I suppose that I hoped to find Sherlock Holmes in Japan, in a small way. I certainly did not expect to encounter him in all the ways that I did.
The odd combination of Holmes and Japan has actually been, on a modest scale, established for some time as a concept. A local community of Sherlockians funded a public statue of the great man in 1988. At least two non-canon books have dispatched Holmes to Japan; one, A Slight Trick of the Mind, has been made into a forthcoming film with Ian McKellan. These are stories, however (and arguably “imaginary stories” at that), and my own itinerary did not include Karuizawa.
The only incarnation of Holmes that I was truly confident of encountering was one that I brought with me. My travel reading included the lengthy anthology The Game’s Afoot, which I found entirely satisfactory. Beyond this, I entertained some hope of returning with an additional Holmes book; I like the idea of adding to my collection when I travel so that volumes gain additional interest as a souvenir. I had note of a couple of bookstores with English-language sections, and thought possibly I might get lucky.
I did not, in my wildest dreams of Tokyo oddity, expect that beginning with my very first train ride I would repeatedly encounter Holmes in this baffling, chibi form:
This might be a good time to link to the Japan Disclaimer
