怪人二十面相 🦹 (IBC) - Week 15

[Akashelia]

怪人二十面相
Intermediate Book Club
Home Thread

Week 15	April 11th	2026
Chapter(s)	31	怪盗捕縛
Audio version [1]	video 15
Previous week	Week 14

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.

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Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

Will you be reading with us?

• I’m reading along
• I’m still reading but I haven’t reached this section yet
• I will catch up later
• I’m reading this after the book club has finished
• I’ve read this previously but I’m here for the discussion

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

[downtimes]

I’m so mad. So, so mad.

What the f*** is that conclusion. He had a doppelgänger for nearly a year tucked away somewhere??? You fricking kidding me.
And then the police is too stupid to even keep him tied up correctly after the 二十面相 is caught.
Uff, that was a rough end to an otherwise wonderful book. Everything before Akechi arrived at the platform was a 5/5 for me. It was mysterious, playful, but still felt like a coherent story with ups and downs, where the good side and bad side were in a tug of war.
Then Akechi shows up, everything is just some miracle solution that was not even slightly hinted at, and he just gloats like no other…

The best part about the last chapter were the kids showing up and dog-piling on the thief that tries to escape.

I’ll give the book a 3,5/5
Good first half of the book, culturally decently relevant, relatively easy to read. Don’t expect too much from the second half.

[soggyboy]

And we’re done! I finished this book a couple weeks ago but thoroughly enjoyed it. I think anyone who enjoys reading classic fiction would like it. The boys piling on the thief was also an unexpected turn for me and funny

As for the plot twists sometimes being absurd or not foreshadowed in earlier chapters, I think the fact that the novel was serialized is probably to blame for that. I’ve read a few older novels that were originally serialized and random stuff really does just happen in them sometimes

[2000kanji]

For some sentences into this chapter I hoped that my therory about 明智 being 二十面相 could be true and that 小林 and his followers could somehow convict him. But then one more long hidden look-alike appeared and all my hopes were gone .

Overall the plot was sometimes too obvious and on the other hand too far fetched. The reading was fairly easy, the use of hiragana instead of kanji was a litte too frequent (at least in the kindle version).

[jablekanji]

All done! Pleasure reading with everyone. I suppose I also enjoyed the kids piling on at the end, but to me I couldn’t help feeling miffed by it because it just felt like a cop out. I know the book is about 二十面相, but I really thought it would lean more into the boys detective group. They band together in the end and are ultimately useless for solving the case and the thief escape just becomes a kind of dumb but necessary device so that they can save the day. Overall enjoyed the book though, and I was really pleased with my progress on this one. In chapter 1 I thought the audiobook was just way too fast, I was constantly pausing and going back while looking up words, but towards the last few chapters I found myself reading along at the speed of the narrator and only needing to stop on occasion for a missed word or something. Great learning experience!

Thanks for running the club @Akashelia !

[mitrac]

31 怪盗捕縛

Summary

Finally Nakamura or the head detective I forgot asks how Akechi knows all this. Then we find out he had a secret body double who was him and he was disguised as Akai. He was left to do menial tasks at the hideout but when the thief’s underlings return and celebrate he raises a toast laced with their own anaesthetic. Once they’re all passed out he escape and alerts the police who recover all the treasures and past stolen items. Now how about the thief? Well Akechi says there are 4 people waiting and someone brings them up, it’s the 3 night watchmen who got kidnapped and another 北小路文学博士 - the museum director. So Akechi reveals the museum director he’s holding hands with as the thief. But after arresting him there’s a brief escape scene followed by the boys detective club on patrol - happening to be out, and they capture the thief. Then there’s a glorious reunion between Kobayashi and Akechi, they share a legendary joyful reunion and everyone cheers. The End.

4/5 stars because the first 75% is very much worth it!

But I have to admit this sums up my mood on the ending

@downtimes

that was a rough end to an otherwise wonderful book. Everything before Akechi arrived at the platform was a 5/5 for me. It was mysterious, playful, but still felt like a coherent story with ups and downs

I like how most of the book was quick moving action. The explanation heavy ending fell flat for me. Why didn’t we get to experience the museum heist like the others? I’m not sure if my experience of the ending has been ruined by just generally having a tough time irl right now, but I see others have very similar gripes. Overall I really enjoyed the first 75% of the book, though, and it made for a very fun club! I’ve enjoyed the weekly comments so much and am looking forward to continuing to read more comments as they trickle in so thanks everyone for participating and Akashelia for running a fantastic club!

[Escalus]

I don’t think the “gentleman thief” aspect really worked. I spent most of the book thinking the thief was just a jerk (he killed a family’s dog and impersonated their missing son…). It also seems like “hiring lots of henchmen” is just as important to his plans as his disguise skills, which feels a bit cheap .

Akechi’s personality didn’t seem that interesting to me either. I wonder if this is just a classic work that doesn’t really hold up, or if the other stories in the series do a better job of developing the characters .

