"Hyouka" is a new manga by Tamura Yumi, the author of "7SEEDS". Her representative works, "BASARA" and "7SEEDS", are girls' manga but also grand boys' manga, or grand science fiction, but this time it's a mystery, but the process of solving the mystery is not a mystery, and the girls' manga elements from her previous work have completely disappeared, resulting in a strange work. I would like to introduce the incident that the protagonist, Kuno Osamu, encounters in "Hyouka"!
Case 1: "Murder of a University Student"
The police arrive at the apartment of Tono Kuno, a second-year university student studying psychology with naturally curly hair and an exploding head. There is a murder in a nearby park, and the victim is Tono's classmate, Ken Sagae. Tono becomes a suspect in the case. This is because there is testimony that Tono's distinctive hairstyle was seen at the time of the murder. Tono is half-forcefully taken to the interrogation room.
The main character talks nonstop
In the interrogation room, Sei begins to talk without changing his expression. However, the content of his talk is not the usual display of reasoning in mysteries, but a chat about the people he is interrogating, a kind of counseling. Sei sees through the troubles of each police officer from their behavior, clothes, etc., such as "a man who is called dirty and smelly by his daughter," "the death of a pet and the meaning of the existence of female police officers," and "a husband suffering from tea blues in mana," and does something like counseling. And at the end of that counseling, he approaches the core of this case...
Incident No. 2: "The Strange Bus Hijacking Incident"
After clearing his name of the false accusation, Sei hurries to board a bus that is about to depart to go see some art as a hobby. However, the bus he happens to be on is hijacked. The passengers panic, but the bus hijacker's demands are strange. The bus hijacker asks the passengers various questions, but the questions are all strange, such as "your own shortcomings," "the fact that you have killed someone," "why you shouldn't kill someone," and "what is the most unpleasant way to die."
Welcome to the Inudo Family
After many twists and turns, the hostages are invited to the mansion of Inudo Garo and Inudo Otoya, the masterminds of the incident. Meanwhile, the police are discussing a strange and sadistic murder in which a person is buried alive in the ground. The hostages are asked further questions in the mansion, and Rei thinks that the questions are intended to explore the hostages' thought patterns.
Case 3: "Shinkansen passenger"
After learning that the Impressionist exhibition that Sei missed due to the bus hijacking incident was being held in Hiroshima, Sei headed to Hiroshima on the Shinkansen when he happened to see a letter from the woman sitting next to him and realized something. On the surface, it was an ordinary letter from a parent to a child, but when the initial letters of the illustrations around it were rearranged, hidden messages suggesting domestic violence such as "Don't come to Kyoto," "Don't be fooled," "Dangerous," and "Power" were found.
Case 4: "The Cursed Family's Inheritance"
When Sei arrives in Hiroshima, he is approached by a strange girl. The girl's name is Shiori Karishu, and she is an acquaintance of the famous Inudo Garo, who introduced Sei to him and suggests a part-time job. It is related to the inheritance of the prestigious Karishu family. The inheritance of the Karishu family's inheritance is cursed, and every time it happens, someone dies, making it a terrifying event.
What is the purpose of inheritance?
The inheritance of the Kariyuu family is quite unusual. The will states that one of four candidates will inherit the entire inheritance, and that heir will be given a certain mystery. The candidates are given the task of "putting everything in each storehouse where it should be, without excess or deficiency." Each candidate receives a key to the storehouse and must solve the mystery to inherit the inheritance, but during the process, the candidates start to experience disturbing events, such as flowerpots being dropped from a high place and being locked in the storehouse.
Incident No. 5: "A passing bomber? 』
One day, when Sei is out in the rain, he sees a man soaking wet without an umbrella. The man talks to Sei while singing "The Bandit's Song," but he doesn't know who he is. However, he is a strange man who tells Sei that it is no good to go to the police or call an ambulance. As he talks to Sei, the man gradually remembers various things...
A bomb somewhere...
The man suddenly says that he has planted a bomb somewhere. Sei asks him why he did so. The man then remembers everything. Sei hurriedly calls his acquaintance, a police officer named Ikemoto. Ikemoto is overwhelmed by the bomb. Sei uses hints he gets from the man's conversation to guess where the bomb is planted.
Case 6: "The Hospitalized Patient Next Door"
After the bomber incident, Sei falls down a bank in a completely unrelated place and is taken to the hospital by ambulance for examination just in case. Sei is a delicate guy and cannot sleep when there are people around, so he is very worried. There is one other hospitalized patient in the same room, an old man named Ushida Goro.
A story about a former detective
Ushida is a retired detective who is interested in Sei, who is with a young detective, and talks about a case. One is a murder case in which four people were killed, the suspect was a person named A, and evidence was only found for the fourth case. The truth of that case was that a completely different person killed three people who had a grudge against A, and finally killed the person they wanted to kill and pinned the crime on him. The second case was a murder case, but no evidence was found, and at the same time, there was a sleazy burglary in the neighborhood. The evidence was a case in which someone hid something in an unrelated house when they entered a burglary. And the third case was an unsolved case that caused his former partner to quit the police force.
【Hyouka: Mystery】Summary of Cases That Occurred in the Work
I've put together a summary of the cases that occurred in "Hyouka: Mystery", some of which were not even cases. If you only look at the problem and the conclusion, this may be a mystery. However, as the title "Hyouka: Mystery" suggests, the process is a little different from a mystery. In other words, they explore people's inner thoughts through profiling and counseling, such armchair-like conversations, and solve the case with the information gained from that. The trick and evidence are not very important, and the fact that the case was solved is just a bonus. It's such a strange work. It's interesting, so it may be made into an anime, but it's more suitable as a drama, so it might be sooner.
