Plot It Yourself

「現場百遍」

Going over the crime scene hundred times. (Japanese saying)

I talk more often about my reading backlog, but I'm even worse with games. I think I bought my copy of this game back in 2010 already... 

The discovery of the body of Bill Robbins in the parking garage of Houlington College shocked the otherwise peaceful Liberty Town. Bill Robbins was the president of the Robbins Company, and his whole family had connections (also by marriage) to all the other major families in the town. And when a man is well-connected, it also means there are a lot of suspects. Was the murderer his new wife, whom he had married only six month ago? His new brother-in-law who hated him? The local physician who has been a family friend for decades, but has no clear alibi? Whoever it was, J.B. Harold, the silent, but methodious police detective in charge of the case is sure to find out whoddunit in the videogame Keiji J.B. Harold no Jikenbo - Satsujin Club, also known as J.B. Harold - Murder Club (Nintendo DS).

J.B. Harold - Murder Club was originally a 1986 PC adventure game developed by Riverhillsoft and written by Suzuki Rika. It did quite good on the market, and was ported to several other systems, from MS-DOS, to Windows, TurboGrafx-CD, Nintendo DS and iOS. It would also spawn many sequels. Riverhillsoft would eventually go bankrupt in 2000, but by that time Suzuki had already left the company to set up developer CiNG, which would be responsible for some of the Nintendo DS and Wii's more innovatieve mystery adventure titles, until CiNG's own bankruptcy in 2010.

The most memorable feature of this game has to be its design as an adventure game. It follows the traditional command-style adventure interface, where you select commands to move around and ask suspects questions. Usually, games that follow this design are fairly linear in their story-telling: you talk to suspect A, which gives you acces to location B and suspect C, which in turn... etc. Once in a while, the story will have some drastic developments, and rinse and repeat. The Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series for example is a classic example of this model.

J.B. Harold - Murder Club however is almost like a non-linear, free-roaming mystery adventure with the command-style interface, which is a rare combination. The prologue of the game shows you how Bill Robbin's body is discovered, and after that, you're pretty much free to do whatever you want, in any order you want. Right from the start, you're able to go to many locations and suspects and each interview with a suspect will result in a new lead: you might want to check up on that alibi the suspect claims to have, or perhaps you want to follow up on that rumor the suspect told you about a different suspect, etc. Because you're basically free to start your investigation anywhere you like, and can choose to follow any lead in any order you want, the game actually gives you a non-linear experience. I for example started with investigating the location where Bill Robbins' body was found, and then questioning his brother and following up on his alibi, whereas you could also choose to investigate Bill's wife, his family-in-law or his business relations first, which would've resulted in very different leads. As you near the end of the game, the story naturally becomes more of a linear experience, as you'll have discarded most red herrings, but especially the first half/three quarters of this game, you're really free to follow up on any suspicions you have.

It's this design choice which makes this a unique game, but depending on the player, it can also be a very boring game. J.B. Harold - Murder Club's story has no real development throughout the course of the whole game. You're just interviewing suspects and then checking up on everything. There's no structure to the game because of non-linearity. Right at the start of the game you're given access to a lot of data, and the rest of the game consists of you sorting everything out. Games like Ace Attorney are designed to keep you on your feet, by feeding the player new information and new story developments every once in a while. This is not the case with this game. In fact, one could simply finish this game by asking every suspect every question and using every available command in the game: eventually you will reach the end. In that aspect, this game can feel very lacking.

If you do really keep up with all the various leads the game feeds you though, you're given a very unique experience. Most mystery games put emphasis on story developments, and the sense of wonder of solving a mystery. J.B. Harold - Murder Club is more 'realistic', in the sense that it puts emphasis on a policeman's legwork: you solve the Bill Robbins murder by good old fashioned questioning of each and every suspect, and checking on their alibis and motives. It's a very minimalistic adventure game, but it works strangely enough. This sober approach is also seen in later in the game: you need to collect enough evidence before you're able to get search warrants from the prosecutor or bring suspects in to the police station for questioning. The overall mystery plot is nothing particularly fancy, but it works in the context of the game, and I found it entertaining.

It's interesting the series is titled J.B Harold though, because J.B. is pretty much non-existent in the game. The character rarely appears on the screen himself, and you never see his dialogue lines, only those of his conversation partners. Bland isn't the right word, it's simply that he appears so very little on screen there's little to say about him.

Overall though,  J.B. Harold - Murder Club is an interesting and original mystery adventure, but it can easily turn into a just-click-on-every-command game, so the player does need to make some effort to keep themselves interested in the story. If you manage to, the game turns into a distinctive mystery game, which really makes you feel like you're slowly uncovering a complex murder case. Some older versions of this game have been released in English, though the version I played, the Nintendo DS port, is not available in English. The sequel was also ported to the DS, so I might pick that game up too some time.

Original Japanese title(s): 『刑事J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 殺人倶楽部』

Il nome della rosa

過去の僕は今いるボクへ

何を残し歩いて来たの？

自分に問いかけて

考えてみれば見えてくる 

「Advance」　（TOKIO）

From my past self to my current self:

What did you leave behind as you walked to the present?

