Volume 5 of writer
Seimaru Amagi's and illustrator
Fumiya Sato's
Tantei Gakuen Q series ended with the first two chapters of the
"Q vs. A" storyline, in other words a story about a slightly hyped-up battle between two classes
. I didn't talk about any aspects of this Q vs. A
deduction battle case series in my previous volume's review as I decided to focus on all of it in this volume's review as there's a lot to talk about.
As the
Qualified Class which our main characters Kyu, Ryu, Megumi, Kinta and Kazuma are a part of managed to solve the
occultism case that dealt with the deceased mother of one of Kyu's high school classmate's, the Q Class headed back to the
Dan Detective School where their teacher is waiting for results. You see, the Q Class is a very special class as it's taught by the legendary detective
Dan Morihiko personally. Dan's goal is to find a successor to his craft as the greatest detective in Japan, and to do that he gives our students cases to solve as part of their homework. The occultism case was one such homework for the Q Class to solve. If the students directly under Morihiko aren't able to keep up with the challenges and excel in solving them, there will be a problem, which is the A Class and "swapping" of students.
The A Class in
Dan Detective School are a group of geniuses themselves. Unlike the Q Class which actually consists of quite young high school individuals, the A Class consists of people like university students. When it comes to feats in the field of detective work they say that the A Class is actually above the Q Class, so it's a mystery why Dan Morihiko doesn't want to directly teach them, but alas, the main point here is to understand that if the Q Class flops a case, any of the students in that class can be swapped to A Class in place of an A Class student getting swapped to the Q Class, and there's even a possibility of any of the students falling much lower, such as to the D-class, which is the lowest class in the school. This problem of "class swapping" brings a certain theme of rivalry in the series that's been hinted at since the very early volumes of the series, I even recall that some of the A Class students were thinking on playing it foul to get to Q Class. I must say that when it comes to writing a proper overarching storyline, although the past five volumes haven't really offered anything monumental, it is very refreshing to see such proper foreshadowing and natural connection of things case after case. It feels as if we truly move forward in a living world and learn more about actually relevant stuff to the characters in a consistent manner. This is not easy to do and takes a lot of effort and skill from the authors to pull off.
Q vs. A
In Q vs. A we get re-introduced to the A Class's members as they show off their mugs and act much better than the Q Class, in fact they're 100% sure they'll be able to get to the Q Class at any point. Rumour has it that after Q Class solved the occultism case of volume 5, there's been an uproar in the teacher community. The details are not known by the students (but the reader may well assume it has to do with the villain organization
Pluto) but the school's security has been increased as sort of an aftereffect of the case. As there is still a whole month until the next exam, the A Class has become impatient to get into the Q Class (which is from where Dan Morihiko chooses his successor) and thus they have an offer to make to Kyu and co.
: Instead of waiting, let's settle which class is better at solving crimes right here and now!
One of the A Class members, Yukihira-san, explains that both of the classes can ask Dan Morihiko to hold an
informal match after which he can enforce the changing of members between A and Q classes based on the results of the match... and it doesn't take long for Dan himself to agree to holding the match as he happens to overhear what the students were talking about, and Dan himself will give the mysteries that the classes have to solve to avoid some foul play.
The
deduction battle that will decide which class is superior consists of problems that Dan himself has solved in the past. The battle's setting will take place in the Crime Scene Reproduction Room of DDS and it will be a 5 vs. 5 of the top five of both Q and A Classes battling it out (and these five from each class are pretty much the only characters we know from the school anyway). Dan had set up ten different playing cards with numbers 1 to 5 on them. The opponent for each member will be set by the same number that's on the cards. The rules are that since there are 5 members on each class, the first class to get to 3 'wins' (# of mysteries solved) will win, and under the authority of Dan Morihiko, there is a chance of class members being swapped if A Class managed to get three wins first.
