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Orihara Izaya to… #2
折原臨也と、喝采を
人間観察が趣味で『情報屋』と嘯く男の物語──第２弾！ 男の名は折原臨也。車椅子を駆り、『情報屋』が生業と嘯いている。彼が訪れた場所では必ず何かが起きる。今回も彼のいるスタジアムで殺人事件が起こり──。
車椅子を駆り、『情報屋』が生業と嘯く男。
彼のいるスタジアムで起きた殺人事件の真相とは──。
「俺は、人間を観察する為に最低限の技術と知識さえあればいいさ」
折原臨也という男は、名探偵というわけじゃない。寧ろ、その全く逆の存在だ。
あいつは自分の目の前で起こった事を、大抵の事は躊躇い無く受け入れる。目と鼻の先で実の家族が撃ち殺されようが、臨也はその殺人犯に対して笑顔で語りかける。
──『今、どんな気分だい？』ってな。
だから、折原臨也は倫理的に褒められるような行動はしないし、論理的な推理もしない。目の前で起こった事を淡々と受け入れて、さも『全部自分の予想通りだ』って面をする。
あいつは犯人や被害者を追い詰める道化師だ。恨みも怒りも無いのに、ただ、自分の楽しみの為に追い詰めて追い詰めて……そのまま相手が崖から落ちたのを観て笑う嫌なピエロだ。
折原臨也は名探偵じゃない。どこまでも強気なピエロで、関わった奴をみんな沼に引きずり込む疫病神だ──。
車椅子を駆り、『情報屋』が生業と嘯く男。
彼のいるスタジアムで起きた殺人事件の真相とは──。
「俺は、人間を観察する為に最低限の技術と知識さえあればいいさ」
折原臨也という男は、名探偵というわけじゃない。寧ろ、その全く逆の存在だ。
あいつは自分の目の前で起こった事を、大抵の事は躊躇い無く受け入れる。目と鼻の先で実の家族が撃ち殺されようが、臨也はその殺人犯に対して笑顔で語りかける。
──『今、どんな気分だい？』ってな。
だから、折原臨也は倫理的に褒められるような行動はしないし、論理的な推理もしない。目の前で起こった事を淡々と受け入れて、さも『全部自分の予想通りだ』って面をする。
あいつは犯人や被害者を追い詰める道化師だ。恨みも怒りも無いのに、ただ、自分の楽しみの為に追い詰めて追い詰めて……そのまま相手が崖から落ちたのを観て笑う嫌なピエロだ。
折原臨也は名探偵じゃない。どこまでも強気なピエロで、関わった奴をみんな沼に引きずり込む疫病神だ──。
- GenresLight Novel
306 pages, Paperback
First published October 8, 2016
About the author
Ryohgo Narita
360 books388 followersRyohgo Narita (成田 良悟, Narita Ryōgo) is a Japanese light novelist. He won the Gold Prize in the 9th Dengeki Novel Prize for Baccano!, which was made into a TV anime in 2007.[1] His series Durarara!! was also made into a TV anime, which began airing January 2010
There are two traits found in most of Narita's works:
* Narita writes extremely fast, one volume a month if he wishes - with tons of spelling errors and missing words as a tradeoff. The editors like to leave them sometimes just for fun, though.
* His work titles often have an exclamation mark at the end (i.e. Baccano!, Vamp!, Durarara!!, etc.).
Kanji names: 成田 良悟 & 成田良悟.
There are two traits found in most of Narita's works:
* Narita writes extremely fast, one volume a month if he wishes - with tons of spelling errors and missing words as a tradeoff. The editors like to leave them sometimes just for fun, though.
* His work titles often have an exclamation mark at the end (i.e. Baccano!, Vamp!, Durarara!!, etc.).
Kanji names: 成田 良悟 & 成田良悟.
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January 10, 2018This second entry in the Orihara Izaya themed spin-off series represents something of a shift. Unlike the first volume and most of the Durarara canon proper, Kassai takes place almost entirely in real time. This allows for a compression of the narrative chain of events so that instead of seeing how Izaya's convoluted plots play out on the long run, the reader has a peculiar insight into how Izaya thinks on his feet and how he manages to outplay everyone in a situation of which he had precious little background knowledge.
