Tokyo: A Love Story

Akimitsu Takagi's 1948 novel Shisei Satsujin Jiken (published in English first as The Tattoo Murder Case by Soho Crime in 1999, republished as The Tattoo Murder by Pushkin Vertigo in 2022) happens to be one of the first books that kickstarted my fascination with Japanese crime literature. As it was the only title missing from my collection of Pushkin Vertigo's translated Japanese titles, I recently decided to buy and revisit it after a period of eight-odd years. So, how did the trip down memory lane fare for me this time around?

Eight years are a long time for anyone to forget major chunks of a work, but I must admit I was pleasantly surprised at how much I remembered the setting of this novel. Against the backdrop of a wound as raw as World War II, it must have been difficult for an author to replicate its ambience. But, Takagi pulls it off and evokes the atmosphere of a bombed-out, defeated, post-World War II Japan in a manner that is refreshingly different from Seishi Yokomizo's Death on Gokumon Island, a work that was written and published in roughly the same time period. I keep returning to the opening two paragraphs of the novel that firmly establish the environs where the work will be set in and locates it strictly in a very particular time period:

"It was the summer of 1947, and the citizens of Tokyo, already crushed with grief and shock over the loss of the war, were further debilitated by the languid heat. The city was ravaged. Seedy-looking shacks had sprung up on the messy sites of bombed-out buildings. Makeshift shops overflowed with colorful black-market merchandise, but most people were still living from hand to mouth.

Even in formerly posh neighborhoods around the Ginza, the same pathetic scenario was being played out. During the day, ragged crowds of people with empty eyes would meander aimlessly about the crossroads, mingling with the American soldiers who strutted along triumphantly in their dashing uniforms. When evening rolled around, the rubble-strewn streets teemed with prostitutes, petty criminals, and vagabonds seeking a cheap night’s lodging. The uneasy silence of the night was frequently shattered by the report of a pistol."

Author Takagi's interest in an unfamiliar Tokyo provides fuel for the seedy atmosphere that he sustains for a majority of the novel, and his gaze (which he shares with the readers) has a flâneur-like quality in the opening stretches. Page after page, chapter after chapter, we travel through the charred streets and neighbourhoods of Tokyo to witness the curious, sometimes aimless, movements of the characters whose lives and motivations have taken unpredictable turns after the war. The overall, pointless, arbitrary nature of survival in a post-war period is best illustrated when Akimitsu describes the existing buildings in the several locales spread across the city. For instance, one is introduced to the opulent mansion of Professor Hayakawa as follows: "Professor Hayakawa had married money as well as beauty. He and his tattooed wife lived in Yotsuya in a splendid European-style brick house with leaded windows, wrought-iron balconies, and a classical English garden hidden away behind high brick walls. The house had been spared by some wartime fluke, while both of the formerly elegant dwellings on either side were now bombed-out ruins, overgrown with weeds." This illogical reality of certain settlements surviving with the surrounding ones in ruins persists throughout the novel. And it is against this backdrop that the story unfolds, with many of the key characters relying on the forbidden charms of the underworld and the red-light districts to escape from their mundane, sobering reality of their everyday lives.

The apathy in the lives of a number of the characters in the novel is juxtaposed with the sinister designs of some others. The result is a transformation of the flâneuristic gaze into a voyeuristic one—the object of voyeurism being a magnificent tattoo of the mythical sorcerer Orochimaru on the body of a certain Kinue Nomura. The tattoo is unveiled in all its glory at the first post-war meeting of the Edo Tattoo Society, an event meant for the recreation of a certain section of Tokyo's people suffering a long and terrible summer. This act of exhibitionism sparks a chain of events that leads different characters to 'tail' this bewitching tattoo and its owner for different reasons: first, Kenzo Matsushita (an aspiring student of forensic medicine), Professor Hayakawa (also called Dr Tattoo), Gifu Inazawa (the manager of the company owned by Kinue's husband, Takezo Mogami), and later, Ryokichi Usui (Kinue's former yakuza lover) and Tsunetaro Nomura (Kinue's brother, who had supposedly perished in World War II). Now, tailing is an essential tool for detectives—and as the late Sari Kawana mentions in her work, Murder Most Modern, it even allowed scholars and researchers in the 1920s and 1930s to put on their thinking caps and step in the shoes of a sleuth (a fact well illustrated in Kawana's encapsulation of a slightly creepy social experiment involving the tailing of a woman in a department store and then making observations based on her shopping habits and buying patterns). Not surprisingly then, the act of tailing became a keystone of crime and detective fiction works in the country—an investigative tool of such sanctity that deductions could safely be made on the basis of these actions and the secrets unearthed consequently.

