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linkspooky · 2 years ago

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BSD VS. LITERATURE: MURDER ON D STREET

The third entry in my long-running series analyzes every literature reference in Bungou Stray Dogs and tries to piece together the author’s intention in referencing the work.

Ranpo’s the only character whose ability name does not reference a specific book, but his entire character seems to be a reference to Ranpo Edogawa’s collection of mystery novels and his life’s work in general. However, the first chapter to feature him is named after his first story facing his primary detective Kogoro Akechi. Let’s root out the references underneath the cut.

1. Poe and Ranpo

Ranpo the character is not just a reference to the original author’s work, he’s a tribute to the mystery genre and detective fiction in general.

Ranpo is an incredibly prolific mystery author in Japan. He is credited as one of the biggest influencers in the Japanese mystery tradition. He was an admirer of western mystery novels, especially Edgar Allan Poe, and tried to make his own more Japanese-inspired tradition of mystery novels.

“His chosen name, in combination with his frequent allusions to works on crime and detective by mostly Western authors, demands that the reader or critic compare Rampo’s work with that of the famous western writers he references and consider them all as belonging to the same category. Ranpo believed that a Japanese detective story could match the work of Western authors in the modern ratiocinative tradition they had established. Some of his works bear directly on the debates surrounding the issue, such as “The Case of the Murder on D. Hill” itself which Rampo intended as a response to critics who argued it was impossible to set the secret incidents and mysterious dealings which formed the core of the modern WEstern mystery in the open, wood-and-paper houses of Japan and that it was thus a natural result of the Japanese way of life that Japan should produce no strong mystery tradition of its own.”

Edogawa Ranpo - The Early Cases of Akechi Kogoro Introduction

Ranpo set out to write Japanese mystery stories written in a Japanese way, so eastern authors could establish their own traditions. In the same way, Ranpo in Bungou Stray Dogs is always interacting with other characters inspired by Mystery Authors, Edgar Allan Poe himself, and Mushitarou Oguri another Japanese crime novelist who was western inspired (He was known as the Japanese John Dickson Carr). Yokomizo was named after Seishi Yokomizo. His pen named Kindaichi is named after his private detective character “Kosuke Kindaichi.” In the same way that Ranpo was dedicated to helping Japan create its own mystery tradition, Ranpo himself is someone who gathers other detectives around him and befriends them.

The relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and Ranpo in BSD itself is also a pretty heavy reference to the influence both share in their respective genres. Edgar Allan Poe is largely credited as being the first mystery author and “Murders in the Rue Morgue” as the first modern detective story. In the same way that Edgar Allan Poe invented mystery novels and inspired Ranpo, Ranpo then went on to inspire mystery novels in the east and be formative for the Japanese mystery tradition.

2. Murder on D Street / The Case of the Murder on D. Hill

There are several references to Kogoro Akechi’s first case in the first real mystery to feature Ranpo in the manga. The first and most obvious is the title itself. However, the fact that the murder takes place when a corpse is discovered in a river is a reference to Ranpo’s chosen pen name. "Edogawa” which Ranpo chose as a pen name uses the characters for the Edo river which borders present-day Tokyo to the south and was originally the lower course of the Tone River.

His pseudonym incorporates the geography of Edo, the old capital of the isolationist Tokugawa Shogunate, with the name of Poe, an American writer. This contradictory composition reflects Rampo’s own efforts to create a uniquely Japanese tradition of an imported genre.

Edogawa Ranpo - The Early Cases of Akechi Kogoro Introduction

In D. Hill, the murder itself is a bit of a parody of more western mystery novels. Most of the deduction takes place when Akeichi and his friend the narrator are discussing the details of a particular case that appears to be a locked room. At first, the narrator makes a solid deduction in the way a Sherlock Holmes or Western detective would immediately jump to the conclusion of a case based on connecting a large amount of small evidence noticed at the crime scene.

The two characters themselves are also avid mystery readers and make references to several other mystery novels.

