Tantei Aoneko 2/ Detective Bluecat 2

Author: Motoni Modoru
Imprint: Hanaoto
Publisher: Shoubunsha
ISBN: 4-8322-8145-3

Reviewed by Jeanne

The second volume of the adventures of the amateur sleuth Aoneko Kyoujiro opens with that languid and self-indulgent aristocrat entertaining guests: his blond friend, Inspector Hachiouji of the police force, and the young boy, Makoto, whom he encountered in the previous volume and for whom he has what the French call a tendresse. Mako-kun had actually been invited by his friend Torato, Aoneko's much put-upon young assistant, but it's Aoneko who insists on monopolizing Mako's time. Torato gets sent out to buy snacks for them all. He's annoyed, of course, but oddly enough everyone he meets is terribly nice and sympathetic to him. Seems they've read all about his private homelife in the newest scandal sheet and are alive to the possibility that Mako may oust Torato from Aoneko's affections. That Torato has no memory of ever being in Aoneko's affections doesn't seem to matter to them. Even Hachiouji believes the newspaper accounts of Aoneko's hard-heartedness. Torato thinks over his past and comes to a decision.

The articles in the scandal sheet, Kahou Kurabu (Flower Tidings Club, with the 'club' written in kanji as well- katakana are so vulgar, my dear) are the work of a mysterious contributor, Matatabi. That's 'silvervine' when written with the usual kanji, but here it's 'weird-many-many-beauties'. Matatabi is strangely familiar with the details of Aoneko's past, even if the details of Aoneko's present seem to be largely a product of his imagination. This includes, naturally, Aoneko's never-explained connection to the master thief Glass Bat. This book finally give us the outline of what happened in Aoneko's past, even if the juicy details, as Motoni says in her afterword (written in spidery and unreadable penji grrr), must wait for next time.

The last third of the book is devoted to Torato's past and his first encounter with Aoneko. This is one of those complicated and fantastical mysteries that characterized the early stories of the first volume. Here we're dealing with a master forger who puts a signature on his works, and a pocket watch that plays a tune but doesn't sound one note, and the significance of both these facts-- all set largely in the high-class brothel where Aoneko seems to spend most of his time. Half the time he's with the women- usually when someone wants him for something- but the other half he's lying comfortably in the embrace of the blond and dishy male manager, and the reader is left to guess which one he prefers.

This is the usual Aoneko exercise in style, a nice balance of nostalgia, silliness, romance and tanbi-ish '20s Edogawa Rampou mystery. With a little sprinkling of yaoi sex (chained to a bed, this time) just for the decadence of it. A fun read all round.

More detailed synopsis and commentary, including SPOILERS.

spoilers below

spoilers below

Both volumes of Aoneko show a similar progression in their presentation of the character- basically from gag buffoon to serious human being. Here we go from the spoiled self-centred aristocrat who pouts and weeps when his feelings are hurt, to the apparent upper-class twit, so afraid of the possible advances of the gay baron with the taste for handsome young men, to the brilliant detective, able to see through the complex machinations of a complex crime and into the hearts of his fellow men. This shifting viewpoint is odd, because Aoneko is a series that appears sporadically in Hanaoto, and I doubt that Motoni was thinking in terms of tankoubon when she wrote the individual stories. More likely she simply changed her approach as the tone of the story requires, and the progression in both volumes was a happy accident. Nonetheless we get an impression of moving deeper and deeper into Aoneko's own psychology. Probably the subtle psychologist of the third story still cries into a pillow at the idea that Torato might ever want to leave him, but we don't see him doing it. (Well actually, we do. The man takes sentiment to extremes.)

And of course the figure of Twit Aoneko reinforces the point of the first story. The terribly sympathetic-to-Torato types who've read the scandal sheet, like Hachiouji, keep telling Torato that fickle Aoneko, with an eye for any pathetic boy who comes along, can never be a proper father to him. Hachiouji tells him that there are aristocratic families who know about his plight and would be delighted to adopt him. (One mark of a fantasy- the series is alive with benevolent aristocrats just dying to adopt illegitimate foundlings and brain-damaged ex-whores off the streets.) Why stay with Aoneko who not only makes Torato do the dirty work of detecting but also leaves all the housework to him as well? Torato sets Hachiouji straight. 'He's not my father. I'm his.' How true. As we will see, even Glassbat acknowledges Torato's adult status. Of course, we have Torato at the very end thinking, apropos of Aoneko's incursions on Torato's friend, 'Well, fine. After all he's older than me. And when he's grown old and feeble, then I'll have him where I want him.' "And thinking thus, the youth Torato decided to forgive Aoneko."

Aoneko's background: Well, our guy was the second son of a rich family, and one day when he was ten he simply disappeared. Shortly thereafter his parents and older brother were massacred by a thief who broke into the house. Rumour has it that it was the doing of close relatives, intent on the family treasure. The internecine murderousness of English aristocrats seems to be one of those ingrained ideas the Japanese entertain about life in Old Blighty, though to be fair they also show rich Japanese families randomly slaughtering each other as well. Whatever, Aoneko stayed gone for seven years, and then reappeared again. Proceeded to build up the family fortunes and devote himself to the detection of crime. But for seven years he was the apprentice of the master thief Glassbat on his remote southern island, and retains from those days a deft hand with a picklock.

