19 Box (Jukebox): New Mystery Genesis - My Sanity Ends With You.

  

“You are free to skim, ignore the details, and spout out your own opinions. You are also free to read as deeply as possible and find more meaning in the work than the author thinks there is. If there is a work, there is a person with their own way of reading it. If there is a work, there is no need for an author.”

My thoughts after reading “19 Box (Jukebox): New Mystery Genesis”

Written by Seiryouin Ryuusui.

Instructions for reading this review:

You, the reader, have been given the freedom to read this review in a variety of ways, one is a review about reality, another of delusion, each one has its own merits, so read one of them, both, or all of it if you feel like it, who knows, maybe a third review (story) will appear before you, the choice is yours.

The sections about reality start with  ＊＊＊＊＊＊

The sections about delusion start with ￥￥￥￥￥￥

Enjoy this review! 

And so, with a world made out of smoke and darkness rising on the horizon, 

yours truly,

-Hayashi Youko, Aug, 2022.

＊＊＊＊＊＊ The story 

19 Box is a short story collection by Seiryouin Ryuusui which includes a total of four stories, each story has a completely different theme, and depending on the way they’re read the meaning of the stories change.

-A tale of talent “Countdown Fifty” 　

A ‘MEMO of Misfortune’ is delivered to a middle school girl.

- A tale of love “A Flowery Poem - Monami”

A phone call deep in the night. A mysterious voice interrupts the suspicious relationship between a man and a woman. 

-A tale of disaster “Kimura-kan’s Crime x2 (Double) ”

A murder case among four identical people. Which of the Kimuras is the murderer?

- A tale of time “The Murder of the Harakiri Detective”

  A girl meets a Harakiri Detective and a Genius Surgeon deep in the mountains. 

￥￥￥￥￥￥ The story

This is a compilation of novels by Hayashi Youko, all of the stories included in this book were previously published as bunko and after some time all of them got compiled into what we know as 19 Box.

The stories in this book are four: Countdown fifty, A flowery Poem, Kimura-kan’s crime x2 (Double), and finally The murder of the Harakiri Detective.

The book also features breaks between the stories, which I found to be a great addition to this compilation of Hayashi Youko’s books.

❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎ Tea break (1) 〜 Behind the review. A thank you letter from Mr. R.O

You find yourself walking down a busy street, and as you are about to cross a road, you suddenly spot an abandoned tea-cup at the edge of the road, ignoring the grunts and angry commentaries coming from those also waiting for the light to turn green to cross the road, you reach out to that little porcelain cup, it has a complex pattern printed on it, but what grabs your attention the most is the piece of paper inside it, a A4 size piece of paper folded in eight, upon opening it your eyes are met with the prettiest cursive writing they have ever seen, with your curiosity about to reach its limit, you decide to give it a read:

“Hi. I’m glad to see you again, if you excuse me, let me tell you a little story. A few months ago I ordered exactly 19 (十九) books from Japan, and one of them just so happened to be 19 Box. Having read the story at the end of the century and the one about a jester I had no idea what to expect from this, knowing the author, in a way all of his works are interconnected to form a greater narrative. From the very first page 19 Box got a hold of me and just like a Necronomicon took over my entire train of thought for the days to follow, ‘How can someone come up with something so interactive?’ ‘How is this author able to come up with such creative dynamics for his stories?’ thoughts like these didn’t leave my head, and as I continued reading they just got exacerbated, ‘How is this author inside my head?’ ‘How does he know what I’m thinking?’ ‘Is this finally it?’ ‘How. do. I. get. him. out?’ It had some amazing dynamics going on, and since the moment I saw some of them I thought to myself ‘This is how I will write my review.’ It’s a fun thing, and quite comical, and hell, it adapts so well to the review format. This is probably the only time I will write something like this (unless other books from this author have some fun dynamics like this) so I’ll take the time to thank the reader (you), if your eyes just so happened to lay upon these words I can say one thing, thank you so much for going out of your way and reading my review! And thank you so much for reading all of it! In any case, I still have some writing to do. Signed: Mr. Ryuunosuke Okakura”

Just as someone bumps into your shoulder and you finish reading, in confusion you wonder what you just read ‘Thank you? Who are they thanking? Or why are they thanking me?’ deciding to not look further into it you toss the note together with the porcelain cup into your coat’s pocket and continue walking.

