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THE STORY

A washed-up 1950s SoCal noir detective is in over his head in 1980s Tokyo trying to solve an intricate murder everyone has written off as a cut-and-dry salaryman suicide.

In a pinch? Call Cinch. That's what they say—or used to, anyway. Charlie Cinch is a once-famous relic of 1950s noir gumshoeing. In the 1980s, he's stuck competing for jobs in Santa Monica with trendy Magnum PI wannabes. When he relocates to Tokyo to reignite his career, he quickly learns his shoot-first-think-later ways of American sleuthing aren't going to cut it against the elaborate, highly deductive murders committed in the Neon City. Even the police are helpless, relying instead on a slew of Boy Geniuses to solve crimes. When Cinch is hired to solve a murder everyone thinks is a simple suicide, he joins forces with the Tokyo PD's worst Boy Genius—and his biggest fan—to figure out if he can truly hack it as a Sherlock-styled Japanese PI.

CINCH! is The Maltese Falcon meets The Naked Gun meets a manga comic book. It's a slapstick, madcap, satirical look into the world of East-meets-West crime solving full of vivid characters and off-the-wall meta plot twists.

“CINCH! is The Maltese Falcon meets The Naked Gun meets a manga comic book.”

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ELLIOT MATSON

Lover of noir, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and pulp detective fiction, Matson set out to unwind tropes and mash them together with Japanese detective fiction to create a pastiche of staggering proportions only Tokyo could handle.

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CHARLIE CINCH

You already know Charlie Cinch. The world-famous P.I. basically wrote the book on Southern California crime solving. He’s even got a penchant for narrating aloud. All kinds of media has been based on his adventures and exploits—if only he could remember if any of that were true. Washed up and past his prime in 1980s Santa Monica and in competition with an oversaturated market of Magnum P.I. wannabes, Cinch decides to uproot and move to Tokyo for a career renaissance. However, he quickly discovers he’s just as un-hirable in Japan as his was in the States. Super-intelligent Boy Genius sleuths solve crimes in Tokyo that could make Sherlock Holmes stumped. So what chance does an old dog like Charlie Cinch have when he’s miraculously hired to solve a murder everyone’s written off as a standard salaryman suicide?

KENZO NAKAMURA

19-year-old Boy Genius-for-hire Kenzo Nakamura has always lived between two worlds. Japanese and growing up in the States, he fell in love with pop culture—and all things Cinch. He’s an outcast in Tokyo, not quite able to hack it as a Boy Genius and unsure what to do with his life, he meets Cinch and is sure he can help the world-famous detective solve a murder. Motor-mouthed and ready for anything, Kenzo is the blast energy Cinch needs to crack the case.

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TOKYO

In 1980s Tokyo, Akiba Electric Town is the hotbed of the burgeoning video game industry. Two titan companies, Hashi and Kappa, stand across the street and in competition for dominance. Salarymen at both companies can’t keep up with work and have succumbed to an epidemic plaguing the city: suicide. And in a city where hurling yourself out an office window is all too common place, what better cover than a murder nobody will blink twice at? Neon, kinetic and chromatic, the only hope Cinch has to keeping up is Kenzo—and enough sake to take the edge off a few times over.

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“Tokyo didn’t look like it had a downtown, just urban sprawl to the corners of eternity. Neon and silver competed with the sun as the city’s primary beacon and I bet any compass would start spinning the closer we barreled toward its center—if there even was one.”