Death on the Nile (1937)

Death on the Nile (1937) is almost surely the most well known murder mystery-detective story with a ship setting in it, and it, like naturally many other Poirot stories, has inspired other authors of mystery stories to create brain crackers which follow in its footsteps. Stories such as the Twenty Year Old Murderous Intent (1999) in one of the most famous so-called new orthodox detective fiction series from Japan, Detective Conan by Gosho Aoyama, and the mystery parody novel Murder in Pastiche (1954) by Marion Mainwaring take after this classic Poirot story. It would be an understatement to say that back in the day Agatha Christie took the world by a storm - by her own words she says that no woman has ever made as much money from literature as her, in fact she is the number one most sold author of fiction in our history going head-to-head with William Shakespeare in the moolah wars. The prideful Hercule Poirot is certainly the personification of Agatha to a T down to the final novel, Curtain (1975) which was published after her death by her own planning, a fact which sends chills down my spine for couple of reasons...

Anyway, Death on the Nile, much like Murder on Orient Express, were heavy hitters in the series so much so that there have been multiple adaptations of them but personally out of all the adaptations of this series I do very much prefer the super long-running TV series, which ended in 2013 after running for ~24 years, starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. I think the guy is damn fantastic and the series is one of the best shows, and adaptations (with ups and downs here and there as in any other series), period. To me the difference with him as an actor compared to someone like Peter Ustinov from the 1978 DotN film adaptation is massive. Still, the original novels are as good as it gets even if some of the adaptated episodes do live up to them surprisingly well.

And as we are on the subject of adaptations, Death on the Nile is getting a new movie adaptation in 2022, possibly due to the success of 2017's adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. I was certainly disappointed in the 2017 movies but there's always potential for these type of movies to hit the jackpot, I think. The extremely high quality cinematography in today's movies especially can give us an unforgettable experience, so I'm still interested in seeing the movie adaptation of Death on the Nile in 2022.

 

The Story

The millionaire heir Linnet Ridgeway, a beautiful young 20-year-old woman from the massive Wode Hall residence, is about to get married to Charles Windlesham who also comes from a rich family; match made in heaven. Everything about these two was seemingly perfect to the bywatcher which caused them to be the hot topic for every newspaper agency around, but as fate would have it, things were not going to progress so smoothly for the young pair. From a normal person's perspective Linnet is on another tier, so to speak. She inherited her father's business wits, and she has money to buy anyone as well as the looks to charm anyone, and the world knows this; what Linnet wants, she gets- and all she has to do is ask to get it. Before her marriage to Charles, she gets a visit from one of her oldest friends, the poor girl Jacqueline de Bellefort who has never asked anything from Linnet, but now she has a request to make: "As you will remodel Wode Hall to become even bigger, please hire my future husband to work for your estate, if Simon is not doing his job well enough you can fire him but give him a chance, please do it for me!"

 
Months pass and the steam ship S.S. Karnak is about to sail around Egypt once more, traveling through the Nile river. The old, retired and great Hercule Poirot is getting ready for his vacation, but people want to hear him talk about the greatest murder cases which he has solved - too bad for them though as that would be considered as work, so they're not getting answers while he's on this vacation! And as he's waiting, Poirot runs across a woman with hate in her eyes as she looks at two people living the happy life, the newlywed Simon Doyle and Linnet Doyle have just gotten married and are on their honeymoon! So, as things would have it, the beautiful Linnet never married Charles, but instead her friend's future husband Simon!

The story then kicks off into high gear as Jacqueline de Bellefort claims that she would do anything to get back at Simon as he belongs to her and openly admits two things: (1.) She has a gun with her and is willing to pull the trigger, but does not know on who exactly, so that's why she still has not done so, and (2.) her mission is to make Simon and Linnet feel pressured by her constant following. The mystery part here is quite simple: how exactly does a poor girl like her have the money to follow the wealthy pair around the world?

Death on the Nile, TV, 2004

Linnet and Simon decide to sneak onto S. S. Karnak without telling the presses (that keep publishing news on anything Linnet does) where they are headed, yet Jacqueline somehow follows them there as well. On the first stop of Karnak around Egypt, Linnet gets almost crushed by a massive boulder while Jacqueline was still inside the ship. Was it an accident? Poirot ponders as evil thoughts crawl to the back of his head. That night things would take turn for the worse as Jacqueline de Bellefort and her ex-boyfriend-and-now-her-friend's-husband Simon Doyle get into an argument in front of people in the bar area of the ship. Things get so crazy that Jacqueline ends up shooting Simon so that the bone in his leg happens to break from the bullet. Due to the shock, Jacqueline throws the gun to the floor and kicks it away from where the eye can see while having suicidal thoughts and Simon tells everyone else to not tell anything about what just happened to his new wife as that would bring about a scandal. 

 Next up things quickly take a surprising turn for the worse. It's as if the devil itself had heard Poirot's thoughts as our main character wakes up the next morning to his old friend Colonel Race tell him the hard facts that Poirot was almost expecting: Linnet Doyle has been murdered the previous night. While she was sleeping, someone entered the room and popped a bullet from a silent small caliber gun, which happens to be Jacqueline's gun that had been thrown kicked away after yesterday's incident, through her brain. Other mysteries also take place in this well paced story that still does not feel overwhelmingly information heavy as Race explains that there's actually a ruthless killer on the ship that the law enforcement calls "X," and Linnet's costy neck pearls have also gone missing. Could her suspicious latin maid have stolen them? The maid whom Poirot and Race are to find murdered below her own bed on S. S. Karnak when she also goes missing.

Now, I decided to reread and review Death on the Nile because for a couple of reasons; never got a chance to write about it and I wanted to see how it in particular compares to Ellery Queen's hailed fair-play stories that I've been getting into. Can I see what made the series so much more popular in comparison to every other series? and I think I managed to get a glimpse towards that direction. You see, Queen's works are very information-heavy, the cast of characters leave much to be desired but they're never what I'd say is "bad" per say. The stories are just very mechanical, and the cases are heavily planned and that's pretty much the purpose of the entire series - it's impressive to say the least, however... Agatha Christie's writing style for the Hercule Poirot series is also fair-play, but the dialogue and text is not overwherlming to the reader. It's much more, hmm, novice-friendly type of a series and I really enjoy the storytelling in Christie's works - there's a slight sense of adventure.

Due to the short chapters with neatly laid-out dialogue that focuses on making the case-cast along with Poirot himself more interestingly and creatively integrated into the actual story surrounding the cases, it's very easy to read to the next check-point without a break to mull over things. The pacing of this particular novel was pretty superb and it has aged like fine wine - it's about 250 pages and without any overflow of information, but still managed to be sneakily filled with events that makes the ending contain three different possible solutions as to who the possible culprit could be (note: in comparison Greek Coffin Mystery by Queen is a heavy-information novel with over 400 pages - it's certainly for slightly more veteran readers, I believe Christie's novels are more digestible to anyone who wants to get into detective fiction, which would explain popularity Christie managed to accumulate with these books). 

The cast of characters is pretty decent as well, varying from a mother-son duo on vacation to an alcoholist and a latin housemaid, however due to the averagely short length of the novel - which does make it very easy to digest as well - none of the characters were fully realized, I feel, but in the end the story still managed to be neatly weaved together with only couple of obvious twists to it. I was certainly disappointed in the identity of Killer X and how that part of the story was handled from the hints to the reveal, considering how it was set up as a legitimate plotline. But it's not that big of a deal. Neat story with a nice ship setting, neat characters as always and a quick nice ending to the story it wanted to tell.

Kindaichi Case Files #4-6 - The Legend of Lake Hiren Murder Case

The first case of Kindaichi Case Files (1997) consisted of the first three episodes in this 148 episode long show. This post will be about the second case in the anime series, The Legend of Lake Hiren Murder Case adapted from the sixth case in the manga, but I wanted to say that so far the anime did a pretty great job at condensing volume length of chapters into about three episodes, and it seems like that trend will continue; the pacing has potential to be well handled in this adaptation, but not without its risks. There were some parts that maybe shouldn't have been cut off, like half of the Seven Mysteries of Fudoh High that the adaptation could have shown us, but I don't feel like the first story was missing anything actually important. The first case was intriguing enough in a school setting which I think is one of the best way to garner more audience, considering that time has proven that school setting always works in any media. Be it a Japanese game, manga or anime series, school setting is key. Or even Hollywood adaptations of anime franchises.

Let's see now... I guess the series could flesh out its overarching characters - there are three of them; Kenmochi, Hajime and Miyuki at the moment - more from now on, give them backstories and stuff. But at least we did get a lot of good character moments to enhance the atmosphere of the previous case. I'd say the series works pretty much like the ideal detective series at the moment as the way the stories seem to be built are surprisingly similar to even Western golden age detective fiction stories, be they from Christie or Queen. Though let's see if this can match some of the better ideas those series have as I haven't seen or read all of the original Kindaichi Case Files cases before and whatever I do know of the series for sure mainly just includes Takato.

But, it's time to go over the second case of the animated series, The Legend of Lake Hiren Murder Case, that is slightly inspired by Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a serial killer named "Jason" going after everyone in the middle of nowhere, and see how it holds up compared to the first case. This time I'm going to just write about every little thing here I guess.

File 1

The holidays are starting for Fudoh High's students. As Hajime Kindaichi, our main character, is walking about after school, his acquaintance inspector Kenmochi Isamu arrives while in the backseat of a car and starts to tease Kindaichi about how the adults have to work while Kindaichi can't even spend his golden week vacation with a date. Kindaichi quickly turns Kenmochi down and starts looking for his childhood friend Miyuki Nanase whom he soon notices at a Hamburger joint, however another male student, the former class president Touno, is spending time with her. As passerby's walk past a crouching and spying Kindaichi, he overhears them say that Touno and Miyuki used to date back in the middle school days, which gets Hajime suspicious. Obviously this seems to just mostly be a comedic element that slightly sets up a romantic angle to this story. Kenmochi then teases Hajime again and tells him that unless he makes Miyuki his girl, someone's gonna take her instead.

