9/9/23

The Golden Window: Q.E.D. vol. 29-30 by Motohiro Katou

Oh, ye of little faith! Last February, I (once again) returned to the Q.E.D. series by Motohiro Katou and began the review of vol. 21-22 stating the plan to get as close to vol. 50 this year as possible without 6-8 month gaps between reviews, which you heard before – numerous times ever since discussing the first volume in 2018. So there undoubtedly was some amount of unspoken skepticism, but, this time, it took a little less than six months to reach vol. 30. If I continue at this pace, I should arrive at vol. 36 or 38 when December rolls around. That means I can begin sampling C.M.B. sometime in January in anticipation of the crossover event with Q.E.D. So with that out of the way, let's dig into vol. 29 and 30.

The first story from vol. 29, "Elephant," begins with Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara spotting the homeless pirate on the streets. A man they call "the pirate old man," or pirate-san, who recently appeared on the streets and, if you get caught by him, "he'll make you listen to his ramblings of many weird stories from his supposed outer space travels." So they try to avoid him, but they notice the man has found an eager listener, Morita "Mulder" Orisato. A member of the Sakisaka Private High School Detective Club who's obsessed with aliens and the supernatural. The self-professed space pirate asks Mulder to help him find treasure.

If you're familiar with the series, or just read my reviews, you might expect the story to develop into one of those character-driven, humanistic stories posing a person as the puzzle that needs to be unpacked and solved – of which there's certainly an element present. But only partially. "Elephant" has a legitimate and excellent detective problem of the impossible variety. The treasure in question is a small, heavy safe located on the top floor of a high rise building and the pirate is suspected of having stolen it, but how, since the security footage shows he left the room empty handed ("is it even possible for one person to carry something that heavy from the top floor?"). And enigmatically hints that he took away the safe by putting it into a coffee cup. A neatly done little problem with an even better solution that would not be out-of-place in an Arthur Porges short story.

So an excellent story, overall, but let the reader be warned, the answers to the human puzzle involves something suspiciously looking like advanced math homework as Touma attempts to explain the Poincaré conjecture ("we don't understand at all... think about it from our perspective").

The second story, "Motive and Alibi," is a conventional, first-rate whodunit and begins with a surprised Mizuhara finding Touma doing oil painting as an after school activity. Touma is tutored by the high school's art teacher, Aonori Makio, who has to leave early to attend a private celebration party. Makio's old art academy teacher, Kuromame Fukuzo, won an award, but Fukuzo's history as an artist is not an unblemished one. There were accusations of plagiarism, "apparently he was copying other artists' paintings," but "since he was a big-shot, the judges didn't say anything." So the small dinner party is not without tension as Fukuzo announces that it's not time for him to step back and feels like he could last another hundred years. Famous last words! On the following morning, Fukuzo is found dead in his bed from an insulin overdose and everything points towards murder. There are three suspects to pick from: two painters, Ryokucha Yozo and Akagome Akira, who received backing from Fukuzo and the high school teacher, Aonori Makio. So with Inspector Mizuhara in charge of the case and Makio neck deep in murder, Touma gets roped in to try to figure out who gave Fukuzo an overdose of insulin.

A problem focused on the possible motives and particularly the peculiar alibis of the three suspects. Akagome Akira was watching a movie in the living room, while Ryokucha Yozo and Aonori Makio played shogi in the adjacent recreational room. Touma who notices an artificial-looking set of circumstances regarding the motives and alibis, "this kind of situation is not possible without someone pulling the strings from behind," which revealed a murderer who's extremely confident in his own alibi – passing through a "golden window of opportunity" to commit murder. The alibi-trick is as ingenious as it's original, but, more importantly, I really enjoyed how Touma's explanation built on Inspector Mizuhara's bare-bones solution. That's how the collaboration between the amateur detective and professional policeman should be done.

Motohiro Katou deserves acknowledgment and praise as an innovator who's always looking for new ways to tell the detective story, but "Motive and Alibi" is a perfect example of why his traditionally-styled, Ă¼ber conventional mysteries should not be overlooked. He does them very well.

