Thank You for the Music

Last year, I started with what I have since termed the 'Detective Conan Rewatch and Reread' project—the goal being to consume the entire franchise (manga, anime series and movies) from the very start in a chronological manner. It has been an instructive experience insofar as the evolution of the art-style and the plots are concerned. Although the series spans three decades with more than 1100 chapters and episodes, it still retains a reasonable degree of freshness and originality in both its main storyline and the fillers, which accounts for its rewatchable nature. 

Although a common criticism the series faces is that its central plot is stretching for far too long, creator Gosho Aoyama's top-notch world-building more than makes up for this. The Detective Conan universe is centred mainly around the fictional Beika City, and Conan and gang often travel all across the town and beyond, resulting in a dizzying variety of settings in which each of the stories/episodes are set: from mansions and restaurants to aquarians and museums to studios to camping and festival sites, and many more. And, in a majority of the cases, the locales play as important an role as the actions of the characters in the way the stories unfold.

There are, however, a few scenarios and themes that Aoyama loves to explore from time to time: music, sports and theatre being some of them. That is why stadiums, studios and theatres have formed the backdrop of a number of significant incidents that Conan has encountered. What I have also observed is a certain consistency in the way Aoyama explores these themes. For instance, stories involving musicians and band members have invariably involved tragic deaths borne out of terrible misunderstandings. 

This template was introduced pretty early in one of the more heart-wrenching stories (no, not this one), "The Karaoke Box Murder Case" (manga chapters: 45–48, anime episode: 42). Conan and his girlfriend, Ran, are invited by their friend, Sonoko, to the private meeting of a popular band, Lex, whose lead singer Kimura Tatsuya happens to be Sonoko's latest crush. What they witness, instead, is the animosity-filled break-up of the band, with the drunken Tatsuya announcing his decision to go solo. In the karaoke box, he humiliates each member of the band, past and present, including the manager, by choosing and requesting songs that would have hit a sore spot with each of them. Finally, he sings his heart out to the tune of his hit song, "Bloody Venus"... before dramatically coughing up blood and dying.

Foreshadowing Tatsuya's death

The mystery mostly unfolds as a howdunnit, but the 'why' and 'who' aspects of it are also quite engrossing. The howdunnit concerns mostly around how Tatsuya could be poisoned without the others getting affected. There are a few plausible and well-thought-out false solutions that keep pointing the needle of suspicion towards different members, and a suicide scenario as well. [Unfortunately, these are rushed through and/or ommited in the anime adaptation of the more nuanced manga arc.] The actual solution, however, makes excellent use of the habits and mannerisms of singers while performing—something the killer uses to precise and devastating effect. Ironically enough, the culprit is revealed when Conan (using the voice of Shinichi Kudou) asks the culprit to mimic the exact actions of the deceased, and then produces the two material evidences to decisively corner the criminal.

There is no doubt that an element of fortune is required to reveal the 'who' and 'why' of it all, but it doesn't make the tragedy any less poignant. At the centre of it is Aoyama's reflection on how musical fame and stardom can quietly devastate performers, make them lonely and unable to connect with their near and dear ones and communicate people. There are also two cautionary messages—one on taking one's need to be noticed and loved to extreme levels by making drastic changes to one's personality, the other on masking vulnerability, keeping up a facade, and displaying too much of tough love—both of which play major roles in the unfolding of the tragedy of the karaoke box.

Aoyama takes a shot at the extremes of manipulated musical fandom in "The Devil of the TV Station" (manga chapters: 591–593, anime episode: 488). Conan and his friends Mitsuhiko, Ayumi, and Genta, along with Professor Agasa, visit a TV station to see the studio of a popular kids' show, Kamen Yaiba. The plan, however, fails to materialize, as the actress, Yoko Okino, who had invited them for the tour, mentions that their schedules are tight and packed for the day. Instead, they come across Satan Onizuka, the lead singer of the visual kei band Styx III, in full KISS/Satan makeup, who is scheduled for a TV appearance in the afternoon. Back in his dressing room, Onizuka asks his manager to order food from three outlets as well as a hand mirror to fix his makeup (since the mirrors in his room are broken). He also expressly instructs the manager not to let anyone disturb or enter the room since he would be removing his makeup and take a nap in his room before the interview. The next time, we encounter Onizuka is when Mitsuhiko knocks on the door of his room, requesting an autograph for his sister. Onizuka appears, once again, in full makeup—an appearance that also coincides with the arrival of the police as Tenji Urushibara, the president of the entertainment company representing Onizuka and his band, is found dead in the station with several stab wounds. Suspicion naturally falls on Onizuka who recently had a heated argument with Tenji, but Onizuka has a solid defence—how could he have committed the deed with his makeup on, and with no one in the busy station having observed his movements from his room to the president's, two floors above?

The devil's due: outlining a murder plan

While less musically inclined than "The Karaoke Box Murder", "The Devil of the TV Station" certainly has its points of interest. The modus operandi of the murder is a tightrope act involving multiple moving parts and actors—makeup, impersonation, origami, rulers, raincoats, and restaurant delivery people. In particular, I like the rationale behind the use of three different restaurants to deliver food. However, with a limited cast, the case unfolds much like an episode of Columbo or Furuhata Ninzaburou—here too, the audience is made aware pretty early on who the culprit is; only the method remains to be uncovered. 

A dash of tragedy is added in the murder motive—it is here that Aoyama critiques the excesses and manipulation of musical fandom. At a time when Onizuka had lost his voice three years ago, a young girl took her own life and 'offered her blood' as a sacrifice to aid Onizuka's recovery—a horrific event stemming from a stunt by Tenji who left messages in Onizuka's name (unbeknownst to the singer himself) on online forums and message boards exhorting the followers to offer sacrifices. The event leaves a terrible scar on Onizuka himself, who visits the girl's parents, then spirals into depression, and loses his creative songwriting impulses, leading to a dissociation between him as a person and the persona he portrays and the lyrics (on curses, death, destruction, and violence) that he sings as Satan Onizuka. He is further trapped between a rock and a hard place when Tenji denies him permission to hold a farewell performance for Styx III, instead threatening him with legal action if he chose to walk out before the contract extracted. It is this toxic cocktail of tipping points that ultimately leads to the events of "The Devil of the TV Station".

Tragedy strikes again in "The Unfriendly Girls' Band" (manga chapters: 936–938, anime episodes: 836–837), which begins with the big-mouthed Sonoko all gung-ho on starting a high school girls' band. After being embarrassed in Café Poirot (below the Kogorou detective agency) for not being able to play the guitar, Sonoko saves face due to the intervention of Tooru Amuro (or Rei Furuya), another notable detective in the Detective Conan canon, who instructs her on the need to practice. An inspired Sonoko proceeds to drag her classmates, Ran and Sera Masumi (yet another detective), along with Tooru and Conan, to a recording studio. Unfortunately, the rooms all being booked, they have to wait for a fair amount of time during which they encounter a girls' band whose guitarist rebukes all the members for their flawed rehearsals in preparation for a funeral concert for their deceased bandmate, a singer. They adjourn for a 10-minute break, and during which interval Sonoko tries to select the preferred members and their roles for the band. Their reverie is rudely interrupted by a scream—and when Conan, Tooru, and Sera rush to the scene, they find one of the members of the girls' band they had seen previously slumped over the drum set, after being strangled. The CCTV camera footage should have captured the scene and action of crime—either directly or through a reflection on the mirror behind the performance area—but half of the camera was covered by a phone on a selfie stick attached to the mic to record the rehearsal, while curtains had been drawn covering the mirror, on the victim's request. As a result, the footage captured only the victim's slumped-over state without a trace of the perpetrator.