Deduction Battle #1 - Kinta vs. Gouda Kyosuke
Our martial arts expert Kintarou gets the number five of hearts card to go up against the number five of spades card that Gouda, assumedly one of the greatest math experts in Japan, got. The mystery they have to solve first is about when Dan Morihiko's and his assistant's lives were in danger as the were escaping a crime syndicate that they invaded in
Hong Kong. Morihiko's assistant had disguised as a chef and knew the hideout of the members of the syndicate whom they managed to escape. However, they were chased to the rooftop of a multi-story building, and with no rope or a ladder, they had little hope of escaping. On the rooftop there however were piles of lumber thick enough to walk on, but they couldn't be used to walk to the other rooftop as they were just 20 cm too short. Dan even managed to drop a piece of lumber to the roadside from the rooftop.
There is seemingly no way to really use the lumber to reach the other side of the rooftop, but Dan did manage to find a way somehow to do it.
To make the mystery easier to solve Dan prepared a miniature replica of the scene at that time, with the lumber and everything set ready.
The answer to this puzzle seems to be math based or so, as the characters showed some formula to calculate it, but I didn't bother to do that. I however had a similar idea, the idea wasn't the same but it was quite similar and depending on how heavy the lumber is (it was never quite stated), I wonder if my theory would have also helped Dan to cross to the other side.
And unsurprisingly enough, Kintarou got the L against the olympics math expert of A Class in this one.
A Class: 1, Q Class: 0.
Deduction Battle #2 - Kazuma vs. Shiramine Hayato
The pair of number fours to battle it out are the inventor Kazuma and the magician Hayato. For the second challenge Dan prepared the participants with a photograph that gets shown on a whitescreen. In this photo there's a man hanging with a rope seemingly on his neck. Dan explains that back when the photo was taken a wealthy man's wife told the detective that her husband might commit suicide. Apparently Dan had went to try and stop this man or something, but regardless, he went to check the place the man was at; a hotel, and when Dan made his way over there, the man was found hanging. Unsurprisingly enough, the crime was no suicide but a murder, and the culprit was the wife's lover apparently. The question that needs answering here is as follows: "
what kind of proof is left on the scene of the crime that shows it was murder?
The reader basically has to look at the photo to come up with the answer. But the answer is just too simple, and it even has similarities with a mystery in the 3rd exam case in the earlier volumes. In that sense I guess I've gotten more experienced in the
Dan Detective School since I learned from previous cases?
However, our Kazuma just isn't able to make it as his laptop doesn't start. In his effort to try to come up with the answer, Hayato just takes the lead with a quick answer to a simple question.
A Class: 2, Q Class: 0.
Deduction Battle #3 - Ryu vs. Shishido Takeshi
Shishido Takeshi is a student with a doctorate from Harvard university, but our mysterious main character Ryu Amakusa decides to take up the fight with confidence of a clear victory. Dan shows another photograph, this time from about 20 years ago, taken from a guest house of a villa. This one is quite creepy as it shows a person holding a fork and a knife while on a table filled with high-class food. It was all to set the stage up to make it seem as if this man was eating. The victim this time was a manga writer that created manga with food themes. Dan worked as a bodyguard for him as the victim was blackmailed, but on a patrol he noticed the corpse sitting as if dining on a table. The body had been rotting at the table for about 4 or 5 days before being found, but there's something odd as the food prepared by the killer was not as old as the corpse.
Dan explains that the culprit wasn't a nutjob for doing all of this, but actually quite a smart one as there's a reason why the scene of crime was left in such a bizarre state. As the Q Class is merely one step from losing the deduction battle, Ryu has to quickly solve the reason for why the scene of crime is what it is.
The estimated time of death for the victim was on July 11th, while two days prior to that he had a meeting with editors that may have had a grudge against him.
On July 9th, three editors met up with the victim, and this is their explanation for how things went:
Suspect 1) Oomuro Ryonosuke (31) claimed that on July 9th he went to the villa to remind the victim to finish a script. The door to the villa was not locked but no matter how many times Ryonosuke knocked, there was no answer, but the smell of coffee coming from the building made the editor think he was working.
According to Ryonosuke one of the other editors, Akai, told him that he'd gone to the victim's resort on the 11th, but he heard snoring back then and assumed the victim was asleep. The third of the suspect editors, Shimizu, told Ryonosuke that he'd visited the author on the 10th and got mad that no one answered the door.
Suspect 2) Shimizu Tetsuhiko (42) claimed that he'd visited the victim on 10th. No one answered the door so he went back home. Shimizu claims that the day Oomura visited the vic was "before it started raining" on the 9th and at night. According to Tetsuhiko, Akai on the other hand visited the vic after a heavy storm as there was a huge ruckus because the breakers tripped before dinner time.
