A Night of Fright Is No Delight

Of the many reasons why I still relish a good ol' Scooby Doo yarn is the fact that the original series plays it remarkably straight with urban legends. Whenever Scooby and gang roll into a ghost town, abandoned mine, haunted film set or museum, they are led right into the thick of things, no questions asked. There is, above all, a superb level of suspension of disbelief—an undertaker in a mine or a ghostly space-pilot in an abandoned airfield are allowed to terrorise people in the vicinity unabated, leading to the emergence of rumours and urban legends, till Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, and Fred somehow stumble on such occurrences and solve them with a combination of luck and logic. The cast of the early Scooby Doo series have well-defined roles to which they stick faithfully, enabling audiences to appreciate the diversity in the visualisation of monsters, the tricks and tropes employed, and the many wacky ways in which the incidents are solved, even though the episodes follow a fairly repetitive formula/script.

Recently, I rediscovered this feeling of wacky, undisguised delight when I stumbled upon Nemoto Shou's manga Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura (Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny) in an online forum. As it turns out, Shou's Sharaku Homura is one of these rare instances of a self-published (doujinshi) manga series not only winning an award, but also getting picked up by a major publisher. So, what's the deal about this series?

The best way I can describe Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny is as an inspired, successful blend of Scooby Doo aesthetics, the atmosphere of a Kindaichi Shōnen no Jikenbo story, and the mechanics of Anraku Isu Tantei (Armchair Detective), a classic and critically acclaimed Japanese detective show. The characters in Sharaku Homura—and the villains in particular—seem to be obviously inspired by Scooby Doo characters. While the titular character, Sharaku Homura, possesses a mix of Velma-like curiosity and scientific know-how, and the damsel-in-distress aspect of Daphne, the villains boast of names and gimmicks that would be perfectly at home in the Scooby Doo universe.

The first story, scanlated (a process of fan-made editing and translation) as "The One-Eyed Clown", takes us to the Shimoyama Prefecture where rumours of a certain one-eyed clown starts spreading. This clown is said to appear in the dead of the night, chasing people down with severed heads and other human parts, stealing Buddha statues, before disappearing like smoke. And, according to the word on the street, the clown may also have exacted bloody revenge on its parents by killing them and gouging one of their eyes!

Clowns are scary and evil: (left) the Ghost Clown (from the Scooby Doo episode, "Bedlam in the Big Top") and (right) Sharaku Homura's one-eyed clown

Things get a little too close for comfort for our protagonists from Shimoyama Middle School—Sharaku Homura (of the Experiment Club) and Yamasaki Yousuke (of the Karate Club)—when the clown appears in front of them at night, and proceeds to disappear from a dead-end alley. While the impossibility is solved by the logical Homura in fairly quick order by analysing some possible scenarios, it makes excellent use of the visual format, providing a sample of what the series specialises in.

The first disappearing act

Not surprisingly, the disappearing acts soon escalate to the level of murder, when the clown brutally impales Kasugai Isamu, the school's maths teacher, in a graveyard in front of Homura and Yousuke, and escapes again. What follows next is a game of cat and mouse, with the clown looking to eliminate Homura via elaborate traps. The first time, Homura is lured to a 'doll house' via a fake invitation to Isamu's wake. She is nearly buried in a coffin before Yousuke rescues her.

Murder, bloody murder!

The next trap is even more diabolical and features another disappearing act by the clown. Homura is led to an empty school classroom with a single entrance and no means of exit. The figure of a clown with a barely visible message on a faraway blackboard beckons her to come closer, but for some unfathomable reason, Homura gets scared and runs off from the classroom. As it transpires, she escaped with her life.

The second disappearing act

For me, the favourite aspect of the story, apart from its fast pacing and dense plotting, is the minute attention devoted to visual detail. The steps leading to Homura's deduction—the discrepancies and the clues—are all depicted clearly, with multiple 'flashback' panels that even state which page the clue is located. This treatment makes Sharaku Homura a fair-play mystery series that does not withhold vital information to its readers—much in the manner of Anraku Isu Tantei.

The art of clueing: Flashback scenes and panels solve cases in (left) "Anraku Isu Tantei and the UFO" and (right) "The One-Eyed Clown" (Sharaku Homura series) 

Like Scooby Doo, this story is best enjoyed if one is willing to suspend disbelief for certain aspects—such as the logistics of adults dressing up as over-the-top scary monsters, the strength required to carry out the impaling with that weapon, and the fact that an entire police contingent was willing to listen to the explanations of a criminal who had confessed, instead of first securing him and doing a body check. These reservations aside, the story made me an instant Sharaku Homura fan. The distinctive, DIY-style art, the Kindaichi-esque atmosphere, the use of characters who stick to particular roles, and the fair-play modus operandi make for a refreshing, heady combination that scratches my mystery-solving itch. Highly recommended!