The most fascinating aspect of Kassai is precisely that it delves into Izaya's brilliant ability to think and react to whatever happens as it happens. There is also an amusing point, that is addressed in a rather wry tone right at the beginning in a prologue, in that for once Izaya is the victim of circumstances and is entirely innocent. Like the proverbial broken clock, this is the exception that proves the norm, thus making it exceedingly difficult for anyone to believe that someone so deep in shady dealing as Izaya can possibly have nothing to do with this particular one.
This contradiction between expectation and reality is brought home with Izaya's typical glee over all things exciting as he embraces the weirdness of a coincidence that almost defies the odds. At its core, Kassai is a murder mystery of the whodunit variety. Izaya, given his past and occupation, becomes the default suspect of a crime in which he had absolutely no participation whatsoever.
The before mentioned compression is emphasized by the location: the entirely of the story takes place at a baseball stadium during a packed game. Izaya brings his by now regular posse to this game (including Sozoro battle butler extraordinaire; Neck, top notch hacker and snarky goth loli; and the children, borderline mute and solemn Himari along with Haruto who is still bursting with enthusiasm over virtually all things) as he received tickets by way of payment for his services. What follows is a warped, insidiously funny comedy of errors with Izaya alternating between a quasi-parental figure, the butt of plenty of irony from the part of his grownup entourage and his usual philosophical commentary on his surroundings.
Of particular interest are Izaya's insights into sports. Above all Izaya is thrilled by the emotional investment human beings place on sporting competitions. In a defining moment, Izaya hopes he could have a split-screen with the reactions of supporters from both teams so that he could contrast the radically different reactions when a particular team scores of fails to score. The idea is that comparing the happiness of the winners with the unhappiness of the losers would be absolutely tantalizing.
Here we have an inroads into Izaya's moral spectrum. If Izaya does tend to be the villain in the canon- dig deep enough and Izaya's handwork can be traced in virtually all crises- he is a character of shades of grey who is more amoral than immoral. Veering very close to sociopathy, which he openly courts through his borderline monologues with the cast, Izaya captures so much of the fandom's attention precisely because he is unique. Arguably, the abstraction from traditional notions of 'good' characters versus 'bad' ones that Durarara is meant to embody is fully realized in the disturbing, delightful and dizzying character that is Orihara Izaya.
It is all the more ironic that Izaya is cast in a heroic role- or very close to it- given how events conspire around him in this particular novel.
If Izaya is the reason this series ever got conceived in the first place, the rest of the cast gets plenty of development in Kassai. The canon cast is again given a backseat so that Izaya's unlikely gang can shine along with the characters that formed this volume's source of conflict, namely the tyrannical owner of the baseball stadium and his entourage.
Like Sunset did, Kassai does away with large scale, Tokyo-wide meanderings and focuses, even to a greater extent, on a small, self-contained environment. The stadium, to which Izaya is confined in the sense that he is still in his wheelchair, becomes a stage, complete with actors of varying importance and with Izaya stealing the spotlight in a spectacular way. Stripped of the canon's supernatural shenanigans this series continues to deliver on tight action and a plot based on the myopic power relations that are so real in Japanese structures that it gains a relevance Durarara never quite achieves.
Despite the fact that Izaya is even more the focus of the novel than he was in its direct predecessor, in pure Narita style there are so many players involved that he is only occasionally given fully narrative attention. But that works to Kassai's advantage as the tidbits of information we do get about Izaya's inner state of mind feel all the more visceral for coming across as unintentional confessions of sorts.
Overall, this is a superior work to Sunset in most ways. It suffers from a conclusion that is rushed and a few rather unlikely alliances are forced far too quickly but it is remarkably engaging for all that.
As we are reminded throughout Kassai, Izaya is not out to shed light on the truth for goodness sake but he is every bit as committed to getting to the bottom of a mystery as any self-proclaimed 'seigi no mikata' can ever be. Here is a space in which Izaya is acting as Conan with none of the moralizing, all of the keen intelligence and an extra flair of twisted greatness because Izaya is aware, as we readers are, that between the one who points the finger ('Hannin wa...ANATA DA!') and the one being indicted, the line is so blurred so as to be a technicality.
The most fascinating aspect of Kassai is precisely that it delves into Izaya's brilliant ability to think and react to whatever happens as it happens. There is also an amusing point, that is addressed in a rather wry tone right at the beginning in a prologue, in that for once Izaya is the victim of circumstances and is entirely innocent. Like the proverbial broken clock, this is the exception that proves the norm, thus making it exceedingly difficult for anyone to believe that someone so deep in shady dealing as Izaya can possibly have nothing to do with this particular one.
