Eugene completed a number of translations, most notably translations of the Twelve Kingdoms novels. He understood that a translation was itself an art--not something that can be left to a machine. A translation needs to capture the tone and pacing of an original--as well as its allusions, even jokes!

In the past few years, he completed translations of Ranpo Edogawa's Boy Detectives Club books.

The first translation he made, The Space Alien, is now available.  

   

INTRODUCTION

The year is 1953. The Korean War is winding down. The Cold War is heating up. In 1952, the United States tested the first hydrogen bomb. In 1954, Godzilla will stomp onto the world stage. UFOs are appearing all over the world. And in Ranpo Edogawa’s latest young adult novel, five flying saucers zoom across the skies of Tokyo.

A day after that alarming incident, a woodsman stumbles out of the forest to report the landing of an alien spacecraft in the mountains southwest of Tokyo. A month later, Ichiro Hirano’s neighbor goes missing. He then reappears as abruptly as he vanished, claiming he was kidnapped by a mysterious winged lizard creature—

The same lizard creature that is now stalking the pretty and talented sister of Ichiro’s best friend. What in the world is going on? What do the aliens want? These are the kind of questions that only master sleuth Kogoro Akechi and the Boy Detectives Club can hope to answer.

*** 

Ranpo Edogawa is the pen name (a pun on Edgar Allan Poe) of Taro Hirai (1894–1965). He is best remembered for the Kogoro Akechi and Boy Detectives Club novels, published between 1925 and 1962. The two series regularly cross paths, the Boy Detectives acting as a kind of Baker Street Irregulars in the former and Kogoro Akechi featured as the go-to adult in the latter.

The Boy Detectives Club stories are reminiscent of the Hardy Boys books and the Scooby-Doo television series. First serialized in the young adult “pulps,” these early versions of the “light novel” are highly readable, with an emphasis on action, vivid passages, and clever but not overcomplicated plots.

The Space Alien is also part of the Fiend with Twenty Faces series, the Fiend being a master of disguise and Detective Akechi’s nemesis. Though comparisons to Moriarty spring to mind, the Fiend is more a high-minded Thomas Crown, committing elaborate crimes for the intellectual challenge and the thrill of the chase.

The relationship between Detective Akechi and the Fiend, one based on a grudging mutual respect, is thus probably closer to that between Inspector Zenigata and Arsène Lupin III, making these stories less whodunits than howdunits or whydunits.

Edogawa was an admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and French mystery writer Maurice Leblanc (Arsène Lupin was his creation), and integrated themes and characters from their stories into his own novels.

Edogawa’s lifelong efforts as a writer and promoter of the western detective novel in Japan were well-rewarded. Police procedurals and “cozy” mystery fiction are staples of Japanese scripted television and populate the best-seller lists. The genre is hugely popular in manga and anime.

In Gosho Aoyama’s long-running Case Closed series (over 900 episodes to date), the boy detective sports the nom de plume of Conan Edogawa. Two homages in one!

*** 

The Space Alien takes place in the year following the end of the Occupation (1945–1952), at a time when Japan was struggling to find a firm footing in a brand-new world.

During the Korean War, the American military relied heavily on Japanese suppliers for logistical procurement. In a great historical irony, Japan was destroyed by one war and revitalized by the one that followed it. Though the heady growth of the 1960s was a decade away, the economy would begin to markedly improve in 1954.

Yet rice paddies could still be found throughout Setagaya Ward, inside the Yamanote loop line that defines Tokyo proper. They wouldn’t last for long. Japan was starting over from scratch. Everything was up for grabs—except those principles of truth and justice that will always remain the same for every sentient soul in the universe.

Because even aliens from outer space have to obey the law. Detective Kogoro Akechi and the Boy Detectives Club will see to that!

***

Following in the style of traditional Rakugo storytellers, Edogawa occasionally breaks the fourth wall to muse aloud about the unfolding events in the story. I try to reflect such rhetorical quirks in my translation.

 

Labels: edogawa, translations