The investigation in progress

While "The Karaoke Box Murder" exploits the habitual itches of performers, "The Unfriendly Girls' Band" makes great use of positional awareness and knowledge of how a band sets itself up on the stage, to figure out how the position of the recording phone was manipulated and whodunnit in the absence of proper CCTV footage. I am less sold, however, on the mechanics of making the murder weapon disappear—a method which, while admittedly inspired, seems improbable to pull off perfectly, without hiccups, in that short a time-frame.

Like the previous two stories, "The Unfriendly Girls' Band" also unfolds as a revenge tragedy due to the underlying motive and backstory. At the centre of it all is a dual misconception regarding the death of their previous bandmate, the singer who had damaged her voice while acting on the advice of the current case's victim. The singer patched things up with the bandmate who had erroneously guided her, and started following the instructions to heal herself up to a t. However, she died while trying to save a boy from a car collision, instead of shouting to warn him—an incident that leads the present case's victim to feel even more guilty. Another bandmate (the perpetrator of the current case) remains unaware of these details, having gone into shock, and solely blames her fellow performer for driving the singer to commit suicide. This intersecting maze of emotions and mistaken beliefs ultimately culminates in the tragic events seen in this storyline.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Songs and music tunes are often believed to bring out human emotions and sentiments in a manner that connects, either viscerally or transcendentally, with the audience at large. However, as these three stories depict, Aoyama subverts these expectations by turning music, songs, and the musical persona into tools of miscommunication and misunderstanding that shed a light on the blind spots that even music and songs cannot illuminate. By purposefully showing the pressures and strains that come with musical performances and showmanship, Aoyama skilfully explores what happens when the musical product is based upon foundations of tragedy, mistaken perceptions and the unpredictable human nature—and how these murky associations can cause a presumably liberating force such as music and songs to be bogged down by the all-too-sordid reality of crime and murder. 

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!

In Search of Lost Time

The cover of Pushkin Vertigo's 2023 English edition of Fūtarō Yamada's 1979 novel, Meiji Dantodai (translated as The Meiji Guillotine Murders) briefly describes the book as follows: "Death stalks Old Edo". It is, I feel, a curiously appropriate descriptor, for reasons that go beyond the initial impressions one gets from it.

Starting out as a mystery author, Yamada (1922–2001) is perhaps best known for his works of historical fantasy such as Kōga Ninpōchō (The Kouga Ninja Scrolls) and Makai Tenshō, many of which have been adapted to films, manga and anime multiple times. A prolific writer, he left his mark in the world of crime fiction as well—The Meiji Guillotine Murders being a top-tier example. It should come as no surprise, though, that what this book shares with his fantasy works is a preoccupation with all things historical.

For me, in a work of historical crime fiction, the historical elements should add to or elevate the experience of consuming the mysteries. These elements, however, should not lead to either of the two circumstances mentioned below:

The historical element basically becomes an excuse for the author to indulge in the dissemination of unsolicited history lessons that are not particularly pertinent to the mysteries themselves.

The historical element is of such critical and excessive importance to the plot that one cannot enjoy the mysteries without properly researching and understanding the aforesaid element, its relevance and context.

The Meiji Guillotine Murders stands out as a shining example of how to imbue a work of mystery fiction with historical details in a manner that does not come across as overbearing. It helps that Yamada is a gifted storyteller—The Meiji Guillotine Murders oozes with an old-world charm (replete with local, cultural details) that transports readers to the era it is set in. Even more important is the ways in which the narrative presents itself—the book unfolds first almost like a jidaigeki (period drama) with the flashy, dramatic appearance of the protagonists, then it evolves into a torimonochō (a somewhat ambiguous term for a style of fiction that imitated the personal 'case notebooks or logs' kept by investigators or police personnel). The use of both forms helps Yamada exercise a reasonable level of creative liberty and dramatisation while also accurately portraying real-life, period-specific politics, events, places and material things.

The novel is set in the aftermath of the Boshin War (1868–1869) and the onset of the Meiji Restoration (1868), the events spanning a three-year period between 1869 and 1871. An era of acute socio-political turmoil marked by several high-profile assassinations, these years saw the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate, the restoration of Imperial rule, and the opening up of the country to the West. Not surprisingly, this period of "chaos-cum-fallowness" was defined as much by "a nationwide sense of collapse" as it was by "a sense of heartfelt relief at the dawning of peace"—a time when "new government sprouted up like bamboo shoots, when new administrative orders came down from on high like rain, and when new customs and ideas came flooding in like a deluge from a harbour", but which also saw "even stranger offices, laws and notions from the old days [...] revived like the souls of the departed and combined, as though mixing together the seven colours of the rainbow—who could say then whether for better or worse—with the end result a chaos of ash-grey."

One of these "even stranger offices [...] from the old days" revived after the Meiji Restoration was the Imperial Prosecuting Office, a long-forgotten institution from the seventh and eighth centuries (CE) that tackled corruption within government departments. The opening two chapters establish the broader context in which the work is set, and introduces readers to the main cast of the book—the two shining lights of the Imperial Prosecuting Office, Chief Inspectors Keishirō Kazuki and Toshiyoshi Kawaji, a French woman Esmeralda Sanson, and five rasotsu ('policemen') who cheat and exploit commoners. The two chapters may not feature mysteries, but are very entertaining nonetheless—Yamada achieves this by presenting well-defined, distinctive characters and scenarios. Keishirō and Toshiyoshi can be recognised by their appearances—Keishirō flaunts a suikan, while Toshiyoshi wears a fuka-amigasa hat, and their apprehension of a vicious gang of robbers resembles scenes from a jidaigeki or a torimonochō drama. With her blonde hair, Esmeralda Sanson is even more of a rarity—a descendant of the infamous Sanson family of Parisian executioners, she is brought to Japan by Keishirō, along with a guillotine which the Imperial Prosecuting Office intends to use for executions instead of the traditional sword. The chapters also establish roles for supporting characters—in the first chapter, for instance, the five rasotsu, who serve as sidekicks, are portrayed as lazy, sleazy and greedy, through a series of amusing sketches. But, what also becomes evident is the reasons they resort to such dishonesty—ranging from the situations in their homes and families to the ways in which these ex-samurai are dealing with changing, conflicting loyalties, and the demands of the new era. Similarly, in the second chapter, readers are exposed to the simmering chaos of the times, and the far-reaching effects of a political assassination—from the way in which the different hierarchies in the Imperial Prosecuting Office and other government departments exploit the situation for their own ends, to how the assassination ends up affecting the conversations and relations between Toshiyoshi and Keishirō, and in their circle of friends and family. What is also established is the 'conceit' that will enable Esmeralda to stay and operate in a Japan that is almost hostile to her.

The mysteries start in earnest from the third chapter onwards, once the groundwork and the rules have been laid. Each tale of mystery (barring the last) begins with a brief segment of a report made by Toshiyoshi that provides a basic outline of the case in question, and ends with a 'performance' by Esmeralda dressed up as a miko (priestess) who communicates with the spirits of the deceased which reveals and denounces their killers. In the first mystery, "A Strange Incident at Tsukiji Hotel", a body is found sliced in half in the great hall of the hotel below the bell tower. In the next one, "From America with Love", a rickshaw with a man plunges into a river drowning its occupant. In the surrounding snow-covered landscape, however, no footprints of the rickshaw-puller are discovered, leading to rumours that the ikiryō (a vengeful, evil spirit) of a war criminal must have committed the deed. "The Hanged Man of Eitai Bridge", on the other hand, unfolds as an alibi-deconstruction story where the victim was hanged from a bridge with the suspect nowhere near the scene of crime. In "Eyes and Legs", people witness an act of decapitation through a telescope, and even though amputated legs are recovered from the site, the victim is never located. Lastly, "The Corpse that Cradled  its Own Head" concerns the investigation into a case in which the beheaded body of a certain person of interest, defiled with manure, appears at a farm. 