Suspect 3) Akai Hideo (28) claimed that he'd visited the vic during the morning of the 10th day. The door was unlocked but due to the loud snoring Akai felt it was obvious the suspect was sleeping. Akai also claims that he didn't know Oomura visited the vic's house on the 9th while he knew that Shimizu had come back from visiting the vic before noon on the 10th.
After that, Dan Morihiko says from what's been said so far he'd managed to narrow the culprit down to one, as well as the "reason" why the culprit left the crime scene in such a weird condition. Dan gives one of the investigators a hint: the full course on the table is missing the "salad". Before Ryu starts his explanation, we get to hear a hint from Kyu towards the truth of this mystery: "
The victim doesn't eat food".
Now, while I get what the author wanted to do, the answer to this case kind of doesn't make sense in that it's just not necessary or that there'd be any actual point to this. The author doesn't seem to be aware of microbes and basic stuff like that when it comes to cooking food or any piece of food in general, but I guess that doesn't matter...
A very iffy solution to the most interesting mystery so far in this deduction battle. Actually, "that place" would still be empty now and it should still raise questions... and I'm not sure if this action from the perp even fixed any problems at all. Actually I'm not sure if it even matters if some of the food "couldn't be used" in that other place.
Obviously Ryu wins this match however to tip the scales.
A Class: 2, Q Class: 1
Deduction Battle #4: Minami Megumi vs. Saburoumaru
Megumi gets a head-to-head battle with her old classmate
. Dan Morihiko shows the two a photo of a message that reads as follows:
"Tomorrow on the 12th at 8PM come to the Maruyama Teater's Stage". The paper it read on was torn to pieces. The victim in this case was a member of a drama group that died when an illumination lamp fell on him on the stage. However, before dying, he managed to rip the sheet of paper into pieces while trying to move the ~100kg heavy lamp.
It's easy to see that the victim ripped the paper to leave a dying message to the finders in desperation. The suspects were narrowed down to three women, Ooki Nae (28), Mizuki Kyouko (22), and Nakakura Reiko (31), and funnily enough all three of them were dating the vic. A few days prior to his death the victim however broke up with all three of them as he found a rich lady to marry. That's basically all there is to the case. Dan gives Megumi and Saburoumaru a hint to solve the mystery: It's not a hard-to-decipher code.... for Japanese people, that is. It's a kanji-based mystery as I assumed in the first place. I guess it's also not even meant to be solved as it requires to move the ripped pieces of paper around to create a certain kanji to pinpoint the culprit.
Anyway, of course Megumi won't lose this one as Kyuu, the main character, has yet to throw down with his deduction battle. Kyuu's battle is also of course the climax of this miniarc.
A Class: 2, Q Class: 2
Deduction Battle #5: Kyuu vs. Yukihira Sakurako (Main Case of the Volume)
Yukihira from A Class is a hard one to battle as she's said to have been a detective since she was a young child, but how well will she fare against our main character? This final deduction battle to solve includes a photograph of a young woman who worked as a companion for an event. She was found dead in the room she was lodging the morning this event took place. The thing here is, however, that
Dan Detective School actually doesn't know if this case was a murder or not, as they were asked to solve the case just yesterday. The client this time is the younger sister of the victim who wanted DDS to continue the investigation since apparently the official papers claim she died a "sudden death". The sister believes that it's definitely a murder as her sister had gotten a threatening letter trying to force the victim to resign from being the role of an actress.
The reason why the police concluded that it was not a murder despite this kind of letter, was because the victim was found in a
locked room.
The room the victim stayed in was like a prison cell: no furniture,
locked with a small barred window that was open but the iron bars would
make it impossible for a person to get through.
This case is thus a
perfect locked-room murder. The victim's cause of death was suffocation and she was addicted to sleeping pills, so the police concluded that the vic's cause of death must be an overdose of sleeping pills.