When it comes to tailing, Edogawa Ranpo usually played it straight in his "ero guro nansensu" (erotic-grotesque nonsense) stories such as "The Stalker in the Attic". However, The Tattoo Murder (which mirrors some of the aesthetics of Ranpo's ero guro nansensu) subverts the role and purpose of tailing by turning it on its head and changing it into a tool of misdirection which fools not only the characters caught in a trap but also the police who draw their observations based on their misguided surveillance and pursuit of the suspects and the testimonies made. From the standpoint of the miscreants, however, it all unfolds perfectly like a well-rehearsed script. Kinue Nomura, the subject of much fascination, plays the role of a damsel-in-distress-cum-femme-fatale, using her feminine charms (and her tattoo, of course) to appeal to men like Gifu and Kenzo ("I feel that I am going to be killed very soon ... A terrible death is stalking me, and I am terrified of what may lie in wait. I fear my days are numbered, and the happiness I’ve found with you will be cruelly snatched away.… You’re the only one who can rescue me, my love."), even making out with them. However, the dismembered body parts of Kinue are soon discovered in the locked bathroom of their Japanese-style house, with her husband having ostensibly disappeared. To add further suspicion, Kenzo, Gifu, Ryokichi and Professor Hayakawa are all discovered to have visited the scene of the crime on the evening or the day after for their own, not-so-honourable ends. One by one, the authorities shift their focus on each of the suspects while simultaneously bringing to light the murky past of Kinue and her family (consisting of her father Horiyasu, an incredibly talented tattoo artist, her mother, a hardened criminal who ran away and died in person, her sister Tamae, who was supposed to have passed away in the Hiroshima explosion and her brother Tsunetaro, who had gone to serve in the Philippines during the  war and was listed as missing in action). It is also believed that Horiyasu had left a curse on each of his offsprings by etching three mythological characters on their bodies (Orochimaru on Kinue's, Tsunadehime on Sanae's and Jiraiya on Tsunetaro's). Such an act is considered to be taboo, because the three are warring magicians who are said to have destroyed each other—and with Kinue's death, the prophecy seems to have been fulfilled. Except, the killings don't quite stop at this point—a few days later, the body of Takezo Mogami is found in the storeroom of an abandoned building, a bullet hole above his right ear. And, in yet another turn of events, Tsunetaro turns out to be alive with a tattoo business of his own, only to soon end up dead (for real, this time) in a burnt-out building with the skin removed from his torso, hands and thighs, after promising to expose the perpetrators. This intense, secretly manipulated tailing and pursuit has no happy, satisfactory ending for any of the parties concerned.

Takagi's love for the art and the culture of the Japanese tattoo shines through the novel—and it is no surprise that the trick behind the case of a mistaken identity revolves around the process of tattoo engraving and removal. A review of the book termed it as "a document of the times", and this is best seen in sections where Takagi reveals, with an almost journalistic flourish, the harsh realities of post-war Japan that people could scarcely believe would have come to pass—women, both elderly and preteen, thrown into prostitution; the intricate and artistic Japanese tattoo as a symbol of superiority over the "unimaginative" American tattoo, providing solace (in a perverse way) to a population hurting from a wartime loss; tattoo parlours in hidden alleys being meeting grounds for the affluent and the downtrodden where skilled but outlawed tattoo artists sketched and imprinted these symbols of national pride and identity, flouting strict rules prohibiting such practices. Takagi paints the underworld and, in particular, the shady, tattooing industry in post-war Tokyo in vivid, sensual detail and in a sensitive, sympathetic manner that should resonate well with the layman reader. The rules, etiquettes and the inner workings of the world of the Japanese tattoo artists too are explained in a comprehensible, but perhaps excessively earnest, way.

