MAOH: Juvenile Remix: Volume 3

by Kotaro Isaka (original story) and Megumi Osuga (story and art), 186 pages

Ando is still reeling from interfering in Inukai's latest attempt to turn public opinion against a new commercial district's construction when the young man himself seeks Ando out for a face-to-face chat. Strangely, Inukai doesn't seem angry at being foiled. Instead, he's intrigued, almost excited. He sees Ando's countering his intentions as a referendum from fate. If in the end Ando succeeds in stopping him, Inukai will be proven wrong. If the boy doesn't, then everything Inukai has believed and done and fought for will be justified.

Unnerved and uncertain of his next move, Ando encounters further complications with the introduction of a new student at school. Friendly, easy-going Anderson doesn't have to manipulate anybody, including Ando, into liking him--which wouldn't be such a problem if he weren't the son of the heartless, greedy CEO of the Anderson Company, the force behind the huge, local-business-killing commercial project and the object of all of Inukai's hatred.

Meanwhile, another assassin is loose on the streets, only this one is targeting Inukai's Grasshopper foot soldiers...and anyone else unlucky enough to see her face.

Aw, Anderson's sweet and starts up an immediate friendship with Ando ("Anderson" and "Ando-san"--the American boy thinks this is hilariously clever). How did such a creep raise such a nice kid? Another study in contrasts, the new assassin is both hokier (with her gothic Lolita frills and affected speech) and scarier than her predecessor. And Inukai's accomplice, while perhaps saner, doesn't seem to share his partner's interest in cosmic approval. Is that good or bad? By the end of the volume, even Ando is still having a hard time deciding whether Inukai is a "majestic god" or a "demonic tyrant: a maoh."

So far, so good. It's a little over the top sometimes, and still a bit fogged from overly much grey, but I'm enjoying this series as it keeps the reader from forming cemented opinions about who's good and who's evil.

MAOH: Juvenile Remix: Volume 2

by Kotaro Isaka (original story) and Megumi Osuga (story and art), 189 pages

After a near-miss amusement park accident, Ando knows he's been sent a warning. But by whom? And against what? He has little time to contemplate the answers before becoming the target of not so much another warning as a hired hit.

Accustomed to dispatching syndicate bosses and henchmen with no questions asked, Semi is deadly efficient with a knife and aims to take care of Ando and get on to the next job. But even he has to wonder why someone would want to take out such a useless nobody.

Backed into a corner, defenseless Ando falls back on the first thing to pop in his head.

"What would MacGyver do?!"

Ha ha ha! Seriously, Ando goes into "Think!" mode just like his hero, the master of making do in a pinch with what's at hand. And he doesn't do too shabbily, either. He even works in a Gamera reference (that's the giant, spinning, flying turtle from Japanese monster movies). But it will take more than pop cultural references and clever use of his ventriloquism skill to get the persistent Semi off his case; for having now seen that his victim isn't so useless as he'd suspected, the curious assassin is all the more interested in his target...and in his unknown client's motives.

MAOH: Juvenile Remix: Volume 1

by Kotaro Isaka (original story) and Megumi Osuga (story and art), 196 pages

11th-grader Ando is an incredible ventriloquist. But the vehicles for his thrown voice aren't wooden puppets. Ever since he was little, he has suspected that he's not quite normal, but even he's surprised when one day he speaks up for the timid victim of a groper on the train--through her own lips. For the first time, Ando's rather proud of his weirdness, having used it in pursuit of justice; yet he worries that making a habit of such interference would be dangerous and border on manipulation of other people's free will. He'd been inspired to help by the words of another young man, Inukai, the charismatic leader of a growing community action and peacekeeping organization called The Grasshoppers. But the more Ando learns of Inukai, the more he suspects him of vigilantism and abuse of a manipulative power even greater than his own.

This manga adaptation of a psychological mystery novel plays on the notions of self-determination and of citizen action and where exactly one draws the line between combating crime and committing it. And that's not always an easy distinction to make. On the surface, Inukai's words of empowerment really do make a positive difference, as does the intervention of his group members when it comes to keeping the neighborhood streets safe. But he doesn't leave it at that. His recruitment methods are questionable, at best, and his persuasive words motivate his adherents to do far more than just pick up litter or make citizens' arrests. He's a dangerous dreamer because he knows how to mix truth in with something else all together until the two are indistinguishable. If Ando is going to involve himself any further without losing his own ability to judge right from wrong, he'll have to keep his wits about him.

Visually, Inukai's permanently dark lips (is that black lipstick or are they naturally blood red?) and silvery locks give him a convincing creepy factor while Ando's (and his little brother Junya's) perpetual bed-head lends him an air of unpolished, innocent energy. The art here can go a little heavy on the use of mid-range grey screentone, limiting the contrast, but I suppose one could make the argument that that's just another indicator of the moral grey area through which Ando finds himself navigating...? *makes doubtful face* Art aside, we'll see if future volumes maintain as strong a sense of moral ambiguity as this one, as I think it would lose something if the story's tone resolves too cleanly into easy black and white.