But all of a sudden the school bells start to ring and Dan Morihiko tells the students that the deduction battle is over as he has some business to attend to. In other words the deduction battle ended in a draw of two wins for both classes. However, we learn that the Dan Morihiko who held the deduction battle was actually Dan's assistant Nanami disguised as him. Nanami's goal was to see how the classes have evolved and what Kyu and Yukihira will do with this final, unresolved locked-room case that gets left hanging in the open.
Well then, Kyu decides to look at some photos of the victim and pack his bags to head to the Karuizawa Film Festival where the crime scene is. This is the first actual solo Kyu case since the beginning of the series. Thing is though, Yukihara from A Class also heads there in order to finish the final battle with Kyu.
This deduction battle's idea is to basically solve the murder case live on the scene where he meets the victim's sister who has an emotional plea for Kyuu & Yukihira of DDS: "
Please find the criminal who killed my older sister!"
While the first four deduction battles were condensed into just mere two chapters, this one takes place for the next four chapters after those, in other words the fourth deduction battle with its four-chapter-length
"Q vs. A Overtime" case is as long as the Murder in Spirit Summoning occultism case, and this case also has some supposed supernatural themes to it as everyone believes that the victim, Sumika, was killed by the
curse of Hikawa Misuzu who was yet another campaign girl who'd died in an accident as well, three months prior. According to the event manager Eijirou, Misuzu was a popular actress who was supposed to play in the leading role in a movie. Misuzu and the movie group were staying in a hotel and on the second night there, the group heard Misuzu screaming and found her deceased in the dry riverbed of the outdoor hot spring where she'd hit her head on the rocks.
The suspects in Q vs. A Overtime are as follows:
Tachigawa Momoko (17), she dropped out of high school to participate in the event,
Takamura Nagisa (18), comes from a rich family from abroad,
Yamasaki Nazumi (20), according to the victim Nazumi is lying about being 20, and is actually 22,
Ooi Eijirou (26), he's the event manager who organizes everything.
The Second Victim
It's nighttime. As the client of Kyuu and Yukihira, Reika Kurita, seemed to be stressed earlier during the day, the duo decide to head outside to check up on her through a window. Before reaching the room, they notice that one of the caged windows to Campaign Girls rooms has its lights on in the middle of the night. It doesn't take long for Kyuu to realize that it's the room of their client, who's in a similar setting as her deceased sister was: a locked room. The moment building up to Kyuu's and Yukihira's realization that Reika might be dead at the end of chapter 40 is quite nicely crafted. While it's not that special, the panel layout just seemed nice enough to point out. Anyway, the duo manage to help the second victim survive when Yukihira starts CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation for unconscious people who don't breathe, where one breathes in other's mouth and "massages" their heart by pushing the ribcage portion of the chest) as an emergency procedure.
There are quite a few odd things about this case. As Kyuu and Yukihira along with Momoko Tachigawa decide to break the locked door to the room where the unconscious Reika was in, an unknown person in a weird Godzilla-costume decides to help them break in. This reminds me that
Detective Conan also has cases in it with a certain Godzilla-like mascot in the culprit role. Furthermore, Kyuu explains there was a weird smell of burned plastic in Reika's room, and another one of the suspects, Yamasaki Natsumi, explains that she gave Reika the strongest allergy medicine she had, but they weren't poisoned or anything. These random things help flesh out the case a bit more, but I personally felt that they were kind of... not that interesting additions.
The Explanation...
This fifth and final case of the Q vs. A storyline is quite likely the worst case in the series so far. Not only is the setting and the cast of characters uninteresting to begin with, the explanation to this case is
awful. And what makes that worse is the fact that there's a false conclusion to this case explained by Yukihira, and while that answer was not that great by any stretch of the imagination, it was at least serviceable unlike the real answer to this case which is some hard bollocks.