The first story from vol. 30, "Doll Killer," returns to the slightly less conventional detective stories that begins when "a mannequin with a knife lodged in its forehead" is thrown from a second floor building in Setagaya, Tokyo. A second doll murder is discovered in Yoyogi Park, but this the stabbed doll is hanging from a noose and wearing a wig. Every mannequin doll has a card in his pocket implicating cabinet members with ties to dodgy pharmaceutical companies.

Shunji Nashida, an investigator for the Cabinet's Information Department, whom previously appeared in "Parallel" (vol. 25) comes to Touma for assistance ("I remember your help in an old crime, so I want to know if you can help us out once more in this murder case"). Touma answers. Touma has an unexpected answer, "this cannot be considered as a murder because the victim is a doll" ("it's just a broken thing"), which he explains later on in the story. A very interesting explanation having to do with human-shaped technology and why he believes "there's no benefit in making a human-shaped robot" as it will create unnecessary pressure on ordinary people ("the thinning line between dolls and humans"). Touma illustrates an example of a human-shaped robot and an automatic bulldozer getting struck by rocks in a landslide. For us, the bulldozer "still looks like a broken machine," but "seeing the robot with human-like injuries we will feel a greater shock." I wish the story had developed into something along the lines of "Jacob's Ladder" (vol. 4) about the implications of advancements in robotics. It would probably have been a more interesting story than this forgettable one about corrupt politicians, medical mishaps and a culprit as obvious as a flesh wound. Not a series highlight.

The second and last story, "Dog Bowl," is a fun, simple story in which Touma and Mizuhara match wits with the crooked, unscrupulous mind behind the Futuristic Products Research Group, Kuromatsu Bunji, who's "a seasoned scammer" without a single conviction to his name – always working behind the scenes and using a fall guy as a front man. Kuromatsu Bunji newest scam targets the elderly by selling them so-called luxury articles at ridiculously inflated prices ("this is called hypnosis sales"). Touma and Mizuhara know one of their victims. Mizuhara intends to get their money back "by any means legally possible," but Touma sees no other way than giving the salesmen a dose of their own patent medicine, old-school style! So this is basically a con story in which the detective turns the tables on the conmen involving the titular dog and bowl. A relatively minor story, but, as usually with these con stories, fun enough to read.

Evidently, the two cases from vol. 29 provided better, stronger and more skillfully executed detective stories than the doll killer case and con game from vol. 30. So, surprisingly, the conventionally-plotted stories stand tall for once over the usually fascinating experimental stories or sidetracks into other corners of the genre, which is what makes Q.E.D. practically unique in the genre. But got a good impossible crime and an excellent alibi-breaker stories out of it. So I'm not complaining.

20 comments:

  1. The trick in "Elephant" is also memorable to me, glad you agreed. Although Katou rarely has grand impossible crime tricks ala Kindaichi & Conan, he still can create simple but original tricks. Another one which is memorable to me is "the Detective Novelist Murder Case" in vol. 33. It has a simple locked-room trick that I have never seen before. There are probably a lot of things that can go wrong in the trick, but I like the ingenuity of it.

    Regarding "Dog Bowl", there is another good con story in vol. 43 "Ginger the Salesman". As for "Doll Killer", I recalled that early in the days, Katou listed this story as his top 10. But I also agree that this particular story is not that memorable. I also preferred "Jacob's Ladder".

    I don't really remember "Motive and Alibi", so thanks for reminding me.

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    1. Good to know! Just two volumes away from "The Detective Novelist Murder Case." I would say Kindaichi is the only of those three series that really does grand scale locked rooms and alibi-tricks. Every novel-length volume turns on them, while Detective Conan and Q.E.D. regularly dipped into the impossible crime. And they have shorter stories. So they're not always grand architectural marvels, but who really reads Detective Conan or Q.E.D. solely for the locked rooms? When they do feature one, they seldom disappoint. Katou is a really good, underappreciated mystery writer. I need to do a top 10 favorite stories from the first 25 volumes one of these months.

