inside, he's welcomed by Higami and five other guests, but one of the men looks exactly like the hanged man in Kazumi's painting. The six men and women clearly form some kind of group, and little by little, Kazumi manages to piece the story together: these people are the Those Who Remain and they are connected through a set of paintings, which all depict this manor on a cliff. Apparently, the paintings together hold a hint that point towards a treasure, and originally, these paintings were owned by the parents of the people present, save for Higami Kouchi, the sole "original" member of the group. With Kazumi's painting here now, the set is complete, but they have no idea how to find the treasure. A storm prevents Kazumi from leaving that night, but the following morning, they find one of them hanging from the balustrade of the stairs of the main hall. The suspension bridge has also been cut, preventing them from leaving the house. However, just as panic starts to take over, the capable maid Shizuka takes over, because she recognizes that this murder was patterned after the painting beneath the upper layer in Kazumi's painting and that the other paintings are likely to be hiding similar paintings too.  However, Shizuka has more than a few plans to stop the murderer from committing more murders in Tsukihara Wataru's Shiyounin Tantei Shizuka -  Yokohama Ijinkan Satsujin Jiken ("The Maid Detective Shizuka - The Yokohama Foreigner's House Murder Case" 2017).

Last year, I read Inugamikan no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Inugami House"), the third novel in this series set in the Meiji Period, focusing on the maid Shizuka, a very efficient, but sometimes rather ruthless woman of Russian descent who appears to be working somewhere else in each book. It was a short book that had some plotting faults, but overall, I enjoyed it as a short read and it had some really interesting ideas regarding mystery tropes (in that book's case: locked rooms and impossible crimes), that however weren't always explored to the fullest because of the relatively limited page count. Still, I definitely wanted to read more of the series, so I decided to go back to the first novel in the series. And in a way, it's a book that is very similar: not without flaws, but at the same time it manages to come up with really original concepts regarding well-known mystery tropes that I had never seen before and overall, it's an enjoyable read.

The theme of this book is the mitate satsujin, murders patterned after something: the nursery rhyme murder is of course a well-known example of this in English language terminology, but the nursery rhyme murder is a bit smaller scope than the mitate satsujin. In this book, the murders are patterned after the hidden paintings, which all depict hanged people, which of course means people are getting hanged. A lot. The upper layers of the paintings all hide a painting of an original member of Those Who Remain being hanged, and while most of them are already deceased (Higami Kouichi being the exception), their offspring look eerily much like their parents, resulting in very creepy murders that look exactly like the paintings. As a trope of course, the nursery rhyme murder and other mitate satsujin are not rare, especially not in Japanese mystery fiction (there's an interesting lecture on the topic in Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono by the way!). I personally love them, so I have read/seen a lot of them, but still, Shiyounin Tantei Shizuka really managed to surprise with how it handled the theme.

For seldom have I seen a detective character in mystery fiction be so pro-active in trying to prevent more murders, and also willing to take such drastic measures. The moment Shizuka realizes the first murder was patterned after the painting, she tries to convince everyone that the only way to prevent further murders from happening is to make the "mirroring" fail: what if for example if they'd just burn all the paintings, making it impossible for the murderer to mirror the murders to the paintings or to make the fact they mirrored the murders clear to the survivors? While obviously, Those Who Remain are after the treasure and refuse to take such a drastic measures, it's wonderful to see how Shizuka is able to come up with incredibly resolute ideas in order to make the whole concept of a mirrored murder fail, taking away the reason for the murderer to pattern their murders after the paintings and hopefully the fundamental reason for the murders in the first place. This is a really weird detective novel I wouldn't immediately recommend to those who have never read a mystery novel, but for those familiar with tropes, Shizuka is a really wonderful and memorable character, because she basically tries to fight back against the murderer by systematically attacking the tropes of the mystery genre. Explaining more about her tactics would spoil the book, but I guess you could compare it to "I won't let you kill me, I'll commit suicide!". A lot of the tactics wouldn't make any sense at all outside the mystery genre, but if you recognize the trope, Shizuka's plans are so entertaining to read because yes, she's willing to do anything to make the theme of the novel not work, and that's a wonderfully creepy concept.

