Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki’s Conjecture (manga) Volume 3 Review

Since Naoya Fukamachi came clean to Professor Akira Takatsuki about his special power (or curse,  depending on whom you ask) he’s grown closer to the professor. But every time Naoya thinks he’s close to figuring his teacher out, a new bombshell drops about his life, making Naoya realise that he’s still being kept at a distance.

This doesn’t stop him, though, from joining the professor on every case that turns up. For once, Naoya is able to be himself with someone else, and he doesn’t want to lose the relationship (not romantic) he has with the professor. So even when he has an ear infection, he doesn’t hesitate to get involved in the case of a famous actress who claims to be able to see ghosts and that her latest horror movie is cursed. Naoya and Akira go on-set to investigate, but it seems that for the first time, their partnership is on the rocks. Due to the ear infection, Naoya has lost his ability to hear lies, but he’s too afraid that if he tells his teacher, he’ll be abandoned once again. It’s a big hurdle for him, but Akira might surprise him once again.

However, this case brings to light more about Akira’s background and family, which leaves Naoya with more pieces to piece together about his professor’s life. When they take on a new case about a little girl who miraculously survived a bus crash, the two are joined by Ken-chan, Akira’s friend, and go on an overnight trip to solve the mystery shrouding the child.

Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki’s Conjectures continues to keep its readers on their toes. We are introduced to new supernatural mysteries, case after case. Akira Takatsuki had his first encounter with the supernatural when he was just a child, and now as a folklore professor he has an even better understanding of how legends, ghosts and other creatures come to be. I feel like the more I read this series, the more I get introduced to Japanese folklore as the author includes some of the lectures the professor gives. Every time it happens, it’s always linked to a new mystery but this allow readers not to go blind into the new case, but with some knowledge of what they are dealing with. At the end of the volume, there are also a couple of pages of translation notes for the Japanese words used in the story.

Naoya has been alone since his paranormal encounter when he was a child that left him with the ability to hear lies. He couldn’t make friends, and if he mentioned what he was capable of, people would just walk away. After sharing the truth of his past with Akira, Naoya is learning to open up to people. The professor was the first person who offered his hand to Naoya, and now Naoya is afraid of letting it go. The relationship between professor and an undergraduate student is different compared to what we would see in the West. While they still use honorific titles, they speak on the phone like friends, and when Naoya gets sick, Akira even goes to his place to take care of him. I don’t believe their relationship will turn romantic as there hasn’t been any hint so far, but it shows that it’s more than just a student-teacher relationship.

Between the two of them, it’s Naoya who has had the most character development so far. His low self-esteem is slowly becoming better and he’s starting to rely on other people. He’s afraid that the professor won’t need him anymore if he doesn’t have his ability to hear lies, but thankfully Akira isn’t like that. He could take advantage of Naoya’s personality, but he doesn’t. He’s there for him, and he lifts him up (metaphorically) when he needs it. The professor is still shrouded in mysteries, and he’s the key to figure out if the paranormal really exists. I think we still have a way to go before we reach that point, but I hope the author will give us a hint soon.

Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki’s Conjecture is written by Mikage Sawamura with illustrations by Toji Aio, and character design by Jiro Suzuki. The title started as a series of light novels, and it has also been developed as a TV series. The manga is published by Yen Press in the English language with Katelyn Smith’s translation, and Volume 4 is releasing in July 2024.

Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.