Numerical Models / 数奇にして模型 by Bad Player's Good Reviews / Anime Blog Tracker

Numerical Models / 数奇にして模型

Numerical Models is the penultimate entry in Hiroshi Mori’s S&M series and features a model (person) murdered at a model (toy) convention, but unfortunately falls quite short of being a model (paragon) murder mystery. In most of the books in this series, our deuteragonists student Moe and professor Saikawa stumble onto the murder together or Moe learns of the murder and drags Saikawa into it, but in this case Moe and Saikawa independently get roped into attending the model convention, in a contrived but entertaining series of events. On one morning in the middle of the convention, one of the organizers, a grad student named Terabayashi, is found unconscious with the headless corpse of a model who had been working at the convention. If that wasn’t bad enough, Terabayashi then comes under suspicion for the murder of his research partner, who was murdered in their nearby school lab that same night.At first glance, Terabayashi is the most obvious suspect. He was found with the model’s corpse, locked in the room with the key… maybe. (Saikawa finds the key to the room on the ground near the area where Terabayashi is loaded into an ambulance in front of the convention hall—so it seems like it fell out of Terabayahi’s pocket, but it’s also possible someone else intentionally dropped it there in the confusion.) The research lab was also locked, and while there were a few keys, Terabayashi seems to be the only one with a useable copy. Plus, if the two murders are connected, Terabayashi appears to be the only common link between the two victims.But there are a lot of strange points as well. Why would Terabayashi have locked either room? In both cases he would’ve known that doing so would implicate him. Nothing in the medical examination of Terabayashi’s wound suggests it was faked or self-inflicted. The model’s head wasn’t found in the crime scene, meaning Terabayashi would have had to have returned to the crime scene after carrying it away just to lock himself in and faint. (There’s also the question of why the model’s head was cut off, since there doesn’t seem to be any question as to the corpse’s identity, but that’s a question that applies regardless of Terabayashi’s guilt.)So all in all, we have a double locked room murder with several perplexing points. Unfortunately, the answer is extraordinarily lame, and relies on a super sketchy timeline. The motive in Numerical Models is probably the worst in the series so far, which is saying something since the motive has consistently been the weakest element of the S&M series. It reminds me of the motive in Who Inside, only even more inscrutable.Numerical Models doesn’t include a map, but it turns out that the convention takes place in a thinly disguised version of the Nagoya Public Hall in Tsuruma Park, and I was actually able to find floor plans, which felt like a kind of fun sidequest.As the S&M series has progressed, I felt like Mori just grew more and more enamored with his own characters, and used the novels more as platforms to showcase how cool and smart they are rather than be, you know, murder mysteries. And that felt toned down in Numerical Models, but instead he has a bunch of pseudo-intellectual nonsense about making models. It feels like it’s coming from a place of personal interest for Mori, but, c’mon, people can just like building things without tying the raison d’etre of their soul to it. On that note, the peek into early 2000s Japanese nerd/con culture is fun.This book introduces Moe’s cousin who is extremely effeminate but generally treated with respect. So it’s nice to see that, especially considering how weird Mori can be about his female characters. (Of course, the previous gay character he had ended up being the only person on that book to not have their live ruined, so it’s not entirely surprising.)I will also admit that I did get a kick out of the closing gag.As the second-to-last entry in the series and longest so far (beaten out only by the last book), I was hoping that Numerical Models would start the grand ramp-up into the finale, but instead it turned out to be a weird dud. If you’ve made it this far into the series, it feels like it’d be a shame to skip an entry at this point… but I don’t think you’ll be missing much if you do.

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