The Decagon House Murders: Yukito Ayatsuji (Pushkin Vertigo)

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Kawaminami had actually left the party before anything happened to Chiori that fateful night, and since he has distanced himself from the club anyway he doesn't feel particularly guilty. The short Prologue to The Decagon House Murders is properly sinister and vague, an anonymous figure having completed his preparations and ready now to play god: "Judgment, yes judgment", he promises: The art and character design are gorgeous. I particularly enjoyed the eerie shading in some of the panels showing the island and the Decagon House. It’s probably too soon to tell, but this seems like a series where I’ll be slightly more invested in the characters (dangerously so as it appears one club member may already be dead by the end of the volume) than the actual murder mystery as I already love Ellery and Van far too much. ⁣ I lived for years in Japan and this experience made my reading all the more delightful. The translation sounds exactly like the Japanese, to the point where many times I could know for certain what the Japanese word or phrase had originally been. It felt as if the translator is not a native English speaker, or at least the translator never stepped out of literal translation, and the unusual nature of the language in the novel gave it a charged, unexpected feeling as I read. The novel began with a mood that was very similar to And then There Were None, which is one of my favourite books of all time. A group of pals from university's mystery club agreed to investigate the case on a deserted island? Solve the situation? That occurred six months ago. However, everything began to go wrong, and they began to be slain. A parallel plot follows two of their fellow mystery club members as they attempt to uncover the mystery of "letters by dead man" along with a Mr. Shimada.

Overall, I had enjoyed this manga very much and I can't wait for it to be released! The premise of the story is very similar to the novel and I love the art style in this book. The lines are defined and the the mangaka had portrayed and kept the level of suspense at bay. Clues are sprinkled throughout the story: it's a puzzle, allowing the reader to play along as detective in this whodunnit, matching their skills against those of the author (and the murderer).a b 十角館の殺人（5） (in Japanese). Kodansha. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022 . Retrieved August 30, 2022. He sat down on the cold concrete of the breakwater and faced the expansive darkness, his body veiled by the white vapour of his breath. Seven members of a university mystery-fan club travel to a desolate island for a week to read, write, and explore the remains of a burned-down mansion where multiple murders were committed not long before. They’re staying in “Decagon House,” which is exactly that: a ten-sided structure that survived the earlier tragedy. But during their first night there, one of the group is killed, and the body left with a grisly reminder of what happened to the island’s ill-fated inhabitants. It will not be the last death during their stay. After a very long introduction and a slow start, the story becomes ever more suspenseful in the best tradition of the old fashioned detective stories those students admire. With not 1 but 2 murder investigations going on, you must keep your wits around and you’re not certain if the murders then and those now are related. You’re also kept in the dark if it’s one of the students that’s guilty or that there’s another person hiding on the island. The split story always keeps you on the edge of your seat as you keep wondering what’s happening in the other storyline. I swear that the eventual reveal is more than surprising. I did not guess this at all. The explanation might be a bit strange but it’s very ingenious.

Much is made of this cult classic being a homage to, "And Then There Were None," and, indeed, it has a lot of similarities - and nods - to, not only Agatha Christie, but other Golden Age authors. The novel involves a group of students, who belong to a university mystery club, visiting an uninhabited island. Six months before, there was a fire on the island and the couple who lived there were found murdered, along with the two servants. The gardener was missing and was suspected of possible involvement of the crimes. Of course, our group of students are looking forward to their week away - happily telling the fisherman who drop them off to collect them the following week. What, after all, could go wrong? This is a book for those who love solving logic puzzles, riddles, and other similar things. The author gives the readers all the clues as you go through the story. So there's not much of a story here and the characters are not very well developed. Also, there seems to be a lot lost in translation as the dialogue is very stilted and not all that realistic, which can leave the reader rolling their eyes and being pulled out of the story. I enjoyed reading trying to solve the puzzle along side our characters, but its certainly not for those who prefer a well fleshed out stories and characters. 3.5 rounded up to 4. Fans dress like detective Kosuke Kindaichi or other characters from Seishi Yokomizo’s novels, as part of a 2015 celebration of his life in Kurashiki, where the author once lived. Photograph: Newscom/Alamy The book’s supposed self-awareness didn’t really add anything, if anything it made me all the more unconvinced by the characters’ ignorance and ineptitude.

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Shimada Soji also explains in his Introduction that this novel triggered a revival of the " honkaku mystery"-form -- orthodox, old-style puzzlers, the detective-work in them based on logical reasoning (as opposed to the: "realism of the social school of mystery fiction" one of the characters had complained about), in a new, more modern guise.

Mateo, Alex (July 29, 2021). "Kodansha Comics Licenses The Decagon House Murders, Yamaguchi-kun Isn't So Bad, Chihiro-Kun Only Has Eyes For Me, More Manga". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on July 29, 2021 . Retrieved July 29, 2021. They would arrive there suspecting nothing. Without any hesitation or fear they would walk into the decagonal trap, where they would be sentenced.Chapter Eight: Fourth Day - Mainland ( 第八章 ( だいはちしょう ) 四日目 ( よっかめ )・ 本土 ( ほんど ), Dai Hachishō Yokkame Hondo) The Decagon House Murders is one of the most enjoyable classic crime novels I've ever read. An evocative island setting, a perfectly constructed puzzle, and an entirely satisfying solution. It'll keep you guessing until the very end. Bad things happened on the island relatively recently, with its owner, architect Nakamura Seiji, murdered there, along with his wife and another couple who worked for them, and the main building on the island, the 'Blue Mansion', burned down (leaving only the 'Decagon House', which is where the visitors live while on the island). That's what Ayatsuji tries to set up and then play out here: a limited cast of characters, many with their own little (and some pretty big) secrets, isolated on this island -- and, apparently, one of them a murderer, killing the others off, one by one.

Meanwhile, on the mainland, Takaaki Kawaminami, an ex-member of the club, teams up with amateur sleuth Kiyoshi Shimada to unravel the original mystery of Tsunoshima. They wonder if there is any link between the mass homicide that took place in 1985, and the accidental death of fellow club member Chiori Nakamura—daughter of the same Seiji Nakamura that owned the island and built the Decagon House. Not one of the characters was actually clever or possessed any real common sense, many scenes were wasted on each character asking ‘was it you? and saying ‘it wasn’t me’. They spend so much of their time defending themselves when it should have been obvious that their word (saying ‘it wasn't me’) was a waste of time/breath as they had no way of proving their innocence, and yet we have these unnecessary interactions taut could have easily been summarized in a few words (they took turns accusing one smother etc). Also, they are whodunnit experts, surely they would know that they are squandering valuable time on the kind of idiotic disagreements that solve nothing and if anything may result in them not paying attention to their surroundings etc.I said this was going to be a spoiler-heavy review already but I am about to go into end-game spoilers so read at your discretion But otherwise this was a very enjoyable read and it certainly managed to make me curious enough to read the next installments, which is why I rounded up the 3,5*. Tal vez por su brevedad, en este primer tomo ya se presentan tantos personajes y datos que puede ser un poco saturante, me parece una obra que se debe leer despacio y analizando todo lo que los protagonistas puedan decir. Además, su capítulo final deja con muchas ganas de continuar leyendo y resolver los misterios que envuelven a nuestros personajes.