The Kindaichi Case Files: Death TV by Yozaburo Kanari and Fumiya Sato

I'm consistently about two months, give or take a week or two, ahead on schedule with enough blog-posts and reviews queued to occasionally slip away from the blog without it getting noticed, which every now and then runs into a scheduling problem – occasionally leaving a place open for an upcoming reprint, new release or translation. Something that doesn't always work out. This time, I was left with a week-sized hole in the November schedule and needed something to plug the gap. But what?

I considered doing another Q.E.D. review or perhaps redo and expand on my two old posts about detective stories lost to history, "The Locked Room Reader: A Selection of Lost Detective Stories" and "The Locked Room Reader: A Return to the Phantom Library," but decided to leave them for another time. I moved away this year from The Kindaichi Case Files to focus on Q.E.D. and wanted to briefly return to the former before trying to finish the latter in 2024. I wanted to revisit a volume from the original run of the series that has a story somewhat befitting for these cold, dark and short winter days.

To the Yozaburo Kanari fans among you who feel the icy clutch of despair, you can rest your mind. I'm not going to gift myself an early Christmas present by laying in on Kanari. So you won't hear me saying Kanari has all the creativity and originality of a "Jingle Bells" cover. I'm not going to waste a single word on telling you Kanari handles his plots with the skill and subtlety of an American Civil War surgeon treating a leg wound. Not a hint, nor a murmur, that an old, battered copy of Plotto (1928) would probably have made a better leadwriter for this series (Story by Plotto, Art by Fumiya Sato). This is going to be a fair and balanced review, like The Demon God Ruins Murder Case, but I've a ROT13 question at the end for those who believe Kanari got the short shrift for The Mummy's Curse – copying his homework from Soji Shimada's Senseijutsu satsujinjiken (The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, 1981). More on that in a moment.

Death TV was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from March 17 to May 26, 1993, under the title The Snow Yashka Murder Case and TokyoPop released an English translation in 2003. I remembered it as a surprisingly decent entry early on in the frist series, but not too difficult a task coming right alongside The Opera House Murders and The Mummy's Curse. So let's find out how well it stands up to a second glance.

Hajime Kindaichi has taken a part-time job at a local television station to kill time during the winter break, working as an extra and runner for Shock TV, which is "a hidden-camera show that plays pranks on celebrities." The "victims" for the latest episode are the actress Rie Kanou and the pop singer Reika Hayami. Death TV is, in fact, the introduction of two recurring characters, Reika Hayami and Superintendent Kengo Akechi, who's there to lend an air of authenticity to the prank. Shock TV lured the two celebrities to the village of Segoori, in the shadow of Taisetsu Mountain in Hokkaido, where the villa of the well-known, famously reclusive painter Issei Himuro stands – designed "as a museum to display his own work." So the gallery snaked around the house, surrounding the rooms in the center, which makes it the perfect location for a hidden-camera murder mystery patterned after the local legend of the Snow Demon. Rie Kanou and Reika Hayami are made to believe they're in the middle of a real-life Seishi Yokomizo mystery, but Kanou smells a typical Shock TV scam and so the crew have planned "a prank just for her." Only then things go horribly wrong.

The villa is divided in two parts, a main building and annex, which face each other, but a river and deep canyon sits between the two buildings. A bridge connecting the villa's two part washed away the previous summer and the only other bridge is a twenty minute drive away. Rie Kanou gets left behind in the annex together with the cameraman, Michio Akashi, while the cast and crew move to the main building to observe their victim through the hidden-cameras and setting off remote controlled special effects. Someone wearing the custom and mask of the legendary Snow Demon appears on their monitors. Whoever is behind the mask, the figure is carrying an ax. Only thing the cast and crew can do is watch helplessly as the Snow Demon plants the ax into Kanou's skull. The outside cameras picks up one last glimpse of the murderer as the Snow Demon vanished into the snowstorm ("leaving the villa quiet once more"). Michio Akashi is nowhere to be found and everyone else has an alibi as solid as permafrost. All of them being together twenty minutes away from the crime scene. Akashi is quickly found to have been innocent when his body turns inside a snowman clutching a dying message. And they're not the last to fall victim to the Snow Demon. The last murder is committed in a room with the door and windows locked from the inside.

However, the additional murders, dying message and locked room-trick are pretty much irrelevant to the plot. The dying message is not considered until the conclusion and the locked room-trick is an old dodge, which is surprising as this always makes work of its impossible crime. The whole story of Death TV is driven by two thing: the admittedly brilliant alibi-trick to the first murder and setting Superintendent Akechi up as a rival detective to Hajime Kindaichi (playing the Simon Brimmer to Kindaichi's Ellery Queen). Akechi is as trying and hard to like in his first appearance as Philo Vance in The Benson Murder Case (1926). A young, arrogant "career cop" who studied criminal psychology in the United States and due to his education, started as an assistant inspector instead of working his way up. And loves to refer to his time abroad ("of course, I've already seen many similar cases in Los Angeles"). Akechi challenges Kindaichi and Inspector Kenmochi, “to find out whose tactics are more effects,” which provided the plot with an opportunity to have Kindaichi bat away several false-solutions. Akechi becomes more palpable as a character in later appearances and even starred in his own spin-off series, but here served his purpose by playing the fallible detective who ends up getting a much deserved kick in the pance.

Regrettably, everything outside the central alibi-puzzle and rivalry between the two detective is subpar. I already mentioned the wasted dying message and routine locked room-trick, but the murderer stands out from the moment the murder is committed. Even if you don't know, exactly, how it was done, the story makes it very clear only that person could have done it. But then Kanari had to apply one of his famous, oh-so subtle plot-touches to the character of the murderer. So here comes my ROT13 question: fb lbh qrpvqr gb frg lbhe qrgrpgvir fgbel va n fcrpvnyyl qrfvtarq ivyyn, pbzcyrgr jvgu bqq nepuvgrpgheny naq ynaqfpncr srngherf, jurer n snzbhfyl erpyhfvir cnvagre yvirf uvqqra oruvaq fhatynffrf naq n snprznfx. Lbh unir n zheqrere jub'f nyzbfg vafhygvatyl boivbhf naq gur bayl guvat gung nfcrpg bs gur cybg unf tbvat sbe vgfrys vf n ernyyl bevtvany nyvov-gevpx. Jul purncra vg ol gelvat gb or gbathr-va-purrx pyrire ol anzvat gur zheqrere Nlngfhwv? I completely missed that the first time around, but now it stood out and it annoyed more than it probably should have. What really annoyed me was the motive. Not the repetitiveness of this overused motive, particularly in this series, but how the ending revealed the victims, relatively ordinary people, to have been almost comically evil ("scram, you brat"). I'm the last detective fan to complain about shallow characterization, but Jesus Christ, the only thing missing was them laughing maniacally among the burning wreckage.

