Pretty Boy Detective Club: The Swindler, the Vanishing … (2025)

This second "volume" of the Pretty Boy Detectives is quite short. I'd almost say it was a novella, or even a novelette, when it comes to pure word count. Saying much about it would spoil it, but I can say that the "the Twenties" continue to lurk in the background, and we're introduced to a character from Kamikazari, the mysterious rival junior high across the way.

This series' status as "all ages" continues to be rather questionable. First of all, you have a gambling den run by junior high students, which includes junior high-aged girls in the role of bunny girl hostesses. I understand the imagery; it's shorthand for "a typical casino", and especially when you have popular franchises like Dragon Quest--also for teens--using this exact same imagery, then it makes a certain kind of sense. Still gross, though.

And then there's the running "joke" about Sakiguchi of the Beautiful Voice. It's trotted out every few pages, and it's gotten old, and I suspect that it will continue to show up every few pages for another nine volumes. This gag is bad news whether you consider it a real joke or not. If it isn't a joke, and something that Mayumi is seriously concerned about regarding him, then he's a loathsome human being. If it is a joke, then the joke itself is loathsome.

A couple of quotes from Yukichi Fukuzawa and Antoine de Saint-Exupery add a little bit of solidity to the fluff, but fluff it absolutely is. It's creeping down into the 2.5-star zone as of this second volume. Now that its mystery structure (for a very loose definition of "mystery") has become apparent, there isn't a lot to make it compelling for me. Imaginative plotting only goes so far when you have one-note characters and off-putting elements as described above.

There are books that are genuinely girl-friendly, not the warped sham that's trying to pass for it here, with its protagonist who is basically a milder version of "a Nisioisin protagonist" and doesn't feel much like a girl at all, and "pretty boys" who aren't seen through anything even vaguely resembling a female gaze. Again, one should praise or criticize a book for what it is, and not for what it isn't. In this case, what it is, is an attempt at a female point of view that falls terribly flat, and makes me believe that Nisioisin is lacking in versatility when it comes to narrators and narrative stance.

I have the third book, and am debating whether I should spend an hour or two reading it, or just pass them along to my sibling and call it here. If I decide to read that third one, I'm going to need some other reading as a buffer between it and the various repetitive aspects of these books that are easily perceptible this early on.

This is a review for the first two books of the series, I will try to not spoil anything concrete but if you consider people's impressions to be spoilers and want to go blind, wait for Vertical to release it and read it for yourself.
I read the books in japanese, it wasn't especially a difficult read, with only a few kanji I had to search and pretty easy to understand wordplays from time to time.

First of all I want to say that this is not a mystery series. I always say that Zaregoto isn't a mystery series because the mystery isn't the focus but only an element that adds on to the themes. But on the other hand, Bishounen has something that looks like a mystery and sets it as the focus, the problem is that the mysteries are either pretty weak or have a very hacky solution.

What I liked about these books :
This is the most lighthearted Nisio book I have read as of yet, it's a wholesome and fun read. The pretty boys are indeed pretty and could all be a contender for best boy (except the lolicon but it's a Nisio, nothing we can do about it) and even the side characters are interesting. Whenever there is a dialogue coming up I know I'm going to like it because there will be at least one interesting character.

What I didn't like about the books :
This one is going to be a bit long but that doesn't mean I don't like the series, I just have some complaints.
My biggest complaint so far is definitely the narrator, Doujima Mayumi. I went in expecting to find an unlikable and twisted character as I heard from several sources, but what I got was incredibly tame coming from a Nisio book. Nisio's strength normally shines in conversations and long internal monologues but Doujima doesn't do that, she spends most of the books describing what is going on or explaining to the readers what other characters might be thinking, nothing of interest. She sometimes adds in some comments but even those are still tame.
My second big complaint are, as I said at the start, the mysteries. I am not a mystery maniac that can only enjoy mysteries, but when you present me with something to solve I expect to see something ingenuous and grounded (btw I expect to really like the Boukyaku Series because it is apparently a pure mystery series). But Bishounen isn't grounded and incorporates some supernatural elements, that is a big problem when you want to take the mysteries seriously. With this, options that you might consider impossible becomes possible and pretty much anything could happen leaving the reader unsatisfied. And I'm not saying there's just a risk of that happening, it already did and made me wonder "Why am I getting through this boring narration if it's just to have a few somewhat fun conversations and not getting any satisfaction in the end?".

