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.
