怪人二十面相 🦹 (IBC) - Week 7

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怪人二十面相 :supervillain:
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Week 7 February 14th, 2026
Chapter(s) 15+16 おそろしき挑戦状 + 美術城
Audio version [1] video 7
Previous week Week 6
Next week Week 8

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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: (IBC) - Week 8
怪人二十面相 :supervillain: (Intermediate Book Club) [ongoing, week 10/15]
怪人二十面相 :supervillain: (Intermediate Book Club) [ongoing, week 10/15]
怪人二十面相 :supervillain: (IBC) - Week 6
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15 おそろしき挑戦状
Quite a bit of dialogue and slang!

Summary

Nakamura is questioning the thief, who doesn’t answer so he takes off the wig and mask to reveal… an ugly man. He can’t believe it’s the thief. The man introduces himself as the cook (木下虎吉 Kinoshita Torakichi)! He says the thief forced him to swap clothes, and the thief disguised himself as an officer pretending to have caught the thief. Nakamura realises this is possible and gathers the officers to ask if anyone else left the scene. One officer bravely tells of an officer who left the scene running to make a phone call. Oops! Haha, and after all that, the cook is like, oh by the way here’s a letter for you (Nakamura). The thief writes about his admiration of 小林 and his new plans (bored of Hashiba’s mansion) for something bigger.

comments

After the discussion in the last chapter, now I’m disappointed that the thief didn’t drive off with the cook he just 'arrested ’ :sweat_smile: that was a great idea

I find the emphasis on the cook’s ugly face as the primary clue to not being the thief as pretty shallow, but perhaps typical of the time? Not that society has let go of the idea that people who have a more idealised attractive appearance are smarter.

As already discussed, I was not expecting the arrested man to be the cook. It totally makes sense as a successful ploy to cause a ruckus and run out. But I didn’t feel like there was time for changing disguises and writing letters. In the previous chapter I’ll just imagine it took a lot longer to break down the doors then it sounded like from the narration …

The letter is an exciting development. It sounds like a new scene moving away from Hashiba.

16 美術城
The completely new scene + name soup made this chapter feel like starting a new book (in terms of difficulty).

Summary

We’re now in 谷口村 Taniguchi village and there is a peculiar fortified building the locals call 日下部のお城 Kusakabe castle. The Kusakabe family used to be big land owners but as far as I understand now the last in line old man Samon 左門老人 has lost the land over time and just has the castle-like family home/ mansion full of art including ancient masters like 雪舟 and 探幽.

Of course, he gets a letter from the phantom thief who will strike tonight. Samon thinks all is lost but then remembers a newspaper article (and asks his servants to find all recent copies so he can find it). It turns out the great detective 明智小五郎 is taking a much needed break at a local 旅館. Samon rushes out to interrupt his rest and enlist his services.

No comments on the story, more the writing style.

I wonder if it was an educational choice to use 幅 on the first page for it’s reading はば meaning gap for the moat, and then on the next pages with the reading ぷく for scrolls.

And here was an interesting collection of 3 lookalike kanji in one phrase:

堀を掘っても、塀の上に

At least, for me it was very educational to have them all together.

Interesting phrases
六十の坂 the 60 year (age) mark
白羽の矢を立てる しらはのやをたてる to select someone (among many). Lovely image

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Wow it took me some time to spot the differences xD Particularly between 1 and 2.

Here, nothing new under the sun / snow. Funny how we are week 7 but things are still pretty much the same as week 1, there is still plenty of snow + my listening comprehension has not improved one bit! The biggest problem is that I keep phasing out and forget to listen :see_no_evil_monkey:

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chapter 16 ff plot:

I think it is pretty obvious that we will see roughly the same plot as in the first story. A rich man who fears for his most valuable goods turns his house into a fortress and then invites an unknown person to his house to protect it. In the end it turns out that this person is really 二十面相 in the disguise of a returning son or a famous detective who has well prepared his coup (letters, photos, newspaper article).

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Finished this part.

A fair warning for our slower readers. I had some challenge with the start of chapter 15. I felt like I had to look up way more than usual. It went back to a normal level a little later on. Maybe it was just me, but I wanted to encourage you all to work through it :smiley:

Thoughts on 15

The previous comments were already on point.
But one big thing that stood out to me is that the cook used あたし. I found that strange. From all I can gather, he is male. There seems to be some cultural nuance I don’t get. Does anyone have any sources on using あたし as man? (not as joke or drag)

Another thing that irked me was that the thief and author both thought the thief won. He lost his hideout and he lost the diamonds he already has in his possession. How the hell is that a win. Since he was not arrested, it was not a total defeat, but a defeat nonetheless!

I’m a little disappointed though that it will apparently be 2 independent cases and not one overarching case.

To 2000Kanji:

it is pretty obvious that the 明智 he is going to fetch is a fake one. I mean he even thinks to himself what a luck it is that 明智 is just now in town… Can’t be more obvious (children’s book).
I thought after the letter: how will he manage to steal ALL the pictures at once. But given he can probably instruct 佐門 to move the paintings somewhere, that shouldn’t be a problem anymore.
Then a chapter later the real 探偵 (小林 again or this time 明智？) will show up. I’m still enjoying the ride reasonably well, even though I can predict what will happen.