Break for the negativity :
Okay I might be a little too harsh on the books because I just finished reading v2 and it felt like a drag by the end, I think that other people might enjoy it more than I did. The main characters being in middle school, this is clearly an attempt from Nisio to write something for young teenagers/children. I could recommend this book to someone in middle school and wouldn't feel like I may have destroyed their life (unlike something like Zaregoto).

Which book did I prefer?
Clearly volume 1, not only was its mystery way more solid, it also had the most fun side characters and felt like it was written in order to transmit a message. On the other hand v2 felt like something that was written because it had to be, or something based on a vague idea Nisio had but didn't come out well.

Redemption in the future?
I will take a short break from this series and try to get the unlikable narrator I wanted in Risuka. That doesn't mean I will not read the rest of the series (I already have them all so it would be a waste), I have seen pretty interesting behavior coming from Doujima in the Nisio Isin crossover manga 240 so I will consider these first two books to be just for the sake of world building.

Overall :
I decently like the series and it has the potential to be really good later on, but in the end it is not for my demographic. I would say this is the least interested thing I have read from Nisio but "You should judge a book without considering its author." or smth (I haven't finished reading that short story yet).

Thanks for having read this review, I hope my negativity didn't affect you and you will still give it a chance when it releases at the end of the month.

Sway~

A fine second volume. I love the banter NisiOisiN writes as always, but this felt like it was a tad too short to rate it any more than a three. It needed just a bit more intrigue surrounding the events. NisiOisiN has a great cast, but just isn't fleshing it out enough with the cases surrounding the cast.

I enjoyed the story, though I found the shenanigans lacked some of the wild pizzazz of the first adventure. I loved revisiting these characters and seeing how they unbelievably come together to be a supportive, effective unit. The plot itself didn't dazzle, but this book is building towards bigger mysteries and challenges. It's definitely a sequel in that the narrator references the events of the first book without explaining them for new readers, and several of those elements established in the first adventure return and expand as the Pretty Boys wade deeper into conspiracies. I'm excited to see what happens in the next volume!

I still don't know what exactly I think of this series, I think my main reason for enjoying it is the mix of Clamp Detective Agency with Ouran High School Host Club vibes I get from it. The characters and plot are intriguing, but I'm kind of getting tired of the tropes being the forefront, and even though the narration is different from what I normally read Mayumi is kind of... A little too down on herself and her abilities. This is a difficult one for me, I think I like the energy more than the plot, although I do enjoy that it feels fairly closed.

Now that presentations are done with the first book, the story is truly starting here. While the intended audience is younger than Nisioisin's other books, and the style is simpler, he still knows how to build a nice and smart intrigue. It's also nice to see characters working as a team, even with such clashing personalities. I wasn't too sure with the first book, but now I know this is a series I will have fun following. :)

In my review of the first novel, I wrote that I was a little disappointed by it because I felt that reading the novel and watching the anime had been essentially interchangeable experiences. This volume, however, was its own experience because there was a lot of Dojima Mayumi’s internal dialogue here that we don’t get to experience in the anime. For this reason, I would recommend reading this volume to people who have already watched the anime.

This left a weaker impression from the previous first volume. Now familiar with the character quirks, the idiosyncrasies didn't have as much impact and it seemed as though there was less punchy banter. The puns also weren't particularly great.

the tone of this is so different from the anime but damn, I love a sassy Young Doji.

It's still funny, it's still wild, but it doesn't pack as much punch as the first book. And the joke about Sakiguchi is kind of overused here...

Beauty and the charm

I actually liked this more than the first book! The last story was mainly Dojima's slip and tumble into a coming of age tale, and with introductions out of the way we truly get to see the characters shine as a group. I'm looking forward to learning more about each member of the PBDC as the series progresses (and hopefully watching them grow closer as friends too :) )

I knew the conclusion of this one since I had already read the manga some years ago but this volume falls a little more flat, especially right after the Big Beginning in the first book. It was an enjoyable enough read, though the "haha lolicon" every other line does get on my nerves.