It's nearly christmas. The world is filled with a beautiful layer of white and the temperatures keep dropping. Even though it's a time for celebration, Ai Haibara saw a terrible dream that night. She, Conan, Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Genta had left the school and were on their way to test out Dr. Agasa's new games. Under the falling snow Haibara noticed something terrifying however, a black porsche, model 356A. The favourite car of black organization's codename: 'Gin', a person who lives to do evil deeds. In her dream it didn't take long for Gin to find out Ai Haibara was the 'traitor' of the organization named 'Sherry' shrunk into the body of a small child, and after figuring that out, Gin took matters to his own hands and killed all the people associated with her.
Lately I've been reading Detective School Q / Tantei Gakuen Q by Seimaru Amagi and Satou Fumiya due to the great things I've heard about it from other mystery addicts. It's one of those detective fiction series that juggles with an overarching story and bunch of individual cases, but what's more, it also deals with a criminal organization as the main villains of the series, just like Gosho Aoyama's Detective Conan. This overarching aspect of Tantei Gakuen Q is presented in a nice manner (as the series is quite tense), my favourite parts of the overarching story up to end of volume 8 has been the mystery of a creepy jail cell room hidden below the main school setting, even though as a fair-play mystery that story doesn't hold up as there is nothing to really solve. The main villain group in TGQ is named Pluto and its members have this weird supernatural ability to hypnotize people to even try to kill each other which seems to be their version of Detective Conan's APTX-4869. Pluto is presented as much more cartoonishly evil in comparison to the Black Organization, but one thing that I've always liked about all of these detective manga series is the use of the Shadow Man culprit who is shown but we never actually know of who it is that's doing the thinking, which is a trick often done in TGQ. This got me thinking back on what cases left me an impression with the use of the Shadow Man trope in an overarching story of Detective Conan, and the answer I found was this: Volume 24's Hotel Party Murder Case.
The case opens up with beautiful, tense art and a double-page spread depicting Haibara's dream in which Gin preys on her as she's with the rest of the detective boys during a snowy noon after school. We immediately learn that dream is going to soon become at least partly real as she and Conan wander the streets and see a black porsche that is just like Gin's. Conan decides to take precautions and calls Dr. Agasa to drive to the porsche immediately so he can wiretap it - and indeed, the car does belong to our black organization member who once again hangs around with his right-hand man Vodka.
As Conan, Haibara and Agasa track down the car to get the members' whereabouts, Conan learns through a listening device he planted that "a target is going to arrive at Haido City Hotel" at exactly 6 P.M., and the organization is going to hold a "farewell party" for the target; they will silence their target "before the police get an arrest". The person to pull this deed off is the black organization member 'Pisco', and what's more, Pisco even has the authority to use the APTX-4869 drug as a poison to kill the target if need be. This is because Gin and Vodka don't know that the drug doesn't always kill the people who take it, but sometimes - such as in the case of Conan and Haibara - the victims to the drug get de-aged by at least ten years.After Gin finds a strand of strawberry-colored hair, it doesn't take him long to figure out that Haibara has been snooping in his car, and we get to see Gin's ability at reading ahead on what Haibara will do as he immediately finds out Conan's tracking & listening device and destroys it and then goes to inform Pisco that Sherry (Haibara) will definitely be participating the Black Funeral due to listening on Gin's and Pisco's phone call earlier.
This case is incredibly intriguing! We begin the actual portion of the case with Conan calling inspector Megure, Takagi and co. to the large party at Haido City Hotel (by masking his voice as the caller with the voice-changing bowtie), and Conan basically challenges Pisco to try and take out the victim's life, as he already knows who the victim will be from the mere information he gained from listening in on Pisco's and Gin's conversation. I must say that in comparison, in Tantei Gakuen Q these types of realization moments (such as figuring out when someone had lied or slipped-up in their speech) are always presented as grand moments with large panels that make a point out of that realization... but not in this series. I love how casually Conan just blurts out at the middle of chapter 239 that the victim's already been pinpointed and the cops he called to protect the victim are almost at the hotel.
But things still don't work out as an oldschool murder method happens when a chandelier falls on the victim and takes his life at the moment when the lights are off in the room as they're showing a slideshow of photographs, there are even flashing lights coming out of it. At the party there are numerous participants; an university professor, pro baseball team owner, an american actress, even an auto manufacturer chairman, though Conan manages to surprisingly cleverly narrow the suspects down to seven of them by thinking of the mere color of their handkerchiefs as a handkerchief of a certain color mysteriously fell from the sky on Conan and a piece of metal from the chandelier is somehow in the rice that's being served at the party. And how in the world did Pisco make the chandelier drop in pitch-black darkness; what was the method? That piece of cloth sure is something in this case though...
This case is incredible to me, I couldn't stop turning the pages. The way how it moves from one thing to other and comes back together is something truly inspirational in both its simplicity and complexity. But to truly get this type of effect out of it, you have to read all of the story up to this point...
At the same time as Gin and Vodka close in on Haibara at the hotel, Conan has to find out Pisco's identity in the group from hints that point to a logical conclusion that explains the odd mystery of the handkerchief and the piece of metal in rice in a really impressive way. This case is used to really showcase the black organization to us in ways that I'm actually impressed by the author Gosho Aoyama for pulling off something that looks completely random and weird but with a slight pull of the thread, the whole thing makes perfect sense. The author can make even the simplest of things seem alien! This is actually one of the aspects I'm going to talk about when I finish Tantei Gakuen Q (as that series in contrast tends to have over-the-top answers in its cases so far).
We're getting to see the psyche of Haibara as she really battles with the thoughts of just dying away instead of allowing her close friends (Conan, DB's and Agasa, and their friends and families) get in the harm's way if the black organization members figure out her identity. At the same time as the case of trying to figure out Pisco is going down with its own interesting overarching narrative that ties somewhat into this next thing I'll mention, Gin & Vodka are on the hunt to kill Sherry... And while she of course won't die, there is some crazy tension towards that here.
I must say that the 'kidnapping setting' and 'alcohol' used here brings me some good memories / vibes of certain spiritual tricks in Ace Attorney 6: Spirit of Justice. I've always loved when these series utilize things that only exist in their respective fictional universes to tell their story in clever ways. In the same sense I'm excited to see whether or not Tantei Gakuen Q will utilize its 'hypnotism' in similar clever ways and whether or not we'll also get these types of showdown cases where the culprits are from Pluto.
Anyway, at the beginning of this review/post I said that I like how these series present the culprits as Shadow Men. Pisco is one of my absolute favourite presentations of this trope due to the moment where he figures out that Haibara is Sherry at the Haido Hotel Party. That moment with Pisco's dumb-founded shadow look and wide-open eyes has always given me the chills. This case is also amazing in the anime as well with the top-tier soundtracks that are used for it. There's also this triple visual clue hint in this case relating to the 'mechanism' used to make the chandelier fall, the 'culprit' and the 'alibis', and when I saw that I actually laughed because I realized none of those three that were there. And I must say that the final page of this case where inspector Megure tells Shinichi that the families of the victim and the killer have disappeared to thin air and the houses burned down overnight all of a sudden really is a great ender to a story to make a point about the threat of the organization. Dang.
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