『時の過ぎゆくままに。。。』

「あんたが自分を信じなくても俺はあんたを信じるよ」
『金田一少年の事件簿：剣持警部の殺人』

"Even if you don't believe yourself, I believe in you."
"The Case Files of Young Kindaichi: Chief Inspector Kenmochi's Murder"

Writing on detectivey-stuff is not going really well lately, mostly because I hardly read here. It at least is not a problem of not having enough material, because shelving problems are slowly appearing. I had started writing about how Japanese detectives are often like mini travel guides, as if they are not set in Tokyo or Osaka, they are often set at touristic spots all across Japan. Which was mainly inspired by a Wednesday TV drama I am watching, Meitantei Asami Mitsuhiko: Saishuushou ("Great Detective Asami Mitsuhiko: The Final Chapter") , which is about a journalist traveling all across Japan writing about touristic attractions, solving crimes and basically is an excuse to have every story set in another part of Japan. But then I realized this traveling aspect is also to be found very easily in Western (English) detectives, with the Orient Express and the Nile or just all across England, so it was not that interesting (though apparently the Asami Mitsuhiko series is quite popular here because it's so much like a travel guide with stuff on local legends).

But I digress. I don't do much reading except for homework now. Of course, I am actually required to read Edogawa Rampo stuff, as I have to hand in a book report next month for my research paper here, but even books with titles as The Era of Rampo: Ero Guro Nonsense can't help this reading-slump. Heck, even reading manga is not going as fast as it should.

Games are progressing quite good though. But while I enjoy detectives and games, they seldom work really good together. Case in point: the recently released Nintendo DS game Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Akuma no Satsujin Koukai ("The Case Files of Young Kindaichi: The Devil's Killer Voyage"). As releases in the Kindaichi Shounen series are not frequent anyway, I was kinda looking forward to this game, but as soon as I started up this game, I knew it would disappoint me, having played another game by the same developer. Please, developers at Tomcat, senseless clicking on every part of the map in the hopes the story progresses is not fun. Nor is diffusing bombs. Especially your bombs. Didn't you learn with Galileo DS?!

It's a problem I see often in detective games, where developers don't seem to be able to streamline the story. Either the story goes too fast, not allowing the player a chance to think or do anything at all, or the developers don't streamline the story at all and you are left clicking on everything, hoping you find the trigger for the next story event. A detective novel usually flows from one event to another, whether it being new information or the analyzing of information, but somehow, developers never seem able to really translate this to a working game system. And then you have the problem of developers wanting to make a detective game more like a game, so they insert bomb diffusing segments in the game. Which. Suck. Just because I am playing on a DS doesn't mean that you have to insert bad touchscreen gameplay.

Luckily, I had two new Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo volumes to wash away the memories of that game. They may only release two volumes of the manga a year, but it's always something to look forward too. And Pokémon HeartGold has found a great home in my Nintendo DS. After so many years enslaving poor critters is still addicting. And Butterfree, after so many years, you still are my favorite. Till I find a fishing rod to get me a Staryu. To get me a Starmie. 

Original Japanese title(s): 『金田一少年の事件簿　悪魔の殺人航海』

『一人二役』

「現世（うつしよ）は夢、夜の夢こそ真実（まこと）」、乱歩
"Reality is a dream, your dream at night is reality", Rampo

While I like Edogawa Rampo's stories, I really need a lot of time to read his stories. I haven't really read many pre-war stories so I don't know whether this is a general thing or not, but the usage of kanji in Edogawa's work is very aggrevating at times, with of course many pre-war kanji and strange ways to write words from a modern point of view.

So while I actually wanted to translate The Murder Case of D-Hill, the first Japanese locked room mystery, I've put that plan on hold for the time being and instead did the simpler, short One Person, Two Identities. Which is an OK (non-detective) short story of Edogawa, but what is more interesting is how the theme of one person, two identities plays a big part in Edogawa's stories. People taking on other identities, people taking on other people's identities, blurring lines between reality and dream, no knowing anymore what is the original, it's a theme I enjoy very much in Edogawa's work. Silver actually makes an interesting point in Purloined Letters: Cultural Borrowings and Japanese Crime Literature when he mentions how Edogawa's work can be read as stories that were both emulating the Western model, as well as atempts to try to move away from them, as Edogawa might have been afraid to forever remain nothing but 'an impersonator', never to be an original himself. But of course, who is to tell what original is in this world, what seperates the daydream of reality and when Morpheus' world ends ?