In brief, these puzzles form the crux of each story—and, for me, each puzzle and trick boasts of a level of chutzpah comparable to the pranks seen in the Home Alone series. Except, one also recalls how effective young McCallister's snares and traps were. The tricks seen throughout The Meiji Guillotine Murders are just as inspired, unexpected and deadly, if not more. But, that only reveals a part of the picture. A major reason why the books operates as an excellent historical crime narrative is because it blends tradition and modernity, even when it comes to the question of murder mechanisms. From a materialist perspective, it is wonderful to see recently introduced innovations and tools become contraptions of murder. For instance, the functioning of the novel guillotine inspires the perpetrator in "A Strange Incident at Tsukiji Hotel" to come up with his own instrument of execution involving traditional Japanese articles. "From America With Love" sees the newly introduced mode of transport, the hand-pulled rickshaw, become a terrifying contraption of death—one that can be used to move a corpse without leaving any human footprints behind. "The Hanged Man of Eitai" sees another new vessel that transformed waterways businesses and transport—the steamer—being used to reduce time taken to travel between places and thereby, create an alibi. In "Eyes and Legs", the telescope is used not only to gaze upon the changing physical and socio-economic landscape of Edo, but also to look at and reveal modern surgical practices and newer varieties of crime emerging in a new era. The collaborative performances of Esmeralda, Keishirō, and the rasotsu, in the denouement of each case, certainly adds a theatrical element to the proceedings by revealing how each of the contraptions was used.    

It is worth noting that the conversations, decisions and actions of several characters in the background play a significant role in influencing Keishirō, Toshiyoshi and Esmeralda. However, because they are used in a non-intrusive manner and blend seamlessly with the stories, the reader would be hard-pressed to realise that many of them are historical figures—Toshimichi Ōkubo, Takamori Saigō, Takayoshi Kido, Yukichi Fukuzawa, Shinpei Etō, Gensai Kawakami, Nagamichi Ogasawara, Dr. Hepburn, Ginkō Kishida, O-Den, Tomomi Iwakura, Kanzō Uchimura, Tanosuke Sawamura, Aritomo Yamagata, to name a few. In fact, the protagonist Toshiyoshi Kawaji is a real-life figure said to have revolutionised and modernised the Japanese police force. The fact that a lack of awareness about the historical import and significance of the characters does not detract the readers or diminish their enjoyment of the story is a testament to Yamada's superb skill as a storyteller that enables him to integrate these 'easter eggs' that only elevate the audience's experience of and engagement with the work.

From a literary standpoint, The Meiji Guillotine Murders seems to initially develop as a torimonochō story. Adding to this perception is the atmosphere the work creates and sustains, with an emphasis on the 'images-of-the-floating-world' aspect of old Edo—as seen in sections such as "when they saw the fantastic vision of a Heian courtier, seemingly floating before them in a moonlight-drenched Tokyo alleyway, they stopped, spellbound" and "the enormous windows on all four sides of the room had been flung open to the vast autumn night sky with its countless twinkling stars. None of the assembled guests was looking at them, however. It was as though everybody were floating in another dimension altogether." The immediate comparison is with Kidō Okamoto's The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi: Detective Stories of Old Edo, an anthology of atmospheric Holmesian short stories set in the Edo of the 1850s, with a languid, nostalgic air about it. The Meiji Guillotine Murders, however, does sketch the socio-political reality of the times to a greater extent and with more urgency, especially in the concluding chapter, "Can There be a Just Government?", which radically changes the nature of the story—from a series of chronological but disjointed stories to a linked-story novel. Not only does it tie up and resolve several discrepancies, it also fundamentally subverts and alters the role of the rasotsu—from being sidekicks and comic foils to being critical components of an all-encompassing criminal plan, plotting their own redemption (of sorts). And it is here that the metaphor of death stalking old Edo gains extra layers—as it turns out, just like the murderers in the individual stories stalk their prey, the rasotsu also follow and stalk these murderers, playing the role of masterminds and facilitators in the background, and providing them with insights, inspiration, and critical services at the right moments, for the furtherance of their objectives.

With its focus on corruption in the old shogunate order as well as in the new Meiji administration, The Meiji Guillotine Murders perhaps resembles Shōtarō Ishinomori's 1966–1973 manga, Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae (Sabu and Ichi's Detective Tales) more closely than it does Okamoto's Hanshichi. In Ishinomori's beautifully illustrated but bleak work set in the dying years of the Tokugawa shogunate, Sabu, a young thief-taker, and Ichi, a blind masseur, navigate the harsh Edo landscape populated by a society, impoverished and in ruins, dealing out their severe and fierce (but not unsympathetic) brand of justice to bandits, rouge samurai and corrupt officials, while bemoaning the decaying and rotten state of affairs in the upper echelons of the shogunate that spells unrelenting misfortune and tragedy for the common people Sabu and Ichi try to protect. Neither work quite explicitly puts forth a political opinion or standpoint, but they do share the common theme and agenda of portraying the inherent and deeply embedded corruption in both new and old world orders, and the effect it has on the people who bear its brunt. Even beyond Japan, the use of a linked mystery-story approach to reveal a larger issue in the background has grown in popularity, particularly in the recent spate of Chinese detective shows (such as 2022's Checkmate, an adaptation of a number of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot stories set against the backdrop of a Republican China) featuring Shanghai and/or Beiing of the 1920s or 1930s.

Reflections after vanquishing the misguided foe (panel from Shōtarō Ishinomori's Sabu and Ichi's Detective Tales, chapter 83, January 1973)

It is safe to say that The Meiji Guillotine Murders has been one of my best finds of the year. Taking inspiration from its predecessors in the genre, the book goes on to lay down an enviable template for future authors dabbling with the historical crime fiction genre to try and emulate—take, for instance, a completely different work such as Honobu Yonezawa's excellent The Samurai and the Prisoner that still feels quite similar to Yamada's work with regards to its modus operandi of stringing individual stories together in the climax. The Meiji Guillotine Murders comes highly recommended, indeed!

Random Observations: Gimmicks in Crime Fiction

It may be, ultimately, a matter of preference, but, much like professional wrestling, I enjoy my crime fiction a lot more when there are gimmicks involved. This is especially true in the case of a long-running series, where I need that extra incentive to stay invested. What I usually look for in a series are the following: a sense of continuity however slight, and, more importantly, consistency (the cast staying true to its established characters/features, barring exceptional/strongly reasoned-out circumstances; an authorial style and voice that fits the ambience of the work and its purpose, without drastic changes or too much flitting around or unexplained/needless experimentation; no execution of a convenient, contrived plot device or deus ex machina seemingly out of nowhere as a surprising plot twist but which undoes all the groundwork laid before that point). Which is why I find it easier to think of a work's merits and the author's crafts in terms of the gimmicks introduced and the way they are treated.