That's perhaps why I'm a bit disappointed the book doesn't always make best use of the concept. The book is rather short, and most aspects feel somewhat underdeveloped. Some characters barely speak one single sentence before being killed off screen, and some of the conversations/deductions are written a bit too briefly, making it hard to understand what's meant/the implications of what is said the first time you read a sentence. As I mentioned above, the parts where Shizuka tries to prevent the murderer from committing more murders based on the nursery rhyme trope are the best, but it's here where the writing tries to handle things too swiftly, making it appear there are jumps in logic: this is also why I wouldn't recommend this book to newcomers to the genre, because while someone with knowledge of the trope can keep up eventually, I think sometimes the writing goes through the concept far too briefly, making it rather hard to swallow. The murders are rather "practical", with nothing fancy about them (not really an impossible aspect to them, or some great chain of reasoning needed to see who did it, as it's bascically "everyone could've done it"), and I think it becomes rather easy to guess who the murderer is once you get into the second part of the book, especially if you keep focused on the theme. As whodunnit, this book won't surprise you very much.

Oh, and one last minor disappointment was that the period setting wasn't really utilized here. The setting of Yokohama in the Meiji Period (where most foreigners lived after the international borders were opened after Japan had been mostly closed for 400 years) is super interesting, but you don't see anything of it! The book is about a closed circle situation inside a manor on a cliff and even the historical aspects don't really come alive in this book: while Shizuka doesn't talk about mystery fiction, it's clear to the mordern reader her strategies are based on modern understanding of tropes in mystery fiction, so she feels a bit out of place. So on the whole, you don't really get to see much of the historical setting.

So perfect, Shiyounin Tantei Shizuka -  Yokohama Ijinkan Satsujin Jiken definitely isn't, but at the same time, it's a book I enjoyed reading, because it had such a wonderfully meta-approach to the nursery rhyme murder trope. I think it's a really worthwhile read if you're familiar with that particular trope in the genre, because the book really manages to do tackle the concept from surprising angles through the "the end justifies the means" approach of Shizuka, giving a lot of food for thought about the genre.

Original Japanese title(s): 月原涉『使用人探偵シズカ 横濱異人館殺人事件』

Judge Not

 子どものころに わかりかけてたことが 

大人になってわからないまま

「胸がドキドキ」(The High Lows)

 

The things I started to understand as a kid

I still don't understand as an adult

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

So for some reason I thought that volume 100 of Detective Conan was released very early this year, but looking back now, it turns out it was released back in October, even before the home video release of The Scarlet Bullet. Huh. I guess I'm finally getting used to the slower release schedule Conan has had these last few years, because even though nowadays the wait between volumes has doubled compared to the old schedule (about three months) the wait doesn't feel as drastic anymore compared to when they switched to the slower release pace...

Volume 100 of Detective Conan was overall a great volume, with an absolutele banger for a main story featured in the middle, a tense thriller that seemed to merge the bombastic action of the films of Conan with the more sober mode of the manga perfectly, resulting in a spectacular suspense tale that still felt firmly set within the manga universe. And I have read enough Detective Conan to know that after such a high point in terms of story, author Aoyama Goushou tends to slow down a bit again in the following stories, usually following up with smaller stories as he has to restart the game board again, laying down his pieces once more for the build-up for the next big moment. So to be honest: my expectations for volume 101 of Detective Conan, released last week, were not very high because I had seen the pattern more than once. Even the promise of a confrontation between fan favorite mystery character Amuro Tooru and the elusive Phantom Thief KID on the obi of the book wasn't really exciting me. To spoil the conclusion already: I was right, this was a very okay volume that doesn't really stand out particularly, even if you can tell Aoyama is again moving his playing pieces around for a future event. 

The opening story Search for the 13-year old Voice has Conan and the rest of the Detective Boys going to school on a Sunday to tend to the rabbits in the garden, when suddenly a man approaches Haibara and addresses her by the name... Miyano Shiho. Terrified that her cover has been blown, Haibara turns around to learn that the man is actually an alumnus of Teitan Elementary and that his old class, Year 19, is here for a class reunion. Haibara learns that her older sister Akemi used to go to school at Teitan Elementary for a while, and that she had shown her classmates photographs of her and Shiho back then, which is why the man seemed to recognize Shiho in Haibara, but of course, they realize that Akemi's sister Shiho must also have become an adult herself now too, so they assume it's just a coincidence that Haibara resembles Shiho so much. Three of Akemi's old classmates are now looking for their class time capsule: Akemi was the one who hid the time capsule, but she hasn't appeared at the reunion (her classmates don't know she died) and the only clue she's left is a code. Conan instantly realizes the three classmates seem rather worried upon seeing the code, and also learns that Akemi left a message for her sister in the time capsule, so he volunteers to help solve the code and find the time capsule.

