October 23, 2024

The scene of the crime (writer)

Ranpo Edogawa is the pen name (a pun on the Japanese pronunciation of Edgar Allan Poe) of Taro Hirai (1894–1965). He was born on October 21 in Mie Prefecture and moved to Tokyo at the age of seventeen to study economics at Waseda University.

He made his literary debut in 1923 with the publication of a mystery short story.

Edogawa would go on to become a tireless promoter of the mystery genre in Japan and is largely responsible for its current popularity in books, movies, and television.

In commemoration of Ranpo Edogawa's 130th birthday, the Detective Conan anime series (also titled Case Closed) will use his real home as the setting for a two-part episode.

Gosho Aoyama's Detective Conan manga debuted in 1994. The anime launched two years later and has racked up over 1100 episodes. As an homage to Ranpo Edogawa and Arthur Conan Doyle, Aoyama gave the boy detective in the series the alias of Conan Edogawa.

Edogawa is best remembered today for his Kogoro Akechi and Boy Detectives Club mystery novels, published between 1936 and 1962.

First serialized in the young adult pulps, these early versions of the light novel are fast and fun reads, with an emphasis on action and clever but not overcomplicated plots. I have so far translated four of the novels and am working on The Underground Magician.

The Boy Detectives Club

The Phantom Doctor
Big Gold Bullion
The Bronze Devil
The Space Alien

At last count, Crunchyroll has nearly 400 episodes of the Detective Conan anime. The manga are available at Amazon (English) and BookWalker (Japanese). "The Ranpo Residence Murder Case" will debut on November 16 and 23, 2024.
The Ranpo Edogawa estate is managed by Rikkyo University as the Edogawa Rampo Memorial Center for Popular Culture Studies.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Comments