Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna (Spiral: Bonds of Reasoning)

Ayumu Narumi has lived all his life in the shadow of his famous detective brother, Kiyotaka. However, Kiyotaka disappeared two years ago, leaving behind his wife Madoka and Ayumu himself, along with a cryptic message about the "Blade Children."

One day, a girl at Ayumu's school suddenly dies. What seemed like a suicide at first glance turns out to be a murder, and Ayumu is the prime suspect. While investigating the person responsible for framing him, he discovers that the mysterious Blade Children are involved—and they somehow know Kiyotaka personally. Ayumu soon finds out just how dangerous the Blade Children are and learns that, in reality, he and Kiyotaka are intertwined more closely than he had ever believed.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna was published in English as Spiral: Bonds of Reasoning by Yen Press from October 17, 2007 to April 26, 2011, as well as in eBook format on April 29, 2014.

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Narumi, Ayumu

Main

Rutherford, Eyes

Main

Yuizaki, Hiyono

Main

Takeuchi, Rio

Main

Asazuki, Kousuke

Main

Hilbert, Kanone

Supporting

Mizushiro, Hizumi

Supporting

Takamachi, Ryoko

Supporting

Narumi, Madoka

Supporting

Shiranagatani, Sayoko

Supporting

Reviews

May 2, 2021

Noahboy

Recommended

Spiral is strange in the sense that it only comes into its own in the final five volumes, while the first ten are still very good on their own. But, once it comes into its own, there really isn't anything like it.

It mostly focuses on mystery and entertains you by constantly misleading you then faking you out, and it's done very well for the most part. But it may take too much time to reveal certain plot details for some people, as the mysteries only start to be unraveled from volume eleven onward. However, if you can make it that far, the final arc is ...

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Nov 11, 2014

sprinkledpieces

Mixed Feelings

Kiyotaka Narumi is a brilliant pianist and detective who disappeared two years before the events of Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna. "I went to find the Blade Children," is the only message he left behind for his wife, Madoka, and his younger brother Ayumu. Though Ayumu is gifted in both logic and piano, he has grown apathetic due to constantly being in Kiyotaka's shadow. A murder at Ayumu's school and a new message from Kiyotaka drag Ayumu into the deadly mystery of the Blade Children.

Character: 8 (Very Good)

The characters were my favorite part of this series and were why I continued reading until the end. ... I really loved hearing about their experiences and what made them act the way they did in the series. They all have very concrete motivation. Ayumu has a nuanced personality. It is clear why he detests Kiyotaka so much and how Kiyotaka has shaped him. Madoka and the five recurring Blade Children we are introduced to all have good character development and are very likable.

Art: 7 (Good)

Spiral is full of murder mysteries, death, and near-death experiences, and I would have liked to see that reflected in the art. The characters, who are supposed to be in high school, were drawn to look too young and innocent for the amount of death in the story to be taken seriously (with the exception of Rio, who is deliberately drawn innocently to subvert the moe stereotype). Two of the major antagonists who appear later on in the series are drawn cutely, which made them hard for me to see as threatening.

Thankfully, as the chapters progressed, certain main characters are gradually drawn to look older. This especially effects Ayumu and Eyes, who really benefit from looking older.

Story: 6.5 rounded up to 7 (Good)

The series begins with some good standalone mysteries involving the Blade Children. I wanted to know why everyone seemed to hate them and what they were capable of. I was very happy to see that the story fully answered this question, and that was what excited me the most about the plot. I wanted so badly to see the present implications of the Blade Children's curse, and how Ayumu would try to break the curse.

Unfortunately, the plot deviates significantly from the Blade Children to the point where most of them actually stop appearing, and focuses on Ayumu and an antagonist who is connected to the Blade Children. The story became very muddled, moving from the concreteness of the Blade Children storyline to vague ideas like "hope" versus "despair." Spiral also gets extremely repetitive-- the characters tend to sit, talk, and over-plan for chapters on end before taking action, and certain ideas and character abilities that are repeated to the point of becoming annoying.

