『赤か、青か』

「えー、人間最後に頼れるのは運だけ」
『古畑任三郎：　赤か、青か』

"In the end, you can only rely on luck",
"Furuhata Ninzaburou: Red? Blue?"

For some reason, people here think I really, really like Higashino Keigo. Which is not true. I love his Meitantei Tenkaichi series, but setting that aside, it really depends on the book whether I like it or not. I like his easy writing and his characters, but at times he really doesn't feel like a detective writer.

Which does explain why he is one of the more prominent and better known detective writers.

But as I had to read a book for my Modern Japanese Literature course anyway, I chose a book by Higashino I had on my to-read list. A list tucked away in the depths of my memories, which I happened to remember while playing association games in my mind. But anyho~w.

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

The only reason Dochira ka ga kanojo wo koroshita ("One of the two killed her") stuck in my mind was that it's actually a detective novel without a clear ending. The author doesn't tell you who the murderer is. Which is interesting. The story revolves around the investigation regarding the death of police officer Izumi's sister. While it seems like it was a suicide, Izumi has reason to think his sister was actually murdered. And he sets off to hunt down the murderer himself. He manages to find two suspects. His sister's ex-boyfriend. And his sister's best friend, who stole Izumi's sister's boyfriend away from her. Either of them killed Izumi's sister, but which of them?

There is of course a conclusion to this book, but it doesn't use names, so you're left to deduce the murderer yourself. There is a sealed afterword in the pocket version, a transcript of a meeting held after the hardcover release discussing the solution it seems, but that only serves as an extra hint to the solution, I gather from the web (I, with my strange love for books, don't really want to cut open the sealed part).

The solution is hidden nicely. (it seems a significant hint had been deleted in the pocket version. It's still deducible though) and while in hindsight, it's a very boring solution, Higashino at least uses it in an interesting way. Still, while you certainly have to deduce the solution,

And heck, until halfway in the book I really thought Izumi was the main character, but thenl I noticed this book was the fourth in the Kaga Kyouichirou series. Not the Izumi series. Which explained why that detective Kaga was bothering Izumi with questions all the time.

Kaga is sorta like a Furuhata Ninzaburou, a police detective who picks up on the little things and once zeroed in on a suspect, doesn't let them be. I'm reading a short story collection of the Kaga series at the moment, and there it really feels like Furuhata Ninzaburou. You don't get to read about the crime itself, but in every story you're following the suspect as he/she's getting bothered by Kaga. A lot.

In any case, the Kaga Kyouichirou series seems like a fun Higashino series. It's at least fair, unlike Galileo.　

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『どちらかが彼女を殺した』

『ラスト・ダンス』

「事件は会議室で起きてるんじゃない、現場で起きてるんだ！」、青島俊作、『踊る大走査線 ＴＨＥ　ＭＯＶＩＥ』

"It's not happening in your conference rooms, it's happening here at the scene of the crime!", Aoshima Shunsaku, "Odoru Daisousasen THE MOVIE"

For some reason, I always manage to do absolutely nothing when I have an abundance of time and to do everything when I'm very busy. Maybe I'm someone who needs stimuli to actually work or something. And as I'm doing my research on detective fiction, I actually don't have time to read said detective fiction. It's mostly secondary literature.

Anyways, I somehow squeezed in an anthology which I had been wanting to read for some time now. Y no Higeki ("The Tragedy of Y") is of course inspired by the same-titled classic novel by Ellery Queen and features four authors with their own take on the theme of Y. The Tragedy of Y is immensely popular among the orthodox detective writers (for excellent reasons!), so I was very interested in how the homages to this classic would turn out. And while I'm not 100% sure there wasn't, I can't really remember a dying message being in The Tragedy of Y, so it's kinda strange that all four authors wrote stories featuring a dying message, but I guess that's part of the Queen legacy.

Arisugawa Arisu's Aru Y no Higeki ("A Certain Tragedy of Y") and Norizuki Rintarou's Equal Y no Higeki ("Equal Tragedy of Y") are the most classic stories within this anthology. Both writers are also well known Queen fans, so it shouldn't surprise their stories feel the most as a Queen story. Both stories deal with a dying message involving an Y and both stories spend a lot of time going through different interpretations of the message until the solution. Of the two, Arisugawa's story has a simple, yet effective solution, while Norizuki's story has more layers, but ends up somewhat convoluted. Yet both stories are entertaining takes on the Y theme.

