Saho Sasazawa


Sasazawa Saho was a Japanese author, known as the creator of the Kogarashi Monjirō novels, which became a hit televised drama series.
He was a self-declared member of the or "new orthodox" school of detective fiction writing. Aside from mysteries, he also wrote thrillers, essays and history books, with some 380 books to his credit.

Life and works

Saho Sasazwa was born Masaru Sasazawa, the third son of poet. Born in Yokohama according to many sources, but it has also been said he was actually born in Yodobashi, Tokyo and later moved to Yokohama. There he attended what is now Kanto Gakuin University's high school division, but failed to graduate, frequently running away from home during this period.
By 1952 he was in Tokyo, working at the Bureau run by the Postal Ministry. Around this time he dabbled in writing plays.
In 1958, he was struck by a DUI car, suffering injuries expecting to take 8 months to fully heal. But his short stories Yami no naka no dengon and Kunin me no giseisha, which he had submitted to prize contest before the accident both qualified and were printed in the December 1958 special issue of the Hoseki magazine.
In 1960, his Manekarezaru kyaku became a runner-up for the 5th Edogawa Rampo Prize, and the release of this in book format marked his debut as novelist.
He adopted the pen name Saho, which was taken from his wife's name Sahoko.
His Hitokui was awarded the 14th Mystery Writers of Japan Award, after which he resigned from the Postal Ministry and became a full-time professional writer.
With his Roppongi shinjū he received his third nomination for the prestigious semi-annual Naoki Prize for popular fiction. He had been twice nominated for the prize before, for Hitokui and Kūhaku no kiten, and although he was short-listed to win this time, he was disappointed once again. Around this time, while declaring himself to be one of the practitioners of honkaku-ha or "orthodox school" of mystery fiction-writing, he wrote a trilogy on double-suicide without homicide; of these, the Naoki Prize-nominated Roppongi Double-Suicide was appraised as a piece "depicting empty love between a young man and a girl", which entwined "the drama of loss of faith in humanity" into the mystery novel.
In 1970, he ventured into writing with Mikaeri tōge no rakujitsu. Sasazawa's style of this gambler fiction has been characterized as "casting a nihilistic shadow, an added an aura of Cowboy Westerns". The samurai period gambler piece that brought Sasazawa lasting fame was his Kogarashi Monjirō series, begun with the episode entitled Shamen bana wa chitta. The book was TV-dramatized with Atsuo Nakamura playing the leading role of the gambler Monjirō, and the program achieved immense popularity.
He continued to write fiction in both contemporary and period settings.
Some of his outputs in modern settings from the subsequent period include the child-kidnapping novel Mayonaka no shijin, called a masterpiece on par with his earlier great works; Haruka nari waga ai o which launched the Detective Isenami series;Tasatsu misaki was a time-limit kidnapping story with a twist, the scandal-monger must devise a ransom for the perpetrator who only wants vengeance; Kyūkon no misshitsu features a well-crafted locked room gimmickry.
He also became well known at one time for Akuma no heya and its sequels in his Akuma series of erotic suspense-thriller novels, televised as Jigoku no Tatsu torimono hikae; another TV-dramtized series on , whose title character Okon bears a tattoo which forms a complete dragon when combined with her lover's.
During his lifetime he published some 377 books.
With declining health in 1987, he recuperated at a hospital in the town of Mikatsuki, Saga which bore a name similar to , the fictitious birthplace of Monjirō. After being discharged, he made the adjacent town of Fujichō his home, and although he had to relocate in 1995 to in Saga city for hospital access, the Fujichō residence later became the Sasazawa Saho Memorial Museum.
He established the for literature by new authors in 1993, with the final 24th prize awarded in 2017.
In 2001 he returned to Kodaira, Tokyo, and succumbed to liver cancer on 21 October 2002 at a hospital in Komae, Tokyo.

