Tesso no Ori - Vol. 2 Ch. 5 - Myoukeiji Temple

[MangaDex]

 

[danbellucci]

Thanks for the chapter but now I remember why I dropped this manga.

1. having psychic detective characters who can supernaturally tell what happened in the past by touching objects in mystery manga is just bad in general. It's bad because there are no firm rules about what an object will tell the psychic, how long in the past the detective can see by touching an object, etc. so it just feels CONVENIENT for the author. Secondly, if a detective has that power then solving a mystery becomes less about deduction and inference and more about just touching everyone and every thing. Furthermore these ESP detectives nearly always have the mechanic of "I can sense powerful emotions and past events" , in which case committing murder would almost always be the most powerful emotion and past event, so the ESP detective should be able to solve any whodunnit-style mystery just by shaking hands with the murderer. So the author either has to come up with reasons to avoid the ESP detective ever touching the murderer, which is a huge tell and very unwieldy or requires and outside culprit which eliminates the whodunnit aspect , or the author has to selectively ignore the detective's ESP powers when it comes to the murderer or come up with an unconvincing excuse like "oh the murderer didn't emotionally react during the murder because he's a psychopath" (which is nonsense, even a psycho would almost always find committing murder and risking getting caught to be the most exciting recent event they had gone through)

2. and even if you can make ESP detective work in a story, say because the main appeal isn't the "whodunnit" aspect, it's especially egregious in this story since the whole point of the book seller detective is that he's meant to be le skeptic scientific materialist who knows all about folklore but has total disdain for superstition and complete confidence that nothing supernatural like goblins or ghosts exist and only uses "ghost" as a metaphor for when he lacks information. BUT being a materialist makes NO SENSE when you KNOW that one of your friends has supernatural psychic powers!!! It's just a complete contradiction. It would be like being certain that no aliens exist even if you had clear proof that life arose independently on both earth and mars.

It's a shame because everything else in these stories is really good but adding a psychic detective who can just touch things to see what recent emotionally powerful events have happened but the author conveniently chooses when his power works so as not to give away too much of the story even though he could just go around touching everyone and everything and the whole thing would become obvious breaks the story.
It's such a bad , unnecessary decision. I know the author created the psychic detective character for another series of books but why not just keep him in a different universe? makes no sense to bring him into the same story as a materialist Sherlock Holmes character AND have that Sherlock Holmes character continue existing that nothing supernatural exists. Plus ESP ruins the deduction and inferences which are the main appeal of the story.

 

[nxxmfury]

Oh wow, It’s been so long that I totally forgot I’ve had this manga bookmarked. Quite exciting to see an update though I’ve already forgotten what this one is about lol.

Thanks for the TL.

 

[fatto_catto]

Thanks for the chapter but now I remember why I dropped this manga.

1. having psychic detective characters who can supernaturally tell what happened in the past by touching objects in mystery manga is just bad in general. It's bad because there are no firm rules about what an object will tell the psychic, how long in the past the detective can see by touching an object, etc. so it just feels CONVENIENT for the author. Secondly, if a detective has that power then solving a mystery becomes less about deduction and inference and more about just touching everyone and every thing. Furthermore these ESP detectives nearly always have the mechanic of "I can sense powerful emotions and past events" , in which case committing murder would almost always be the most powerful emotion and past event, so the ESP detective should be able to solve any whodunnit-style mystery just by shaking hands with the murderer. So the author either has to come up with reasons to avoid the ESP detective ever touching the murderer, which is a huge tell and very unwieldy or requires and outside culprit which eliminates the whodunnit aspect , or the author has to selectively ignore the detective's ESP powers when it comes to the murderer or come up with an unconvincing excuse like "oh the murderer didn't emotionally react during the murder because he's a psychopath" (which is nonsense, even a psycho would almost always find committing murder and risking getting caught to be the most exciting recent event they had gone through)

2. and even if you can make ESP detective work in a story, say because the main appeal isn't the "whodunnit" aspect, it's especially egregious in this story since the whole point of the book seller detective is that he's meant to be le skeptic scientific materialist who knows all about folklore but has total disdain for superstition and complete confidence that nothing supernatural like goblins or ghosts exist and only uses "ghost" as a metaphor for when he lacks information. BUT being a materialist makes NO SENSE when you KNOW that one of your friends has supernatural psychic powers!!! It's just a complete contradiction. It would be like being certain that no aliens exist even if you had clear proof that life arose independently on both earth and mars.

It's a shame because everything else in these stories is really good but adding a psychic detective who can just touch things to see what recent emotionally powerful events have happened but the author conveniently chooses when his power works so as not to give away too much of the story even though he could just go around touching everyone and everything and the whole thing would become obvious breaks the story.
It's such a bad , unnecessary decision. I know the author created the psychic detective character for another series of books but why not just keep him in a different universe? makes no sense to bring him into the same story as a materialist Sherlock Holmes character AND have that Sherlock Holmes character continue existing that nothing supernatural exists. Plus ESP ruins the deduction and inferences which are the main appeal of the story.

In Summer of the Ubume, Sekiguchi actually calls out his friend for the contradiction of not believing while having Enokizu right in front of him. Kyogokudo's answer is simply that the brain hasn't been explored enough, and deep down there must be an explanation for Enokizu's visions that isn't magic (and like how "spirits" in Kyogokudo's line of work always end up being human imagination coupled with their negative emotions). Kind of like how radio would be supernatural for people from middle ages, but we'd never label it as such cause we know how it works.
It's not really that particulary useful, anyway, all he sees are memories of people, and only the part they are currently mulling over, so for most part it's a slight push into making him help people or something, while Enokizu is far more useful for his social standing, and his readiness to dive in head first into danger and beat up bad guys.

 

[sssr]

In Summer of the Ubume, Sekiguchi actually calls out his friend for the contradiction of not believing while having Enokizu right in front of him. Kyogokudo's answer is simply that the brain hasn't been explored enough, and deep down there must be an explanation for Enokizu's visions that isn't magic (and like how "spirits" in Kyogokudo's line of work always end up being human imagination coupled with their negative emotions). Kind of like how radio would be supernatural for people from middle ages, but we'd never label it as such cause we know how it works.
It's not really that particulary useful, anyway, all he sees are memories of people, and only the part they are currently mulling over, so for most part it's a slight push into making him help people or something, while Enokizu is far more useful for his social standing, and his readiness to dive in head first into danger and beat up bad guys.

I think we should also remember that in Enokizu's own novel (not manga) series he isn't unambiguously psychic. See, if you remember how Sekiguchi is an unreliable narrator in Ubume, that's what Enokizu is throughout his own series when discussing himself. In the novels, Enokizu himself doesn't believe that he's psychic, but things he can do will convince people that he is. This is then exacerbated by Enokizu being an unreliable narrator when it comes to himself. In effect, the novels depict Enokizu as unknowingly participating in his own ongoing "psychic detective" charade. In other words, in the shared universe Kyougokudo is actually correct. It's just that he himself can't figure out how Enokizu's "abilities" work, and this failure by Kyougokudo is essentially what the author uses to set up the two men as equals.

The mangas can't depict the ambiguity surrounding Enokizu with the same level of complex subtlety, so he's just straight up psychic here.

 

[sotokouya]

thanks for the tl