C.M.B. volume 39 review

(All rights belong to their owners. Image from Amazon used here for review purposes only.)

C.M.B., vol. 39, by Katou Motohiro. Grade: B
And, we're back. 4 short stories this time, including one with Mau.

Souzou no Satsujin (Imaginary Murder)
Tomio Kubota is a salaryman that is wondering where his life has gone wrong. In high school, he'd been a promising art student, with dreams of becoming a world-famous designer, including his own flourishing studio and idol singers hanging on his arms. Instead, he's a cog in an advertising agency. He's convinced that his life got derailed about the time he broke up with a school girlfriend, Miwa Akiyoshi. They'd just kind of went their own ways, and Tomio believes that if he could remember why, he'd be able to get back on his true life path again. One day, while taking the train on his commute, he spots Miwa carrying a baby. The child has bruises on its wrist and cheek. Rather than continue in to work, Tomio follows her to a family restaurant, where Miwa meets a divorce lawyer. She claims her husband has become abusive to both her and the baby, but the lawyer says there's not a lot they can do legally right now. Tomio follows Miwa to her apartment, identifies her husband, and follows him to a pachinko parlor. The wife-beater, Motonobu, looks all of the part of a bad guy. Soon after, Tomio meets up with Miwa at a restaurant, and they catch up on old times. Tomio tells her there's something's wrong with his life, and Miwa encourages him to muster belief in himself and do what's important for himself. They part ways, and Tomio realizes that she's right. If he can get her free of her husband, they could start dating again and everything will be better.

Tomio scouts the area around Miwa's apartment, noticing that it faces a little courtyard surrounded by other buildings, secluded and quiet. The rooms are on the second floor, with a small wrought iron flower box outside the window. A little ways away is a trash pickup point, with a large ceramic reclining frog waiting to be thrown away. A few days later, Tomio comes back to the apartment to watch a police investigation, and listen to the neighbors clustered at the courtyard entrance talking about the dead body. Miwa's husband, Motonobu, must have been leaning out the window when the box gave way, and he'd fallen the one floor to the lawn below. He would have been fine, but he'd had the great bad luck to land head first on the ceramic frog and had died instantly. The police are ready to write this off as an accident, but the old woman caretaker of the building across the way asks one of the investigators to hold off on making an announcement for a day or two.

Questions: How had Motonobu died? Is Miwa happy now? Does Tomio get the girl and the better life again? What's the importance of the ceramic frog, and why does the caretaker want the police to wait?

Natural science: Nothing.
Payment: Nothing we know of.

--- Spoilers ---

Shinra is angry because the old caretaker had promised to give him the ceramic frog, and now she's reneging on the deal. He goes to the courtyard to investigate, and sees the spot where the frog had been sitting in the trash pick-up point, and notices that it had obviously been moved. The screws on the iron window box are clean, meaning that the box hadn't collapsed due to rot or rust. There's a pole nearby, which could have been used to wrench the box loose from the wall enough that it would collapse if someone put their weight on it. But, there's one more piece of the puzzle missing, and Shinra is about to shrug this off as just a complicated accident when he spots a watering bucket off to the side. He looks inside. Soon after, Shinra's friend, Inspector Kujirazaki has hauled Tomio in for questioning. While the artist has an alibi (he was in Chiba at the time of the accident in Tokyo), the guy had bought a used cell phone and programmed the ring tone to match Motonobu's phone, then put the rental in the watering bucket before placing the bucket in the corner of the flower box. When the victim heard the rental phone ringing, he'd thought Miwa was messing with him and had leaned out the window to get the bucket. The window box pulled free of the wall and Motonobu had landed on the frog Tomio had moved under his window for this purpose, and that killed him. Miwa tells the police that, yes, she'd dated Tomio in high school, but the guy kept getting lost in his own illusions (inviting her to see boring movies, etc., while imagining that they'd have a great time together). She'd left to get away from him. As she's saying this, Tomio, his eyes glazed, is telling Kujirazaki that Motonobu couldn't possibly have died from such a short fall, even with the frog in the way. The real murderer must have been nearby, waiting to crush his head in with a boulder.

(Note that while the author keeps on using the kanji for "Souzou" (imagination, imaginary), that the better translation should be "delusional".)