As night falls Miyuki gets a surprise visitor her household as her cousin Shigeru Kitsukawa, an university student, visits her and gives her free tickets to a four-night trip at a lake resort. The reason why Shigeru gives her the tickets is because he'd been invited as a tester at the Hiren Lake Resort which will open next year, but because of university exams, Shigeru is instead going to let his cousin Miyuki go to the resort in his place and he also pleads her to comically offer "some guy" to go there as well with her. This surprises Miyuki but Shigeru explains that she needs a guy to go there pretending to be him. Shigeru is sure that Miyuki has a boyfriend that'd be willing to go with he, but as she's about to answer with a "no" Kindaichi all of a sudden jumps out of Miyuki's closet while wearing a rag over his head. Miyuki tries to ask Hajime what in the world he's doing but Hajime just quickly takes the envelope with the tickets from Miyuki, shakes Shigeru's hand and tells Shigeru that he's agreeing to go as a stand-in in Shigeru's place, pretending to be Shigeru, and head to the resort.

The very next day Hajime and Miyuki travel on a train towards Nagano Prefecture's Hiren Lake Resort, a place that is about the same size as Yokohama city. Their job is to be there on a "monitor tour" which means that Hajime and Miyuki are going to have to give feedback on how enjoyable and safe the Lake Resort tour is before it can be opened for the public.

After getting out of the train at the Nagakari station, Hajime tells a suspicious Miyuki (who doesn't believe it's going to be as entertaining of a trip as her cousin Shigeru claimed) that they should just enjoy themselves and he also says out loud that "it's going to be his chance" (to try and make Miyuki her girlfriend), but as Miyuki asks what Hajime means by a "chance," he runs away towards the nearby bus which will take our duo and the other chosen participants to the resort. In the bus a great coincidence takes place as Touno Eiji, the 3rd year student Nanase was sitting at a hamburger joint with earlier, makes his appearance, claiming to be part of the tour group as well. As Touno goes to sit with Miyuki, Kindaichi, who is angry because he thought he'd get to date Miyuki, notices other people in the bus as well. The first one to make an appearance is Kawanishi Sayuri, a 2nd year student who was scared that all the participants would be just old men. Then Kurata Souichi, a 20-year-old university student, makes his introduction. Sayuri pushes Souichi away, calling him a sumo-wrestler-lookalike, and then introduces herself to Hajime who almost says that his name is Kindaichi before remembering that he was going to the resort as "Kitsukawa Shigeru, a college student" (despite Kindaichi looking and being younger than a college student, he'll have to bear up in that role for now). Sayuri seems interested in Hajime and goes to sit with him.

The tour guide and conductor hired by Mizuki Travel Agency is a man named Kujyou Shyoutarou. As the group finally reaches the resort, Kujyou explains that there will be no automobiles on the at use on the island as the tour also aims to preserve the nature. Thus, the group will be adventuring on foot throughout a large forest area.

The next part is very odd as the group is supposed to go over a very worn-down and unsafe looking wooden bridge with ropes as walls. Kujyou claims that when the resort opens, there will be other methods to get to the place, however right now the bridge - that conveniently looks like it's easy to burn down so that the place will be cut-off from outside world so that murders will happen and no one, not even the culprit, can escape - is the only way to the Hiren Lake Resort, aside from a boat or something. And the worry is proven correct as the wooden boards below Kindaichi all of a sudden break and he almost falls to the rocky river, but luckily he got pulled to safety by Kujyou, who notices the name "Kindaichi Hajime" on Hajime's bag. The name tag plus the fact that Miyuki calls him Hajime-chan were enough to expose Hajime already at this point in the story.

To Hajime's luck however, an older man named Kouda Seisaku, a doctor, tells the group to just take Hajime with them anyway as they are far from civilization and they can't go back to the bus either. As rest of the introduced participants also agree to take Hajime with them, the dust all settles neatly. Then a man named Kayama Saburou, an Estate Agency President and his wife Kayama Seiko, both also other tour participants, make their appearance and say that Hajime is not "qualified" and Kitsukawa has thus lost his "rights" due to being a stand-up. Apparently the qualifications towards some kind of reward are things Miyuki and Hajime were unaware of as Miyuki's cousin, Shigeru, never told her anything about it.

Kayama's explain that among the participants of the Hiren Lake Resort tour, there's a raffle. There will be two winners who will get membership cards to the Hirenko Lake Resort. However Kindaichi plan was to rather spend some romantic time with Miyuki than think about a raffle, so he doesn't care about Miyuki's cousin getting kicked out of the competition.

Time passes and Hajime and the others walk right by the lake surrounding the resort. Touno tells them that the lake has a legend to it and stops to look at his watch. As the bright red color of the falling sun starts to reflect light over the lake, something happens that surprises Hajime and the rest - the lake turns crimson. 

Touno explains the legend: There were once a man and a woman who weren't allowed to be together, but they still fell in love with each other. After a while the man and woman decided to exhange vows with each other and do a double suicide by drowning themselves in the Hiren Lake. Since then, the lake has always turned bright red around the same time the two threw themselves into the lake.
Note: Hiren-ko apparently means Tragic Love Lake or Broken Heart Lake.

Miyuki leaves off with the "cool" Touno after Hajime told her that Touno is just a show-offing with his knowledge. The evening ends as Sayuri gazes towards the "blood-colored" lake.

It's nighttime. Inside the Hiren Lake Resort area's tourist buildings, the adults are drinking beer and celebrating the tour. At the dinner table Touno has a talk with Miyuki and claims that she resembles a person he knows. As Seiko Kayama notices them talk, she teases that a new couple has already born from Miyuki and Touno. They both get flustered but Seiko's husband, the company president Saburou, tells them that he met her wife while camping as well. This situation makes Hajime ponder why he even came along but Sayuri tells him to forget about Miyuki and spend time with her instead. These school girls are kind of active these days, huh. Makes you kind of wonder why Sayuri, supposedly a 2nd year high schooler, is alone on the trip. 

 
In the dining area, a new person, freelance writer Itsuki Yousuke, makes his appearance because he notices a man who he's interested in. The man Yousuke recognizes is painter Kobayashi Seiji who is still in the middle of creating a painting.

Then an emergency news announcement is spread over the radio as everyone listens. According to the announcer a death-row prisoner has escaped the Nagano Prefecture's jail cells. The prisoner's identity is Tomaru Taketo, 35 years old, who murdered thirteen people in Nagano ten years prior. After the radio gets shut, the group starts to get worried that the murderer might be nearby and some start to claim that it would be better if they were to get back home the next day. However some of the participants are planning on staying and making others leave to raise their chances on getting Hiren Lake Resort membership cards from the raffle as the ones who leave won't be able to participate anymore.

Outside, Kurata Souichi, a 20-year-old university student and one of the participants is taking a leak before heading towards his cottage to sleep. As he's thinking of raising his chances to win the raffle, an ominous figure; a man with a mask, can be seen behind him as the scene cuts to the very next morning without showing what happened to the participant.

The lake resort tourists sit at an outdoor table to enjoy meals in the morning however they notice that Souichi Kurata is missing and that there are 9 participants and the tour guide at the morning feast, so ten people out of eleven are present.

The Hiren Lake resort tour group list
Hajime Kindaichi, high school student
Miyuki Nanase, high school student
Sayuri Kawanishi, high school student
Touno Eiji, high school student
Souichi Kurata, university student [Missing]
Seiji Kobayashi, painter
Yousuke Itsuki, freelance-writer
Saburou Kayama, Estate Agency President
Seiko Kayama, Saburou's wife
Kouda Seisaku, doctor
Kujyou Shyoutarou, the tour guide

Conflict at hand:
Takero Tomaru, a 35-year-old death-row prisoner has escaped in the Nagano area and could still be around. People start to go missing and wind up dead.

Before the group gets to eat anything, the huge amount of crows that have been sitting on the trees start to poop on the group's dinner - hilariously there just doesn't seem to be anything good about this resort that would warrant it getting opened for public in less than a year's time. Outo of annoyment Kindaichi tries to kick the tree that crows are habiting, but the tree won't budge. Then Yousuke Itsuki kicks the tree with force and as the crows fly away, an unidentified corpse also drops from the tree immediately with shredded clothes and torn face - the instant Yousuke sees this, he claims that "It's Jason... Jason killed him!" This sudden outburst gets Hajime to wonder what he means. 

We get an explanation from Yousuke, the freelance writer, that he's seen pictures of terrible crimes done by Jason 10 years ago and those murders also had the victims get their faces torn off by axes. The painter Seiji Kobayashi then for the first time starts to talk and says that it's easy to notice that this victim has also been done in by an axe. Hajime is suspicious at him claiming to be a mere painter.

The rest of the group run in the cottage to call for help but there is no reception in the Hiren Lake Resort so they can't call for help and the next bus comes in four days. The group still decides to cross the wooden rope bridge they came from as there could be a chance of a ride that could take them away. Seiko Kayama doesn't care a bit about the corpse and is worried of the raffle not happening as she came to the resort for it, and then the group notices a smoke cloud that originates from the direction of the dangerous rope bridge that the group crossed on foot to reach this so-called tourist resort. The bridge is, unsurprisingly, completely set on fire. Thus, the bridge that was their only way to get to and from the island is now gone and fallen to the depths of the river dozens of meters below a straight rocky wall, and Hajime notes that Jason has to be with them on the island as there is no way out.

