Manga, Murder And Mystery: The Boy Detectives Of Japan’S Lost Generation

Little is known about the boy detective in Japanese detective fiction despite his popularity. Who is he, and what mysteries does he unveil about cultural understandings of youth in society? Manga, Murder and Mystery answers these questions by exploring the figure of the shonen (boy) detective in three commercially successful Manga series published between the 1990s and early 2000s - Kanari Yo ¯zaburo ¯ and Seimaru Amagi's Kindaichi Sho ¯nen no Jikenbo, Aoyama Go ¯sho ¯'s Meitantei Konan, and Ohba Tsugumi's Death Note. The book explores how these popular works tackle the crisis of young adult culture within the socioeconomic climate of Japan's 'lost decade'. Mimi Okabe shows how detective Manga materialized in a nation undergoing a state of crisis and how the boy detective emerged as a site of national trauma to address perceived youth problems but in thematically different ways.

• | Author: Mimi Okabe
• | Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• | Publication Date: Jul 27, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 212 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1350325090
• | ISBN-13: 9781350325098