Back in March, I reviewed Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 24 and springtime was either too late or too early to fully enjoy the seasonally-themed first story of the volume, "Christmas Eve Eve" – promising to revisit it in December. I intended to do this Q.E.D. XMAS Special earlier in the month, but plans rarely follow the plan on this blog. There's still a day, or so, left to tidy up some odds and ends before closing the book on 2024.
Hagio Youko is the owner of the karaoke bar and a friend of Kana Mizuhara, who are both professional wrestling fans, but she currently breaking up with her boyfriend and manager, Tokunaga Tsutomu. Youko's friends had seen Tsutomu on a date with another woman and they overheard discussing marriage. Tsutomu flatly denies the accusation, but who's right? Iguchi Yuzou is another, older part-timer who had been released from his old job after the company downsized and took a part-time job at the karaoke bar to buy his son a video game for Christmas. And then his wallet disappears. Presumably stolen. So has that anything to do with other strange incidents? At the time, there are only eight groups of customers, but nine rooms are occupied and the ones in charge of registrations at the counter are Youko and another part-time college student, Fujimura Misataka – who both deny responsibility for having made a possible mistake. There are muddy shoe prints on the office floor apparently belonging to someone who came in from the outside. So are there trespassers and thieves sneaking through karaoke bar lifting wallets and leaving muddy prints?
So while all relatively minor problems and small incidents, tensions and tempers begin to flare as they begin to pile on. Just when everybody begins to lose their minds and yelling at each other, Sou Touma returns from handing out flyers as Santa Claus (see pic below). And immediately is pushed to play armchair detective to clear up the whole mess. One by one, Touma explains all the incidents ensuring everyone can go home happy to celebrate Christmas with their loved one.
"Christmas Eve Eve" is one of those very light, character-driven slice-of-life mysteries perfectly suitable for a Christmas-themed story. Not the best or most memorable story in the series, but nice enough for what it is.
The second story I decided to discuss in this Q.E.D. special twofer is "The Drama Murder Case," a special one-shot story to commemorate the TV drama, which I had been warned about was going to be a really weird story. Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara film "a thorough report on the behind the scenes happenings for a TV drama" on behalf of the Sakisaka High School Broadcasting Club. During the backstage tour, they find the body of the chief producer, Arakawa Noriichirou, under utterly bizarre circumstances. Arakawa Noriichirou is wearing a bald wig, helmet and a traditionally hakama holding a comb and an old-fashioned, matchlock rifle hanging around his neck. And he had been strangled to death with the strap on the rifle. Even stranger is that all the suspects share exactly the same motive as the victim loved to make atrocious, overly elaborate puns. The kind of bad puns that land with all the impact of a crossbow bolt smacking into your eardrums.
Believe it or not, the solution is even more ridiculous and far-fetched, but suppose that was the intention. Just an amusing, quick little one-shot not meant to be taken seriously nor to be considered official canon. And, to be fair, some of the fun and humor was definitely lost in translation. I'm sure "The Drama Murder Case' is funnier in Ja-pun-ese. ;)
So that rounds out 2023. I wish you all a very happy, healthy 2024 and hope to see you all back in January!
L. Stump
ReplyDeleteShoot, disregard that, I was trying to type my name and accidentally typed it as a comment instead.
DeleteWhat I MEANT to say is...
Great review as always! I still need to read Q.E.D.. I only read Serial John Doe, and didn't love it, but plan to read some of the lore traditional cases to whet my appetite. Thanks for reminding me I need to check it out.
At the moment, I'm reading Ron Kamonohashi, which I mentioned to you before. I read the first six cases and thought it was... pretty mediocre, but people have insisted it gets much better later on, so I'm giving it a chance before reading Q.E.D.. The second latest long Kamonohashi case is 21 chapters long, making it possibly the longest case of any detective manga ever, right? I'm very curious to see how it is. I'll report back to you.
Happy New Years!
Regarding Ron Kamonohashi, I agree that the beginning cases are pretty mediocre. However, I do also think it gets better later on. There are a lot of cases with interesting premise, although the solutions can be hit or miss. With regard to the 21 chapters cases, it is long because it contain a lot of mini cases + resolution of ongoing plotlines. Therefore, the individual cases are actually short and resolved pretty quickly. As a locked-room fan, my favorite would probably be the 'Twin Prison Locked Room Murder Case'. It uses an old trick, but with a variation that I have not seen before. Anyway, looking forward to more QED reviews.
DeleteHappy New Year!
Yeah, "Serial John Doe" is one of the more experimental stories in the series and not the best place to start. Unless you've a really off-beat taste in crime fiction. Keep me posted on that series. So far, it doesn't sound very tempting.
DeleteAnyway, Happy New Year to the both of you!
There's three standout cases, I think.
DeleteThe only one I think is truly worth going out of your way to read is Plateau Auberge Murder Case. It's a very Queen-ian story with an incredible chain of deductions at the heart of it, and the premise of a Mitate mystery where the murders are based on the items on a lunch menu is super amusing, with a neat trick at the end.
But there's also two other stories I like -- Live Broadcast Murder, an impossible crime where a psychic kills someone by writing the word "death" on a piece of paper, and Psychological Research Laboratory Murder, where an explosion kills someone in a lab, have two very clever spins on two very different Chesterton stories.
I have no strong opinions on any other stories, though, but maybe check this out?
I'll definitely keep Plateau Auberge Murder Case in mind for when I'm finished with Q.E.D. Thanks for the recommendation and acting like a quality filter. :D
DeleteIt's like Katou saw Aoyama's Detective Conan pun puzzles and went "I can be even more inane than that."
ReplyDeleteAnd a shame they translate so poorly into other languages. You can't really solve them unless you read them in Japanese.
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