I remembered Death TV as a surprisingly decent, early entry in the series and, as you can probably guess, it has not entirely stood up to a second reading. The plot rests entirely on breaking down the murderer's crafty alibi and the rivalry between Akechi and Kindaichi livens up what would otherwise have been a paint-by-numbers, shin honkaku-style detective story, but not enough to recommend it. And certainly not worth tracking down one of those ridiculously overpriced, secondhand copies of the TokyoPop translation.

The Kindaichi Case Files: Demon God Ruins Murder Case

Back in August, I reviewed The Seiren Island Murder Case from The Kindaichi Case Files and turned out not only to be immensely enjoying, intricately-plotted detective story, but a top 10 candidate for a series best-of list – which encouraged to return to the series before too long. I was already eyeing Demon God Ruins Murder Case when two anonymous comments sold me on it as my next stop in the series. 

Demon God Ruins Murder Case originally appeared as a serial from March 19 to June 18, 1997, in Weekly Shōnen Magazine and is the 18th case in the first run of The Kindaichi Case Files known as the File Series. That was some cause for concern as the series was being (mainly) written by Yozaburo Kanari at the time. Fortunately, it turned out to be one of Kanari's occasional success stories, but he clearly had no idea how exactly to begin or end the story. More on that ending in a moment.

So the story opens a little chaotically, but the gist is that Hajime Kindaichi needs money and is offered a part-time by another student at Fudou High, Munakata Satsuki. It's an archaeological excavation job at her home village, Majin Village, situated in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture. The Majin Village is not, exactly, a typical village. Firstly, the only entrance to the village is a tunnel cutting through a mountain, which is the only way in and out. Secondly, the village is more of a private estate nestled in a mountain valley with only three houses. The House of Gems, The House of Daggers and The House of Seven Mirrors. There used to be a fourth place, The House of the Copper Bells, but it had burned down years ago. A place with a long, sacred history dating back to the time before Buddhism was brought to Japan, countless ancient artifacts have been excavated in the Majin Village, but the recent excavation attempts to locate four so-called cursed Demon Artifacts – worshiped "as magical items during earlier times." It's believed these Demon Artifacts were dedicated to the deity of curses, Magadori no Mikoto. Whoever "finds all four Demon Artifacts will become rich and famous." And possibly a little cursed.

During the Meiji Era, Satsuki's great-grandfather, Munakata Kichiemon, collected all four artifacts and became very successful, but there was a price to pay. Several family began to die and not from natural causes. So he decided to put the artifacts back to sleep, "burying them back in the ruins of this Majin Village," which is why the family build and moved to the family. The Majin Village is "a sealed village" to suppress "the terrifying powers of the Demon Artifacts" and Satsuki's family have now lived there for generations worshiping the very god that keeps them captive. However, the artifacts have an immeasurable value to the field of archaeology and Munakata Shirou, Satsuki's father and an archaeologist, assembled an excavation team to dig out the ruins. But in the middle or excavation, he died in a cave-in. So now a new attempt is made by the family to find those priceless artifacts.

Hajime Kindaichi, Miyuki Nanase and Saki go to the Majin Village where they find a mixed group of relatives, residents, servants and archaeologists. Firstly, there's Satsuki's aunt, Minatoya Asuka, who lives at the House of Gems with her husband, Minatoya Kanichi. They currently have a house guest, Yamato Takeru, who used to be one of Munakata Shirou two assistants. And he insisted on participating in the next attempt at excavating the historical treasures. Secondly, Edogawa Kenji is a well-known mystery novelist and current owner of the House of Daggers and gave a room to the second ex-assistant, Soga Toyohiro. Thirdly, Kunimori Akihiko, Professor of Archaeology at Tojoh University, who's a former research partner of Munakata Shirou and leads the current excavation party. And he brought along his own assistant, Toribeno Akira. Lastly, there's the household of Satsuki, but her mother has withdrawn from life years ago and now lives with face veiled in the upstairs rooms of the House of Seven Mirrors. So the most prominent characters from the House of Seven Mirrors are Satsuki and the two servants, Muranishi Yayoi and Tsukumo Iyo.

Kindaichi begins his part-time job by helping the archaeologists and the dig is a cave, known as Magadori's Seat, which has an opening sealed by a smooth and shiny stone door – named the mirror rock. There are two semicircular cavities in the mirror rock door that can be used as handles, by two people, to push the door open. One handle is covered with a panel that has a keyhole in it, which can be unlocked and removed. A safety precautionary to keep people away from the dig site. You can probably guess what a creative murderer can do with such a setting.

After the first day of work, the mirror rock is moved back into place and locked simply by replacing the panel on one of the cavity-handles. Kindaichi is entrusted to safeguard the key, but soon they discover Yamato Takeru has gone missing. A murder of crows is cawing and pecking away at the cave entrance. So the mirror rock is opened and inside they find Yamato Takeru's body, strangled to death, surrounded by the rotting crow cadavers. There's "no way to open the mirror rock without the key to the second handle" and that makes the stone chamber in Magadori's Seat "a perfectly locked room." This is indeed a really good and original locked room mystery. Not only in presentation! The story provided the problem with two very different, very original solutions to the problem, which are both (technically) correct without one turning out to be a false-solution. And how that works is something you have to find out for yourself. But it worked. My only complaint is that one clue to the second locked room solution really should have been displayed much earlier in the story.

Other than that, the seemingly impossible murder at the dig site would have been enough to carry most detective stories, but the bodycounts in The Kindaichi Case Files almost never stops at just one.

The second death comes as quickly and unexpectedly as it's visually startling and gruesomely presented, but it unfortunately turned out to be nothing more than mere story-dressing with no relevance to the plot. It actually made me feel sorry the character had to die in such a spectacular way for absolutely nothing. If you kill a character in such a way, you have to make it count. Dammit, Kanari! You were so close to being consistent here. A third death in the House of Seven Mirrors introduces a new puzzle to the plot, namely a dying message, as the victim is found tightly clenching pieces of paper – torn pages from a daily wall calendar. Japanese dying messages tend to be language-based and almost never translate very well into another language, which is no different here. This time, I thought the dying message was solvable as the murderer was shown throughout the story either disguised as Magadori no Mikoto (yes, very Scooby Doo) or as a featureless shadow figure, but both times the murderer was coughing blood. I figured the victim could have been aware of this and tried to identify the attacker by pointing out the murderer's days are numbered. Well, I was wrong. The dying message turned out to be a language-based clue after all, but suppose an untranslatable clue is not something I can hold against Kanari. And, to be fair, Kanari held the plot together fairly well. 

