The Decagon House Murders: An introduction to Honkaku Mystery When Agatha Christie’s famous novel “And then there were none” came out it spawned a new kind of genre based on the popular whodunnit story. This is the Honkaku Mystery, as I learnt reading this manga, a subgenre of mystery that focuses on fair play. Characters were stuck all together in one place with no way of escape, and one by one they all died. So by logic the murdered was amongst them and the characters needed to find out who was the one that was murdering them all. In Japan, the novel of the Decagon House Murders savedthe mystery genre. It came out in a time when no one was interested anymore in mystery books and created a novel that followed the works of Christie, Poe and the likes, with a an emphasis on you, the reader, trying to figure piece after piece who was the murderer behind the killings. The genre also uses intense psychological and dramatic elements that fit well with the Japanese style of telling a story, especially a mystery story.

So you can assume what this manga is about. It is in fact based on a novel, a very notorious novel as well. The inspiration for this story comes from of course “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie.

A group of university students, take a trip on an island, to—you guessed it, a decagon house. There, a series of murders start taking place and one after another the characters die. Now they have to figure out who is the one that’s doing all this.

Of course, this isn’t an innovative story, but for the true mystery fans of the genre, this is a must read. The drawings are gorgeous, the characters are memorable, and there is a lesson to be learnt from this story, that isn’t just about the killer.

Personally, I wanted to enjoy it more, because I had guessed way too many things that became true way too early in the story. Unfortunately you finish the manga that you don’t get all the answers leaving you with a lot of questions. I’ve read that the novel does a good job with this part, so if you are curious in looking into it more, I highly recommend you check it.