「私は飛んだ失敗をやったのだ。私は愛してはならぬ人を愛したのだ。」

「名探偵。皆さん名探偵といえば誰を想像しますか？…シャーロック・ホームズ、エルキュール・ポアロ。エラリー・クイー ン…。日本にも様々な探偵がいます。日本の名探偵に共通する特徴なんだかご存じですか？実はみんな名字は洒落 てんですけど名前がどうも田舎臭いんですね。例えば…、明智…小五郎。金田一…耕助。そして、古畑……任三郎…」
『古畑任三郎：　ゲームの達人』

"Great detectives. If we're talking about great detectives, who do you think of? ... Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen... There are all kinds of great detectives in Japan too. Would you know the common feature between the Japanese great detectives? While they all have stylish family names, their given names somehow sound... provencial. For example, Akechi... Kogorou. Kindaichi... Kousuke. And Furuhata... Ninzaburou..."
"Furuhata Ninzaburou: The Game Master"

Paris The Netherlands in the fall. The last months of the year and the end of the millenium. This city holds many memories for me. Of cafes, of music, of love, and of death. Ok, scrap that Broken Sword reference. Anyway, the last days in the Netherlands and Murphy kindly decided to pay me a visit by cursing my computer with fairly mild to very drastic problems, which is kinda scary. Other hurdles that had to be dealt with was finishing a review for the Dutch magazine AniWay (on Japanese popculture) (I am always doing reviews last minute). While I thoroughly enjoy writing reviews on manga, games et cetera and have written some years now, I find writing in Japan to be extremely difficult. Writing for a magazine has been quite fun though, as I could promote underrated and unknown series to the general public. Including detective manga. And somewhere I am kinda proud I actually got pictures of kids being crucified for rain published in the magazine.

So I wrote my final review on Maruo Suehiro's Panoramatou Kidan ("The Strange Tale of Panorama Island") and a habit of more recent years has been to do way more background research than required for such a review. With a draft review on Tezuka's MW, I even had referenced the big (BIG) book from the International Relations of Japan course, because it was quite relevant from a historical viewpoint, but in the end, you only have only just so many words you can put on one single page. So that was scrapped. And probably information overkill for the average reader anyway.

Panoramatou Kidan is based on the novelette by Edogawa Rampo and tells the story of a writer who fantasizes about an utopia. His utopia. He impersonates a recently deceased wealthy man, pretends to have come back to life and uses the money of the family to build his dream, the titular Panorama Island (and commits murder along the way). While it was not very well received at first, the story gained popularity in years and is now one of the better known stories by Edogawa, having also been the main source for the movie Horrors of Malformed Men and also filmed as one episode in the popular Akechi Kogorou tv-series ("The Beautiful Lady from Heaven and Hell").

Having read the original story and the manga, I am sorta surprised I like it as much as I do. It's not as creepy as The Blind Beast or the Human Chair, nor as interesting for a detective reader as The Psychological Test or Beast in the Shadows. But the story just works. It somehow manages to convey the dreamy aspect of Edogawa's writings perfectly and with just enough a bit of crazy crime, just enough a bit of gaudiness (I am truly wondering whether Edogawa was one of the first to think of a underwater tunnel like you see often in aquaria nowadays), just enough a bit of horror, resulting in a fine novellete. I am also pleased to say the manga is excellent, as the crazy visuals of Maruo Suehiro add a lot to the experience.

As an early work of Edogawa, it's also interesting to see that the detective who appears at the end is interestingly not his series detective Akechi Kogorou, but a very similar named Kitami Kogorou with a similar occupation, a scholar (the early Akechi was a scholar, later a famous detective). It seems to serve no purpose at all to have a different (but the same) detective in the story (even considering how the story ends). And it is even stranger considering Edogawa had been using Akechi Kogorou as a series detective for several stories now, so why use a character who was clearly an expy of Akechi?