Demon God Ruins Murder Case is a mostly well-plotted detective story that also include the archaeological search, or rather treasure hunt, to find the lost artifacts. That plot-thread made good use of the floor plan of the House of Seven Mirrors as a clue to the hiding place. However, the key-word here is mostly. Demon God Ruins Murder Case clearly shows the difference between Kanari and his much more talented co-writer, Seimaru Amagi. Kanari not only lacks Amagi's talent as a plotter, but also his confidence as a writer. I already mentioned the messy, almost contrived opening to get the story started, the inconsequential second death and withholding an important clue to the locked room until the last acceptable moment, but he also had no idea how to end the story. You can only interpreted the ending as divine intervention that allowed for a very convenient and happy ending. Nor did I care for that last-minute, feelgood surprise-twist about one of the other characters.

That being said, I can't deny Demon God Ruins Murder Case is among Kanari's better treatments of the series formula. I agree with the anonymous comments that there's "variation and nuance" to familiar tropes, stock motive and cast of characters, but, more than that, I simply found the idea of the double solution to the original locked room situation to be impressive. Never let it be said Kanari was treated unfairly on this blog!

So, while not among the top-tier titles in the series, Demon God Ruins Murder Case stands as a fairly solid, multi-layered and engrossing mystery with a surprising amount of originality and consistency from a writer I normally rate very lowly. There are some weak spots in the storytelling and plotting, but ended up being as pleasantly surprised as when discovering Kanari's The Headless Samurai defied all my expectations by being unaccountably excellent. I actually wanted to end this review with complimenting Amagi for dragging a good locked room mystery out of his writing partner, but I'll stop bashing Kanari now and say he did a good job here.

Anyway, sorry for this messy, rambling review, but cranked it out as it came to me and dumped it. No idea what's next, but probably something Christmas-themed.

The Kindaichi Case Files: The Seiren Island Murder Case

The Seiren Island Murder Case, alternatively known as The Sacred Love Island Murder Case, was originally serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from December 7, 2016 to April 12, 2017 – collected in volumes 12 and 13 of The File of Young Kindaichi Returns. In many ways, The Seiren Island Murder Case can be called the quintessential Kindaichi murder case. 

The story takes place on a remote, practically uninhabited, island with a haunted history where a group are marooned in the company of a murderer who can strike in a seemingly impossible fashion. No less than three impossible crimes and two of them provide the story with more alibis than even Inspector French could handle. Where the Seiren Island Murder Case differentiates itself from the average, formulaic Kindaichi story (that's you, Doll Island Murder Case) is how well it utilized the visual format of manga (comic book) to simply show what would have been difficult to illustrate in prose. So what otherwise would have been hard to follow, visualize and swallow, becomes easier to accept as you can see what actually happened. This is one of the clearest examples in the series of making a tricky and complicated plot appear more convincing than it would have done in text with one or two diagrams. But let's begin at the beginning.

Hajime Kindaichi and Miyuki Nanase accompany Inspector Kenmochi, of the Metropolitan Police Department, to Seiren Island to compete in a two million yen fishing competition. Apparently, the inspector used to be quite a pro in fishing.

So the competition provides the story with a relatively large cast of characters. There's a team of doctors comprising of Ushio Kojirou, Kanno Mika and Professor Kageo Kazehiko. A team consisting of two employees of medical manufacturing companies, Izumaru Ken and Wanise Takashi. There's a writer, Uryuu Akane, who's present to gather material together with her editor and photographer, Okunogi Musashi. A producer and cameraman of South Island Cable TV, Nagita Kuuya and Umihoshi Shuugo, are there to "record every action" the competitors make. Kijima Takahiko is an employee of Otowa Island Commercial Company who's in charge of the fishing competition. Lastly, there's the only, 87-year-old inhabitant of the island, Kirigoe Hiruko, whose only companion is the sad, ghostly wailing of "The Siren" like "an island that cries in grief." Why did she welcome them to Gravestone Island? A portent of things to come! 

The Seiren Island Murder Case has another trademark of the series: bizarre architecture and layout. The competitors sleep in stilted cottages, above the sea, which are connected through a series of bridges to each other and a bigger cottage in the middle – which gives access to dockyard with two cottages. The big cottage and the two smaller cottages are linked together three bridges running in an almost triangular circle (see image below). During the first, early morning of the competition, the teams try to reach the dockyard, but the door to the small cottage is found locked. When they look through the window, they see the body of Professor Kageo Kazehiko lying face down in the small cottage with "a spear through his back." They hear a sound coming from the inside and witness a weird light streaking above the sea, as if someone is trying to escape through the other side, which is why rush to the other cottage to cut the murderer off. And, when they arrive and open the door, there's the body of the professor on the floor again! Everyone was accounted for at the time. So they all have pristine alibis, but the presence of a third party on the island is equally unlikely.

As noted above, the comic book format of manga gives the opportunity to show instead of telling and you can get away with a lot more as you don't need an illustrated, chapter-length explanation of the trick. This is a really good example of how a complicated trick can be simplified without dumbing it down to the point where you can roughly work out what happened. Only the Japanese appear to realize the still largely untapped potential the visual medium gives a good plotter and writer. While this double conundrum of a locked room mystery and alibi factory would have been sufficient as the central puzzle of the plot, The Seiren Island Murder Case tosses two more, distinctly different impossible crimes at the reader. I loved the second impossibility.

 

After the murder, the island is rocked by a storm, the engines of the boats malfunctioned and all the food has disappeared or rendered inedible. So they have to fish in order to eat. Kindaichi and Kenmochi are part of the second fishing expedition, but the third person with them is dragged down into the sea and drowned in front of their eyes. And when the body resurfaces, "no wound like a shark bite was found." So, if it wasn't shark who pulled the victim into the sea, what else is capable of dragging an adult with almost supernatural strength to his death? Admittedly, the solution to the trick borders on the pulp, but it was very well done. A kind of trick that can only be compared to the third impossibility in W. Shepard Pleasants' The Stingaree Murders (1932). A third and last murder is staged that technically qualifies as an impossible crime, but the impossibility is used to give the remaining people on the island another round of unimpeachable alibis. So more of a borderline impossibility than anything else. However, the trick behind had more to it than initially expected. 

