Surprise of the day - Kindaichi Hajime & Nanase Miyuki's happily-ever-after

This was definitely the surprise of the day.

Kindaichi Hajime & Nanase Miyuki already married? And expecting a baby??!

Seeing this screenshot making its rounds on social media was such a pleasant surprise. And as a longtime fan of the "Kindaichi Shonen no Jikenbo" series, this was really something that should have come a long time earlier than now.

I was still a teenager when I started reading the Kindaichi manga, albeit in Chinese since I was just starting out to learn Japanese. And in order to get the latest release as soon as possible, I had to buy the Taiwanese version instead of the local version so that was a huge investment considering my status as a student then. It was only until much later when I started collecting the Japanese version and had to wait months between each book's release. As for the real-life dramas and anime, I had watched most of them except for the 3rd generation and 5th generations' drama series. 

Honestly speaking, the series actually wasn't that suitable for teenagers. Since every case was about murders, sometimes serial murders and at times involved underaged people being the killers, the MOs and motives depicted certainly couldn't be considered wholesome and healthy for teenagers to read. However, what got me interested was not so much the gore or the motives spurring those killers to exact justice for themselves or their loved ones but rather the intricate plots and the MOs that the killers used to commit their crimes. The twists and turns in some of these stories were so engaging and the gratification of being able to guess them correctly was a huge plus as I got more familiar with the deduction process and became more alert to observe the clues left around by the authors.

However, by the time it came to the 37-year-old Kindaichi series, I started to feel the fatigue from the repetition of the story's format. Things were getting predictable although the MO and techniques used were mostly evolving with the times. Despite so, the motives of the killers and the "truth revelation" process were getting stale. It was also frustrating to have the carrot or rather mystery of what's up with Miyuki being dangled like forever because she never appeared in the new series other than the occasional mention. Given these reasons, I stopped purchasing the manga after Vol. 13.

So...with this new revelation, what does this mean next for me?

For a start, do I want to catch up on the volumes which I missed from the 37-year-old series? Will these feature the story of what happened between these childhood-friends-turned-husband-and-wife? Or will this part only be covered in the "Kindaichi Papa" series which will start in Jan 2025? Then again, the timing of this revelation just makes me wonder if it's a ruse to get old-time fans back for the new series but end up being taken for a ride again.

While it is probably not reasonable to expect too much from this series given that it has gone on for decades and there are limits to how much it can evolve, I certainly look forward to seeing some progression in the key characters' lives. And this is really, a very much anticipated outcome that most if not all fans have been waiting for.

Review of "Fumi wa yaritashi" by Nakatani Miki (book)

A long time ago, I first saw Nakatani Miki in the drama "Keizoku" where she played the somewhat eccentric and very smart Shibata Jun. Back then, I found that she was quite unlike the Japanese actresses who I had seen so far. I really enjoyed watching that drama which I attributed to the story as well as her brilliant chemistry with Watabe Atsuro. Subsequently, I came across more of her works and in no time, she became one of my all-time favourite actresses.

It is a bit difficult to pinpoint exactly what I like about her but I guess her elegant and learned image along with her versatile acting is a huge draw factor. However, this was the very first time I came across her written works despite the fact that she has already published a number of books to date. In fact, buying this book was not planned as I came across this on the shelves by chance and was curious about the content which is a compilation of her essays in "Shosetsu Gento" published between 2016 and 2023.

To begin with, the title "Fumi wa yaritashi" is part of a Japanese proverb "文はやりたし書く手は持たぬ" (Fumi wa yaritashi Kakute wa motanu" which means lamenting one's lack of written skills when trying to write a love letter but cannot ask someone to help with this task. As such, you can probably interpret this to mean that Nakatani had a lot of thoughts that she wanted to convey but didn't feel that her writing was good enough to do this well. 

