Tag: Japanese trains

Tokyo Express

Kathryn4 Comments

Seichō Matsumoto’s Tokyo Express is a slim mystery novel from 1958 whose crime is largely dependent on train schedules. Although two apparent victims of suicide appear to have traveled together to a lonely seaside town, were they in fact being pursued…?

The officer assigned to the case, a young detective named Mihara, suspects the involvement of the president of an industrial manufacturer with close ties to the government. Mihara assumes that his prime suspect, an affable middle-aged gentleman named Yasuda, was attempting to cover up an illegal collusion.

As Mihara pursues various train schedules across the Japanese archipelago, he learns that Yasuda’s elaborate system of alibis checks out. But, if Yasuda didn’t murder the two victims, who could have been helping him?

For me, there were far too many timetables in Tokyo Express, and I found myself skimming to avoid getting bogged down in the numbers. No one in the story has much of a personality, and Mihara is mostly a cipher for the reader. Despite the plot’s emphasis on travel, the locations that Mihara visits don’t really have a sense of place or setting.

I’m given to understand that there are many mystery fans who appreciate this style of writing, namely, just the facts with little by way of atmospheric description. If you’re looking for a puzzle box in book form, Tokyo Express has a lot of fun moving parts to play with. If you read mysteries more for the story, however, it might be better to take a pass on this particular ride.

The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station

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Takeshi Murase’s linked short story collection The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station is about four people who lost members of their family in a tragic train derailment. For a year after the accident, the ghost train still makes its fatal run at midnight, giving those who grieve its passengers an opportunity to speak to the loved ones they lost.

The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station is meant to make the reader cry, and it does so primarily through its improbably melodramatic situations. This short book is relatively light reading, and the level of catharsis it allows you to experience will depend on your tolerance for sentimentality.

Still, as far as this type of fiction goes, I enjoyed The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station much more than similar titles (such as Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold). Murase’s stories are grounded in the social realities of contemporary Japan, and the characters are messy and complicated enough to be interesting.

My favorite story is “To My Father, I Say,” which is about a young man named Sakamoto who leaves his rural hometown to work at a large finance corporation after graduating from a prestigious university in Tokyo. Sakamoto is forced to attend mandatory drinking sessions after work, and he’s bullied by his supervisor. He’s tired all the time, and his relationship with his girlfriend has gone stale. Meanwhile, he’s ignoring the calls from his father, who comes from a humble background.

Sakamoto finally snaps and quits his job, but he can’t bring himself to tell his family as his living conditions grow more precarious. Thankfully, he gets a second chance to talk to his father on the ghost train, which is the exact opportunity he needs to reevaluate his life and goals.     

Like a lot of contemporary Japanese popular fiction aimed at young adults in their twenties, The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station is brutally honest about the emotional damage caused by bullying, which can extend far beyond grade school. Like other authors, Murase doesn’t shy away from stating that the main problem lies with the people who tolerate this behavior, while the solution is for one brave person to step up and offer support to the target.

This is an important and wholesome message, of course, but it’s a little depressing to me that this support can only exist in the form of a magical ghost train. Then again, the purpose of The God of Nishi-Yuigahama Station is not to offer deep insights and critique, but rather to make the reader cry and feel gratitude for their own family and friends. And who knows? This might just be the support you need.