Legacy and influence

He was a prolific writer, who at his height wrote 1,000 or even 1,500 pages of manuscript per month,、he has been called a "constant innovator" or experimenter. In particular, Sasazawa is known for applying the mystery novel techniques of "surprise-twist endings " and climatic endings in writing matatabi fiction, thus introducing a fresh angle in the fiction about these wandering rogue swordsman-gamblers.
He wrote a study in sensual-erotic suspense with the novel Akuma no heya which was adapted into film, and crime novels consisting entirely of conversation, such as Donden gaeshi, and Dōgyōsha, and Ushiro sugata no seizō where the alibi trick undergoes a complete 180-degrees plot-twist.
He held a staunch purist stance about detective fiction writing. Sasazawa identified himself as a proponent of the Shin-honkaku-ha. Such a writer, he explained, was not only required to be "orthodox" and devise a clever trick used in the crime, but in addition, needed to maintain realisticness in the human characters employed. When he sat on the selection panel for the Edogawa Rampo Prize, he repeatedly bewailed the laxening of the definition of what could be considered "detective fiction". In 1977, he wrote an essay that polemicized against the novel of manners contaminating the mystery fiction genre.

Selected works

Modern mysteries

The ''Misaki'' ("Cape") series

  1. Kan'ei no ishin tachi Shodensha, 1993-12
  2. Tairō Sakai Tadakiyo to Hotta Masatoshi no tatakai, 1994-09
  3. Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu to Arai Hakuseki no tairitsu, 1995-04
  4. Yoshimune dokusai, 1996-03
  5. Kaishin-ha Tanuma Okitsugu no shinbō, 1996-12
  6. Kurofune to saigo no kenryokusha tachi, 1997-09
  1. Jōkan: Yabō no geba shōgun, 2002-01
  2. Chūkan: Shōgun Yoshimune no Inbō, 2002–03
  3. Gekan: Kurofune jōran, 2002–05

    [Miyamoto Musashi] series

  4. Musashi yaburetari, Bungeishunjū, 1990-01
  5. Ware jashin ariki, 1990-02
  6. Omei harasu ni oyobazu, 1990-03
  7. Waga ikō tattobu beshi, 1990-08
  8. Ware shisuru nari, 1991-02
  9. En tachigatashi, 1991-08
  10. Gishin osoruru beshi, 1992-03
  11. Ware ni hyōhō nomi, 1992-08
  12. Nyonin wasuremaji, 1993-05
  13. Shin nasu beshi, 1994-02
  14. Waga kokoro yasukarazu, 1994-07
  15. Sesshō ni sōi nashi, 1995-02
  16. Tada hitori ayume, 1995-07
  17. Onore mo teki mo naku, 1995-12
  18. Hhyōhō wa fumetsu nari, 1996-06
  1. Ten no maki, Bunshun Bunko, 1996-10
  2. Chi no Maki, 1996-10
  3. Sui no maki, 1996-11
  4. Ka no maki, 1996-11
  5. Fū no maki, 1996-12
  6. Kū no maki, 1996-12
  7. Rei no maki, 1997-01
  8. Gen no maki, 1997-01

    [Sanada Ten Braves] series

  9. Ten no maki,, 1980-09
  10. Chi no maki, 1980-11
  11. Fū no maki, 1981-05
  1. Sanada Jūyūshi kan no 1~5 , Kobunsha Bunko, 1989-01~0
  1. 1 Sarutobi Sasuke shokoku manyū, Futaba Bunko, 1997-02
  2. 2 Ōabare Miyoshi Seikai Nyūdō, 1997-03
  3. 3 Saizō Miyamoto Musashi wo yaburu, 1997-04
  4. 4 Sanada Yukimura Osaka-jō nyujō, 1997-05
  5. 5 Senjō ni chitta yūshi tachi, 1997-05

    Yakubyōgami Casebook

Donta's caebook.
  1. Yakubyōgami torimonochō, 1997-02
  2. Futtekita akanbō, 1998-07

    Yume to shōchi de

Or, "Full knowing it's a Dream" series
  1. Jigoku no Tatsu muzan torimonohikae: Kubinashi jizō wa katarazu, Kappa Novels, 1972
  2. Jigoku no Tatsu muzan torimonohikae: Okappiki ga jūji wo suteta, 1972
  3. Tōkaido burai-tabi, 1976
  1. Kubinashi jizō wa katarazu', Kobunsha Bunko, 1985-11
  2. Okappiki ga jūji wo suteta, 1985-12nihongo\|Jigoku no Tatsu hankachō|地獄の辰犯科帳|extra="Tatsu from Hell's Crime Record Files", 1999-04nihongo\|Jigoku no Tatsu muzanchō|地獄の辰無残帳|extra="Tatsu from Hell's Brutality Notebook", 1999-09nihongo\|Jigoku no Tatsu hidōchō''|地獄の辰非道帳|extra="Tatsu from Hell's Atrocity Notebook", 1999-12