I personally felt that her writing was smooth and easy to read in contrary to what the title suggested. Moreover, it was very interesting to know her thoughts about various topics, insights about her acting work, her personal life before and after getting married as well as the differences and titbits about living in Japan and Austria especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even for topics such as the Ukraine war or her views about the stringent COVID measures in Japan vs. what she went through in Austria at the height of the pandemic, it was a surprise to see her being very candid about these things because most celebrities in Japan would try to steer clear of making their views known in case of courting unnecessary controversy or having their views misinterpreted.

If I have to pick out one thing in this book which I didn't enjoy that much, it would have to be the essays about classical music which were a tad challenging for me. While I do enjoy listening to classical music at times, I don't consider myself as an expert and often, I don't even know or remember the titles and composers unless the title is very short or it's a favourite piece of mine which I am very familiar with. As such, when such titles and the names of the composers kept popping up in her essays about classical music, I found myself "switching off" a bit and skipping some parts because I didn't even know which piece she was referring to. Nonetheless, her passion and knowledge about classical music was definitely unmistakable through her words so I think those who are in the know on this genre would enjoy reading about these parts.

For those who like Nakatani or would just like to know more about her, this book will be a good starting point for you to do so through her own words. Not only will you know about the behind-the-scenes preparations and hard work she had to do as an actress, you get to see how she lived outside the limelight as well. There is no lack of moments that will make you chuckle at times so her witty humour is bound to make the reading experience more enjoyable than you can imagine.

A mirror into the double standards within us - Review of "Concerning My Daughter" by Kim Hye-jin

Fancy taking a long and hard look into the mirror to confront the uncomfortable truth about our inner self?

For a start, this story may seem to be a simple and typical generational gap tale about the conflicts between a mother and her daughter. 

Fortunately, that is not the case. However, be warned that this is going to make you very uncomfortable in more ways than one.

Maybe your personal circumstances are unlike any of the four women featured in this story. Perhaps your relationships with your parents or children aren’t in the same state as what’s depicted here. Or it could be that the place where you live in has an entirely different set of values and societal norms as compared to South Korea. However, these differences wouldn’t matter at all since the author skillfully crafted this story in such a way that the reader can empathize with the plight or situations which the key characters find themselves to be in, be it by choice or circumstances. 

As I delved further into the book, it soon dawned on me that this story was like a mirror thrust right in front of my face and forced me to acknowledge that I do have double standards as well. Much as we would all like to see ourselves as being accepting and welcoming of so-called modern or advanced values, there is often a core value system we have within ourselves that we may not be comfortable sharing with others. Perhaps it is due to the fear of being seen as old-fashioned, prejudiced or simply discriminating. And depending on the issue at hand and the people involved, the values to be applied and your views will differ accordingly.

Initially, the lead character’s double standards when looking at the situation of her daughter Green and Jen i.e. the patient she was caring for, really irked me. On one hand, she felt that her daughter Green deserved better in life because “girls with far less desirable qualities get married and live comfortably” as compared to Green. On the other hand, she was very critical of Green’s life choices because they simply did not fit into the “standard formula of a so-called happy life” i.e. marriage, kids and a stable income. And her insistence at "setting things correct" as if they can be changed at will just simply infuriated me. I wondered why she didn’t see that her life didn't end up as ideal as she would have expected despite her being married and having a kid. And most certainly, one’s happiness shouldn’t be dependent on another person or determined by someone else's presence.

Likewise, the lead character seemed to be in awe of Jen’s life achievements before the latter got dementia which was very ironic because she had looked down on people who didn’t get married or have kids and chose to focus on their careers. If Green was in a better employment or career situation in life, would the lead character have minded so much that Green had an “atypical” partner? At the same time, while she admired Jen's achievements on the professional front, she was also critical of Jen’s situation on the private front towards the end of her life – alone with no kids and being stuck in a nursing home that had absolutely no intention of giving her the best care possible. As such, she kept wondering if Jen had followed the “normal course in life”, would Jen have ended up in a better place? Perhaps this fear that Green may end up in this same sorry state as Jen was what kept pushing the lead character over the edge as she tried to do what she thought was in Green's best interests.