Enjoyment: 4 (Decent)

This is a series I really wanted to like. I stuck with it to the very end hoping that it would get better, but the story became weaker after the new antagonist was introduced. Past a certain point, I found myself only reading because I wanted to finish.

Overall: 6 (Fair)

The series is worth reading for the characters and to find out exactly what the Blade Children's curse is, because that is a cool plot point which was very well done. After that, it failed to develop on the present implications of the Blade Children's curse, and had a lackluster ending.

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Dec 13, 2023

hexashadow13

Not Recommended

tl;dr: A manga that has some pretty solid moments, especially towards the middle, but that doesn’t really have any good overarching aspects and has a really weak ending.

This manga is centered around a high school boy named Ayumi who’s the solitary logical type, but beyond that it changes quite a lot over the course of its run. It starts off with simple whodunit murder mysteries. These aren’t all that great but aren’t particularly bad either. As it moves forward, it transitions more and more into more straight forward battles of wit between Ayumi and the mysterious Blade Children. These actually started off pretty well written ... and although simple were interesting. As things progressed and continued to escalate, the writing got much messier and more ridiculous and involved a lot more absurd deduction and such during conflicts. Still, it also amped up the action and kept things moving pretty fast so even if it wasn’t realistic, it was still reasonably exciting and interesting.

The manga goes through a very abrupt shift two thirds of the way through, when it finally starts delving into the core of the mysteries that had been touched upon throughout the manga. This phase starts off pretty badly with what is essentially an entire volume of characters just info dumping explanation, though it doesn’t really get much better from there as the rest of the manga is also much slower and lacking in the excitement that made the previous parts enjoyable. The atmosphere in general is much drearier and more depressing. However, despite that the writing is even messier and nonsensical than before. It jumps the shark in all sorts of ways, with a heavy emphasis on half assed science and supernatural elements it bizarrely tries to force into the mold of Christian mythology despite really not fitting. Manga majorly escalating over time isn’t all that strange, but the transition was handled really badly from a tonal and thematic point of view. Furthermore, it just overall makes very little sense with supernatural rules and mechanics that feel completely arbitrary and changing on a whim. If this was a battle shounen or something like that then this level of writing would be okay, but when it’s a thriller centered around a central mystery and battle of wits then things like this just make the whole thing feel dumb.

It also doesn’t really help that the manga is really weak in terms of characters. Ayumi feels like he’s having somewhat of a character arc over the first two thirds. However, the the final third essentially crushes that in being really wishy washy and all over the place while also being overtly melodramatic about everything. The main heroine, the president of the newspaper club who is seemingly able to sniff out information on anything, also seems interesting and there seem to be some level of a relationship arc going on between her and Ayumi. However, that completely falls apart towards the ending. The twist was pretty predictable and I didn’t find it all that shocking, but how it handled the aftermath was atrocious. As for all the side characters, it didn’t really feel like it handled anyone properly. There were characters that felt like they were interesting and worth getting invested in in the first two thirds, but the final third minimized their role tremendously in favor of new characters that were nowhere near as interesting. All in all, by the end I wasn’t really invested in any of the characters or their fates, and as that’s what the core of the finale and epilogue are centered around, the ending had very little impact and was overall pretty dissatisfying.

The art I also found pretty mediocre. The style I wasn’t particularly fond of and I thought the quality wasn’t that high, even for the covers and color pages. I also thought that the character designs were pretty boring even for the setting.

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Poll: Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna Chapter 77 Discussion TitanInsane - Jan 25, 2023	0 replies	by TitanInsane »» Jan 25, 2023 9:01 AM
Spiral chap 77 ending kira-factor - Dec 4, 2009	22 replies	by stray_stoat »» Feb 17, 2022 3:34 AM
Poll: Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna Chapter 76 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 9, 2015	0 replies	by Stark700 »» Nov 9, 2015 8:46 PM
Question about this manga? SPOILER? Groovy_Q - Jun 24, 2013	4 replies	by renders »» Feb 12, 2014 9:55 AM
Poll: Spiral: Bonds of Reasoning Chapter 75 Discussion Lunar191 - Nov 19, 2010	0 replies	by Lunar191 »» Nov 19, 2010 1:10 PM

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