The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

My Dear Detective: Mitsuko's Case Files

What's It About? 

Mitsuko is Japan's first female detective in the turbulent 1920s! When a handsome college student shows up with a new case, he ends up assigned as her new assistant. Join Mitsuko and Saku as they solve cases, explore the changing cultural landscape of early Showa-era Japan, and maybe grow a little closer along the way in this fashionable mystery series.

My Dear Detective: Mitsuko's Case Files has story and art by Mitsubachi Miyuki, with English translation by Samuel R. Messner, and Azuki releases new chapters of the manga digitally every week.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

My Dear Detective's period-piece setup is more than just a gimmick, and definitely not simply a romanticized flourish. The sequence of mystery stories covered within enthusiastically dig into the sociological elements of the very beginning of the Showa era. The strains of pushing back against sexism and other signifiers of a time period on the verge of change are integral to both the personal portrayal of the main character—upstart detective Miss Mitsuko Hoshino—and the various cases she and her partner take on. In some instances it can be a frustrating example of things staying the same the more they change, knowing the amount of pushback working women still experience worldwide nearly a hundred years later. But there's an interest about its efforts, with historical contexts doled out by story elements as well as detailed translator's notes, in showing that progress and societal awareness were very much things being pursued even in so-called simpler times.

That's the most compelling part of My Dear Detective for me. Most of the mysteries presented to unravel here are relatively simple ones, and our expectations for the twists and turns typical in the genre often give way to less suspenseful, often sweetly surprising resolutions (this volume's cliffhanger ending notwithstanding). It's the depictions of the people driving those stories, and how they interact with this encapsulated setting they inhabit, which lends this series most of its depth and richness. Most of the chapters here move very briskly, the pages flowing by with large panels distinguishing its characters and detailing objects and clues for them to go over. But it never feels too shortchanged in how quickly our time with these people passes, generally hitting a 'just right' spot for these neat little mysteries.

There is a sense of things being a bit too tidy and comfy in all that. The relationship between Hoshino and her new sidekick Saku can definitely come off as calculated: He's an absurdly sweet, nonthreatening guy-pal who makes a point of aggressively recognizing and subverting his own privilege afforded by society and station. It makes the pair's aside snarky banter seem cute, but lacking any kind of edge that might afford growth on the part of Saku or lend them more rich chemistry. And while the sweet, nearly 'feel good' resolutions to most of the mysteries are pleasing in the moment, it gives the whole exercise more of a fluffy, fleeting tone than I might have otherwise expected from a historical mystery series. Still, the last chapter ends things on a more energizing and exciting note, and the more easygoing, heartening approach to the other 90% of this book is absolutely going to be up a lot of peoples' alleys. My Dear Detective: Mitsuko's Case Files is pleasant enough, and I can't complain too hard about that.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Historical mystery? Largely accurate historical costuming? Strong heroine? Cats? Cinderella reference? Check, check, check, check, and check—it's like Natsumi Ito was trying to create a series that would appeal specifically to me. While that certainly wasn't the specific goal here, it's hard to deny that this volume starts a series replete with my personal catnip, and one that's likely to appeal to mystery fans even if the rest of the boxes the book ticks aren't your favorite things. Set in the early Showa era (around 1930), My Dear Detective: Mitsuko's Case Files follows a lady detective as she takes on cases in Tokyo. She meets Saku Yoshida, the scion of a wealthy department store-owning family, and he becomes the Watson to her Holmes, largely because she can't seem to get rid of him. Together they solve increasingly fraught cases before the volume ends with a classic 1930s cliffhanger: Saku and Mitsuko tied up on the train tracks with a train bearing down on them.

The book doesn't really need the cliffhanger to sell itself, though. Ito's sense of the time and place the story is based in manages to be both appealing to modern readers and historically accurate in some interesting and important ways. The first chapter does the best job with this; not only does the case deal with a transwoman struggling to find a way to be herself, but Mitsuko deals with some truly disgusting misogyny in her daily life. Men tell her that she's taking jobs away from other men, that she belongs in the home, and act like her record of closing the most cases in her agency is some sort of cute fluke that isn't as important as how neat a seam she can sew or how well she can find a man to take care of her. It's true to what women still experience, and have since they dared to work outside the home, and Mitsuko is hurt by it even as she's furious that it happens. (Flashbacks indicate that her family life was much the same, with her constantly being put down for unladylike behavior or ambitions.) Only her boss, known colloquially as the Old Cat Man, and Saku seem to treat her with any sort of respect on a regular basis.

While none of the cases are particularly baffling, they do tend to have decent twists to them that keep the reading interesting. Although they aren't quite fair-play mysteries, they also don't need to be, and both Saku and Mitsuko bring different skills to the table in solving them. Saku clearly has a bit of a crush on Mitsuko, but she's largely unmoved by him, which works with what she's been dealing with in her working life—she may worry that getting involved with a man will undermine her credibility. (Or she's simply not attracted to him in return. It's too soon to tell.) Whatever the answer, it does add a dash of romance to the story, and with its excellent cultural notes, comfortably old-fashioned art style, and good concept, this is definitely worth the price of admission on Azuki to read it.