7/4/19

Shed a Light On the Past: Q.E.D, vol. 3 by Motohiro Katou

Last year, I started reading the Q.E.D. series, a Japanese detective manga, created by Motohiro Katou, who produced 50 volumes between 1997 and 2014, which sold over 3 million copies and received a live-action TV drama adaptation – centering on the 16-year-old genius, Sou Touma. A former MIT graduate student who moved back to Japan, to experience life as normal high-school student, where he becomes friends with Kana Mizuhara. She's the antithesis to the lonely, withdrawn genius.

I've only read the first two volumes, reviewed here and here, but my review of the second volume dates back to a little over a year! So it was about time I returned to this series.

The third volume of Q.E.D. comprises of two stories, entitled "Breakthrough" and "The Fading of Star Map," covering three, somewhat longish, chapters each. I'm still very earlier in the series, but these two stories are my favorites as of now. And for vastly different reasons.

The first of these two stories, “Breakthrough,” is, technically speaking, not really a detective story of any kind, but fills in some background details of Touma's character and the time he spend in the US – drawing on his days as an MIT student. One day, two American MIT students turn up at Touma's school in Tokyo, Eva Scott and Syd “Loki” Green, who were friends of Touma. They were surprised and worried when he suddenly left college without a word. Everyone suspected it had something to do with the incident in the research lab.

Someone "threw Touma's thesis into the river." The thesis was supposed to be kept in the research lab, but it was taken nonetheless and "even the back-up data on the computer was erased." However, Touma doesn't want to talk about it and it's revealed that he took the blame. So was he shielding someone? The story also has a tiny sub-plot about the quasi-impossible disappearance and reappearance of a string of pearls, but these problems are only secondary to the story about the friendship between Touma and Loki. A story of two lonely geniuses who became friends and, when together, they actually act like normal teenagers and have a bit of fun. So this is really a slice-of-life story about friendship presented as a detective story. I liked it.

Sou Touma is not as popular a detective-character as Conan Edogawa or Hajime Kindaichi, but, after merely three volumes, his personality already has more depth to it than either of his more well-known counterparts – an opinion some of you will vehemently disagree with. However, Kindaichi has always been a two-dimensional character, while Conan's development slowly moves along with the red-thread running through the series.

The second and final story in this volume, "The Fading of Star Map," is a fine example of the Japanese shin honkaku detective story.

The story revolves around an abandoned, rundown star observatory, standing on a lonely, snow-capped mountain, but the place is now surrounded by a ski-resort. So the ramshackle observatory now poses a potential danger to curious skiers who might get injured as they wander around the place. Obviously, the place has to be demolished, but the observatory's founder, Fukutaro Tsukishima, disappeared twenty-five years ago and a district court investigator has gathered all his living relatives to decide "who the legal beneficiary is" – who will have to pay for the demolition. Someone accidentally opened the giant telescope and it revealed the charred remains of a long-dead person.

Murder by Starlight

Naturally, a snow storm delays the arrival of the police and, shortly after the discovery, Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara arrive at the observatory. They're on a school trip, to the ski resort, but they got lost and were brought to the observatory. Where they have to spend the night.

On the following morning, they find the body of Fukutaro's brother-in-law, Muneaki Miyabe, hanging outside the bathroom window. This turns out to be a cleverly contrived, quasi-locked room murder showing that the Japanese are not only the masters of the corpse-puzzle, but understand the endless possibilities of the architectural mystery like no one else. A wonderful trick that could have been fleshed out into a full-fledged locked room conundrum. However, even better than the trick is the identity of the murderer and the clues that were found in the stars, an old drawing of a dog and the cruel lies adults tell to children. The murderer is a truly tragic figure, but, even more tragic, is the death of this character.

If you're going to kill off the murderer at the end of the story, this is how it should be done with exactly right emotional punch to punctuate the ending. A highly recommendable story.

So, all in all, this was an excellent, well-balanced volume with a character-driven and plot-oriented detective story, which both showed improvement in characterization, plotting and story-telling. I might tackle the next two volumes in the coming weeks, because two volumes a years is simply not enough.

By the way, I know only a tiny segment of my regular readers actually read and watch anime-and manga detective series, but I like to know what you uninitiated think when you read these reviews. Are you intrigued? Tempted? Why don't you take the plunge? You'll find some of the cleverest detective stories you have ever read in these series. And they're banquet, if you're a locked room fanboy. For example, I think the Detective Conan episodes The Case of Séance Double Locked Room and The Cursed Mask Laughs Coldly are modern classics of the impossible crime genre.