In my opinion, gimmicks are, broadly speaking, identifiable, distinguishable elements that constitute an author's trademark, prima facie, at the time they were published. The disclaimer about the time of publication is an important one as gimmicks are also the fundamental, building blocks of crime fiction tropes. Which is to say, any unique aspect (say, for instance, the introduction of the locked room mystery in Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery) is particularly prone to capturing the imagination of future authors, and if it proves to be popular enough, the more the likelihood of said aspect to be borrowed and replicated (albeit, in different ways). This accounts for the dual and peculiarly paradoxical nature of gimmicks: from a microscopic viewpoint, the elements have to be unique enough for them to be recognised as an author's trademark; from a macroscopic perspective, however, they can be a part of an already established, pre-existing, overarching trope or sub-genre.

As far as my reading of the genre is concerned, I have noticed authors to establish gimmicks predominantly in two ways:

• Characterisation
• Plotting and narrative structuring  

Characterisation

One of the simpler ways in which authors establish gimmicks is by bestowing their protagonists (usually the sleuths) with a strong visual identity. Sherlock Holmes, arguably the world's most popular private detective till date, is introduced in A Study in Scarlet as a man "over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller." Furthermore, he had "sharp and piercing" eyes and a "thin, hawk-like nose" that "gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision." A study in contrast would be Agatha Christie's creation, Hercule Poirot, described in The Mysterious Affair at Styles as "hardly more than five feet four inches", with a head "exactly the shape of an egg" and a "very stiff and military moustache." Another remarkable aspect of his appearance was the "neatness of his appearance"—in the words of Captain Hastings, "a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound." Nero Wolfe, a perfectly hilarious embodiment of the 'armchair detective' set in a world of pulp fiction, is essentially defined by his inability to physically move around—according to his long-serving assistant Archie Goodwin, Wolfe weighs "a seventh of a ton" who "limits his physical movements to what he regards as the irreducible essentials." 

Given the astonishing richness of the visual markers in these descriptions, it's little surprise then that multiple adaptations of these popular works have often stayed as true to the original work as possible, as far as the portrayal of the lead detective is concerned. Consequentially, the actors essaying these roles have also become household names among crime fiction aficionados and beyond (in some cases)—for instance, Basil Rathbone's and Jeremy Brett's Holmes, David Suchet's and Peter Ustinov's Poirot, Maury Chaykin's Wolfe, among many, many others. 

If a character struck gold, such as is the case with Holmes, it could also end up serving as an inspiration for new and upcoming authors. The Max Carrados stories by Ernest Bramahm, which, 1914 onwards, shared space in the Strand Magazine alongside Doyle's Holmes, are a case in point. The distinguishing feature of Carrados is his blindness that has somehow heightened his other senses exceptionally—the unique premise of a 20th-century Daredevil, if you will. He is able to 'read' print and detect coin forgeries through the sense of touch with equal expertise, while his elevated perception enables him to make masterly deductions and hunt down nefarious criminals. Like Holmes, he also happens to be an authority in a somewhat esoteric, specialised field—numismatics.

But, strong visual descriptors are not the only way in which authors set up gimmicks. Mannerisms, character itches and eccentricities can be equally useful as guides. Baroness Orczy's Old Man in the Corner, another detective of the Holmesian school and perhaps one of the earliest armchair detectives, has a habit of tying pieces of string into extremely complicated knots at the height of his excitement, leading his captive audience to offer a ball of yarn as an incentive to start his explanations. For sources to base his deductions on, he relies on sensationalist newspaper accounts and has a penchant for attending the most crowded court gatherings ever. Seishi Yokomizo's sleuth, Kosuke Kindaichi, who is otherwise recognisable by his serge hakama outfit and a felt hat, often stammers and violently scratches his wild and unruly hair when confronted with an inexplicable puzzle. As another favourite ploy by authors to lend their creations a definite identity, catchphrases too fall in this very same category. Memorable as they may be in their initial form, personally speaking, I am thoroughly entertained when popular catchphrases and utterances/explanations are cleverly and funnily parodied/pastiched—such a treatment seems to me to be a subtle acknowledgement of a character's legacy while being cheeky about it in a good-natured way.

Other ways in which characters gain unique identities include their professions—for instance, magician (in the cases of Clayton Rawson's Merlini, David Renwick's Jonathan Creek and Bengali author Bimal Kar's Kinkar Kishore Ray), professor (in the case of R. Austin Freeman's Dr Thorndyke), astrologer (in the case of Soji Shimada's Kiyoshi Mitarai), among others. In the same vein but on a slightly different note, John Dickson Carr's Chestertonian sleuth Dr Gideon Fell is the author of some unconventional treatises—The Drinking Customs of England From The Earliest Days, Romances of the Seventeenth Century and another on the supernatural in English fiction. 

Yet another technique involves providing revealing insights into the lives and daily struggles of the investigators, portraying them as human figures and not solely rational, analytical, deduction supermachines. Such a treatment has been a staple particularly in the world of Scandinavian crime fiction, from Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck series to Henning Mankell's Wallander stories and more besides, where the extremely sobering depressing realities of the lives of the policemen and detectives serve to add to the bleakness quotient of the works. An obligatory reference must also be made to Russian author Boris Akunin's supremely entertaining Erast Fandorin novels, in which the protagonist goes through what I like to term as an 'emotional blue screen of death' in almost every one of the works. In comparison, Bengali author Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's Byomkesh Bakshi enjoys a refreshingly normal and relatively happy family life—one marked, mostly, by progressive arguments and discussions with his friend and his wife.  

Plotting and narrative structuring

In the Richard-Levinson-and-William-Link-produced Ellery Queen TV series, one of my favourite detective shows of all time, there are two challenges issued to the viewers—one at the very beginning and the other by the fourth-wall-breaking Ellery Queen, essayed by Jim Hutton, at a point he believes he has gathered all the evidence and connected all the threads of the matter. This simple addition was a wonderful twist and an intellectually stimulating exercise that did away with the tried-and-tested trope of the sleuth having to 'spoonfeed' everything at the end, without giving the audience an opportunity to exercise their "little grey cells". It is this format that has stayed with me the most; this, despite the extremely commendable nature of the puzzles themselves.

The same duo of Levinson and Link were behind the excellent series Columbo that turned the traditional whodunnit on its head and instead presented engaging howdunnits and inverted mysteries. Viewers were shown the  criminal acts within the first half of each episode with the identity of the culprit being no secret; instead, the audience had to correctly identify the loopholes in the modus operandi and the way in which Lieutenant Columbo was most likely to indict the criminal. The success of this series, in turn, led renowned playwright  Kōki Mitani to create an equally absorbing Japanese version of Columbo called Furuhata Ninzaburō.

The point of mentioning these three diverse shows is to highlight the fact that in crime fiction the way a story unfolds and the manner in which the narrative is laid out may well be the difference between a good piece of fiction and a great one. In its heyday, the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction was hailed for the intellectual quotient it brought to the table. However, the stories were also zealously faithful to rules set up by a close circle of authors comprising the Detection Club. And, thus it is that one encounters some familiar sequences and setups in a Golden Age work—a fair distribution of clues, red herrings galore, and the obligatory denouement scene where the sleuth gathers all parties concerned, shows off their deductions and then goes on to expose and denounce the culprit. And yet, one wonders how a work such as The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that subverted one of the most important cardinal rules of the time outshone and had greater longevity than the numerous others that stayed faithful to the literary conventions of the era, only to largely forgotten in the subsequent eras (till a favourable time of rediscovery unearths them again). Experimenting with rules and conventions, though risky, can be rewarding. For instance, Baroness Orczy's The Old Man in the Corner and Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley stories occupy morally grey areas where often, the rule of law isn't followed to the t, and the protagonist often praises the perpetrator's ability to hoodwink the police and the law, even going to the point of shielding them from their comeuppance—a potential novelty for readers too familiar with the 'goody-two-shoes' nature of fictional investigators.