      "Outer Space Battle" will be hard to beat as my favorite con story from this series.

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  2. BTW, there's a QED special chapter between vol 32 and 33 that was made to celebrate the live TV drama, not included in a volume, which is... uh... I have no words.

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    1. Yes, I noticed that odd chapter and first thought vol. 31 had three, instead of two, shorter than usual stories.

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  3. Great review, I really need to read Q.E.D.! These stories sound great, especially "Motives and Alibis".

    Have you read Undead Girl Murder Farce yet? It's a book-cum-manga-cum-anime series about a series of murder mysteries in a fantastical setting. I haven't read/watched it yet, but it comes highly recommended to me.

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    1. You absolutely should! I have been enjoying it tremendously and Detective Conan might end up having to share its first place spot with Q.E.D. as my favorite detective manga.

      This is the first time I've heard of that series. Is there a translation?

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    2. To absolutely nobody's surprise, Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) currently ranks as my favorite mystery manga. It's the most consistent I've seen a mystery manga be. I guess I should making concessions for the fact it's only 7 stories long, but if you look at the first 7 stories of Detective Conan, Kindaichi Case Files and (according to my friends) even Q.E.D., I think you'd agree that knocking it out of the park with almost all of your first 7 stories (even if those are your only 7 stories) is still VERY impressive. Even if the stories are easy to piece-together, it's also the manga I've seen most consistently, audaciously, and brilliantly make use of its visual format. Not only are there brilliant visual clues, there's also brilliant visual MISDIRECTION... Just great stuff, even ignoring the fact it's a spin-off from my favorite mystery series of all time.

      Tantei Gakuen Q is my second favorite, for being the only instance of a mystery manga I've seen that 1.) has an overarching plot in prime focus and 2.) is able to intimately bake the overarching plot into its mystery stories without sacrificing the quality of the mysteries. It's also very consistent, even if there is a somewhat long-ish stint of underwhelming stories after seemingly peaking early at Kamikakushi... It gets out of the slump quickly, though, and becomes quite great!

      I love Detective Conan plenty, but I think it's very inconsistent, so I'm more willing to say "these Detective Conan cases are among some of my favorite manga mysteries" than to say Detective Conan holistically is one of my favorite mystery manga. That isn't helped by how the series handles its overarching plot...

      My favorite Conan case is "Arcade Murder Case", by the way! I know it's bold to pick a three-chapter case as a favorite, but it does everything right. 1.) It's uniquely modern, so it's a plot that COULDN'T have been written into a mystery from the 1920s, 2.) It's informed by the rules and culture of a special setting so that the murder couldn't take place anywhere else, and 3.) It's an alibi plot. Even if it's somewhat easy to solve, the plot is super creative in a way I really admire. Great case! I really regret picking Moonlight Sonata as my representative case on my 30 mysteries list (which is already super outdated) because if I knew what I knew now I'd have easily picked "Arcade Murder Case".

      ...Anyway, enough rambling! I look forward to seeing how Q.E.D. fares against these manga!

      As for Undead Girl Murder Farce, the first three volumes of the manga are available in English on Amazon. The books have no official English translation, and if there's an unofficial translation, I don't know about it. The anime is being translated because, frankly, all anime get translated in one way or another, so you can count on that!

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    3. "...I think you'd agree that knocking it out of the park with almost all of your first 7 stories (even if those are your only 7 stories) is still VERY impressive."

      Well, sure, knocking seven stories, one after the other, out of the park is very impressive, but it's not like the Ace Attorney manga came falling out of the sky. As you said, it's a spin-off and unlike the other series already had a foundation in place to build on. I'm sure the visual misdirection is also a part of the games. So there was already something in place, unlike the other series you mentioned. For example, I'm pretty sure the first couple of C.M.B. volumes will turn out to be better and stronger overall than the first few from Q.E.D.

