Following the success and positive reception of the “Osamu Dazai Exhibition” collaboration back in August/September 2018, fantasy-action series “Bungou Stray Dogs” has once again announced intention to team with literary institutions for a brand-new collaboration event/exhibition in November 2018.

According to the announcement source from Nijimen, this time round, the series will be collaborating for the very first time with the Kochi Literary Museum; and the author of focus for the new event/exhibition will be the Japanese mystery/suspense writer Ranpo Edogawa – otherwise fondly known amongst Japanese literary circles,  especially fans of the mystery and suspense genre of literature – as the ‘Japanese Edgar Allan Poe/Arthur Conan Doyle’. This is high honour for the author since these two famous Western writers of mystery/suspense literature happened to be Ranpo Edogawa’s inspiration for his own mystery works. He spent a great part of his writing career promoting the mystery and suspense genre of literature during the postwar-period Japan in the 1940s/50s, and is himself well-known for having created several novels and collection of short-stories involving the fictional “Detective Kogoro Akechi” and his arch-nemesis, the “Man with the Twenty Masked-Faces”.

©2018 Kafka Asagiri・Harukawa 35 / KADOKAWA / Bungo Stray Dogs DA Production Committee 2016 ©Kochi Literary Museum
©2018 Kafka Asagiri・Harukawa 35 / KADOKAWA / Bungo Stray Dogs DA Production Committee 2016 ©Kochi Literary Museum

Titled “Ranpo Edogawa’s Elegant Bookshelves”, the upcoming exhibition will run from 17 November 2018 to 14 January 2019 at the Kochi Literary Museum. Literary fans may find themselves wanting since the Kochi Literary Museum will be exhibiting some of Ranpo Edogawa’s early works of mystery and suspense – short stories that he submitted for serialisation in magazines in those days before his “Detective Kogoro Akechi” mystery series became famous. Besides mystery tales from Ranpo, the museum committee also plan to display some works of mysteries from other literature authors who have lived in their times and are basis for adaptations in “Bungou Stray Dogs”

Fans of the illustrated light-novel/manga and/or anime “Bungou Stray Dogs” would also be treated to a field day at the exhibition since there will be new and as-yet-undisclosed illustrations and concept artworks from both original series illustrator Harukawa 35, and from the anime production team to look forward to; as well as life-size artwork panels for fans to take photographs with. And since the basis of the new event/exhibition is Ranpo Edogawa, in the spirit of ‘mystery solving’, there will also be a stamp rally mini-event that fans may participate in as they are invited to seek out hidden clues and hints hidden within the Museum premises to complete the rally so as to win a special prize of an originally-designed clear-file folder.

Of course there will be original, commemorative merchandise of pin-badges and postcards to be sold as well, but no images of the merchandise are available at the time of announcement – so fans who are interested to find out more about the event and its exclusive goods are urged to follow the official twitter account for  “Bungou Stray Dogs” where detailed information will be updated when they become available.

Those litarature fans who are interested to find out more about the author Ranpo Edogawa and his impact on the mystery/suspense writing genre on the Japanese literary world may read more here.