Item - The Mystery of Ura Senke

The Mystery of Ura Senke is very good. It has a strong, well developed plot that gets revealed bit by bit through different plot lines, making multiple read throughs worthwhile. This paired with quality writing and well developed characters makes Ura Senke stand out. Some endings are rather gruesome, but considering the book deals with the Yakuza, it's expected. I highly recommend this one. You won't be disappointed.

More reviews by Amat

I thought this book was well-written, but at times was a little too childish, like much of this series. Also, sometimes the main character was described in too much detail, so that I had problems identifying. The choices were well constructed, but sometimes different choices would lead to results that weren't always consistent with each other; there were also many unsatisfying endings and no real "epic" happy ending. Still, an above average CYOA book thanks to the writing. You can see my map of this book here.

More reviews by DavidSky

This is an excellent mystery gamebook! The story is multifaceted enough that the book is highly replayable without becoming inconsistent. There are a lot of different paths through the book, but rather than contradicting each other, they instead each reveal a different part of the overall storyline. The book's setting is also used well, and interesting bits of information on Japanese culture are revealed throughout.

More reviews by Demian

I read this as Cup of Death.

A fun mystery! It goes light, and the woman is real weird. 5/10

More reviews by Good

Wife of Choose Your Own Adventure cofounder R. A. Montgomery, Shannon Gilligan's series debut was The Mystery of Ura Senke, but is it a good book? You are an American studying in Kyoto, Japan. Two of your local friends, Kenichi and Takashi Doi, come to you with an urgent matter: Takashi, a student specializing in Japanese tea ceremonies at the Ura Senke School, is distraught that an antique tea bowl called the Yukisoo, which was left in his care, is missing. You have a reputation as a detective, so Takashi has brought the case to you and requested the police not be involved. Can you solve the mystery with the few facts at hand, or do you insist the police be notified?

Respect Takashi's plea for discretion, and he informs you he had been setting up a tea ceremony for four distinguished guests, one of whom likely stole the Yukisoo. Question Taro Sakamoto first, a candidate for Prime Minister, and you learn that he spotted a suspicious housekeeper on the scene. Her name is Akiko, and you track her to her home. Could she have a legitimate reason for taking the tea bowl, one that will change your mind about the crime? Maybe you first questioned a different guest at the tea ceremony, Shoji Hata from the Ministry of Arts. He is scheduled to to depart Japan in a big hurry, but can you catch him at Kobe Seaport? If you do, Hata runs away from you onto the ship he booked to leave the country. Sneak aboard and you can stake out his cabin to waylay him, but Hata is lethal when cornered. Perhaps instead of Hata, you first interviewed a different guest from the tea ceremony, a gem dealer named Noriko Oda. She is sly and evasive; if you secretly follow Oda, you can climb into the trunk of her car and go for a ride, but may end up in the clutches of the Yakuza, the Japanese mob. If you're lucky enough to nab the Yukisoo from the thieves, you’ll be pursued by gunmen. Is it worth dying to return the tea bowl to the Ura Senke School?

Assert from the beginning that you must inform the police of the robbery, and on the way to the station a strange car shadows you. Escape unharmed, and Kenichi and Takashi have an idea: you should ask Mrs. Hamaguchi, a fortune-teller, how to proceed. When she advises you to do nothing and the Yukisoo will make its own way home, are you willing to take Kenichi and Takashi's lead and call off the search? If you failed to get away from the car following you, Yakuza henchmen abduct and keep you prisoner at their safehouse. Tied to a chair, can you wriggle free when you're left alone? Discovering a secret passageway in the house, you might get caught in a police raid, or make it outside to the shore of massive Lake Biwa. Do you dare take a boat onto the foggy lake to flee the Yakuza? If you never found the secret passageway, you can attempt to steal a gun from the sleeping Yakuza guard, but death awaits your slightest misstep. You hadn't bargained for so much violence when you agreed to help Kenichi and Takashi locate the Yukisoo.

If The Mystery of Ura Senke has one thing going for it, that would be a fastidious commitment to internal consistency. Lack of consistency is easy to spot in a gamebook when it's blatant, but good consistency is less noticeable; in this book, however, the attention paid to maintaining plot continuity from one story path to the next is almost stunning, down to the smallest of details. That takes serious effort, and I commend Shannon Gilligan for it, but I can't rate The Mystery of Ura Senke much better than average. The premise lacks luster: I see why Takashi cares about Japanese tea culture because it's his passion, but most readers won't feel dread over the theft of a tea bowl. The Yakuza action is exciting at times, but you're putting your life on the line for a piece of tableware, and that's a hard sell. Impressive as this book is in certain ways, it's no classic of the genre.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

This was one of my favorites as a kid, and it didn't disappoint 15 years later. I haven't read it in a couple years, so I don't remember how the choices and endings unfold, but I just like the setting and subject matter. I've always enjoyed the ones that take you to a place that kids might not usually think about, like Japan, and especially with more adult themes, like crime rings.

I am curious as to why the new reissues released this under TWO titles... the original title and Cup of Death. It was odd to see them sitting next to each other on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. Does anyone know the story behind that?

More reviews by Madeye

The book is both great and a bit disappointing at the same time. The great part has to do with its internal consistency and its sharp action sequences. For example, there is a plotline involving a gunshot. Depending on your choices, you might hear it from afar and wonder what happened, or witness it yourself. Or you could be miles away and not know that it happened at all. Regardless of which path you take, there's always more information to uncover, so replay value is high.

The problem is that all the fun stuff (following a suspect by hiding in her car trunk, staking out a smuggler's cabin on an international ocean liner, stealing a speedboat to make a quick getaway) is irrelevant to recovering the missing tea bowl. In fact, if you are on an adventurous plotline, you are guaranteed not to get the bowl. The successful endings come from far duller storylines. There are quite a few endings in which the bowl reappears as unexpectedly as it disappeared. There's even a thread in which you consult a psychic, who advises you to do nothing and wait for the bowl to return of its own accord. It does - The End. You can still search around for the explanation (internal consistency, remember?) but this part of the book isn't as fun.

More reviews by Scrumptious