The group has decided to head back to the tourist hut and everyone is either panicking or acting suspiciously calm and interested in the situation. The one who seems to be scared the most is the Estate Agency President Saburou Kayama who doesn't understand the reactions of the other participants, such as the painter's who seems unusually calm. As Saburou throws the painting that Seiji was working on to the floor, everyone notices that he's been drawing a corpse. The freelance writer Yousuke says that Seiji used to be a great artist who was talked about a lot, but "since that incident ten years ago, Seiji has been unable to draw anything else but corpses" and Yousuke also claims that people think Seiji has murdered someone because of the drawings having too much realistic aspects to them. Saburou tells his wife to pack so that they both would leave but she declines and claims that Saburou had tricked him to marry her for money and then left all the money to his children and nothing to her, so she's not leaving and will stay for the resort raffle despite the gross murder happening. Saburou doesn't care of her and decides to head out alone. The problem however is that it's nigh-impossible to travel the forest area alone and it would be almost suicide, not even counting the fact that if people were to try and travel through the forest they might run into the murderer (who obviously is part of the group though...)

In the evening Hajime looks down the burned bridge and wonders why the culprit would have done something like that such as burning the bridge. Sayuri tells him that they must have tried to trap the group in the forest, however the culprit is also stuck on the island, so Hajime has to wonder - what is "Jason" planning on doing after killing them all? Is something like that even Jason's plan? Then as the Hiren Lake turns crimson once more as it always does during evenings, Sayuri grabs Hajime from the back at the same time as Miyuki arrives to call Hajime for dinner. This makes Miyuki think that they are making out or something like that. As Hajime tries to run after Miyuki to explain the situation, Sayuri stops him as she doesn't want to be left alone.

The next night Saburou Kayama, the Estate Agency President, is seen running away as he travels the forest, thinking he would get away. But as he hears voices, he turns behind to see a person with a white mask and an axe. "He must be Jason..!"
Time passes quickly once again and the next morning the group notices that the tour lodge has been wrecked overnight. While the living room has been destroyed, Hajime goes to the kitchen of the lodge to notice that it looks fine except for something peeping from a shelf. Hajime opens the cabinet and the corpse of Saburou Kayama with a destroyed face falls down from there - someone has murdered him and carried the old man from the forest to the closet. 

Yousuke Itsuki, the freelance-writer, then questions Seiko Kayama about how she feels after seeing her husband, who ran away alone, brutally murdered. To this Seiko seemingly just cries. Yousuke goes to the case bag left behind by Saburou and notices that it's filled with yen bills and a card. As Yousuke claims that at least she has something to enjoy with the money the man left behind, Touno gets angry from seeing that non-sympathetic act from the freelance writer.

Kindaichi and the others then notice that there is no sign of food being taken which is odd as Jason escaped from Nagano prison a few days ago and must've walked two days through a path with no food, but yet he hasn't eaten anything in the hut. Hajime wonders if it really was Jason that's behind these brutal murders. Later, at the dinner table, the freelance writer Yousuke and Kindaichi get into an argument; Hajime claims that if Yousuke won't change his attitude, he'll be left alone. To that the writer claims to have high confidence in surviving even against a man who apparently carried a body from the forest to the inn. Miyuki then tells that this might be a chance for Hajime to get "lucky" with Sayuri but Hajime doesn't like that type of talk in this sort of situation and runs away. Miyuki quickly starts to regret what she said and heads out as well to run after Hajime, however he's out of sight, and then Touno, the other high-school student, appears. Miyuki once again brings up the fact that Touno said before that she "really looks like her," to which Touno answers "yes, frighteningly." We as watchers don't know who they are talking about, but the situation is that there is someone Touno knows or knew of who looked almost exactly like Miyuki.

The episode ends as Miyuki runs away from Touno to find Hajime in the forest and then suddenly her leg hits a booby trap rope that shoots an arrow through her leg. Touno and Hajime both hear Miyuki scream and go to find her. Then both Touno and Hajime think that what Miyuki got caught up in was a trap laid out by Jason the escaped serial killer and Kindaichi makes a "surprising" claim that he will catch Jason in the name of his grandfather!

Thoughts and theories on the first episode

My thoughts on the first episode of Hiren-ko Legend Murder Case is... it's fine. I noticed that the Touno-Miyuki and Hajime-Sayuri "romance" aspects are handled poorly as they are clearly meant to be comedic and to make the reader wonder whether or not they are actually talking about romance, but it's clear there is no real romantic conflict. The setting of the case is kinda generic and the character dialogue this time around leaves a lot to be desired. In the previous case you could kind of see what kind of dialogue and moments Miyuki and Hajime would be having throughout the series and that Miyuki would constantly have to be saved but in the previous case the presentation was on-point to sell the series to new watchers. This time around I'd say the drama and tension with Miyuki and Hajime feels kind of abrupt and the pace is off. Soundtrack for this series is definitely not its strongest suit right now either. 

The case itself is still seemingly decent as it does all the necessary things right for the bare minimum or what one would expect: there's the set-up to the pasts and the quirks of each character and you can somewhat pinpoint how they relate to the events 10 years ago. I have quite a few theories on who could the suspect be; the journalist seems strong enough to carry the victim, but that type of thing is usually misleading in these stories as the authors for some reason don't often think about how to move things around (example: Tantei Gakuen Q vol. 6's Q vs. A Overtime case). 
The corpse faces being wrecked means that there will most likely be a body swap - for example the university student who went missing and is likely dead could easily be the killer or victim, hell, he could have killed Jason when Jason tried to attack him and then made Jason's corpse take his place. Miyuki looking like someone Touno knew (most likely one of the victim from 10 years ago or the one based on the legend of Hirenko) is of course also quite suspicious. And of course you can make some theories about the tour guide as the resort seems like a joke and almost like a fraud to me; nothing works in this awful resort. Crows poop on foods, a shaky wooden bridge that breaks when you walk over it, a deadly forest, a deep fall to a river, you name it. There's no way anyone would actually want to spend time in a place like that, so it's funny to see all these people - such as the wife of the now-deceased company president - wants to get the raffle prize so much. It's almost as if they want to get a piece of the past; want to spend time at a crappy resort to find something from 10 years ago. The Hiren Lake would be a pretty nice setting for a case in concept but I feel like the place isn't presented in a beautiful manner at all. The aesthetics and atmosphere kind of just give me the feel of a place that just makes you sweat uncomfortably and a place that's constantly clouded and filled with flies and rocky rivers.


File 2

We have reached episode 5 of the Kindaichi Case Files series with the second part of Hirenko Legend Murder Case moving at full gear as a death row prisoner nicknamed Jason continues his violent acts at the rather crappily constructed Hiren Lake Resort. 

The Hiren Lake Resort tour group contains:
Hajime Kindaichi, a high school student who went to Hiren Lake Resort in place of Miyuki's cousin.
Miyuki Nanase, a high school student who went to Hiren Lake Resort in place of her cousin.
Sayuri Kawanishi, a high school student who seems to have a crush on our main character.
Touno Eiji, a high school student who claims to know someone that looked exactly like Miyuki.
Souichi Kurata, a university student [Missing, possibly deceased].
Seiji Kobayashi, a painter who fell from grace and started to draw realistic looking dead people.
Yousuke Itsuki, a freelance-writer with a bad attitude towards everyone.
Saburou Kayama, an Estate Agency President [Deceased].
Seiko Kayama, Saburou's wife who was left no money by her husband and who wants to win the raffle.
Kouda Seisaku, a doctor.
Kujyou Shyoutarou, the tour guide.

Conflicts at hand
- Takero "Jason" Tomaru, a 35-year-old death-row prisoner has escaped from prison in the Nagano area where the Hiren Lake Resort tour testing trip is being held. Did Jason burn the only bridge leading to and from the resort area and why would he have done that as now he's trapped as well?

- A corpse with a messed up face fell from a tree to the outdoor dining table.

- The corpse of Saburou Kayama was found in a closet, even though he ran away to the woods. Did someone strong carry the man back? Is "Jason" that strong?

- Miyuki, who was a victim in the previous case "The Seven Mysteries of Fudoh High" as well, accidentally gets her leg pierced after she activated a booby trap that Hajime assumes was laid out by "Jason."

- Why are some people hellbent on winning the tour raffle even under these circumstances?

[- Sayuri with that accent gives me some nice vibes of a certain other female character.]

It's still morning as Hajime and Touno have carried Miyuki, whose foot was shot through by a boobytrap, to doctor Kouda Seisaku. It's good to have a doctor at the Hiren Lake Resort as the group can't leave the area because of the burnt-down bridge and the fact that traveling through forest takes too long and is deadly, and the bus would arrive to take them away only after just two more days anyway.

Kindaichi gets angry at the high school student Touno Eiji who didn't manage to watch Miyuki more when Miyuki ran after Kindaichi to the forest before getting her leg pierced, but Miyuki then wakes up to calm Hajime down and then tells him that she's not feeling well; it's better to leave her alone.

The rest of the group now have to ponder about what to do. There's no way to run through the forest if it's filled with traps. In the living room Touno and Kindaichi look at the creepy-faced Kobayashi the painter, and get shocked to see Kobayashi draw Miyuki who was hit by the trap - the rest get angry as they believe Kobayashi thinks Miyuki is dead or hopes that she is. However the facts of the matter are that Miyuki still has to wait two more days for help to come. Kindaichi then grabs all of Touno's papers and throws them away, shouting at the painter that he has to stop being such a maniac. That scene is pretty cool from Kindaichi, honestly. It's always entertaining to see the main character interact with the case cast, and the freelance writer Yousuke whistling at Kindaichi's actions was perfectly inserted. Hajime's actions reveal something new: Kobayashi has drawn a picture of a boat that's at the lake on one of his papers that Hajime threw to the ground. Hajime asks the tour guide Kujyou whether they have a boat like that, and he hesitantly answers that they do. As the group runs towards the lake to see the boat, Hajime ponders why in the world either of them didn't say a word about there being a boat if they knew about it. The group finds the boat and Kujyou explains that if they go to the other side of the lake to a hotel that's being constructed, they should be able to find a working phone there.