You can feel a rain droplet fall onto the tip of your nose.

It’s raining.

＊＊＊＊＊＊ Enjoyment

I feel like this is going to be my longest review to date.

How much I enjoyed this book is insane, from great stories, great characters, amazing dynamics, and creative writing, every single page of it was just great. 

I’ll take the time to explain what’s up with this book. As I stated before it’s composed of four stories and depending on how you read it the meaning of the stories, and the end, change. At the start of the book there is a ‘manual’ which I took the time to translate for this review:

 

“19 Box manual (or preface) In this book, ‘19 box: New Mystery Genesis,’ four short stories are the core of the book, and as you read the stories, a hidden longer story will gradually emerge. The four stories are completely different in length and content, and can be read in any order. Depending on the order in which you read them, the storylines will change in various ways, and your surprise will be amplified as you read further. The stories are multi-ending, with the ending depending on the last story read. ------ Of course, the resolution is not a childish one, no vague businesses, rest assured. When you have finished reading all of the stories, you will be exposed to the mechanisms that wrap the four stories together. However, it is a bare-bones solution, and the real answer will not be revealed until the second reading, but from now on, I would like to leave it to you, the readers, to see for yourselves. In the appendix, we have prepared a simple game to analyze your preferences. You may open the ‘19 boxes’ after reading it, or you may ignore the author's nonsense and go straight to the main story. I hope that each and every reader will discover their own way of reading (requests) and enjoy this toy-box-like world. Now, I'll leave you to your reading around here...”

Hell, that’s a great way to start a book, however, as you may have noticed he mentions a certain ‘appendix,’ a game to analyze the preference of the reader and help them choose the best possible way for them to read the book based on their personalities. And if you decide to make use of it, jumping from page 5 all the way to 361:

“I will analyze your preferences and offer you various ways to read the book by answering your questions (Q&A) in the form of an adventure game. If you don't want to be bothered with the trouble, please go to the request table at the end of the book... For other readers, please go to "Q1" first.”

Q1: “You continue to walk along a dungeon with monotonous three-dimensional images, just like the graphics in a video game. Soon, a figure approaches from the front, and you brace yourself. A man? A woman? It is a character who should not exist, carrying the virtual image of ‘Seirouin Ryuusui.’ It is a thin figure with a transparent presence, like a character in a novel in which no human being is depicted.”

“"Today <3 ---- I am Seiryouin Ryuusui. How are you?"

That’s right, it’s a choose your own adventure book where you traverse through a dungeon with ‘Seiryouin Ryuusui!’ And the ending you get leads you to one of 26 ‘requests’ which tells you something about you as a person, but most importantly the perfect way for you to read those four stories contained in the book.      And well, this is a book that benefits a lot from rereading (as stories actively contradict or add context to the other stories, basically making the last one you read the true ending), and if there are 4 stories, and 26 ways of reading, then that means that there are 100somethingish ways of reading the book. But then there are ways of reading individual stories, in different ways, so...yeah one can read this book in hundreds of different ways, pretty much every reader is different.

I hadn’t even read a single page of those four stories and I was already on cloud nine over how fun and creative the process of even deciding how to read the stories was, it’s great.

So yeah, in enjoyment this book is quite high up there, not as much as with Cosmic-Joker, but hey, I cannot understate how fun this book is.

After this I will just be reviewing two of the stories in this book, I’m just too afraid of this review being too long.