      I've only watched the Detective Academy Q anime, but agree it ranks highly as it seems to have successfully blended and streamlined the approaches of Detective Conan (overarching plot) and The Kindaichi Case Files (constituency in cases). Detective Conan and Q.E.D. differ in that their shorter, much more varied stories makes them sort of a “package deal.”

      "I know it's bold to pick a three-chapter case as a favorite, but it does everything right."

      Don't worry about your "hot take." I still stand by the opinion "The Poisonous Coffee Case" is not only a superb impossible crime story, but one of the better impossible crime stories of the modern era! I really would love to see a selection of the best Detective Conan cases reworked into an illustrated short story collection as an appetizing introduction for readers who are leery of making the jump to mystery mangas.

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    4. Actually, believe it or not, I think you'd find that Tantei Gakuen Q is much more like Detective Conan and much less like Kindaichi Case Files than you realize; although earlier on, the series seems like it's going to be Kindaichi Case Files 2: Electric Boogaloo, what with a seeming focus on long-form cases and very, very similar set-ups and all... But if you read Kirisaki Island Tragedy, the original first real case, there's actually a piece of (brilliant) misdirection that pretty much exclusively exists to punish you if you're familiar with Kindaichi and expect the series to be like that.

      I haven't been reviewing the cases I've read, because I've been very depressed, but Tantei Gakuen Q very often breaks away from the long-form impossible crime mold. One of my favorite cases in the whole manga is a sub-story in what is already a sub-story, but it's just wonderful; a two-or-so chapter riddle in which Dan recounts the day he discovered a corpse surrounded by a bunch of freshly-cooked food. Unlike Paul Halter, Amagi dreams up a convincing, logical, and brilliant explanation to this problem that actually, you know, matters.

      There are also treasure hunts, "escape-from-eminent-threat" stories, and code crackers, and these are also similar to Detective Conan in that they're not very fun to read. :) Also similar to Detective Conan, Tantei Gakuen Q occasionally breaks away to short-story inverted mystery cases like "Let's Board the Alibi Train!" which might share space with "Turnabout Gallows" for my favorite visual clue in manga mysteries.

      There's a "mathematic impossibility" in which a woman cuts a piece of land in half (to split between her and a family member) using her own tape measurer, but finds that somehow her piece of land had later shrunk! It's a single-chapter story, and it's pretty solid.

      Also, even more unlike Kindaichi, there isn't even really a guarantee that even the full-size stories are going to be impossible crimes. The series' most famous story, Setsugekka Murder Case, is a full-size story that contains zero impossibilities and is more of an exercise in late-stage Ellery Queen deduction...

      Even the impossible crimes themselves take on wildly different forms, since TGQ is more comfortable writing stories into urban environments. So you get impossible crimes relying on the layout of a construction site or the physics of an elementary school home ec classroom!

      In other words, with a mix of long- and short-form cases, impossible crimes, riddles, code crackers, thrillers, and everything else known to mankind, I actually struggle to compare Tantei Gakuen Q to Kindaichi Case Files at all despite what I said in my earlier reviews. :^) I've actually started to feel like Tantei Gakuen Q is a more refined take on Detective Conan than anything Kindaichi!

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    5. (I offer this long explanation only because I don't know what stories are adapted into the anime, and I know it isn't ALL of them, so there's a good chance you just don't know about many of these...)

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    6. Also, I really should've included this all in one comment instead of three... The overarching plot of TGQ isn't faithfully preserved in the anime, and I know a lot of really good stories are missing, so I do recommend checking out the manga at some point!

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    7. Hmm... maybe Detective Acadamy Q is a better option than Ace Attorney once I finish Q.E.D..

      There's a "mathematic impossibility" in which a woman cuts a piece of land in half (to split between her and a family member) using her own tape measurer, but finds that somehow her piece of land had later shrunk! It's a single-chapter story, and it's pretty solid.

      Sounds pretty solid, but, if I'm not mistaken, there's only way to do pull of such a stunt (ROT13): lbh unir gb zbir guvatf sebz gur “tebjvat” cvrpr bs ynaq, yvxr n ohvyqvat be rira gerrf naq ohfurf, pybfre gb gur “fuehaxra” cvrpr bs ynaq.

