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.