￥￥￥￥￥￥ The story

As usual, what Hayashi Youko writes is a lot of fun, Kimura-kan and Countdown Fifty just blew me away with how good they were, A flowery poem and Harakiri Detective were also quite great but not better than the first two I mentioned. 

I feel like Hayashi tried to go a bit experimental with Flowery poem and Harakiri, and that’s not a bad thing, however, given that the order I read the stories in was: Harakiri → Flowery  → Countdown  → Kimura. I feel like I would have enjoyed the first two a lot more if I were to read them in any other order, not to say they aren’t great, they are, but starting the book with them wasn’t the best thing tbh.

However, reading Countdown and then ending with Kimura was so amazing, countdown was everything I expected from a book by Hayashi Youko, and then Kimura was just mind blowing, and it personally was the best way to end the book, I’m so glad I got the ‘request’ that I got.

As you can tell, I enjoyed this book a lot, not as much as I would’ve liked to (as it took me a loong loong time to read. ...uuuh, 2 months?).

Another thing that made me enjoy it not as much as I would’ve liked to is Hayashi Youko’s weird fixation with a real life person, I had no idea who they were until I looked them up on the internet.

After this I will just be reviewing two of the stories in this book, I’m too lazy to review all four.

＊＊＊＊＊＊ Countdown Fifty

This is a story about a memo, one of misfortune, one day during class a girl finds the following memo written on a piece of paper: ‘MEMO OF MISFORTUNE. Before 50 minutes pass by, hand this memo to someone else. Never let anyone find out about it. Otherwise, misfortune shall befall you. -Empress’

Holy shit, this is the longest story in the book, being around 180 pages (if I remember correctly, I’m too lazy to fact check it). And woah is it just so creative, the mystery, the narration, the reminder of impending doom every other page, and just everything about it was so, so gooooood.

I can’t even begin explaining how fast my heart beat got because of this story, it is the definition of ‘keeping you at the edge of your seat,’ even without knowing what will happen after those 50 minutes, even if one thinks nothing will happen, the narration and structure kept me so invested in the characters, their lives, and the impending doom upon them.

Hey, yeah, this is probably the best story in the book, from start to finish it was just great.

￥￥￥￥￥￥ A Flowery Poem - Monami

B: H-hi?

K: Welcome to another one of my rambling sessions, this story, ‘A flowery poem - Monami’  has a note explaining how to read it at the start, this is it:

‘Each reader has their own interpretation of the story, and there is no room for the author to intervene. A work that requires the author to explain what is implied by its implications and metaphors by means of some theory outside of the work is of no value. Interpretation is always up to the reader. Even if the work is like a video game with so much hidden material that a strategy book could be made, the author should not interfere with the reader’s reading. This is because it disqualifies them as a writer of expression. You are free to skim, ignore the details, and spout out your own opinions. You are also free to read as deeply as possible and find more meaning in the work than the author thinks there is. If there is a work, each person has their own way of reading it. If there is a work, there is no need for an author. But...there has to be a minimum set of rules that must be observed in reading a work, it may confuse you and hinder your reading if you do not know them. Even if the author is an old woman and knows that she is meddling, special plots require explanation. Failure to do so is not only negligence but also disrespectful to the reader.

In this story, each chapter is represented as a number on a telephone dial, as shown above. The stories of the adjacent numbers are closely intertwined in theme. The stories are arranged chronologically, starting with the youngest number, with the exception of ‘*’ and ‘#’. Although this is not the same as the attempt made in ‘19 Box’ as a whole, it is designed to be enjoyable no matter which story you read first. However, what I have written on this page is just a musing of the author, so to speak. In the true sense of the word, I always have only one thing in mind: "How can I help you, the readers, to enjoy the story? -How can I make it enjoyable for you, the readers? I sincerely hope that readers will genuinely enjoy the stories without any logic. Please feel free to enjoy them at your leisure’

B:That’s a lot of text, not reading that.

K:...

B:...

K: Okay so, moving on, this is a story that is told exclusively through text.