The Seiren Island Murder Case has more than enough to offer to mystery fans who love picking apart locked room mysteries and demolishing alibis, but don't overlook how craftily these tricks interact with their surroundings. Or how the surrounding interacts with the human-made structures on the island. There's some nice and even beautiful synergy in the story between the natural, artificial and even a strange hybrid of the two pertaining to the subplot of the old woman, the unsettling wartime history of the island and the legacy it left behind – given shape in the form of the ghostly wailing. The shrieking of the Siren turned out to contain a code only the original islanders can decipher. Sounds completely nuts, I know, but the answer was surprisingly convincing. Convincing in a detective story, that is. But, on a whole, The Seiren Island Murder Case is a richly told, intricately-plotted and thoroughly enjoyable entry in the series.

Only smudge on the plot is the identity of the killer and accompanying motive, which offered less inspired takes on the series formula, but not enough to demote it as a first-class contribution to the series. Particularly as an excellently conceived and executed howdunit stuffed to the gills with alibis and impossibilities. I enjoyed it so much, I might take a look at The Demon God Ruins Murder Case before too long. So stay tuned!

The Kindaichi Case Files: Ghost Fire Island Murder Case

Back in August, I reviewed the last of four translated "light novels" in The Kindaichi Case Files series, written by Seimaru Amagi, which ended my exploration of that part of the franchise as the rest of the often promising-sounding novels remain frustratingly untranslated – like Yūrei kyakusen satsujin jiken (Ghost Passenger Ship Murder Case, 1995) and Onibijima satusjin jiken (Ghost Fire Island Murder Case, 1997). I considered to get to the third Opera House case or the new 37-year-old Kindaichi next, but an anonymous comment directed my attention to the anime adaptation of Ghost Fire Island Murder Case. Saying it's "one of the most underrated and overlooked mysteries in the series" that "received the greatest improvement in its anime adaptation" compared to the novel. So why not? It's been a while since I visited the anime series. 

Ghost Fire Island Murder Case, alternatively titled The Murder Case of Will-o'-the-Wisp Island or The Will-o'-the-Wisp Isle Murder Case, originally aired as a four-episode story on Nippon TV between October 12 and November 2, 1998. So let's get started!

The story begins with Hajime Kindaichi being accompanied to the hospital by his childhood friend and hopeful love interest, Miyuki Nanase, to have a gastric examination when they spot a notice for a cram school/training camp for medical students – asking for part-time workers to help out over the summer course. Since they can use some pocket money, they sign up as part-time workers and travel to Eikou Hostel situated on a remote island in the South Sea of Japan.

Shiranui Island is rumored to be "a gathering place for wandering and revenge-taking spirits," where ghostly will-o'-the-wisps roam at night, but the hostel has ghosts of its own. The hostel used to be sanatorium in the past where tuberculosis patients were treated and has a dusty, unused room with "an interesting history," but there's also a more recent tragedy looming over the summer seminar. Following a previous trip to the island, a student attempted suicide and ended up in a coma. Now the students who were involved have returned to the island. And it doesn't take very long for things to go south!

On the first evening of their two-week stay, there's an annual midnight test of courage, which is intended to "make some good memories" before everyone begins cramming for exams, but it involves "a little ghost story" concerning the vacant room and an otherworldly entity – simply known as the Midnight's Evil Spirit. When the sanatorium was converted into a medical training camp, nobody was to use the Sarusuberi Room as it's "an intersection for wandering spirits of the dead." Ten years ago, a student committed suicide in that room after failing an exam and his ghost appears every year on the anniversary of his death. You can see his ghost hanging in the room with an eerie will-o'-the-wisp floating outside the window by peeking through the keyhole.

Kindaichi is new to the island and has to be first that night to look through the keyhole, but the grave image he sees is a little too realistic to be ghosts! What he sees is one of the students being hung by a figure, whose face is obscured by the darkness, dressed in a hospital gown and he even hears the rope creaking. But when the hostel manager opens the door with a spare key, the room is completely empty. There's dust on the windowsill and a connecting door was nailed shut years ago. So the manager wants to brush the incident away as over excited students imagining seeing ghosts, but one of the students is indeed missing. Their lines of communication to the outside world are destroyed, which effectively maroons them on the island for the next three days. Before they know it, they have two bodies on their hands with one of them found hanged from a very high beam in an abandoned church with a lack of footprints in the sand muddling the question of alibis.

So the story (mostly) adheres to the familiar formula of the series, but it's very noticeable the episodes were adapted from a novel instead of the usual manga (comic book), which came at the expense of the visual element of the plotting and clueing. There was more said in the episodes than shown. What it showed (blatantly) was no doubt easier to hide or slip by the reader in a novel, but here it gave away an important part of the solution. I believe one particular scene, early on in the story, would have been presented a little different to the reader had the story originally been written/drawn as a manga. For example (ROT13), vg jbhyq unir orra orggre unq Xvaqnvpuv'f zrqvpny rknzvangvba gnxra cynpr oruvaq pybfrq qbbef jvgu gur svore fpbcr bayl oevrsyl fubja ba fperra nf gur qbpgbe jnf gvqlvat hc. How it was done in the animation was too in your face.

Nonetheless, there are still some pretty good twists and turns to be found. Such as the excellent locked room-trick, which has a setup designed to arouse the suspicion of well-read, seasoned mystery readers – as we have seen these type of keyhole-tricks before. The moving figures, sound of rope being stretched and that peculiar thump suggested something different was at the back of this locked room. Amagi delivered with a completely new solution to the impossibly vanishing scene observed through a keyhole. The second murder has a less original, two-part answer (Qblyr'f Oveyfgbar Tnzovg naq n snxrq unatvat), but necessary as it served a very specific purpose. I thought the clue of the missing stepladder and its true meaning an inspired piece of plotting.