Gimmicks or tropes established via plotting and narrative structuring, therefore, exhibit a cyclical and paradoxical nature. They arise in response to—often in opposition to—the conventions of a particular era or style, then gain legitimacy, later establishing themselves in the mainstream firmly enough to contribute their own to the world of tropes. The hardboiled genre, focusing more on the gritty, soul-crushing work of ordinary gumshoes in extremely harsh, unforgiving and hostile environment than anything, evolved as a counterpoint to the excessive liberties taken by authors of traditional whodunnits and the figure of the 'great, grand detective', both of which 'threatened' to take the genre away from more realistic moorings to far-fetched flights of unchecked imagination and fancy. The police procedural, on the other hand, is a more introspective genre reflecting widely on the nature of crime itself, its origins, its implications and the effects it has on society across different strata. The immensely popular psychological thriller veers into a different territory, often endeavouring to provide an understanding and a vivid picture of the inner workings and motivations of a criminal mind. In this, and especially the way in which it has developed in the 21st century, it can even be said that psychological thrillers share more similarities with true crime than fiction itself.

Intersections

The discussion above shouldn't be taken to mean that the two aspects are worlds apart without any possibility of crossing paths with each other. There exist gimmicks that advance the cause of both—Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, the two works I have talked about the most on this blog till date, are illustrative examples. One of the central points of the Detective Conan series is that of a detective being shrunk, literally, into the size of a kindergarten student. Taking up this fantastical premise, the manga's plot advances with the readers still awaiting its resolution of whether Conan is able to revert to his original body, while exacting justice on the organisation responsible for his plight—a perfect example of a very particular character detail propelling the plot of a work for above 1,000 episodes/chapters. The latest iteration of the Kindaichi series does this slightly differently. Long-time fans will undoubtedly be aware of Hajime Kindaichi's trademark catchphrase, "In the name of my grandfather", which, as a teenager, he uttered every single time before resolving to solve a case. However, in a recent series featuring the adventures of Kindaichi as a 37 year old, it turns out that the detective, now moonlighting as a corporate-sector worker, no longer wishes to be involved in any mysteries. The circumstances surrounding this radical shift in his character have not been revealed yet, forming one of the forces that is driving the plot forward for now. 

A reverse example of a plot detail influencing characterisation further down the line can be found in the Erast Fandorin series. In the first novel, The Winter Queen, certain events at the very end drastically alter Fandorin's constitution, physically as well as mentally. The reader comes to witness the character's change prominently several times in the series, but it all ties back to the first novel whose events also influence Fandorin's decisions and actions in the fourth novel, The Death of Achilles.

***

Gimmicks, therefore, serve multiple purposes: as a unique identifier, a useful analytical tool, a foundational element of a trope, and much more. Personally, though, the reason I find gimmicks to be most relatable is because I find them to be one of the more entertaining and 'realistic' elements of detective and crime fiction. In our daily lives, we are all victims of our own habits, each of us unconsciously or subconsciously inhabiting a gimmick (or gimmicks) that are noticeable only when the more extreme traits surface. It is, perhaps, only natural that crime fiction, with its roots in an imagined reconstruction or an approximate simulation of all-too-human observations, ratiocinisation and deduction, would aspire to do the same with gimmicks.  

Hard Times

If there is one year I wouldn't want to relive in the future, it would probably be 2021. The deaths of dear friends and numerous casualties among my near and dear ones owing to COVID-19, some recurring health issues (both physical and mental)—this year, the losses have been too many to count and bear.

By November, I thought I had left all of these behind, but then came the calling of a new job and, with it, the shift to a new city that left me severely ill. Settling at a new place and figuring out the logistics of my new workplace also took up a fair amount of time, as a result of which I wasn't able to pay any attention, whatsoever, to this blog for a month-and-a-half.

Amidst all these hardships, I suppose I owe a debt of gratitude to one of the most hilarious parodic one-shot mystery manga I have had the pleasure of reading which brightened many a dull and dreary evening. Kumeta Kōji's Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro (The Cases of Contract Detective Nokori Kasuhiro: Foreign Student in a Locked Room) was the first entry in a collaboration series between art magazines Mephisto and Magazine on the theme of 'locked rooms'. Kōji is well known for his work on Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, a manga series with a suicidal teacher as the protagonist (and his 'students' as the cast), known for its whimsical absurdism, running gags, dark humour, literary references as well as the eccentric analysis of Japanese society and culture.

Kōji's brand of morbid humour and his use of running gags are made evident in this one-shot manga at the very outset of Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro. Kasuhiro Nokori is introduced as a contract detective who takes up cases that are simply too 'annoying' for other well-known detectives such as Conan, Kindaichi and Sherdock to solve. It is his assistant Shiyori Jigo who accepts the case the great Nokori will solve within 20-odd pages. From here on, Kōji pokes fun at crime fiction tropes and conventions in side-splitting fashion. To achieve this, Kōji 'elevates' the tropes and conventions to ridiculous, parodic extremes. For instance, in the narration of Kasuhiro's achievements, Shiyori mentions 'legendary' cases which Kasuhiro has solved by (i) making a hundred round trips of the same train route, (ii) adopting a De Niro-like approach and losing 20 kilograms of weight to solve an incident that happened via an opening too narrow for anyone to pass through, and (iii) diving into a barrel of grated yam that left the detective filling itchy for the following two months. Then, there's the introduction of the stock inspector character, who rules everything as a suicide and is thus named 'suicide officer' Shintarou Mizukara.

Perhaps, even more ludicrous is the setting of the locked room. Surely, it has to go into the annals of crime fiction as the largest locked room—a square, five-kilometre-by-five-kilometre room where the victim, the suspect, the witness and the murder weapon lying at each of the four corners of this gigantic room. At this point, Nokori starts to realise why the other detectives may have given up on this case (there's a hidden meaning to this, though, and things are not what they may seem at first glance), and indeed, it is possible for one to feel sorry for the detective having to travel to each corner and back, multiple times, to connect the threads of information gleaned from the respective corners. But Kōji never lets go of his sense of humour, and the way he portrays the deduction scenes, especially how a 'runner's high' helps solve the case, will more likely leave you doubled up in laughter than feeling sorry.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world's largest literary locked room, courtesy Kumeta Kōji and Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro

But, laughs aside, Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro is an extremely competent mystery with a killer ending, even though it may seem to come slightly out of left field. Admittedly, the clueing and background information are a bit lacking, but there's only that much you can do within 20 pages. These shortcomings are more than compensated by the first-class deception and misdirection that leads directly into the devastating ending which hits the reader like a ton of bricks. What impresses me most about this one-shot is that nearly all the visual elements (the settings, the characters, the material evidences) that are so ruthlessly parodied also hide sinister meanings and implications behind their apparently ludicrous presence. One can sense Kōji's love and faithfulness towards the parody and crime genres, and it is to his immense credit that he is able to successfully merge the two in such a packed space. Ultimately, he pulls off a sensational and brilliant subversion of the locked room sub-genre using the duality of the synergistic elements he portrays—one where the mystery 'inside' the room matters little in comparison to what's happened 'outside' the room, even though the clues to realise the 'outside' events are all locked 'inside' the massive room.