    Hanmi no Okon series

  3. Hanmi no Okon 1: Ourami mōshimasen, Kodansha, 1974
  4. Hanmi no Okon 2: Sadame ga nikui, 1974
  5. Hanmi no Okon 3: Samete uzukimasu, 1975
  1. Onna mushukuin, Hanmi no Okon: Ourami mōshimasen, 1986-11
  2. Onna mushukuin, Hanmi no Okon: Sadame ga nikui, 1986-12
  3. Onna mushukuin, Hanmi no Okon: Samete uzukimasu, 1987-01
  1. Hanmi no Okon: Onna mushukuin hijō tabi, Kobunsha Bunko, 2000–06
  2. Hanmi no Okon: Onna mushukuin muzan ken, 2000–08
  3. Hanmi no Okon: Onna mushukuin aizōkō, 2001–06
;Itako no Itaro series
  1. Itako no Itarō: Ōtone no yami ni kieta, Yomiuri Shimbunsha, 1975
  2. Itako no Itarō: Kettō Hakone-yama Sanmai-bashi, 1975
  1. Itako no Itarō: Ōtone no yami ni kieta, 1982-08
  2. Itako no Itarō: Kettō Hakone-yama Sanmai-bashi|潮来の伊太郎 決闘・箱根山三枚橋|extra="Duel at Sanmai Bridge, Mount Hakone"nihongo\|Edo no yūgiri ni kiyu: tsuihōsha Kuki Shinjūrō|江戸の夕霧に消ゆ 追放者・九鬼真十郎|extra="Vanished in Edo's Evening Fog: The Banished One, Kuki Shinjūrō"illm|Toen Shobo|ja|桃園書房nihongo\|Bijo ka kitsune ka tōge michi|美女か狐か峠みち 追放者・九鬼真十郎|extra="The Beauty or the Fox or the Mountain Pass Road"

    Mushukunin Mikogami no Jokichi

  3. Mushukunin Mikogami no Jōkichi jō, Volume 1, Kodansha, 1972
  4. Mushukunin Mikogami no Jōkichi chū, Volume 2, 1972
  5. Mushukunin Mikogami no Jōkichi ge-no-ichi, Volume 3. Part 1, 1973
  6. Mushukunin Mikogami no Jōkichi ge-no-ni, Volume 3. Part 2, 1973
  1. "Volume 1", Tokuma Bunko, 1987-10
  2. "Volume 2", 1987-11
  3. "Volume 3", 1987-12
  4. "Volume 4", 1988-01

    Otonashi Gen's Casebook

Otonashi Gen torimonochō: rensaku jidai suiri shōsetsu, Kobunsha
  1. 1 Hanayome kyōran, Jidai Shosetsu Bunko, 1987-12
  2. 1 Tōjiba no onna, 1988-02
  3. 2 Nusumareta kataude, 1988-03
  4. 4 Neko no yūrei, 1988-04
  5. 5 Ukiyoe no onna, 1988-05
  1. Yamigarinin hankachō, Non Pochette Bunko, 1996-12
  2. Yamigarinin hankachō: nusumareta kataude-hen, 1997-07
  3. Azawarau haka-hen, 1997-12
  4. Ukiyoe no onna, 1998-06

    Himeshiro Nagaretabi series

  5. Tōkaidō tsumujikaze Himeshiro Nagaretabi,, 1980-10
  6. Nakasendō haguredori, 1980-11
  7. Kōshūdō shiguregasa, 1981-01
  8. Nikkōdō kuruibana, 1981-01
  9. Urakaidō katawarezuki, 1982-07
  1. Kaei ni-nen no teiōsekkai, Tokuma Bunko, 1990-03
  2. Kaei san-nen no zenshinmasui, 1990-04
  3. Kaei yo-nen no yobōsesshu, 1990-05
  4. Kaei go-nen no jinkōkokyū, 1990-06
  5. Kaei roku-nen no arukōru chūdoku, 1990-07

    Haiku-Poet Issa's Casebook

Otasuke Doshin or the "Helpful Doshin-Detective"

Films

TV series