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The watchman says someone used a stinky cloth with anesthesia to cause him to lose consciousness. They find the servants tied up. Samon is angry with Akechi and… Akechi starts to smile. Samon slowly realises something isn’t right but doesn’t get it until he asks the detectives to untie the servants and they tie him up instead. Poor Samon goes out swinging and tries hard not to believe he’s been duped by fake Akechi.
thoughts
Well that was hard to watch. It was interesting that the narrator highlighted how the thief’s speech being more polite would frustrate Samon more. Something I realise I need to pick up more on in Japanese writing and it’s interesting to see some direct guidance on interpreting cues in a children’s book.
So this answered the question I had of why the thief stayed - yes ego driven, but also perhaps enjoyment at being able to twist the knife: he warned his victim, they did what they could to prevent the theft, and he really seems to like being there for the cruel ending where they fully realise how they got tricked. It is quite similar in that way as well to the first case as someone guessed last week. It’s quite cruel for someone who doesn’t want to physically hurt people.
Favourite expression
狐につままれる / to be confused, to be baffled, (lit) to be bewitched by a fox
Maybe I need a new section, favorite taunt:
血のめぐりが悪いじゃありませんか
20 巨人と怪人
Summary
It’s half a month later. Akechi is returning and Kobayashi goes to meet him at the station. There he meets 辻野 who wants to talk to Akechi. We learn in 9 days the thief will target a museum and wants to take everything. When Akechi arrives, Kobayashi is excited, it’s been 3 months since they’ve seen each other. 辻野 wants to talk to Akechi about something secret. Akechi whispers something to Kobayashi and then sends him on his way. Akechi goes with Tujino and it seems a fancy reservation has been made in advance. We follow them to the hotel and when it gets to the secret part of the meeting where the waiter is sent out and Tujino tells Akechi how much he was waiting to meet him, Akechi, not to be outdone, switches to casual speech and says on the contrary, he was waiting to meet him! The fake Tujino has been outed as the thief by the great detective Akechi. Then they basically have a stand off of wits and we’re left wondering how the tension will break.
thoughts
I love how excited Kobayashi is to see his hero! And how quaint (for us) that Akechi heard of Kobayashi’s tussle with the thief in the newspaper.
Akechi seems to pause or evaluate Tujino enough at the station platform I had wondered if it was a clue that he suspected Tujino. At this point any unknown character is the thief. To be fair, the title of the chapter means I could have already guessed this. By the next page when it’s revealed, I was still pleased I caught the きみ. I’m thinking wait a minute here… Akechi called this guy きみ! Hah, finally, picking up on stuff like that.
Conjecture
So will the thief try to kidnap Akechi? What did Akechi whisper to Kobayashi? Did Kobayashi already alert the authorities?! We have to keep reading to find out.
Favourite word moment:
白刃 spotted! Enter shock! I learned that early on (year 1 or so) when I was learning kanji, specifically 刃 came very early in the kklc course, and that was was suggested for learning the kun reading. Later I gave up srsing such words thank goodness. Took me 8 or 9 years to come across that in the wild.
For me it was 世間話! I’ve heard it for months in Utaco’s intro, without knowing what it was. Was happy to spot it in the audio so that I could finally look up its reading in the Aozora version
End of the story about 日下部左門 and his castle of treasures: I kind of feel bad for his old manservant and the missus (I enjoyed learning this word おかみさん!) but I don’t really feel bad for 老人金持ち hoarder…maybe it’s just a reflection of our current times…
New showdown between 巨人と怪人: I wonder what it was that tipped Akechi off as to the real identity of Tsujino-san and what he whispered in Kobayashi’s ear…it’s hard to believe that the Great Detective would just walk into a trap like that, where the hotel could be filled with the thief’s henchmen and even the waiters could be working for him. Does the fact that the thief is sweating mean he was caught off guard by Akechi’s confident attitude?