Pareoparadokishia (Paleoparadoxia)
Hayato Makuwa is a spoiled sophmore high schooler that would rather play games than study. When he asks his parents and teachers what the benefits of study are, he rejects their answers. One day, his parents have to travel to another city to tend to his grandmother, who had fallen off her bicycle and is now in the hospital. With no one at home to take care of the kids, their parents send Hayato and his younger sister, Miya, out to their uncle's place in the countryside. The uncle, Kanjirou, lives in an old wood house a few miles away from everything, which of course just makes Hayato that much more upset about his life and the adults in it. The next day, Kanjirou leaves the house, telling the kids to stay out of the second floor rooms. Of course, that's the first thing they visit when he's gone. The floor contains a few rocks, a table, some test equipment, a shovel and a box marked "danger." They then try to follow their uncle, asking the local farmers for directions until they discover a cave in the side of a hill. Coming out the other side, they can look down from their perch to watch Kanjirou using weird instruments to produce loud noises and then make measurements. Nearby is a tarp covering something on the ground. That night, Hayato runs outside to visit the site and look under the tarp - he finds some animal bones in the ground and hopes that they're from a dinosaur. The day before, Kanjirou was visited by Shinra and Tatsuki, and those two accidently run into Hayato and Miya out at a small grocery shop. Shinra disillusions the boy, saying that the bones are from a Paleoparadoxia, an herbivorous aquatic mammal that ranged between Japan and Alaska, and down to California during the Miocene epoch. Bones from the Paleo (for short) have been discovered in Japan before, but never for the complete lower jaw, so scientists are still uncertain as to what it ate. Kanjirou's specimen was discovered by a construction crew preparing the land for putting up a building, and right now they have the body skeleton but the head is missing. Kanjirou is racing against time to locate it, but he doesn't have funding and he's running out of explosives for making seismic tests to see where the head is buried.

This entire discussion bores Hayato because there's no dinosaurs involved, and he again asks "What's the point of learning? Why waste your time like that?" Shinra responds by asking "What's time?" Hayato answers that time is what distances us from the past. Shinra asks, "Then, there's no time in the future?" Hayato gets angry, claiming that high school students don't get taught that kind of logic, and Shinra asks him, "Then, what is "logic"?" The boy turns frustrated, wanting to know why no one has answers for him. Shinra follows this by saying there's lots of big questions we haven't answered yet. Shinra suggests that having the answers is nowhere near as interesting as finding new mysteries. This viewpoint confuses the boy, and they go their separate ways. There's rain that night, and Miya says that Kanjirou only has 3 days left to find the Paleo head, and it'd be sad if he fails. So the two of them run out to the field to spy on their uncle and Shinra from the cave. Kanjirou is down to one blasting cap. As he and Shinra discuss where to try using it, the cave fills up with water, trapping the two children at the cave mouth 20-30 feet up a sharp cliff. They can't climb down, so they yell for help. Tatsuki tries climbing up, but the face is too steep and slick.

Questions: Do the kids get saved? How? What happens to the blasting cap? Does Kanjirou give up on his quest? If the head is buried nearby, why hasn't it been found yet?

Natural history: Shinra raises some questions (like, how can the universe be "closed," and "what lies outside it?"), and talks about the Paleoparadoxia.
Payment: Shinra probably gets the Paleo lower jaw on loan for a while.

--- Spoilers ---

Kanjirou loads the blasting cap in the sweeper and hands it to Tatsuki. Hayato is told to find something to anchor himself and Miya to, and the boy splashes around in the growing pool until finding a length of timber he can jam into the walls of the cave. He and his sister hang on to that.  From her perch on the cliff face, Tatsuki aims the sweeper head up 2 meters above her and pulls the trigger. The blast against the wall weakens the rock and mud below the cave entrance, and the weight of the standing water in the cave pushes down until a hole forms and blows the debris out of the way. The water spews out of the new exit, and the level in the cave goes down. Kanjirou, Tatsuki and Shinra get up into the cave, and the older man hugs his relatives, happy they're unharmed. While it looks like the last blasting cap was wasted, Shinra shakes his head and points to the cave wall. There in the wall is the missing Paleo skull. Shinra explains that an earlier washout in nearly the same place had caused the hardened mud encasing the fossil to separate the body from the head, which washed out down to the field below. This is why Kanjirou's searches had been so futile. 1 year later, the Paleo bones are reassembled in a lab, and Kanjirou gets credited for solving one of the mysteries surrounding it. 30 more years go by, and the adult Hayato is now a professor teaching a science class at a university. Several of his students are distracted by their tablet computers. Hayato asks if they're that bored with his class, and follows up by asking "What is time?"


Migurasu no Bouken (Adventure of Migras)
Mau! This time, one of her minions, Earl Grey, is running the counter at "Mau's Antique Book Shop" in London. Some woman tries to unload a book to the black market, saying that it's possibly evidence in a murder mystery. Unfortunately, she's already cleaned the blood off. The book is "Adventure of Migras," a fantasy story about a farm boy discovered by a wizard, who eventually becomes a great adventurer. The book had originally belonged to one Mr. Blend. Blend lived in a big mansion and had a large library. About 2 years earlier, one of his bookcases had toppled over, killing him. The detective investigating the case discovered "Migras" near the body and had thought it might be evidence of a crime. As part of the investigation, he brought it home to pour over, but he never discovered anything. The detective died 1 month previously, and his widow found the book in with his other belongings and wants to sell it to Mau for a profit. Earl buys the book and presents it to his employer. Mau demands a recap of the story of Migras.