Ask yourself

And the answers will come to you

"Advance" (TOKIO)

Lots of game reviews lately! It's mostly because of the way I plan writing reviews (with games often coming in last in the queue). There's like three, four months between me playing today's game and Net High for example...

The infamous Kinema Mansion Serial Murders happened in 1929, which started with the death of Yoshindou Denemon, former chairman of New World Cinema, a pioneer in film-making. His death was followed by many more, and the murders were left unsolved. An investigation in this series of murders brings journalist Takashi and his companion Emi to the abandoned mansion in 2003. The two only have only set a couple of steps in the great hall, when a mysterious force throws the two back in time. Emi has lost her physical presence and can only occassionally manifest herself as a ghostly figure, but Takashi finds himself, body and all, within the Kinema Mansion in 1929. He has arrived at the mansion the day after the murder on Denemon and strangely enough, everybody seems to be confusing Takashi with Kazuya, the estranged son of Denemon who was invited to the mansion. Takashi decides to solve the mysteries that surround the many strange members of the Yoshinodou family as well as the mansion, hoping that solving the case will send him and Emi back to 2003. Everybody in the mansion seems to have something to hide, but luckily the time-jump also gave Takashi psychometric powers. Can he solve the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders and return safely with Emi to 2003 in the 2003 PlayStation 2 game Glass Rose?

Glass Rose (Garasu no Bara) was the first game by CiNG, a Japanese game developer which specialized in adventure games. CiNG is best known for their innovative works for the Nintendo DS/Wii, such as Another Code/Another Code R and Hotel Dusk/Last Window, which are often praised for their deep stories, believable characters and music. The Fukuoka-based company sadly enough had to file for bankruptcy in 2010, which is still something I remember quite well: I was living in Fukuoka at the time, and had just bought their latest game, only to read the same week that Last Window would actually be their very last game. Anyway, I was long overdue to playing this game.

Glass Rose is a simple point and click adventure at the core, with an emphasis on dialogue-based puzzles. You control Takashi in his investigation into the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders by questioning the varous inhabitants about the murders and occasionally picking up physical clues. There are also three gameplay systems that help give this game its own feel. First is the conversation system. While speaking with the suspects, you can ask about select key words from the conversation partner's utterances. This "Free Word System" allows you to steer the conversation the direction you want and is sometimes used in clever conversation puzzles, where you need to go into several conversation 'branches' before you can proceed with your main line of investigation. A second characteristic of this game is the use of Takashi's psychometric powers. Takashi is able to vaguely read the minds of other people, as well as the 'memory' of objects and naturally, this skill is handy when investigating a murder. Most of the time, Takashi psychometric powers manifest in flashes of objects or locations, which serve as a clue as to where Takashi has to go to next. These segments occur automatically, but during conversations, Takashi can also opt to read the mind of his conversation partner to get a vital clue to proceed (for example, when a person knows something, but wants to keep it a secret from Takashi). This skill is not 'free to use' though, so you must choose to use the skill at the right time. Another characteristic of this game is that the story is divided in distinct time-periods of one hour. Each hour, there are certain actions you have to complete within that time limit in order to move to the next hour (if you fail, you're sent back to the beginning of the hour; fail too often and it's game over). It's a system CiNG has also used in later games like Hotel Dusk and Last Window.

To be absolutely honest, Glass Rose has its share of problems as an adventure game. While the conversation and psychometric power system are interesting, the time limit can be rather troublesome, because the game seldom tells you what you're exactly supposed to do in each hour. As a result, you're often just wandering around the (giganteous!) Kinema Mansion, in search of people and other hotspots to check out. Because of that, the game often feels empty and dragging, as you're just looking for the correct flag to proceed to the next event. Each hour, everything 'resets' in the Kinema Mansion, with people appearing and disappearing from rooms, giving it a very artificial feeling (you usually don't come across people unless it's necessary to talk with them). There are also optional documents to be found within the mansion, which help expand on the backstory, but these too are incredibly tedious to find (especially considering the time limit you have each hour), so overall, I think Glass Rose is a bit disappointing as a game.

As for the mystery story, it can be both great, and disappointing. Disappointing is the identity of the person behind the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders, as well as the path that leads to this conclusion. In the early parts of the game, it's not possible to make a substantiated guess to who the murderer is, while in the latter half of the story, the game basically tells you who it is by suddenly given you information it had been keeping away from you for no reason, leading to a very anti-climatic ending. The fact that the suspects keep appearing and disppearing (as mentioned above) also has a bad influence on the story, as you never really get to feel the fear that should be within the Kinema Mansion, considering people keep getting killed off in a mere three days.