Another code cracking story, which seldom make me really excited. Even connecting this story to Haibara's sister doesn't really change things much: the reveal that Akemi went to Teitan Elementary of all places when she was little is of course a biiiiiiit forced and story-beat-wise, this story also reminds too much of previous "Akemi left some message for her sister at some place" stories we have seen two (?) times before in this series. The reason why the three classmates seem shocked by the code is rather easy to guess, though I guess the misdirection ("false solution") of the code, and the true solution are quite solid, both like natural conclusions to the code and not really forced. But ultimately this is just a really compact, small scale story that is not memorable at all despite the minor "bigger" connections.

And the same holds for Meeting With the Goddess of Wind. Agasa is mistaken for the president of a security company, of which a vault was recently stolen which can only be opened by the president. The two criminals kidnap Agasa, severely wounding him in the process and the plan is just to keep the president alive long enough to open the safe, and then get rid of him. Conan chases after Agasa with the help of the police, but they manage to disappear and sneak by police barricades. But how? Another story that mystery-wise is again very minor. The trick of how the abductors managed to slip by the police checks even though their car model had already been identified is, at the core, an okay idea, but this story is basically just that idea when it comes down to the mystery, even though that idea isn't really enough to support a whole three chapter story. Usually, author Aoyama does a great job stringing multiple of these minor ideas into something bigger, but this story also doubles as an introduction of a new character, Chihaya, a traffic police officer who is the sister of the late Hagiwara Kenji, a character who's already dead at the start of Detective Conan, but who's appeared in flashbacks, and these two years Hagiwara also appeared prominently in the Conan spin-off Wild Police Story as well as the 2022 Detective Conan film The Bridge of Halloween which is currently running in theatres. Due to the focus on Chihaya though, Meeting With the Goddess of Wind's mystery side of the story ends up rather underwhelming.

The final full story in this volume is KID VS Amuro Tooru, which has the phantom thief targeting the Robanov (not Romanov) tiara The Queen's Bang, which is currently featured in a local exhibition. At the museum, Ran, Sonoko and Conan also run into Amuro and Azusa, who have a day off from cafe Poirot because of renovations. Sonoko's great uncle Jiroukichi and Inspector Nakamura are of course ready for KID's attack, but Public Security is also present at the venue, because in a few days, Selisabeth, Queen of Ingram, will be visiting Japan in three days, and one of the stops in her schedule is this exhibition. Public Security fears the Queen may change her plans if the tiara is stolen, which would upset security plans, so they want to be sure the Queen's Bang will be safe. Meanwhile, Conan is allowed to stay as the notorious "KID Killer", as is Amuro, the number one disciple of the Sleeping Kogorou (self-proclaimed). The tiara is held inside a stand with a cover and if anyone touches the stand while the security system is on, the whole ceiling comes falling down to crush the thief. At the announced time, a white mist suddenly appears in the room where the tiara is kept, which turns out to be white pain in mist form. Even though their sights is obstructed for a moment, everyone is sure nobody could've approached the stand with the tiara. Conan himself checks the stand, but when he opens it, he finds it completely empty! How could KID have made his way in the mist to steal the tiara?

We have seen this type of KID story more than once, so this tale never manages to truly surprise the reader. It's a well-constructed impossible heist story, but there's honestly really little to differentiate it at a plotting level from KID VS Kyougoku Makoto, Sera Masami or Koumei. Like always, we know KID has disguised himself as one of three members in the cast, adding a whodunnit element to the story, and we also have to figure out how KID managed to steal the tiara. While the core idea behind how KID managed to spirit the tiara away is really, really simple, I like how Aoyama plotted the clewing for this hesist, and also how he hid the simple solution from the reader with misdirection. The idea is so easy to figure out if it had been used "as is", but Aoyama knows just how much misdirection to use to fool the reader, without overdoing and leaving enough clues. There's also misdirection concerning which of the three suspects is actually KID, and while I don't think it's really hard to guess which of them is actually KID, the misdirection (the main red herring) is pretty clever and the type of clues I have come to love of Conan. So I dont think this is an exceptional KID story, but certainly not a bad one and easily the best story of the volume. The volume ends with the first two chapters of  The Case Memos Left by Date, which is about an old case Takagi's mentor Date worked on the week before he died, but which apparently was still on-going one year later. Not really an exciting story up until now, but perhaps the last chapter(s?) can turn things around.