B: You mean dialogue?

K: ESL moment, yeah. This is a story that is told exclusively through dialogue, it tells the story of X and Y, a love story between a boy and a girl which we only get a glimpse of through their phone calls.

B: Just like this?

K: Exactly like this.

B: Aight, continue.

K: Okay, so, according to the author one can read chapters 1-9 in pretty much any order, and yeah, each chapter of this story is short enough to do that without any problem, I’m too lazy to actually decide to read them out of order, so I just went with starting at the lowest number and going up to the biggest. The chapters * and  # were probably my favorites, but that may be because of all that the previous chapters built up to.

B: Strangle that man.

k: How high was he?

K: eh? Wait a sec, who was that?

B: Who was who?

K: didn’t you notice? The ‘How high was he’ was said by someone else.

B: No, no. It says ‘K,’ right?

K: It doesn’t, it says ‘k’ not ‘K’

B: What the fuck? Who was that then?

K: No idea, but let’s not look too deep into it, let me finish my thoughts about this story.

B: Aye.

K: The mystery aspect of A Flowery Poem is also quite great, it being a phone call between two persons where suddenly a third one joins their call is quite great, reading their conversations trying to solve who that third person is is just a lot of fun, and hell, it’s like 60 pages of pure dialogue. I can’t express how fun the conversations are to read.

B: So the opposite of this one?

K: Exactly. The story is quite lacking, and it’s definitely not the best in the collection, but woah, is it just some simple fun.

B: MY FUCKING GOD XXXHOLIC IS COMING BACK.

K: My fucking god, and off we go of the main topic. Thanks, Biora.

＊＊＊＊＊＊ Kimura-kan’s Crime x2 (Double) 

Come on, this is probably the best story in the entire book, it’s a murder mystery (my favorite kind of mystery), with an amazing dynamic going on.

Of course, I will try to not spoil any of it, but it’s a story where four of the same person live together, one day, one of the Kimura Shouichis gets murdered.

So, who is the criminal? How can they differentiate between them?

My mind was blown away by how clever this story was, again, same as with Countdown Fifty, this had some amazing characters, great scenes, an amazing build up, and a great climax.

I however, can’t say the same about the ending, and that’s because I understood absolutely nothing of how it ended! Yeah, this sounds stupid, I consider my Japanese to be quite serviceable, but that last few chapters of Kimura-kan were just straight-up impossible for me to understand, of course, I understood a bit of it, but not enough to get the full picture. It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing I can do about it for the time being.

Considering I have been studying Japanese for under 5 years this is to be expected, books by this author have always a high level of complexity to them, but damn, this was just overkill. I’m just going to be rereading the entire 19 Box in a few years when I feel my Japanese has improved enough.

Jokes aside, and by ‘jokes aside’ I mean ‘I’m completely serious’ this story was mind-blowing, I just loved it so much, and I swear, if I just so happened to understand the ending, it would've been my favorite story of them all.

Oh right, there are other books by this author that are under the name of ‘Kimura Shouichi’ series, I wonder what the hell’s up with that, and if they’re the same Kimuras as the Kimura Shouichis of this book.

Kimura-kan is just great all around, it a great story, creative as hell, has some amazing characters, and fun dialogue. There are also references to other works by this author (titles which I have already mentioned between these last few paragraphs) in this story, so that was great.

Ending my opinions on Kimura-kan, goated, I would probably be malding at the end if my Japanese wasn’t this bad.      Really, it's just a great story.

￥￥￥￥￥￥ The Murder of the Harakiri Detective

This is another story with an explanation on how to read it, this isn’t that long so I’ll just summarize it: ‘this story is told in two formats, one is a story of reality, and another is a story of illusion [...] If you decide to read both at the same time a third story will appear before you’

So yeah... this story has three stories inside it.

It’s about a girl who goes to a place deep in the mountains where she meets a detective who deduces by committing harakiri, and a genius surgeon who always saves his life.

