Takahiro Okura is a mystery writer who wrote the screenplay for the 27th film in the series, "Detective Conan: The Million Dollar Five-Point Star." He moved from Tokyo to Kanagawa about two years ago and has been writing from his home. We spoke to Okura about film scripts, novels, his hometown of Kyoto, and Kanagawa.
--First of all, congratulations on the huge success of "Detective Conan: The Million Dollar Five-Pointed Star"! It has become a record-breaking hit, grossing 15.4 billion yen and attracting over 10.8 million viewers. Please tell us about the thoughts that went into this film.
Okura : Thank you. When it gets to this scale, it goes beyond the realm of personal desire, and it's all about whether the people who look forward to the one movie a year are happy with it.
This is my fourth project, but when I took on the first one, it wasn't on such a large scale so I took it on fairly easily (laughs), but it was still on the scale of over 6 billion yen.
--In the "Detective Conan" movie series, the setting of the story often plays an important role. This film is set in Hakodate, but your first film, "Crimson Love Letter," was set in Osaka and Kyoto. Okura-san, you are from Kyoto, so was there anything you paid special attention to about the setting being in your hometown?
Okura: The main character of "Kara Kurenai no Koiuta" was decided to be Hattori Heiji, who also appears in this work, and since he was from Kansai, known as the "Great Detective of the West," it was decided that the setting would be Kansai. On top of that, we decided to use karuta (Hyakunin Isshu) as a key item, and we chose Kyoto as the specific location. I used to like Misa Yamamura's suspense series that was broadcast on TV, and it was often set in Kyoto and had a story related to Hyakunin Isshu, so that reminded me of that. So it wasn't particularly a big deal that it was my hometown. As for the script, I was able to write the lines in Kansai dialect from the beginning (laughs).
--Now that we've talked about your hometown, I'd like to hear a little bit about your life so far. Have you loved mysteries since you were a child?
Okura: I get asked that a lot, but I was a kid who didn't read at all when I was a kid. The more people around me told me to read, the less I read (laughs). However, when I was in my third year of high school, I had a really good teacher who taught me modern Japanese, so I thought I'd read a book if he told me to, and I picked up a book by Akagawa Jiro. After that, I went to Tokyo to go to university, but my commute was long. I felt like reading books again to kill time, and at that time, I picked up an Agatha Christie book at a used bookstore because it looked interesting. It was so interesting. I got into reading from there. However, I started reading mysteries right away, so there are many books that are considered masterpieces in Japanese literary history that I haven't read (laughs).
--What is your favorite work? If you could take just one book with you somewhere, what would it be?
Okura: Hmm, there are a lot of works I like... But if I had to choose something that has roots in me, it would be Seishi Yokomizo's "Gokumon Island." I was shocked to see that such a well-made mystery existed, and thought, "I could never imitate that."
Before reading "Gokumon Island," I had read so-called mystery classics such as Agatha Christie and Edogawa Ranpo, and since "Gokumon Island," I have also liked more recent works such as Hideo Yokoyama's "64," but if I had to choose one book, it would have to be this one.
--How did you go from being a reader to becoming a mystery writer?
Okura: I've always been an otaku, and when I like something, I'm the type who can't be satisfied unless I dig deep into it. So after I got into mysteries in my first year of university, I read about two books a week, and over 100 books a year. I read over 500 books during my university years, which were a year longer than most people. After reading that many books, I wanted to try writing myself next. But I wasn't thinking, "I'll definitely become a writer," so when I graduated, I looked for a job and joined a company. Now no one would believe me, but even so, I changed jobs once and worked as a company employee for five or six years (laughs).
That being said, I guess being a company employee just wasn't the right fit for me. After the first year or two, I thought, "I can't do this anymore!" I wrote novels here and there after work, but I started writing seriously around the time I changed jobs. You could even say that I changed jobs in order to write seriously.
But when I actually decided to write, I didn't even know how to write on manuscript paper, so I happened to come across a novel-writing class and took one. The lecturer was a famous writer who had won the Rampo Prize, and he read and corrected the novels I had written. I received positive feedback from that writer, and he encouraged me to enter awards. About two years later, I won a novel newcomer's award, had a book published, and from there I was asked to write more, which is how I got to where I am today. I think I've followed a fairly conventional path as a mystery writer.
