Title:
The Kindaichi Case Files: The Legend of Lake HirenPublisher’s rating:
Age 13+Genre:
MysteryPublisher's Website:
TokyopopAnime:
Sound bite:
A group of people are trapped in a secluded resort—and someone is killing them off one by one! A clever take on an old plot, but definitely not for the kiddies.My rating:
For 13 and up, with caution. A Jason-type ax murderer, a plot that revolves around an ethical dilemma, and some sex talk make this manga unsuitable for most younger children.Kid Reviews:
More details:
Plot Summary:
Nerdy high school student Hajime Kindaichi and his friend Miyuke Nanase get a free trip to an exclusive resort when Miyuke's cousin gives them his tickets. On the evening they arrive, a radio bulletin reports that a serial murderer has escaped from a nearby prison. The next morning, as the group sits down to breakfast, a body falls from a tree. It is the corpse of one of the resort guests, and his face has been shredded with an ax—the signature of Jason, the serial killer. The other guests try to leave, only to see their only escape route, a rickety wooden bridge, go up in flames. The guests are picked off one by one, and Miyuke is injured by a booby trap. The murderer has not reckoned on Hajime, however; the nebbishy teenager is the grandson of Japan's greatest detective and is actually a brilliant sleuth himself. Hajime unravels the crime and sets a trap to catch the murderer.
Warning: Spoilers and plot twists ahead! Although a financial motive is suggested at first, what the killer is actually after is revenge. The murderer is Eiji Touno, the adopted son of the resort owner (the whole Jason thing is a smokescreen). Eiji is an orphan, and he and a girl, Keiko, grew up in a foster home together. Later they were separated, and Keiko was unhappy in her new home. To cheer her up, Eiji, who had fallen in love with Keiko, arranged for his father to let her take a cruise on one of his ships. The ship hit a tanker and Keiko was killed in the shipwreck; Eiji later learned that she had swum to a lifeboat but someone had pushed her away. His only clue to that person's identity was a keychain he found in Keiko's hand with the initials S.K. Eiji found all the people who had been on the ill-fated cruise and had the initials S.K. and invited them to the resort to murder them—including Miyuke's cousin, who had given away his passes.
One of the guests, Dr. Koda, describes the dilemma from the other side: He was in the lifeboat, which was already crowded, when Keiko swam up. If he had allowed her in, the lifeboat would have sunk and killed everyone aboard. He pushed her away, and has been haunted by the incident ever since, to the point that he has given up his medical practice and devoted himself to treating people in the remotest mountain areas.
Eiji threatens to blow everyone up unless Kindaichi kills Dr. Koda. Dr. Koda says that his life is already over and he is wiling to be sacrificed. But when Miyuke steps into the room, Eiji loses his resolve and runs away. He jumps into a boat on the nearby lake and crashes it, killing himself, perhaps on purpose. When the guests find a picture of Eiji and Keiko together, they realize that Miyuke looks just like Keiko, which explains Eiji's actions. But they also learn something else: Eiji and Keiko were brother and sister. Theirs was a forbidden love.
Character and morality:
The plot hinges on a fascinating moral dilemma: Was Dr. Koda wrong to push Keiko away, dooming her but sparing the lives of everyone else on the boat? The book handles it in an interesting way, by turning the tables on Dr. Koda. At the end, Miyuke reflects that had he been in the lifeboat, Eiji would have jumped out to his death in order to let Keiko live. She asks Hajime what he would do if he were in the lifeboat and she were drowning. Hajime's answer is facile: "I'd think up a way for us both to survive!"
The other dilemma is that of Eiji, who unknowingly fell in love with his own sister. This twist is brought in at the very end, but one character relates it to a legend about the lake near the resort. A boy and a girl from the nearby village fell in love, but they were kept apart. Pledging to be together in the afterlife, they threw themselves into the lake. The boy and girl, the character reveals, were also brother and sister.
Most of the characters trapped in the resort with Hajime and Miyuke are pretty unsavory: A cynical journalist, a greedy real estate developer and his gold-digging wife, and an artist who is fascinated with corpses. Dr. Koda stands out as troubled but decent. As more people die, the remaining resort guests get anxious and suspicious of each other and begin fighting, verbally and physically, among themselves.
Because he is using someone else's ticket, Hajime lies about his name, but he is quickly found out, and the tour leader allows him to stay on.
Violence:
This manga contains some graphic violence, and at other times the artist creates a chilling scene without being explicit. The masked ax murderer is shown raising his ax to strike or holding a bloody ax after doing the deed, but not actualy committing the murders. The shredded faces are just cross-hatched, not gruesome at all. In one murder scene, we do see the victim's face dripping blood. He tries to write the murderer's name with his bloody finger, but the murderer scuffs it out. We then see his corpse lying in a pool of blood. Miyuke trips a booby trap and is shot with a dart. We see the dart fly, and then, on the next page, Miyuke lying on the ground in pain, blood dripping down her leg.
For the most part, though, the artist creates fear in the reader by using the image of the murderer in his mask, holding his ax, rather than with gore and body parts. Restrained though this may be, most younger kids will find it frightening.
Sexuality/body functions:
The book opens with a discussion between Hajime and his schoolmates about a friend who has just lost his virginity. "It wasn't that big of a deal," the friend says, and another adds "He got it over with." Hajime is embarassed by his own virginity and determined to shed it as soon as possible, which is why he is eager to accompany Miyuke to the resort. Hajime and Miyuke are attracted to each other but reluctant to admit it. When they go on the trip they each pair up with a different guest, while being jealous of one another from afar, so Hajime never gets his wish. Hajime does get a glimpse of Miyuke's underpants (so do we) when he slips and falls on the way to the resort.
By contrast, Eiji's accidentally incestuous love for his sister is handled very delicately, and there is no suggestion it was ever consummated.
Language:
A few incidences of "damn" and "hell."
Substances:
On their first evening there, the resort guests have a party, and several, including a teenager, get drunk. One character, an unsavory reporter, always has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