As the group ponder who's going to be the one to go seek help, nearly everyone declines as it seems suspicious. Then, Touno Eiji agrees to be the one to go and introduces himself as the son of the Mizuki Tour Agency's creator. Touno explains that his purpose was to research the reactions of the tour participants. Touno was scared of getting the blame for the terrifying events so he didn't say a word about his original intentions until now. However as Touno heads towards the boat, Kindaichi stops him and tells that he's going as well - the danger is too serious for a solo mission. Touno declines and leaves alone. As Touno heads out to ask for help on the boat, he looks back to say last words: I'll leave the rest to you, Kindaichi-kun. 

Back in the cottage of the Hiren Lake "Resort," Miyuki and Hajime finally talk it out about the rumours that were being spread about Touno and Miyuki having been going out during middle school. Miyuki explains that Touno had picked up something she'd lost which was why they met at the hamburger shop, and what's more, Touno's rumored girlfriend was not Miyuki but a person who looks exactly like Miyuki, which was what they were talking about previously as Miyuki wondered "do I really look exactly like her?" and Touno answered "eerily so." Miyuki also tells Hajime that he and Sayuri were looking like they were having fun together so she was acting unnaturally as well. Both Miyuki and Hajime tease each other about being worried about the other.

Hajime again wonders if Jason was really the one who killed Kurara and Kayama. The burned-down bridge makes the escape from the island nearly impossible so Jason somehow knows a lot about the area despite never supposedly being there before, and the body of Kayama Saburou that was carried to the closet of the cottage brings another weird question to us - it's odd that Jason, who would have had to run for multiple days throughout a path with no shops or places to get food from, would not take any food from the cottage. Thus, the culprit must be "among us!" Then, the doctor Kouda Seisaku makes his appearance and claims that the motive of the culprit might be the raffle, that Hajime and Miyuki dropped out off, instead. As there can only be two winners of the Tour raffle that will get the unimaginably valuable Membership Cards to the resort. The doctor explains that when the lake resort will open next year they will somehow have a ski resort, golf course, tennis course and a large pool as well as a possibility of the resort having a direct way to the highway. All of this will raise the Membership Card's value to 50 - 100 million yen each. The probability of winning rises if they drop the amount of participants by murdering them.
If that is true then the culprit would rather murder than to try and steal a card.

Later, the boat that Touno used finally came back. Hajime, Sayuri and the rest go to the boat but as they go to look at the returning man. However, Touno is in the water-filled boat flace planted straight downwards, apparently drowned. Somehow "Jason" got Touno despite him going alone on a boat to get help. [Suspicious thing here is that they did not investigate the body of Touno more than just looking at his back.]

Hajime and doctor Kouda go to Miyuki once more where Miyuki tries to comfort Hajime about how Touno's fate wasn't his fault. The doctor gives a brief explanation of his past as he wants to repent his sins which was why he joined the tour, in order to open a clinic at a place where there are no doctors, he needs the Membership Cards for their massive value. The doctor then says that he knows of Hajime's grandfather and pleads Hajime to solve the case.

Miyuki gives Hajime a picture drawn by the painter Seiji Kobayashi who likes drawing corpses. In the picture there's Touno on the boat with his face towards the water. Miyuki tells Hajime to look at the wrist of Touno's left hand where Hajime notices that Touno is missing his watch - why would the culprit remove the watch?

The doctor runs right back to Kindaichi who was outside and tells him to get ice as Miyuki was hit by fever. As Hajime runs back with a bag of ice, he notices the painter Kobayashi listening to the news after fixing the radio. Kobayashi claims that he's realized something about Jason but won't tell Hajime what it is yet, instead, he will talk about it in front of everyone tomorrow.

The scene shows a suspicious person with an axe walking towards the hut where Kobayashi was drawing. Kobayashi is drawing more corpses and talking to himself - "Kill more, Jason!" and right after he gets hit by "Jason" with an axe from behind and shouts "impossible! why are you...!?" hinting at certain things.

After the group finds the newest victim, Kobayashi, Hajime claims that "Jason" is not the killer because Kobayashi was attempting to leave a dying message behind - there's no way he'd do that if Jason, the obvious killer, would be the culprit. Now, as the estimated time of death was from 2:30 to 2:45 p.m., all they would have to do was to check everyone's alibi, right? [going to bet that's not going to lead anywhere with this group of people] However as the doctor is worried about Miyuki so they would need to gather in her room to do the alibi check,

Alibi Check for the murder of Kobayashi between 2:30 to 2:45
The first one being  interrogated is Hajime Kindaichi. After Hajime returned to Miyuki's hut at 2:15 p.m., he stayed there along with doctor Kouda Seisaku. Kujyou Shyoutarou, the tour guide, was on the inter-phone with the doctor while he was at the storage as the doctor asked him to check for medicine. 
Yousuke Itsuki, the freelance-writer, was with Sayuri Kawanishi, a high school student, in her room suspiciously enough.  
Seiko Kayama was alone in her room without eyewitnesses. However, Miyuki claims that from Seiko's cottage she'd have to cross a log bridge that is visible from Miyuki's window. No one ever crossed the bridge, so it's hard for her to make it through without swimming. However, Seiko claims to be hydrophobic who can't even wash her face in a sink. 

Despite the group suspecting Seiko, Hajime explains that the culprit would have only swam through the river if they knew Miyuki was held in the cottage and would see them cross that log bridge area. It's thus unrealistic to assume Seiko would be the culprit. In this moment it's interesting to note that in the past, apparently Yousuke had been thrown to the waters and had to survive while swimming on a suitcase.

Hajime explains that he doesn't know the identity of the culprit but he feels that the Membership Cards are not the real motive of the culprit - as when the police arrive, they'd immediately suspect that. The motive has to be something else entirely. Hajime tells everyone to come to him in another room one by one to explain the circumstances that pushed them to join the trip - if they held any information back that might connect all the members with each other, there'd be a possibility of the culprit having a personal grudge against all the victims. Hajime claims to be able to find "Jason's" true motive before anyone else becomes a victim.

Interrogation 

 
Kujyou Shyoutarou, the tour guide, is the first one interrogated by Hajime about his circumstances. According to Kujyou, he believes that in the past the tour people got picked by a raffle instead of being chosen. Hajime also asks him another question, why didn't he talk about the boat despite knowing about it, to which Kujyou answers with a ___ as the scene skips to Seiko before the watcher gets to know what he was talking about, maybe meaning that it's not all that important to solving the case.

Seiko claims that in the past she was claimed to have sunk a ship, most likely the reason why Yousuke had to swim on a suitcase. Seiko claims that her hydrophobia is from the ship-sinking accident, and the scene skips to Yousuke.

Yousuke claims that three years prior he was on a ship that sank, the Ship Oriental Sinking Accident in which the ship had a collision with an oil tanker after setting off. The ship was filled with about 500 people out of which many lost their lives. That was the incident where he experienced the moment of survival by hanging onto a suitcase. After the incident Yousuke has gotten a slight fear of boats.

Sayuri Kawanishi also shares the experience of the Oriental ship accident but she is quickly brushed over.

The doctor Kouda Seisaku is also surprised at Kindaichi knowing about him being on the sinking ship and surviving. This all brings us a clear image of what the culprit possibly could be after, or at least where the culprit's motive comes from.

Kindaichi wonders about the people being picked from the sinking ship incident and the culprit breaking the stereo that Kobayashi had fixed before his death. It's odd that the culprit knew of the stereo being fixed - the curtains were down, so was the culprit listening to them? Kindaichi goes to a painting and finds something behind it, and then the doctor Kouda Seisaku makes his appearance and hysterically tells Hajime to come to where Miyuki is because her condition has gotten worse again.

As Miyuki's condition betters, Kindaichi cleans her head with a towel that has the name Kimura on it - Kimura Shinsuke being the real name of Yousuke Itsuki, which is a pen name of the journalist. As Kindaichi hears the real name of Yousuke, he realizes that one more dot connects the case characters and then the episode ends as Kindaichi announces that he will unmask the serial killer Jason's true identity. Comically enough no one knows Jason carries a mask. 


The pacing of the case is too fast for sure. They run in and out of Miyuki's cottage about every 20 seconds which is ridiculous. The case also feels a bit off with the revelations, not showing things like the corpses, and the case just seems to be awkwardly paced in general. In the previous case they managed to cut off unnecessary parts of the manga pretty well to condense the case but this time it feels like they are just jumping from panel to panel at lightning speed. 

Anyway, considering the case itself, it's obvious that the culprit is "one of the dead" as they had their faces destroyed. Now that we had the revelation of the sinking ship we can safely assume that's where the personal grudge comes from. In this episode we focused on Touno's death after he claimed that his father was the owner of the Hiren Resort Tour, and then Touno heads on the boat on his way to get help - and his corpse comes back, seemingly "Jason" killed him when he did that. Remember, when he came back, he was missing a watch, right? What if I said that the corpse is not Touno. The one to go on the boat was him, so it must be a chance that the rest didn't go there, right? What if I said that everyone else is afraid of water or boats because of the incident that they are being killed for. Thus, yes, it's pretty obvious at this point in time that the culprit is Touno, who, due to his supposed father's status, had the possibility of picking his victims on the trip, and who most likely faked his death with someone else's body which was why the watch is missing; it's completely unrealistic to even assume the "culprit" would be waiting for a guy somewhere when he traveled away on a freaking boat, the culprit just can't be anyone else than Touno himself. However: Touno is a high school student so it'd be odd to have him carry an overweight man from the forest to the cottage's closet, however - Yousuke and Kindaichi even make a point of how much strength carrying the body must have required. We don't know 'yet' whether or not Touno picked his victims based on their name's initials or something as their names do share some similarities according to Kindaichi. Touno must have gotten an access to a database about the survivors that had something to do with the sinking ship, but maybe he only assumes that everyone who were included in the incident have a natural fear of boats and water. It might also be a reason why the Tour Guide, Kujyou, never mentioned the boat, because he was afraid of it, but this is all just my guesswork as there's nothing concrete to go by, yet.