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I kinda blew past that nodding my head but you’re totally right. 小林’s win.

well, to be fair, it could still turn into a cook/thief romance or courtroom drama as other have hoped :wink:

I tried and failed to find anything in Japanese.

From the pronouns table in this Japanese pronouns Wikipedia article I dug this out on the あたし line:

A feminine pronoun that strains from わたし (watashi). Rarely used in written language, but common in conversation, especially among younger women. It was formerly used by male members of the merchant and artisan classes in the Edo area and continues to be used by male rakugo performers.

So perhaps it started as an informal male pronoun but gradually shifted towards women. But I didn’t see anything about when that might have happened or what pronoun use was like in the early part of the 20th century

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I noticed that as well. Some tricky descriptions.

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Interesting to hear that others found chapter 15 challenging! I had to read most of it in chunks of 1 page at a time, but I thought that was just me.

thoughts on chapter 15
  1. Wow, Edogawa-sensei really went all out with the description of how ugly this man is. (Is he perhaps trying to impress on us that Zoku is way out of Kokku’s league and that’s why Kokku is willing to get arrested by the police for him?!? (Obviously Kokku wouldn’t say as much to the police cause he’d get in trouble for obstructing justice.))
  2. It’s funny how, no matter how many times Zoku evades them in (to them) absolutely unbelievable ways, they never think that he could pull the same trick again. :joy:

It doesn’t really surprise me that the thief counts this situation as a victory. He’s super vain, so it makes sense that he would act like “meh, I didn’t really like that stuff that much anyway.” But would be nice to see some recognition (from the author) of Kobayashi-kun for saving/recovering both the statue AND the jewels!

Oh yeah, also, what’s up with the use of 手をそめる in Zoku’s letter? I couldn’t figure that out. Does it really mean “to begin”? Because it doesn’t seem like that’s what it means in this context… Scratch that, I thought he was saying he was ‘getting his hands on’ something big, but actually he was just saying he was getting started on something big.

definition

「手を染める」は手をつける、事業などに関係するという意味である。「そめる」はその行為がはじまるという意味で、現在では「染める」と書くことが多いのだが、もともとは「初める」あるいは「始める」と表記されていた

第378回 「手を染める」 - 日本語、どうでしょう？

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Finally finishing a chapter with a little time to spare this week…

Yeah I was also rather shocked by the description of the cook in this chapter. The narration was like “This man was so abhorrently fugly he could not possibly be the great and unstoppable phantom thief!!” Like, what does that have to do with it at all :sob: Especially considering (although I do consider it’s necessary for plot reasons) the phantom thief is actually super dumb, and not at all good at his job.

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Reading the next chapter I was thinking … it might actually be good for Salmon-san to have all his stuff stolen. This guy needs a what-the-hell-are-you-doing-with-your-life check!

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Finally caught up. I agree that the Kogoro is going to be a fake. In fact, the newspaper itself was probably a fake. And then the Fiend impersonating Kogoro is going to make it personal for Kogoro and get the real one involved.

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Finished week 7. As warned by others (thank you!), it was humbling to have to look up soo many words. It was kind of a bummer to realize I’m not even at base camp on my Everest climb to fluency… However! despite the challenges, I really enjoyed reading the hilarious comments, cool language observations, and seeing the stunning wintry scene (I can practically hear the squeaky sound of the snow under footsteps in that photo @akashelia). :smiley:

Week 7 thoughts

1. police interrogation of fake thief: I was really hoping that thief and cook had hatched a plan where they overpower a lone police officer, swap clothes with him, gag him, put the old man mask on him and tie his hands. It would explain why he was mute the whole interrogation and would leave both thief and cook to run away together somehow. Alas, it was not to be… for the letter, I agree, it seems amazing he wrote all that to 小林くん in the attic. Maybe he has a set of prepared letters for different occasions. :thinking: One thing for sure, he’s vain and overly confident so one day he will trip up I hope!.. I also don’t get why Rampo is so unnecessarily mean about the Cook. What did he do to get all this hate? The description is so detailed and over the top, it’s almost like Cook is so ugly he’s become kind of ぶさかわ adorably ugly? or maybe i’m spreading false gossip…

2. Samon and his castle of treasures (and poor shuffling old manservant): I can’t see any other story development than what everyone already guessed: the Great Detective Akechi Kogoro is not, in fact, recuperating at the Shuzenji Onsen after a long trip abroad, but is actually the thief. This whole set up is (1) initial communication designed to create alarm/force the victim into emotional decision-making → (2) convenient solution falls out of sky → (3) totally swindled. I’m kind of amazed that the exact formula is still used today by tons of scammers phoning vulnerable victims who are led believe that, eg., due to a bank fraud investigation, the victim must move all their money into a bitcoin wallet while the bank-FTC investigate etc. And while Samon-san may be a victim of thief, I totally agree with @maravos, Samon-san needs an intervention for this unhealthy hoarding lifestyle. Plant a garden in that walled-in fortress, put some carp in that ocean trench deep moat, give Sakuzou-san a well-deserved vacation!