Not long ago I reviewed the
A Cursed Mask Coldly Laughs episode of
Detective Conan which had an absolutely fantastic locked-room trick. The murder scene setting of this
Tantei Gakuen Q case was very similar so I did have an idea of the answer maybe being similar. There are quite a few similarities to the murder method between these two stories, indeed, however, where the trick in
"A Cursed Mask Coldly Laughs" absolutely shines, this one completely flops. It's illogical, and it's complete nonsense. Slight SPOILER:
Just because it doesn't have air in it, doesn't mean it's not incredibly heavy, and it also doesn't mean the murder weapon would ever fit in the room, or out of it that way. It's a nonsensical trick and the murder method aspect of it was even dumber. The author even went a step further and never explained the object that Yukihira and Kyuu found (the murder weapon), which is weird as even if they had explained it, it wouldn't be the only conclusion to make (I wouldn't even think of something like this..). I thought the culprit had just stuffed the ventilator system instead with a bag or something. That would have made a lot more sense. Also I have to point out that the culprit and their story in this case was just cringeworthy. The quality took a complete left turn from the occultism case of the previous volume - a case with same length of chapters, but that one case was pretty decent with a cool twist, while this one was complete garbage.
Regardless, this case is where we get to learn more about A Class's Yukihira. As she and Kyuu investigate the case of the deceased sister of Reika, they get to learn about another death prior to that. As the investigation deepens, Yukihira decides to show off her DDS badge to people she questions. This is one of the aspects of this story that make it slightly more interesting as we see the culprit actually pay attention to her being a DDS member. The Q Class also showed off their DDS badges in the
Kamikakushi Village Murder Case, but afterwards they got shouted down by their teacher Dan Morihiko himself as they should never expose themselves as detectives that are after the perpetrators, as the criminals could start to chase them down instead for doing so. As Kyuu does not showcase his DDS badge in this case but Yukihira does, it gives us a great example of why they should not show off these badges to anyone as the assumed culprit
does start to spy on Yukihira after learning of the badge, and this act from her leads her to getting kidnapped and almost losing her life.
For the most part Yukihira is kind of an uninteresting character to focus on (as we've yet to focus even on the main characters; on Ryuu or Kazuma or even Kinta), as we only know of her as an A Class student who wants to become the heir to Dan Morihiko as the next greatest detective in Japan. But as the case deepens and we get to learn of her connections to Dan Morihiko, my interest towards following her and worry about whether or not she gets whacked by the culprit got a bit more serious. You see, Yukihira is actually the niece of
Dan Morihiko. But she did not become a member of the legendary Dan Detective School through connections, but through hard work, as Dan himself wouldn't allow her to become a detective due to the work being so dangerous. She looks up to her uncle which caused her to solve numerous cases, even back when she was in elementary school age.
The ending of Q vs. A has yet another person get hypnotized to stab the culprit after the culprit gets caught.
Pluto is apparently a criminal organization that creates murder methods for people for a set price, and they basically have members that are capable of hypnotizing anyone to do dirty deeds for them. At the end of this case the culprit gets stabbed by a person hypnotized by a masked
Pluto member, and the
Pluto member gets face to face with Dan Morihiko's right hand man, Nanami Kotaro. This showdown leads to a single chapter case
called the Shadow of Pluto.
Shadow of Pluto Case
As the end of
Q vs. A led up to Nanami vs. a member of the criminal organization
Pluto, ffor couple of pages we actually get to see some real action in this chapter as Nanami battles against the woman who utilizes deadly knives. Nanami seemingly uses the same DDS gadgets as the DDS students, except with perfection as he is capable of throwing down against an armed opponent simply with the DDS wristwatch on his side.
I must note that the combat drawn by the artist
Sato Fumiya is not that great in this chapter. It looks very stiff and out of place, it's not fluid so it's hard to tell what's happening exactly.
While the beginning focuses on Nanami trying to cath a member of
Pluto but of course ultimately fails at that task, the middle portion of this chapter is meant to work as transitional story for our Q Class to move forward from the previous case. The last stretch of the chapter is about Dan Morihiko questioning the culprits of Volume 5's Occultism case as
Pluto has become very active lately and they, along with the Q vs. A case's culprit, had hired
Pluto to help them kill their victims by creating so-called
perfect plans. What's more, apparently in the past Dan Morihiko himself had paid a "great sacrifice" to destroy
Pluto...
The members of this criminal organization are experts at mimicking others. They use advanced disguises and plastic surgeries to infiltrate any organization, including the police. I notice that Dan Morihiko's right hand man Nanami is especially skilled at disguising and playing others.
Oh, and just like that they also infiltrated the Occultism case as apparently the assistant of the victim in the case of the previous volume was most likely just another
Pluto member. But there is a way to tell them apart as
all Pluto members have a symbol of the organization carved somewhere on them.