Stranger were Shimoda Mayumi's "Dying Message Y" and Nikaidou Reito's "The Tragedy of Y - Increasing Y". Both stories feature meta-fiction detecting, making for some fantasy-like detective stories. While Shimoda's main story, concerning the suicide (?) of the girlfriend of the protagonist's classmate and the message "Y kills" is not very interesting and does not involve real detecting as far as I see it, the one-man theater play "The Alice in the Mirror" within the story is a cute meta-fiction detective story which might've been a fun story on it's own. But of course, having an Alice in Wonderland reference is quite Queenish. Nikaidou Reito's story is pure meta-fiction though, with the protagonists all introducing themselves to the reader, telling the reader why the stories is being written and even saying beforehand who will die in what way. Snarky remarks about how Nikaidou is actually more of a Dickson Carr fan or how Nikaidou doesn't really care about thinking about motives make it an amusing work. To continue the Carr-Queen mixture, Nikaidou makes this story a locked room murder, which has one of the more unbelievable solutions I've seen till now, but it really works within the context of a meta-fiction story. In any other setting, it would just be ridiculous. And the inclusion of a Dr. Zouka is hilarious for the Carr fan, especially as I didn't get the reference till it was explained (Dr. Fell in Japanese would be written as Dr. Fueru (フェル->フエル), which means increasing. And a synonyme for fueru （増える） is zouka (増加）. Q.E.D.).

While the anthology is quite short with just 4 stories, none of them dissappointed, which is rare in an anthology. Long live (the) Queen.　

Original Japanese title(s): 『Yの悲劇』/有栖川有栖　「あるYの悲劇」/篠田真由美　「ダイイングメッセージ《Y》」/二階堂黎人　｢Yの悲劇─｢Y｣がふえる」/法月綸太郎　「イコールＹの悲劇」 

Today's song: 松本晃彦 (Matsumoto Akihiko) - Rhythm and Police (From: 踊る大走査線 ("Odoru Daisousasen"))

『なぜベストを尽くさないのか』

「時が経つことに怯えて泣いてた変わりゆく人の心に」
 Garnet Crow, 『夢みたあとで』

"Scared of the passing of time and of how people's hearts change, I cried"
Garnet Crow, "After seeing my dream"

Ignoring whether the product is good or not, you'll have to admit that Japanese companies are quite good at cross-marketing their products. When the Detective Conan movie was released, some convenience stores had special Detective Conan promotions, while other chains sold exclusive Conan DVD's. The upcoming Odoru Daisousasen movie is accompanied by a videogame and probably more stuff.

And strangely enough, to promote movies based on television drama, they usually broadcast a special episode, which is nearly as long as the movie they're supposed to be promoting. The previous Trick special was as long as the Trick movie it was supposed to promote, and about the same for the Galileo special and movie. They might as well release two movies. Or two specials.

Anyway, I had seen the awesome Trick movie earlier this week, but the Trick week was still not over as the second Trick TV special was broadcast yesterday. Which was OK. It was definitely a Trick story, even more so than the movie, with a more contained story and less big action scenes. But that was the 'problem' maybe, having seen the grander scale story of the movie, I just couldn't help being somewhat underwhelmed by the special. If I'd seen the movie and the special in reverse order, I would've liked it more. I should've watched it in the special-movie order, I gathered from the dialogue, but that's strange as the movie debuted a week before the special was even broadcast.

And then there was the Trick game for the DS. Having played the horrible, horrible DS game of Galileo, I was kinda weary to purchase this game, until I discovered WorkJam had developed the game, the developer responsible for the current Detective Jinguuji Saburou games. Which are awesome.

So with a relieved heart, I purchased my copy of Trick DS and I am glad I did. As it was truly a fun game. Short, very short, but it was like playing an episode of Trick myself. The dialogue and story, while not written by the original writer, feel like they were lifted out of the series. The music is in fact the same as the series and the game even has the same opening animation. The story progress mimics the Trick tradition perfectly, with lots of problems which are solved one after another in relatively short time, but which together make up one big problem.

And the sleuth system... is actually quite interesting. In my years of gaming, I have seen my share of translating detectives to games. Games like Detective Jinguuji Saburou hardly let you think, but focus on telling a story. A game like Detective Conan - The Mirapolis Investigation tries letting the player deduce the culprit, but fails horribly by being so easy. The Keyword system in Detective Conan & Kindachi Shounen no Jikenbo was OK, but the story progression was not always as good (as well as the Conan-part being longer, but more tedious). The system Trick uses is somewhat similar to the system of the latter game, but a lot more fun.

