Detective fiction is a huge genre in Japan. This probably isn’t that surprising, considering the consistent stream of Japanese mystery novels that get published, or the fact that Ace Attorney and Danganronpa are Japanese franchises, or that Detective Conan is a multimedia juggernaut. Mysteries are so popular, they even have TV shows where guests are confronted with a crime that they then have to solve.
Of course, actually finding time to sit down and watch a TV show can be a bit annoying... So what if instead of a TV show, we have a book about a TV show where contestants are given a murder mystery story and need to solve it? It's the excitement of a gameshow with the accessibility of a novel. Genius!
Hence, Mystery Arena was born. Maybe. (Probably not.)
“Mystery Arena” is a gameshow where a mystery novella is read, and contestants need to buzz in with the answer to win the fabulous grand prize. But you only get one guess and only the first person to answer correctly wins, so the players need to balance making sure they have enough information with not getting beaten out by anyone else.
You might have noticed the “problem” with the premise from my introduction: why do you need a book about a TV show about people reading a murder mystery story, instead of just a murder mystery story? There's two reasons, actually. First, this structure removes the “detectives” from the murder mystery plot itself, which creates a different dynamic for deductions than a straightforward murder mystery. Second, many of the tricks and theories in Mystery Arena rely on narrative tricks, which obviously requires the “detectives” to actually have the narrative.
Really, the whole thing feels like an author’s contrivance. We get one chapter of the story, a contestant buzzes in, we hear their theory, rinse and repeat. But, once a contestant delivers a theory, the story no longer needs to be written around that theory. For instance, if a contestant proposes the theory “This character, who is implied to be a man but is technically written androgynously, is actually female!” then that character no longer needs to be written androgynously. After all, once the potential ruse has been pointed out, there's no value in maintaining it.
Of course, it was Fukami himself who both set up that potential trick and pointed it out. As a result, in this case it would feel to me like he spent a few chapters writing the character androgynously, got sick of the effort required to do that, and then had one of the contestants point this out so he could just dispense with the shtick and write the character as a man or a woman for the rest of the book. In other words, it was an excuse to use literally half-baked tricks.
I wasn’t particularly impressed. …At first.
In the end, I found Mystery Arena to be a pretty neat book. While it might be a bit unassuming at the beginning, looking back on the whole story I think Fukami's structuring and pacing works. Basically, the key is that he puts the worst theories first.
The very first theory presented is… the narrator of the story has a split personality who did it. Naturally, this did not make a particularly great first impression. At the beginning of the novel the contestants and host have a lengthy explanation of how “Mystery Arena” is the mystery gameshow, and all the contestants are mystery maniacs who had to pass a rigorous tryout to make it onto the show, and this is a special anniversary year for the show, and… and the first answer we’re given is "split personality"?! Really? That’s the first thing a mystery expert is going to use their one guess on?
And a few contestants later, someone postulates that a different character has a split personality that’s the culprit….
But, as I said, Fukami uses his worst theories first. As the book progresses we get some really neat tricks. Mystery Arena relies on perspective tricks more than mechanical tricks and, while there are some pretty cool theories, what’s impressive is the fact that one story has space for so many theories. It’s not about any one trick, it’s about all the tricks—at once.
Additionally, despite the fact that we alternate between theories and plot, Fukami does not take the lazy route, by which I mean using each chapter to directly deny the previous theory and set up what will be the next one. Whenever a character gives a theory, they need to explain everything that has happened within the context of their theory, and often refute the previous theory. This means that they need to draw clues from earlier chapters—and in fact, the key clue is often from a chapter near the beginning of the story. The evidence used to refute the other theories is also often taken from throughout the story, not just the previous chapter. It’s fun and impressive watching the characters essentially debate each other, constantly drawing from all parts of the story to make their arguments, and it means that the clues for (and against) each chapter truly are scattered and interspersed throughout the entire work, not just pigeonholed into individual chapters.
So, while my initial impression was that the gameshow structure was a mere writer's convenience, by the end I definitely appreciated the care and effort that must have went into the plotting. The plot for the "outer story," on the other hand, fell a bit short. Which is not a major issue, because it's clearly meant to just be a vehicle for present and discuss the inner story, but it's still disappointing.
It has a rocky start: The first few contestants all make a big deal about how they are definitely going to solve the story, and that it will be a massive issue for the show because now the answer will be revealed so what will they do for the rest of the airtime?! But they also make it clear that the the contestants' answers aren't confirmed or denied when given, but at the very end of the show... So even if the first contestant solved it, they wouldn't confirm that until the end of the show... So they could just continue to read the story as planned... So what's the issue? Granted, reading a mystery novel when you already know the solution may not be as exciting, but it wouldn't completely derail the show as the characters seemed to imply.
(This plot point also contributed to Mystery Arena's less-than-stellar first impression.)
Then at the end, the overarching plot reveals itself to be something completely ridiculous and unrealistic. It's difficult to discuss in detail without spoilers, but it felt extraordinarily silly and contrived. But again, to a certain extent it's just an excuse plot, and the mystery plot—the important one—is strong, so I won't harp on this.
Oh, and the contestant names are outrageous, but I'm an Ace Attorney fan, so I can actually accept that.
Mystery Arena isn't a traditional detective story, but it's an easy recommendation to fans of puzzle plots, since at it's core it's a meticulously crafted multi-layered riddle. I think it's also worth noting that the beginning is the weakest part of the book, since it definitely initially appears like it will be a story of questionable quality, but it quickly pulls itself together. Mystery Arena wins the grand prize in my book.
No comments:
Post a Comment