Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro

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This is easily among my favourite manga, for the simple reason its so unique. The manga flips through Pseudo-Mystery genre, humour, almost-horror, Crime, action and pretty much everything else so much it should feel schizophrenic, but instead works perfectly. The most prominent genre is really Psychological. The capture of criminals is often less about discovering how they did the crime as much as it is their motivations for doing so.
Perhaps the best part of this manga is the characters however. From the main characters to even the very most minor, there is not one whom is completely undeveloped. Everyone feels very real and Human (or ... Inhuman when intended), even the basic criminals given the same treatment which makes finding out every reasoning interesting - and some making you feel so sympathetic for the murderer you would prefer they go free. This manga is truly one for people who like varied interesting characters. From the Sadistic 'Evil-Good' Neuro, to the petrified Along-for-the-ride Yako, to the childish but entertaining and slightly scary 'Chaotic-Evil' murderer X.

The artwork is difficult to rate numerically - ranging from 10 to 6 at its worst. Matsui has a beautifully surreal expressionlist drawing style, which leads him to create perhaps one or two very complex weirdly-beautiful drawings a chapter. These are unique from most manga and are often used to represent an idea as its being explained, or simply to unsettle. Some were so good i often find myself looking back through, and i have in fact bought some manga myself even though theyre in japanese for the best bits i enjoyed them so much. However, hes admitted that drawing these take up much of his time and in the earlier chapters its obvious the rest of the art suffers for it and its one week chapter creation time (and it doesnt help most scans represent it double its normal size, screwing the resolution up). As it goes on the standard art improves to an acceptable state with even more of the beautiful surrealist works per chapter, presumably as he gains assistants or improves time management, so stick with it.

In conclusion, if your bored with the standard Shonen clones, want something truly unique and unconventional, or happen to be a fan of bizarre art stylings - Read this Manga. If your not any of those, still read it because it will make you all those things regardless, and youll be better for it.

I don’t know what to make of this manga really. At first, I thought this would be like Ghost Sweeper Mikami where there would be a main character that would get pleasure in making the other character suffer. At times it’s fun and comical in an almost satanic way. I’m not sure if it’s the translation that I read or how the manga really is written so it’s hard to say but the story got very complicated after a while. Trust me when I say you will get confused, you will get lied to, and you will go ‘What the fuck?’ while reading this. You ... have been warned. The start of this manga is basic with a demon ending up going to the human world and forcing a human to help him.

Lets talk about the main characters for a moment. Neuro is a demon who has come to the human world looking for riddles which is his main source of food. He acts like a rather playful child for most of the time though, even if his play is very satanic and torture style. He was born and lived in a land of suffering, the underworld where they did as they wanted and where the concept of death and horror mean nothing. Take that same character, put them in our world and let them do as they please. Ten times out of ten, the demon would not understand why it’s not ok to play with someone’s mind or show them horrific images. This is why I consider him more of a child playing with his food then an actual demon as the riddles he eats are made by humans. The reason he came looking for riddles was to find the ultimate food to quench his hunger. (Toriko eat your heart out… no really, this is a demon we are talking about. Toriko is a good example, maybe an overboard example, of just what that can be like in human terms.)

There is one other point that I would like to bring up with Neuro. Although he is childish and has a lack of knowledge of being human, he also has a rather strange understanding that almost seems physiological.There is a point in the story where he talks about how humans surprise him with their way of surpassing his expectations. It actually got me thinking a bit in how the psychology behind different things in the manga and outside it. Things that seemed to be over exaggerated in the manga did have a bit of place here in the world. For example, there was a singer who sung beautifully but only when she felt that she had no one who cared for her. Because of this, she choose to kill the people she loved in order to sing again. The fact that he is a outsider looking in actually seems to make me believe that he understands humans much more then he actually lets on or knows himself. When he gets into this psychology, to me he seems to feel more human then when he is normal.

Yako is… well she is not really as fleshed out as Neuro is. She just seems like an ordinary girl who can somehow withstand Neuro’s special attacks. I mean, what human can live with their head being twisted 360 degrees or having her jugular smashed in several times? It makes me wonder if she herself is also a monster, especially with how she eats. She says in the beginning that she doesn’t like riddles but she does grow to seem to understand them at least just by the second book, starting to show a interest in whatever Neuro is about to do. She has a very strange way of looking up to Neuro, almost to the point that I would say she likes him a bit… but only a little bit. It’s odd to see some shoujo aspects to a manga made for Shonen. What that means is aspects for girl comics in men’s comics.