I might sound very negative about this game, but I think that's mostly because I also loved how this game was set-up as a classic Japanese mystery story. A beautifully designed Western-style mansion in late 1920s Japan? Invokes the yakata-mono genre, as seen in Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken and Ayatsuji Yukito's work. The complex family relations and the various, suspicious-looking members who all have something to hide? It was like reading a Yokomizo Seishi novel. The background setting of 1920s filmmaking in Japan, about the decline of silent films and benshi (silent film narrators) and New World Cinema's upcoming talkie remake of their hit silent film Dolls? I absolutely loved this part! While figuring out the main murderer of the Kinema Manson Serial Murders turns out to be not that much fun, slowly taking away the veils that cover up the many, many dirty secrets of the Yoshinodou family and New World Cinema was actually great! The game oozes atmosphere in the early parts of the game, when you're still finding out the backstories of each and every suspect. When the story actually needs to pay attention to the main storyline (the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders), the game becomes less enjoyable and satisfying.

Oh, and for Japanese music fans: Takashi was modeled after TOKIO's Matsuoka Masahiro, who also provided Takashi's voice in the Japanese version, as well as modeling for motion capture. Now I think about it, Capcom (the publisher of Glass Rose) really liked these kind of tie-ups in the PS2 era. Remember the Onimusha series which had protagonists like Kaneshiro Takeshi, Matsuda Yuusaku and even Jean Reno?

So is Glass Rose a bad mystery game? No, I wouldn't go that far. Besides some strange game design choices, it's mostly the conclusion to the Kinema Mansion Serial Murders I find very unsatisfying. But this game has fantastic atmosphere especially in the first half of the story, making use of a model that can be recognized as distinctly Japanese, which should satisfy readers of writers like Yokomizo and Ayatsuji. Glass Rose is not CiNG's best effort (and because Again exists, it's not their worst effort either) and the game can feel a bit too quirky at times, but in terms of atmosphere, I'd say that this is an exceptionally good effort. The first half in particular is really fun, it just didn't manage to keep up that standard all the way to the end.

Original Japanese title(s): 『玻璃ノ薔薇』

Color of Memory

ああこの世界はあなたの色になるよ

「 世界はあなたの色になる」（B'z）

Oh this world will be painted in your colors

"The world will be pained in your colors" (B'z)

Man, I had to wait long for this release! Usually, a Detective Conan film is released late April in theaters, with a home-video release following late November. This time, the home-video release was scheduled early October, but unbelievable pre-order figures (three times the usual number) led to a three week delay. But now I finally have it!

Detective Conan manga & movies:
Part 1: Volumes 1 ~ 10
Part 2: Volumes 11~20; The Timebombed Skyscraper (1) / The Fourteenth Target (2)
Part 3: Volumes 21~30; The Last Wizard of the Century (3) / Captured in Her Eyes (4)
Part 4: Volumes 31~40; Countdown to Heaven (5) / The Phantom of Baker Street (6)
Part 5: Volumes 41~50; Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (7) / Magician of the Silver Sky (8) / Strategy Above the Depths (9)
Part 6:  Volumes 51~60; Private Eyes' Requiem (10) / Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure (11)
Part 7: Volumes 61~70; Full Score of Fear (12) / The Raven Chaser (13) / Lost Ship in the Sky (14)
Part 8: Volumes 71~80; Quarter of Silence (15) / The Eleventh Striker (16) / Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17)
(You will find the links to the reviews of volumes 70, 72~76, 78, 82~90 and the films Quarter of Silence (15), The Eleventh Striker (16), Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17), Dimensional Sniper (18) and Sunflowers of Inferno (19) in the library)

Doctor Agasa has brought high-school-student-detective-turned-child Conan, Haibara and the other Detective Boys to the newly reopened Touto Aquarium, an aquatic themed entertainment park with a gigantic double ferris wheel as its new main attraction. At the entrance of the park, the kids run into a mysterious woman, who appears to be suffering from amnesia. The kids decide to help her find out who she is, and drag her along with them inside the park. What Conan however does not know is that this woman is a dangerous operative who last night managed to steal a highly confidential NOC-list from the National Police Agency, detailing the identities of undercover agents from various international intelligence agencies infiltrated inside the Black Organization, the criminal entity responsible for turning Conan into a child. A hectic highway chase prevented the woman from conveying the names of all the traitors to her boss, and while she did manage to escape from a major car crash and the ensuing explosion, the trauma of the accident caused amnesia. With the identities and lives of the remaining spies inside the Black Organization at stake, the National Police Agency Security Bureau, the FBI, CIA and the Black Organization all move in to get their hands on the mysterious woman and the information in her memories in the 2016 film Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare.

The twentieth Detective Conan film! I remember I started watching the films around the time the sixth film (2002's Phantom of Baker Street) hit the theaters, but who would have thought that the Detective Conan films would have become such an important part of Japanese popular culture and that they'd come this far? Not even the original makers apparently, because the first film, 1997's The Time-Bombed Skyscraper, was originally intended to be the definitive Detective Conan movie. But the immense popularity of the TV series and the film was enough reason to make this an annual event. And so every April a new Detective Conan film is released. In Japan, Detective Conan is not just a mystery show. It's a family show, with a very wide audience. I've been lucky enough to see the films in Japanese theaters three times now, and at an afternoon showing you'll see groups of children in the audience, but the evening showings will feature couples and many, many adults. The fact that The Darkest Nightmare became the highest-grossing film in the franchise shows that the audience still loves these flicks.