Till this point, the narrative develops organically, providing reasons, along the way, for a reader to develop interest in Japanese history and culture. The denouement, comprising the last third of the novel, comes as a bit of a surprise, though. The arrival of the amateur detective Kyosuke Kamizu, who provides the much-needed "fresh point of view" and "miracle", signals the beginning of a significant tonal shift. Hereon, Takagi completely drops the ball on the creepy, seedy atmosphere he had so painstakingly established and rushes towards the endgame with a ruthlessness and clinical efficiency that would have done Freeman Wills Crofts proud. Gone are the discussions on the Japanese tattoo and the importance of mythological stories in the world of the Japanese tattoo; these are instead replaced with conversations on Western philosophies and ways of thought, and deliberations on Kamizu's pet theory of "criminal economics". For a novel that caters so much to Japanese tastes, cultures and sensibilities, The Tattoo Murder sure does proclaim the superiority and triumph of Western perspectives and methods of detection in its final stretches. The locked-room murder is explained satisfactorily and competently but in an uninspired, perfunctory manner, while a final dramatic twist and reveal is perhaps an inevitable development that may be considered predictable by today's standards.

When I referred to The Tattoo Murder as a novel of a very specific time period, I may have subconsciously also been hinting at the unfortunate, excessive cross-pollination of genre aesthetics and mechanics in its final portions—a development that was perhaps inevitable in that era. That is why this treatment is perfectly understandable too—for an author like Takagi writing right after the end of World War II, the challenge must have been to incorporate Japanese aesthetics and sensibilities in a genre that was essentially seen as a Western import. And, make no mistake—The Tattoo Murder as a mystery novel is a gripping page-turner of the first order that also wonderfully explores a city in ruins and offers fascinating insights into aspects of an oft-ignored profession and class of society (at that time). As a Japanese mystery, however, the lack of an organic conclusion stunts its status somewhat and, in my humble opinion, prevents it from reaching the heights of Seishi Yokomizo's The Inugami Curse and Death on Gokumon Island.  

(This post was published on the Scroll website with the following title: The Tattoo Murder’ injects local aesthetics into a post-World War II Japanese crime novel)

A Matter of Inheritance

It is often said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But, how relevant is this adage for a genre such as crime fiction, where tropes abound and the charm, in many cases, lies in the variations of a common core idea or the diverse ways in which the works treat a particular, familiar theme? Is there a case to be made for a distinction between good and bad imitation in crime fiction? And, to what degree and what kind of imitation can be considered permissible in the first place?

This isn't the space for discussing the intricacies of Aristotlelian thought, but his contention that a poet is both a creator and imitator may serve as an important clue to the questions posed above. Unlike Plato, Aristotle does not consider poetry to be inferior to the 'ideal', especially as he posits imitation to be a human instinct via which people, particularly children, learn more about their surroundings and reality.

It's not quite in the same context, but a similar argument can be made in the case of crime fiction. After all, discerning readers are often able to point out the oddest commonalities between works separated by decades and countries. It is the reason why the genre is particularly prone to being categorised—in John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man (1935), for instance, Dr Gideon Fell delivers a most memorable locked room lecture, where he lists the miscellaneous possible ways in which a near-perfect crime can be committed in normally impossible situations. The chapter would pave the way for contemporary and future authors to put forth their own theories in a manner similar to Carr's—Clayton Rawson's Death from a Top Hat (1938) and Abiko Takemaru's Shinsoban 8 no satsujin (1989, translated as The 8 Mansion Murders in 2018) come to mind. An even more commonplace example would be the classic 'no footprints' scenario—a trope that has seen numerous variants and received multiple treatments over the ages from authors as varied as Carr, Keikichi Ōsaka, Gosho Aoyama, Seimaru Amagi, Paul Halter, among others. Or, if one is looking for a more specific example, how about the mechanism used to murder Louise in Agatha Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)? A more modern treatment of the same trick can be found in episode 31 of the Detective Conan anime ("TV Station Murder case", an adaption of chapters 102 to 104 of the manga), set in a TV studio where the culprit uses a pistol instead of a block of stone.

What these examples illustrate is a cardinal advantage and privilege exercised by crime-fiction writers—that it is possible to be immensely creative while borrowing influences, cues and prompts from sources not their own. Or, rather, to use an Aristotlelian conception, it is possible to see and understand the genre as it is, as it was and as it is likely to be, through a study of the ways in which a core theme or trope (the 'ideal', so to say) has been addressed over time.

