After picking up several prestigious awards and an anime adaptation with Orb: On the Movements of the Earth, you’d think that series author Uoto would be tempted to try and capture lightning in a bottle once again. Penning another vaguely historical thriller would certainly serve to placate those who want more of the same, but may ultimately not prove as exciting as something completely different. Indeed, this is a choice that faces all creators once they find some kind of success: play to type or try to push the boundaries?

Thankfully, Youkoso FACT (Tokyo S-ku Dai Ni-shibu) e! is nothing like you’d expect.

Serialized in Shogakukan’s Ura Sunday from August 2023 to March 2024, Youkoso FACT e! may actually be one of the strangest manga I’ve ever read. It follows 19 year old Takuya Watanabe as he moves to Tokyo from the countryside in search of opportunities, but finds himself working in a factory moving boxes of refrigerated meat on a precarious contract. Feeling like his life hasn’t quite started yet, he searches for meaning in the form of love, philosophy, and conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy is the main theme of Youkoso FACT e!. That being said, it doesn’t take a moralizing approach: the core message Uoto is trying to put across here is that we’re all susceptible to grand narratives, regardless of the particular form they take. Each one of the characters in the story believes in some sort of ideal, which the narrative takes great pains to point out are flawed in a variety of ways. It also clearly suggests that the living and working conditions of each character plays a large role in shaping their beliefs, giving the series a surprisingly materialistic approach. 

Despite the nebulous concept and bizarre subject matter, Youkoso FACT e! does a very good job at unfolding its narrative and keeping the reader engaged. In many ways, the story takes the form of a romantic comedy as Watanabe falls in love with the university student Iiyama, but finds himself unable to confess his true feelings due to an inferiority complex. Why would she want to date him when he’s nothing but a manual laborer from the boonies? This nagging doubt is what ultimately pushes him further down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, tutored all the way by his mysterious mentor, only known as Sensei.

Comedy and tragedy go hand in hand here as Watanabe can’t help but rant on about how IIyama is being targeted by the “deep state,” pushing himself further and further away from her in the process. There’s a kind of morbid humor to be found in watching someone ruin their own life, but the sad part is that his intentions are entirely pure. Indeed, this is a process that plays out in real life as those who fall victim to conspiracy theories invariably believe that they’re doing the right thing, making the process of dislodging them from such beliefs an almost Herculean task.

The subject matter on display here will undoubtedly prove too palpable for some readers. Particularly in the United States, conspiracy theories such as QAnon and Pizzagate have infected the political mainstream to the point where the President is posing for pictures with their adherents, but Youkoso FACT e! never really goes that far. Although there are mentions of lone gunman attacks and “the Jews” at one point, it mainly centers around the catch-all concept of the deep state, which is kept deliberately vague and void of content. Even Sensei himself relies on classic, if dated motifs such as The Matrix and They Live.

Much like Orb, the main focus of FACT is on the ideas. In much the same way that Uoto played fast and loose with the historical reality of persecution to explore ideas of progress and legacy in his last series, he uses the vague concept of conspiracies here to discuss the aforementioned themes of grand narratives and how our environment shapes our beliefs. Despite the subject matter, the tone is actually rather light-hearted: there’s the humor that comes from seeing Watanabe ruin his own life, of course, but also the fact that the narrative eventually leaves off on a hopeful if bittersweet note.

If FACT adopts a similar focus to Orb, then one area in which it improves is the art. While the setting of medieval Poland allowed Uoto to put forward a truly unique set of ideas and craft an unforgettable narrative experience, he never seemed to put much effort into the backgrounds or other items in the world of his previous work. Speaking personally, this always took me out of the experience as my attention was drawn to the emptiness of the art instead of a fully realized setting, alongside the many mistakes and over-simplifications.

The fact that FACT takes place in the modern world arguably plays to Uoto’s strengths as an artist, all the while masking his flaws too. Since this is a setting we already understand much better than one from the distant past, he’s able to get away with less detailed background work this time as we automatically fill in the gaps with our own intimate knowledge. Of course, he does bring out the big guns when it comes to environmental design where it’s needed, but the main focus is undoubtedly on each character’s expressions and movement.

By overcoming his previous’ series only flaw, Uoto has crafted something truly special here. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this is the best manga he’s ever created: the bar was already set impossibly high by the masterpiece that is Orb, but the combination of the subject matter with the narrative had me utterly gripped from page one to the final volume. When this does eventually come out in English, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

All four volumes of Youkoso FACT (Tokyo S-ku Dai Ni-shibu) e! are out now in Japan via Shogakukan.