Manga Review: Majin Tantei Neuro Nougami

Title: Majin Tantei Neuro Nougami
Author: Matsuei Yuusei
Release: Weekly
Status: Finished
Genre: Shonen, Mystery, Supernatural
Art: A
Originality: S+
Story: S
Characters: S+
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: When I first read this I immediately thought "Gah! What drew this?!" because of how bad the art style seemed for a detective story. Eventually that changed because the story actually adapted to the art style making it awesome from that point forward. It's about Katsuragi Yako and a powerful & sadistic demon called Neuro who came to the human world to feed on the numerous mysteries that were abundant there. Yako's father recently had been murdered and in exchange for catching the killer, Neuro wants Yako to be his partner in solving mysteries so he can get a steady supply of mysteries to eat. A first this was a pretty damn weird detective manga with mysteries that weren't all that well designed but even then, the way that the big reveal happened for each case was a lot of fun to watch since they were all handled in the most interesting ways. Halfway through the story, the usual solve the mystery plots were almost completely abandoned because of the introduction of a very powerful antagonist character that could shapeshift. After Phantom Thief X came into the picture, the manga just kept on getting better and better with the unique enemies and Neuro's awesome Daemon Tools. The author knows when she has to make really big moves like killing off main characters near the end and the character development that Yako and Neuro go through the story was executed so subtly that it really surprised at how much Yako changed by the end. The final arc ended quite nicely and served as the perfect climax and wrap-up of the series. The actual epilogue wasn't quite as satisfying (Still good though) but it's pretty damn hard to top the final arc's end after all. I'm eagerly awaiting the second season of the anime.