From Paru Itagaki comes a fresh crime thriller that is as disturbing as it is exciting to read. Hot on the heels of the Beastars anime finale, this new manga adds humans to the mix in what might be Itagaki's most interesting world yet.

For the uninitiated: Itagaki's work deals with the perspective of society and its boundaries. In Beastars she created a society of animals and dove into the boundary between predators and prey. In Sanda, she used a postmodern view of Japan to talk about the boundary between childhood and adulthood. Now, in Taika's Reason, she has her eyes on the boundary between humans and animals, owners and pets. This is a version of Japan where declining birth rates have led to the "humanization" of ordinary domestic animals, putting humans right on the page next to hunky dog boys.

There is also a murderer on the loose. I have a lot to talk about.

Volume 1 starts out with an enormous establishing shot for the crime, the mystery, the world, and (eventually) the other characters. It starts out incredibly heavy and then lightens up almost completely by the end. Taika as a character is very interesting because he struggles with almost too much compared to the people around him. Ao has to deal with her father's murder and the fact that she was involved in covering up the crime. The other humanized animals have to adjust to living in society as fully autonomous and intelligent beings. Taika has to grapple with all of it at once.

It makes talking about characterization or world building difficult because it's all so tangled together. This is one of Itagaki's best qualities as a writer — her ability to create messy complexity that feels like it all comes together in a single connected world.

What that means for the first volume is that the plot acts as more of a "scaffolding" than a foundation. The draw here is Ao and Taika and the problems that they have to deal with. The murder, their own perceived crimes, and even the view of society itself takes a back seat to getting everyone in the right place at the right time for the story to happen.

That's not bad. In fact, it's good pacing for the murder to take a back seat to the characters in volume 1. I want to point out Ao again because for as much as the story is about Taika himself, Ao is the de facto main character, and she carries the role incredibly well. She is angry, fiesty, and impulsive — fitting the style of the female main characters that I loved in Beastars and Sanda.

Unlike those characters, Ao also has an incredible amount of agency. She is the driving force behind the mystery and Taika's own "owner." Even as Taika takes up more of the local spotlight, Ao never steps away from her role as the protagonist or lets Taika take control of her motivations. Because both of the main characters are so strong in their own right, it's easy to follow the action even as the story twists and turns around them. Itagaki's highly detailed and expressive style brings them to life on the page and makes their involvement in the story all the more dramatic and interesting.

They are the owner-pet pair that creates the story's social boundaries.

Taika's Reason is recommended to the freaks. (We know who we are.) Everyone else may need time to adjust to the story's disturbing tone and esoteric storytelling, but this first volume is still absolutely worth a read. I can't wait to see what trouble Ao and Taika get into next.

Look forward to when it releases on July 21, 2026.