If you are even passingly fond of manga, or interested in mysteries, this may be the best manga series you will never have a chance to read.
The Kindaichi Case Files are a series of mystery stories that have been coming out in Japan since the early 90s and continues to have new chapters and volumes being released today.
The main character of the stories is a high schooler named Hajime Kindaichi, the grandson of (fictional) P.I. Kosuke Kindaichi (described by some as being a Japanese Columbo). He is unmotivated, lazy, and a little lecherous (which is probably a pretty good description of most high school guys) but is also brilliant and a master of sleigh of hand tricks. With his childhood friend and girl-next-door neighbor Miyuki Nanase, they find themselves in the middle of a number of cases that usually involve someone being murdered (while they may not start out that way, in the ones I have read so far they end up that way).
One of the nice quirks of the series is that the villains are somewhat sympathetic characters. They aren’t outright sociopaths, murdering because they can or for wealth or religion or politics, but instead have some deep-rooted emotional reason or trauma that leads them to commit murder. It elevates the stories above being simply another ‘shocking’ or ‘gory’ series of stories to being something much more ‘human’ and I suppose ‘humane’ in it’s depiction of the characters and their motivations.
Why will you never have a chance to read them then? Because (and I am assuming you read only english) TokyoPop’s license to publish the series expired and wasn’t renewed (though they’d pretty much had it on hiatus for a couple years before they lost it with new releases in the series being very delayed to non-existant).
I’ve heard rumors off and on that Kodansha (who publishes it in Japan) was looking at opening up a US manga branch, but so far that is nothing but rumors and with no other publisher picking up the series it is left somewhat in limbo with those of us who are fans having no idea when, or if, the series will ever see print in english again.
With that said, TokyoPop did release 17 volumes comprising the first sixteen stories in efnglish (though I’ve never been able to find a copy of the 17th volume, The Undying Butterflies and I have a folder full of emails from stores cancelling my order for it because they either never recieved copies or sold out of the few they had gotten) but if you can find them at the bookstore or at the library, they are well worth reading.
I do encourage you to try to read them in order if at all possible. While it isn’t necessary to understand the stories that were released in english (because none of the villains were recurring yet in the series) the later volumes will still include spoilers for earlier volumes if you happen to skip some of them while reading.
In Japanese, the series stands at (I believe) 27 volumes in the Case Files series (the ones that TokyoPop had been translating and releasing), 10 volumes in the Case series, 6 in the Short File series, 2 in the Akechi series (Akechi being a co-star / friend / rival of Kindaichi’s who works as a superintendant in the police), and 11 volumes in the currently-still-in-progress New Files series. Along with the manga volumes are 9 light novels whose stories are often apparently sequels to the earlier manga stories.
As well, there has been 148 episodes of anime, 7 video games, 2 cd books, 3 seasons of live action television (and a tv special), and a feature film all based on the series.
Given that their is no one releasing the series in english anymore I am putting serious thought into ordering the books from Amazon.co.jp and learning Japanese just so I can read the rest of them.
The volumes released by TokyoPop were:
1. The Opera House Murders
2. The Mummy’s Curse
3. Death TV
4. Smoke and Mirrors
5. Treasure Isle
6. The Legend of Lake Hiren
7. The Santa Slayings
8. No Noose is Good Noose
9. The Headless Samurai
10. Kindaichi the Killer – Part 1
11. Kindaichi the Killer – Part 2
12. Playing the Fool
13. House of Wax
14. The Gentleman Thief
15. The Graveyard Isle
16. The Magical Express
17. The Undying Butterflies