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    8. Speaking of unnecessary, additional comments, you can look forward to a couple of Japanese locked room mystery reviews later this month. So stay tuned!

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    9. I don't know if you care for anti-spoilers, but I'm happy to tell you that the solution, although workmanlike for sure, is a bit more clever and original than the one you've suggested, and is based on a somewhat more definite and reliable boundary than merely associating it with certain landmarks. It isn't blow-your-socks-off ingenious or anything like that, but it's a clever and satisfying solution, I promise you that much.

      "Hmm... maybe Detective Acadamy Q is a better option than Ace Attorney once I finish Q.E.D.."

      Be wary of locked-rooms, TomCat, if you read TGQ before Ace Attorney...

      "Speaking of unnecessary, additional comments, you can look forward to a couple of Japanese locked room mystery reviews later this month. So stay tuned!"

      Alerting me to Japanese mystery reviews will never be unnecessary! I look forward to it!

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    10. Why should I be wary? Are you warning me Ace Attorney pulled a Yozaburo Kanari and copied its locked room-trick from DAQ?

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    11. Ohhh, by the by the by, TomCat, I've just watched the first case of Undead Girl Murder Farce.

      Although it concerns the murder of a vampire by silver stake, the mystery is sadly a fairly standard alibi trick. The supernatural elements are merely peripheral, so the core of the plot doesn't feel sufficiently special for taking place in a special setting. In fact, the trick is basically a medieval rendition of one of the biggest cliches of the genre. There's some brilliant stuff on the peripheral of the plot, but nothing that really impressed.me enough to tell you to rush off and watch the rest of it.

      I'll keep watching it, though. I need something to talk about on my blog.

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    12. No. That doesn't sound like something that will thaw my skepticism of fantasy-mystery hybrids.

      By the way, have you read my 2022 review of John Russell Fearn's The Empty Coffins? I pointed out in the note to the curious how the story provided a blueprint for a vampiric whodunit without using it. But that blueprint gives a pretty good idea how a fair play mystery with real vampires can be played. You might find it interesting.

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  4. Got some news you might like. Check out Ron Kamonohashi, apparently the next big promising mystery manga; Chinese honkaku fans apparently consider it a serious contender as an equal to Conan and Q.E.D., and established mystery authors and critics praise it for its tricks, cluing, and thorough logic. One of the most recent cases, The Case of the Tragic Cruise Serial Murders, is 21 chapters long, and each chapter is on average about 60 pages I believe, making it potentially the longest mystery in manga format by a massive landslide. I've not read it, but all of the feedback I've heard on it is unambiguously positive; and there's no fantasy elements to turn you away.

    Also, I read the last two missing Ace Attorney manga cases and my thoughts on them are that they're both very even and solid cases, not quite the best but not quite the worst the series has to offer, either as mystery plots or as adaptations of the Ace Attorney formula. "Turnabout Gurgitation" has the best example in the manga of Ace Attorney's habit of going on long and seemingly irrelevant tangents before revealing that what once seemed like a funny waste of time was in fact the single most important clue in the history of clues ever. This is my favorite trope of Ace Attorney's, the "how the HELL is THAT relevant-- ohhhhhh" factor, and it was a high point of otherwise a fairly average case for the manga. The final case was quite good as an Ace Attorney trial too, but I was merely whelmed by the unique, but not totally impressive, impossible trick. Both good, but none come close to the brilliantly streamlined "Turnabout Showtime", which as it stands is probably in my top 3 favorite manga mysteries of all time. But you can rest assured that the series is still quite consistently good, and a lot of the "quirks" of the earlier cases are ironed out.

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    1. You're not making it easier for Ace Attorney to get a shot, but my previous answer still stands: I need to finish Q.E.D. first. But thanks for the recommendation!

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    2. If it helps, I started reading Ron Kamodohashi and I don't like it. :P

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