Kako and the False Detective: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• Author: Mitsunaga, Yasunori
  • Mee-tsɯ-nah-gah, Yah-sɯ-no-ree
  • Apparently also goes by the pen name “Tsunagami,” which is an anagram of their family name (Mistsunaga)
• Notable people they were an assistant for:
  • Yuu Nakahara (Last Inning)
• Author’s other works:
  • Princess Resurrection (2005-2013, 20 vols, 87 chapters, Shonen Sirius) - Girl with chainsaw and the ability to raise the dead kills various horror monsters
  • Cheer Cheer (2008, 1 volume, 8 chapters, Young Animal Island) Flop Eligible, but who’d even want to
  • Avarth (2015-2017, 6 vols, 22 chapters, Shonen Sirius) - Fantasy series where humanity is attacked by monsters, and saved by giants they must worship and rely on
  • Isekai Sniper Is the Female Warrior's Mofumofu Pet (2019-present, 6+ vols, Young King Ours GH) w/ Inomaru - Gun otaku dies and is reincarnated as a small fluffy thing that gets taken in by a buxom warrior lady, and quickly proves himself useful when it turns out firearms exist in this fantasy world for whatever reason
  • Time Stop Hero (2019-present, 12+ vols, Shonen Sirius) - Guy gets cancelled on social media and becomes so blackpilled that he isekais into a video game world where he can pause time with a controller, and proceeds to be a creep
• Run dates: Jun 5, 2014 to Sep 24, 2015
  • Series it replaced: Barcelona no Taiyo by Yoshiyuki Murakami
  • Series that replaced it: Legend of the Galactic Heroes by Ryu Fujisaki and Yoshiki Tanaka
• Chapters/Volumes: 38/4

About the Manga

• Plot
  • Rokuhara Satoru is an ex boy genius detective with a secret: he can see ghosts. He often solved murder cases by having the ghosts literally point to their killers and then working backwards from that. Now 17, his family has moved away from their house due to the enemies he’d made, leaving him all alone, unable to stop solving crimes. One day a police officer named Izumi approached him to solve the mysterious deaths of several young students including her sister at an all girls school. While there Satoru encounters Kako, a foul mouthed goddess who looks like a creepy little girl and is trapped in the bathroom after the school was built over her shrine. After a complicated series of events they determine that the culprit is Hanako, a “revengeful spirit” which is kind of self explanatory. Kako easily purifies the spirit, briefly turning into a normal looking school girl. She ends up possessing Satoru to help him fight them  and so she can get out of the damn bathroom. The two solve mysteries that aren’t relevant to the plot until they realize they can enter eachothers memories. Satoru learns that Kako’s appearance is that of a young girl named Einishi who she was previously bound to in the 70’s until she was murdered in the girls bathroom, while Kako learns that Satoru can’t stop solving crimes because the one time he took a break a bunch of people died just like Spider-Man.
  • 
    
  • Satoru and Kako meet Hishizaki Azusa, the chairman of the girls school who’s possessed by a bound and gagged naked guy. She has him transfer to the school to solve more murders. A gyaryu girl named Ginnan tries to glomp Satoru but he’s repelled by giant ghost hands protecting her from men. She is thankful for him because he proved her dead brother didn’t kill an old man in a motorcycle accident but was actually the victim of some other guys. They all meet where the crash occurred to defeat the revengeful spirit who’s a giant baby that fused with the perpetrators. Also there’s a scene where Ginnan’s brother’s ghost saves her from being raped which is way more graphic and disturbing than you’d expect out of this manga. Meanwhile Yight Lagami shows up with his killjournal. Yight dies when a guy writes his name in the DIE-ary and steals it from him but Satoru catches him. Izumi’s sister is also at the school because the author retconned it so she didn’t die, but she has frequent out of body experiences where she turns into a ghost and flashes her panties. Like constantly. Also Satoru watches hidden camera footage of his female classmates changing to find out who’s been stealing panties. Thanks author. A ship sank and there’s a brain dead guy with a phone, and on the phone is a photo of a dead diplomat from “I Country” Satoru and Kako go into his memories and realize that he’s blind and the killer is a terrorist with a revengeful spirit who wants to blow up the Japanese government. They stop him and he’s killed by other terrorists.
  • 
    