13 comments:

  1. If you liked these early volumes, I think it is a good sign you will enjoy the rest of the series. I am curious about your opinion when you eventually encountered the math and science themed cases which are characteristics of this series and CMB. While sometimes lacking in the fair play element because of the specialistic knowledge required, I enjoyed those stories and they served more as a theme rather than the central mystery/ tricks. On another note, before QED and CMB Katou actually wrote another mystery series called Rocket Man. Unlike the other two, it actually has an ongoing plot line with only 10 volumes. It is quite interesting, and I suggest to check it out in the future. Thanks always for the QED and other mystery manga reviews.

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    1. "Thanks always for the QED and other mystery manga reviews."

      My pleasure! You can bet I'll continue with this series, but can't tell you when I'll get around to those other series you mentioned. That being said, you have made me curious about Rocket Man. Just going by the title, you wouldn't think it was a detective series, but according to the description it's an amnesia-themed mystery series. Sounds like it could be interesting. But, for now, I'll be sticking with Q.E.D.

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  2. I should take the plunge. They sound fascinating. The problem (and I know this the old-manist answer I could possible give) is the style. It gives me a headache - as in literally. Maybe it's the jagged movement combined with the sharp lines, but I have a visual cognitive revulsion to the form itself. It's unfortunate. I watched the first episode that you and JJ covered together. I couldn't keep watching. My eyes hurt.

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    1. What a shame! You would have been amazed by the impossible crimes from those two Detective Conan episodes. But, hey, you can always sample the manga (comic) series. A few months ago, I compiled a list of my favorite locked room stories from Detective Conan, which you can find here.

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  3. I read two of the later volumes of QED, and wasn’t enamoured by either the art or the mysteries. And so I’m glad to hear that there’s at least one decent early volume - thanks for the review. :)

    I just re-read “The Saint Siren Island Murders” from the Kindaichi R series (which “The Doll Island Murders” belongs to) - I still quite like the impossible crime. But otherwise the solution is quite lightly clued.

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    1. Yes, this is definitely a decent volume and the best of the three so far, but you probably have to read Q.E.D. in chronological order. I don't think this is a series you can step in at any point, like Kindaichi, because this volume showed there are purely character-driven stories fleshing out the main characters. So you kind of have to read the early volumes to appreciate the later ones.

      "I just re-read “The Saint Siren Island Murders” from the Kindaichi R series (which “The Doll Island Murders” belongs to) - I still quite like the impossible crime. But otherwise the solution is quite lightly clued."

      Well, if The Sain Siren Island Murders is written according the formula of the series, I can read it purely for the impossible crime. The murderer's with one-size fits-all motive usually are easily spotted.

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  4. I've been doing a few Q.E.D. reviews too lately, but I really think I'm just gonna pick a few of the best-rated stories instead of reading all of it. At this point I think I've read enough to know that it's a decent series, but not one I'm willing to read through 50 volumes for, and then a sequel seris.

    Lately I've been reading a lot of classic (60s-70s) girls manga that were like the earliest steps in puzzle plot manga decades before boys' manga would become the main for detective manga. Not sure whether I'll be writing about them though: most of them are passable and incredibly interesting from the historical POV for girls' manga, but the puzzle plots themselves are okay-ish at best, and seldom really surprising.

    Oh, and in related news, did you know Dark Horse recently announced it's going to continue with new volumes of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (in its current omnibus format)?

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    1. "Not sure whether I'll be writing about them though: most of them are passable and incredibly interesting from the historical POV for girls' manga, but the puzzle plots themselves are okay-ish at best, and seldom really surprising."

      If they're historically interesting and important, you should write about them, because who else is going to tell us about this obscure niche of the genre.

      "Oh, and in related news, did you know Dark Horse recently announced it's going to continue with new volumes of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (in its current omnibus format)?"

      This good news! I sort of dropped out of the series after volume 12, because of the long periods between release dates, but this seems like a good excuse to pick it up again. Thanks for letting me know!

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  5. Personally, I've gone a step beyond even murder mystery manga: mystery video games. ;)

    Q.E.D. is definitely on the TBR list, but while looking it up I also found translations of some of Seimaru Amagi's non-Kindaichi work and so I took a look at that. Expect reviews in the coming months.

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    1. I'm looking forward to them! :)

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    2. I hope you enjoy! Sadly I don't think the series I looked at will have the ingenuity of a Kindaichi story, seems more like something made to adapted into a TV show or an adaptation of a TV show. But there are a few alibi tricks in there, and worst comes to worst you can safely mark it off your list!

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    3. Hey, I'll settle for a good alibi-trick, or two, particularly if Amagi cooked them up. He crafted some truly ingenious alibi stories for Kindaichi (e.g. The Prison Prep School Murder Case.

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