Do Japanese male mystery writers write differently than Japanese female mystery writers? Do they focus on different themes or create fear and suspense in different ways? I decided to begin to investigate this topic with two short stories: Natsuo Kirino's "Tokyo Island" and Edogawa Ranpo's "The Strange Tale of Panorama Island". Both stories take place in a similar setting, and I was interested in how they approached mystery and horror in different ways while constrained by this setting. I used several different text analysis techniques to investigate each story, and my results are both pictured and discussed below.
Tokyo Island by Natsuo Kirino
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by Edogawa Ranpo
While the text analysis above is not enough data to draw complete conclusions on the differences between female and male detective fiction writing in Japan, it does show some interesting trends in both stories. Firstly: In "Tokyo Island" the center of the story is clearly Kiyoko, the only woman among the many men stranded upon the lush island. Natsuo Kirino writes a story that focuses on a woman among men, and how this puts her in a position both of power and fragility. It's a story about sex and power and womanhood, as well as a cautionary tale of how even on a island paradise corruption and frustration can grow. The mystery in this story is less about a villain and more about why Kiyoko makes her choice and what happens after the story ends. We are left with countless questions: Do they make it to freedom? Do they cast Kiyoko aside as she fears? If they do achieve freedom, does Kiyoko ever actually decide to return, or does she decide to leave the men stranded to die? In "The Strange Tale of Panorama Island, the diagram shows neither woman nor man is truly the center of the story, with the scheming Hirosuke and the innocent Chiyoko sharing the focus. While the paradise Hirosuke creates on Panorama Island adds to the tension just as Kirino's abandoned men do on Tokyo Island, the tension is created in an entirely different way. Panorama Island is both strange and beautiful, and it is in Chiyoko's innocent experience of the island that we find both rapture and horror. As we experience the island with Chiyoko, Hirosuke is ever behind her, the mastermind of it all, gloating in his creation. We can see Chiyoko's feelings toward Hirosuke through the words connected to his name above: "don't know," "fear" and "felt," "appeared" and "strange." The mystery in this story plays out inside of it, instead of after like in "Tokyo Island." There is the mystery of the island itself, closely followed by the anticipation of Chiyoko's murder and the eventual discovery that follows. The difference between the women in two stories could not be more different. Where Kiyoko is full of depth, soiled by her desire for sex and her imperfect body and her desire for admiration, Chiyoko is the perfect Mary Sue: beautiful, innocent, desirable, and in love with the man who ultimately kills her. Her centrality to the story is not due to the depth of interest of her character, but to the way she orbits around Hirosuke, the man pulling the strings. Is this difference in depth due to the differing styles of the way male writers depict women vs. how female writers depict women? To a degree I would say yes. It could also be said that part of this difference comes from the two authors differing styles of writing, with Kirino focusing on the gritty, ugly depths of humanity, and Ranpo focusing on "panoramism", a style coined by him which attempts to create and invite the reader into entirely new worlds, almost as in a fever dream. Ultimately, while this analysis drew interesting comparisons, deeper investigations must be done before hard conclusions can be drawn.
1. Edogawa, Ranpo, and Elaine Gerbert. Strange tale of panorama island. Honolulu:University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2013. 2. "Tokyo Island." Granta Magazine. May 18, 2010. Accessed December 18, 2017.