One of the most memorable scenes in the book was when the lead character was lashing out at Lane for making her and Green’s life miserable. Right up till this point, I would say that I simply disliked her for imposing her own values on her daughter and tried to seek affirmation and validation in life through her daughter’s “success” in life. Then this scene showed the extent of the anger and frustration that she had accumulated about the situation and that’s when I started seeing the “other side” of the story. Perhaps her anger was justified after all. Then again, it was probably over the board at the same time and definitely wrong to be directing this fury at an innocent party. 

The good thing out of this episode was, the realization actually worked two-fold here – both for the lead character and me as a reader. Not only did I get to understand her perspective better, it also made the lead character realize that there was more than meets the eye. There were aspects of Green’s relationship with Lane which she never understood or knew and until someone spelled it out for her, she could have continued to misunderstand what was going on.

Besides the double standards that we may apply on ourselves and others subconsciously, the other concept worth exploring was meaning.

I don’t mean lofty interpretations of this word but rather the meaning or value we attach to the things or people in our lives. What matters most to you may not be the same as others. Once you get critical and refuse to appreciate the fact that we have different ideas about meaning in life, you start to drive your own values down someone’s throat and make them accept your value system. Nobody likes it and yet we may be guilty of doing it to others in our own lives. 

I’m not saying that the lead character is totally at fault here. It may be true that she is totally unaccepting of Green’s ideals and what she sees value in life. However, Green is also guilty of the same thing. She resists the ideas of traditional happiness imposed by her mother on her but isn’t she also trying to make her mother accept the so-called “modern world” values? Or why she jeopardizes her own well-being fighting for things which her mother sees no value in? From the sidelines, it’s easy to just say that they should thrash things out and communicate. That’s easier said than done because we ourselves may not be able to do the same in real life.

And this got me wondering, how guilty am I in doing the same to the people around me?

Despite the fact that I am neither a mother nor am entirely in the same situation as any of the main characters, it was easy to see how these discussions of differing standards, meaning and values applied to my own life. To be honest, there were some parts of the story which made me extremely uncomfortable in more ways than one as if I was the one being criticized. On the other hand, I appreciated the honest and hard questions being thrown at me because they got me reflecting and thinking about myself and others.

It may be true that we are usually seeking entertainment or fun while reading a book. This story though, does not fit into such a standard frame. 

It challenges you to see things from another perspective.

It makes you think how you may have done the exact same thing to others just like what the key characters did to one another.

And more importantly, it brings about awareness. The presence of difference as well as respecting it while not necessarily accepting it.

Be sure to check this out and embark on a journey of self-reflection which can be uncomfortable yet liberating at the end.

Book Review - 放手，是最好的祝福 / 于美人

As this book is in Chinese, I thought that it would be best for me to write the review in Chinese too where I'll be able to express my thoughts better:

“认识”于美人其实是无心插柳的。

当时应该是2008年左右，在转台时无意看到她所主持的《国民大会》。她那风趣又时而自嘲的谈吐，跟任何嘉宾都能很好地交流，把复杂或沉闷的主题都能用生动和简单的方式呈现，我就因此成为这个节目的忠实观众。很遗憾的是，美人姐突然从这个节目中消失，我也因此停止看《国民大会》。所幸，之后在其他节目如《新闻挖哇哇》，《非關命運》，《一天壹蘋果》中又见到美人姐。只可惜，有些节目已经停播了，至今仍然在网上追看的节目只有《新闻挖哇哇》。

对于美人姐的印象，一直是一个坚强有主见，同时兼顾工作和家庭的职业女性。然而，2013年发生的婚变让这样完美的形象变得有瑕疵。当时媒体很热衷于报道婚变的种种故事，很多名嘴又你一言我一语地批评她，当中还不乏一些曾是所谓好友的人，看了有点反胃。老实说，婚姻出现问题很多时候不一定是一个人的问题，就因为美人姐在事业上和经济上处于优势就把责任全推给她有点欠公平。当然，我也不打算多讨论谁是谁非，既然已经离婚就不需要再多加着墨。人不会完美，这件事之后美人姐也应该认同的是，她虽然失去一些，却也得到不少。我个人的感觉是她似乎没有那么强烈的自我防卫感，现在比较怡然自得。

