Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki’s Conjecture (Manga) Volume 6 Review

Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki’s Conjecture Volume 6 is the final volume in the manga series. After multiple debunked paranormal mysteries, it’s finally time for Professor Akira Takatsuki and Naoya Fukamachi to find out the truth behind Naoya’s lie-telling ability. Will this final mystery finally prove the existence of the supernatural?

Volume after volume, Professor Takatsuki and Naoya have encountered supernatural mysteries, which unfortunately, thanks to Naoya’s ability to hear lies and Takatsuki’s investigative work, have always turned out to be caused by humans. However, the encounter with Tooyama and Sae-san seemed to be the turning point in their research. Although Sae-san disappears without answering Takatsuki’s questions, she gives Naoya advice that he doesn’t yet realise will be lifesaving.

The final mystery for the duo to uncover is the Obon festival, (the festival of the dead) where Naoya gained the ability or curse to hear lies. As the festival is approaching, Takatsuki and Naoya, with the help of Ken-san (aka their unofficial guardian), decide to make their way to the village where Naoya’s grandmother used to live to attend the festival once again. However, they soon find out that the festival has been discontinued as only old people are left in the village. They still try to investigate, but all they encounter are lies, until they decide to go to a nearby village, on the other side of the mountain, where they finally start to get some clarity. What they find gives them some answers, but when they  get back to Naoya’s grandmother village, Takatsuki and Naoya at last find the proof they were searching for, but the price they now have to pay for the truth might be too high to bear. It’s only thanks to the mysterious reappearance of Sae-san that the situation is resolved. Everything seems to be clear now about what happened to Naoya and even Takatsuki as children…or does it?

Although Volume 6 is marked as the final book in the manga series, it doesn’t feel like it. The investigation about what happened to Naoya as a child has opened the door to Takatsuki’s past and although for a split-second readers think they will also find out about his past, the door is suddenly closed, giving the impression that more is to come. If the readers pay attention to the author and artist notes at the end of the volume, it’s mentioned that this volume should be the end of Part 1 in regard to the manga, so hopefully a Part 2 will come out, although no announcements have been made yet for the series continuation in the English language. However, in Japan Volume 7, which starts Part 2, has come out recently, so readers should keep their fingers crossed that Yen Press will publish the new volume, maybe with a new series title.

Throughout these six volumes, readers have seen the characters grow and accept their abilities, while their drive for knowledge skyrocketed the more cases they resolved. After a lot of debates about whether the supernatural world is real, they finally get the tangible proof they need, and not just the stories told by people who claim they have experienced something out of this world. I felt that even though Naoya found the answer to his mystery, it didn’t bring him the closure he was expecting. For Takatsuki as well, it brought more questions than answers, and after everything that happens in this volume, I hope that if there is a new series, Sae-san becomes more of a regular character as she knows a lot about the supernatural thanks to the truth behind what she really is.

Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki’s Conjecture is written by Mikage Sawamura with art by Toji Air and character design by Jiro Suzuki. It started as a light novel before being adapted into a manga. It’s published by Yen Press with the English translation by Katelyn Smith. Volume 6 is the final volume in the English language of the manga series, which covers the first five volumes of the novel.

Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.