Kodama Kenji, known for his work on the classic anime series City Hunter, was the director of the first seven Detective Conan films, and his films are fairly classic whodunnit films, with usually about two large set pieces to give it the necessary action movie feel (the set pieces usually happen halfway and at the climax). The whodunnit plots were the main driving power of these films however. Yamamoto Yasuichirou took over with 2004's Magician of the Silver Sky, and his direction was definitely more action-focused, with more set pieces set at diverse settings like planes, ships and a snowy mountain. The mystery plots in turn were simplified, with usually less murders per film. The latest change in directors came in 2011~2013: Shizuno Koubun was first billed as director together with Yamamoto, but took over as main director in 2013. Shizuno's films are marked by ridiculously over-the-top action and even less a focus on a whodunnit plot. Films like 2013's Private Eye on the Distant Sea and 2014's The Dimensional Sniper are more thriller than detective at times and while they're absolutely fun to see as action movies, they are very, very different from the more sober classic mystery films early in the film franchise.

2016's The Darkest Nightmare continues this line set by Shizuno. The script, penned by Sakurai Takeharu who also wrote Private Eye in the Distant Sea and Sunflowers of Inferno, does not even feature a murder mystery! The Darkest Nightmare is from start to end a gripping spy action thriller, about various government organizations and the Black Organization trying to outwit each other as they all hunt after the mysterious woman and the stolen NOC-list. It's more James Bond than Detective Conan, to be honest, but I did really enjoy this film. For a large part it's because this film is so strongly connected to the main storyline of the comic. Usually, the films are set in their own little world and have their own atmosphere, but this film really felt like one of those grand storylines that feature the Black Organization, like volume 49's Black Impact, volume 57's The Clash of Red and Black and volume 85's The Scarlet Truth. It reminds of the thirteenth film, The Raven Chaser, which also featured a Black Organization-focused story, but The Darkest Nightmare does not feature a murder mystery subplot that dilutes the impact of the Organization's presence. And while director Shizuno definitely does not go for realistic action in his films, I have to say his action set pieces are absolutely thrilling to watch. It's ridiculously over the top, but in a good way.

The fact this film is so much about various organizations from the Detective Conan universie going against each other does make this one a fairly inaccessible one. I would never recommend watching this film without being up-to-date with the corresponding manga storyline. The earlier Detective Conan films are much, much better as an introduction to the series. The Darkest Nightmare is great for the fans, less so for newcomers. Oh, and after years of awful guest voice actors in the Detective Conan films, I have to say actress Amami Yuuki did a fairly good job as the mysterious woman! (Let me remind you that Eikura Nana was awful in Sunflowers of Inferno)

The Darkest Nightmare is also a great Gundam film. Mobile Suit Gundam is an iconic science-fiction animated series from 1979 which is grown out to a gigantic franchise. Its influence on Japanese popular culture is basically what Star Wars or Star Trek was to American popular culture. Gundam is everywhere and everybody knows it. Sequels and spin-off series are still made to this day (in fact, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans is running right now on TV). Two rival characters in the Detective Conan universe are actually based on Amuro and Char, respectively the protagonist and antagonist of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, and these characters are even voiced by the original voice actors of Amuro and Char. The rivalry between Amuro and Char, and their voice actors, is thus given new life in Detective Conan, and especially in The Darkest Nightmare, which is full of little Gundam references. Already from the first chase scene on, we see these characters drive off in white and red sports cars, mirroring the colors of the Mobile Suits (gigantic robot suits) Amuro and Char use in Mobile Suit Gundam, and they even get to fight over a woman and basically have to stop a Colony Drop. Seriously, the more I think about, the more I'm convinced I didn't watch a Detective Conan movie, but a Gundam movie. Furuya Tooru, the voice actor of the character based on Amuro, even confessed that during the voice recording session for The Darkest Nightmare, he accidentally cried out Char's name during a fight scene, recalling his iconic role!

So in short: I really enjoyed Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare as an action-packed thriller featuring many characters from the Detective Conan universe, which also doubles as a Gundam movie, but it's also very different from what you'd actually expect from a Detective Conan movie. There isn't even much detecting going around here. It's definitely not the movie to use if you want to introduce a friend to Detective Conan, but as a piece of entertainment for the fans, The Darkest Nightmare was really, really awesome.

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　純黒の悪夢（ナイトメア）』

Zapping Operation

"Vous avez raison. Ce qui a été sera toujours. Arsène Lupin n’est et ne peut être qu’Arsène Lupin."

"Sherlock Holmes arrive trop tard"

“You are right. Nothing can be changed. Arsene Lupin is now and always will be Arsene Lupin."

"Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late"

I'm pretty far in my reading of Leblanc's Lupin series, I've noticed. Just a handful and I'm done!