听到美人姐要出这本书，其实有点担心会不会又被说成是旧事重提或炒作新闻。看完之后，觉得反省和澄清一些不实的报道的成分占大部分，所以应该不至于被说成这样。特别的是，整本书不是美人姐写的，因为穿插了各界好友的观点，所以可以从多方面了解大家对婚变这件事的看法。当中一些并不是名人的友人，用比较平淡的方式，提出的观点又有些许重复，这部分就有点沉闷，因此身为公众人物的赖芳玉律师，黄越绥老师，王瑞德，李昂，许常德和颜冰心的文章就会显得比较容易引起读者的兴趣。

至于美人姐的文章，我特别感到印象深刻的是她提到与小孩接受咨商的过程和成果，尤其是让她了解到小孩真正的想法，也让小孩明白自己的立场这点。人与人的沟通其实是很简单，又非常困难。通过第三者的协调，竟然也能让双方的沟通更有效是我之前没有想过的。这也可说是通过这本书所得到的意外收获。

总的来说，这本书是为了反省和疗愈而写。内容没有她初婚变时的那种控诉和激动，感觉是平实和充满对未来的正面能量，相信对很多面对类似问题的人会带来新的体会。

Review of "Hakugin Jack" / 白銀ジャック

To be honest, this novel started off very slowly so it took me a long time to move past the first 100-pages or so because I found that the case was really getting nowhere. What's more, there were no possible suspects throughout much of the story and it was only till the very last juncture that the pieces of the puzzle fell together quickly. There were people who looked suspicious but in the end, they all turned out to be false guesses. The actual criminals were people who didn't have anything suspicious going on throughout the whole story. In fact, I felt like the truth was shoved right into my face and I just had to accept it even though I did not agree with some parts of the "truth" or how certain things developed.

For a suspense thriller to be engaging, it must allow the reader to feel like they are involved in the developments e.g. by giving clues for the reader to guess or deduce the truth so that they continue to be interested in the novel. However, I kept feeling that I was an outsider all this while and seriously, this meant that whatever happened to the characters didn't matter that much to me. If this case was really as exciting and intriguing as it promised, the truth was pretty much of an anti-climax. The tempo of the story was rather off with the pacing being extremely slow and suddenly accelerating in the last 40 pages or so and then screeching to a sudden halt when things settled down.

In conclusion, I think that this is a pretty disappointing work but I hope to see a better version with the live skiing scenes when the drama SP starring Watanabe Ken, Hirosue Ryoko and Okada Masaki gets shown this summer.

Translation of Matsuyama Kenichi's first book "Haisha" - Part 2 (1 April 2011, Friday)

1 April 2011, Friday

We registered our marriage.

Why did I decide to appear in the Taiga drama "Taira no Kiyomori"?

It wasn't because that the production crew made the offer to me. I was the one who asked to be allowed to act in the drama. This was the first time.

I remember when I first saw news about NHK's announcement of the drama, the phrase "The Godfather of the Heian era" caught my attention. During that era when family backgrounds and connections mattered the most, this story was about how a samurai changed the society ruled by corrupt royalty to one of a warrior's era.

At that time (referring to 2011), there was this problem of elderly people dying without people noticing. As there are many old folks who live on their own, it suddenly dawned on me that my own parents could die in a lonely manner without me knowing.

Why is it that the connections between people have become so fragile now?

Actually, this issue may have been present since a long time ago. On the other hand, there are families and places where relationships and connections are still strong. At a time like this (right after the earthquake and tsunami crisis), I was simply attracted to this drama which focused on the connections between people.

