Shinhonkaku Detective Fiction

The **Shinhonkaku School** (新本格派(しんほんかくは), *Shinhonkaku-ha, "Neo-Orthodox School"*) of detective fiction is a Japanese genre of mystery. It is, strictly speaking, a subgenre of the *honkaku* style of Japanese mystery fiction, rather than an entirely separate category. *Shinhonkaku* stories tend to be more metatextually dense and youthful than their more classically styled honkaku counterparts, but otherwise still embrace the strict whodunit conventions they are built on. The peak "*shinhonkaku era*" encompassed the time between 1987 and 1997. However, *shinhonkaku* style mystery remains an active movement within Japanese literature.

## Style

Since the idea of a *shinhonkaku* story is nested within the wider category of *honkaku* mysteries, the distinctions between them can be especially subtle. The notion of a separate *shinhonkaku* style became most clear in retrospect, and many key writers of the subgenre simply intended to write *honkaku* stories in their own personal style. However, several distinct trends emerged among this subset of *honkaku* authors who were most active in the 1990s.

Firstly, *shinhonkaku* authors tended to be relatively young compared to the more varied ages of classical *honkaku* writers. This led to the *shinhonkaku* style being imbued with a distinct generational flavour, rather than attempting to be more timeless. This generational context was strongly influenced by both Western postmodernism and the broad sense of nihilism present across Japanese literature during the Lost Decade.

Secondly, *shinhonkaku* authors rejected the realist impulses of *shakai* school detective fiction. Whereas these "social" mystery novels were pushing the mainstream towards increasingly realistic scenarios, *shinhonkaku* stories tend to embrace the inherent implausibility of mystery tropes such as locked-rooms, alibi tricks, and swapped identities. Such stories may also make frequent use of explicit metatextual references, which undermines any obligation towards realism by appealing to the audience's own expectation that fiction need not be similar to reality.

The end result of these two philosophies is that *shinhonkaku* works came to accept the nihilism of their era as a reality, but sought to rectify this disillusionment by nostalgically drawing on the tropes of older genres. Namely, by recreating the non-real worlds of *honkaku* mysteries. A key phrase of the *shinhonkaku* style is that complex mysteries should be fun to solve, not soulless recreations of reality. It is for that reason that the puzzle solving elements of mystery fiction were brought to the forefront.

## History

The early experiments in the *shinhonkaku* school are typically dated to the *Kiyoshi Mitarai Series*, which Souji Shimada started in 1981 with *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders*. However, *The Decagon House Murders*, a 1987 novel by Yukito Ayatsuji, is conventionally awarded the honor of launching the *shinhonkaku* movement. Ayatsuji's success spawned a *honkaku renaissance*, which came to hold the name *shinhonkaku* which had been used to describe Ayatsuji's work. Important early writers in this boom include Alice Arisugawa, who made his debut in 1988, as well as Rintarou Norizuki, who made his debut in 1989.

It is important to distinguish between the stylistic elements that unite the writers from the *shinhonkaku* era from the historical concept of the term *honkaku renaissance*, which refers to the boom in groundbreaking mysteries novels after the 1980s, and may simply be referred to as *shinhonkaku* in and of itself. Several highly influential authors made their debut in the *shinhonkaku* era who do not share in the same stylistic traits as their peers. Kaoru Kitamura made his highly influential debut in 1989, but wrote in his own distinctive style which came to be known as everyday mysteries. Similarly, Natsuhiko Kyougoku's own innovative style made its debut in 1994 with his Hyakki Yagyou Series. These other groundbreaking authors came to be seen as part of this *honkaku renaissance* despite their many differences from the style that would come to define this era.

Even if he is regarded as a separate kind of writer, Kyougoku's debut was an important step in crystalizing the sense that the *shinhonkaku* movement would continue to produce brand new styles of mysteries that needed to collected. For the sake of this, the Mephisto Prize was established, and brand new authors made their debuts every year. This led to other important *shinhonkaku* authors making their debuts to close out the renaissance, allowing writers such as Hiroshi Mori starting in 1996, Ryuusui Seiryouin in 1997, Kazuhiro Uraga in 1998, Outarou Maijou in 2001, and Nisio Isin in 2002 to become the faces of the genre into the modern era.

## Further Reading

*What is shinhonkaku? (In Japanese)*: NicoNicoPedia. Retrieved 2021-01-18.

## References

1. ↑ Wong, Ho-Ling. *Ellery Queen is Alive and Well and Living in Japan*: Criminal Element. Retrieved 2021-01-14.