Like I mentioned at the start of the post: even before reading this volume, I knew I didn't need to have high expectations of volume 101 of Detective Conan, because the previous volume had been a clear high point in the series, which is basically always followed by a few slower stories. In that sense, this volume didn't "disappoint" me, because I knew what was coming and even the fact there's not a single murder in this volume doesn't surprise me. The three stories (and partial fourth story) would have been okay additions in any "regular" volume, but having three of these one after another does feel a bit too slow for me personally, so I hope we'll be out of the "expected story dip" by the next volume, which is scheduled for a ... winter release. Sigh. I guess it will release after the home video release of Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween... I guess I should watch a few anime originals again soon...

Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』第101巻

Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom

 Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

"Inferno"

 

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

"Inferno"

To be honest, I was expecting a very different kind of story based on the cover...

The amusement park Illusion Land was all set to make its grand opening in 2001. The theme park was built in the nature-rich mountains of X Prefecture, and was supposed to be the first step in a larger Illusion Resort project: its location in the mountains provided a fantastic view on the stars, hence the galaxy-theme of the amusement park, as well as the name Ganny (Galaxy + Bunny) for its cute mascotte figure. The people living in the small, dying village of Amatsuki Village had ultimately agreed to move away to nearby Y City and other places to make place for the theme park, and that is also why Illusion Land had a special pre-open event inviting the people of the former village to have a look at the park. But the park had only been open for about an hour, when tragedy struck! Someone in the ferris wheel started shooting at people with a rifle, resulting in four deaths, eight people heavily wounded and the shooter himself also committed suicide. The man turned out to be one of the former villagers who had been against moving out of Amatsuki, and one of his victims had indeed been the woman who had been the central figure to convince everyone that they should give up on Amatsuki and find a new place to live.The horrible tragedy naturally made opening Illusion Land, and Illusion Resort impossible. The place was then bought by the wealthy magnate Toshima Iiori, who is also known as a big fan of urban exploration. For twenty years, Illusion Land was left abandoned, allowing nature (flora at least) to take over the park. And in 2021, Toshima made a big announcement: he was going to invite a group of fellow urban explorers to have a look at Illusion Land. While many people applied to the special sign-up site, only nine people were selected to visit, among them Magami Eitarou, a part-time worker in a convenience store who also runs a popular blog on urban exploration, where he uploads photographs which are received very well.

Upon arrival at the abandoned amusement park, Eitarou is all ready to go explore the land of dreams which has been empty for twenty years, but the representative of their host Togami has an interesting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory proposition. Somewhere in the park, a treasure is hidden, and whoever finds it during their three-day stay, will become the new owner of Illusion Land. Sounds like a dream for any urban explorer to own such a unique place, but by then Eitarou has also noticed that not all of the invited people are actually urban explorers like himself. Sure, there's the writer Aizawa Tomoshi, who writes urban exploration themed detective stories, and there's an editor of an urban exploration magazine, but there are also former employees of Illusion Land, from people in management to those working booths, who wanted to have one last look at the park. But these people too seem strangely interested in wanting to obtain this park. The special wristbands that allowed them into the park also check their vitals to make sure they don't leave the park during the set time period: everyone who leaves the park is disqualified. The first night, Eitarou decides to camp outside while the others prefer to sleep in the camp house, but before he dozes off, he vaguely sees the figure of Ganny walking around the park. The next day, when he goes back to the house for breakfast, it turns out one of the others has gone missing. They go looking for Sudou Susumu, a former manager of the park, but the moment they find a figure dressed in a Ganny suit skewered to the high fence surrounding the park, they all knew it was Sudou even before they removed the bunny mask. This is obviously no suicide, but how can you skewer someone on the outer fence of the park, as each post is twelve meters high, and the body of Sudou was pulled all the way down the spiked post to the ground? At first, Eitarou thinks the game is now over and that the police will be informed about the gruesome murder, but to his great surprise everyone seems rather reluctant to stop the game. But why is everyone so intent on finding the treasure and obtaining Illusion Land? And is it wise to stay inside the park knowing there's a murderer somewhere? That's for the reader to find out in Shasendou Yuuki's Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin (2021), which also has the English title The Murder Case of [sic] Abandoned Amusment Park on the cover.