Another reason was that, I just wanted to appear in a drama about men being passionate about something.

Translation of Matsuyama Kenichi's first book "Haisha" - Part 1 (March 11 Earthquake & Tsunami Crisis)

This is the first part of a series of translations of Matsuyama Kenichi's first book "Haisha". Of course, it will be impossible for me to translate the whole book due to time constraints so I'll be sharing selected pieces of his essays which I find interesting. To begin with, this is how Matsuyama described what he was doing on the day when the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crisis struck two years ago. He also made a brief reference to his wife Koyuki and where she was at that time. Note that all his essays were written from his viewpoint so "I" refers to him.

Please do not reproduce this translation without my permission but you may share the link to this post on your own blog or other social media avenues. Thank you very much for your cooperation in this. 

Hope that you enjoy reading this! :-)

11 March 2011 Friday
At that time, I was watching a movie at home. The movie was titled "Seppuku" (*This is a 1962 movie starring Nakadai Tatsuya.)

The lead character had a son-in-law who was a poor samurai who had to go to the extent of selling his sword which was regarded as very important to samurais, in order to get money to buy medicine for his sickly wife. However, there came a day when the medicine ran out. The samurai then heard a rumour from someone that there was this feudal lord who gave out money to samurais who asked to commit suicide at his garden because he didn't want them to dirty his place. Viewing this as a means to get money for his wife's medicine, the samurai then headed to the feudal lord's mansion.

However, the feudal lord's minister saw through the samurai's intention of obtaining money through the scam even though he had no intention of killing himself. As such, the minister agreed to this request. This made the samurai flustered as he tried to get out of this fix by asking for the money first before returning to commit suicide. The minister refused the request and demanded that the samurai must honour his request. Due to the fact that the samurai had already sold his real sword, he had no choice but to use the bamboo sword he was carrying to cut his stomach. However, there was no way he would have been able to kill himself with that. In the end, the samurai's request for a beheading by the minister was rejected and he resorted to biting his tongue to end his life. (*samurais could ask for someone to behead them from the back in order to reduce their suffering during a suicide.)

This was the first time I saw scenes as painful as these which made me look away from the screen. Due to the fact that the medicine didn't get to his wife, the lead character lost two family members at the same time i.e. his daughter and son-in-law. As a result, he headed to the feudal lord's mansion alone to take revenge.

Just then, I felt some shaking which I had never felt before.
It was an earthquake.
It was huge.

I opened my window and went out to the balcony. The electrical post was shaking and the electricity lines were dancing in waves. As it was still shaking, I was worried that my house will collapse any minute and had the instant thought of jumping downstairs from my balcony but I didn't do that. Instead, I calmed down a little and ran out of my apartment building. Due to the tremors and subsequent giddiness I felt, I was unable to move for a while.

After recovering from the giddiness, I went back to my apartment and found that my cabinet had fallen to the floor and my drawers were all open. While trying to tidy things up, I found the wooden sword which I had not been able to find earlier. In order to find out more about the earthquake which just opened, I turned on the TV where there was an earthquake notification that a 5.0 earthquake had hit Tokyo even though this earthquake felt much stronger than any of those which I had experienced so far. I had not eaten anything since waking up that morning and started to feel hungry. People still feel hunger no matter what situation they are in.

I was afraid to stay at home alone and decided to go out towards the train station. At the same time, people around me were doing the same since there were still aftershocks and that probably made us worried about staying inside a building. I went to a nearby supermarket and bought 5 croquettes. I tried to use my handphone but couldn't get through. My girlfriend at that time who would later become my wife (referring to Koyuki) was in Hokkaido for the filming of her movie. When I reached home, I heated up the frozen rice and ate it with the croquettes. It was a delicious meal.

After turning on the TV again, I saw that the tsunami warning was issued. Actually, the tsunami had already hit the shores by then and was engulfing everything in its path, be it buildings, cars, electrical posts and trees. I was rooted to the ground while watching these scenes and couldn't think about anything. My eyes were fixed on the scene of people trying to drive away from the approaching tsunami which was hot on their heels.

