Unfortunately, it seems the Japanese publishing industry collectively dropped the ball on this one. Since Pandora’s Box has been opened, we may as well peer inside….
(To be clear, this will not be a thrashing like my Close Enough to Kill review. When I say Shinzou Mitsuda should not be allowed to write, it is in the same way Junji Ito should not be allowed to draw.)
Those Who are Shunned Like a Bird of Ill Omen is a lot like Those Who Bewitch Like Evil Spirits, just… not quite as good.
Once again we follow writer-folklorist Genya Toujou as he encounters a spooky mystery steeped in local legend. This time we are taken to a small fishing village on the Seto Inland Sea. Or, to be more exact, Nuejiki Shrine, which is dedicated to the village’s local god, the Great Bird, and located on Toritsuki Island in the Seto Inland Sea off the coast of the village.
Genya is here to observe Akane, a shrine maiden of Nuejiki Shrine, perform the Rite of the Bird-Person. This particular ritual has a short but bizarre history. It was first developed by Akane’s great-grandmother, Akae, but when Akae attempted to perform the ritual, she failed and died shortly thereafter. The second attempt to perform the Rite was made by Akane’s mother, Akana, 18 years ago. A group of researchers went with Akana to observe, but everyone on the island—other than six-year-old Akane—disappeared without a trace. Now Akane herself is attempting to follow her mother’s and great-grandmother’s footsteps.
By the way, you may have calculated from the previous paragraph that Akane is 24 years old—both Akae and Akana were also each 24 when they attempted the Rite.
Anyway, while Nuejiki Shrine is very protective of the secrets of their Rite, they still need observers on the island to confirm that it is successfully carried out, which is why Genya (as well as a few other villagers) are allowed to attend. In fact, there are eight people on the island—six men and two women—the same number and ratio that were on the island 18 years ago….
Akane performs the Rite of the Bird-Person… and disappears without a trace from the locked and observed inner sanctum of the shrine. And then other people start to disappear under mysterious circumstances as well.
One of the most interesting features of Bird of Ill Omen is the fact that there isn’t a single corpse. Well, I suppose that’s technically not true, since the Rite requires a fresh corpse to perform. But there isn’t a single murdered corpse—characters just disappear. When someone is murdered, you know that, barring exception circumstances, someone else did that to them against their will. But when someone disappears, the likelihood that they disappeared of their own accord is much higher—and it leaves open the possibility that they are responsible for later events. The victim is much more likely to be involved in their disappearance than a murder, which broadens the solution space. And yet even after the group rigorously discusses the situation, taking into account Akane's possible cooperation, her disappearance still seems impossible.
However—and this ties deeply into the reasons I didn’t think Bird of Ill Omen was as powerful as Evil Spirits—I had a difficult time following along with the characters’ logic. The main issue is topology. Toritsuki Island and Nuejiki Shrine have a peculiar construction: Toritsuki Island is shaped like a bird in flight, and Nuejiki Shrine is located on a bluff at the “head,” separated from the rest of the island by a wall but open to the air and sea on the edge. The shape and construction of Nuejiki Shrine is vital to the problem and the characters’ reasoning, but there’s no map. Try as I might I just could not grasp the layout of the place. I was resigned to simply taking the characters’ assertions as fact, which is fine for merely following the story, but meant I couldn’t join in myself. And being denied from even attempting to solve a mystery takes out a large chunk of the fun. This isn’t the kind of story where getting a map would ruin or reveal anything, and Evil Spirits had maps and diagrams, so I’m puzzled why Bird of Ill Omen did not.
(You might think the fact that Nuejiki Shrine is open-air trivializes the disappearance, but the ground immediately below Nuejiki Shrine is rocky yet has no trace of blood or a body, effectively ruling out “she jumped into the ocean.”)
While I think the lack of a map is the biggest reason I didn’t click with Bird of Ill Omen like I did with Evil Spirits, it’s not the only reason. The main distinguishing feature of the Genya Toujou series is the horror, and Bird of Ill Omen just… doesn’t do that quite as well as Evil Spirits.
Evil Spirits was dripping with atmosphere. It took place in an isolated, superstitious, labyrinthine village where native residents were scared to go out after dark because of how many strange things happened. There was a mountain and river where evil spirits congregated. A family was outcast as tainted, and somehow had successive generations of twins. When the murders start happening, the bodies are dressed up like the village god, conjuring an image of divine retribution.
Bird of Ill Omen takes place on an island, and when people disappear there's nothing left. That's just it.
It doesn’t compare. Yes, there was a mysterious event on Toritsuki Island in the past, but The Decagon House Murders also took place on an island where a murder case in the past, but that didn’t make it spooky or atmospheric. Toritsuki Island doesn’t have the same power that Kagagushi Village did. While being stranded on an abandoned island can be creepy, that’s not the same type of horror that the Genya Toujou series typically evokes with its ghost stories.
Those ghost stories are another place where Bird of Ill Omen loses out to Evil Spirits. I would say that the horror in these books is mainly conveyed through spooky vignettes placed throughout the story. However, Bird of Ill Omen has fewer vignettes, they’re less developed, they’re not as creepy, and they aren’t explained as satisfactorily in the end.
On the other hand, it’s possible that the vignettes didn’t receive as much attention in Bird of Ill Omen because a healthy dose of horror was woven into the solution of the mystery itself. In a way that should NOT be allowed. Shudder. Seriously, I was just cruising along, waiting for the end of the book, and then you’re going to throw that at us?
Of course, as horrific as it is, I must admit the solution made an impression….
Even if overall I didn’t find Bird of Ill Omen as compelling as Evil Spirits, I still adore the way Mitsuda ties folklore into his mysteries and clueing, rather than merely using them as window-dressing. For instance, one of the clues/questions in the story is the fact that Akane ate fish prior to performing the Rite, even though she was supposed to undergoing spiritual cleansing (which typically forbids the consumption of animals). This type of question is unique, and it's really cool to have a plot built around quirks in folklore and religion.
When I first read the solution, I was skeptical that it would work as cleanly or as quickly as it did in the novel, but research from the esteemed University of Wikipedia suggests that it could, so I’m satisfied with that. Honestly I’m not surprised (and in retrospect feel I should have just trusted Mitsuda) since Bird of Ill Omen (like Evil Spirits) has a sizable bibliography.
In sum, Those Who are Shunned Like a Bird of Ill Omen is a good book, just not quite as good as Those Who Bewitch Like Evil Spirits. A map would massively improve the experience given how convoluted Toritsuki Island’s geography is, but we don’t get one. The horror is also not handled quite as elegantly as its predecessor. But Mitsuda still does a fantastic job weaving together folklore, horror, and mystery into a chilling adventure with an unforgettable resolution.
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