3. fifth dimension side missions : Shuzenji Onsen seems pretty nice and super old, going back to the 800s (when the great Monk Kukai founded the temple). In addition to the thief, guests apparently include Soseki Natsume. While I could not find a town called 谷口村 or 日下部’s white castle, funnily enough, I did find a 富士屋旅館 (where “Akechi” is staying) about 7 minutes drive from the onsen. The outside is drab looking, but the food looks good. I’m assuming if the thief/fake Akechi stayed there, it was because of the food, seeing as how he employed a cook, he seems to take food seriously. Here are the directions in case anyone finds themselves on the Izu Penninsula and wants to go take a look.

Whatever comes next, it’s going to happen quickly because chapter 16 ended the day of the thief’s planned visit to Samon-san’s castle, right?

I love this…alliteration? I notice here 塀 is used whereas previously 土塀 was used.

My favorite word for this week is:

剣幕 (angry look): On page 84, 左門さん orders his manservant 作蔵 to get the pile of newspapers while expressing a scary menacing/angry look (恐ろしいけんまくで命じました). Or at least I think that’s what the sentence meant. I looked up the word けんまくor 剣幕 which uses the kanji for sword and curtain. This made me curious as to how it came to mean angry look.

According to google, including this webpage about 剣幕, it seems to be one of those words which has a so-called “folk etymology” where the original word had a certain pronunciation and over time, the sound shifted slightly and new kanji became associated with it. So the original word appears to be 見脈 (けんみゃく) or taking a pulse/looking at a vein. I get an image of someone’s veins bulging from their neck/forehead pulse racing in anger. The sound evolved over time so that けんみゃく (見脈）–> けんまく(見幕) → けんまく(剣幕).

I think a similar example of “folk etymology” in English would be the word hangnail which gives the impression of a piece of skin sort of hanging from the cuticle. But the original word was “ang” which is old english for pain and “naegl” for nail.

This is all google-fu and the first time I have ever heard of folk etymology so I could be misunderstanding the term. But I thought the explanation for 剣幕 was neat.

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reply

Great fantasy

Nice find, especially the site with the photos of the beautiful onsen :star_struck: I gave up after not being about to find the town

Interesting notes about folk etymology, too!

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ハハ！ I looked too!

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Good solution: The Fiend takes Kogoro’s place
Better solution: The Fiend takes the servant’s wife’s place
Best solution: The Fiend has always been the servant’s wife

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Omg best theories ever :joy:

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Join us in week 8 to find out if any of the theories prove to be true and if there is still snow in Denmark!

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W7

I’m embarrassed to admit that I did not consider the possibility that the thief would masquerade as the detective, meaning that I’m as clueless as the people in this book. It makes complete sense though, especially since I expect that Kobayashi is the one who should continue the investigation, so I don’t expect his sensei to suddenly appear.

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On the ugliness of the cook

So I wouldn’t say that it’s just that everyone is surprised that an ugly guy could be the thief because they just so happened to hate ugly people in this book, more that this passage is reflecting the social and scientific ideas of the time. The idea that someone’s features could be scientifically proven to be related to their mental prowess was a highly popular pseudoscience. There were certain measurements (like, say, the width between someone’s eyebrows) that ‘proved’ certain aspects of their personality and intelligence. Phrenology is a version of this pseudoscience focusing on the shape of the skull as it relates to intelligence. And yes, this was just as racist and eugenicist as it sounds :joy: These types of ‘science’ were used to prop up arguments for all kinds of evils, such as a justification for slavery.

This was so popular and widely believed that you can basically find it in any old timey media- I was jumpscared by it once when reading a Bertie Wooster book when Bertie casually says that Jeeves is clearly intelligent because the great science of phrenology proves it. Bertie, no! Don’t listen to the racist pseudoscience!

For a more modern example, Terry Pratchett references this a few times in his Discworld books. One reference is this joke about retrophrenology:

“Retrophrenology:
It works like this. Phrenology, as everyone knows, is a way of reading someone’s character, aptitude and abilities by examining the bumps and hollows on their head. Therefore - according to the kind of logical thinking that characterizes the Ankh-Morpork mind - it should be possible to mould someone’s character by giving them carefully graded bumps in all the right places. You can go into a shop and order an artistic temperament with a tendency to introspection and a side order of hysteria. What you actually get is hit on the head with a selection of different size mallets, but it creates employment and keeps the money in circulation, and that’s the main thing.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

There’s also a villain in another Terry Pratchett book (Night Watch) who is a phrenology adherent and measures people, then, determining that they’re ontologically evil criminals due to their facial features, does bad things to them (they deserve it, after all).

The focus on the cook’s ugliness in the book here therefore makes sense in this context, because how could it be that someone with these features is the 二十面相 that’s outsmarted every police department? It’s just not possible.

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Very interesting historical context to the baffling focus on the cook’s looks. Thank you for the explanation!

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