If nothing else, this volume shows how far Otsuka is willing to go just to keep the readers on their toes.
Creative Staff
Writer/Artist: Sho-u Tajima and Eiji Otsuka
Translation: Kumar Sivasubamanian
Adaptation: Kumar Sivasubamanian
What They Say
Dark Horse Manga's daring MPD-Psycho series is completely unabridged in all of its gory glory - exactly as it appeared when it first ran in Japan! MPD-Psycho has earned praise for its complex, shocking story arcs and artist Sho-u Tajima's stark, arresting art style - that draws comparison with artist Charles Burns's work. Step onto this crazy ride, as even more strange deviants are introduced and writer Eiji Otsuka continues to astound with his inventive plot twists and atrocities.
The Review!
Well, here we are. The first half of MPD-Psycho Volume 8 finishes up the plane hijacking arc in a way that swings the narrative back in the direction of sanity (or at least sanity relative to Otsuka's standards) ... and there's almost nothing I can say about it that wouldn't turn this review into wall-to-wall spoilers. That's because the story reopens right after Amamiya's managed to crash-land the plane on Gankuso's boat, with the upshot being that all the people vying for pieces of the Lucy Monostone personality are together brandishing weapons at each other on the boat's deck. Then shots get fired, and then people die. Lots of people. Lots of people central to the plot, even: I was convinced at first that one of the kills was just Otsuka messing with the readers' heads, until an autopsy a bit later in the book confirmed that that character was really, truly dead (or at least as dead as people get in a series where characters trade personalities around like baseball cards).
After a one-chapter-long epilogue of sorts to the hijacking arc, Otsuka puts most of those characters and plot threads on hold for the rest of the volume. Sasayama's brought back into investigating bizarre ritual killings along with a new partner, a little person named Tenma; the investigative style of these chapters combined with the return of the series's trademakr black humor feel like a welcome throwback to the police procedurals that made up early parts of the story before Amamiya dove headfirst into the Gakuso conspiracy. And, yes, despite the new M.O. -- the victims are now being implanted with a rib taken from an XXY male -- the new case eventually leads back to the omnipresent Lucy Monostone conspiracy.
I have to admit that some of the plot twists in this volume completely caught me by surprise, especially when Otsuka lays out the final body count in the aftermath of the Gakuso ship incident. With so much manga out there that seems to feed solely off of familiarity and inertia, it's almost reassuring that Otsuka is still able to shock and surprise readers (when he's not confusing the hell out of them, that is) -- especially when the story heads in interesting yet coherent new directions, as it is in this volume.
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