In the last page, Kōji mentions that he would have loved to make this into a series, but this one-shot already seems to be the last chapter. A lost opportunity, I am sure, for us crime-fiction lovers, but I can sense a kind of resonance between my blog's plight and Kōji's unfulfilled manga series featuring the eccentric Kasuhiro Nokori. Moving forward, I am not sure how regular I will be with my writing on this blog, but as long as fulfilling reads such as Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro come to my notice, there is always hope. Never say never, as they say.

Astronomy Domine

"Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania

Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten." 

—Pink Floyd, "Astronomy Domine"

Discussions on crime fiction manga and anime generally tend to veer towards Detective Conan or the Kindaichi series, but there are several others that deserve their fair share of the spotlight as well. Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. series (1997–2015) is an excellent case in point, often providing a refreshing alternative to the genre leaders, Conan and Kindaichi.

What these three series have in common is the type of protagonist—a prodigious boy detective put in a comically absurd situation. Detective Conan has high-school detective Shinichi Kudo shrink into a pint-sized primary-schooler who nevertheless retains much of the intellect of his older form. The Kindaichi series has Hajime Kindaichi, a happy-go-lucky school-going teenager who always manages to get sucked into life-threatening locked room mysteries and impossible crimes. Much in the same vein, Q.E.D. has Sou Touma, a 16-year-old M. I. T.-graduate who left behind his thesis work to come to Japan and experience life as a normal (but somewhat aloof) high-school student. Unfortunately for him, he is often bullied into solving cases by his outgoing friend, Kana Mizuhara, the daughter of a local police officer who also jokingly backs up her 'threats' with a show of her immense strength and rather violent tendencies.

While the choice of such protagonists (for these serious, exemplary mystery works) may seem quite strange for an outside reader, teenage/boy detectives have been a popular phenomena in Japan ever since the time of Edogawa Rampo's Shōnen Tantei-dan. Seen in this light, it makes sense for mangakas to rely on such a tried-and-tested trope to boost visibility, while the fantastic (one may say, scarcely credible) situations these youngsters are put in go on to lure in more readers. Another important reason for such a choice of protagonist is the fact that these series fall under the shounen manga bracket whose main audience consists of young teenagers in middle or high school—the reason why manga artists and creators may feel the need to make their main characters relatable to a young readership.

Be that as it may, this is probably the only similarity between Q.E.D. and its companions. Q.E.D. fundamentally differs from its competition in the puzzles it presents and the way in which it approaches mystery storytelling. For one, it is very much focused on science and philosophy—especially the more complex and obscure concepts (hey, Touma's M. I. T. credentials can't just be for nothing!)—and both the scientific and philosophical elements are often central to the story, plot-wise or thematically. They are used for comic effects as well—and the sight of Touma (on multiple occasions) trying to explain complicated theories, in the simplest of ways, to a lazy Mizuhara who happens to be extremely curious and then refuses to see the point of it all deserves more than a single chuckle. Many of the stories are grounded in history, archaeology, astronomy and other specialised fields of knowledge, giving Katou the opportunity to provide his theories on contentious, long-debated topics. In this respect, it superficially resembles Master Keaton (given the gamut of esoteric subjects both of the works explore), but then again, the way Q. E. D. approaches its matter is very different from the treatment dished out in Master Keaton.

Each volume of Q. E. D. consists of two complete stories with nothing spilling over to another volume. What this effectively ensures is that the stories are much more compact than those in Detective Conan or the Kindaichi series (which usually devote 6 to 10 chapters for a particular mystery). Q. E. D. strikes a fine balance between comic storytelling and portraying scenes with adequate gravitas and pathos as and when the situation demands. There's a light, airy feel to the narratives that also leaves room for character development, which is in sharp contrast to the heavy, overlaid and overbearing atmosphere of the Detective Conan and Kindaichi stories. At the same time, plot developments can pack quite the punch, resulting in stories one is not likely to forget soon.

I was drawn to Q. E. D. after reading the story called "The Fading of Star Map" in volume 3 of the series. For me, it still stands out as the quintessential Q. E. D. story showcasing the elements that make this series unique. On a remote, snow-capped mountain stands a lonely, abandoned star observatory. In its early days, it would have made for quite the sight, but sadly, its days are now numbered. Changing times and a new ski resort in its surroundings ensure that it will have to be demolished so that it poses no danger to skiing enthusiasts passing through the region. However, there's an issue—the founder of the observatory, Fukutaro Tsukishima, has been missing for 25 years. A state-appointed investigator therefore summons Tsukishima's existing relatives (his sons, a granddaughter and his brother-in-law) to figure out his legal successor and beneficiary, the one who will bear the expenses of the demolition.

Into this austere gathering steps in Touma and Mizuhara, both of whom got lost from their school-trip group at the resort in the midst of a blizzard. The curious visitors start exploring the observatory (which is shown to still be perfectly operational), when they suddenly stumble upon the charred, skeletal remains of a long-deceased person inside a gigantic telescope. The mysteries only multiply with conversations around the sketchy history of Tsukishima and his family (some even consider him to be his wife's murderer—a view that will later prove to have major ramifications). What really happened to Tsukishima? Did he really kill his wife? If not, how did she really die? What is the mystery behind the portrait of the dog found in the observatory? And if that isn't enough, add to this the murder of Tsukishima's brother-in-law, who is found hanging outside the bathroom window the following morning. Touma really has his task cut out for him this time around.

Boy, does he come up aces with the solutions to all the mysteries (present and past) and how! "The Fading of Star Map" is, at its heart, an extremely capable, tightly-plotted architectural mystery. As Touma explains, the directions of the wind at definite times of the day, the rotation of the upper part of the observatory corresponding to the movement of certain stars under watch and the rotation (in the opposite direction) of the telescope itself are integral to solving the mystery and also serve as tell-tale clues pinpointing the identity of the culprit. It can all be a bit too technical for some, but if ever there was a case where a patient, step-by-step, close reading and understanding rewarded readers handsomely, it is this one. 

The corpse in the telescope is discovered

But what really elevates this mystery is how the remaining clues (the dog portrait, for instance) and the information gleaned from the conversations and interactions between the characters tie into a neat whole to reveal a tragic backstory of astronomical proportions. The series of misunderstandings that lie at the heart of the murder cases, both present and past, are all cleverly foreshadowed. There is a scathing indictment of the lies that adults tell impressionable children, but what's really heartbreaking to notice is the misguiding effect it has on the culprit in this instance (one's heart goes out to them) that leads him to commit unforgivable acts separated by several years. In that respect, this is perhaps, one of those 'had-I-but-known' mysteries, but this time, the tragedy is that it is from the perspective of the murderer, in the sense that had they been aware of the deception by X individual, they would never have stooped so low to commit these deeds, nor would they have been driven to kill their own self at the end of it all.

It is perhaps fitting that "The Fading of Star Map" reminds me most of Keikichi Osaka's lighthouse stories in The Ginza Ghost, where the operation of the lighthouse and its scientific explanation are integral to solving the tragic events in both stories. And much like its illustrious predecessors, "The Fading of Star Map" is a worthy addition to the honkaku/shin honkaku hall of fame.

They Do It with Mirrors

"A queer thing is a mirror; a picture frame that holds hundreds of different pictures, all vivid and all vanished for ever."
—Father Brown in "The Mirror of the Magistrate"

Mirrors, in literature, often serve dramatical, theatrical functions—that of exposing the vanity of characters, showing the true face of people or revealing a side to a person's nature (an alter ego, if you will) that was hitherto unknown. In crime fiction, however, these props are used for a different, more practical, purpose—cleverly used in the right circumstance, it allows culprits to mislead readers and investigators, allowing them to obtain an alibi, or even more, the means to establish their innocence.

