Keigo Higashino's Galileo: Kindan no Majutsu (Forbidden Magic)

Just wrapped up the 2022 Television Galileo SP  “Kindan no Majutsu" (Forbidden Magic), based on the fourth full-novel in the Inspector Galileo series and eighth overall. This story is the only one of the Galileo full novels not translated into English and therefore one of which I had not read and had no inkling of the plot beforehand!

“Forbidden Magic” wrests with the quote “He who controls Science Controls the World”, and how the advancement of scientific technology is always aligned with war, whether for good or bad.

The Tokyo Police are called in when a journalist is murdered in his office and footage of a terrible new weapon being tested is found on his computer. There appears to be some kind of long-range device capable of delivering huge blasts of destruction from afar and the video shows how, in the wrong hands, it can be used for murder.

Because of the technical aspect of the video footage, detectives Kusanagi (Kitamura Kazuki) and Makimura (Yuko Araki) visit the eccentric genius Manabu Yukawa (Masaharu Fukuyama) to see what he thinks and if he can shed some light on what they are seeing.

As usual the impersonal Yukawa is resistant to assisting the police in their work and reveals little about what he knows, but with a little sweet persuasion from Makimura, grudgingly agrees to watch the msyterious footage.

To say he is surprised by what he sees may be an understatement, but he keeps his thoughts to himself...even as his mind is formulating theories  of what may have caused it!

Asking to examine the site of the destruction, Yukawa becomes grimmer when he realizes to himself that the theoretical design of the weapon is one he knows…and that the culprit who manufactured it may be one of his old students!

The student in question is a guy named Shingo Koshiba (Nijiro Murakami), and at the time, he was one of Yukawa’s brightest students. A natural talent for science, he surprised Yukawa by suddenly changing his studies to the medical field. And shortly thereafter, has quit school completely and seemingly disappeared.

 

Manabu Yukawa and Tomoka Makimura investigate into the hidden paths that the missing student has taken, and after interviewing a girl named Kurasaka (Nana Mori) who worked alongside Koshiba at a factory, realize he has been wrestling with a troubled mind about past incidents involving his sister and a politician named Ohga Jinsaku (Kosuke Suzuki)…and that the plan may ultimately be to assassinate him!

With the police on one side determined to track down Koshiba, Yukawa  hopes to find Koshiba himself, steadfast in the belief that the genius student he once knew is still good and can be talked out of his horrible plans!

WELL, I enjoyed  Kindan no Majutsu, even though I msut admit the vibe mostly underwhelming. Unlike some of the other movies like Devotion of Suspect X or the recent Silent Parade which were real cinematic projects that felt huge, Kindan No Majutsu seemed like a regular episode of the TV series, not that that's a bad thing. There were still lots to love here!

Yuko Araki plays the part of Tomoka Makimura, another character created to fill the place of the Utsumi Kaoru role when Kou Shibasaki doesn’t appear, much like the Yuriko Yoshitaka character of Misa Kishitani. 

They do take the time to give her a bit of personality, like when she’s excited to meet the mysterious Inspector Galileo and does her makeup in the car

or the spirited arguments she has with Ohtagawa (Sawabe), but for the most part, she’s there to walk alongside Yukawa much as Utsumi did. 

I mentioned before how the Utsumi role can be a thankless one and I don't blame either Shibasaki or Yoshitaka for not wanting to return for EVERY Movie or Special, nonetheless I was glad to see Araki "assuming" the part, and would love to see her turn into a recurring character further down the line!

As I've already posted, Shibasaki Kou DID return for the cinematic film "Silent Parade", and in fact, the Kindan no Majutsu broadcast was PEPPERED with advertisements hawking the upcoming movie!

When they inevitably make a movie or special out of Keigo Higashino's latest Inspector Galileo book "Invisible Helix", I'm very curious to see who will be co-starring in it alongside Fukuyama!

The Wonders of “The Miracles of the Namiya General Store”

Recently read one of the most entertaining, sweet and touching books, “The Miracles of the Namiya General Store”, by the awesome author Keigo Higashino. As some of you know, I’ve been obsessed with reading all the works of his I could find (of the few works of his that have been translated into English, anyway) after being blown away by his story “MALICE” and this was one I was particularly anticipating!

