Meanwhile, Yumi Tamura is a notable shojo mangaka who hasn't had a work released here in two decades. Seven Seas managed to pick up her latest and most acclaimed work to date this year.
DON'T CALL IT MYSTERY (Misuteri to Iu Nakare), by Yumi Tamura. First published in 2017 and first published in North America in 2023.
PLOT:
Totonou is a young college who wants to just enjoy the simple pleasures of life, be it a hot dish of curry rice or a trip to an art museum. It just so happens that he keeps getting himself dragged into criminal situations, be it getting framed for the murder of a classmate or caught up in a hostage situation with a potential serial killer. Luckily, Toutounou is both an observant and philosophical person, and through his long-winded observations he's able to make connections and inadvertently solve the crimes around him.
STORY:
Despite what the title might say, Don't Call It Mystery is absolute a mystery series and a bit of an odd duck at that. It's an extremely talkative series with a lackadaisical pace and almost philosophical bent. This gives the series a very unique flavor that's not going to be to everyone's taste.
Totonou is described as a 'reluctant Sherlock' on the back cover blurb, but even that is somewhat misleading. He's not looking to show off his brilliance nor does he have a particularly keen sense of justice. He's simply an observant dude who's good at going off on tangents, knows a lot about the variations in how to read kanji, and picking up on subtle cues about people's personalities. Save for the first story where he himself is a suspect, he's not even seeking out these offenses. He ends up stumbling into them, only to converse and observe his way to the truth. There are hints that his skills may themselves be the end result of some past trauma or relationship gone wrong, but Tamura isn't particularly interested in delving too deeply into it at this point.
Most mysteries tend to get formulaic after a while and Don't Call It Mystery is no exception to this. The fatigue starts to set in midway through the omnibus, in the midst of the hostage situation. Totonou is doing his usual routine not just on the hostage-takers but also his fellow bus passengers, and after a while I was ready for the plot to move on and the true motivation behind the crime to be revealed. I suspect Tamura got similar feedback while she was making it, as the story immediately afterwards is notably shorter and self-contained. I do like how naturally she weaves Totonou's own wanderings into the story at large, even if his direction is increasingly influenced by others that he meets as the omnibus goes on. It all ends up weaving together quite naturally into one unique package.
ART:
Tamura's art has come a long way since the days of Basara. Her bodies and faces are soft and more natural instead of stylized and angular. Even the linework is softer and finer, at times almost verging on the scratchiness of a pencil sketch. If there's a flaw to this approach it's that the faces sometimes come off as flat and mask-like because she puts so little emphasis on noses when they are not in profile. Often the only indication of their presence is a smudge of highlight where the bridge of the nose should be. This is most notable on Totonou, considering that he spends a lot of time looking outward towards the reader and isn't a terribly emotive guy to begin with.
Since so much of the emphasis is on conversation, this is very much a manga made out of talking heads. Backgrounds are seldom and lightly sketched when they are present and the paneling is quite plain. It's not an unattractive book by any means, but this is definitely not one of those manga where the artwork is the big draw.
RATING:
This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is ongoing in Japan with 13 volumes available. 4 volumes have been released in 2 omnibuses and are currently in print.
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