I've called Amagi the Soji Shimada of the anime-and manga detective story in previous reviews, specialized in majestic, grand-scale locked room mysteries and alibi-tricks, but the light novels demonstrated he could work on a much smaller scale. However, they did expose that he wrote his stories around the locked room and alibi-tricks to ensure everything was on hand without making it feel too contrived. Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998) is a perfect example of a story written around a plot like silly putty stretched over a classroom skeleton. It worked quite successfully in Deadly Thunder, but here it directed even more unwanted attention to the one thing that should have been subtly sneaked pass the reader/viewer. And, if you spot it, you can easily work out whodunit and what's going on with the second murder. But, on the upside, one of Amagi's drawbacks that crop in these original light novel cases worked splendidly here. Amagi has the tendency to go one twist too far with last-minute revelations about either the murderer or motive, which tend to be either pitch-black, or outright cruel, but here it gave the ending a genuinely tragic touch. I particularly liked where and how the murderer learned all those deadly tricks. You can't help but feel a pang of sympathy when you learn the precise motive.

So, yeah, a pretty mixed bag this time around. Ghost Fire Island Murder Case is, on a whole, a fairly standard Kindaichi tale with some good plot-ideas, but noticeably weaker visually. Saying more than it shows or showing more than it should. You can put that down to the anime adapting the story from a novel instead of a comic book. I'm sure everything worked better and is less obvious in its original form, which I very likely would have appreciated a little more than this adaptation. Sorry anonymous commentator.

The Shanghai River Demon's Curse (1997) by Seimaru Amagi

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the co-creator of The Kindaichi Case Files, Seimaru Amagi, wrote nine "light novels" in the series and four were translated as part of either the Kodansha English Library or Kodansha Ruby Books, which were intended as an educational tool to help improve the English of Japanese readers – not to dazzle Western readers. Hence, each novel ends with a nearly thirty-page long English-Japanese vocabulary list. 

According to our resident expert, Ho-Ling Wong, the English editions enjoyed a long print-run in Japan and there must be "a fair number in circulation," but, in the West, copies have become as rare and elusive as a Kappa. Not quite rare or obscure enough to elude me forever!

Several years ago, I came across Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996), which is possibly the first detective novel to use the internet meaningfully in a traditionally-styled mystery complete with an isolated, snowbound setting and ironclad alibis. You can borrow a digital copy from the Internet Archive. Next one that fell into my hands was Operazakan – aratanaru satsujin (Opera House, the New Murders, 1994), published in English simply as The New Kindaichi Files, but the plain, uninspired title hides a classic, first-rate theatrical locked room mystery – translating into my favorite Kindaichi title to date. Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998) is a very minor, short and somewhat flawed detective story, but you can cross-off some of its shortcomings against an imaginative piece of miniature world-building and an inventive impossible crime. So that left with me with one more title to track down. 

Shanhai gyojin densetsu satsujin jiken (The Shanghai River Demon's Curse, 1997) is the fifth novel in the series and the third to be translated, which turned out to be a bit of an odd duck. 

The Shanghai River Demon's Curse brings Hajime Kindaichi and Miyuki Nanase to Shanghai, China, where the famous Yang Variety Troupe performs a daily, two-hour variety show at the Mermaid Hall. An enormous ship moored along the bank of the Huangpu River. The main event of the show is an acrobatic underwater act, "The Legend of the River Demon," which is patterned after the tale of a creature that's half-fish, half-human that lives at the bottom of the river. A monster with the ability to curse, or even kill, human beings. In some places, it's considered "bad luck to mock such spirits on stage" like "in Japanese ghost stories."

Following a performance of "The Legend of the River Demon," the director of the troupe, Yang
Wang, is found in his office with a bullet in his head, but his body and the floor are unaccountably soaking – water has "the unpleasant odor of freshwater fish." Even stranger is that the murderer scratched a huge Chinese character for “spring,” a meter wide, on the wall. The first word of the lullaby of the river demon's curse. However, the Shanghai police have a very human suspect in their sights.

Once the show begins, with "animals like the tiger and monkey roaming around," the door to the dressing room is locked from the inside and it's "impossible for anyone from the audience to get in," which was still locked from the inside when the show ended. Nearly everyone on that side of the door had an alibi except the victim's son, Yang Xiaolong. His young sister, Yang Lili, writes her Japanese penfriend, Miyuki, a distressed letter saying her brother is suspected to have murdered their father. Miyuki decides to go Shanghai to help by bringing her childhood friend, Hajime Kindaichi, who's "the grandson of the master detective Kosuke Kindaichi" and "solved several cases for the Metropolitan Police Department." But his grandfather's name or reputation is not as well-known in China, which is one of the challenges facing the young detective who became a little timid when landed in foreign country for the first time in his life.

When they finally arrive in Shanghai, there are two big surprises waiting in the wings. Firstly, they find Detective Li Boer, of the Shanghai Police, in the company of their friend in the MPD, Inspector Kenmochi. Recently, the body in a decade old murder case was identified and "a small clue" led the Tokyo police to the Japanese director/producer of the Yang Variety Troupe. But is there's a link to the new murder? Secondly, Kindaichi and Miyuki get to witness a second murder during a performance of "The Legend of the River Demon" when a body plunged down from above the stage into the swimming tank. Another bullet to the head and the Chinese character for "summer" was slashed in the victim's back with a knife. So the murderer was intended to follow the grim lullaby. 

In spring, the boat is flooded,

In summer, the river turns a murky mauve,

In autumn, the traveler must drink putrid water,

In winter, fish no longer swim but sleep.

These murders also have an element of the impossible as the victims were shot with a derringer, which apparently can vanish, or materialize, whenever it's convenient to the murderer. The part of the ship between Yang's office and the dressing room was locked at the time of murder, which meant that nobody went in, or out, before the police arrived. So nobody had an opportunity to dispose of the gun, but they went over the entire ship with dogs and metal detectors without finding anything. They simply assume the murderer found a way to throw it in the river until discovering the second murder was committed with the same weapon! I've seen two variations on this type of vanishing weapon trick before and hated both of them. This one is marginally better, because Amagi tried to make it somewhat convincing. But the trick is still Yozaburo Kanari. Yes, Kanari's name in this context is a euphemism for shit.

Well, so far, it seems like a fairly standard and typical Kindaichi story with exception of the setting and its effect on Kindaichi's normally cocky attitude, but the story moves away from the series formula in the second-half – turning into a chase story with a coming-of-age angle. Kindaichi helps Yang Xiaolong to escape from police custody and they're chased to Shanghai as they make a run to the Yang's home village. A dirt poor place where the children had to grow up faster in order to make money, which is why Xiaolong and his sister acts so much mature than Kindaichi. But, while their on the run, they both find something of themselves they had either lost or never had. This comes at the expensive of the usual plot structure with the alibis, impossibilities and the nursery rhyme theme of the murders being heavily underplayed during the second-half.

