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Why call the police when you can hire a child private detective! Children’s books at their finest
I did not know that these were boy detectives, so it was a surprise for me although I imagine a lot of people knew this already.
I like that 明智 is away on a different case so 小林 can have a go in his place. Very mysterious plan he whispers to 羽柴, the narration cracks me up, love that.
9 仏像の奇跡
That was a quick resolution of the kidnap, this book has a good number of twists and turns.
I didn’t guess the plan until I saw the name of this chapter
I like the audacity of 小林 disguising himself as the statue. I was expecting him to keep up the charade as statue until the thief maybe left the statue alone for a while, I wasn’t expecting another stand off.
judging by the next chapter title and being 1/3 in, this might not end well for 小林
Finished this week’s reading. I don’t have many notes
I was wrong. He was not one of the henchmen but disguised as a beggar. It was obvious he wanted to keep observing the scene to make sure everything works according to plan. But I have to say, his way was better than simply going as one of the henchmen.
I took a look at the Wikipedia page before starting to read. It’s not that 明智 is as young, it’s just his helper 小林. So there’s “adult” novels which focus more on 明智 (and some of them are before 小林 exists) and there’s the “kids detective series” which we are reading the first of. These are aimed at a younger audience.
There’s also a big difficulty jump between the two. I read this book as one of my first books in Japanese and found it really approachable, but my first adult book by the same author was I think 黄金仮面 and was significantly harder. I think it landed at a Natively 34 or so? (Actually I just checked and it landed at 38? The most recent book I read by him, 黒蜥蜴, was L35 though). A lot of that has to do with the age of the text though, and use of archaic kanji. Some versions have modernized text so ratings end up all over the place
Ah, I thought maybe 明智 was just pretending to be his own assistant. Being just a boy, it’s easier to get accepted as an assistant than as the actual 名探偵. He could also reveal his true identity if he succeeds, or keep the disguise otherwise. Once again I was overthinking, given this is just a children’s book.
I have no complaints though, the story really is exciting, and the narration is excellent.
A fun week! I have to agree with most everyone that the narration is fantastic. Really takes me back to the sort of books I read as a kid. I wonder why there is so little adult oriented fiction with such a strong voice for the narrator (or lacks any narration at all). I suppose it’s been ingrained as cheesy or childish, but I’m having fun! Side note, this being my first IBC, I was a bit worried about keeping up, but I finally made the switch to digital reading to make it easier and wow does it make a world of difference… I still really love my physical books, but the ease of adding words to anki will now be missed even more when I go back haha
I’m having this problem too listening to the audiobook biking or on the bus prove to be worse for my focus than when I was going for a walk. I’ll try going for a walk again next week (would just be nice if it was a bit less cold )
I really enjoyed the part where Kobayashi hypes up the detective agency by telling Soutaro and Old Man Kondo about the time that Great Detective Akechi went to France and gave the phantom thief Arsene Lupin a hard time (I enjoyed learning the expression ひどい目にあう）
I love how Edogawa Ranpo reveals to readers that this fictional world includes both Twenty Faces and the French phantom thief Arsene Lupin. Either kids were already familiar with Lupin at the time, or it was Edogawa Ranpo’s way of introducing them to another great series. I don’t know how often authors do this (mesh their fictional world with another author’s) but I think it’s neat.
My favorite 2 phrases from this week’s reading are:
1. まぶたの裏に浮かぶ (to appear on the back of one’s eyelids) which is used by mother Hashiba when she could see clearly in her mind the image of her son Souji-kun crying alone in a locked basement room It’s interesting that’s where the image appears in Japanese. Whereas in English you see it with your mind’s eye. I think there’s a difference, but maybe I’m overthinking it.
2. さじを投げる (to throw the spoon). This is used By Sanae Hashiba when she tells her father that the Great Detective Akechi is so good that he took on and solved many affairs that the police had given up on. The closest expression in English seems to be to “Throw in the towel” (or in French to “throw the sponge”) which is an expression that comes from boxing.
It turns out that さじを投げる dates back to the Edo era (1600-1868), and refers to the medicinal dispensing spoons doctors used to compound medicine to treat ill patients. When the compound medicine didn’t work or they couldn’t come up with an appropriate compounded medicine, the doctor basically gave up trying to treat the patient - or threw away the spoon.
Translated literally, I understood the first expression, but not the second. After reading the definition, I initially thought it had to do with trying to finish a meal you no longer had a taste for and gave up…
The most recent book I read by him, 黒蜥蜴, was L35 though). A lot of that has to do with the age of the text though, and use of archaic kanji. Some versions have modernized text so ratings end up all over the place
listening to the audiobook biking or on the bus prove to be worse for my focus than when I was going for a walk. I’ll try going for a walk again next week (would just be nice if it was a bit less cold 
)
dare I ask which rabbit holes led to finding that?