This contradiction between expectation and reality is brought home with Izaya's typical glee over all things exciting as he embraces the weirdness of a coincidence that almost defies the odds. At its core, Kassai is a murder mystery of the whodunit variety. Izaya, given his past and occupation, becomes the default suspect of a crime in which he had absolutely no participation whatsoever.
The before mentioned compression is emphasized by the location: the entirely of the story takes place at a baseball stadium during a packed game. Izaya brings his by now regular posse to this game (including Sozoro battle butler extraordinaire; Neck, top notch hacker and snarky goth loli; and the children, borderline mute and solemn Himari along with Haruto who is still bursting with enthusiasm over virtually all things) as he received tickets by way of payment for his services. What follows is a warped, insidiously funny comedy of errors with Izaya alternating between a quasi-parental figure, the butt of plenty of irony from the part of his grownup entourage and his usual philosophical commentary on his surroundings.
Of particular interest are Izaya's insights into sports. Above all Izaya is thrilled by the emotional investment human beings place on sporting competitions. In a defining moment, Izaya hopes he could have a split-screen with the reactions of supporters from both teams so that he could contrast the radically different reactions when a particular team scores of fails to score. The idea is that comparing the happiness of the winners with the unhappiness of the losers would be absolutely tantalizing.
Here we have an inroads into Izaya's moral spectrum. If Izaya does tend to be the villain in the canon- dig deep enough and Izaya's handwork can be traced in virtually all crises- he is a character of shades of grey who is more amoral than immoral. Veering very close to sociopathy, which he openly courts through his borderline monologues with the cast, Izaya captures so much of the fandom's attention precisely because he is unique. Arguably, the abstraction from traditional notions of 'good' characters versus 'bad' ones that Durarara is meant to embody is fully realized in the disturbing, delightful and dizzying character that is Orihara Izaya.
It is all the more ironic that Izaya is cast in a heroic role- or very close to it- given how events conspire around him in this particular novel.
If Izaya is the reason this series ever got conceived in the first place, the rest of the cast gets plenty of development in Kassai. The canon cast is again given a backseat so that Izaya's unlikely gang can shine along with the characters that formed this volume's source of conflict, namely the tyrannical owner of the baseball stadium and his entourage.
Like Sunset did, Kassai does away with large scale, Tokyo-wide meanderings and focuses, even to a greater extent, on a small, self-contained environment. The stadium, to which Izaya is confined in the sense that he is still in his wheelchair, becomes a stage, complete with actors of varying importance and with Izaya stealing the spotlight in a spectacular way. Stripped of the canon's supernatural shenanigans this series continues to deliver on tight action and a plot based on the myopic power relations that are so real in Japanese structures that it gains a relevance Durarara never quite achieves.
Despite the fact that Izaya is even more the focus of the novel than he was in its direct predecessor, in pure Narita style there are so many players involved that he is only occasionally given fully narrative attention. But that works to Kassai's advantage as the tidbits of information we do get about Izaya's inner state of mind feel all the more visceral for coming across as unintentional confessions of sorts.
Overall, this is a superior work to Sunset in most ways. It suffers from a conclusion that is rushed and a few rather unlikely alliances are forced far too quickly but it is remarkably engaging for all that.
As we are reminded throughout Kassai, Izaya is not out to shed light on the truth for goodness sake but he is every bit as committed to getting to the bottom of a mystery as any self-proclaimed 'seigi no mikata' can ever be. Here is a space in which Izaya is acting as Conan with none of the moralizing, all of the keen intelligence and an extra flair of twisted greatness because Izaya is aware, as we readers are, that between the one who points the finger ('Hannin wa...ANATA DA!') and the one being indicted, the line is so blurred so as to be a technicality.
November 29, 2024
Izaya seems like he has an ominous aura with him, which makes him look like a higher being than the measly humans he so much love to observe. This volume showed the readers that he is also just a regular human: a five-year-old kid who is—as described by Himari—just trouble.
A walking trouble, a talking trouble, a living trouble.
The thing is just, he is so good at it—being a trouble.
That's it. No special powers whatnot. But even for a terrible man like that—
Anyway, to anyone who knows Izaya (even barely), this is a must read.
A walking trouble, a talking trouble, a living trouble.
The thing is just, he is so good at it—being a trouble.
That's it. No special powers whatnot. But even for a terrible man like that—
Anyway, to anyone who knows Izaya (even barely), this is a must read.
August 31, 2022
Bir cilt daha verin lütfen.
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