Review of Platina Data (novel) by Higashino Keigo

Even though I bought this book in September last year, I only managed to complete it in late March because I read a few pages and stopped for a long time because I was tied up with other things. It doesn't mean that this novel is bad in any way though so I would like to make this clear. I have a bad habit of wanting to buy new books even though I still have a huge number of unread stuff to go through so I'm trying hard to resist the urge to get new books and aiming to finish my waiting list first. Since the movie version was just released in March, I thought that I should finish this first in case the movie does come to Singapore anytime soon. Last time I heard, it should be coming to our cinemas in May! ^__^

Anyway, if you haven't read this novel and wish to avoid knowing how the story develops, I would suggest that you skip this review. I certainly do not want to spoil the fun for you especially if you are in the midst of reading it or haven't even started.

Before I begin sharing my thoughts on this, let me give a summary of the key characters involved and their relationships with one another. Note that there are some minor characters I've left out since they did not appear for too long:

Kagura Ryuuhei - the chief analyst of National Police Agency's Special Analysis & Research Institute. Develops a second personality named Ryuu after the suicide of his father.
Asama Reiji - assistant police inspector of Metropolitan Police Department's 1st section
Tokura - Asama's junior and partner
Nasu - the chief of MPD's 1st section
Kiba - subsection chief of MPD's 1st section
Shiga Takashi - chief of National Police Agency's Special Analysis & Research Institute
Kagura Shogo - Ryuuhei's father, a ceramic artist
Tateshina Saki - the programmer who developed the DNA Investigation system
Tateshina Kousaku - Saki's elder brother
Minagami Youjirou - a professor in neurology at Shinseiki University Hospital and Ryuuhei's doctor
Shiratori Risa - a American-Japanese who is doing research on DNA profiling
Suzuran - Ryuu's girlfriend
Chikushi - a former architect who lives at a remote settlement in Borero City
Sasori - a former bartender who used to work at a bar operated by a gang and lives in the same settlement as Chikushi

Despite the fact that there are so many characters in this story, the movie version chooses to make some changes to the lineup and only showcases the characters I've put in bold as the main cast (based on what I see from the movie's official site). I am guessing some of the characters above may also appear in the movie. Besides this, Tateshina Kousaku's character is also missing from the lineup while Minagami is changed to become a female (Suzuki Honami) in the movie.

The novel can be largely broken up into three main arcs i.e. the events leading up to the development of the DNA Investigation System, the Tateshina siblings' double murders and the manhunt for Kagura. To begin with, the novel talks about how the police is developing this DNA Investigation System which uses DNA data to do matching in order to find criminals easily and accurately. Besides that, it can also help to project how the person may look like and even reveal specific physical characteristics about the criminal and his/her family members. However, Asama being the type of old-school police detective you see in most police dramas who believe in using his feet to find the criminals i.e. going around looking for clues or questioning people, he doesn't believe in the DNA Investigation System which is very strongly "promoted" by Kagura. Despite Asama's resistance and lack of faith in the system, it turns out to be a great thing after all as the police solve cases quickly and get their hands on the criminals easily. Kagura who strongly believes in the worth of his system and data then takes part in efforts in boosting awareness of the system and getting all Japanese citizens to provide their DNA to be included in the database despite concerns over privacy etc.

The second arc is set some time after the DNA system takes off and it is then revealed that the system is actually developed by the Tateshina siblings who stay in a VIP room at Shinseiki University Hospital. Kagura is also revealed to have a dual-personality by the name of Ryu so he has to seek treatment at the same hospital to allow Ryu to "appear" at designated times to do his thing. However, during one of the visits to the hospital, Kagura finds the Tateshina siblings dead in their room and starts to doubt whether Ryu could be behind it. In addition, he is horrified to see that his own DNA was found on Saki which will place him under suspicion as the culprit.


