Reviews for MPD-Psycho, Volume 1

The average rating for MPD-Psycho, Volume 1 based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-04-12 00:00:00 Albert Hunt MPD Psycho & the Horror Manga Supremacy If you're a horror fan, Manga currently does a better job of disturbing people than any other culture or medium. I'm just going to leave that generalization sitting there like a suspicious suitcase in an airport, and pretend I never said it. For a little while. Evidence is tedious, while making a grand declaration of that sort is rather fun. This review looks at 'MPD Psycho', focusing on Volumes 1 & 2 of Eiji Otsuka & Sho-U Tajima's popular and critically acclaimed manga. It was also adapted as a live-action series for Japanese TV, directed by Takashi Miike (one of my favorite film-makers, incidentally, from 'Audition' to his remake of 'Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai'). Miike was the logical choice; his proclivity for grotesque ultra-violence meshed perfectly with the themes explored in MPD Psycho, and its consistently shocking imagery. But there's no shortage of manga titles that find creative ways to plant a horrifying little seed in your brain, so I'll return to my generalization and take it down a notch by claiming that Japanese comics do horror much, MUCH better than Western comics -- This was a point David Schaafsma once brought up about the lack of truly horrifying US horror comics, relative to Japan. After digging hard to unearth some unsettling Western horror titles that might disprove the observation, I found he was right; there was little in the way of North American competition for Manga Horror. There's some good US survival horror, like The Walking Dead and Crossed, but they're exceptions. Most of the books labelled as 'horror' are supernatural fantasies mining Lovecraft and Crowley. But Demons, monsters and ghosts aren't scary. People are scary. Especially people convinced they're doing the right thing. Save us all from 14-27 year-old boys who believe that killing apostates and infidels is the holiest of endeavors. Here's a few of the weird bastards who belong to the masters of Japanese Horror club, channeling their inventively disturbing concepts: Suehiro Maruo: Junji Ito (after bringing up Lovecraft, Ito is one of the rare horror artists who find new ways to reinvigorate supernatural horror, crashing the mundane and beautifully ordered structure of Japanese society into the logic-devouring chaos of the unknown; the 1st image below is Ito's portrait of Lovecraft): Shintaro Kago -- in particular the sort of grisly, terrifying shit that triggers autonomic physical reactions. Otsuka and Tajima are on a level very close to the one Suehiro Maruo, Shintaro Kago and Junji Ito occupy, dreaming up the kind of imagery that goes well beyond 'haunting'; it's like it's been tattooed inside your eyelids, or onto the eye itself; once whatever parasitic species of nightmare-flora's been planted, there's no chance of pulling the weeds once they've rooted themselves in your subconscious. It's like the fictional equivalent of an ISIS execution video: you can't un-see that shit. First: I can't say enough about the brilliantly grotesque painted covers, which are a tough act to follow. But Tajima's line-work is sharp as a zero-ground wakizashi; these first 15 covers borrow the ero-guro artistry of Takato Yamamoto (if you dig the rotting grandeur of Tajima's painted covers, you should definitely check out Yamamoto): Weeds. You'd need a Phd. in Guesswork (a.k.a. the social sciences) to figure out how weeds could factor into one of the many unthinkably cruel and disturbing acts of torture that these talented architects of atrocity conceive of, even after isolating the story facets 'incorporated' within the inventive cover compositions, and the scattered clues throughout the awkward sentences of the preceding paragraph. Writer Eiji Otsuka has proven himself to be a master of death-mining; his imagination, memory and research are a near-bottomless reservoir of atrocities. Examples of Tajima's interior art from throughout the series, without the inventive carnage these architects of atrocity are known for, due to spoiler-related reasons: The story is a complicated one (but I'll try to refrain from straight-up spoil-attacks); it involves a Tokyo cop who suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, one of whom may be a serial-killer. Like the latest M. Night Shamylan to hopefully not suck, 'Split'. Or 'Identity'. Or 'Primal Fear'. MPD only takes a backseat to Amnesia when it comes to incredibly rare psychological conditions that are used-overused constantly in fiction, but MPD Psycho puts the trope to work in original ways. It also features a Homicide Department familiar with their peer's 'condition', who work with him to solve a series of murders that are unspeakably brutal and very creative. It quickly becomes apparent that they are dealing with what can only be called a serial-killer 'epidemic', and that the killers share little in common beyond their distinctive murder 'aesthetic'... and a barcode. I won't say anything more about the barcodes. More Sho-U Tajima pages from MPD Psycho: Otsuka pairs up with excellent artists -- Housui Yamazaki on Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and Sho-U Tajima on MPD Psycho. Tajima is incredible. His painted covers are perhaps the best I've seen on any manga series, and were intriguing enough that I bought the first two volumes knowing nothing else about them. I would love to see a fully-painted comic by Tajima, but that's not something that happens much in manga.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-12-27 00:00:00 Robert Gray Vol. 1: ★★★★★ Vol. 2: ★★★★☆ This was so bizarre and uniquely its own, and graphic, but I honestly loved it a lot. I can safely say I've never read anything quite like MPD Psycho and I can't wait to continue the series. Fair warning, when I say this manga is graphic, I mean it is graphic; there's a ton of nudity, violence, and body horror that even made me shudder once or twice (which is pretty hard to do!). The storyline is super intriguing, though if you're a reader who isn't fond of stories revolving around DID/"multiple personality disorder", you'll want to steer clear as that's the bulk of the story's theme here. The artwork is also beautifully done, and truly, I can't say anything else besides that this is easily my new favorite horror manga and I highly encourage picking it up!