There are a number of tools and tricks criminals employ to wriggle out of a tight situation and to cast suspicion on others. Altering clocks and manipulating the observer's perceptions of time. An alternate location (the real scene) identical, in all respects, to the perceived 'crime scene'—a spatial red herring, so to say. A mutual 'exchange of victims' between conspirators. Bribing witnesses or making use of a 'stand-in' to buy false testimony. Another character willingly or unwittingly covering up for and shielding the mastermind. Stories generally use one or a combination of these devices to further their own ends.

To this list, we must add the simple but effective tool called the mirror as a major player in the misdirection department. Used on its own, the mirror is, perhaps, not a tool to distort your perception of time; instead, it skews your spatial awareness. This is an especially effective trap for those who rely on their keen sense of sight—with a mirror around, nothing is quite what it seems and things that shouldn't be present in a particular place come into view. The best part about 'mirror magic' is its fleetingly permanent nature, used almost in an instant but having a long-lasting, illusionary effect on the eyes and minds of those witnessing it. The challenge lies, firstly, in the creation of the correct conditions for its effective use and then devising ways to break the illusion in a believable, decisive manner.

***

In a previous post, I spoke about Detective Conan, one of the pillars of modern Japanese detective fiction. Predating it by two years is another ongoing crime manga and anime franchise that has had an equally lasting effect on the genre. Kindaichi Shōnen no Jikenbo (The Kindaichi Case Files or The Case Files of Young Kindaichi) started in 1992 as a chronicle of the adventures of 17-year-old high school student Hajime Kindaichi (introduced, non-canonically, as the grandson of Seishi Yokomizo's great detective Kosuke Kindaichi) who continuously gets embroiled in and solves impossible and locked-room crimes—a fate that even the 37-year-old Hajime hasn't been able to escape in the new seinen series, Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo (The Case Files of 37-Year-Old Kindaichi). Apart from the sheer wealth and variety of impossible and locked-room crime scenarios devised by the authors, the series is famous for two other eccentricities—young Hajime's iconic catchphrase (unfortunately, no longer a staple) and the laughably cartoonish names Hajime bestows upon his opponents that would give Scooby Doo a run for its money.

The first three episodes of the first season of the anime, "Gakuen Nana Fushigi Satsujin Jiken" (The School's Seven Mysteries Murder Case), are set in Hajime's alma mater, Fudo High School. The story makes excellent use of urban legends and the 'forbidden', 'prohibited' areas in the school to deliver a mystery whose roots and motives are surprisingly dark for a young audience. The body count, both in the past and the present, is notoriously high—and death visits those who try to uncover the seven mysteries (especially those in the older school building) and the truth behind it all, courtesy of the 'After-School Magician'.

The After-School Magician enacts a bloody ritual

The centrepiece of the story is the 'execution' of a student that happens in the biology laboratory in the old building. Hajime and the others around him—all present in the new building at that time— are afforded only a glimpse of the scene but the impossibility of the crime strikes home when they find the doors and windows of the laboratory to be locked with no trace of the candles and other creepy ritualistic decorations they had seen. The old wire trick is found to be applicable for the windows but that soon turns out to be a red herring. More attempts to murder follow, and the case becomes a real puzzler in no time.

The elegance of the entire case lies in the use of a single mirror in brilliantly fitting surroundings in the first case. The conditions for employing a mirror are all there: long corridors in almost pitch-black darkness, the setup the culprit uses to direct the observers to exactly where he wants, the positional awareness of the culprit regarding the witnesses' viewing spot and what their linear line of sight will lead them to believe, an exceptional use of the advantages of the building's layout especially with its sharp corners and ultimately, the absolutely brief period of the view offered. 

These elements make for a stimulating setup, but I am also happy to note that it is resolved in a satisfying manner as well. What leads Hajime to unravel the deceit is a chance observation by his childhood friend Miyuki, hospitalised following an attack by the 'After-School Magician'. It is an innocent request, and believable too on her part—asking him to draw the curtain so that her eyes can be shielded from the blinding sun, reflected by a building with a glass exterior. But, it is also one of those genuine 'aha' moments that allows a precocious detective like Hajime to completely turn the case around on its head, while offering clarity and joy for the reader too. More brownie points for you if you managed to deduce what had happened, before this point.

When it comes to the resolution of mirror illusions, the same, unfortunately, cannot be said of a rather slow-paced Detective Conan story, "Konan Heiji no Suiri Majikku" (Conan and Heiji's Deduction Magic)—which is a shame because it presents an absolutely compelling, mouthwatering conundrum. After attending a magic show, Conan and his detective-rival Hattori Heiji, along with their girlfriends Ran and Kazuha, are invited by some magicians to the house of their mentor who disappeared 10 years ago. The girls are being given a tour of this house filled with tricks when, fittingly enough, a case occurs. The girls and their guide are in a narrow, dark corridor with rooms on either side when a blackout occurs. When the lights return a moment later, they are shocked to find the corpse of one of the magicians they had met earlier in the dead end of the passage, when the moment before there had been none. The solution is ingenious and makes good use of the magical nature of the house—two identical-looking passages at right angles to each other separated by a double-layered, thick door split in the middle with facing mirrors on the back side of both parts of the door. But, I am afraid that the way the detectives are clued on to this trick is quite the stretch—it relies on the girls observing, in an instant, the changing position of a vase's shadow before and after the incident, at a time when they must have been shaken and scared out of their wits.

The discovery of the magician's body in a dead-end corner—or is it?

In crime stories, when it comes to incorporating believable, optical, mirror-based illusions that do not stretch the limits of 'suspension of disbelief', I believe less is more. Too many mirrors do spoil the broth—as is the case in the Kindaichi story, "Majin Iseki Satsujin Jiken" (Demon God Site Murder Case) where an excessive number of mirrors intricately arranged in the lower floor of a mansion, deliberately smashed, seems extremely forced (even though it have been necessary) when the floor plan still exists and becomes too glaring a clue to decipher a cryptic cipher and discover the location of the treasure at the centre of all the incidents. 

Instead, an elegant simplicity can be incorporated by relying on natural optical phenomena made visible by a single mirror. This is evident in another story in the Kindaichi canon, "Kindaichi Fumi Yuukai Jiken" (Fumi Kindaichi Kidnapping Case), a compact case involving the kidnapping of Hajime's cousin, Fumi. Hajime relies on Fumi's descriptions, relayed unbeknownst to her captor, deduce her whereabouts but that is not enough to pinpoint the exact location even though four buildings, not exactly close to each other, become probable suspects. In a nice turn of events, ironically, it is Hajime's realisation of the 'impossibility' of Fumi's descriptions, and his awareness of the sun's position in each of the suspected locations and the presence of a certain building with glassy, mirrored exteriors that finally helps Hajime find the right location just in the nick of time. The modus operandi of the revelation has parallels to the hint the Miyuki unwittingly provides Hajime in the first story of the anime series, and is, therefore, a kind of in-series commentary and meta-tribute in its own right. For longstanding fans such as myself, these touches are, indeed, most rewarding and satisfying to spot.

***

This has been quite a long, rambling post on some thoughts I have had over the past week on the use of certain tools in detective and crime fiction. In fact, the post turned out to be very different from what I had originally intended. I quite like the approach I took here, though—and, moving forward, apart from reviews, I will perhaps publish more write-ups that analyse the elements of the genre and the ways in which they function or are employed, both minutely as well as in a more generalised manner. After all, the genre owes a hefty debt to these elements that have made it so addictive in the first place.