Oooooh, so it's the bunny who dies? Like I said above, the cover totally made me initially think that the bunny would be the murderer, like in a splatter horror story. 

Earlier this year, I read Houjou Kie's Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo (2022) and I mentioned how it was initially a bit surprising how that after previous themes of time travel and an unknown creature hunting the human characters, the theme of a VR game sounded rather grounded. Last year, I read Shasendou Yuuki's Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari ("Paradise is the Absence of Detectives", 2020): it was the first time I had read anything by Shasendou, but the book easily became one of my favorite reads of 2021. It was about a world where angels had arrived on Earth and they'd immediately take people away who'd commit a second murder (the first murder is "free"). It had become a law of nature, and yet the story was about a series of murders, something that had become impossible in this world. The unique supernatural setting was used in a brilliant manner and it sure made me interested in more Shasendou's work. So like the aforementioned Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo, Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin (2021) is rather "normal and grounded" in comparison (not that these books form a series; it's just that my initial interest in Shasendou's work came from the supernatural element) There's no supernatural element here, just an abandoned theme park. Interestingly enough though, the abandoned theme park isn't that common a location for a closed circle mystery story, I think? It's a place that I associate much more with the horror genre, like an abandoned hotel or hospital, and I have indeed played games in this setting. Mystery stories set in theme parks are rarer, and I don't think I've read one about an abandoned one before.

 

So the setting does feel special in a way, which is emphasized even further when you first open the book, as you'll be presented with a nicely designed "pamplet" of Illusion Land, with a map of the theme park with all the attractions and the prices for the various rides etc. It really helps you get in the mood, and of course, you'll be tracing events and people on the map of the park too while you're reading the story, so it helps with the immersion. And as the book continues, you do realize that Shasendou does make great use of the srtting of the amusement park. To be honest, the first murder is kinda disappointing, as you have a whole amusement park with all kinds of broken attractions and rides, and then they find.... a body skewered to one of the posts of the outer fence. Sure, the victim's dressed in a Ganny suit, resulting in a rather cute-creepy scene of having a pink bunny lying there with a twelve-meter high pole through its torso, but still, the body is physically just barely within the confines of the park itself, so it doesn't feel like it makes good use of the setting. As the story continues however, more people are killed off and these make better use of the attractions and the unique setting. Like, if I mention there's a mirror house too, you can probably imagine all kinds of possibilities now. While most of the events occuring in this book might feel a bit "small in scale" taken on their own and with some adjustments, each of them could perhaps have been used in some other setting, but all taken together they do work best the context of this particular setting. So that does make the whole feel like a true amusement park mystery, even if the individual parts don't always feel as strong as one.

Despite the alluring setting though, the book is a bit slow to start. While it doesn't take long for the first murder to occur, the way the story acts all mysterious about why everyone seems to have their own reasons to not want to inform the police and how they are connected to Illusion Land can be a bit frustrating, as the reader is made aware early on that everyone is hiding something and that therefore everyone is acting in a way that is not particularly helpful to the investigation, but it takes some time for all of this to get worked out, and in the end, it feels like there's just a lot of coincidences going on, with everyone having different reasons to act like they act, with as sole goal simply to make the story seem more complex than it actually is. The story pacing is slowed down a lot by all the "why is X acting like" parts, especially when you realize that ultimately, having these specific characters all together in this party feels pretty arbitrary anyway, and then on top of that come all the other coincidences of the (in)actions of these characters, making the story appear like it's trying to be more complex just for the sake of it.

The story eventually also delves into the past of Illusion Land, into the shooting on the people in the park and the true intentions of the shooter, and this part has pretty cool ideas, but also elements that are handled too swiftly in my opinion. The way the reader is shown that the truth behind that case might have been completely different than initially thought is great: the realization that there's a gigantic contradiction in the official account of the events is hidden fantastically, even if some of the clues are mentioned a bit too easily. But a lot of the following logistics that involve that case seem to be handwaved away rather easily. So I absolutely love the main idea used here, especially as it's one that makes brilliant use of the theme park setting, but the details seem a bit unconvincing. The main idea and the build-up alone however already makes this a worthwile read, I think.

