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Detroit: Become Human -Tokyo Stories-, Vol. 2 (manga)
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 4, 2025
Unfortunately, Volume 2 of Tokyo Stories is simply boring. While Reina's story in the first volume was a retread of beats from the Detroit: Become Human game, at least it revealed more about the world in interesting ways. This volume zooms so far in on its main characters that there's almost no sense of the wider world of Detroit: Become Human -- I hope you like watching people shoveling snow, because there's a lot of that here.
Seiji's story picks up from the previous volume but unfortunately, he mostly just ends up being an origin story and plot device to keep Reina and Suzune moving. The implications of replacing doctors with androids that seemed so tantalizing in the previous volume take a background role to interpersonal drama and the focus on Suzune.
Takumi's story takes up the bulk of the volume, and it's almost painfully dull. The only even possibly interesting dynamic is the idea that Takumi, an android, could take over the job of Nakamura, a human who is the caretaker of a small home. But "androids could take our jobs" is much less thought-provoking when it's basically babysitting a house compared to being a popstar or a doctor. This is also clearly Nakamura's story and not Takumi's -- you get barely any sense of who Takumi is and so his final choice falls extremely flat (it's obvious what he'll choose because of the extremely predictable plot, but it doesn't feel meaningful for his character).
The ending to the volume, focusing on Reina again, feels extremely rushed and unearned. I would've preferred more focus on what would've needed to happen to put everything in place for it instead of watching Suzune, Takumi, and Nakamura shovel snow again and again and again.
Overall, volume 2 of Tokyo Stories was disappointing. Ultimately, this is the story of Suzune, a human who encounters androids -- not about androids rebelling and gaining sentience, and not about how androids are reshaping Tokyo or what Tokyo would look like in the Detroit: Become Human world. As someone who was interested in this series for the worldbuilding potential, I don't feel like I got what I wanted out of it. If you want a very simple story about a girl leaving a bad situation and trying to find a new home (a much, much weaker version of Kara's story with Alice in Detroit: Become Human), that's what you get here and you might like it much more than I do. But it's just not what I was looking for.
Seiji's story picks up from the previous volume but unfortunately, he mostly just ends up being an origin story and plot device to keep Reina and Suzune moving. The implications of replacing doctors with androids that seemed so tantalizing in the previous volume take a background role to interpersonal drama and the focus on Suzune.
Takumi's story takes up the bulk of the volume, and it's almost painfully dull. The only even possibly interesting dynamic is the idea that Takumi, an android, could take over the job of Nakamura, a human who is the caretaker of a small home. But "androids could take our jobs" is much less thought-provoking when it's basically babysitting a house compared to being a popstar or a doctor. This is also clearly Nakamura's story and not Takumi's -- you get barely any sense of who Takumi is and so his final choice falls extremely flat (it's obvious what he'll choose because of the extremely predictable plot, but it doesn't feel meaningful for his character).
The ending to the volume, focusing on Reina again, feels extremely rushed and unearned. I would've preferred more focus on what would've needed to happen to put everything in place for it instead of watching Suzune, Takumi, and Nakamura shovel snow again and again and again.
Overall, volume 2 of Tokyo Stories was disappointing. Ultimately, this is the story of Suzune, a human who encounters androids -- not about androids rebelling and gaining sentience, and not about how androids are reshaping Tokyo or what Tokyo would look like in the Detroit: Become Human world. As someone who was interested in this series for the worldbuilding potential, I don't feel like I got what I wanted out of it. If you want a very simple story about a girl leaving a bad situation and trying to find a new home (a much, much weaker version of Kara's story with Alice in Detroit: Become Human), that's what you get here and you might like it much more than I do. But it's just not what I was looking for.
Displaying 1 of 1 review