I also hated that during the first-half an intriguing, quickly discarded plot-thread was introduced when Kindaichi learned of a former troupe member, Wang Meiyu, who was a superb swimmer, but a bit strange. Meiyu not only swam really well and could stay underwater forever, but "she only ate aquatic plants and freshwater fish." And it was her talent that lead the troupe to adopt the "The Legend of the River Demon" as their signature act. But then strange rumors began to circulate. Members began to talk that every time she took a shower, the bathroom would "reek of fish" with "large fish scales on the floor." So they began to avoid Meiyu and culminated in her committing suicide by jumping into the river from the toilet window. She left four characters scrawled in blood on the wall and has now risen from "the depths of that murky river" to extract revenge. But the plot-thread was quickly brushed aside. And given an even quicker explanation towards the end. So the only reason why it was even brought up was to give the book a snappy title.

Thankfully, the solution was not all bad with a pretty good alibi-trick and an inspired piece of misdirection, which successfully hid the murderer for a good chunk of the story. I eventually figured it out, because if you how the gun can vanish and reappear, you know who pulled the trigger. Not so good is that other parts of the solution stretches things considerably with an unnecessary, rather cruel twist nearly ruining the whole thing. I mean, this murderer is very likely going to be executed. So why throw that revelation out there? Amagi is the Soji Shimada of the anime-and manga detective story who is nearly unmatched when it comes to erecting grand-scale plots with majestic locked room-and alibi-tricks, but when it comes to characters, sometimes he goes one twist too far. Deadly Thunder has a similar problem.

So, on a whole, The Shanghai River Demon's Curse is not entirely without interest and its break with the formula and foreign setting makes it a worthwhile read to long-time fans of the series, but don't expect anything more than an average detective story. Regrettably, the weakest of the four translated novels.

This more or less closes the chapter on The New Kindaichi Files light novels with such untranslated novels as Yūrei kyakusen satsujin jiken (The Ghost Passenger Ship Murder Case, 1995) and Onibijima satusjin jikes (The Ghost Fire Island Murder Case, 1997) remaining tantalizingly out of my reach. Well, the novels are out of my reach, but not the '90s anime adaptations. So I might make one of those my next stop in the series.

Deadly Thunder (1998) by Seimaru Amagi

Earlier this year, I tracked down and reviewed an obscure, hard-to-get Japanese light novel in The New Kindaichi Files series, Operazakan – aratanaru satsujin (Opera House, the New Murders, 1994), written by the Soji Shimada of the anime-and manga detective genre, Seimaru Amagi – who crafted a beautiful, perfectly executed theatrical (locked room) mystery. One of the better entries in the Kindaichi franchise demonstrating Amagi is a mystery writer who's firmly entrenched in the traditions of the shin honkaku school. 

A fact he already proved with another light novel, Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996), which is perhaps the first whodunit to use the internet in a meaningful way. Not to mention his original manga stories/anime adaptation of The Prison Prep School Murder Case, The Rosenkrauz Mansion Murders and The Legendary Vampire Murders. So I was eager to get my hands on the other two translations in the series, but those editions were intended for Japanese readers learning to read and speak English. Consequently, the well of secondhand copies in the West is practically empty and bone-dry.

Nevertheless, I managed to get hold of a copy of the sixth title in the series, Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998), which is the fourth and last novel to be translated and is a relatively minor story compared to the bigger, previously mentioned cases – centering on "a spontaneous crime" with an improvised trick. A trick turning an otherwise simple, straightforward murder into an impossible crime! It's not the no-footprints trick that makes Deadly Thunder somewhat standout, but how the plot combined everything from elements of cultural anthropology and entomology to geology and meteorology. All of these different aspects come together in the remote, unique setting of the story with the result reminding me of the regional mysteries by Todd Downing and Arthur W. Upfield. Two names not often associated with the Japanese shin honkaku detective story. 

Deadly Thunder has a standard enough opening with Hajime Kindaichi and Miyuki Nanase traveling to a tiny, remote village to visit a former classmate, Akie Asaki.

The land around Kumoba Village is "shaped like a valley or a basin," which makes it very hot during the summer with clouds forming above the surrounding mountains to produce heavy thunder and rain storms. In the past, the locals thought these thunderstorms were an act of the gods and appeased them with the three-day Thunder Festival. A long-standing, unbroken traditional of 300 years that has preserved to the present-day, but the rain and thunderstorms also gifted the village something special and unique. A kind of clay that's only found in Kumoba Village, which is washed down from the mountains.

Akie comes from a long line of potters whose "curious, translucent white" pots were presented to the Shogun during the Edo period and the ground their family home stands on has the best pottery clay, which is why it's surrounded by a large, foreboding wall with spikes on top – erected by previous generations "to protect the clay from robbers." She has to share the home with her stepmother and stepsister, Hazuki and Shigure Asaki, who Akie and her aunt, Haruko, consider intruders ("those two"). They also have a quasi-residential house guest staying at the annex, Kyoichi Muto, who's an entomologist. Apparently, the village is also rather unique in its "variety and number of cicadas."

So the setting is very well piece of miniature world-building as Amagi created a small, unique geographical area and populated it with a unique, somewhat isolated culture. A culture with its own history, religious practices and even architecture. Such as all the houses being low built, single-storied "to avoid being struck by lightening" with a tall tree in every garden to "serve as a lightening conductor." Another interesting aspect is how rich Deadly Thunder is in sound. Deadly Thunder is filled with the sound of falling rain, claps of thunder, chanting, beating of drums and "the incessant drone of cicadas," which all helped elevate a mostly routine detective story.

This kind of world-building is unfortunately a rarity in the detective genre, but Amagi has done it before, on a much larger scale, for Detective Academy Q with The Kamikakushi Village Murder Case. I co-reviewed the anime adaptation with Jim here.

Anyway, as the story moves towards the halfway mark, everyone begins to prepare for the first day of the annual Thunder Festival, but the celebration, or rather spectacle, ends with Hazuki discovering Muto's body in annex – bludgeoned to death. The body was covered in "hundreds, no thousands, of cicada shells," but even more inexplicable where the two sets of footprints going from the back of the house to the annex. A set of fresh, recently made prints belong to Hazuki, while the older, rain washed tracks were made by the well-worn, easy to identify sandals of the victim. So with the question of time and rain taking into consideration, the tracks turned the murder into a locked room mystery! 