Kinta's Case
The next two chapters of volume 6 have to do with one of our main characters, Kintarou Touyama. In the previous chapter Dan Morihiko went to the police department to ask the police to cooperate with DDS against
Pluto. The person he went to talk to was the superintendent of the department, who is in fact Kinta's father. While Dan talks with the superintendent, the scene moves elsewhere, to a building construction site where Kinta works at. This setting and focus on Kinta is a very nice surprise and quite rare to see in these detective fiction series. It brings this much needed new air to the whole story.
At the construction site there are workers who will turn out to be suspects, of course. There's Kinta's alcoholic construction partner or something Nakajima Yoshio (62), their butt-licking boss Shinoda Hitoshi (56), Kurihara Misao (28) who got her position a s a designer with her good looks that attract jealousy and hate, Kizaki Masao (27) who's an ex-stuntman with a bad right leg, and the freelance writer Kuwata Yoshihiko (28) who seems rather angry at the construction happening.
At the other side of the river there's another building that has its construction halted due to citizen protesting against it happening. It's a multi-story building to which Kinta was asked to work at once they get the O.K. to continue constructing. As the evening hits, Nakajima Yoshio goes missing along with two 30kg bags of cement. On top of the unfinished construction building across the river, a flashlight could be seen. Kinta notices a person sitting on top of the construction crane. Then, the person seemingly starts to wave
good bye signals to everyone with the flashlight, and then the person seemingly fell down. As Kinta runs to check out the place he notices the missing Nakajima Yoshio on the ground with blood coming from the back of his head.
This case is average. The trick is as usually pretty daring but it's clearly a quick basic story for Kinta to solve. I doubt the culprit would actually have pulled any of that off and I have to wonder about what happened to those 2x30kg missing sacks and rest of the characters that were supposed to gather around the next morning. This story feels kind of underdevelped.. the motive doesn't fit this setting.
After Kinta cracks the case, we move to the headquarters of
Pluto where the woman, revealed to be
Kaori, who Nanami fought is bowing in front of another person who is assumedly a very higher ranked member of the organization who
Kaori calls
Sir Caron. We also learn that there are still ranks above
Caron in the org, called the "above". As Kaori failed her last mission and let the murderer escape without killing them, Caron gives her one more chance: infiltrate the Dan Detective School.
Secret of the old school building case
Dan Morihiko meets up with a yakuza-lookalike man named Hongou Natsumi to ask him to teach at DDS once more. It's been about half a year since Hongou was there, and the reason for this is his inclusion in an accident. Hongou sports two large scars, one on his right cheek and one on his left, and many scars on his hands and wristwatch as proof of fighting against armed opponents. He's quite interesting looking character in comparison to most characters from this manga, and one of the first things we learn of him is that he has a skill of walking without making sounds. Apparently Hongou was in the same class as Dan's right hand man Nanami back in detective school.
We also learn if another teacher named Maki coming back to DDS to teach the forensic medicine class.
Hongou heads straight to the DDS to personally teach the Q Class, but we soon learn just how little he things of our main characters. He's a very serious teacher who doesn't listen to nonsense. After Kintarou talks behind Hongou's back, the teacher decides to order the Q Class to clean the old school building which was Dan Morihiko's old working place.
Even though the person in charge of cleaning the old school building was Kintarou, as he has work he decides to ask (or more like force) the cleaning duty on Kyuu for the day. Luckily enough Megumi wants to help Kyuu with the cleaning, so it's no problem.
On their cleaning duty Kyuu and Meg run to two mysterious doors that have no place for lock or no way to open them, yet there is definitely some kind of empty space in between. The design of the school is done by a person named Kuzuryuu Takumi according to old blueprints of the school building. Although it's not mentioned who this designer was, the reader can tell that there should be something important about this name. Furthermore according to rumors from Dan, this school used to be the murder scene of a very brutal crime.
It doesn't take Kyuu that long to figure out how to get into the basement of the building through the hidden door. In the basement there's a very strong-looking steel door with a small window to the other side. It looks as if from a movie where top-security prisoners are given food through a steel door that can't be broken.
