The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

Detroit: Become Human -Tokyo Stories-

What's It About? 

2038, Tokyo. Artificially intelligent robots known as androids have started production. Even smarter and more beautiful than regular people, they steadily replace humans in various roles. However, unlike America's anti-android sentiments, in Japan the android idol Reina's wild popularity seems to herald a bright future for androids. Though, amid this, android “deviants” begin to appear, rejecting their “duty” for free will and real emotions...This is the story of a revolution, with one human girl at its center.

Detroit: Become Human - Tokyo Stories- has a story by Kazami Sawatari and art by Moto Sumida, with English translation by John Neal. This volume was lettered by Jamil Stewart. Published by Yen Press (September 17, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

A Detroit: Become Human manga? Published five years after the game came and went? That's a bit of a bold choice. Quantic Dreams' hamfisted, on-the-nose science fiction story, likened by director David Cage to “Blade Runner, only you're supposed to empathize with the robots”, was a curiosity back in 2018 and vanished seemingly as quickly from public consciousness as soon as we forgot about robots being forced to stand at the back of busses or dropping civil rights slogans like “We have a dream” or “We can't breathe”.

Separated from the reputation of its video game origin, Tokyo Stories continues the Detroit: Become Human legacy of being fairly humdrum robot science-fiction with painfully on-the-nose imagery and themes--Animatrix's The Second Renaissance, this isn't. Hear me out: what if we compared idol singers... to robots? What if we contrasted the artifice and performance of being an engineered talent with a corporately sanitized image and the way the same talent's parent companies treat them as wholly disposable with how a robotic idol can be replaced at a moment's notice with a replica? Did I just blow your mind? What if we added a disturbed, obsessed fan into the mix?

It's not entirely rote, at least; robot idol Reina's relationship with Suzune is cute, at least, and you feel for Suzune when she realizes Reina's memories aren't permanent. Even the on-the-nose Detroit visual of robots gaining autonomy by “breaking through” the wall of their unfair orders is used to decent effect. But like Detroit: Become Human, Tokyo Tales cannot shake off the impression that it's very proud of itself for using incredibly well-worn stereotypes and concepts and playing them completely straight. I'd be lying if I said I didn't find Reina and Suzune a cute pair, but I'd be lying if I said I was particularly impressed on any level. There's nothing offensive about Detroit: Become Human -Tokyo Tales, but its appeal might require you to have never read anything about robots or the idol industry. Mildly recommended.

I hate myself for enjoying David Cage's video games because as much as I like their interactive story-driven play style, I don't much care for Cage himself. Take his many interviews about Detroit: Become Human. In the game, you play from the viewpoints of multiple androids grappling with inequality and striving for civil rights—but Cage insists that the game isn't “political.” The game literally points out that androids can only ride in the back of the bus, but go off I guess. Detroit: Become Human - Tokyo Stories- follows Cage's cue and delivers a story with all the subtlety of an android throwing a brick through a Detroit shop window.

The bulk of this manga is about an android idol named Reina and offers an Oshi no Ko-like glimpse at the idol industry's by now well-reported dark side. At one point, Reina's otaku fans gush about her nonhuman status. “[A]n android? She'll never betray you.” It really hammers on the point that human idols are expected to be something more than human, and when they don't achieve that impossible benchmark they are discarded. The metaphor of an idol as a commodity might as well be written in neon lights. But when Reina meets her harsh manager's adopted human daughter, Reina discovers that she finally has something to live for. Can she continue to meet everyone's expectations of perfection once she discovers her own humanity? Reina's situation would be a little more morally provocative if the idol industry's corruption wasn't an undisputed fact. Here, it's a thought experiment without much thought involved.

“Reina's Story” is a tale that feels like it could fit snugly into some DLC for Detroit Become Human, but that's not necessarily a point in its favor. I'm equally tired when it comes to “Seiji's Story Part I,” the final quarter of this volume. It focuses on a hospital android that houses confidential patient information and thus is not permitted off hospital grounds. Seiji is tasked with comforting patients and their grieving loved ones, but as an android, there's no way he could possibly “know how you feel,” and patients treat him the way I'd treat an AI chatbot. Ah, but this is A Metaphor For Oppression, and actually we're the inhuman ones, aren't we, David Cage, for assuming we're not hurting the robot's feelings? I might pick up Volume 2 to wrap up Seiji's tale, but I imagine it also boils down to “people bad, robots good.”