It works by offering a problem that needs to be solved ("How did the killer get away?"), which can be solved by a combination of key elements (Items, circumstances, location, persons). The cool part is that every time you combine elements, a hypothesis is made. While most hypotheses are just unbelievable, others are at least plausible and thus make you think. You then bring your hypothesis to the confrontation scenes, where you'll have to defend your hypothesis; this being different from the system in Detectve Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, as you have no idea whether your ideas are correct until you've actually tested them in the confrontations. In terms of difficulty, the system is somewhere near the Gyakuten Saiban system, the latter being more difficult as it does not offer hypotheses, but it's still an interesting system.

Translating detectives to games is not always easy and while I think the Gyakuten Saiban series does it excellently, I'm very content with this system of WorkJam and I really hope to see it more often in their games. I'm also very surprised to see such a fun system in a game based on a drama, but as I'm a big fanboy, I'm just very pleasantly surprised.

Now make me my Furuhata Ninzaburou game, WorkJam. Do it.　

Original Japanese title(s):　『TRICK 新作スペシャル2』、 『TRICK DS版 ～隠し神の棲む館～』、『名探偵コナンと金田一少年の事件簿　めぐり合う二人の名探偵』、『逆転裁判』

「お前のやったことは、ぜんぶ全てスリッとお見通しだ！」

「通信教育で空手を学んでいたんだ」
『トリック』

"I learned karate through correspondence courses."
"Trick"

Having deleted several drafts of this post in a row, I give up on trying to write a comprehensible summary of the Trick franchise. What started out like a comedic detective series is nowadays more a bizarre comedy with detective-elements, but it's still, together with Furuhata Ninzaburou, my favorite Japanese drama. As a detective drama, it's somewhat like Jonathan Creek as it features a magician solving crimes, but that's as far as the comparison goes. Trick is all about comedy, with just a bit left for mystery. You shouldn't even think too much about the mysteries.

What's so difficult to explain about Trick is in fact the bizarre comedy. Besides the 'normal' comedy derived from text and story, the screen is so much an element of Trick's distinctive flavor, with crazy angles, cuts to other scenes and running jokes in the background, it's something you have to see to understand. And this year is the 10th anniversary of the Trick franchise and a new movie was released some days ago. Which I had been looking forward to ever since I saw the trailer.

So using my Ueda-like powers of persuasion, I dragged my own self-proclaimed beautiful and talented magician with me to the theater to see Trick: Psychic Battle Royale. Like the title subtly implies, the story revolves around several (self-proclaimed) psychics who fight for the title of the shaman kamihaeri. Among them are psychics who can not die, psychics who can read the future and psychics who can cast curses. And self-proclaimed magician Yamada, who once again tries to get her hands on money by pretending to be a psychic and as a magician herself, is capable of seeing through the tricks of the other fakes. And the scientist Ueda is of course there to... do stuff. Nothing new here.

Which is good. Trick has never been about doing something completely new, it's about strange people interacting with each other, with a mystery-subplot beneath. And this movie did it the best of all the Trick movies. The mystery subplot was not very impressive and some other stuff have been left unexplained, but that doesn't really matter. Even if you solved the mystery the moment it's shown on screen, you'll still get goosebumps when Yamada points her finger at the culprit to proclaim she has seen through all. Trick is just that awesome.

It is in fact quite amazing the bizarre comedy saves this from being just a casual detective with no redeeming qualities whatsover (yes, I am looking at you, Yonshimai Tanteidan) and actually transforms it in a fantastic series.

Oh, and the tie-in at the end to first episode of the first season? What. Was. That?　

Original Japanese title(s): 『劇場版TRICK 霊能力者バトルロイヤル』

「でも、アイスクリームは・・・甘いんだぜ!！」

Divide and Conquer

While we tried to make a date to go in a group to see the new Detective Conan movie, the group kept growing and growing (last count was near the 1o) and everybody had different classes at different times, so in the end we decided to use the good old Scooby-Doo (TM) tactic of "Let's split up, gang!".

We had already held a general repetition last week when too many people crammed into my room to watch last year's Detective Conan: The Raven Chaser, so I was really looking forward to this year's Detective Conan: Lost Ship in the Sky.

Which was... difficult to classify. This time keywords are to be never eaten okonomiyaki, epic falling, skateboards, footballs and bandages and bio-terrorists, but the movie featured no real detecting (not even a murder!) and it was mostly like any hijack movie. It's still leagues ahead of Detective Conan: Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure, but it lacks immensely in the detecting department. Well, I might as well say there is no detecting at all. Which is something you'd expect from a series called Detective Conan.