But, there's also a pitfall associated with mimesis. Once in a while, however, there comes an idea so unorthodox, immaculate and complete in its conception and execution that it is not easy at all to creatively imitate it. Any effort to borrow such inspired plots/tricks/settings without a similar inspired vision to take it in a new direction is more than likely to end in disaster. In this rarefied category, I would probably include the likes of Soji Shimada's The Tokyo Zodiac Murders and Masahiro Imamura's Shijinso no satsujin (2017, translated as Death Among the undead in 2021). Which is why, every year, during my annual Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo binge-reading and -watching phase, I remain ever perturbed by the presence of that exceptional anomaly called the "Ijinkan Village Murder Case"—a story that dared to copy and depict, in this entirety and most faithfully too, the central dismembering trick employed in The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. My observation, thus, on this unmitigated disaster of a storyline is limited to the following—what in the world was the mangaka thinking? I mean, there may have been a dozen different ways in which they could have employed the backgrounds, settings and plot to good effect without going the route of imitating, to the point of plagiarising, Shimada's creation. 

Usually, I need a palate-cleanser to rinse off the bitter aftertaste of labouring through the Ijinkan chapters. This year, my choice was the "Russian Dolls Murder Case" arc—and, as luck would have it, this happened right after I had completed reading Seishi Yokomizo's The Inugami Curse. Which may as well have been one of the happiest coincidences imaginable, for I now consider the "Russian Dolls Murder Case" to be a masterful and most innovative and subtle tribute to the essence and spirit of Yokomizo's original—one that borrows and subverts elements from The Inugami Curse for its own purposes.

***

Inugamike no Ichizoku (1950–1951, translated first as The Inugami Clan, retitled The Inugami Curse later) is one of the most famous and recognisable works of detective fiction both in Japan as well as the world outside—and for good reason. To me, it is a novel that can be sufficiently appreciated by both Western and Japanese audiences. Of course, Yokomizo pays homage to Western influences in his previous works such as The Honjin Murders, but the influences are much more visible here from the word go and in the way the plot progresses. In The Inugami Curse, you instantly have a setup that screams classic, Golden Age Detective Fiction even though it is used in a typically Japanese setting with a number of references to Japanese culture, mythology and contemporary events (World War II, for instance). But, at the heart of the book is the good ol' intergenerational struggle for inheritance between the members of a clan triggered by the provisions of an extremely complicated will left by a dying business mogul, Sahei Inugami. It's a trope common to detective fiction since the publication of Anna Katherine Green's The Leavenworth Case (1878).

What follows is an extremely well-paced and competent mystery that reads far less pulpish than other offerings such as The Honjin Murders and The Village of Eight Graves. The breakneck speed at which things happen in the other two novels is replaced here with pregnant pauses that somehow contrive to make the atmosphere far more foreboding and sinister than it otherwise would be. The body count may be paltry compared to that seen in The Village of Eight Graves, but when it delivers, The Inugami Curse does so in spades. And part of it has to do with the fact that the novel takes its own sweet time to build up to its own unique crescendos which are not disparate but are instead connected by a common thread—that of mitate satsujinjiken (themed murders), the framework and seeds of which Yokomizo painstakingly and admirably builds in the aforesaid will and then proceeds to scatter throughout his work.

Yokomizo also employs a host of familiar tricks and elements to enhance the mystery quotient—mistaken identities, missing and confusing fingerprints, the disfigured body of a war veteran, impersonations, a complex family tree with hidden relations still to be unearthed, among others. But, these are not used at random. It is all logically reasoned out at the end, but at the moments when they are used (in an incredibly timely fashion, one must add), they create this sensation of things being premeditated and plotted from one character's perspective with other developments, part of another person's plan, being outside the control and vision of the former person, all at the same time. These individual, yet co-dependent, plots intersect during the aforesaid, timely pregnant pauses and are masterfully hidden (but hinted at) from the reader—a ploy that serves to enhance the levels of suspense and foreboding, while also adequately conveying a sense of inevitability at the end of it all.

A still from Kon Ichikawa's 1976 film, The Inugami Family. Ichikawa would remake the same in 2006, this time titled as The Inugamis

What also strikes one is how visually enabling The Inugami Curse really is. The striking visual characteristics of some of the characters, the picturesque environs of Lake Nasu and some of the most stunning scenes and sequences surrounding the murders of some of the characters ensure that one will not forget the novel in a hurry. It is also one of the reasons why The Inugami Curse is one of the most widely-adapted works in Japanese media, with subsequent creators paying homage to its elements, plots, tropes and scenes in the form of manga, TV episodes, films (Kon Ichikawa's adaptations for instance), and more—either in the form of a plain adaptation, pastiches, or in the naming and visual descriptions of characters, or by subverting the usual Yokomizo-esque elements to create a unique work of its own. In fact, the far-reaching influence of the book and the movies can even be found in a mecha anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion that recreates the iconic 'frozen lake' scene.