Unfortunately, it boils down to this farmboy becoming a great warrior in search of justice, but every time the situation gets complicated and someone says "get out and save your own life while you can," he does. This leaves a trail of death and destruction behind him. Mau has no interest in the book and leaves it in her store when she goes home for the night. The next day, she returns only to discover that it's been stolen. Mau gets fired up by the thief's audacity and vows revenge. She has an ad printed in the newspapers offering a 10,000 pound reward for anyone returning the copy of "Migras" that she "lost." She then says that the money is coming out of Earl's pocket if he doesn't find out who the thief is.

Earl rushes out to Blend's estate to investigate. The old woman still living there had kept the place looking like it had 2 years ago. The library Blend died in is a small den with a few bookcases, a window, a desk and a suit of armor near the door. The window had been locked from the inside, as had the door. Blend had the only door key, and that was still in his desk. Blend had been found under the bookcase, the "Migras" book near his outstretched hand. He'd been faced with something of a problem a few months before his death - his only living relative, a nephew named Shironowa ("fortress"), had hit an old woman with his car. The woman (unnamed) had been injured and sued the nephew. Shironowa hired a high-priced laywer named Cinnamon to protect him. But, before things could get to court, Blend intervened and negotiated a settlement with the woman, leaving both her and Cinnamon unsatisfied. Earl interviews everyone, and the woman, Cinnamon and Shironowa all say that they have no complaints now. But, the lawyer and the old woman act a bit weird. When Earl returns to the bookstore, there's a long line out front. Everyone is holding a copy of Migras.

As each person hands over their book, Mau has a minion place it under a light. Eventually, the minion nods, and Mau tells the lucky owner that that's her book. She invites him to the basement to get his reward, but once out of sight of the public, the minions knock the guy out and tie him up in a chair. Mau is standing nearby with a chainsaw, asking who he got the book from. He talks soon after.

Questions: Who stole the book? How does it relate to Blend's death? Was Blend murdered? If so, by who? What's the trick to the sealed room? How does Migras' closest friend, Gauntlet, figure into everything? Does Earl have to cough up 10,000 pounds?

Natural history: Nothing.
Payment: Mau gets her revenge.

--- Spoilers ---

In the "Adventure of Migras," Gauntlet is a fellow knight in the same kingdom as Migras. The two of them are forced by their king and a backstabbing advisor into fighting a battle against insurmountable odds. Gauntlet tells Migras to save himself, which the guy does, leaving Gauntlet to die pointlessly in the field. This time, "Gauntlet" is Mau's name for the suit of armor standing near the door of Blend's library. The killer pushed the bookcase over on the victim, killing him. He then put the "Migras" book under the body's right hand as a message, and left the library through the main door. Behind him, he pulled up the sword being held by the armor and set the blade on the inside door latch. After the door closed, the weight of the hilt caused the center of balance of the blade to shift, and as the blade slid down and to the side, it turned the latch and locked the door before returning back to its original position in front of the armor. The killer was Shironowa, Blend's nephew, who had been angry with the old man for not standing up to the old woman in court regarding his traffic accident lawsuit. Shironowa wanted the book back because it could incriminate him, which is why he stole it from Mau. But, when she offered the 10,000 pound reward, he got greedy and gave the book to a friend to obtain the money for him. Mau's minion used a black light lamp to identify the blood traces on the cover, which is what Mau was waiting for, and the friend gave up Shironowa's name. The will for the estate hasn't been executed yet, and Mau wants to blackmail Shironowa into giving her the entire estate before it's divided up. After that, she'll give the book to the police. (Earl is surprised to find that Mau is so dedicated to her goals, unlike Migras).


Akichi no Yuurei (Ghost in Vacant Lot)
Shino Yasuda is one of Tatsuki's classmates. Her father is working in a village in Africa to help bring in an internet line. In the meantime, he's cut off from his family and most of the outside world, so Shino is forced to write a letter to him by hand. Her handwriting is atrocious, and it takes her hours to finish. By then, it's late, and she has to bring the letter to an old post box. After dropping the letter in the box, she turns and sees a shadowy figure before the wall in front of her. It rushes off, leaving the girl terrified. Shino relates her story to her classmates the next day, and they tease her about being afraid of ghosts. That night, a group of six students goes out to Shino's neighborhood, and the post box in front of a large abandoned lot. There's a long wall along the side of the road opposite the lot, and no one else nearby. The group gets to the post box, and sees nothing unusual. A few seconds later, there's the shadowy form, and it runs towards them. The kids panic and race back to safety. They tell their story to Shinra at school the next day, and he suggests that if they care that much, they should go back in the middle of the day over the weekend and investigate. Tatsuki wants to know why he's not going to go with them, and he answers that he has something else planned.