Deadly Thunder has only one body and three suspects, which has been done before in the series (e.g. The Blood Pool Hall Murder), but not very often and the plot really needed a good locked room-trick to give the plot some weight. Thankfully, the locked room-trick delivered as it did something new with the no-footprints scenario, but with all the clues in place necessary to arrive at (nearly) the same conclusion as Kindaichi. Why the body was covered in cicada shells was an inspired piece of plotting functioning as both a clue and a red herring.

The reader has an easier time putting all the pieces together than Kindaichi as he has to deal with a local policeman, Detective Akai, who's more annoyed than impressed by the grandson of "the master detective Kosuke Kindaichi." Even if he "solved several murder cases and mysteries that the police couldn't solve." Detective Akai only sees an ordinary high school student who speaks to adults like they were taking classes together. Kindaichi has to learn and show a little humility before getting an opportunity to prove himself to Detective Akai. One of those many small touches that made the story shine.

There is, however, a minor problem with the solution. Amagi added a last-minute twist that gave the story an ending as black as the ink with which it was printed, but not a fair surprise as it's impossible to anticipate the motivation behind the act. A smudge on an otherwise very well written, competently plotted detective story.

That being said, the good definitely outweighed the bad with a simple, but good, locked room-trick and a splendid, vividly realized setting, which told its story in less than a 130 pages with full-length illustrations. The short length proved to be an asset as it enlarged all its strong points and prevented the story from overstaying its welcome by dwelling on its weaknesses. So, yeah, a perfect detective story to nip at during a lazy summer afternoon.

The New Kindaichi Files (1994) by Seimaru Amagi

Two years ago, I reviewed Seimaru Amagi's Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996), a so-called "light novel," which is the Japanese, manga-like equivalent of young adult fiction complete with illustrations and penned all nine light novels in The Kindaichi Case Files series – published between 1994 and 2001. Only four of the novels were translated as part of the Kodansha English Library, but copies have become scarce over the past two decades. 

Ho-Ling Wong commented on my review to explain that "these books were not really intended for the international market," but to help Japanese readers who were learning to speak English and the reason why there are English/Japanese vocabulary lists at the end of the books. So not that many copies journeyed to the West.

Nevertheless, when has the obscure, out-of-print status of a tantalizing-sounding detective novel ever stopped any of us? John Norris has obscurity serve him drinks while reading. I managed to get hold of a copy of the first novel in the series, Operazakan – aratanaru satsujin (Opera House, the New Murders, 1994), which appeared in English under the nondescript title of The New Kindaichi Files. But don't let the bland title fool you. The book is an important entry in the series mythos and a sterling performance of the theatrical mystery novel with a five-star locked room-trick! 

The New Kindaichi Files is a sequel to the very first Kindaichi (manga) story, Operazakan satsujin jiken (The Opera House Murder Case, 1993), published in English in 2003 by TokyoPop as The Opera House Murders, which brought Hajime Kindaichi to the Hotel Opera on Utashima Island – where he was confronted by a string of murders modeled on Gaston Leroux's Le fantôme de l'opéra (The Phantom of the Opera, 1909). Kindaichi would return to Utashima Island a total of four times to solve Phantom of the Opera-themed murders. Ho-Ling reviewed the first three cases in 2012 in his blog-post "Three Act Tragedy" and discussed the fourth story in two-parts, which can be read here and here. But, for now, let's take a closer look at the second story that once again bathed the small island in blood.

Kazuma Kurosawa is one of the top five directors in Japan, reformer of modern drama and "the man behind the commercial success of theater" who had written and directed eight hit versions of The Phantom of the Opera. Ten years ago, Kurosawa had bought the island and spent six years restoring and converting the Georgian-style vacation home into a hotel with theater, which opened four years before The New Kindaichi Files. And what happened during its opening can be read in The Opera House Murders. Four years later, the old theater had been torn down and a new one built where Kurosawa plans to stage his ninth version of The Phantom of the Opera.

Hajime Kindaichi, Miyuki Nanase and Inspector Isamu Kenmochi all receive an invitation to the grand reopening of the Hotel Opera, because they were caught in the middle of "the serial murders at the Hotel Opera" and it was Kindaichi who unmasked the Phantom – although it was Kenmoichi who received the credit and the Metropolitan Police Superintendent's Medal. When they arrived on the island, Kindaichi experiences "a twinge of nostalgia" and "something less pleasant." A strong feeling that something bad is about the happen and the cast of characters for the impending tragedy have already taken their place on the stage.

The stars of the Genso theater group and play are an husband-and-wife acting duo, Kozaburo and Seiko Nojo, but they're not particular warm, or pleasant, people to be around. Yukio Midorikawa, Atsushi Takizawa and Rio Kanai are the other actors of the troupe who have one, or more, roles to play in the production. There's also a university student, Rokuro Eguchi, who works on the island every summer and a reclusive painter, Seiji Makube, whose features are obscured by a surgical mask. Dr. Eisaku Yuki rounds out the party and he was also present during the first series of murders on the island. Only eight hours pass before all hell breaks loose on the isolated island.

A small piece of paper with an ominous warning is found, saying "Carlotta sang farewell as the chandelier fell," signed "P," but when they investigate the theater with "an enormous chandelier" suspended over the stage, it's discovered completely empty. So they fastened the door from the outside with a padlock, but a short time later a crash shakes the house and rattles the windows, which unmistakably came from the theater. The door is opened in full view of everyone and what they discover is Seiko Nojo's body on the stage, "crushed beyond recognition," among the smashed and shattered remains of "that massive piece of intricate glasswork." More shockingly, Seiko had been strangled before the murderer dropped the chandelier on her. But how?

The whole auditorium had been "completely locked up," but somehow, "the murderer carried the body onto the stage" and "dropped the chandelier on it" before vanishing from a theater where "one set of doors was closed from the inside" and "the other entrance was shut with a padlock" – not a window to be found. Honestly, The New Kindaichi Files is the best and most original locked room mystery I've come across since Tokuya Higashigawa's Misshitsu no kagi kashimasu (Lending the Key to the Locked Room, 2002) and James Scott Byrnside's The Strange Case of the Barrington Hills Vampire (2020). Amagi crafted a minor gem of a locked room mystery, while flexing his plotting skills, peeling away the layers as he added new ones. Such as giving away part of the trick early on in the story, but at the same time complicating the whole problem with pesky alibis, unclear motives, more murders and a false-solution to the padlocked entrance. Only to deliver a knockout punch in the end with a thoroughly satisfying and original solution the murder in the locked theater. A solution that even takes into account the illogicality of presenting the murder as an impossible crime and what gave the murder the idea to stage such a trick.