[Buruberimiruku]

I finished the final week!

Week 15 thoughts

The whole book seemed to be leading up to this great showdown and ultimately it seemed like solution was rushed. I’m slightly disappointed that the entire museum wasn’t replaced with fakes by the Detective. I’m more disappointed that the actual museum director wasn’t a jaded, underpaid academic who moonlighted as the thief, with this being his longest planned, revenge theft.

The Boys Detective Club’s role was super cute! And not surprising because realistically, how much sleuthing can elementary school kids really do in between homework and classes? I was happy to see the 少年探偵 go on to encounter many adventures in a series of books Ranpo wrote, including 宇宙怪人, where a flying saucer appears over Ginza and the boys are on the case!

The Detective’s long-winded, boastful explanation with so many 「ハハハ’s」 felt like the Edogawa Ranpo just transposed the thief’s personality onto the detective. Or was Ranpo using this first book as a set up for future books, I wondered? 読者諸君, wouldn’t it be cool if the reason the Thief and Detective were so similar (each with their trickiness, disguises, dopplegangers and ハハハs）was because they are long lost siblings like Luke and Leia in Star Wars?!?

More illustrations from Week 9-15 (Diet Library 1936 edition)

Link here: 国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション

Afterword: The Phantom with Twenty One Faces

My Kindle version did not have a 解説, was there one in other versions? I thought there was discussion about it somewhere, but I can’t find it now…

Anyway, I came across this crazy story on one of my side missions and waited until I was finished the book to share.

Almost 50 years after 怪人二十面相 was published, there was something called the Glico-Morinaga affair that was a crime spree in the Nishinomiya-Osaka area, against various food companies that occurred over a 17-month period (from 1984-1985). The criminal called himself 怪人二十一面相 (the monster with 21 faces). It began with the criminal and his gang literally plucking the CEO of Glico (Ezaki) out of his お風呂 at home and kidnapping him while he was still naked and demanding one billion yen and 100 kg of gold as ransom. The CEO escaped (!) but the group continued to terrorize and extort Glico, Morinaga and other food companies, poisoning store-shelf product, sending taunting letters to the police. Here’s a translated example from wikipedia:

To the police fools,
Are you all stupid? What the hell are you doing with all that manpower? If you’re professionals then come on, catch us! We’ll give you a hint since you’re so handicapped: there are none of us among Ezaki’s relatives, there are none of us among the Nishinomiya police, there are none of us among the Flood Prevention Corps. The car I bought was gray, and the food I bought was from Daiei. If you want more information, ask us for it in the newspapers. After telling you all this, you should be able to catch us. If you can’t, then you’re just tax leeches. Shall we kidnap the head of the prefectural police, too?

Here’s one of the poisoned Glico products found on a store shelf with the note 「毒入り、危険食べたら、死ぬで。怪人２１面相」(“Poisoned, danger, if you eat it, you will die, Phantom with 21 faces”)

Sadly, a police superintendent actually committed suicide over being unable to stop the continuing crime spree and at that point, the group wrote a seemingly conciliatory letter suggesting they felt bad and were ending the spree because of his death. Then Poof! They disappeared and were never caught.

A journalist named Tatsuya Iwase wrote a book about it called キツネ目(Fox Eyes) because several witnesses who possibly saw the criminal described him as having fox eyes. There were suspects identified by the police, but no one was ever arrested. This youtube interview with the journalist Iwase has some cool, old news footage and photos.

This article also has some cool photos and a sketch of Fox Eyes.

For all the plot frustrations, I really enjoyed this IBC pick for all the interesting historical stuff I learned, and the fact that this author and the character 怪人二十面相 are so well known among Japanese readers. Thank you to @Akashelia for hosting this book and to everyone who shared comments. It was really fun!

Last thought: the photo of a young Edogawa Ranpo in this webpage struck me. Am I the only one who thinks this looks like an older version of the earnest, devoted assistant 少年小林君?

EDOGAWA Ranpo | Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures | National...

[mitrac]

week 15 response

@Buruberimiruku

Week 15 thoughts

I was so curious what you would think of the ending since the real ending was in your comprehensive guess list, but you had so many other fun endings

Thanks for posting the screenshots!

Afterword

You made us an Afterword very nice parting gift, thank you for telling us the story!

@Buruberimiruku

Afterword: The Phantom with Twenty One Faces

I had a vague memory of knowing about this, way before this club, maybe Akashelia had mentioned it. And then I completely forgot while we were reading it!

That is so remarkable how far they got and never got caught. And they seemed to have pretty terrible intentions so it’s also surprising that no one ever actually got poisoned or intentionally hurt, and according to the article linked, they never actually got any ransom money. How mysterious.

[Buruberimiruku]

Thank you! I really enjoyed the selection and everything I learned. And having a group to discuss the book with! The IBC is the first book club I’ve ever joined.