Stuff I Read – MPD Psycho Vol 2
The insanity continues. With the fifth volume of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service taking forever to get through Borders, we opted for picking up the second volume of that writer’s other series involving murder and death. At MPD Psycho vol 2 does not disappoint in those regards, delivering yet grisly tale. This one really falls into two stories, which is a bit odd for such a short manga, with the first revolving around high school girls killing themselves and the second pushing the main character’s back story to the front. Both are well done and have some disturbing scenes, which is always nice, but this volume steps back a bit from the gore of the first volume. Yes, there is a girl who dissolves herself in chemicals and another who siphons off all her blood with a fish tank pump, but next to the brain plants from the previous volume, this one comes off as much more tame. Especially the second half of the volume, where really only one person is murdered.
The first story, the one with the high school girls killing themselves, is a fairly straightforward mystery, only it gets solved far too quickly. There is a problem with having volumes as thin as MPD Psycho and that is that you don’t get nearly as much time to build tension and mystery before you have to wrap everything up. The first volume did this a bit better with the brain flower story but the origin suffered a bit from brevity, and such is the case here as well. The visuals are cool and we are introduced to some new characters, but mainly the mystery is solved without a whole lot of effort, and even then most of the girls manage to kill themselves or get killed anyway. Only one survives, and the story never gets back to what happens with her. That seems strange, as she is a possible connection to what has been happening, but as soon as she gets saved she is forgotten. A new recurring villain appears who may be the main villain for a while, so there is that, but it seems like a rather small point to build this mystery around.
The second story is only a bit better in terms of pacing, with the action of the story at least progressing fast for a reason. And it does bring up the main character’s back story, and perhaps the origins of the multiple personality disorder that he is suffering from. Though at this point it rather seems that the psycho killer persona is the true person and the other personas have either been adopted to avoid suspicion or because of severe mental stress. Whatever the case, this story is a bit better because it involves the main character directly, and the supporting cast directly, making them possible victims, something that will probably happen again. Again, however, this really wasn’t a mystery, and didn’t exactly feel all that fleshed out. It was another opportunity for the villain to show up and be menacing, and it did reveal another personality for the main character, so it does have some points in its favor. It manages to answer a few questions while leaving so many more open. Because of the mental state of guy trying to meet back up with the psycho persona, it is hard to know what the flashback scenes mean.
So really, this volume was a step forward for the story as a whole, but is still plagued by pacing issues that I would have hoped would have been resolved. I had hoped that after the first volume the series would start sticking to one story per volume, but here is another that is split in two, and given the limited space of the volume I don’t think that it is a great thing. I would prefer to be able to linger a little more, to build tension a little more, and not be bounced around quite so fast. I mean, it gives things a very fast feel, like all this is a snowball rolling downhill, but at the same time it seems to be rolling so fast it’s not picking up much snow as it goes, so by the time it reaches the bottom it’s not as impressive as it could be. Still, it is an enjoyable read and I can hope that the next volume will slow things down a bit. The greater mystery of what is happening with the main character and what it has to do with the barcodes on the eye is still present and still the building, so there is pacing on a large scale, but on a small scale, over the short run, things feel a bit rushed. It might just be me, though. I give this volume of MPD Psycho a 7.5/10.