File 3

The case takes place at the Hiren Lake that is surrounded by a sad legend of two people that weren't meant to be together having thrown each other in the lake. At the Hiren Lake Resort tour a serial murder case has taken place. Hajime Kindaichi is now resolved to expose the true identity of the murderer that everyone thought to be Jason, a person who escaped from prison around the same time the group arrived to the Resort. As the culprit seemed to have burnt down the rope bridge which was the only way to safely get to the Resort, the tour group is unable to escape, especially with the injured Miyuki, who stepped into one of "Jason's" traps and damaged her legs, with them. For a while everyone assumed that the motive for the murders was the insanely valuable Resort Membership, of which there are two that two of the members of the group will win via a raffle, each membership card assumedly being worth 50 to 100 million yen, however  Kindaichi finally learned a piece of information that gave out the hints towards the true motive behind these gruesome murders where people's faces were cut to pieces - three years prior happened the Ship Oriental's Sinking Accident where 500 people were left to death after the cruiser ship they were on collided with an oil tanker. Nigh everyone aside from Hajime and Miyuki have told that they were a part of the accident. So the culprit has to know of this and be able to invite everyone to do this. Though I have to wonder, was Miyuki's cousin also a part of the sinking ship or was he and anyone he'd take with him to the trip the only ones chosen by random? What is the connection that everyone of the case's character's names have with each other? Since the trick will obviously be a body swap, will Hajime trick the killer to appear while the culprit tries to murder someone? Let's see what happens.

The Hiren Lake Resort tour group contains:
Hajime Kindaichi, a high school student who went to Hiren Lake Resort in place of Miyuki's cousin
Miyuki Nanase, a high school student who went to Hiren Lake Resort in place of her cousin [Injured]
Sayuri Kawanishi, a high school student who seems to have a crush on our main character
Touno Eiji, a high school student who claims to know someone that looked exactly like Miyuki
Souichi Kurata, a university student [Deceased, although it was never focused on if he was the victim]
Seiji Kobayashi, a painter who fell from grace and started to draw dead people [Deceased]
Yousuke Itsuki, real name Kimura Shinsuke, a freelance-writer with a bad attitude towards everyone
Saburou Kayama, an Estate Agency President [Deceased]
Seiko Kayama, Saburou's wife who was left no money by her husband and who wants to win the raffle
Kouda Seisaku, a doctor
Kujyou Shyoutarou, the tour guide

The Hiren Lake is looking more beautiful in the evening. Yousuke Itsuki goes to ask Hajime if he's figured out the truth behind the case, however Hajime is thinking of how the case is getting only harder the more he learns about it. Hajime proposes that every single person should sleep in the lodge together during the night, but the group of course fights back as "Jason" could be one among them - it'd be hard to fight back if they were killed by a person who's supposed to look out for the culprit. However Kindaichi still gets everyone to stay in the lodge after claiming that they can look after each other through the night, it'd be hard for Jason to act. All he now has to do is to get the injured Miyuki there also.

The next night, a person is shown standing outside with earpods on him. They're listening to what's going on inside the lodge - it's a person with Jason's mask who's listening as one of the people in the lodge, Yousuke, decide to head to his lodge to sleep. Jason carries an axe and a key with him and heads to the cottage where Yousuke went, and goes to the bed and hits it with an axe. However as there is no resistance or sound, Jason notices that the bed is actually just filled with bunch of feathers (from a pillow most likely) and then Kindaichi and the rest grab Jason and throw him to the ground - it's time to unmask the serial killer!

What happened is that the method "Jason" used to murder, Kindaichi used against him. Jason wasn't expecting everyone to be in Yousuke's cottage after all. As when the painter Kobayashi was murdered and the radio was destroyed once again, Kindaichi knew that because the culprit knew of Kobayashi fixing the radio, they must have some information on what happened when Kobayashi talked with Kindaichi. However, because the curtains were in front of the windows, the culprit couldn't have "seen" Kobayashi fix the radio, but he could have heard it. Kindaichi then found a mic from the lodge behind a painting that he then used against "Jason" by making it look like everyone was in the lodge when they were really in Yousuke's cottage, and the one who walked out of the lodge was actually Hajime himself while everyone else was in the cottage waiting for him.

The first night when the group arrived, the culprit killed Kurata, who then fell from the tree, and the perp messed up the body to make it seem like it was the serial killer 'Jason' who escaped from prison that was doing the killings. The culprit also knew that Itsuki Yousuke, who wrote an article on Jason, would be part of the trip. Then, the culprit burned the rope bridge and later murdered Kayama who was running throughout the forest and carried his body to the lodge and then destroyed the room to make it seem like Jason did it - but Jason never touched the food even though he wouldn't have eaten for two days after escaping from prison. Later, Jason destroyed the stereo radio for some reason, and the only reason to do that and kill Kobayashi for fixing the radio at that point in time, was because the recording on the radio was pre-recorded beforehand to be used as a trick. This means that the culprit set up many things before they met these people the first time in their lives three to four days ago. Now, as Jason didn't have any time to destroy the lodge and only destroyed the radio once again and left everything else the way it was, the culprit trying to trick everyone that Jason did the murders was instead turned into proof of the news being a fake and that Kindaichi realized that there was a listening device in the room.

The motive for the murders is not the membership cards either. The true motive is a certain connection that each of the tour participants share - aside from Hajime and Miyuki, everyone else spent time on the sunken Ship Oriental three years prior. The motive was kind of obvious when it was revealed. There were about 500 passengers on the ship and no one knows each other, so it's weird that they were being targeted - however, there is one similarity, as Kindaichi points out, and that similarity is their name. Yousuke's real name Kimura Shinsuke is on the towel that Hajime used to heal Miyuki. Other participants include: Kayama Saburou, Kayama Seiko, Kawanishi Sayuri, Kurata Souichi, Kobayashi Seiji, Kouda Seisaku, Kujyou Shyoutarou. The common point of each and every name is the initials; S.K., being present in every one of them. The one who asked Hajime to take his place, Miyuki's cousin, was also an S.K.: Kitsukawa Shigeru who was also apparently a part of Ship Oriental tour. This common point is present with each and every one of the participants, except one..! Now, it's time to unmask the killer!

Jason, the person who did the serial murders, was the one and only Touno Eiji! [is that a surprise to anyone?] Hajime brings up a shocking revelation: the corpse that was supposedly Touno's on the boat was actually the corpse of Kitsukawa Shigeru, Miyuki's cousin. When the group arrived on the lodge the first day and Touno found out that Kitsukawa did not come, Touno called him and met with him after going to Kitsukawa on the boat. Touno also somehow calculated that every S.K. on the tour was also hydrophobic to a certain degree because of the trauma from Ship Oriental's sinking, which was how he managed to be the one to travel on the boat alone just by asking. Kindaichi assumes that Touno couldn't put his watch on Kitsukawa's wrist because it didn't fit, but Touno explains that that's wrong - even if the murders were for revenge, he could never part with the wristwatch which was a memento from his precious Keiko.

The doctor, Kouda Seisaku, immediately recognizes the name Goizumi Keiko as the "girl whom I killed" which obviously goes back to the part where Kouda once mentioned about wanting to win the Resort Membership Cards from the tour raffle in order to build a clinic at a certain place with no doctors to repent for his "sins."

"The Plank of Carneades" mentioned by the doctor tells a Greek story about a man who drifts after falling from a sinking ship. The man had grabbed onto a piece of plank but there was another person who also needed help. At first the man thought that the plank might sink if he and the other person were to hold onto it, so the man pushed the one in need of help away, and the other person later drowned. The man who was saved by the plank was put to a trial but was never found guilty. The reason why the man was never prosecuted was because of the Law of Emergency; "Doing things to save oneself, even at the expense of others' lives, cannot be punished."
This meant that the case from three years ago would go without any prosecution and Touno would have to take the law to his own hands to get justice.

Doctor Kouda Seisaku explains that his situation can be likened to the story about the plank as three years prior there was a girl who appeared when the doctor was pulled up to a boat. However as the doctor tried to pull the girl up, the boat almost sunk. The girl was grabbing onto the suitcase of the doctor but the doctor pushed her hands away, however in her final moments the girl managed to rip a piece of the suitcase, most likely the initial S.K. were present on the piece; in other words the person Touno was after for killing her girlfriend Goizumi Keiko was the doctor.

Touno explains that Keiko and he grew up in the same orphanage. Ten years ago Touno was adopted to the high-class Touno household while Keiko was put into an overall worse family. The two were never allowed to meet each other, just like in the legend of Hiren Lake, and so, the two of them met in secret from time to time like Romeo and Juliet. However Touno's parents learned of the trip Keiko and Touno planned on Ship Oriental three years ago, so Touno could never go on that fateful adventure. As the corpses were picked up and laid down, Touno heard a rumor of Keiko being pushed away from a life boat, which pushed Touno to try to get justice from police, who said to him that they couldn't do anything as it was not a crime according to law, as expected. Touno decided to sell his soul to the devil as he kissed Keiko for the first time when she was but a corpse, and Touno took two things from Keiko as he decided to become the one to get justice if the police were not willing to do it. The things he took was the name plate containing of the initials S.K. that Keiko ripped from the doctor's suitcase, and the another thing he took was the leather wristwatch that Keiko was wearing.