Most of Higashino’s novels centre around mystery and crime, (a la his GALILEO and SHINZANMONO works) however, Miracles of Namiya Store is a pleasant diversion, dealing with a more magical realism type style  in the vein of Haruki Murakami. Miracles concerns an old, abandoned general store that gives out advice to those who seek it- though the method of transaction between asker and giver is one of inspired wonder! More on the plot later....

I really loved this book, and after wards must have recommended it to SEVERAL of my friends, even as I was re-reading it yet again! And as almost every novel of Higashino’s has been translated into television series, one-off specials or theatrical films, I wondered with hope if Miracles had had the similar treatment….and was HAPPILY THRILLED to find out it HAD! A 2017 release, this movie starred actors and actresses I loved, and wasted NO TIME grabbing it!

Our Story:

 Three troubled youths (Ryosuke Yamada, Nijiro Murakami, Kanchiro Sato) break into a house, tie up the owner and flee with her valuables into the darkness. They attempt a getaway, however the vehicle they’ve acquired won’t start and, trapped in the neighborhood by the police, they’re forced to find a place to hide out for the night til the heat dies down.

One of the teens remembers an old abandoned general store in the neighborhood and they make for it.

 This is the Namiya General Store, and though they do not know it, once upon a time it was famous not only for its goods and wares, but the kind and humorous advice given by the Owner, Mr. Namiya (Nishida Toshiyuki). If fact, the place and his advice became something of a small sensation in the area at the time!

 

Namiya has long since passed on and the general store shuttered for years. But from time to time, troubled individuals will still drops letters asking for advice into the mail slot, in hopes of getting some kind of divine guidance in their problematic lives.

As the three teens hunker down in the dusty old store, they contemplate their options…when a letter clinks down from the mail slot, startling them all. But after checking outside, it seems this letter came from out of thin air. And upon reading the letter, they realize it is a letter that had actually been sent some 30 years past! 

How can this be happening? The boys do not know, but without anything else to do while they wait out the night, one of the lads decides to answer the letter and place it in the mail crate out back, where the writers always picked up their messages.

Through this magical, impossible connection, the boys answer letters from a faraway time, and as we do, we see how their crude but sincere advice shapes those that ask for it, as well as those around them.

There is  Katsuro Matsuoka, (Kento Hayashi), a struggling musician torn between taking over his Father’s (Kaoru Kobayashi) fish business…or leaving the family and little sister (Asami Himeka) behind and pursuing his career.

There is Seri Mizuhara (Mugi Kadowaki),  a former orphan herself who rises from despair to become a world famous vocalist…

An orphaned young woman named Eiko (Rio Yamashita) who becomes suicidal when she discovers that she is a child from an illicit relationship and a mother who seemingly tried to kill both of them in a car crash (which only she survived)..

A woman named Harumi Tamura (Machiko Ono) balancing life working an office job by day and  cabaclub hostess by night, while all the time caring for her elderly parents . She hopes to gamble on quitting her office job and working full-time as a hostess and investing in a (seemingly  shady) business venture with one of her clients.

With all of these individuals, their lives are guided by the words of the mysterious advice-givers, and we see by the fateful outcomes, for better or worse, just how everyone, in one way or another, is truly connected to each other.

“The book was better” is a oft used trope, and I can’t deny that a lot of the time I was disappointed by the exclusion of certain scenes or passages from the novel, however, for its cinematic time restrictions, I think this movie hits all the high points and captures the spirit and hopefulness of the book perfectly fine, and had me bawling my eyes out by the end as well!

I've already long sung my praises of Keigo Higashino ,and as he's one of the most celebrated writers in Japan, my opinion hardly matters, but I'm just amazed at how many wonderful novels, short stories, television series and movies he's made that have all become huge favorites of mine. Here's hoping to MORE of his work getting translated! There's still so MUCH out there and I'm eager to read 'em ALL!!!