Maurice Leblanc's Victor, de la Brigade Mondaine ("Victor, of the Vice Squad", 1934) is one of the last Arsène Lupin novels, only followed by La Cagliostro se venge (1935) and two novels published posthumously (one of them 2012's Le Dernier Amour d'Arsène Lupin). The titular Inspector Victor Hautin, of the Vice Squad, is a capable police inspector who one day is set on the trail of a fortune worth of stolen bonds. The original thief of the bonds was himself robbed of his loot however, and Victor keeps chasing after the bonds, but they keep getting stolen by even more thieves, until some person even commits murder to get their hands on them. Victor's main suspect is a mysterious blonde woman he had seen several times over the course of his chase. Meanwhile, the police force is also chasing after Arsène Lupin, who had recently been spotted in Strasbourg and who might also have set his eyes on the bonds.

As you can guess from the cover, I read a Japanese translation. Because Japanese is easier than French. Also note that I read the Minami Youichirou translation. For details, I refer to this post, but basically, his Lupin translations were aimed at children, so the novels have been rewritten to be simpler in structure and wording, and Lupin often acts more like a hero. This particular translation is said to be pretty close to the original novel in terms of structure. More faithful translations of the series were also available in Japan, but they are out of print, lacking the staying power of the Minami translations/rewrites. The Japanese title of this book is Lupin no Daibouken ("Lupin's Great Adventure") by the way.

Victor, de la Brigade Mondaine is, simply said, a fairly decent Lupin novel. Is it a big adventure-filled epic like 813 or Les Dents du tigre? Is it as a  mystery story as captivating as the short stories? No. It is however a well-paced story filled with surprises (even if a bit chaotic at times), with a charismatic protagonist (Victor) as he hunts for the bonds and the murderer who killed for those bonds and with the shadow of Lupin lurking in the background. The one thing I can say without any doubt is that I was never bored with the book, as it keeps changing the momentum. The first section, where you first learn about the bonds' theft, up until the murder for example, is fantastic. Lots of events happening, though always logically linked after another. In the latter half, the story focuses more on Victor's attempt at finding the blonde woman and capturing the illusive thief.

As a mystery novel, Victor, de la Brigade Mondaine is pretty good. While most of the story is about a chase, and doesn't invite for much thinking on the reader's part, there's actually a pretty neat trick that pertains to the identity of the murderer and there's another good set-up for the conclusion of the novel (even if it's kinda a rehash of a device Lebanc has used before). I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised, as other late Lupin novels like La Cagliostro se venge and Le Dernier Amour d'Arsène Lupin were less about the mystery and more about the adventure.

I didn't compare the Minami translation with the original text, but this was a very readable experience, that really had me stuck to the pages right from the beginning. A large part of that definitely comes from Minami's prose, though I really can't say where Minami's influence ends and where it's all Leblanc's writing. This might be the kids' version of the story, but that does not mean it's not fun to read.

With a fair amount of the Lupin novels actually starring the phantom thief Arsène Lupin himself, it's pretty fun to see a whole novel devoted to a character who spends most the time hunting after such an illustrious figure. Sure, there have been some novels where Lupin only appears to help the protagonist of tha particular story, like L’Île aux trente cercueils, and there have been the occassional story like L'Aiguille creuse, where we follow a detective character looking for Lupin, but especially the latter format is pretty rare among the 20+ novels. Victor is a smart, pro-active cop who knows his job and it's fun seeing this side of the hunt once in a while in a Lupin novel.

So if you like Arsène Lupin and are in search for a story that focuses less on adventure, but more on a mystery plot, then Victor, de la Brigade Mondaine is a good pick. As I said, I don't know if all the points I raised apply to the original French version, but at least the Minami translation/adaptation of the book was enjoyable.

Original Japanese title(s):　モーリス・ルブラン（原）、南洋一郎（訳）　『ルパンの大冒険』

Negative Reaction

混ぜるな。危険。

Danger. Do not mix.

As always, I only started watching the 2015-2016 season of Aibou after the 2016-2017 season started. I really always forget about this series until a new season starts...

Aibou ("Partners") series
Aibou Eleven
Aibou 12
Aibou 13
Aibou 14 

The long-running series Aibou ("Partners") has been the police procedural on Japanese television for over a decade now. The series started in 2000 and details the adventures of Sugishita Ukyou, an eccentric, but brilliant police inspector in charge of the Special Order Unit within the Metropolitan Police Department. This might sound like an important function within the police organization, but Sugishita has in fact been put there because the higher-ups deem him too troublesome: while everyone knows Sugishita is in possession of an amazing mind, they also know his sense of justice is unbendable, and that he will never play along with the political games going on within the police organization. The SOU exists solely to keep Sugishita close by in case they do need him. Management also sends troublesome officers to the SOU: the combination of the peculiar Sugishita, and the fact that the unit has no investigative authority whatsover and is very seldom given an assignment (usually in the spirit of 'Return evidence to next of kin'), is usually enough to make those unwanted officers quit the force on themselves. But once in a while, Sugishita finds an understanding partner (hence the title Partners). The official purpose of the Special Order Unit is to undertake special tasks, but Sugishita interprets the meaning of his two-man unit as 'Unless there is a special order not to, they're free to do whatever they want', and so Sugishita often invites himself, together with his partner, to investigations of interesting cases.