As Touno didn't know who the holder of the S.K. initials was, he thought it'd be okay to just kill everyone that was on the ship that day. It's kind of weird that he even assumed that an S.K. killed her though.
Yousuke gets angry at Touno's actions against innocent S.K.'s but Touno just brushes it off and says that Keiko Goizumi's life was more important to him than 100 innocent people. Then Touno pushes everyone away and turns back towards them, saying that what he holds in his hands, is a detonator that makes bombs explode and that he used that to burn the bridge as well. Touno throws the axe to the ground and tells Kindaichi to kill doctor Kouda with it. If Hajime does that, he'll spare everyone's lives.  Touno wants to make the situation into a "Plank of Carneades."

Hajime tells Touno that there's no way Kouda wouldn't have suffered after pushing Keiko away that day - even if the doctor was never prosecuted, he's been living with the regret of killing someone three whole years and will never be able to live normally again. Each and every day would be suffering to anyone with any form of sympathy and emotion. This is what Touno doesn't understand. But then Kouda takes the axe and claims to be willing to kill himself to make his sins disappears, and then Miyuki appears and tells everyone to stop. Touno all of a sudden gets a flashback to Keiko and starts hating himself as Miyuki looks at him with the same eyes Keiko had; this gets Touno so angry that he runs through the window, runs to the boat and drives away - only to make it explode and fill the lake with crimson color as the Hiren Lake serial murder case with its five victims ends at last.

Back in the city days after the incident, Kindaichi Hajime and Nanase Miyuki are meeting with the journalist Yousuke who had spent time researching something about the case. Yousuke gives the two a photograph with Touno and Keiko Goizumi who looks exactly like Miyuki. To Touno, Miyuki was practically an almost-Keiko. Hajime turns the photograph backwards to see something shocking written on it: "1994.4.5. at Kamakura with younger sister." Yousuke explains that Keiko was actually Touno Eiji's real blood-related sister. The reason why the two were never meant to be together was much more cruel than what anyone expected.

The case ends with Hajime thinking about the Plank of Carneades - if Miyuki and Hajime were left in that Titanic-type of situation where there is no choice but to let the other person drown - what would he do? Well, of course he would do the only thing he's good at doing: Think. Think of a way to save both of them.


Brainstorming about the case 

So that's the entirety of my adventure with the Hirenko Legend Murder Case (or Broken Heart Lake Legend Murder Case) which is also known as the second case of the Kindaichi Case Files animated series or the sixth case in the manga series with the length of 10 whopping chapters,  so this case was also condensed a bit in the three episode length adaptation. 

This case was honestly a mixed bag of goods. Unlike in the first case, every character played a part in this story's history, which is both good and bad as the case, like most long cases, had many characters. What that means is that connecting every character is bound to feel unrealistic at best. The fact that they were all gathered there, the 'how' was never explained either (although we can assume it was due to the culprit's connections), but it's just all odd to see all these characters there right down to their initials, and some of the victims (especially the big twist relating to Miyuki's cousin) being on the scene just feels random if not impossible even.

The culprit's identity was pretty obvious for multiple reasons ranging from the initials (which I didn't even bother to pay attention to even though I knew there was a hint there) to the boat scene (in which Kindaichi should have been able to tell it's not the corpse of Touno as the victim was an university student while Touno was a high schooler). The culprit's motivation was not that well presented this time. It was all foreshadowed pretty well with the Plank of Carneades and the doctor's sin mentions, but all things considered the culprit was obviously an emotionless psycho yet was never presented as such, even to the end. The painter was crazier than the culprit. At the end we had a powerfully emotional reveal to the motive of the culprit, but without really any logical thinking behind it. Also the way the culprit ended up running away and bombing himself immediately after seeing Miyuki felt really stupid and a cop-out from the supposedly tense bomb-or-life situation we had on our hands where the culprit was trying to force Hajime kill the doctor. The culprit's reaction wasn't even surprising and I got a chuckle out of it. I just have to wonder how Miyuki got the strength to walk to them at the end there when her condition kept worsening and she was bedridden for multiple days and was in need of medical help..... The doctor even said that Miyuki might not survive due to having to be there in the middle of nowhere for multiple days in row. Definitely odd, to say the least.

Honestly this case had a good chunk of mostly unrealistic aspects to it as there is no chance for the culprit to call Miyuki's cousin Kitsukawa Shigeru to realistically meet up with him in middle of nowhere with a boat and time it all perfectly like that, such as taking blame for Miyuki's accident for heading out and getting rid of Kindaichi, and I find it odd that they said that the place has a phone but no reception but it was never even made to seem like the culprit cut it off, so how did the culprit even call Kitsukawa Shigeru? I bet or at least hope that scene is explained better in the manga as usually in these types of stories the culprits cut off any phone connections to the crime scene. And now that I think about it, there would have been no way for the culprit to actually know if all of these people were hydrophobic or not. The more I think about it the more silly this story seems. It does all the basics right but everything around them doesn't really work.

Now then, I mentioned that the culprit's identity was obvious, but while it really was, it's not logically sound - aside from the ridiculous hydrophobia assumption from the culprit, how in the world would a high school student have been able to run after the overweight Saburou Kayama in the huge forest, kill him with an axe and the CARRY HIM all that way back to the cottage through the forest and put the victim to a closet without anyone noticing? That's impossible. The characters themselves would agree that that's impossible. Go watch episode 4, the first episode of this Hirenko Legend Murder Case; the characters themselves note that the culprit "Jason" is extraordinarily strong to be able to carry Saburou from the forest to the closet. Hopefully that part is explained in the manga. Or how was the other body lifted into the tree? The whole thing about making everyone think "Jason" was the culprit is also really badly presented in this case - no one saw the culprit ever and it was just assumed it's Jason, but so what? It literally plays no role in a way that would affect this story if the culprit didn't do that fake news announcement thing at all. The legendary killer/superstition/myth aspect could have been better inserted. 

 
The build-up and foreshadowing was surprisingly done well in this case but the case itself was paced extremely off. As I said previously, the characters kept running in and out of Miyuki's room like 10 times in quick succession. I was like what in the world is going on? The setting was pretty generic and I can bet there will be many more like this to come in this series. And honestly, I'm not that enthusiastic about going through another one of these.
Couple of the characters - notably Sayuri and Yousuke - were entertaining.
Although what happened to the culprit regarding Miyuki's inclusion was not that well written, the wrap-up to the case was pretty good with the emotional twist to it that has that symbolical meaning it shares with the legend of the lake. I guess I would have wanted to see what happened with Seiko and Sayuri though, and I can't help but wonder what happened with the raffle for the Membership Cards worth of 50 to 100 million yen? None of that was mentioned after the culprit was exposed and it was kind of forgotten. Was the whole thing truly a hoax? Did a high school kid trick everyone this bad... Also it's honestly odd how he got the tour guide also to be part of the people he'd want to kill and it was odd that the culprit never even questioned whether or not they were the ones responsible for the tragedy 3 years prior. He was just planning to kill everyone and then I guess continue his murders somewhere else, somehow or something. The case obviously had the inspiration from Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the axe and the mask so I guess the authors just couldn't make up their mind of writing a tragic story or a psycho story and this one kind of was what they came up with when they thought of a mix of both. 

I'd say that the strongest aspect of this story was just the fact that it did at least try to foreshadow a good chunk of things and make all the characters connected (for better or worse). Because of that I don't even think it's a bad case, even if a bit half-baked. I enjoyed few parts of it. But those pros are also what makes this story a bit uncomfortable to read at times as you have to suspend your disbelief here and there to make sense of it. It's possible that the authors bit more than they could chew for this one. This was definitely a worse case than the first one; Kindaichi's best moment was getting pissed off at the painter, and not only was the culprit's reaction to Miyuki the same what the culprit's reaction to Kindaichi was in the Seven Mysteries of Fudoh High Murder Case, but Miyuki also was injured and bedridden just like in the previous case - she's going to die of blood loss one of these days. 

 

 

By the way, I really like this piece of music from the original soundtrack of the anime series:

 

 

Mystery Train - Detective Conan Vol. 78, F818-824

"Apparently, Heaven is siding with us..."

- Okiya Subaru  

I recently finished overviewing and talking about the very introductory cases of the three main suspects of the Bourbon story arc in Detective Conan and decided that while I'm not going to go over the entire series volume by volume in the same manner I'm doing with Tantei Gakuen Q series right now, I will however talk about cases I found memorable in the manga such as the Furinkazan Murder Case. And what better way to start with than talking about Conan's version of the golden age classic Murder on the Orient Express, Mystery Train.

The Bourbon arc is very long, spanning chapters 622 to 898 that were created within many years in real life time by author Gosho Aoyama, and the first half of it frankly had barely anything to do with the main storyline during the time between the introductions of Okiya Subaru and Masumi Sera. Although there were couple neat cases regarding it soon after Okiya's introduction. Anyway, after Masumi gets introduced the story starts to move again as there are a lot of intriguing cases regarding relevant characters and the main storyline, and this time I've decided to begin with a case from post-Masumi introduction era of this series: the Mystery Train arc which reveals us the identity of our big baddie of the arc, Bourbon. I still remember back when this arc came out weekly just how much it was being hyped, and I've re-read the case quite a few times after it as well. Some people were going absolutely mental. The author Gosho Aoyama even drew promotional artwork as a nod to the original Murder on Orient Express movie promos. Honestly though, this case might just be the most multi-layered that Detective Conan has ever gotten with the amount of different key characters with their own allegiances that are on board.

Mystery Train ["All Aboard!"] continues from the ending of the last case in the previous volume and starts this rather special story in the latter half of the Bourbon story arc of the Detective Conan manga that gathers a great amount of relevant characters into one setting, a moving high-speed train in which a murder happens.