Having read the original story, I also wanted to include background information regarding modernism in Japan (which is important in Edogawa's work) in my review of the manga through a reading of Silverberg's Erotic Grotesque Nonsense (which is an interesting book on its own) and rereading other books like Silver's Purloined Letters: Cultural Borrowings and Japanese Crime Literature (which has a very interesting section on Edogawa Rampo). Of course, then I noticed I would have needed more pages to incorporate all that information, so I decided to scrap most of it. I should've known.

I might not get as much exposure writing stuff here, but I can write as much or little as I want on anything, which naturally has its good points. Of course, it means getting less pictures of kids being crucified for rain published in magazines available all across the Netherlands. Which is a pity. Maybe I should try to pitch a Left Hand of God, Right Hand of the Devil review one of these days (these are literally just the first few pages of the manga, it gets a lot messier).

(Ugh, I want to bring the books mentioned earlier (and more, like Kawana's Murder Most Modern) to Japan, but they're so heavy~)

"Ah, one more thing, sir."

「え～、ご無沙汰しております。皆さん、お元気でしたか？私は元気です。え～、さて誰にでも少年時代がありました。勿論、私にもありました。そして誰にでも多感な時期、影響を受けた人物がいるものです。勿論、私にも。今のこの私があるのも、その人との出会いがあったればこそです。今でも目をつぶると瞼の裏に、その人の顔が浮かんできます。…つぶってみましょう。」
『古畑中学生』

"Erm, it's been a long while. How have you been? I've been fine. Erm, everyone was young at a time. Of course, so was I. And everyone in that sensitive period, had someone who influenced them. Of course, so had I. The person who I am now, was all because I met that person. Even now, when I close my eyes, the face of that person is visible behind my eyelids.... Let's try closing our eyes."
"Middle School Student Furuhata"

Lately, I have been watching some old episodes of that classic detective show Columbo again. Ever since I was a kid I have loved this show and while occasionally some of the more recent movies are shown on Dutch television, the original series has not been broadcast here for years now. But even now as I watch the series, I feel it has lost nothing of its charm. Heck, in the 40 years since its debut few series were made that were so entertaining in my opinion.

And this is despite the fact that pretty much every episode is the same: you see the murderer-of-the-week (celebrity actors like Leonard Nemoy Dr. Spock) commit his/her murder, usually in a clever way to avert suspicion. Then scruffy-looking lieutenant Columbo arrives and the rest of the episode, consists mostly of cat-and-mouse scenes between just the lieutenant and the killer, with Columbo asking trivial question after question and telling stories about his wife and simply looking a lot more stupid than he actually is. The point of every episode is figuring out how Columbo is going to prove the murderer is guilty.

The show is just two people talking. About a murder you have seen already. Dialogue about something you know everything about for an hour. But it works. Every. Single. Time. The great plots, the great acting, it's all top-notch and every episode is as exciting as the previous one, despite being basically the same. Columbo pulls off the use of a formula brilliantly.

I actually don't like the name howcatchem (c.f. whodunnit), nor inverted detective (techically it's inverted, but from a chronological view, the inverted detective runs completely straight, so the term feels strange to me). But it's been a style in detective fiction since at least Freeman's The Singing Bone (1912). Interestingly, Edogawa Rampo had written one himself too (The Psychological Test (1925), included in Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination) and in his 1934 essay The Four Types of Detective Stories, he had identified the inverted detective (the toujo tantei shousetsu: "chronological reversed detective" which feels even more wrong than inverted detective) as his fourth type, but as he had only 3 examples (including his own story), he wasn't sure whether he should include it as a proper detective story type. Time proved Edogawa right though.

A more recent Japanese example would be the Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) game series, as in many cases you usually know who did it, you just have to prove it in court. As an attorney using the foolproof Columbo way of pouncing on every contradiction, how insignificant it may seem, you eventually manage to solve the case.