All this comes out in the middle Matatabi section. An announcement has come from Glassbat, as is his habit, saying that on such and such a day he will burgle such and such a house. Aoneko says the note is a forgery, and refuses to get involved. On the day the house is indeed burgled and a servant is killed. Aoneko is adamant that this isn't Glassbat, because the master thief doesn't kill. But Matatabi continues to spread innuendo and gossip in his paper. 'What is Aoneko doing? why doesn't he respond? Please, Aoneko-sensei, save our lives!' Aoneko is manipulated into acting the next time a message comes from Glassbat. It's delivered to a certain Baron Kumakura (bear-storehouse, a pun on the famous city of Kamakura) whom Aoneko doesn't want to get too close to because the man is a homosexual, and has his eye on Aoneko. (Aoneko of course prefers women, like a normal man, and just happens to sleep with men and the occasional boy. I hope you see the difference.) Aoneko takes Hachiouji with him- for protection, or to thrust into the baron's arms if he gets too importunate- and at the mansion meets Matatabi, a man who badly needs a new barber and someone to advise him about his wardrobe, especially the hats. Matatabi, naturally, has hot eyes for Aoneko, and steals a kiss from him on the terrace.

On the night of the burglary, however, all goes as before. There's a shot, a serving boy is killed, and Aoneko and Matatabi discover Glassbat bending over the boy's body. 'Flee!' Aoneko cries to Glassbat, and Glassbat does- in rage. Meanwhile Matatabi drugs Aoneko and carries him off to a hideaway in the country for a little chained-to-the-bed sex aka rape. Hachiouji comes to consult with Torato about how to get Aoneko back, and Torato with his usual common sense summons Glassbat. Glassbat appears and confesses that he was angered by Aoneko's assumption that it was he who had killed the serving boy. It was of course Matatabi, who was also a former pupil of Glassbat's, but who preferred the easy means of violence to the high art of brilliant burglary as practiced by Glassbat. And as Matatabi tells it, at Glassbat's he fell hard for Aoneko, at first sight, captured by his arrogant attitude. (And maybe some day we'll find out why Glassbat was kneeling at Aoneko's feet and begging for pardon when Matatabi first saw him.)

All is well, of course. Aoneko, knowing Matatabi will kidnap him, left a message for Torato concealed in a cufflink which he gave to the maids at Kumakura's mansion long before the murder was committed. With utterly unlikely prescience, he tells exactly how Matatabi will smuggle him out of the house. To strain belief even further, even before going to Kumakura's, Aoneko knew what train station Matatabi would leave from and left another cufflink with a streetboy there, that tells what kind of place he'll be taken to. Remains only to find an empty western house belonging to Kumakura done up in the kind of style preferred by Aoneko himself. A piece of cake, and Aoneko is rescued-- reproaching Glassbat all the time for having mistaken his playacting for real at Kumakura's mansion and taking himself off in a snit. 'Thanks to that I had to sleep with someone I don't like'-- at which he gets a little off-koma consolation from someone he apparently does.

The third story, back-set a few years, has to do with a brilliant forger called Misou (deep thoughts) whom Aoneko is tracking. The forger conceals his signature somewhere in his pictures, and the pictures themselves have a humanity that the originals themselves lack. (Of course, the other way of interpreting that is 'the forger takes the perfect masterpieces and turns out a popularized version that anyone can understand.') Whatever, Aoneko has a certain sympathy for this genius and wants to wean him away from his career. We also have a rather younger and rather badly bruised Torato wandering the streets with a watch in a little bag, whose chimes he listens to and hums incessantly, and the rich son of well-to-do merchant who has a similar watch, with a similar painting on the lid, that plays the same tune. One watch gets stolen, and complications ensue, which I'd rather not try to unravel. Aoneko has no trouble following the intricate problem of which watch is the forgery and which is real and who is the proper owner of both of them-- but I do. It all has to do with a pun on the word Misou, and Torato's tragic past. Love child of an unsuitable match, he didn't know his mother and lost his artist father to pneumonia in early childhood. All he has left is the pocket watch an old woman gave him when he was four, saying it was from his father- a story which reduces Aoneko to tears.

Transpires that Torato is but naturally the genius forger, capable not only of painting brilliant pictures but also of constructing watches- and all this at the tender age of seven or eight max. Impressive. He's fallen into the nefarious clutches of the criminal known as the Weasel, who makes him paint forgeries- but Torato always puts his signature, Deep Thoughts (which was his father's nom de plume as well), onto his works because maybe, maybe, they may find their way to where his mother and father are and tell them that their son is still thinking of them. And maybe, maybe someone will realize what the signature means and tell his father and mother about their son. And maybe, maybe, that someone will see that Torato gets to be with his father and mother again. (Don't read this story if you're at all hormonal. You'll weep as much as Aoneko does.) And in the end, Aoneko takes Torato off the streets and home with him, because Aoneko is the one who realizes what the signature means and so is the only one who can be Torato's family. Not that young Torato realizes that what he's gained by the transaction is a son, not a father. That disheartening realization is for later.