“I know you’ve read Poe’s the murders in the Rue Morgue ad Leroux’s The Mystery in the Yellow Room, and I’m sure you know that Rose Delacourt Case in Paris. Even now, a hundred years alter, there are still mysteries surrounding that curious murder case. I’m recalling it now. Isn’t the way the perpetrator of tonight’s incident departed without leaving a trace somewhat similiar?” said Akechi.

The Case of the Murder on D. Hill

This was Poe’s first real attempt to create a locked room in a traditional Japanese paper wall and sliding door room. Poe even draws attention to that fact.

“It’s often been said that the kind of serious crime you find in a western novel could never happen in a Japanese building, but I certainly don’t think so, because of incidents such as this one. Somehow or other, although I don’t know if I can, I feel that I’d like to try my hand at solving a real case, just once.”

The Case of the Murder on D. Hill

The narrator goes through the process of deduction and comes up with a likely-sounding theory, that’s just like the kind of clever solutions in one of those novels. However, he comes to the wrong conclusion because he was thinking in mystery novel logic and Akechi goes out of his way to correct him.

The Murder on D Street chapter in BSD is structured in the same way, at first there’s an obvious culprit to the crime only for Ranpo to reveal that the culprit framed it as the mafia and there was another story behind it. In both cases too, the murder victim was killed by accident by her own lover.

In a way, Ranpo in his work goes out of the way to both parody and comment on the western genre of mystery novels themselves. Akechi even highlights that some of the guesses that characters leap to in those novels are ridiculous.

“For example, concerning my relationship with that woman, have you made a thorough and psychological investigation inot what sort of childhood friends we were? Whether or not there had been a past love affair between us in the past/ Whether or not I bore a grudge against her? Those aren’t the story of things you can guess at, are they...?”

The Case of the Murder on D. Hill

Akechi points out that rather than solving mysteries by jumping to conclusions based on evidence he tends to solve people psychologically.

“My methods are a bit different from yours. Physical evidence and things of that kind can take all sorts of appearances depending on the point of view. The best method of detection is psychological: to see through the depths of people’s heart.”

The Case of the Murder on D. Hill

Perhaps about this, Ranpo the character is a genius who can puzzle together the culprit of a murder with just a few pieces of evidence. At the same time, he is completely unable to understand psychologically the way people around him think.

“I don’t understand what anyone’s thinking! I’m scared! It feels like I’m surrounded by monsters! It doesn’t matter what I say - nobody understands me! My parents were the only ones who did, and they’re dead!” BSD. VOL 3

Edogawa Ranpo the author also created a mystery series for children known as the “Boy Detectives Club”. Yoshio Kobayashi, the assistant of Kosuke Kindaichi starts a detective club of his own right by gathering other children from his own school. In the third light novel, Ranpo’s father is a reference to Akechi Kogoro himself.

The man was a legendary detective. The “Headless Officer” case, the “Moonlight Phantom,” the “Cow Head Incident” - he helped solve several difficult cases that shook the nation.

If his father was Kosuke Kindaichi, then naturally Ranpo himself would be a reference to Kobayashi the boy detective. Which also fits his role of gathering all the other detective characters and forming connections between them. He also gained fame for being a young genius detective, and it’s also how he gained his home and his place with Fukuzawa and the detective agency.

Ranpo is also, much like the author himself a character who does not have a power like the rest of the ability users, trying to still create a name for himself. Ranpo Edogawa was an inspired and talented enough author to basically rewrite the japanese mystery tradition into something more unique. Whereas, Ranpo the character despite having no ability of his own is the most important character in the agency fights on the front line with everyone else. The same way Ranpo influenced the entire mystery genre in Japan, Ranpo the character also is the main reason the detective agency was created and the reason they all stay together.

Which speaks a lot of the importance of both the author and the character.

#edogawa ranpo #bsd meta #edgar allen poe #edogawa ranpo bsd #edgar allen poe bsd #seishi yokomizo #mushitaro oguri #mushitaro oguri bsd #bungou stray dogs meta #bungou stray dogs

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