But if you're talking about the inverted Japanese detective, one name should come up immediately: Furuhata Ninzaburou (yes, I shamelessly stole the logo design for this blog). It's pretty much a clone show of Columbo, with lieutenant Furuhata being the one asking many many seemingly trivial questions to the murderer-of-the-week with his polite way of talking. And like Columbo, Furuhata Ninzaburou managed to make every episode worthwile. Running for more than 10 years in Japan, it has been one of the most popular shows there, featuring many high profile celebrities (like Ichiro, SMAP, Sanma and Matsushima Nanako) as murderers. Also amusing are the seemingly non-sequitur introductions of every episode (that in the end turn out to tie up with the theme of the episode neatly), which I occasionally use as introducing quotes myself. But what makes Furuhata Ninzaburou really interesting, is the formal challenge to the watcher in every episode. Inspired by the 1975 Ellery Queen show, Furuhata actually breaks the fourth wall near the end of the episode and asks the viewer whether they can prove the murderer did it, as he certainly can. It's one of those shows I am proud to own on DVD.

Ah, one more thing, sir, the proper way of finishing this post would be a Columbo-ian "one more thing, sir...", of course, but as I can't think of something worth mentioning, this will do. え～、古畑任三郎でした。

"No Chinaman must figure in the story."

「えー、自分が人に嫌われてんじゃないかって心配してる皆さん、安心してください。そういう場合は大抵本当に嫌われてます。問題なのは自分が人に嫌われているのが分かってない人の方で…。」
『古畑任三郎：　ピアノ・レッスン』

"Ehm, people who are concerned whether they are disliked or not, don't worry. In such cases you usually really are disliked. But a problem are those people who don't see they are being disliked..."
"Furuhata Ninzaburou: Piano Lesson"

"No Chinaman must figure in the story". Thus says the fifth commandment for the Golden Age detective as set by Robert A. Knox. It sounds just a bit more racist than meant to, as the rule meant that the evil mysterious opium-den master Fu Manchu-like stock character Chinaman which was in popular use in cheap thrillers in Knox' time should have no place in a formal mystery novel. Of course, pretty much all the rules set by Knox were broken in several of the best mystery novels ever, so Chinamen were indeed also featured in detective novels.

One of the better known examples is the Chinese detective Charlie Chan who operates in Hawaii. I picked up a omnibus of the first 3 Chan novels (with the Worst. Cover. Ever.) at the Bookfest (which is probably the nearest we'll get in the Netherlands to a Book Off) and recently finished the first novel, The House Without a Key. The Chan books and writer Biggers are often praised for their positive portrayal of Chinese persons in literature (contrary to the practice of those days), but even then, the clutches of Orientalism are hard to escape, so instead of a evil mysterious opium-den master Fu Manchu-like stock character, we get a benevolent mysterious overly polite stock character who at least not speakies pigeon talk, but does talks the English in a way the most peculiar and quaint. Of course, we know that the Belgian Hercule Poirot has an excellent grasp on the English, but talks sometimes in broken English to let people underestimate him, but I doubt that's the case with Chan. The plot of the book was nothing special, but I did like the Hawaiian setting. 'Cause it reminds of me a quite tasty meal I had in Japan once. Twice.

A lot more entertaining are the Judge Dee books by Robert van Gulik. While different from the classic model, detective-like novels have been around in China for centuries, usually in the form of criminal court records, with the judge (who was also responsible for the prosecution...) as the detective. Van Gulik translated one of these court records, Dee Gong An ("Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee") most excellently, providing a role model for (crime) translators everywhere in my opinion. Afterwards van Gulik wrote his own mystery novels using the characters of the Dee Gong An. Set in the Tang dynasty, the books are both entertaining as (very!) informing, as van Gulik was a celebrated Sinologist and incorporated loads of interesting facts regarding the culture and judical system in the novels. Like a detailed explanation regarding the legal use of torture by judges.

