Chapter 19

Commentary Yuuki Shasendou Any fan of this series should know that this story is an extremely irregular mystery featuring a peculiar setting. I hope you pay no mind to the absurdity of me using the words irregular and peculiar in the same sentence. If you are a reader of this brazen series, I believe you should understand the feelings that prompt me to want to describe it as such. Despite featuring an outlandish protagonist who makes a living through playing in regularly held death games and having other distinctive characters who lead readers by the nose, this story is a fair-play mystery that guides its readers with rules. The rules that are explicitly stated offer the information needed to poke holes in the games in advance to anyone with the ability to think as flexibly as Yuki. A reread would show that game setups, such as the double-bath venue in Volume 2’s Golden Bath, are hinted at quite fairly. Furthermore, Yuki’s unique sensibilities as a regular death-game player, which may seem quite baffling to readers at first glance, are unusually easy to accept due to the declaration that she lives according to her own rules. That holds true even for when she kills a girl whom she had been carrying on her back moments prior, and for her decision to devote her life to clearing ninety-nine consecutive games, a goal that may possess no meaning whatsoever. With the groundwork complete, this volume manages to pull off a classic closed circle mystery through Cloudy Beach. Players are trapped on an inescapable, secluded island and must survive a killer who attacks night after night. This simple game fully satisfies as an exciting mystery in this series. The thrill of deducing the contours and conclusion of the game through clues that are gradually revealed is sure to delight even the most avid of mystery fans. Additionally, those who have finished reading Cloudy Beach must have realized the special advantage this series has in presenting a mystery—the ability to depict an extremely long-term case. The clues for this closed circle mystery are found not in the state of the corpses nor the alibis of the players. Rather, the elements of deduction are drawn from past volumes, from the existence of the psychopath Kyara, who appeared in Volume 1’s Candle Woods, to even the mentor-protégé relationships of characters like Mishiro, who died in Golden Bath. Rarely do typical mysteries bring together the same characters for multiple cases. As such, each time, characters build new personal relationships, divulge their pasts, and hunt for motives. For this series, however, because players are repeatedly participating in death games put on by the same organizers, they run into one another across multiple games, growing readers’ understanding of them and their relationships. Thus, information from past games also serves as clever foreshadowing. In reality, the key to solving Cloudy Beach is information relating to the manner of death and the survival of Hakushi, Yuki’s mentor, who had lived through Candle Woods. The long-term foreshadowing spans more than a full volume, a method that astonished me as the story unfolded before my eyes. This series was able to open up a new horizon precisely because it is a series with a peculiar setting. Of course, as the series continues, the reader’s understanding of the characters and the setting will keep expanding. It is for that reason that this series is blessed with an ideal rule: The newest volume will always be the most entertaining.