The final arc shows Kagura being aided by Shiratori as he goes on the run to find the truth. Asama who goes after Kagura, slowly realises that there is more to what it seems as they both arrive at the same conclusion...

I must say that the beauty of this novel lies in Higashino Keigo's ability to craft his characters in such a way that gets you fully emotionally invested in what happens to them and to surprise you with unexpected developments just when you least expect and that helps to keep the reader engaged instead of losing interest. Frankly speaking, I thought the first arc was a tad slow but given that it needed to show all the relationships between the characters, explain how the DNA Investigation System came about and why it was touted to be a lifesaver as well as show a contrast in Kagura and Asama's attitudes towards the system. One thinks that it is the solution to everything and can do no wrong while the other thinks that it is definitely not without its flaws. Of course, Kagura gets proven wrong at the end because the same system he believes in actually led to him being accused of something he did not do. No doubt he had suffered while being on the run, I think the experience helped to make him see things from different perspectives instead of being stubborn in everything. It was also good that Asama doubted the accuracy of the system or else he would have been tricked into believing that Kagura was responsible for the murders. Sometimes, a police detective's instinct works better than hard and cold data.

Things start to heat up in the second arc after the murders took place especially as Kagura also doubts himself or rather his other self about whether he is the murderer. Although Kagura and Ryu have been co-existing without much trouble, Kagura does not seem to think too favourably about his alter-ego while Ryu can't be bothered with Kagura either. The amount of faith that Kagura has in his DNA Investigation System can be seen from the fact that he chose to doubt Ryu first instead of the system. With Shiratori's assistance, he begins his journey of being on the run before the police can catch up. During this period, Kagura finds out more things about Ryu and that he even has a girlfriend Suzuran who seems to appear and disappear at will.

The third arc offers a lot of revelations and unexpected twists as Kagura is fighting with an invisible enemy i.e. the real culprit while Asama is investigating the case through his own ways. Although they appear to be going in different directions, they manage to arrive at the same conclusion somehow or so it seems. I won't give away the ending because it is really gripping and very interesting. As for how the main characters end up, I would say that it's a happy ending after all although I think there's a tinge of regret and it's not an ideal fairy tale conclusion. It's something more in tune with the circumstances described in the novel and really more believable as something which might happen in the real world.

On the whole, I think this is a great novel from Higashino which is truly a classic piece of work. I'm not sure if this has been translated into other languages yet but if you can read Japanese, do pick this up and have a go at it. I don't know if the movie follows the novel very closely but I'm guessing it might not, going by some telltale clues in the cast.

Matsuyama Kenichi's first book - Haisha and other book updates

Finally got Matsuyama Kenichi's book "Haisha"! ^__^ Considering that it was released on 28 February and I got it just 2 days later at Kinokuniya, I must say that this was a shorter wait than I had initially expected. It was a process which I must say was full of twists and turns though because I had checked the Kinokuniya site since the release date but it kept saying that the book wasn't in stock. Even up to last night when I was checking the site, the status remained the same. With just 30 minutes left to the bookstore's closing time, I rushed down to Kinokuniya to try my luck but there were no staff members at the Japanese book counter then. Had to wait another 5 minutes for someone to come back and search the system. Thankfully, the Japanese lady there was extremely helpful and found that this is a new book which only came in on late Friday night before showing me to the correct place to find it. She even recommended that I take a look at two other titles which also came in at the same time i.e. Hotei Tomoyasu's book and Kato Shigeaki's 2nd novel "Senkou Scramble". Not exactly interested in Hotei's book though but did flip through Kato's book which seemed quite interesting. May consider getting it another time though. For those who are interested in buying the novel of "Platina Data" and a fan of Ninomiya Kazunari, you should probably get the latest version which has Ninomiya featured on the packaging. My version was bought last year with Ninomiya and Toyokawa Etsushi's names mentioned on the cover as leads of the movie version so too bad that their photos were not featured on the version I had.