A Nosy Affair

When I first conceived of this blog, I imagined it to be a space where I would talk exclusively about Asian (in particular, Japanese) crime fiction. And while the first post is probably a sign that is no longer the case, much of what I plan to write here will be my thoughts and commentary on books, films and series (animated or otherwise) from said region.

I was introduced to Japanese crime fiction courtesy of a television channel called Hungama TV, which once aired 30 episodes of Detective Conan, dubbed in Hindi, over the course of two seasons. It was a curious choice to broadcast them on a channel meant primarily for kids—most Indian parents I have come across have extreme reservations on letting their children see anything that has blood and violence; Detective Conan has copious amounts of both.

Be that as it may, I remember being pretty amused at the sight of genius high-school detective Shinichi Kudo being turned into a kid (literally!) in the very first episode itself. This happens after Shinichi solves a murder case on a rollercoaster while on a date with his girlfriend Ran Mouri. He then overhears a suspicious conversation between a businessman and two men in black and tails them only to be ambushed by said men in black, which finally leads to the predicament mentioned earlier.

The kid Shinichi adopts the name of Edogawa Conan (a tribute to mystery authors Edogawa Rampo and—you guessed it—Arthur Conan Doyle) to protect those near and dear to him as well as uncover the (many) brains and the mastermind behind the nefarious Black Organisation (who are responsible for his plight) and bring them to justice. And to his credit, Shinichi (or Conan) certainly stands out in a world where every fourth or fifth character (friend or foe) turns out to be a sleuth in some form or the other (hey, you can never have enough detectives after all!).

Shinichi Kudo (left) and Edogawa Conan (right) from the early days of Detective Conan

Conan's quest continues to this day. Gosho Aoyama's Meitantei Conan (as Detective Conan is known in Japan) started back in 1994 as a manga series. Conan and company's adventures have now seen over 1,000 manga chapters, 1,000-plus anime episodes, over 20 animated films, several OVAs and television specials. The prolific nature and high standards achieved make it one of the longest-running, most beloved and acclaimed literary-fiction franchises all over the world.

In my early university days, though, when I was first able to appreciate the nuances of Aoyama sensei's work, I failed to see it as anything beyond a creative and faithful tribute to the past doyens of mystery fiction. This was especially true in the case of the first few volumes of the manga and the first 50-odd episodes of the animated series, where I could spot fun, sporting and subtle nods to your Conan Doyles, John Dickson Carrs and Ellery Queens, but not much else besides.

My opinion changed drastically, however, when I saw episode 52—an episode I still believe really helped the series stand out on its own and conveyed the message that it is a masterpiece like no other. This one-hour TV special, ominously titled "Kiri-tengu Densetsu Satsujin Jiken" (The Mist Goblin Legend Murder Case) (an adaptation of chapters 108–110 or volume 11, files 8–10, of the manga series) opens in a relatively peaceful fashion. Ran, Conan and Ran's father, the 'great detective' Kogoro Mouri, are watching cherry blossoms on the mountainside. As evening descends, they try to make their way back home—but as is often the case when Kogorou and travelling are involved, the trio manage to get themselves stranded and lost in the deep forest amidst pouring rain. They are, therefore, forced to take refuge in a temple, with a waterfall running past it, that Conan spots. In the Sandeiji temple, the group meets with the caretaker and head priest Tenei, a long- and sharp-nosed, suspicious-looking figure who agrees to accommodate them for the night for a hefty fee. They also come to know of the legend of the kiri-tengu (the mist goblin, a figure from Japanese folklore), who, in this story, is believed to kidnap young women and feast on their flesh after hanging them from trees.

The four Buddhist monks in training—Kannen, Tonnen, Mokunen and Shunen—take Conan, Kogoro and Ran on a tour of a temple. Here, Conan's attention is drawn to a small room with an extremely high ceiling, a window near the top and a gap near the bottom guarded by a door. On asking, they find out that the room is a 'training room' for monks who isolate themselves to observe penance after being punished. There's also talk of a certain 'incident' in the room some years ago, which seems to have been the handiwork of the kiri-tengu, but Tenei abruptly and angrily brings a halt to all discussions on the subject. All the characters pass restless nights—and the unease deepens further the following morning when the head priest is found hanging from a beam high up in the ceiling of the training room. It's as if the kiri-tengu itself had hung Tenei there—and when the police arrive, Conan and Kogoro learn that, two years ago, another monk Chunen had been found hanging from the very same beam in an identical fashion, a case the police had ruled out as suicide. Can Conan and Kogoro solve the mystery of both murders and unmask the kiri-tengu?

The dastardly kiri-tengu 'hangs' Tenei Oshou

Seasoned readers of Japanese detective fiction will probably realise that this somewhat long and elaborate setup screams 'Seishi Yokomizo' from the get-go. Elements from the works of this master of crime fiction are all here in this episode. A remote location? Check. A case with links to Japanese folklore? Yes. And just as a waterbody plays a major role in Yokomizo's The Honjin Murders (more precisely, the mechanism of a waterwheel on a nearby stream), here too, the waterfall adjoining the temple plays a very influential part here.

And yet, Conan solves the case not in the manner of a Kosuke Kindaichi (the detective from Yokomizo's series) but in his own characteristic way. The 'howdunnit' aspect of the story is a sheer delight, the solution to which will logically lead you to find out 'whodunnit'. It's all fair and above board too—what I like most about the culprit's plan is that it uses the natural features and the 'potential' of the 'training room' to maximum effect by using tools and tricks (none too fancy) that are present in the temple and won't leave you wondering, "Hmmm, how and from where could they have procured these tools in such a short time?" 

The main trick is a variation of one that I have seen executed successfully in a horizontal space (say, a crop field for instance) but never in a vertical space. It is quite unique, but never for a moment does it feel forced or that it does not belong or feels out of place in a setting such as a mountain temple. There is a meticulous yet commonsensical, DIY nature to the physics and dynamics of the tricks here, all of which are neatly tied up and explained in the end.

The episode plays it very fairly with the viewers as well. It invites them to completely immerse themselves in the story being told and pay particular attention to every conversation and scene in order to pick out the select clues that can solve the crime. By the time the deduction starts, you have in your possession all the information, visual and verbal, to unravel the mystery, even though you will probably need to exercise your imagination judiciously to get you started.

The kiri-tengu baffles Conan and the others

The most damning clue that specifically reveals the culprit is also presented in a most human manner. Quite refreshingly, this is not a case of the detectives intellectually outsmarting the criminal hands-down; neither is it an 'oversight' by the murderer. In the course of the episode, both the criminal and the detectives are evenly balanced and look for the same clue—it's just that the sleuths get to it and understand its significance faster than the criminal can hide or destroy it. Perhaps, the only 'unfairness' I can think of comes when the culprit falls into a trap in the first place by incorrectly guessing something that happened while they were busy preparing the scene of crime so elaborately.

In an episode that is a fair-play mystery on so many levels, it is perhaps a tad bit unfortunate that the tragic motive takes a backseat. But it's really a minor peeve, especially when one considers that the episode sets so many of the rules of the game for this series—ones that defined the series and stands it in good stead even today, nearly three decades after its start.

Lastly, there's something really fitting in the use of traditional cel animation in a series such as Detective Conan. The dark tones enhance the atmosphere and feel of the mysteries in the manga so much so that it becomes all the more easier to be invested in them—wouldn't you agree?