So with the dawn of 2022 I decided to try to be a bit more productive this year. I've had quite a break from this series and decided to post this ASAP before the first day of the year changes to the next. It's crazy how the last blog post I'd posted of Tantei Gakuen Q was in February of 2021... Where in the world did the time fly?
Above is a track from the anime of Tantei Gakuen Q, reproduced by a fan of the series. I thought about promoting his work since he does an excellent job with recreating many of the OSTs from the series.
Murder Case in the Illusionary Music Hall
The previous volume of authors Amagi Seimaru's and Satou Fumiya's Tantei Gakuen Q detective manga series focused purely from beginning to end on a single case: the first eight chapters out of twelve of the Murder Case in the Illusionary House story. Personally I'm not a big fan of long stories thast are over a volume in length as there's bound to be unnecessary stretching here and there. Surprisingly enough I didn't feel like this case has had too many empty scenes.
This murder case in the imaginary music hall case tells us a story about three murders: one victim found stabbed in a locked room (though with an open window), one poisoning murder, and one supposed suicide with a syringe. The case that connects them together happened some months prior in which a female violinist who was supposed to inherit the greatest violin in Japan (hell, more like the World) had assumedly killed herself and thrown herself into a river as she lost the ability to play instruments professionally due to losing her fingers from cold.
The first murder where the victim was stabbed is the key problem to solve here and the case basically takes us on a loop as to what could have happened in which order as there are vase pieces all over the room so the culprit must've scattered those vases around. The problem I have with this murder is that it has this supposedly fake answer to it and the real answer is presented as this grand thing, but I feel like it's irrelevant. Kyuu claims that this real trick is ingenious or something in comparison to what the original one was, when they're fundamentally the same thing regardless and I honestly feel like this case was stretched for no reason now. It's kind of average alibi trick. The perp is obvious from the start (though not with logic but with guessing as the authors waste way too much time focusing on certain things), but I almost got caught by the authors' misdirection near the end which caused me to hesitate a bit until I thought it through.Anyway, the key elements at play here are the use of psychological tricks. The killer manipulates others to do certain actions in certain ways. Now, there's no way this would ever work the way it did in this case, but I felt that it was handled properly. There is a heavy emphasis on certain songs here that are constantly brought up over and over again that I was kind of getting annoyed by it, but in the end they manage to do something more with that plotline. Had the subject been more interesting than violins and classical music, I'd probably get behind this type of psychological trickstery. The poisoning trick was just guesswork and probably the most basic one you can imagine for that type of mystery where you have to be able to poison someone, literally, however it also had that psychological aspect to it as to why the victim got poisoned. The 3rd murder I feel like has no real mystery, it's just a murder.
I was reading this case at the same time as I watched the anime episodes that adapt it, and I'm not sure which I prefer. The anime leaves out couple of scenes I'd rather have in it, but the pacing and couple parts are much better handled in the anime than the manga. Everything about this case just reeks of disappointment in a sense. As I said in Volume 9's review, the case was very on-and-off for me, and the major reason what that culprit... I had to take a deep breath just to keep reading this story every time they focused on a certain character as it's not that special kind of alibi trick anymore as the culprit's actions just scream "look, I have alibi!" to me.
The backstory and the culprit's realization leading up to the murder was also kind of whatever, it's pretty much the usual. I first thought that this case was about the same as the Murder Collector case in volume 7, but as the psychological tricks here can be thoughts of as kind of haphazard if you try to think of it too hard, it just doesn't hold up here as well - I think the fact how the characters made it seem as if this was some genius plan was what hurts the case the most. The "real answer" to the first murder was just as lackluster as I imagined it to be... and I'm not sure if the set-up of the stereos making noises makes logical sense, as it was never explained how they were turned on (since the culprit or hell, anyone except the victim couldn't have done it). Seems like a little plot hole right there, guess the perp used an unknown mechanism or somehow set it up to play at the right time and let's leave it at that.
Anyway, after the case is over, teacher Hongou manages to catch Miss Kaori, a Pluto member who was hiding in the shadows. Though Kaori gets caught by a powerful hypnotism by a more dangerous but unknown Pluto member, as a punishment for letting Ryuu get hurt.
Oh, and Ryuu gets stabbed accidentally by the revealed perp who was controlled through hypnotism by the Kaori. As Ryuu has surprising connections to Pluto, this also means that him getting stabbed also causes ripples in the villain organization. I must note that there are also mentions about the mysterious Pluto member named Sir Anubis (or is it Sakaron or Sir Caron?). So basically we know so far that there was Kaori, then this Sir Caron dude, and then there are higher ups, and relations to Ryuu in Pluto.
The Envoy From Darkness
The next story continues on from where the last one left off as most of the stories in DDS tend to do. Ryuu is now hospitalized though with no grave injuries to organs. The senior violinist Yuge - who only has few more years left to live - is now moving on with his life with a new heir to the legendary violin, Testa di Drago. We also get hints that apparently Dan Morihiko also might not have long to live either, though it's not confirmed.This story introduces us to new members of the main criminal organization: Cerberus and King Hades. Cerberus was personally trained by Hades and has the ability to inflict extremely strong hypnotism. We get a sudden surprise visit from Cerberus in this story as he goes to where Ryuu is. There's a surprising amount of information regarding Ryuu's position towards the organization in here and it becomes quite clear that there are higher powers trying to manipulate him and his so-called fate. I'm not sure about what to think of Cerberus yet as he's clearly a key villain with a bit of charisma but it's not that noticeable... but talking about that, Kyuu for some reason does recognize Cerberus one way or the other.
As Ryuu's family problems run very deep, he surprisingly enough asks to sleep at Kyuu's place for the time being...
Night Of The Boys
This is a pretty cool chapter. We learn more of Ryuu here, about how his parents had died when he was very young, and he'd been calling Miss Yurie - his carekeeper - his mother because his grandfather had ordered him . This time around however Ryuu isn't returning back to Yurie, but instead decides to move in with Kyuu.At the same time Pluto has sniffed out Ryuu's motivations, and they also bring about this one interesting mystery that I'd been thinking of: why would Ryuu be ever sent to DDS, the school of Dan Morihiko who is the archnemesis of Pluto? I hope the real answer to that question won't disappoint. I guess it has to do with that Kuzuryuu guy as well...
And talkinga about Kuzuryuu Takumi, for the meanwhile as Ryuu lives with Kyuu and his mother, the two junior detectives decide to investigate this mysterious person who is hailed to be a creative artist on the level of Da Vinci. He was also a trick art creator and an engineer known to never create more than nine of a single object or thing, which also means that his creations aren't mass produced and thus cost millions.
The Mystery Of Kuzuryuu Takumi
So the investigation towards the backgrounds of this legendary artist has begun. While in a previous case Kazuma had mentioned how there was no mention of the artist on the net, the library is a different thing. However there's something off about this artist as there are only four books in Japanese about him, while there are dozens in foreign languages. One of the four books - the 50-year-old one translated into Japanese by Kyuu's mother - however is missing. It doesn't take long for Kyu and Ryu to hunt a copy of the missing book however, and that also causes them to realize interesting new things about this mysterious artist.Ryu and Kyu then decide to visit one of the houses where Kuzuryuu decided to live for about half a year. It was around 55 years ago, when Kuzuryuu was apparently already well over 40. We actually get to see a photo of this man hidden in the house along with one of the nine ceramics he had created.
The 10th volume ends with the first chapter of the Mystery of the Shi' Un-Ryu case that continues from The Mystery of Kuzuryuu Takumi story.