I love these expressions too! Especially the taunt I recall years ago taking a taxi that ended up being involved in a “road rage” altercation with another taxi. At a red light, my driver rolled down the window and yelled to the other driver stopped next to us, “Do you know what your problem is, my fellow countryman? You are too fat!” and we drove off.
I’ve listened to so many of Utaco’s intros but I realize I never actually broke them down…
Another interesting expression for me is 赤子の手をねじる (to accomplish something with ease) The thief uses this to taunt poor old man Samon before he takes off with his treasures. It seems meaner than “taking candy from a baby” although they are both kind of mean.
It’s possible I have a different version of the book than you @simias. I found no mention of Manchuria or Manchukuo up to the end of Week 9 anyway. My version (kindle) describes Detective Akechi as being 外国. I checked to see if the Aozora version had Manchuria mentioned and I was unable to find any. Maybe I zoned out? Or revised editions made changes in light of the tragic history in Manchuria (and Nanking and elsewhere) Anyway, after I read your comment I went down a rabbit hole about that time period and learned a lot about the Feb 26 incident and expansion into Manchuria…but I got so far off the track that I was no longer 道草を食ってたん and decided to delete the post entirely for everyone’s sake.
Hehe I already listened to this week’s but maybe I can snap a picture next week. The snow has melted, the sun is shining, a few flowers are out already. If you don’t watch the news at all, you might just say that life is beautiful
I just noticed that there’s some old-school kana too, like ゐない (for いない) in the first column. I think I must have read it みない at first so I missed it… There’s also 思う spelled 思ふ.
I would have expected Aozora to have the original spelling but it seems that they have a modernized version then, and my random epub is closer to the original but with modernized kanji and kana.
What I find strange in the lines I see you all share is that a lot of the kanji vocab seems to have been outright converted to kana, even for common words like 来る、本当、今度⋯ All that stuff is in kanji in my version, and judging by the page of the old book above I expect that it was also in the original.
Wow, crazy spelling. Would have definitely expected Aozora to have some of the old spellings too, from what I saw of it (especially around Christmas when the Aozora advent calendar is running), it’s almost like a completely different language over there
(agreed that it is weird for the kanji → kana, no idea why though)
Nice find! Interesting that 満洲国 was quietly changed with the modernisation.
I’ve been wondering why it’s felt like old school vocabulary with modern kanji (where they appear), and a very haphazard strategy of kanji removal.
I am guessing whoever did the modernisation that became the Aozora version did it for free (so unprofessional), but they were aiming at modern norms for elementary school age children (the target for this book): kanji density is decreased by replacing with kana even for some simple words children can read, and middle school + kanji are simply replaced with kana. But I’m guessing it wasn’t a professional as the choice for kanji inclusion doesn’t at all follow grading. It looks like a vibes based kanji → kana and partial furigana strategy for someone who was trying to hit ~grade 6 but they actually ended up including many modern middle school level kanji (which my friend tells me most elementary school children can actually read). So it may well be whatever level that person could remember reading in ~6th grade.
I have spent far too much time comparing kanji, kana and furigana use in books to grade level lists but it has finally come in handy!
I also know that the general kanji density in Japanese tended to drop post WW2 until the ~late 80s when digital text took over and it became very easy to write even complicated kanji when you didn’t have to handwrite them and average kanji density went up again.
I noticed that while reading manga from the 80s, they seem significantly less kana-heavy than modern shonen fare (although my sample size may be too small to be really significant).
So maybe the Aozora text was edited around that time and they just heavily toned down the kanji? Whereas my edition is only a few years old, so they may have felt more comfortable just keeping the kanji in place (sometimes with furigana) and kept the modernization to a minimum.
I recall years ago taking a taxi that ended up being involved in a “road rage” altercation with another taxi. At a red light, my driver rolled down the window and yelled to the other driver stopped next to us, “Do you know what your problem is, my fellow countryman? You are too fat!” and we drove off.
but it has finally come in handy!