Van Gulik translated another court record by the way, Tian Yin Pi Shih ("Parallel Cases from under the Pear Tree"), which also makes an interesting read for people interested in the ancient Chinese judical system. 72 double cases are presented, many of them reminiscent of the judgment of Solomon. Some cases described in the book were also used by Van Gulik in his Judge Dee novels, if I remember correctly.

These kinds of court records were also available in Japan. These premodern detectives seem to be quite interesting to me as a historical source as well as narratives. I think it would actually make a great research topic somehow, sometime in the future. Far away future.

Yes, I know I still have to read Sherlock in Shanghai.

『いにしえの記憶』

許されぬ

時効すぎても
罪は罪
『時効警察』

Unforgiveable
Even if the statute passed
A crime is a crime
  "Statute of Limitations Police"

To connect right to the end of the previous post, it really is a small world after all. As I was playing through Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Aoi Me no Ryuu ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: The Blue-Eyed Dragon"), I was quite very surprised to find out that my assailant whom I was tracking down, was to be found in a bar in... good old Ekoda. While locations in Tokyo like Scramble Crossing and in front of the Alta screen are famous sights in media, you wouldn't expect a place like Ekoda to show up... anywhere. Of course, one conversation in Tokyo that seemed to repeat itself every once in a while was that the dance studio in the movie Shall We Dance? was in Ekoda, viewable from the platform at the Ekoda Station.

So as the detective Jinguuji arrives at the virtual Ekoda, you get the following description:

「俺はタトゥースタジオの店長の言葉を頼りに、坂口行き付けの飲み屋へと足を向けた。池袋から電車に揺られ、俺は坂口行き付けの店がある江古田へとやってきた。どこか懐かしさを感じさせる町並み。学生なのか、若者達の姿を多く目にする事ができる。」

"Following the story of the tattoo studio's boss, I went to Sakaguchi's usual joint. Swaying to and fro in the train from Ikebukero, I arrived at the place where Sakaguchi's usual bar was, Ekoda. The sight of the streets and shops somehow gave off a nostalgic feeling. You could see the many figures of young people, maybe students."

Seeing the pictures of the south gate of Ekoda station made me feel somewhat nostalgic too. Especially when the text continued and it described how to get to the bar.

「この近くに「寅弐」という飲み屋があるのをご存知ですか？」
「あぁ、「トラジ」なら、あの角にある本屋を右に曲がっていくと左手にありますよ。店長さんがイイ人でじかなりお勧めっすよ。俺もこの後、行く予定です。」

"Would you know of a bar called 'Toraji' in the neighbourhood?"
"Yeah, if it's 'Toraji' you want, if you go right at that bookstore at the corner, it will be at your left side. The owner is a good person and I really recommend it. I'll be going there too in a while."

Tokyo Pilot people will probably be able to place the bar (it's really there). The impossible-to-miss bookstore also played a role in the game and it seems the developers of the game actually took pictures of the shop. Don't know if the owner really looks like that though.

The only thing that would have make this more awesome (and slightly creepy) was if that little Chinese restaurant at the other side of the tracks had been incorporated in the game.

And totally unrelated, but Kamiya Akira quitting as the voice actor of Mouri Kogorou in the Detective Conan anime? I am actually shocked, as Kamiya is my favorite Japanese voice actor and one of the best in the business. Now I feel obliged to buy The Raven Chaser on DVD as his last great work...

Today's song: 神谷明＆伊倉一恵 (Kamiya Akira & Ikura Kazue)　町中 Ｓｏｐｈｉｓｔｉｃａｔｅ ("A Whole Town Sophisticate")

The Player on the Other Side

「え～皆さんの前に登場してはや5年、これまでさまざまな犯人と出会ってきました。え～、発作的にしろ計画的にしろ彼らには犯罪 を犯すだけの理由がありました。今回登場する犯人はそう言った意味ではもっとも危険なタイプな犯人と言えるかもしれません。ん～、すなわち、犯罪をゲーム としてしか考えていない人物・・・・・手強そうです。」
『古畑任三郎：　最も危険なゲーム・前編』


"Ehm, in the five years I have stood before you all, I have come across all sorts of criminals. Eehm, whether it was done impulsively or planned, they all had some reason to commit their crime. And that's why this episode's criminal could be considered the most dangerous type of criminal. Hmmm, what I mean is, a person who sees crime as nothing more than a game... It's going be tough.",
"Furuhata Ninzaburou: The Most Dangerous Game - Part One"

(Yes, I'm really grasping now with these introducing quotes.)