Alas, Kyuu and Meg still manage to gather the courage to open the steel door, and beyond that is a stinking room yet another door that leads to a small room with a wooden chair, desk, dish fragments, and a blanket on the floor which was used as a bed by someone. In the room there are hints of a person been writing on a handmade diary with their own blood. The diary is messy / burnt down, but there are some sentences visible on it, saying:
"I'll kill him - I'll definitely get out of here - I'll kill"...
As the volume finally reaches its conclusion we get to see a
Pluto member as a
shadow man with a damaged wristwatch much like the teacher Hongou was wearing and the symbol of
Pluto on the wrist, lock the strong steel door and pour something through the small metal window that's guarding the jail cell-like room in which Kyuu and Meg are in right at the moment. As Kyuu realizes that the door is locked and no one is ever going to come help them as the trick door to the steel door in the basement must also be locked (as even if they shout for help, no one's going to come help them as their voice won't reach above ground), and Dan Morihiko himself couldn't even figure the trick out, things are getting more serious by the seconds. But when Kyuu and Meg notice a large poisonous snake in the room and Meg gets bit by it despite Kyuu's best intentions at trying to kill the snake, it's clear that time is running out for both of them. How will the duo escape this hopeless situation?
Condensed Review of Volume 6
We've reached the end of volume 6, and if we overlap the first four deduction battle mysteries from previous volume over here (as they're part of the Q vs. A story), this is the most packed volume of this series so far with the numerous mysteries it offers to the reader ... but quality-wise, it's also the worst. Out of the six chapters of Q vs. A storyline (two of which were in Volume 5, but I digress), Kinta's deduction battle was a fine little trick based on figuring out what could be possible through the visual medium which creating manga offers to the reader and the writer. Kazuma's battle was whatever, honestly I can't even remember it as it was simple and quick. Ryu's deduction battle was the most interesting short case of this volume due to being horrifying with this very cold atmosphere, but the answer to "
why the table was filled with full course dishes and the victim was placed on the table as if he was dining" just felt irrelevant. It was the longest of the first four deduction battle mysteries, and while the atmosphere of the case was neat, the mystery aspect itself felt somewhat pointless and forced. Minami's deduction battle
isn't that great, sadly. It has to do with understanding japanese and bothering to try to create and rip the paper pieces in real life, which I doubt anyone is going to do, and even with that it's apparently an easy trick for native Japanese speakers.
The first four deduction battle cases had two alright mysteries to solve in Kinta's and Ryuu's bouts, however.... ultimately those were from the last volume of this series, not from volume 6. Even though the storyline overlaps over to this volume, it won't raise my opinion of this particular booklet as the first case in this volume was
horrendous.
Q vs. A's overtime case told us a four-chapter story in which Kyuu went head to head against Yukihira from Class A. The setting had to do with idols, there were four suspects, and... it just was not interesting in the slightest to go through. Near the end we get to see a false solution that felt kind of
meh but still serviceable enough, but when we got around to the real explanation of this mystery, that's when I realized we had the absolute
worst case of
Tantei Gakuen Q so far on our hands.
The Shadow of Pluto was a transitional chapter to let the reader
learn that the Dan Detective School will cooperate with the police force
- in which Kinta's father works at - to destroy this heinous criminal
organization which sells murder plans and hypnotizes people.
Kinta's Case was a kind of solid and quick filler story as it had to do with a death in a construction site, which is a cool setting, but the answer to that one felt kind of random in multiple ways and I believe the story could have been fleshed out more with certain concepts that were introduced but never really properly handled with. Even though I somehow got the culprit right anyway by guessing I just didn't feel any sort of satisfaction from doing so.
The volume ended with the first two chapters of
The Secret of the Old School Building case in which the DDS reinforces themselves by re-hiring Hongou Natsumi, a serious teacher who'd been away for half a year due to suffering injuries from a mysterious battle. Kyuu and Meg get themselves in trouble by finding a jail cell in the basement of the Dan Detective School where they get locked into by a member of
Pluto organization who'd infiltrated the school. There are no notable mysteries to solve or anything in this particular case as the characters figure everything out before the mysteries are even properly presented to us, but it does have some nice tension and foreshadowing towards the future of the main storyline which has to do with the battle of
DDS vs. Pluto.
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.