***

In the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo canon, "Russian Dolls Murder Case" is one of the cleverer and subtler nods to The Inugami Curse. There are more obvious tributes to Kindaichi Sr. in this series of course, especially with regards to the visual depictions of characters—the "Hida Mechanical Mansion Murder Case" and the "Demon God Site Murder Case" come to mind. But, "Russian Dolls Murder Case" is far above such cursory gestures to its inspiration. 

For one, it recreates the classic inheritance-dispute scenario from The Inugami Curse and the plot is built along the lines of a mitate satsujinjiken as well. But, there are some key differences here. The 'family' in "Russian Dolls Murder Case" is not one formed by acrimonious blood relations; instead, they are brought together in an equally perverse manner as the relations of a famous author. The second point is the question of the will in this story arc. It is played in a relatively straightforward manner by Yokomizo, but here, there's an extra layer. The addition of a cryptic cipher that points to the location of the will gamefies the story and adds unpredictability and a ruthless battle royale-esque element to the proceedings, in which the characters are eliminated one by one in classic fashion. The cipher also ends up inverting the structure of the plot and the sequence of proceedings established in The Inugami Curse. In Yokomizo's work, all the murders, barring one, are carried out after the will is read. However, in "Russian Dolls Murder Case", all the murders take place before the true meaning of the cipher and by extension, the real location of the will, are discovered.

The Russian mansion in the "Russian Dolls Murders Case"

This subversion of key elements from The Inugami Curse, by first acknowledging them and then using them for its own ends, can be found throughout this story arc. 

• For instance, the main setting of Yokomizo's novel—that of a mansion surrounded by an enormous lake—is replicated here, expect that it is a Western-style mansion in comparison to the Japanese one seen in Yokomizo's. As with The Inugami Curse, however, the Russian mansion too plays a key role in the episodes of the story arc. 
• The Russian dolls, which lend themselves to the title of the story arc, are reminiscent of the Japanese doll-set at the scene of the first murder in The Inugami Curse. However, unlike the former, where the Japanese dolls form a part of only that set-up to advance only one particular element of the themed murders, the Russian dolls in the latter are present throughout and form a connecting thread to thematically link the murders, and play an integral role in the final solution of the cipher.
• Other neat tributes to The Inugami Curse are present throughout "Russian Dolls Murder Case". One of the characters, for instance, is named Inukai (literally, "dog guardian") a sly reference to the Inugamis (literally, "dog gods") in Yokomizo's work. There's also a beheading reminiscent of the first murder in The Inugami Curse—but here, it is not played straight and is instead used as a red herring to lure the culprit into a false sense of security and thereby force a confession from the person concerned. There's bodily disfigurement here as well—one of the characters has a significant scar on her face, but unlike Kiyo Inugami, it's hidden in a different manner. The character also doesn't survive till the end. Additionally, "Russian Dolls Murder Case" resembles yet another significant Yokomizo novel—Gokumon-tō (1947-1948, translated as Death on Gokumon Island)—in that the legacy and actions of a prominent deceased character orchestrate the actions of the rest of the cast from beyond the grave. Hell, the only thing missing from these episodes is something akin to the famous Lake Nasu scene in The Inugami Curse.

Messengers of doom: The Russian dolls in the "Russian Dolls Murder Case"

*** 

To return to a point I had made earlier, "Russian Dolls Murder Case" is everything that the "Ijinkan Village Murder Case" is not—and, in many ways, is the perfect antidote to cure the maladies of the latter. It feels almost surreal that both arcs, varying so much in their nuances and treatments, could be part of the same series. Additionally, one can well imagine Yokomizo appreciating and enjoying all that "Russian Dolls Murder Case" has to offer by itself and as an 'imitation' of his own work. After all, Yokomizo himself granted artists significant creative liberties when it came to adaptations of his own works. Incidentally, in my opinion, the comparative analysis of these supremely interesting works seems to speak much in favour of a study of the genre through an Aristotlelian lens. When cleverly and innovatively pulled off, 'imitations' rank no less than 'originals' in the world of crime fiction and therefore, should not be considered as inherently inferior and only worthy of being discarded solely due to that fact.