In the finale of the thirteenth season of Aibou, Sugishita's third partner Kaito had to leave the SOU, and Sugishita was forced to take extended time off. Aibou 14, which ran from October 2015 until March 2016, starts off with Sugishita's return to Japan. He's surprised to find a guest has been using the SOU office during his long absence: Kaburagi Wataru is a young bureaucrat in the Ministry of Justice, and protégé of the Administrative Vice-Minister of Justice. Kaburagi has chosen to pass some time at the Metropolitan Police Department as a step in his career. Police management sees Kaburagi as simply a guest from the Ministry of Justice (or even a spy), and as Kaburagi does not participate with police investigations in general, he usually spends his free time in the SOU office. While the two realize they have very little in common in terms of personality and habits, Sugishita and Kaburagi do work together to solve a murder case that happened within a prison, and as expected from this series, the reaction of the mix between these two men leads to surprising results.

This is the fourth time I've written an Aibou review, and I have to admit, it's getting more difficult. At the core, the series seldom really surprises in term of structure. As always, the series is a fairly diverse police procedural with a distinct social school background. Crimes in this series are almost always a result of some social injustice either happening in the 'normal' society, or in the society at the level of government organzations and the politics that drive them. Often, an Aibou episode has two 'levels': one is a personal crime, which is a result of some bigger social problem. While crimes of the first part are of course always solved (it is a police procedural), often episodes end with a darker tone as we see how underlying social and political problems still go on as always. That said though, Aibou can definitely do a lot with this formula. Some episodes will focus more on the human drama, while others are pure puzzle plot mysteries. Episodes with old-fashioned locked room murders are followed by episodes providing sharp commentary on the status of the foreign labor force. Every week is basically a surprise, as you never really know what's coming.

I am not going to discuss each of the twenty episodes in this season (of which three are feature-length specials), so like with the previous season reviews, I'll just briefly address some of the highlights. What stood out was that this season had quite a number of episodes with a supernatural hook. The first episode, Frankenstein's Confession, is about an urban legend going in a prison: a guard is killed by a prisoner, who claims he was told to do so by the voice of an infamous, but deceased previous inhabitant of the facility. Episode 7, A Strange Tale of a Kimono, is about a spooky message found written inside a second-hand kimono. While the mystery is rather easy, it's a good example of the type of mystery Aibou can also do, as it's not really a story about a crime (even though this is a police procedural). Episode 8, The Miracle of the Last Installment, starts with the murder on a publisher. However, at the same time the murder happened, a comic artist working for the publisher was working on the last installment of her series, and the panels she drew were exactly like the crime scene. Sugishita and Kaburagi investigation in this premonition comic is one of the more entertaining episodes. Other episodes with supernatural touch include the two-parter The Mountain That Spirits People Away. Episode 5, 2045, strangely enough deals with the opposite of the supernatural, as it's about a complex AI which can analyze crime scene data to arrive at a conclusion on its own.

The social school background of the series can be found in its portrayal of the theme of a current topic like terrorism in both the mid-season special (Heroes ~ Those With Sins) and the final episode (Last Case). The mid-season special focuses on a bomb terrorist who made a deal with the Ministry of Justice in the past, but has now started activities again, while the finale starts off with a class of cops-in-training being brutally shot by a fellow student during their shooting range at the academy, revealing himself to be part of a terrorist group targeting not the common people, but the authorities, specifically the ministers. The plot mixes up grand scale terrorism with a pretty neat puzzle plot.

The standout episode of this season is episode 17: A Physicist and his Cat. The episode starts simple enough, when Sugishita and Kaburagi visit a university to return the personal belongings of a professor who died during an experiment gone wrong, but the way the story develops is really a fantastic surprise.I'd say that the use of Schrödinger's cat in this episode was brilliant, resulting in a unique story that might not be overly complex in terms of a mystery plot, but incredibly memorable nonetheless.

Like in each season, regular and semi-regular characters also get a couple of character-focused episodes. Jinkawa, a police officer who has the habit of falling really easily in love with persons who usually turns out to be the murderer, for example usually shows up once every season. His episode was a very human-drama based episode and can be quite surprising. The forensic investigator Yonezawa on the other hand, a regular who was popular enough to get his own spin-off film, says goodbye in the final episode of this season, as he leaves the crime scene to educate a new generation at the police academy.

Overall though, I have to admit this season on the whole did not feel as strong as previous series. It fet like there were fewer traditional puzzle plot episodes this season, and the couple episodes that were featured, were not especially strong.

I did like the new partner Kaburagi though. Unlike the previous three partners, Kaburagi is not a policeman, so he falls outside the usual line of command. In fact, he is often very critical of how the police, and as a high-ranking beaurocrat, he actually has a fair amount of pull here and there through his many acquaintances. He might be the partner with the most authority until now. He is also portrayed as the opposite of Sugishita in many ways (Sugishita is a tea-drinker, while Kaburagi is a coffee expert. Both hate being passengers in the other's car, etc.) What makes Kaburagi especially interesting as a partner is that he visibly enjoys seeing Sugishita solving crimes in his own unique way, and even obstructs police investigation in order to clear the way for Sugishita.

