The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins Chapter 1 Review – “The Ichinose Family Revived”

Shonen Jump begins releasing a new crop of manga ongoing series in their magazine starting with Taizan5’s The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins, also known as Ichinose-ke no Taizai in Japan. Taizan5 is a mangaka who debut back in 2020 with a one-shot story titled ‘Sanka’ in Jump Rookie that won the Editor Expectation Award. After that Taizan5 has written several one-shots that led their first series titled Takopi’s Original Sin that ran for 16 chapters. Now Taizan5 is back with a new series titled The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins. Given the title of this series it looks like we are in store for a darker manga story than recent newly debut series. Let’s find out with chapter 1 of The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins.

CREATIVE TEAM

Writer and Artist: Taizan5

SYNOPSIS

Middle schooler Tsubasa Ichinose wakes up in the hospital after an accident with amnesia and not recognizing people who say they are his family. Tsubasa’s family reveals they are also suffering from amnesia and don’t remember who they are, only knowing their names because of the IDs they had when the car accident took place.

After speaking with a doctor and realizing they can’t go with the normal methods of trying to remember who they are, like telling old family stories, the Ichinose family decide to make up stories about their time together.

While the rest seem to enjoy making up family stories Shiori Ichinose (Tsubasa’s little sister who was th first in the family to wake up from the accident) eventually rushes off on her own clearly upset.

When Tsubasa checks on her Shiori shows great concern they will never remember who they are. Remembering Shiori was by his side the entire time he was in a coma Tsubasa says that even if they don’t get their memories back they still have each other.

The Ichinose family then return home to find their entire house a complete mess. They each decide to brush this off and check out their rooms.

Tsubasa is mortified when he sees his room a complete mess and messages that say “Die” spraypainted all over his room.

The rest of the Ichinose family are equally mortified by what they find in their rooms.

While they try to act normal the entire Tsubasa family are unable to enjoy their dinner after what they found in their respective rooms. End of chapter.

REVIEW

Even not knowing what to expect from a series titled The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins this first chapter left me surprised wit the direction it took. After finishing the chapter I’m left unsure if that the surprising direction is a good or bad thing.

One thing that Taizan5 absolutely nails with this first chapter of The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins is making it feel like nothing is as it seems from the beginning. Even as each member of the Ichinose family tries to put on a smile throughout this first chapter you know something is wrong. Even when talking about how they were in a car accident that caused them all to have amnesia it didn’t feel right. Whether that meant one or more of the Ichinose family members were lying is where you are left uncertain.

That uncertainty led to every conversation to feel hollow. Its to the point that when Shiori Ichinose runs off in tears your surprised it took that long for any of them to have that reaction. Taizan5 explains this well as we learn that Shiori was the first one to wake up from her coma. This meant that Shiori suffered the most immediately as she had no one to wake up to. For all she knew she was alone in the world. All of this honestly made Shiori the character you are most interested in even though Tsubasa is positioned as the series lead.

Shiori’s development made all the other members of the Ichinose family come across as even more artificial. It does appear this was by design from how Taizan5 both wrote and drew the characters. The acting was so forced that you weren’t sure if you can get behind anyone in the family because they were being so faked to the point of being annoying.

This wouldn’t of been a bad thing if the beginning wasn’t as rushed as it felt. The first few pages tries to get the reader all the info about the accident that you aren’t given time to get any questioning as to what happened. Taizan5 was definitely more interested in getting into the fake family stories point of this issue that the beginning needed to be rushed as much as possible.

Tsubasa and Shiori are the only characters that are developed as actual people because of the emotional scenes we got with them. Given that they are the youngest characters this was a good move as it gave the revelation at the end of The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins Chapter 1 even more of a punch in the gut. Now we have even more questions as to what kind of people they all were that Tsubasa would have things like “Die” written all over his room. That along with how much of a mess their house was does make you wonder why the “accident” happened in the first place.

While establishing this mystery from the beginning does give the series a hook it did feel like we will get a lot of predictable story beats. In particular with how all the members of the Ichinose family were not good people. The story having such a depressing start doesn’t make me want to read this series on a weekly basis. This more than any other new manga series I’ve read recently feels like one that will be read in collected format than weekly.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins got off to a start that is all centered around the hook ending. The mystery around what happened to the Ichinose Family does show how this series will likely rely on what kind of plot twists Taizan5 throws at the reader. Whether that makes for a good long-term series I’m not sure. As of now I may just check this out series out when it has more chapters out rather than make it part of my weekly manga reading list.

Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 5 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10