The way the reality and illusion stories merge together and form a single cohesive story despite the two of them being approached in very different ways is nothing short of amazing and quite the demonstration of the writing skill of the writer.

However, I didn’t like it as much as I would’ve liked to. It’s fun, it’s great, it has nice characters, and the ending is just amazing.

But, I feel like this isn’t the story that one should read first (as I did), because the reading experience gets affected negatively by it. 

I’m not saying it shouldn’t be read first, it works perfectly as an introduction to 19 Box and introduces the reader to a lot of things to look out for while reading the other stories, but it’s just so convoluted and confusing when reading it before any of the other stories that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would’ve otherwise.

In any case, insanely creative story, the detective is such a cool character.

★★★★★ Tea break (2) 〜 K→→ → → THE←←←← AKU ❤︎❤

After a long time of thinking about it, you suddenly start thinking about that letter you found on the street the other day and decide to give it another read, realizing that you can’t seem to find it, you are left with no other choice than to look for it. Finally, you find it, you left it on your jacket, which you just took out of the washing machine, the A4 piece of paper, now a mess, that beautiful cursive writing is now almost illegible blobs of ink. Just before it completely crumbles away you decide to give it one last read:

“Okay, so, as you could tell this was a review unlike any other I’ve written, and also the reason I have taken so long to write it. I’d like to thank Biora and kheem for letting me use their names on this review (I didn’t ask them for permission, but I know they’re kind hearts). 19 Box (Jukebox): New Mystery Genesis by Seiryouin Ryuusui is a book unlike any other I’ve read, it’s so much fun, the stories are great, and it just left me dumbfounded at just the sheer grasp Rysuusui has over writing entertainment as a whole. Needless to say, this book is a 8.5/10. I mean, despite talking about it in such a great light, and going as far as imitating it’s structure (in a way) going to show how much of an impact it had on me, it had it’s problems, and that just ended up making the experience of reading it quite long and at points plainly tedious. I still like JDC a lot more, but for a short story collection meant to be read after Cosmic-Joker. This wasn’t half bad. Regards! -Kakuzo Akutagawa.”

Having read this far you realized it has ended, the end is here, and here is the end. Dragging your cursor all the way to the “x” of Blogger, you click the left button of your mouse and find yourself back in the present, looking at the porcelain cup sitting at your desk, you realize something.

The rain has stopped.

￥￥￥￥￥￥ Conclusion!

＊＊＊＊＊＊ Conclusion?

In conclusion, 19Box: New Mystery Genesis represents another work of literary genius created by Seiryouin Ryuusui, novelist and winner of the Mephisto Prize for his culture-defining Cosmic: End of Century Detective Myth. 19Box is the first entry in the Shouichi Kimura Series, and while it's not as well-known as his JDC Series, I found myself quickly enamored with the world and intrigued by the robust cast of characters, perhaps even more so than while reading Cosmic. Kimura himself, the protagonist of the work, a traveling actor/baseball player/great detective, has to be my favorite protagonist of any mystery series. His cool, unflinching personality that all of his fellow troupe members look up to, coupled with his supremely cool deduction method, Heavenly Hare Deduction, make him an staple icon of the genre that no doubt deserves his place among the most legendary Japanese detectives. And the trick itself was truly mind blowing, the intricacies of the foreshadowing laid out and the deconstruction of narrative tropes that it engages in are so bold and daring that the novel would come across as astoundingly pretentious if only were it not written with the objectively exceptional touch of Seiryouin. To quote my favorite character, Strong J Oota, "The truth behind any case resides not beneath the mounds of deception, but within each of our hearts." 19Box: New Mystery Genesis deserves no rating except for a perfect 10/10. 

Or at least that's what I assume, haven’t read that shit. 

-kheem (with a lowercase k)

Additionally: I just don't get Hayashi Youko's weird fixation with lawyer Seiryouin Ryuusui.