【Vault Release Special】Introduction “THE DETECTIVE” Trilogy – Encounters with the Other, Drawn in My Teenage Years
From 1976 through the 1980s, I was just a teenager, sketching stories feverishly in my notebook with nothing but a 2B pencil and raw passion. I had no formal knowledge, no education to speak of—certainly no thought of “selling” my work. All I had was an irrepressible urge to draw, and that alone moved my hand.
The stories I created during that time all shared a common theme: “Encounters with the Other”—a confrontation that shook the very definition of what it meant to be human. In this Vault Release Special, I’d like to present a series of such works, collectively titled: “THE DETECTIVE” Trilogy.
Timeline of the Trilogy
1st Work
“THE DETECTIVE: The Girl We Found and Noah’s Memory”
(1981, Second Year of High School)
A long-form sci-fi suspense drawn in pencil, over 100 pages long. Two down-on-their-luck detectives meet a mysterious girl in a neon-lit alley—unraveling a web of government secrets and a plan to save humanity. A story of memory, ethics, and political conspiracy—ambitious themes for a teenager with a pencil.
2nd Work
“THE DETECTIVE: The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly” (Spring, 1984)
30 inked pages on Kent paper. Submitted to Shogakukan’s “Shonen Sunday” Monthly Newcomer Contest.
(…Rejected.)
➡️ Published in: re;KON no Susume Picture Story Essay 03 “My Manga Manifesto”https://note.com/overrev/n/n0bb6027f89cb?sub_rt=share_b
3rd Work
“THE DETECTIVE: Green Green” (Fall, 1984)
Another 32-page short, brought directly to the editors of Shogakukan. The main character, Kyōhei Semba, meets a homeless man who turns out to be from the future. A quiet tale that blends the mundane with the extraordinary—its final line, “a human ranch,” hits hard and leaves a lasting sting. Easily the most unique piece of the trilogy.
A Consistent Motif Throughout These Stories
Encounters… and Helplessness
Teenage imagination often envisions “another world” governed by rules beyond our own.
The sense that “someone—or something—is out there, utterly beyond our comprehension.”
A Twilight Zone-like worldview.
Even when truth is uncovered, the world doesn’t change. And for a teenager not yet “someone,” that reality stings.
Those who touch that Other can never return to the world as they knew it.
Nor can we turn back time.
This theme, in one form or another, still flows through everything I create today.
This time, rather than publishing the old pages as-is, I’ve reimagined each story into a novelized picture-story format.
“The Girl We Found and Noah’s Memory”, “The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly”, and “Green Green”—
Three works that, I hope, will carry even a spark of that youthful heat and reckless passion to your heart.
THE DETECTIVE: The Girl We Found and Noah’s Memory
The red-light district late at night, soaked in rain and neon, reeked of cheap alcohol and cigarettes. Two men staggered down an alley: Shu Gunji, a former cop with a gentle face, and Hideki Takimura, a sharp-tongued ex-host. They’re private detectives now, scraping by.
“Hey, Shu… that’s a girl,” said Hideki.
“Pfft, probably some scam artist,” Shu replied, glancing at the girl. She stood motionless, barefoot, silent, and far too young for this part of town.
“Not one of yours, huh?”
“She’s a kid, man. I’m not that bad.”
Drunk, half-joking, half-concerned, the two men approached the girl. “Hey, sweetheart! You shouldn’t be here,” they slurred. “This town’s for grown-ups… and we’re the bad kind, y’know?”
But the girl said nothing. In her eyes, there was no fear—only an empty, cold void.
Out of a drunkard’s whim, they took her back to their office.
The next morning, with headaches pounding, they noticed her still there, seated quietly.
“…Who the hell is this?”
“You brought her back, didn’t you?”
“No way. I don’t remember any of this.”
“What’s your name, kid?”
A long silence. Then a faint whisper: “…Noa.”
And so, they began calling her Noah.
They argued—Should they report her? Abandon her? The risk of being accused of kidnapping was real. But letting her go felt wrong. Then came a scream—piercing and unnatural. Noah would sometimes cry out violently, convulsing as if haunted by unseen forces.
Curiosity took hold. They began investigating her past. That’s when the letters started arriving.
“Take care of her. Protect her life.”
A strange homeless man watched from a distance. Two suited men roamed the neighborhood, exuding menace. Noah whispered cryptic words that matched the clues in the letters.
“Time will bring collapse.”
“Tokiwa… Tokiwa Tree…”
A retinal scanner hidden deep in the forest. A facility beyond comprehension.
The truth slowly unraveled: Noah had escaped from a secret lab. Inside, a project was underway—Project Noah. The goal: transplant the memories of the world’s elite into cloned bodies. A man-made Noah’s Ark, designed to preserve intellect through death.
The man who freed her? A scientist—and Noah’s original father.
He fled with her, hiding her in the only place no one would search: the city’s seedy underbelly. There, he placed her in the care of two drunk detectives.
The black-suited agents closed in. In an abandoned warehouse, just as the truth was about to be revealed, gunshots rang out. The scientist was silenced.
Back at the office, the two men lit cigarettes and stared at the ceiling.
“We coulda been heroes, y’know,” Shu muttered.
“Yeah,” Hideki sighed. “Instead, we’re still broke.”
Then Noah stood up from the shadows.
“Well, gentlemen,” she said.
It wasn’t her voice. It was his—the scientist’s.
“The real fireworks are just beginning.”
Her eyes burned with a new light. His memory had taken root inside her.
Outside, fireworks lit up the sky. Inside, the fuse of a new conspiracy had just been lit.
“Let’s do it,” Hideki said.
“With style,” Shu replied.
【Background at the Time】
- No smartphones. No internet. “Clones” and “memory transfers” were science fiction. I was obsessed with Detective Story (Yusaku Matsuda), Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, Future Boy Conan, and Galaxy Express 999. I drew purely to tell stories—not to sell them, or to judge them ethically.
【Looking Back Now】
Yes, the work was rough. But it also had something raw—something that only youth can produce. I poured everything into those 100 pages, and their momentum still echoes in my work.
The completed pages are buried somewhere in my home, among 50 years’ worth of paper. But just like hiding leaves in a forest, the drawings remain lost in the stacks. If I ever find them, I’ll share them.
This project reminded me: I once couldn’t draw girls well. But Noah helped me practice—giving life to a female character taught me how to draw her.
Noah was the foundation for all the female characters in “Cross Over Rev!”
【Final Thoughts】
“THE DETECTIVE” isn’t just an old manga. It was the first firework I ever launched—at sixteen. And if something in this story sparked a flicker inside you, perhaps that’s the gunpowder I packed into it… finally igniting across time.
Thank you for reading.
- #TheDetectiveTrilogy
- #NoaAndTheMemory
- #LostGirlSciFi
- #RetroMangaRevival
- #ReconstructedManga
- #HumanityAndMemory
- #JapaneseIndieComics
- #SciFiSuspense
- #YasutakaInspired
- #KatsumiYamaguchiWorks
オーバーレブ！山口かつみ 