怪人二十面相 🦹 (IBC) - Week 11

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怪人二十面相 :supervillain:
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Week 11 March 14th, 2026
Chapter(s) 22+23+24 二十面相の逮捕 + 「わしがほんものじゃ」+ 二十面相の新弟子
Audio version [1] video 11
Previous week Week 10
Next week Week 12

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  1. female narrator, playlist, 聴いてみよう江戸川乱歩 ↩︎

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怪人二十面相 :supervillain: (Intermediate Book Club)
怪人二十面相 :supervillain: (IBC) - Week 10
怪人二十面相 :supervillain: (IBC) - Week 12
怪人二十面相 :supervillain: (Intermediate Book Club)
2

I like the new haiku feature of the club :star_struck:

22 二十面相の逮捕

Summary

Imanishi sees Akechi soon after and having learned what happened from Kobayashi, confronts Akechi about letting the thief go. We don’t learn Akechi’s reasons since he wasn’t asked, and in the end Akechi tells him the number plate of the car the thief left in. The detective calls it in and soon after a policeman sees the car and there’s a car chase that ends with the thief’s car tire blowing out and getting arrested. Everyone celebrates big time. In Akechi’s absence (he wanted to go to the ministry of foreign affairs) Kobayashi identifies the fake Tujino as the thief.

thoughts

So it’s not just us puzzling over Akechi’s plan. But here there are several places the thief could have swapped disguises, ie, with the driver? Perhaps earlier he sent someone else out of the hotel as the fake Tujino, that’s another possibility. Or it really is the thief and we find it why Akechi didn’t want to arrest him. After all, there’s no proof! The most he can get charged for is impersonating Tujino.

Expression
一刻を争う to race against time

23 わしがほんものじゃ

Summary

Chief investigator Nakamura triumphantly settles in to interview the thief. But fake Tujino turns out to be the fake thief! But he insists he’s the real deal 松下庄兵衛 - it was the thief who disguised himself as him (Matushita). He tells his story of making a business mistake and becoming jobless. One day he met a man at a park who told him he could make money riding around in a car all day. Sure! On the day he rides around the car. They stop in front of the railway hotel where he gets lunch. Then they wait outside the station for a while when much to his surprise someone gets in the car who looks exactly like him. He comes in the car and says to depart, drive anywhere, and go full speed. Then he gets out the other side of the car.

thoughts

This is a quirky and a nice surprise. Instead of sending out a different Tujino or swapping disguises with the driver, I love the abundant caution of having this whole doppelganger ruse already in place (although very convoluted as someone mentioned last week). I’m guessing then he must have counted on Akechi not yet having met Tujino because it doesn’t seem like he made Matushita disguise himself as anyone else. Perhaps this made it easier for Akechi to catch on at the platform if he had at least seen, if not met, Tujino.

Expression
手に乗る, 手にのる to fall for a trick, to be taken in, to play into the hands (of)

24 二十面相の新弟子

Summary

Kobayashi asks Akechi why he didn’t capture or follow the thief and Akechi says due to humiliating the thief in this way, the thief will lose his cool and try to take Akechi out. That obsession and distraction seems to be what Akechi thinks he can use to use to his advantage. He tells Kobayashi that the next day something dangerous will happen but not to worry, it’s all part of the plan. He points out a storyteller who can be seen from the window who must be the thief’s henchman.

The next day a disguised beggar is staking out Akechi’s place. Then outside Akechi’s place a different person, a vagrant, causes a big ruckus and tries to pick a fight with Akechi, who comes out and neutralises him and disappears. After the vagrant leaves, the beggar follows him to figure out what he has against Akechi. The vagrant said Akechi is the one who got him in jail. In the end the vagrant 赤井寅三 (Akai Torazou) is convinced to join as a pupil of the thief.

thoughts

Is the vagrant disguised and part of Akechi’s plan or really a coincidence? I’m not sure about Akechi’s analysis / plan, it’s pretty convoluted, and also quite self centred and ego driven, not to mention high risk if the thief would really just want him dead. But perhaps for the purposes of story telling, I suppose it would be interesting for the thief’s ego to be used against him, rather than a ‘this other clever guy arrested him’ ending.

But sometimes adults do Irrational things in children’s books. At least in Ch 22 another adult chewed him out. I had been hoping Akechi had a great plan up his sleeve rather than just placing such a big bet on the thief’s psychology

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This week felt a little longer again. Probably is a little longer since it combines 3 chapters.
I liked the third chapter the most. Big setup for what is to come.
I’m kinda shocked we are already (more than) 3/4 through the book. But I can kinda see how it is gearing up for a grand finale :smiley:

It was really obvious that the driver won’t be the real 二十面相. I mean the book even says the chase happens 20 mins after the hotel incident. Who would have thought that the thief does not drive 20 mins in the same car to escape ^^. In this book, the good guys also seem pretty slow on the uptake sometimes.

I have to agree that the thief is pretty hardcore about covering his tracks with multiple layers of backup in place.

I’ll be honest when I first read your あらすじ I felt totally lost by your sentences. Now, after reading, they actually make sense.

Yeah, the ルンペン (what a fun word as a German XD) is for sure arranged by 明智. He went out in the morning, I’m pretty sure he arranged it then. 明智 wants to plant a guy in 二十面相s ranks to get to know where the hideout is and maybe learn more about his plans. He thinks that’s the better way instead of having 小林少年 follow the 乞食 that stakes out his place. I honestly expect the ルンペン to probably be a 刑事 in disguise?
Since the 乞食 isn’t totally stupid though, it seems he wants him to kidnap 明智 before granting a meeting with 二十面相親分.
If I read the next chapter title I expect 明智 actually going along with that and being kidnapped. I’m not sure if that will be a great idea. But it would fit with what he told 小林 to not freak out if something happens to him.

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:joy: reading it again I can understand why. I hadn’t really thought about it but I guess these are mostly written when I’m in a ‘I just need to note down some key points to remember what happened’ mode and it seems I’m not really in a story telling mode or even in a ‘using English fluently’ mode :innocent:

oh I missed that connection, and had to look it up, nice one

oooh, that makes sense, I was considering that advice to 小林 just in terms of the altercation outside his house, not something potentially bigger :thinking: I think you’re right

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Keep on reading, and discuss the next chapters in the next thread :slight_smile:

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This came up in Ch 24 and then today I coincidentally came across it again:

紙芝居, “paper theatre”) is an older form of storytelling, here is an extract from the wiki:

Kamishibai (紙芝居, “paper play”) is a form of Japanese street theater and storytelling that was popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the postwar period in Japan until the advent of television during the mid-20th century. Kamishibai were performed by a kamishibaiya (“kamishibai narrator”) who travelled to street corners with sets of illustrated boards that they placed in a miniature stage-like device and narrated the story by changing each image

here’s a documentary I found and the opening scene shows how it starts and is presented

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Learn French with a paper theater version of Édith Piaf’s ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’ :wink:

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I didn’t know my French was so good! :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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I liked how in the car chase scene this week, the narration asks us if the loud noise was possibly a gunshot from the thief??? But then says:

西洋のギャング映画ではありません。

This is NOT one of those western gang movies :face_with_steam_from_nose:

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This book sounds fun, maybe I should read it xD

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