But in short, Aibou 14 is basically same old, same old. The new partner does bring a new dynamic to the series (this season also featured more dealings with the Ministry of Justice than previous seasons), but at the core, Aibou remains an amusing police procedural that can surprise the reader each time by taking on a different form. This particular season does feel a bit weak in terms of really impressive episodes, but taken on the whole, I thought it was an entertaining series. Season 15 started last week by the way, which has Kaburagi joining the police force officially, so that could shake things up again. And it's very likely I'll be reviewing that series in about a year, when Aibou 16 starts.

Original Japanese title(s): 『相棒14』

Unnatural Death

Ride on shooting star 

心の声で散弾銃のように

唄い続けた

「Ride on Shooting Star」（The Pillows）

Ride on shooting star

With the voice of my heart / like a shotgun

I kept on singing

"Ride on Shooting Star" (The Pillows)

Okay, my version didn't actually feature this cover, but I like to pretend it did, because I love this cover for all its cheesiness.

Reaching the stars was no longer a dream for human kind when aliens contacted Earth. Earth learned it was not alone in the universe: there was the Monwaingi culture, a society which has recently discovered space travel themselves and was now sharing its knowledge with the Earthlings. Earth was positioned at the fringes of the conflict between two larger space cultures: at one side, there were the Vorloks, a warlord society, and on the other side you had the Kandemir, a nomadic invader culture. In just a few decades, several nations on Earth had set up projects for space exploration, some with self-built ships, some with ships obtained from the Monwaingi. The Europa for example, a Pan-Euroean female-only ship, had left Earth to explore faraway cultures, while the male-only ship USS Benjamin Franklin went to visit the core of the Milky Way. On their way back to home after their three-year expedition though, the USS Benjamin Franklin return to something nobody could have expected. The whole Earth has been destroyed. The ship barely makes it out of a missile field laid around the remains of Earth, but once on safe grounds, the crew only has questions: What happened to Earth? Where should they go now? And the most important question; Whodunnit? Who killed an entire planet? Engineer Carl Donnan, assisted by his  Monwaingi friend Ramri, takes command of the ship and the three-hundred men and it's these last remaining humans who are trying to figure out who was behind the murder of a planet in Poul Anderson's After Doomsday (1962).

It's been a while since I read a mystery science-fiction novel. Asimov's Robot books have mostly been great puzzle plot mysteries, while James P. Hogan's Inherit the Stars was as hard as science fiction could get, but still an excellent alibi-cracking mystery about a corpse that died ten thousands of years earlier than he could've. Poul Anderson's After Doomsday does not paint a future world as comprehensive as the ones featured in the books mentioned above, but it obviously does feature an incredibly interesting premise for a mystery plot that only a science fiction story could present, as it's a whodunnit about the murder of Earth itself!

While the mystery of what destroyed Earth is the driving force of the plot, I do have to say that most of the book is about how Donnan and the rest of the crew of the Franklin first try to recover from the enormous shock they got, and then have some swashbuckling adventures in space. Okay, it's not that adventurey, but Donnan's plan to find as other remaining human ships wandering space is to raise as much hell in space as possible about the destruction of Earth so rumors of their exploits will spread across the universe. After Doomsday is definitely not as close to the 'classic' mystery genre like the Robot novels, nor as methodological as Inherit the Stars.

The scale of the problem of the destroyed Earth is what both makes this book so alluring, as well as frustrating at times. First of all: the premise of the "murder" of planet Earth is brilliant. Seriously. We've seen Aldaraan being blown up to bits, but we saw who the 'murderer' was. Here we have a victim of a scale you could never see in a 'realistic' mystery novel. But the scale is also alienating. Sure, some of the characters mention they had loved ones on Earth, but on the whole, talking about the death of a complete planet is just so surreal, it doesn't really hit you. Talking about Earth this, Earth that makes it feel like Earth is of equal value as one 'normal' victim, especially seen from the perspective of interstellar politics. The narrative does sometimes mention specific Earth nations and regions, but that on the other hand makes it feel very weird, as it'd seem unlikely the actions of one part of the Earth could have such influence on space politics. It's the same with the suspects. Suspects in After Doomsday aren't people, or even groups. It's entire space cultures, which makes the whole problem seem so intangible. On the other hand: we have one mere human as the protagonist-detective. There is definitely a scaling problem.

While I did correctly guess the culprit based on the one vital clue, I have to admit that I didn't actually manage to make a logical reasoning based on that clue, as my err... mastery of a certain rather basic academic field isn't that good. I mean, I knew what the clue must have meant, and I could direct you to the pages that'd support my theory, but I couldn't academically prove it. I had to look it up on the all-knowing Internet later, but it appears that Anderson made two rather crucial mistakes in the one vital clue (See this Japanese source). Which make it unsolvable. I mean, you can solve if if you follow the logic as explained in the novel (or as the reader themselves deduced), but the clue itself, as written down in the book by Anderson, does not lead to the solution as explained by Donnan in the narrative. I'm not sure whether they are unfortunate typos, or 'real' mistakes, but at any rate, the two misses are very painful mistakes, especially they happen in what is basically the only tangible clue in the whole story. Mind you: I still wouldn't have been able to really solve it even without the mistakes, but obviously, the mistakes aren't going to help!

