MPD-Psycho Vol.#05
© Dark Horse

Mania Grade: B-
Art Rating: B
Packaging Rating: A-
Text/Translatin Rating: A-
Age Rating: 17 & Up
Released By: Dark Horse
MSRP: 10.95
Pages: 192
ISBN: 978-1-59307-962-8
Size: B6
Orientation: Right to Left
Series: MPD-Psycho

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MPD-Psycho Vol.#05

I guess this is what I get for saying that the last volume of MPD-Psycho  actually made a little bit of sense.

Creative Talent
Writer/Artist: Sho-u Tajima / Eiji Otsuka
Translated by: Kumar Sivasubramanian
Adapted by: Kumar Sivasubramanian

What They Say
After last volume's surprising betrayal and bloodbath, Amamiya - the multiple personality detective of the Isono Criminal Research Lab - faces new threats from the young "Lucy 7" deviants! In the midst of new murderous messes, bumbling Detective Sasayama finds himself in a criminal profiler contest fueled by the Japanese media.

An American profiler arrives to work on a decade-old serial killer case at an elementary school, but the real group that he represents and his ultimate goals are as mysterious as MPD-Psycho's huge "barcode puzzle."

The Review
Kobayashi/Amamiya/Nishizono/Murata/Sakurai (did I get them all?) is pushed back from the series's focal point once again in Volume 5, with Sasayama being given free reign by the police to profile the culprit behind a new string of killings.  Because the new killings allegedly bear some similarities to a serial killer case out of Chicago, former FBI profiler Michelle Partner -- and yes, Michelle is a man -- tags along on the investigation, though the media portrays it more as a competition between nations than a cooperative effort.  As we know by now, nothing in the world of MPD-Psycho> is without its place in a greater conspiracy; and for Partner's part, he turns out to be a hunter sent by "the organization" to track down a seven killers attached to the Lucy Monostone case.  And these killers eventually turn out to be ...

Children.  With barcode tattoos on their eyeballs.  And very, very weird split personalities which are activated by digital signals embedded in a Lucy Monostone MP3 file.  I won't give away what makes these personalities so weird -- or the weird things that the children can do with said personalities -- but it's a pretty big stretch, even by Otsuka's already (ahem) creative standards of coherence and plot development.

Volume 5 firmly places the series back into the territory where it feels like Otsuka has started picking his plot twists at random; not a whole lot of what's going on here follows directly from previous story events in any meaningful way.  I can almost imagine him pinning random dictionary entries to a dartboard, then throwing a few darts at the board and seeing what kinds of plot twists he can make out of the results.  ("'Children', 'reissue', and 'mind control'?  Let's run with it!")

At the same time, I'm hesitant to let this complaint weigh too heavily in my view of the volume as a whole, because let's face it: if you've already gotten this far into MPD-Psycho without dropping the series, then you've obviously developed an immunity to (or even an affinity for) Otsuka's own special brand of insanity long ago.  For better or for worse, it's hard to deny that what he's doing with MPD-Psycho is unique within the manga world.  At the very least, he deserves some credit for continually managing to out-do himself with more and more bizarre story twists each new volume.

And who knows?  A few volumes down the line, he might actually find a way to tie it all back up again and make it almost make sense.