edogawa ranpo covers part 5 – the edge of kodansha-hunting

as I’ve been looking for various versions of the edogawa ranpo boy detective series, there’s one edition that stood out from the rest – read on to learn more about this hair-raising kodansha selection, their unreal cover illustrations, illusive authorship and perhaps… a connection to kamen rider?!

I am obsessed with this line of selected ranpo novels, published by kodansha in the 1970s – the covers are just phenomenal!! and that’s no fluke – it turns out, they were done by acclaimed painter and illustrator Noriyoshi Ohrai, who many will know for his work on star wars and godzilla – he was also apparently a prolific illustrator of book and magazine covers. these are definitely my favorite ranpo covers so far, and I would love to see more of his work!

sources I’ve seen indicate that the content of the books themselves is assuredly rewrites, presumably to tone down the eroguro content to align it more with the children-to-YA audience they were targeting (though, don’t quote me on that as fact – I haven’t read the adaptations, so I can’t compare). what I find intriguing is that, while all of these have been previously adapted for younger readers, it’s unclear to me if the same authors were involved in the re-writing process, given that these are from kodansha rather than poplar!

most interesting of all is the convoluted publication history of The Ghost Tower (aka The Mystery of the Clock Tower). the original novel from 1898, A Woman in Grey by american-english author Alice Muriel Williamson, was translated and ‘adapted’ into japanese by author Kuroiwa Ruiko as a newspaper serialization from 1899 to 1900. following this, ranpo re-rewrote the ruiko translation, fully adapting the text to be set in japan – this ranpo version of the ghost tower was later re-re-rewritten, in 1959, to incorporate it into the juvenile tanteidan canon – this time ghostwritten by fellow mystery author Hikawa Ron (who it appears is actually responsible for a bunch of the rewrites!)

along with a 2008 translation-rather-than-adaptation of the original williamson novel, it also looks like there was a couple other adaptations of the original ruiko (meaning, the 2nd iteration) for juvenile readers – a 1952 version “for girls” rewritten by poet Saijo Yaso, and a 1958 version “for boys” (that former version seems pretty interesting, I’ll be honest…!), and then there’s the 2011 manga adaptation (aka yuureitou) by Tarou Nogizaka… but, I’ll save my thoughts on that for another time, once I’ve finished reading it.

for now, here’s the next big mystery that’s come across my desk: as noted in the aforementioned source, the designs for the covers (rather than the illustrations) were done by Ishifumi Mizuno, who they say… also worked on the packaging for the toy version of kamen rider’s transformation belt???!?! keen readers will of course know that I have watched every season of kamen rider, so for me, this is a shocking revelation… will I be able to crack the case?! stay tuned to find out!!

psst – don’t forget to check out the edogawa ranpo cover masterpost