You might think I am a bit vague in explaining what makes this story so "amusement park"-esque, but that's really just me trying to spoil not too much. I can only say that a lot of the props and ideas used here all originate from an amusement park and you'll have to find out the rest for yourself! While this obviously does make it sound this book is very much a howdunnit ("props and stuff"), it's not really. I think its whodunnit aspects are really strong too and it's certainly in this manner that this book reminds me of Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari. Initially you have to wade through a lot of the intersecting coincidences/motivations of the various characters, but there are some neat whodunnit twists to be found here.

So yeah, overall, I'd say that Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin is a fun book! It might not have some supernatural element to it, but Shasendou makes great and full use of the unique location, utilizing a number of ideas that all feel absolutely natural here, but really come together to present a tricky mystery story, The plot's a bit slow at times, but it's definitely worth a read. Now I think about it, I read Haiyuuenchi no Sastsujin almost exactly one year after  Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari, so perhaps I'll read another geeat Shasendou in a year time? I'll sign for that!

 Original Japanese title(s):  斜線堂有紀『廃遊園地の殺人』

A Very Good Year for Murder

「すいません、キムチ丼大盛り、ご飯抜きで」

『クビシメロマンチスト 人間失格・零崎人識』 

"One extra large kimchi rice bowl please, hold the rice."

"Strangulation: Kubishime Romanticist"

Two game reviews in one week!?

Sometimes, it's just the mention of a setting that is enough to lure me in. Case in point is the topic of today's review, the visual novel Suhoshin (PC, 2022), released by developers No More 500 earlier this week. When I first saw the artwork a few weeks ago and noticed the description said it was a mystery set in the medievel Joseon period of Korea, I knew I had to keep an eye on it, because it seemed just such an original setting. I will admit right away I know very little of pre-modern Korean history in general: due to the East-Asian Studies courses taken in university, I have dabbled a little into pre-modern Korean history and literature, but those were very, very brief trips away from my Japanese major, but still: I have read quite a few mystery stories set in medieval times of various locations from Europe to Japan, which were awesome, so why not one Korean peninsula? Interestingly enough, this is not the first time I have discussed mystery set in Joseon Korea: in the past I've discussed the 2011 film 2011's Joseon Myungtamjung : Gakshituku Ggotui Bimil ("Joseon Great Detective: Secret of the Wolfsbane Flower"), which has the international title of Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow and the novel Arang-un Wae ("Arang, Why?"), which featured literary research into a famous folktale set in the Joseon period, but still, it's far from a common setting, so I decided to try out Suhoshin when it was released earlier this week on PC.

Suhoshin starts with the return of protagonist Yuri to his home village of Yangdong. He was sent to capital Hanyang (Seoul) three years ago and after passing the national exams to become a civil servant, was trained as a guard and learned to conduct criminal investigations. Now his training has been completed, and to his surprise his first official posting is back in his home village Yangdong, a peaceful place quite far removed from other cities. Yuri longs to see childhood friends Soo Ah and Yun Bok, but is also happy that once in Yangdong, he'll be able to thank his patron Mr Kim, a local yangban (gentry) who sponsored the orphan to be able to be educated in the capital. Upon return, Yangdong seems as serene as the day Yuri left and after relaxing with his old friends, he prepares for his new tasks as a guard, but the following day, the village head informs Yuri that a murder has taken place in Yangdong, a crime which hasn't happened in the village for decades! The poor victim was brutally mutilated in her home, where she was discovered. Because of Yuri studied criminal investigation in Hanyang, he's given the task to find out who the killer is. Yuri starts out with confidence, as he has seen quite some crime in the capital, but more and more people in the village are killed almost each night and not even the walled-off segment in town for the yangban is safe. But who is this cruel killer who is able to get into each and every corner of the village without raising any suspicion of its victims? Time is running out for Yuri with each passing day, and perhaps he has to learn that some times, it were his own actions that led to more tragedy.