After Doomsday is not a masterpiece of science-fiction mystery by any means, but despite it flaws (and the vital mistakes), I do have to admit I had a few fun hours with it. I have the feeling that this book, with some minor changes, could've been much more than what it is now, so that is certainly a missed chance, but the mystery of the murdered Earth is really a memorable premise.

Cyber Sleuth

すべてハイになっちゃて　爆発　バトって（イェイ！イェイ！イェイ！イェイ！）

「大！逆！転！」（仮面女子）

Everything becomes high and explodes in a boom (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!) 

"Great! Turnabout!" (Kamen Joshi)

Riajuu is a word in Japanese internet slang meaning "someone with a fulfilling live in the real world". This usually means having a significant other/good job/many friends/etc, and is obviously the opposite from people who stay cooped up in their home all day staring at a screen or a book on their own. Of course, only people who are not riajuu themselves actually use the word, usually with a tone of irritation/jealousy. An often heard phrase for example is riajuu, bakuhatsu shiro (riajuu, blow up!), often jokingly aimed at couples.

In the world of Net High (Vita, 2015), internet society has blended completely with "real" society: the persona you take on on the internet and SNS like Tweeter is the one people actually perceive. The society has also become a class society revolving around riajuu. Your riajuu level is determined by the amount of followers you have on Tweeter. High ranking riajuu get all kinds of privileges, while people in Rank G can't even use public transport. If you have no followers at all, your Tweeter account becomes a zombie account, and you're stripped of all civilian privileges. Recently, a mysterious entity has introduced the concept of ENJ Battles in this world: if you can prove your opponent isn't the fabulous riajuu they claim to be, you can steal their followers (and go up in ranking yourself). One day, the lowest-of-the-low ranking protagonist witnesses how "That Girl", a person he admired, was utterly destroyed by ENJ Battles, and with the help of a special AI sidekick, he decides to participate in ENJ Battles himself to defeat all the riajuu who only think of getting higher in rankings, and to break up this twisted society.

This blog is focused on mystery fiction, and usually it's not difficult to determine what fits within the scope of the blog, or not, but there are the occassional posers. Net High, a videogame released late 2015 for the PS Vita, is one of them. From the summary above, I think few would associate it with mystery fiction. The outlines was that of a science fiction story, with a background in Japanese internet culture, right? Well, yes, but the problem lies with this question: what is mystery fiction? Note that I don't say crime fiction, because there are plently of mystery stories that don't feature crime. In the essence, I think mystery fiction needs to be about a mystery, and the (logical) road to solving that mystery. And with logical, I mean the road to solving the mystery must make sense within the universe of the work. And if we follow this line, Net High definitely does belong on this blog.

Net High is all about exposing the opponents for the frauds they are. The game features mechanics very close to the Ace Attorney series. During an ENJ battle, the opponent brags about how much of a riajuu they are. The protagonist (named "Me") on the other hand has to point out contradictions in the opponent's statements with the help of gossip he gathered before the battle. Like in Columbo, you start out with pointing out little mistakes, which eventually add up to something big. You say you don't eat the food of 'the common people'? But why is there a photograph of gyuudon on your Tweeter account? The final goal of each ENJ Battle is to reveal the True Identity of your opponent. As said above, in Net High everyone appears to other people in the form of the persona they have taken on online. However, by slowly making cracks in this image, you can eventually reveal their true nature. As you progress on the riajuu ranking, you also find out more about how this society came to be.

Mystery games not about solving murders are actually quite rare, and that's where Net High really shines, as it manages to present the player with a true mystery game experience, without any real 'crime' element. Net High is very easy, even after the patch they had to release to make the game slightly more difficut. Finding evidence and locating the contradictions in your opponents' brag-fests isn't difficult at all. But I really enjoyed the game. As a mystery about uncovering the true persona of your opponents, Net High is a really entertaining, and satisfying game and can thus be considered a true mystery game with a very original setting.
 
Nowdays, much of people's life occurs online and there have of course been many instances where not-so-nice people have used online information to get to a person in "real life". In Net High, you're the one doing this internet-sleuthing and while it first it might feel a bit stalker-y, the tone of the game luckily keeps it from going into too serious territories (most of the time, you will uncover a big, but fairly amusing secret). And like in Ace Attorney, part of the fun is watching how your opponents break down as they're being exposed.

For those interested in Japanese pop culture: this game is filled with internet references. Example: the ENJ Battles' presentation is based on NicoNico Douga's video player (the largest Japanese video sharing website), with comments 'floating' across the screen. And for those who are interested, but aren't well-versed in net-lingo yet: don't worry, most of the terms are explained through a sort of dictionary function. So those studying Japanese might even find the game handy as a sort of introducion to Japanese internet slang (and other pop culture references).

On the whole, Net High is not a particularly pretty game, or a game with a very memorable soundtrack. It's also a fairly simple game. But when the story and the characters are good, and the easy gameplay is still satisfying, well then, that's all that matters, right? Net High is a mystery game I really enjoyed, because of its original setting. What more do I need to say?

Original Japanese title(s): 『ネットハイ』