  • Some more students go missing because this is the worst fucking school ever holy shit don’t send your kids here. Anyway Kako and Satoru discover a WW2 era bomb shelter with the skeletons of previously missing students why wasn’t this place shut down. The mayor shows up and he’s both the descendent of the founders of the school and obviously the killer. Satoru, Kako, Ginnan, and two other girls no one cares about are transported into the memories of a revengeful spirit in the bomb shelter where they encounter A SAMURAI DUAL WIELDING SHOTGUNS GOING ON A RAMPAGE! Turns out they went back in time and saw the mayor’s grandpa kill the shotgun samurai while they’re all chased by a big scary face. When they get back to the present Satoru says that the killings were all over a land dispute that ended with the school being built on Kako’s shrine. The mayor gets real mad and summons his own revengeful spirit which is the giant face but it’s attached to an even more giant body. Everyone waits for the mayor to get tired and the spirit to get weak, and Kako purifies it. Flash forward an unspecified time and Kako’s shrine has been rebuilt, with Satoru paying her a visit. The two agree they make a good team.
• Characters
  • Rokuhara  Satoru
    • Former kid detective now teen detective?
    • Sees ghosts
    • Like a celebrity doesn't bathe
  • Kako
    • High level bound spirit
    • Actually a god!
    • Was in love with a girl? Takes on her appearance
  • Sawazumi Izumi
    • Police
    • Acts without permission
    • 
      
  • 
    
  • Misaki
    • I forgot her name
    • See ghosts
    • Smarter
    • Not a mess like her sister
    • 
      
  • Hishizaki Azusa
    • Chairwoman of girls school
    • Clothing pattern is really annoying to look at
    • Dommy mommy
  • Yajima ginnan
    • Absss
    • Protected by a spirit
    • Hard headed
    • Tsundere

Why it failed

• The writing seems kinda disjointed? Maybe the translation
• Art is…ok? A little inconsistent
• I just feel very whelmed by it
• Chapter 2 comes out of nowhere I wanted to see at least a normal case that setup a myth arc
• How does the series feel like it's treading water so quick into it
• God this story is too confusing for non linear storytelling
• I still don't get the attend girls school thing
• So much lazy photograph filter art
• Why is there such a graphic rape scene?
• Death note seriously?
• It has 0 overarching plot
• This spirit shit is boring and doesn't really change it's all the same plot every time
• This has a lot of logic issues in the rules of the setting like she decoupled with him to look at memories but he came with her??

What it did well

• The ghosts def look creepy
• Discussion of the repercussions of the criminals he catches is a good point

Where it could have gone

• Be cool to see the after effects of a kid jump protag all grown up
• I was really hoping for more of a deconstructive on boy detective tropes
• Maybe had him be a lecturer at the school, make him over 18 so he's actually an adult
• Honestly the deathnorebook isn't that awful with the chain of deaths but like everything else it's handled very poorly
• Show some downtime like what do the characters even enjoy doing that's not plot relevant?
• What if the panty theif actually was a lesbian and had to deal with her confused feelings

Misc Thoughts

• So many ghost ass shots
• Is this a harem?
• Wow boobs
• Maxy Bee thoughts:
  • Ginnan looks like such a Yoshiyuki Nishi character that I’m amazed I can’t find anything about him helping out on this series. Even the monsters look a bit like something you could see in Muhyo & Roji. Possible inspiration?
  • It rips off Death Note, too, so clearly the author loves mid-00s Weekly Shonen Jump horror titles.
• Tucker wanted to note: Sdfasdfasdfasdf

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker:
    • Maxybee: A false detective with false promise
    • Thores: Kaka and the Fart Detective… bam
    • Portal Man: Sherlock Holmes was a Ghost Buster?
    • Duderocks: Would’ve been better without the time-skip
    • Yeti: Phantasm-possessed PI pursues pitiless perpetrators
    • Diego_MT: (Shonen) Flopping makes me feel good
    • A SpookySkelly: USE THE SPY GLASS YOU DUMBASS | YOU FOOL. I AM THE AUTHOR
    • Cram: detective conan but with zero spirit
    • Twolfwood: References and panties, with some detectiving
    • Riel: Started decent, then kept getting worse.
    • Blahmoomoo: Detective Faux-nan and the Expiration Note
  • David: stole deathnote and took the L | Ass pulls and ass shots galore
  • Jordan: detective story until author gets horny
  • Guest: ghost battle mystery with identity crisis
• Flop or not
  • If flop, what they could read instead
  • Yeah this is a flop go play world of horror
  • If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
• Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about