Pulptober 2024 Day 8: Kogoro Akechi/Pulp from Around the World
Edogawa Rampo was a very pulp-style author in the first half of the 20th century in Japan. He wrote some chilling horror stories, but for the moment we're looking at his series detective character, Kogoro Akechi.
He started out mostly as a Doylist necessity because Edogawa wanted to prove it was possible to write a "locked room" mystery even using traditional Japanese architecture with no door locks. And you need someone to solve that mystery. Now that he had a detective character, the author put him in stories that needed one and slowly built up who he was. Over the course of time, Akechi moved from being an interested amateur to a professional private eye with his own agency.
I've read and reviewed a book with several of his early appearances.
Book Review: The Early Cases of Akechi Kogoro by Edogawa Rampo Edogawa Rampo was the pen name of Hirai Tarou (1894-1965), who I last talked
I've also got but not read yet the novel where he fights Arsene Lupin.
As the 1930s moved on and government censorship made it more difficult for Edogawa to use adult themes in his work, he came up with the idea of switching to children's literature. "The Boy Detectives" had Akechi move to being the adult supervisor for a team of teenage boys that solve mysteries. It introduced one of Japan's favorite villains, the Fiend with Twenty Faces.
Book Review: The Fiend with Twenty Faces by Edogawa Rampo The year is 1936. Japan occupies Korea and Manchukuo, and has set its sights on th
That series kept Edogawa Ranpo in lunch money for the rest of his life.
Manga/anime fans will note that Detective Conan/Case Closed pays homage to the Akechi Kogoro stories.