A multi-layered locked room-puzzle that clearly shows the difference between Amagi and the series co-creator, Yozaburo Kanari. Amagi understands what makes a detective-plot ticks and Kanari clearly doesn't. Something that's also reflected in how Amagi managed to cleverly subvert the series formula to (temporarily) hide the murderer. It's why it took me longer than usual with this series to catch on to the murderer, which gave me a pretty good idea about the real angle of the motive. But not the locked room-trick. The trick I envisioned was amateurishly stupid and clumsy in comparison. Amagi is the Soji Shimada of the anime-and manga detective story.

Only weak spots in the solution is that the story conveniently ignores how easily a padlock can be picked open, or refastened again, and long-time mystery readers unfamiliar with the series will likely have an easier time spotting the murderer – because they don't know what they're supposed to expect from the setup. Other than that, The New Kindaichi Files is not merely a good and solid entry in the long-running Kindaichi series, but an excellent and beautifully executed theatrical locked room mystery in its own right. I can't exactly tell you why, but this is the most fun I had reading/watching Kindaichi. Highly recommended, if you can find a copy!

So let me end this review with a plea to Kodansha to reprint those four light novels that were translated into English during the 1990s, which would now be a welcome addition to the steadily increasing stream of shin honkaku translations. Now there's an actual audience for them. A good alternative would be a four-in-one volume from Locked Room International with Ho-Ling, a huge fan of the series, writing the introduction to give new readers a crash course in all things Kindaichi. Even better would be brand new translations of all nine novels, but that's perhaps asking too much. Well, here's hoping something will materialize in the not so distant future.

On a truly last note, my edition is a thing of beauty: a paperback with dustjacket with the back and leaves covered in Japanese writing, but you can actually read the story inside with the detailed floor plan of the theater, diagram of part of the locked room-trick and illustrations of the characters/scenes as the cherry on top – giving you the best of all worlds.

The Kindaichi Case Files: The Bloodthirsty Cherry Blossom Murder Case

The Bloodthirsty Cherry Blossom Murder Case was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 2015 and collected, together with the second half of The Antlion Trench Murder Case, in volumes 6 and 7 of Seimaru Amagi's The File of Young Kindaichi Returns – praised as "surprisingly refreshing" to long-time readers. Since I've always had a love-hate relationship with this series, I decided to pick The Bloodthirsty Cherry Blossom Murder Case over the new 37-Year-Old Kindaichi Case Files as my next stop in the series.

The Bloodthirsty Cherry Blossom Murder Case brings Hajime Kindaichi, Nanase Miyuki and Saki (#2) to a Western-style mountain inn, in Yozakura Village, where they intend to research an old murder case for their school's Mystery Club. The inn used to be a private sanatorium, in the 1960s, but the arrival of Dr. Kigata Ouryuu coincided with the disappearance of a worrying number of patients.

On a dark evening, in late winter, a night nurse caught him burying a dismembered patient under the cherry blossom trees, where the police later found a private graveyard, but Dr. Ouryuu had already disappeared – never to be seen again. But when spring came, something unbelievable happened. Where the bodies had been buried, the trees bloomed with "crimson-colored cherry blossoms" that "looked like they'd sucked blood." So the story stuck in the public imagination, but everyone in the village prefers to forget it ever happened and that includes the elderly owner of the inn, Aizen Yoshino. She advises the three students to enjoy the crimson cherry blossoms and then return home. But things are never that easy in a detective story!

When they arrive at the inn, they meet Fuyube Sousuke, Etou Chinatsu and Onoda Kyouichirou, who have been friends since their schooldays and visit the village each year during the cherry blossom season. Miyazawa Shouku is an artist who comes each year to paint the crimson cherry blossoms. Toramoto Katsuo is an old man with a facemask and does very little except intently observing the cherry blossoms. The place is staffed by two part-timers, Hazaki Shiori and Shikishima Daigo, and a cook, Kitayashiki Gouzou.

So had this not been a Kindaichi story, there would have been scarcely a hint of the bloodletting awaiting them the next morning when Onoda didn't turn up at the breakfast table. The door of his room is locked and has to be opened with the master key. What they found behind that locked door was a spectacle, even for this series!

Onoda Kyouichirou is lying in the middle of the room with petals covering his body and the branch of a bloodthirsty cherry blossom piercing his heart, as if a small tree had grown out of his chest overnight, but equally curious is a braided cord "tied in a complicated manner" to the branch – a cord with the room key on it. The key is "an old model, German-made key" with a complicated design that's hard to duplicate and the master key was kept in a safe. A safe to which one person held the key and another the passcode. And with the windows securely fastened, Kindaichi and Inspector Kenmoichi are faced with a locked room murder.

 

Naturally, the murderer is not done yet and one of the subsequent murders is committed under practically identical circumstances in a locked and guarded room, but with a very different kind of solution. A solution that was audaciously foreshadowed in a much earlier chapter. However, the locked room-tricks are not the main draw of the story and neither is the who or even the well handled why. One of the locked room-tricks can only be described as routine and the other is a daring play on a true-and-tried impossible crime technique, while the murderer (purposely?) stands out in the cast of characters.

So what makes The Bloodthirsty Cherry Blossom Murder Case a noteworthy entry in the series is the way in which Amagi toyed and subverted the expectations of long-time readers who are more than familiar with the cliches and tropes of the series.

A good example of Amagi toying with readers expectations is the first page, a one-panel prologue, which made think, "ah, this old song and dance again," but then it was openly admitted to and discussed about a quarter into the story – something that has never been done before in the series. Amagi delivered on the promise with a nicely done spin on the motive that has been done to death in Kindaichi. The identity of the murderer, while a little obvious, proved to have a surprise in store when it was revealed why the murders were presented so bizarrely. But were ultimately very simplistic.

So the (relative) simplicity of the locked room murders were a worthwhile sacrifice, because they served a clear purpose that paid-off in the end. And what a coincidence, I decided to read The Bloodthirsty Cherry Blossom Murder Case right after Graham Landrum's The Rotary Club Murder Mystery (1993), which ended up doing the opposite.

All in all, The Bloodthirsty Cherry Blossom Murder Case is not the best title the series has produced, but it's a top-rank title on account of how creatively Amagi played with the expectations of his readers. The story almost reads like a knowledgeable, fan-written pastiche that had fun with the established cliches and tropes of the series. Recommended to fans of the series!