James Nicoll Reviews

2016’s Usotoki Rhetoric Volume 7 is the seventh tankōbon in Ritsu Miyako’s historical mystery manga series. Usotoki Rhetoric was published in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from June 26, 2012, to March 26, 2018. The English translation of Volume 7 was published in 2024.

Kanako Urabe is a living lie detector. Iwai Soma is a talented but indolent private detective. Together, they fight crime! Or at least solve just enough mysteries to fend off homelessness and starvation.

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2015’s Usotoki Rhetoric Volume 6 is the sixth tankōbon in Ritsu Miyako’s historical mystery manga series. Usotoki Rhetoric was published in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from June 26, 2012, to March 26, 2018. The English translation of Volume 6 was published in 2024.

Private detective Iwai Soma and his young assistant Kanako Urabe have settled into a comfortable partnership. He provides the deductive and inductive skills needed to solve mysteries. Urabe is a living lie detector, on top of which she prods the otherwise indolent Iwai to find work and pay the bills.

This arrangement is upended.

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2015’s Usotoki Rhetoric Volume Five is the fifth tankōbon in Ritsu Miyako’s historical mystery manga series. Usotoki Rhetoric was published in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from June 26, 2012, to March 26, 2018. The English translation of Volume Five was published in 2024.

Kanako Urabe, a young woman who can tell when other people consciously lying, has partnered with private detective Iwai, a young man with a knack for solving mysteries. It’s a precarious life, but one that allows them to use their uncommon gifts.

Like Volume Four, Volume Five is episodic.

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2015’s Usotoki Rhetoric Volume Four is the fourth tankōbon in Ritsu Miyako’s historical mystery manga series. Usotoki Rhetoric was published in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from June 26, 2012 to March 26, 2018. The English translation of Volume Four was published in 2023.

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Usotoki Rhetoric Volume 3 is the third tankōbon in Ritsu Miyako’s historical mystery manga series. Usotoki Rhetoric was published in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from June 26, 2012 to March 26, 2018¹.

Showa Era Detective Iwai Soma and assistant Urabe Kanoko board a train on a very important mission. That mission? Ducking out on the debts Soma cannot pay.

A chance encounter with Soma’s journalist sister Miyabe proves diverting. Miyabe has a genuine case, one for which her insolvent brother’s talents could be useful: the case of the doll murderer.

Is that a doll that murders? Or a doll that is murdered? The answer appears to be yes.

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Usotoki Rhetoric Volume 2 is the second tankōbon in Ritsu Miyako’s historical mystery manga series. Usotoki Rhetoric was published in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from June 26, 2012 to March 26, 2018. I reviewed the first volume here.

The same knack that made Urabe Kanoko a pariah in her home town gives her a job in Tsukumoya. Urabe has an infallible ability to tell when someone is consciously lying. This makes her of great use to struggling detective Iwai Soma.

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Usotoki Rhetoric Volume 1 is the first tankōbon in Ritsu Miyako’s historical mystery manga series. Usotoki Rhetoric was published in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from June 26, 2012 to March 26, 2018.

By the first year of the Showa era, Urabe Kanoko’s unique ability has secured for her a place in her hometown … as a pariah. Hoping to find a community where she might fit in, Kanako leaves her home for Tsukumoya, a town where nobody knows her, and she might hope to conceal her dreadful secret.

Kanako is a living lie detector. Utter a known-to-be-false statement in her hearing, and she will infallibly know it is a lie.

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