The Decagon House Murders (Jukkakukan no Satsujin), a mystery novel by Yukito Ayatsuji, will be adapted into a live-action series on Hulu Japan, the streaming service announced on Thursday. Hulu Japan did not disclose the format of the adaptation (a film or series).
Thrilling Live-Action Adaptation of The Decagon House Murders Mystery Novel:
Hiroyuki Yatsu (Sōten no Ken: Re:Genesis manga, As the Gods Will live-action film), Madoka Hayano, and Kaori Fujii are writing the script, which is being directed by Akira Uchikata. On March 22, Adaptation makes its Hulu Japan debut.
The shinhonkaku (New Orthodox) mystery sub-genre, which veers away from realism and embraces fantastical playfulness, nihilism, and absurdity, is attributed by mystery fans in Japan to the original 1987 mystery novel. The sub-genre includes many elements of classical mystery fiction, such as intricate locked rooms and game-like puzzles that audiences are also expected to piece together, but it also includes elements of postmodernism and metatextual references.
The novel was translated by Ho-Ling Wong and released in English by Locked Room International in 2015. In May 2021, Pushkin Press released an updated edition of the book that retained the same translation.
The plot of this novel is:
The novel, as described by Pushkin Press, is based on Agatha Christie’s famous locked-room thriller And Then There Were None. The plot is as follows: a group of university detective fiction enthusiasts, each given a nickname based on their favorite crime writer (Poe, Carr, Orczy, Van Queen, Leroux, and yes, Christie), spend a week on the isolated island of Tsunojima Island after being drawn there by a series of murders that occurred there the previous year. Their overwhelming curiosity will, naturally, prove to be their downfall.
A new round of violent deaths begins, and Ayatsuji’s deft, furious pacing propels the narrative. As the students are picked off one by one, he weaves in the story of the mainland investigation of the earlier murders. This is a tribute to Golden Age detective fiction, but it is also unabashed entertainment. “The sunlight shining down turned the rippling waves to silver,” the students say as they approach Tsunojima in a hired fishing boat. “The island lay ahead of them, wrapped in a misty veil of dust,” with its sheer, dark cliffs rising straight out of the sea, accessible by one small inlet.
Ayatsuji published another horror mystery novel in Japan in 2009. The novel inspired a 2012 anime by P.A. Works, with character designs by Noizi Ito. Ayatsuji published a sequel novel titled Another: Episode S in 2013 and a second sequel titled Another 2001 in 2014. Hiro Kiyohara launched a manga adaptation of the novel in Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine in August 2019 and ended it in April 2022.
The manga’s fifth and final volume shipped in May 2022. The manga was released in four volumes by Kadokawa; Kiyohara also illustrated the two-chapter Another0 manga for Young Ace in 2012. The English translation of the novel and manga was published by Yen Press.
