Mystery to Iu nakare
Don't Call It Mystery

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Immersion: 9/10
For the 2h that I read the manga, I forgot about reality. It really was that effective. It wasn’t so much the characters per se, but the plot that gripped my attention the second I began to read. From then on, it was a continuous ride through well thought out, (unique!) mysteries.

Main character : 7/10
The main character is interesting all right. Though his self professed intelligence is a little too vast and deterministic. He declares theory as dogma and decries dogma as theory. Still, there is reasoned empathy in his thoughts and that’s what I liked. He was a little 2d though ... .

Plot : 8/10
Intriguing, suspense filled plot, with characters that don’t normalise tropes like older men finding high school girls attractive, etc. The only downside was the continuous reference to star signs and birthstones. :/ Felt a little uncharacteristic and threw me off balance. The forced references felt like the author forcefully professing their personal preference in the manga, against the desire of the character created.

Other characters: 5/10
A little 2 dimensional. Overly accommodating of the MC’s philosophical rants. Irl, it’s unlikely his words would’ve been taken very seriously.

I. Intro:

I am very picky, especially when it comes to detective series, which does me no good when there are so few mangas belonging to this genre. I went into Mystery to Iu nakare with no expectations, and came out with it being my favorite series to date (in only 12 chapters, at that!).

I would say Mystery to Iu nakare is fairly episodic, and were I to describe it in a few words they would be: profound, engrossing, and enlightening.

I’m writing this review, in the hopes that even one person decides to pick it up and give it a try.

II. Characters:

Totonou and "The ... nail that sticks out gets hammered down”:

Throughout the series, Totonou is regularly considered the “odd one out”. Other characters often call him “pompous” or tell him he has a “bad personality”. Yet, more often than not his perspective benefits others, allowing them to grow as people (or in more literary terms, allowing them to have character development).

Through Totonou, the author delivers a not so subtle criticism of Japanese society. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that more often than not the story’s cases and the people they concern evoque major issues in Japan: bullying, abuse, sexism, work culture… Totonou often voices his thoughts on such matters, and in sharing his pertinent perspective(s), he allows the people around him to deconfine themselves from the box that is theirs.

From the very first chapter I saw myself in Totonou, frighteningly so, in fact. He’s a psych student and I’m currently taking a psychology course, we’re both picky eaters, we share a love for poetry and words and we both give much thought to the world around us. Totonou will likely make or break the series for you. He’s highly neurodivergent coded, socially awkward and will periodically go on long philosophical monologues. However, if you like his character, I’m sure you’ll like the series too.


Other characters:

Honestly, I love all the characters, and could talk a decent amount about any of them. However, to maintain brevity I’ll only talk about them generally or as a whole. Mystery to Iu nakare’s characters all get proper development, aren't sidelined (contrary to my expectations), and all feel very real. These characters truly feel like people rather than caricatures dependent on defined tropes.

III. Art and character design:

The art style took me a little getting used to as it’s slightly atypical. However, this style and the character designs themselves allow the story to feel very grounded, as it should be.

IIII. Closing words:

I think this manga is absolutely wonderful and I’m sad it hasn’t quite reached its Western audience. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves mysteries, or like myself tends to think a little too much about the world and its inhabitants. I've never written a review before yet this manga moved me so much I felt obligated to do so.

I’ve recently started watching the live action show (yes, there is a live action!) and it’s surprisingly very good! I recommend it as well, I think I actually cried more watching the show than I did reading the manga. Interestingly, there is more content in the show than there is in the current translated chapters, and they seem to have reordered certain cases. I’m not sure if everything in the show is canon, however either way it was certainly amazingly well-done.

Totonou Kunou is a quirky college kid who just wants to be left alone. Despite his unassuming exterior, he's insanely smart and perceptive. But Totonou isn't a bigheaded genius, he's just an introverted student who really likes curry and really, really wants to be left alone.

Every story arc presents a situation that Totonou gets dragged into unwillingly, with a quandary he has to unravel. He collects observations over the course of each chapter that lead him to the truth behind the mystery. His truth bombs are impossible to predict and yet make so much sense every time. And that's because the mangaka seeds the ... story with quiet and unassuming clues, that when put together, reveal the truth- but not in a way readers could ever see coming.

This manga is blatantly unknown here in the West but it deserves all the fame it could get. It has plot twists to put most other series to shame and presents an introspective look at society that'll have you questioning everything.