Gin, Vodka and Vermouth from the villain group Black Organization catch a whiff of Sherry through the intel they gained from Bourbon's research. Sherry's real identity is Miyano Shiho who, to escape the Black Organization like a thousand chapters ago in this series, decided to take her own life with a drug she created from the data left behind by her parents... but things didn't go the way she thought as instead of dying, her body shrunk from the effects of the drug and she managed to escape. She found herself in Dr. Agasa's place after looking for Shinichi whom she realized must've shrunk as well, and eventually she became one of our main characters under the alias of Ai Haibara.

Bourbon is hailed as the greatest intel collector in the ranks of the Black Organization. At this point of the arc we don't yet know how he does it, but it's clear that this type of foe is very formidable and intelligent. Up to this point in the story Bourbon's mission has been to try and locate where Sherry had disappeared to, send the information of her whereabouts to the organization and kidnap or eliminate her. The previous volume ended with Haibara being forced to take on the form of the adult Miyano Shiho / Sherry with an antidote that temporarily can return victims of the de-aging drug APTX-4869 to their previous state, to help herself and the Detective Boys; Genta, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi, to escape a dangerous situation.

However Sherry was caught on tape during the case, and the information about her whereabouts was leaked to the black organization by Bourbon. On her finger, Sherry had a ring. An emblem seal which tells everyone that she will be entering a once-in-a-year tour on a Mystery Train known as The Bell Tree Express which has an unknown destination...


As the Black Organization members learn of Sherry boarding the train, they immediately start to theorize that she's been living in the Gunma mountains in secret, waiting to escape from the Kanto region by using the train. The organization members; Vermouth and Gin in particular, agree that the train is one of the most suitable places to eliminate Sherry in as it's a moving steel fortress with no way out. They can find her and she won't be able to escape... however, Vermouth herself has mixed feelings about this all as during the two mysteries on the night of a full moon case, Conan had defeated her before she escaped, and she acknowledged her defeat and let Haibara stay alive. This time, however, she can't do anything about it and just has to try to kill Sherry regardless of letting her live before as, according to Vermouth, "she's (Haibara) the only one that can't be allowed to exist in this world."

It's most likely not going to be a surprise to anyone that the great detective Mouri Kogoro (in this case Kogoro sports mustache eerily similar to Hercule Poirot) is also boarding the Bell Tree Express. The train is a steam locomotive powered by a powerful new diesel engine. Along with Kogoro, however, there is a huge amount of relevant overarching characters that get on the train, everyone with their own personal reasons.

The Bell Tree Express' Mystery Train tour participants
Sonoko Suzuki along with her best friend Ran Mouri have arranged first-class seats on the train as recently Kaito Kid had announced he'd be taking on Sonoko's uncle Jirokichi once again on the train in a month's time when the train gets a special run as a jewel exhibit. In fact, Jirokichi owns the damn train. So, before Kaito Kid arrives on the train to steal gems that will be on the first-class train carriages. Sonoko wanted to plant a love letter for Kid on the first-class ahead of time. 
At the same time, our tomboy detective Masumi Sera also makes her appearance on the train, claiming that it's only natural for a detective to ride a Mystery Train. 
Along with Kogoro, the detective boys; Mitsuhiko, Genta, Ayumi, Ai and Conan of course also board the ship, with Ai Haibara herself of course playing a key role in this miniarc as other mysterious characters find themselves on the train. For example, Kogoro Mouri's new "detective apprentice" Amuro Tooru, along with the mysterious "Scar Akai" (who has been walking around crime scenes in this arc up til' now), being one of them. What's more, apparently the university graduate mystery fan Okiya Subaru is also on board with a mysterious woman while the black organization's shadow looms over the train.

Aside from the overarching characters, there is also the case cast:
Car 8 case-only participants (First-Class car)
Andou Satoru (Cabin C, Age 41) boards the train with a heavy gold-frame for a picture on his back. However, apparently the drawing itself is nothing more than counterfeit. Rest of the passengers also carry hidden objects with them
Noto Taisaku (Cabin A, Age 52) and Idenami Mari (Cabin E, Age 33), along with Komino Natsue (Cabin D, Age 75) & her helper Sumitomo Hiroka (Cabin D, Age 37) being the rest of the participants on the train. But of course, there's also the train conductor...
Car 7 case-only participants
Murobsahi Etsuto (Cabin B, Age 39) had arranged his usual room in the first-class car 8 but it was changed to car 7 as the room was accidentally double-booked. In fact, the room was first reserved by none other than Mouri Poirou himself. I
There are also other carriages to the train, of course. For example Agasa and our five Detective Boys are in Car 6.

As everyone is all aboard the train, we get an explaination that the destination of the train is very easy to pinpoint - it's Nagoya. However, the name Mystery Train actually comes from the deduction quiz that's held on-board as the train moves non-stop towards the terminal station. The Mystery Train tour is known for creating an incident after choosing a random 'culprit' and a random 'victim'. Rest of the passengers will then become detectives to figure out the culprit's identity before the train reaches its destination.

 After a knock on the door Dr. Agasa and Conan open the door to their room to notice a sealed letter that's been left on the floor. The letter congratulates them - the five detective boys - for being chosen to play the role of the 'detective'. In 10 minutes an incident will occur in Cabin B of Car 7. The letter invites the DB's to start their investigation towards the matter but Conan finds it a bit odd that seemingly not every passenger becomes a 'detective' this time.

As the Detective Boys head to Cabin B of Bell Tree Express's Car 7, the moment they open the door, a man shouts at them to not come in as he gets shot by a person wearing a hoodie and face mask, and using a gun with a silencer. As the shooter leaves, the Detective Boys head after the culprit... it's feeling more and more like a game of tag instead of a real mystery. Anyway, the Detective Boys manage to lose the perp after chasing after him - he might've escaped into one of the private rooms of the car. An employee of the Express then tells them that the kids should head back to their room as the deduction quiz will be announced via the speakers in each room in an hour. Conan gets a shiver from potentially having seen a real murder and decides to head back to the room where the man was shot. At the same time Haibara's sixth sense picks up dangerous signals as 'Scar Akai' comes out of one of the rooms in Car 8.

Things get very odd at this time as the door Conan opens up to check up on the corpse actually has Masumi, Sonoko and Ran in it, spending some tea time together. Conan wonders what's up as he should've head to Car 7, but has somehow ended up in Car 8. As the DB leave Car 8 to try to go back to Car 7, Agasa comes out of his room to ask them how they'd do on the deduction quiz. This brings about the first core mystery of this case which is very entertaining: The kids had moved just one carriage from Car 8, yet they ended up in Car 6. While the high-speed train was in motion, Car 7 where the man was shot, went missing!?

Mystery Train [Tunnel] progresses on from the previous chapter's mystery of where the seventh Car of The Bell Tree Express could've gone missing. The Detective Boys are informed that to get information about what goes down in each of the different cars, it'd be wise to ask the conductors as there is one positioned in each. Each conductor will sit in the rearmost part of a car, looking over who goes in and who out. However, the conductors will move when one rings a bell that calls for them to come to the room from which the bell was rang. In this chapter we get explanations towards the missing car mystery along with fleshing out the train itself a bit. There is some tension regarding Masumi being curious about Haibara, and Scar Akai spying on them all.

As Kogoro and the case cast notice that the fields outside are burning, the Detective Boys and the girl trio or Masumi, Sonoko and Ran learn that the real deduction battle is truly yet to even be held, and after learning this they head to Car 8. At the same time bunch of different mysteries start to take place: a conductor visits a room whose resident didn't call for him, another room contains a person talking on the phone about the ruckus outside his room, the third room's guest asks the conductor to do something about a weird noise in her room.

In Car 8, the previously apparently fake-shot man is found in a room with a chain lock on. After breaking the chain, Masumi and Conan see that the man is actually dead, with a gunshot right through his temple being what most likely took his life. 

Mystery Train [First Class] goes over the mystery of the murder. A locked-room murder with a man who assumedly did a suicide with a gun that had a silencer attached onto it is quickly exposed as a real murder, but the answer to how this was pulled off and by whom is still up in air. In this case we don't really get to see Conan's thoughts or anything as there's something mysterious going up with him as well as he gets a text message from someone which shocks him and makes him shout at the Detective Boys for not going back to their room. Haibara notices that there's something off about Conan, and she's also been feeling a powerful ominous aura on the train that's more than something one or two organization members can cause her to feel with her sixth sense...  which only gets more powerful as Scar Akai passes her, at the same time as Ran and Sonoko realize that Amuro Tooru has also gotten on the Bell Tree Express apparently due to a successful bid on the net, and furthermore at the same time as Okiya Subaru is also shown on the train, looking at Amuro and co. ... and Subaru is in the same room with a mysterious woman who seemingly likes to text about something a lot. Regarding the case cast we also learn that they all knew each other beforehand, and they'd always arranged the same rooms for themselves on every Mystery Train tour.

While the Black Organization agreed to let Bourbon and Vermouth either kidnap or kill Sherry, in this chapter we get to learn that Gin and Vodka are also trying to take her down. Everyone wants a piece of that pie and to make Nagoya the Final Destination for Sherry.

Mystery Train [Junction] has Kogoro bring up a very good point: as everyone on the Bell Tree Express is a hardcore mystery fan, the victim, Murobashi, could've easily made it seem like a murder even if it actually was a suicide, but of course that's not the case here... in this case, it seems that there is some kind of reason why the culprit wanted the victim move back to Car 8, as Kogoro had reserved the car he usually spent time in during Mystery Train tours. Kogoro's actions made it so that the victim was moved in Car 7. The fake deduction quiz that Conan and co. took part in was used to lure the culprit back in Car 8 for some mysterious reason, and there is also a problem of one of the train attendatns' uniforms having gone missing as well.

