Subtitles Release: Columbo of Shinano #1 - Echoes of the Dead (2013)

6 July 2026

I have a group of friends who enjoys watching mystery shows, specifically of the inverted detective format as popularized by Columbo. In our search for more Columbo-like detective series, we stumbled into the fascinating world of Uchida Yasuo's series Columbo of Shinano. First introduced in 1980's Echoes of the Dead, Columbo of Shinano is a series about a detective who channels the aura of Columbo to solve crimes. Uchida Yasuo sold over one-hundred-and-fifteen million books in Japan, which puts him in the same ballpark as intenational best-seller Dan Brown, but very few people in the anglosphere know about him.

Columbo of Shinano has been adapted six times as far as I can tell, at least four of those being TV adaptations. Most of these are impossible to find outside of Japan, and as far as I can tell they didn't have home video releases. Some are available for streaming or on-demand from cable networks, but again only if you are in Japan.

If however, you manage to find a copy of 2013's adaptation of Echoes of the Dead, you may be able to find it with original Japanese subtitles. The user xiaodeyu of piracy site Nyaa provided one such subtitle file, which we used as the basis for our translation. I took this to my friends Jneen and Alice D., in hopes of translating these subs to share with my local group of mystery-loving friends... and it took us a couple months, and many passes, (and it is probably in many ways still imperfect,) but thanks to our hard work it's now possible to enjoy Columbo of Shinano: Echoes of the Dead in English!

I would love to one day see a proper bluray release of this series. The acting is fun, the characters are great, and the story bounces between intrigue and melodrama in a very engaging pace. So unless one day the tides turn and we see an official localization, here's a subtitle file you can use to enjoy the film.