The Black Lizard
Hi hi, first post here, and I want to start by talking about a book I just finished.
Just to give some context, I'm currently reading through a series of books with a common theme: Japan, crime, and mystery. The book in question is The Black Lizard by Edogawa Ranpo, a famous Japanese writer born at the end of the 1800s. The man is basically considered the father of the Japanese detective story, he's so famous there's even a literary prize named after him.
He wrote this book in the 1930s, so just to put things in perspective, it’s almost a century old. After a bit of research, I found out he was heavily inspired by authors like Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. Funnily enough, "Edogawa Ranpo" is actually the transliteration of Edgar Allan Poe's name!
Speaking of the book itself, it’s about a battle of wits between one of the best detectives in Japan, Akechi Kogoro, and an elite lady thief who steals jewels simply for the thrill of excitement it gives her. Honestly speaking, I didn't like it that much. I think the book is "old" in the sense that the tricks the characters use throughout the story are kinda lame by today's standards. But I guess a century ago they were probably fresh, if not revolutionary. I mean, the author is famous for a reason.
Nevertheless it was a fine read, nothing too complex or unexpected. The thing I really want to talk about though is the character of the detective. In fact, in the afterword of the book, there's a comment about the massive impact this book had in solidifying this character in Japanese pop culture.
This isn't the first time this detective appears in Ranpo's books. He was initially introduced in The Case of the Murder on D. Hill. The author didn't plan on writing more books with him, but the public reception was so good he changed his mind.
The fascinating thing is that the more books Edogawa wrote about him, the more popular this character became. Over the decades, he’s been adapted into a lot of theatrical performances, TV series, and movies. I was today years old when I learned that Akechi Kogoro appeared as a cameo in Lupin III, in both the manga and the anime.
Even cooler if you ask me, is the homage to this character in Case Closed (also known as Detective Conan here), where the main character is named Conan Edogawa, and the bumbling detective is Kogoro Mori.
He also makes an appearance in the Detective Kindaichi universe, another mystery series that I honestly found way more interesting than this one and I'll definitely talk about it in some other post.
He's also in video games! For example he's featured in Persona 5, a game released in 2016, so almost a century after his first appearance.
And that's all, I just think it's a nice fact to know and see how different types of media sometimes merge together and create something this cool.