That Saturday, the kids return to the lot and find an old man nearby. He knows the area very well and can answer most of their questions. The lot used to have a factory on it, but that had closed a few years ago when the economy failed. Most of the people living in the area now are old and don't go outside at night. He himself lives in a senior care center, and the one time he did go out on his own afterhours, the caretakers had tracked him down and brought him back for his own safety within a few minutes. The kids notice a shuttered ramen shop on the opposite corner, and the guy says that the place had been highly popular for years with the school kids there, but had closed when the owner decided to retire some years ago. There's been no murders or haunted graveyards to account for ghost sightings. Shinra and Tatsuki visit the real estate agent handling the vacant lot property, and he tells them that he's been getting quite a few inquiries about the nearby ramen shop from people wanting to reopen it for various reasons, from one big ramen chain, to former college students nostalgic over having eaten there when they were younger, to one person that wanted to turn it into a bakery. None of the potential buyers had followed up on the place, though, because it's located too far from the station, and there's no customer base there anymore. The agent shakes his head and comments on how few people wanting to open a food shop have any understanding of what they'd be getting into.

The next day, Shinra gives a digital camera to Shino for capturing their ghost. They go out to the post box and hide inside the ramen shop, waiting for nightfall. Eventually, the shop door opens and the shadowy figure enters.

Questions: Who is the ghost? What does it want? What's it's secret? Does it carry away anyone's soul as it escapes?

Natural history: Nothing.
Payment: Nothing mentioned.

--- Spoilers ---

Shino whips up the camera and the flash blinds the shadowy figure. It tries to escape by running up the stairs and out a window, almost falling to the pavement below. Tatsuki grabs the figure's legs at the last moment and everyone else has to help pull him back in to safety. When they've recovered from their fright, the guy introduces himself as one of the former college students that used to come there every day with his classmates because the food was so great. He's a retired old man now, and had been visiting the abandoned shop, feeling nostalgic. While he couldn't afford to reopen the place, he had been spending a lot of his free time at home learning to cook and recreating the flavors of the ramen he'd remembered from back then. The "mystery" of the suddenly appearing ghost is simple - the post box is of a very old style, and stands a little over head-height. That creates a blind spot that encloses the ramen shop behind it. Since everyone had been focused on the box while walking up to it, it isn't until after they turn around on reaching it that they can see anyone standing on the other side. Well, that works in reverse, because the one night Shino mailed the letter, the old man had just come out of the ramen shop, and Shino had also looked like a ghost that appeared out of nowhere. He'd panicked and run.

The next time, Shino and her classmates had kind of reminded the old man of his friends from college and he'd run forward to say "hi" to them, but the kids had scattered before he could see them clearly. After his explanation, while everyone is feeling sad for each other, Shinra leads them outside, where three more shadowy figures are standing next to the post box. This time, it's three old men that the boy had contacted, who are there to help out their old colleague. Eventually, Shino prints the photos she'd taken, and writes out the entire adventure on them to mail to her father in Africa (the hope being that with shorter sentences wrtten directly on the pictures, she'll learn how to write with more practice). Meanwhile, Shinra and Tatsuki are talking about the old man's dedication to learning to cook ramen, and how it's so great that he's back with his old friends. Shinra comments that that would be fine except for one thing - close friends would know how to word their reactions more carefully. As the old man serves dinner to his former classmates, they each take a mouthful, and say that the ramen isn't very good.

Summary: This volume's not bad, but it could have been better. There's little in the way of natural history this time, outside of the background on Paleoparadoxia. The artwork is good, and it's always fun having Mau back. But Imaginary Murder is too straight-forward, and Ghost in Vacant Lot and Migras are fluff pieces. Paleoparadoxia itself is fairly preachy. Hayato whines too much and isn't a likable (or relatable) character to me. Recommended only if you like the series.

Note that the spelling of Mau's name is still kind of undefined in English. The opening cast list gives her as Mou Segirl, but in the Migras chapter, her bookstore in London has "Mau's Antique Book Shop" at the front in big white letters. In katakana, it's "Mau," so it can go either way. I'm sticking to "Mau."

Note also that Adventure of Migras doesn't seem to be a real title. I can't find anything on it in English, and I'm assuming it was created for this story.