Of the whole train, only Car 8 was created by a huge fan of Christie's Orient Express who was also Jirokichi's acquaintance. The Bell Tree Express was finished five years prior and most of the family of the car's creator died in a large fire, a month before the Mystery Train first started moving. The only living legacy of that deceased family left is the elderly lady in Room D of the carriage.
The fire that took the magnate's family occurred during his birthday party. His whole family along with twelve other party attendees lost their lives that day. It's very possible that every case character that boards the train right now are survivors of that massive fire...


This chapter is mostly about gathering information from the people who were staying in the same car as the victim. The information is actually a bit technical with multiple aspects to it, so making notes of what went on and where would be a good start. Luckily Gosho made it easier to memorize things by just naming the rooms with single letters. Kogoro on the other hand gives us a quick false solution to this case regarding Car 8's conductor supposedly letting everyone in the victim's room through a secret mechanism, and to fire bullets into the victim's body one shot per person... and reading that got a chuckle out of me. Conan and Masumi even point out about Kogoro just ripping off Orient Express's scenario.

Things take a more serious turn as Haibara gets a message which reads: "Are you ready? -Vermouth". After this, she decides to get up and leave - forever. In her pockets Haibara has the antidotes meant to help one temporarily turn back into an adult from the effects of the APTX-4869 drug. As Haibara she also listens to the recording her mother left behind for her. This portion of the chapter where we learn that the drug was thought to be a miracle called the silver bullet, is very well created by the author Gosho Aoyama and gave me chills. At the end of the chapter Subaru Okiya just waltzes into the room where Haibara is hiding in and orders her to come over to "our area", but Haibara decides that she can't be killed while looking like a child and makes her escape.

At the same time Kogoro, Conan and Masumi ask all of the suspects relating to a fire from five years ago that have boarded the Bell Tree Express to run a lap around the corridor. The reason for this was because they might've seen the culprit run away back in the first chapter of this case. There might be some similarities to pinpoint about their running styles-

The rest of this chapter have to do with different overarching characters running around in the corridor and spying on each other. You can tell that there's a lot going down in the backgrounds. It's actually pretty impressive to look at. It ends with Masumi going face to face with Scar Akai and the revelation that Masumi is the sister of Shuichi Akai.

Mystery Train [Interception] gets us closer to the truth of the murder case. Scar Akai takes Masumi out with an electric tranquilizer while Conan has gathered everyone to listen to the explanation of what's going down with the murder case. Ran is looking for Haibara. The explanation for the locked room murder is simple in its own right but honestly, I like it as it takes use of the visual medium which a story told in this comic book format is. The trick doesn't feel cheap at all here. The answer to who the culprit is and how it was all pulled off is quite impressive in its technicality. I honestly still don't completely understand all of it but the core aspects are clear in what the culprit wanted to pull off and why during the trick and why that person simply has to be the culprit.
The chapter ends with Scar Akai throwing a suitcase out of the train's window as our main character's mother Yukiko Kudo faces off with this mysterious person.

Mystery Train [Releasing Smoke] There's this fight between lions on the train as Yukiko goes face to face with Vermouth in a battle of wits which she seemingly loses, but before that we get this very intriguing exchange about our good guys having found a weak spot in Vermouth's defenses, and Yukiko even brings up Itakura Suguru, the CG Creator who perished a very long time ago during the Vermouth story arc. Basically, Vermouth had ordered a software from this special visual effects creator Suguru, and gotten very angry at him regarding the software once. I never even realized how Vermouth's and Yukiko's acting work is so closely connected to Suguru, which is a direct connection to why and how Vermouth found the man... Anyway, the battle of wits between Yukiko (Conan and co.) and Vermouth (BO and co.) is a great addition to the climax of this arc as it has to do with predicting how Haibara will react to her surroundings. Both sides are basically reading ahead of each other, and the goal for the good guys is to save Haibara. Oh, I never even realized that this case foreshadowed a certain object used in a trick during the Raiha Pass incident...!

 Regarding the murder case, while the previous chapter basically told us the murderer and the method, this chapter continues to reinforce those facts by making it absolutely clear why the murderer is who he is and how everything that seemed as if they were coincidences could have been pulled off perfectly. The motivation of the culprit isn't surprising but it does have a nice connection to the train itself.

As the case comes to a close, Car 8 starts to fill with smoke from pre-positioned gas tanks (that were shown in the beginning of this case) which the Black Organization members, Bourbon and Vermouth, had arranged in every corner of the car. The plan is to literally smoke Sherry out by faking fire on the train, and then take hold of her. It's pretty effective as even the murderer is running for their life from the fear of fire (which was ironically the motive for the murder as well). Though that action from the culprit and rest of the case cast is actually pointed out in this case - the fire that took so many lives which they survived from five years prior had made all of them into pyrophobics, and Vermouth used that against them with the plan of creating fake smoke and alarming the passengers through a proxy - through the true identity of Code Name: Bourbon.

While rest of the passengers leave from Car 8 to Cars 1-5, Sherry will do the complete opposite in order to make the Black Organization not be alarmed of her connection with the Detective Boys. She wants the organization thing that she's been all alone all this time. At the end of the chapter Sherry is seen running towards the room where the victim of the murder case is but she's stopped by a shadowy figure looming behind her saying: "As expected of Hell Angel's daughter... you look very much alike. Pleased to meet you.... Bourbon... That's my codename."

Mystery Train [Final Destination] wraps up this pretty intense story. I'm literally sweating in the middle of the night from re-reading this case again. While it's not on the list of my favourite all-time Conan cases or anything, it's still very impressive in its own right for being a solid collection of everything.
The battle of wits between Conan's and Black Organization's sides is intense and we get to learn quite a bit about Bourbon's character and motivations in this one. As Bourbon asks Sherry to head over to the storage carriage beyond Car 8 of Bell Tree Express, we get an announcement that there's one hour left until the train arrives its destination. Sonoko's uncle Jirokichi along with the Aichi-prefecture's top police force officials are all on the train station waiting to catch the culprit who murdered someone on Jirokichi's train. However, this is when we get the revelation that Gin and Vodka of the Black Organization have filled the train with explosives that will go off the moment the train arrives. But as they're all big shots, they're bound to think the explosives were meant to be an attempt on their lives instead of someone else's. This scene is pretty funny as Gin tells Vodka how he doesn't even care if Vermouth or Bourbon get caught up in the explosion, and apparently Vermouth herself had also taken more C4 explosives for a plan of her own...

On the train again, Bourbon is forcing Sherry to go into the storage hold room. As she does that, Bourbon will destroy the link between the two cars with an explosive. The train will keep going, but the storage hold where Sherry is in will stop and will thus be an easy way for the organization members to pick her up. Bourbon intends to knock her out and take her to the organization alive, but Sherry points out that the storage room is filled to brim of explosives prepared there by Vermouth to take her life at any cost. Bourbon then tells Sherry to step back from the storage hold, but she decides not to do that and instead holes herself in the carriage full of explosives. Bourbon then notices a weird shadow behind him, and thinks it's Vermouth yet points a pistol at the shadow. However, when a hand grenade rolls over his feet he quickly backs away. Ultimately it all ends up in a situation in which an explosion from the grenade forces the storage hold to break off the train, and the hold itself then turns to ashes from a massive explosion from the C4 prepared in it by Vermouth.

The Mystery Train case ends with Bourbon escaping the scene while thinking about the mysterious silhouette he saw. After The Bell Tree Express reaches its final destination, Vermouth confirms with Gin that the hold in which Sherry was, indeed must've taken her life, however... immediately afterwards the detective boys - Haibara included - make their appearance to reveal the reader and Vermouth one of the most insane twists that this series has to offer in general. The final page of this case contains a lot of foreshadowing towards the future: Bourbon will be investigating all the details of Akai's death during Raiha Pass incident and will begin his investigations from square one so we're far from over yet with this arc (final chapter of Mystery Train takes place in Filer 824 while Bourbon arc itself ends in File 898), while Masumi ponders through what went down in the train. The last panel shows the university graduate student Subaru Okiya opening his eyes to reveal his true identity.


Last rites

Bell Tree Express: Mystery Train offers a great balance of good character writing, future mysteries integrated into a well-paced case that however doesn't have to do with the main storyline itself unlike the previous main story-heavy cases or the next big portion of this story arc, which is the Scarlet Series that ends the Bourbon arc portion of Detective Conan. There's something quite epic about this train case and the implications of its main story heavy portions. I don't think that this case really does anything wrong and it's actually the only one of its kind in this series to begin with (being one of the rare train cases), consisting of seven chapters filled to the brim with content and multi-layered writing even from our protagonist himself. The case literally begins with the mystery of a disappearing train car and continues on to the mystery of a locked room murder at the same time as the Black Organization closes in on Sherry and a slew of other characters begin to move. There's a really huge deal of subtle foreshadowing in this one but it doesn't feel overwhelming, you can definitely figure it out. None of the explanations here felt cheap or unrealistic as it was all properly foreshadowed right down to the bigger twists that happened towards the end. Focusing on character realizations and visual hints are the key elements to pay attention to here.

While it's also not on my top list of Black Organization showdown cases, the battle of wits against BO; Vermouth - Bourbon - Gin & Vodka, was really entertaining in this one as there are numerous different groups trying to outwit each other. Everyone reads ahead and the next person goes even further beyond... it's something that could've very easily become a complete mess in the hands of another, less experienced author.

I've noticed that the author Gosho Aoyama puts a great deal of effort into making each of the main storyline -heavy cases have different settings to them, which is pretty neat. This one being Aoyama's version of the legendary Murder on Orient Express as well as the first climax of the Bourbon story arc is very clever and makes the experience more memorable. Anyway, I don't think I've ever seen a case in a series like this with this type of juggling over overarching story-relevant characters along with case-only characters. It's like weighs on a scale balancing each other out.