Some people might recognize the art style from the screenshots right away, though I myself only realized it when I read the description and went: "Oooooh, that's right!". Yep, Suhoshin features character designs by Kageyoshi, who also did the designs for the neat novel game Raging Loop (stylized in Japan as Rei-Jin-G-Lu-P). That was a game that cleverly used the Werewolf/Mafia party for its story structure, but it also told a very interesting story with deeply fleshed out folklore which was fictoinal, but still borrowed a lot from actual indigeneous Japanese nature religions and mythology and the anthropological side to those subjects. Suhoshin is quite different from Raging Loop in many ways, but it has a similarly "educational" side to it, as the game does a lot to explain its historical setting. Key terms in Korean are highlighted in red and recorded in an index, and these terms do a lot to "sell" the historical setting of Joseon to the player. Some words you probably have heard of, like kimchi, but there are plenty of other words that will not ring a bell, and it's a great way to present a setting a lot of people will simply not be very familiar with. 

Gameplay of Suhoshin is what you'd expect of a mystery novel game with a flowchart function. For non-gamers, few games will be as easy to play as these kinds of games, as you are just reading the text and once in a while you'll be presented with story-changing choices that allow the narrative to branch out in various routes and endings, basically the same as a Choose Your Own Adventure book. In a way, the set-up in Suhoshin is also similar to Raging Loop in how it sometimes forces you down particular routes first, before allowing you go back in the flowchart and offering you a new, unlocked choice that gives access to a different route. This means that ultimately, you do read the various routes and endings in a fairly set manner, which is a shame, because it kinda takes away the illusion of actor freedom in this game. Take 428 Shibuya Scramble for example, a similar novel game that does force you to take certain routes first to allow you to proceed, but because that game presents the player with a lot more choices throughout a game of which you are never quite sure which one will be an important, story-changing one or not, the illusion of actor freedom is much greater. Suhoshin is of course a game of a much smaller scale (I finished it within 5 hours), but it would have been nice if there would be a few more bad ending/optional ending branches a player could reach, just so the player doesn't feel like they are just doing all these endings/routes in a set order.

As a mystery story, Suhoshin has a lot of the right building bricks ready, and ultimately, I did enjoy playing this game, but I feel like it could have been much more if they had fleshed out the core plot. The first half of the game feels a bit slow, with Yuri investigating each crime scene but often not being able to come up with very interesting theories simply because each of the murders is fairly "open" and the conclusion is basically "well, anyone in the village could've done it given the opportunity". It's only in the second half of the game a very, very important clue is introduced, but the way the clue is presented is fairly cheap (the equivalent of random person showing up the clue), and from that point on, basically the whole mystery is solved. Once that clue has been presented, even the game doesn't pretend there's much left, because the narrative basically moves on immediately to theorizing on that clue and identifying the killer on its own, without any player input. But what I think is such a shame is that I think there was so much potential to make this a more engaging whodunnit, with the exact same clues/foreshadowing the game already has. Some scenes are really cleverly laid out in hindsight, but a lot of these scenes stood out like a sore thumb because of the limited playtime of Suhoshin, and with only a handful of viable suspects in the game in the first place, it felt like the events of this game were not laid out evenly: very little happens in the first half of the game besides people dying, and then when a genuine clue is discovered, suddenly everything moves at mach speed. If the mid-section had been fleshed out more, with more suspects/a more comprehensive view of Yangdong and more theorizing by Yuri too, Suhoshin could have been a much more engaging whodunnit even if it had ultimately used the same clues. I mentioned before that I would have loved to see more minor branching storylines in this game: this would have gone well with a more fleshed-out mid-section allowing the player to choose more angles in the investigation, introducing more suspects and also a better way to introduce the scenes with foreshadowing more naturally in the narrative. Some might not like the direction this game ultimately took in terms of the mystery by the way, but I think it fits pretty well with the setting, and I myself didn't mind the concept at all, though as mentioned, the decisive clue could've been introduced more steadily I think.

Though I have to repeat, I did have a lot of fun playing Suhoshin, it's just that I think the plot held a lot more potential than the end product, especially as the clues etc. are already fine as they are in the game now, but missing just a little bit more time and space between the planting of the clues and the finale of the game. But overall, I think Suhoshin was an entertaining experience. People who are looking for a mystery game set in Joseon Korea probably don't have much choice anyway, but Suhoshin is definitely worth checking out if you're looking for something in that direction.