--It seems like you became a writer very smoothly!
Even though I'm Okura , I lost the award eight times in two years (laughs). I wrote ten books in two years, and finally won the award with the ninth one. The normal pace is one book a year, but I wrote ten books, so two years may seem short, but it took quite a while in terms of the number of books written.
In the past, books sold better than they do now and things were better, but if I had known about the reality of the publishing industry, where many people don't last long after debuting, I probably wouldn't have become a writer. I wouldn't have quit my job without planning. In that sense, I guess I've been lucky to have been able to continue until now (laughs).
-- In your works, you have some impressive characters with rich personalities, such as Kenshin Gito in "Mr. Shinigami" and Fukuya in the "Detective Fukuya Series." How do you get the ideas for such characters?
Okura: Actually, I don't think about the characters first. I think about the background, or rather the "frame". Then the character is born from within that.
For example, the "Detective Fukuya" series was inspired by the 1970s American TV drama "Columbo." I loved this drama since I was a child, and I wondered if I could somehow turn it into a novel, so I started writing. Columbo is a middle-aged man, but if I leave it as it is, it will be a rip-off. I wondered how to change the impression significantly, and made the main character a woman. In this way, the frame of Columbo was created, and the character of Fukuya came later.
Left: Detective Fuka's revisit (Tokyo Sogensha) Center: Detective Fuka's greeting (Tokyo Sogensha) Right: Detective Fuka's report (Tokyo Sogensha)
Left: Shinigami-san (Gentosha Bunko) Right: Shinigami-san, the Hated Detective (Gentosha Bunko)
Since the characters aren't the only things we think about, the story changes as it progresses. I like overseas dramas and watch them often, but long-running series greedily research what viewers want and change the characters more and more. Japanese dramas end around 10 episodes, so they stick to the original character settings until the end, but dramas that use this method often exceed 100 episodes, and they get really interesting from around episode 60. This is possible because the characters aren't too rigid.
Sometimes I write unexpected parts that I thought were a bit off, and if the readers like them, I'll make those parts more prominent in the next one, so I think the characters have changed between the first and latest series by adding new elements to them. I shouldn't say this, but if the worldview is interesting, I think it's fine to add characters later (laughs).
-- Writing a script for a work like "Detective Conan" where the world view is already established, and creating a work by constructing a world view from scratch, I imagine that each requires a completely different approach, but what is it actually like?
Okura : To begin with, the process of writing novels and screenplays is different, so it's necessary to switch between them. In addition, Conan is special, or rather, there are many things that "only Conan can do." Conan's character allocation or placement is very well done. The mystery genre is also a broad one. There is always a character that fits what you want to do. For example, if you want to do a theft theme, there's Kid, if you want a political conspiracy story, there's the Black Organization, for spy stories there's Amuro, and for straight mystery solving there's Conan and Kogoro.
In particular, the scripts for the movies have already been decided on characters, and if you use those characters you can do whatever you want, so it's an easy approach. I mentioned earlier about the characters, but the novel starts from a framework, but the scripts for Conan are the exact opposite approach.
However, even though we have completely opposite approaches when it comes to coming up with a plot, I think it's the same once we start writing. As I said before, the process or technique is different, though.
--Some of this overlaps with the question about "Kara Kurenai," but do you think the place and environment where you currently live has an influence on your work?
Okura: I haven't written a story set in where I live yet. If possible, I would like to actually go to the location where I want to set the story. I went to Hakodate, the setting of this Conan film, and the script changed before and after I went there. There's a lot to gain from the atmosphere and the stories I hear from the locals. Mysteries in particular are deeply connected to the personalities and customs of the people of the place.
--Finally, please tell us your impressions and attractions of Kanagawa Prefecture from the perspective of mystery writer Okura Takahiro.
Okura: I've only been living in Kanagawa for about two years, and I'm a very lazy person, so I don't really know much about it (laughs). Kanagawa is very large, isn't it? I used to go camping in Tanzawa with my friends, and that's in Kanagawa, right? There are mountains and lakes like Hakone, the sea in Odawara and Shonan, and glittering places like Minato Mirai, so it seems like there's a lot you can do in terms of a mystery. I'd like to make use of that in my work.
However, I don't often use real place names in my novels, because there are times when murders and things like that happen, and some people are happy when place names appear in them and some aren't (laughs).