If you don't want to read the book, you watch the movie. And in Japan, you apparently play the game. As I was having problems getting into Yokomizo Seishi's Yatsu Haka Mura ("The Village of Eight Gravestones"), one of the books in the Kindaichi Kousuke series, I actually bought the Nintendo DS game based on the book to cheat my way out of the book. Of course, this sort of backfired, because it was the most boring game I've played in ages. I love playing adventure games and I really don't mind the lack of interactivity in game series like Phoenix Wright, but at least I have to think there. It makes you wonder why in heaven's sake the developers of Yatsu Haka Mura added a scratch-scratch system (hint system that involves scratching your head till... dandruff falls. Yes. It's a Kindaichi thing), because no hints were needed. Ever. The game also abridged the story slightly, making me want to read the book anyway. So Yatsu Haka Mura failed as a game and as a book. But it did have cool graphics. Of course, anything that resembles Okami in art is just awesome.

The story though, is one of the defining Japanese mysteries and really enjoyable, involving a curse laid down by a party of 8 slain samurai on a small rural mountain village (with Cave Labyrinth(TM)), strange happenings surrounding the heir of the rich Tajimi family and It Was Based On A True Story. The True Story of a massacre in the village of Tsuyama. Be it in a movie or a TV-special, the 32 killings murder spree in the book has brought us one of the spookiest scenes ever involving a man running around with flashlights tied to his head. One phrase from the '77 movie, "Tatari jaa!" ("'Tis the curse!"), apparently ended up being one of the defining words of that year (just like how this year Japan has been defined by konkatsu, 'marriage hunting'). I honestly can't even begin to imagine how a sentence like 'Tis the curse!", a line from a detective, actually made it to being such an important word, but that's Japan for ya.

A much more enjoyable game was Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Shiroi Kage no Shoujo ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: The White Phantom Girl"), the GameBoy Advance entry of a long-running, but outside of Japan hardly known detective game series. It's actually a hardboiled detective story, but like I said before: for me, if hardboiled detectives are presented with some music to listen to and not just as plain texts, but with something more to look at, I suddenly love it.

I don't think the detective novel is a very good medium to address social problems, but it happens. Of course, the hardboiled detective can be an excellent vehicle to come across such problems because of his natural habitat (The Less Fortuned Part of Society). Chandler has been known to address social problems in his novels and from the 1950's on, starting with Matsumoto's work, the most important subgenre in Japanese mysteries has actually been the social detective. As such, I was not very surprised to see such problems as bullying, child abuse, homeless people and coin locker babies back in the Jinguuji games. And I really don't mind.

But of course, the Jinguuji games also offer great jazzy tunes and great stories which actually give me the chance to think at times and are at times plotted more like traditional puzzle detectives than a hardboiled detective, so Jinguuji's a bit more of like the best of all worlds. Oh, and no story about Jinguuji Saburou should ever be made without the mention that every game in the series features a button solely, solely for smoking. Yes. You can smoke in Jinguuji. And you will. Just because it's hardboiled.

And yes, even the games I buy to play when I'm not reading books are detectives.

Addendum: Discworld Noir is a great game! I have a bad habit of never finishing games and this was one of those games of which I hadn't seen the ending. I actually started it yeaaaaars ago, but I never got around to actually finishing it, till now that is. Anyway, very witty film noir hardboiled writing and some great sleuthing moments (the use of a notepad instead of a normal inventory system is genious as well as that other system halfway through the game) makes this one very good detective game, firmly set in the world of the City Watch Discworld books.

And yes, the only reason I started with the Discworld books is because of this game. And it's also why I only enjoy the City Watch novels.　

Original Japanese title(s): 『八墓 村』、『探偵神宮寺三郎　白い影の少女』