Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation 13

Yoshiyuki Nishi – Viz – 2009 – 18 volumes

For all the weirdness going on, I actually like this series a lot.  I’ll admit I’m missing out on quite a bit by not knowing the cast and all their strengths and weaknesses, and I’m also unfamiliar with the magic systems, but man, everything going on is so cool that it really does make me want to go back to the beginning.

The atmosphere and art style have a lot to do with the appeal.  For a series about slaying creepy ghosts, it helps that the art style is extremely unusual, since the ghosts and spirits fit in with the weirdness going on.  Having the awesome-looking ghosts and spirits adds to the mood, since pretty much the entire volume this time was spent slaying two evil ghosts.  I may not have been able to tell just what the implications of the fights were for the characters involved, but I still enjoyed the ghosts and the slayings immensely.

Plot-wise, the characters seem to have accumulated what they need in order to fight the final bad guy one last time.  Admittedly, Muhyo’s weapon is awesome, and seems to summon the king of the underworld.  This thing needs to be tweaked, however, so the other characters have to hold off the bad guy while the weapon finishes up.  Apparently this “final battle” will last five volumes, which is pretty long even by Shounen Jump standards, so I wonder what else will happen before or after the fight.  It may just be a long series of battles, however, where the biggest, best, and most awesome magic spells and spirits are brought out to fight.

For instance, we do see the first stage here.  A prince of the underworld makes his appearance, and although he looks kind of cute, he’s pretty powerful.  To combat him, the opponent summons a gallows-ghost from below the town that feeds on anger and resentment.  It has the power to consume… lots of things, including all the good guys.  Even without grasping half of what’s going on, this was all pretty awesome and epic stuff.

It certainly isn’t your typical Shounen Jump series.  Perhaps an October marathon is in order?  I do like celebrating Halloween with themed manga.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.