The artwork is very close to the occult but with Shonen aspects to it. I can tell that it was made mostly for men but then we have a character that was definitely made for the females who read it as the demon Neuro is really… cute in his own way? I know I said this about a monster that does show his original form that isn’t so cute but he has this sort of playful way he acts and especially around Yako. It may not be romantic in anyway, it actually closely resembles a cat playing with a small mouse, but in a way it has this sort of childlike ‘I’m not poking you’ feel. He never actually harms her (seriously anyway… at times it may seem that he does though but she always seems fine after) and so I can’t say that he ever feels any malice to her. He just sees her as his ticket to another meal and if they had feelings like friendship, I’m sort of sure he would feel them. Putting that all aside, the artwork gets really horror filled with things that seem to come out of a surreal painting with fish-eyed glass style and strange details in the riddle or hands similar to the weapon they pick. We even have times where you can see a rather simple character turn very complex as they get close to figuring out the ‘riddle.’

This manga is a rather strange one and again, its one that can get really complicated. I still don’t fully understand half of what was going on near the end. It’s still a good manga but you might want to read it carefully to understand it more. And can someone please explain some of the ending to me because it just confuses me.

Imagine a magician appears to levitate and pull rabbits out of his ass. Now imagine he explains the trick in full detail to kill off any potential mystery. The result is basically this manga.
To be perfectly blunt, this manga was mediocre at best. I'm sure I'll get lots of "not helpfuls", but c'mon, let's be reasonable here! It's a "psychological mystery" manga that basically has nothing mysterious or interesting about it. Neuro solves every mystery the moment it begins. See, psychological stories are interesting because they leave you on the edge of your seat guessing what's gonna happen next. However, in this manga, you ... will never find yourself on the edge of your seat. You will just be sitting back and watching Neuro expose the "trick" behind the murder.

- - - S T O R Y - - -
Well, every incident revolves around a murder. The murder is commited for some petty reason and uses some sort of "trick" to cover up the criminal's tracks. The police arrive at the scene of the crime, being incompetent and writing it off as an accident or something. Neuro tells them that he has immediately solved the mystery with 100% accuracy and explains how the murder occurred. Next, he gives the criminal an ironic (lol) punishment using his demonic powers.

The weak cases go on for a while. Around chapters 60-90, there is a more interesting arc involving artificial intelligence. Honestly, I felt like I should just stop reading after that arc ended. It gave decent closure. However, I foolishly let my guard down and believed that perhaps there would be more interesting arcs... then I got stuck reading this thing to the end for the sake of having some closure.

After the AI arc, things took a turn for the stupid. The enemies became more supernatural and things pretty much just became ridiculous. It was pretty much just a mediocre battle manga hiding behind its facade of being some sort of detective story.
There's nothing believable about the story, so you can't feel any sense for the gravity of the situations; you're basically just going along for the ride and looking at pictures of Yako having her eyes gouged, neck twisted around, or being smacked in the face. This manga has no rules or laws; it's pretty much anything goes, which just makes it completely unfit to be called a mystery manga.

- - - A R T - - -
The art is not very good, but it improves as it goes along. It isn't too appealing, anyway.

- - - C H A R A C T E R S - - -
Yako: Useless puppet who is dragged along for the ride. Her character shows some promise during the Aya Asia arc, but then she returns to being completely worthless. She basically just exists as "comic relief".

Neuro: Invincible "detective" who instantly explains every mystery. He's basically that guy who spoils the end of a movie when you just started watching it. Very annoying personality - just not a likeable character.

Aya Asia: Too OP. I think she just made repeated appearances because the mangaka liked drawing her. Her arc was okay, but she was made out to be too god-like. After her arc was finished, she shouldn't have appeared again. It just lowered the value of her character.

Harukawa/HAL: This was the only interesting character, really. Despite the arc being so far-fetched, he was the only one that felt convincing. You could feel his attitude loud and clear, he didn't have any stupid "comic relief" involved, he had deep emotions, and he had a true motive.

X: Wildcard with no personality.

Sicks: Hitler wannabe.

Everyone else: Pretty much pointless and irrelevant.

- - - E N J O Y M E N T - - -
The constant S&M stuff was pretty stupid. I swear, 50% of this manga is just S&M. It completely degrades Yako's credibility as a character and also just makes Neuro a really bratty and annoying character who you can't take seriously. Also, it fails to be funny unless your sense of humour is so lowly that you'd be amused to see one person get whacked over and over for no reason.

The characters are pretty much all just one dimensional. It's hard to feel any attachment to any of them. In the final battle, I honestly didn't care if Neuro would die or not. I mean, really, who gives a shit? He didn't really contribute anything to the story. Barely anyone did besides Harukawa/HAL.

- - - O V E R A L L - - -
If you're expecting a mystery manga, this isn't one. Just don't bother reading this, it has very few interesting points.