But Arsene Lupin-expy Kaitou KID also appears in the movie, and that just saves EVERYTHING . I was really all set to hate this movie, but somehow, the interactions of KID with the other character (especially Ran!) saved the movie. And this time there were no weird unsolved threads of plot.

Funny thing was the fact that there was almost nobody in the theater. Differences with last year are two days and the fact we went to the 15:00 viewing, but it was totally different from last year's packed Ikebukero experience. (C.f. with Liar Game - The Final Stage, which I also visited on a weekday, in the afternoon, which was packed). People here don't like Conan?

And damn you, Detective Conan Movie Committee! Now I'll have to come back next year again to catch the 15th movie...

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン 天空の難破船（ロスとシップ）』

Danse Macabre

"Y'see, this is where you and everyone else give up. You're making the big mistake of sticking to what's likely rather than what's logical."
"Danse Macabre"

In the timespan of one year, there is usually ridiculously little to look forward to for me regarding detectives. Classic mysteries are not written as often as they used to be and in the end I tend to only pick up older books. Even here in Japan, where there orthodox mysteries are still written relatively often, I tend to pick up books over 5 years old (mostly because of prices though~).

The only detective-related thing I every year can look forward to is the Detective Conan annual movie. For which I've already gathered a band of wannabe detectives to go together with. And also for the new Trick movie. For which I have also gathered a band of wannabe psychics to go together with. But this year, I had mostly been looking forward to Easter. Not because of a new Doctor Who series (well, maybe also because of that), but mostly because a new Jonathan Creek special would be shown. Last year's special, The Grinning Man was, ignoring some pacing problems, quite entertaining and in the meantime, I had been watching the original series.

Jonathan Creek tells the story of the titular magic act designer, who is always getting involved in (seemingly) impossible crimes. Locked room murders, disappearing people, appearing dead bodies, the classics of yore. And even though it sounds like a throwback to good old times at this time and age, the show feels surprising refreshing, with its witty writing and often solid plots. Often, but not always though. Writer Renwick seems to have trouble maintaining a standard for the series, especially the later seasons suffer from it and the series stopped in 2004. But with the disguised revival pilot 2009 special The Grinning Man he and Creek seemed back on track.

Seemed. Because if The Grinning Man reminded me of the earlier Creek seasons, The Judas Tree was definitely reminding me of the later seasons. I really wanted to like it. And I admit, the setting was quite good, similar to The Grinning Man with a haunting past and a truly spooky feeling. And then comes the ass pull, which, as the name implies, was totally uncalled for and not fair. Add in an admittely amusing, yet "What did he just say?! in a negative way" solution to a crime in the past and it left a bad, bad aftertaste. That and I really, really don't like Creek's assistent.

Should Creek retire? Maybe. Still, I would want a better special to be the final Creek episode...

Today's song: Camille Saint-Saëns [Arranged by Julian Stewart Lindsay] - Danse Macabre (Theme of Jonathan Creek)

『Ｋｉｎｄ Ｏｆ Ｂｌｕｅ』

"Tragedy of errors.... When you look back over the case, it was a tragedy of errors for nearly everyone involved. The whole world is a tragedy of errors..."
"The Tragedy of Errors"

Ellery Queen's "Tragedy of..." series, of which to make things confusing, "The Tragedy of Errors", is not part of, rank amongst the best of Queen's work. The works are quite popular in Japan too, with several novels and anthologies named after the series. And of course, Queenian writer Norizuki Rintarou has his own "Tragedy of" series too. While I own the books already, they're back in the Netherlands, so I opted this week to listen to the radio play of Ni no Higeki ("The Tragedy of Two"). Because Queenian radio plays are always fun.

Ni no Higeki was, in retrospect, a decent story, but nothing more than that. It's very similar to a short story by Norizuki, in which the reading of a diary and the following deductions forms the main story. The style closely followed early Queen, that is, something was observed, deductions were made and then new development come along that prove or disprove the previous deductions, allowing new deductions to be made. Which is all fine and well, but because this was a 10-part radio play of 15 minutes, every 10 minutes something new came up, which was kinda annoying. Despite the many developments, the scope of the story was quite small, so the story quickly came to a Love Dodecahedron plot and nobody was who they should've been.

This is the simple version.

But was it worth a listening? Sure it was. I do think the story would've worked better in short story form and while the solution was kinda lame (which I suspect is resolved slightly less suddenly in the original novel), it did work in the frame of the story, which ends on very tragedic note. Which is something you of course should expect from a story with "The Tragedy of Two" as its title. It is no match of Queen's Tragedies in terms of detecting, but the title is a lot more fitting.　

Original Japanese title(s): 法月 綸太郎　『二の悲劇』