Paper short abstract:

Edogawa Ranpo created detective Akechi Kogoro, with 'mixed-blood' looks and cross-border origins. During the Asia-Pacific war, transcultural writing was censored; Ranpo studied sexuality and discovered similarities in the relationships between men in Tokugawa period and ancient Greek philosophers.

Paper long abstract:

Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) (his name, being a pseudonym, was a rendering of the name Edgar Allan Poe) was a detective novel writer in the Showa Modernism period, writing in the ero guro and nonsense genres (erotic grotesque, nonsense). Ranpo in 1925 created the character of detective Akechi Kogoro in his fiction, with 'mixed-blood' looks and cross-border origins. At the beginning of the series, Akechi appears with loose hair, wearing a kimono, but eventually he turns into a stylish detective in 'Returnee from Shanghai'. The reference to 'mixed-blood' looks was a representation of Kogoro's cross-border roots, and functioned as a signifier of his mysterious private life. Besides, he had a charm which not only attracted heterosexuals but also people of diverse sexual orientations. This also marks the transition from the 1920s to the 1930s, when Shanghai was both a colonial and a cosmopolitan city. Asian colonies were a region that brought in modern Western culture to Japan.

The detective novel genre in Japan started out as a translated literary genre. The modernist men's magazine Shinseinen (New Youth) increased its sales by the publication of the story of 'kaigai yûhi'(success of the colonization) and of detective novels. The detective novel genre in Japan transformed gradually to also produce new kinds of texts, with its intertextuality with Western detective novels. During the Asia-Pacific War, the detective novel genre was suppressed through censorship. Some detective novel writers had moved on to the historical novel genre whereas others moved onto the colonial exploration genre set in Asia, and some others had moved onto the science fiction genre with a story line in which Japan beats the West. At that time, Rampo turned away from war, and spent his time as a collector of Tokugawa period books and foreign books comprising of literature on 'nanshoku' in the Tokugawa period, on ancient Greek culture, on the Renaissance, and on modern homosexuality. He understood the relationship between men in the Tokugawa period and the fraternity of ancient Greek philosophers as being similar and transcending time and place.