Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro

Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro (hereafter shortend to MTNN) is a supernatural mystery manga written by Matsui Yuusei, published in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2005 to 2009. It was Yuusei's first original work and ran for a grand total of 202 chapters. It was also adapted into a 25-episode anime in 2007, but the anime radically changed the storyline and created an original ending that didn't reflect the manga; this page discusses the manga continuity only.

I was introduced to Matsui Yuusei's work through Assassination Classroom first. A Tumblr mutual recommended it to me many, many years ago, and I absolutely adored it from from beginning to end. After I finished it, the same friend suggested that I try reading the same author's other series as well. This was way back in 2015, and I've re-read through MTNN every few years since then. It's one of my favorite manga series of all time, if not my absolute number one, and I'm shocked that it's taken me this long to talk about it on this website.

Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro opens with the protagonist Katsuragi Yako, a high-school girl trying to cope with her father's murder. The police, unable to find the culprit, label it a cold case. However, a mysterious demon named Neuro suddenly appears before her, demanding that she accompy him and serve as his camouflage in the human world as he hunts for 'riddles' to consume. As a consequence of being dragged along by Neuro from crime to crime, she begins to gain notoriety as 'the famous schoolgirl detective'. While Yako serves as the face of their detective practice, Neuro is the one solving the murders behind the scenes, feeding off of the guilty culprits' emotions to sate his demonic hunger.

There's a lot more to this series than its humble beginnings as a 'murder of the week' mystery. MTNN is a very strange manga; if you've read Assassination Classroom before, or his newer manga The Elusive Samurai, you'll already be aware of how Matsui Yuusei uses dark themes and monstrous, allegorical imagery to creatively develop his characters and showcase their innermost desires. In Assassination Classroom, he crosses themes of murder and bloodlust with the difficulties of academia; in The Elusive Samurai, his characters are defined by their survival instincts and what they desire most. In MTNN, one of the most striking and unique elements of the series is the use of (unrealistic) BDSM imagery. Neuro is a demon with a penchant for cruel and unusual punishments, and since Yako is his assistant, a lot of these punishments befall her (though Neuro has no qualms torturing his other subordinates as well). Neuro takes great joy in devising methods of torturing the poor girl, and many of them are played for absurd, exaggerated laughs.

Something interesting happens, however, as the story and the characters develop. Neuro's slapstick punishments transition from being used for nothing but comedy to becoming a genuinely important aspect of his partnership with Yako. It happens slowly, but the series eventually reaches a point where physical restraints and emotional training are methods for Yako and Neuro to communicate candidly with each other. Like bloodlust in Assassination Classroom being praised as an allegory for hard work and desire, Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro uses exaggerated bondage to showcase Yako and Neuro's trust in each other as partners when faced with potentially deadly threats. I think the key to this unusual symbolism's success is the fact that there are no sexual or romantic undertones between Neuro and Yako at all, so this imagery stands out as meaningful from a purely symbolic standpoint. Bondage and fetishism are important elements when it comes to other characters in the story as well, including several villains, and Yuusei plays with the distinctions between these characters very effectively.

Yuusei also uses very interesting visual symbolism when it comes to the murderers. MTNN starts out with a 'villain of the week' format, with Neuro and Yako being given a case and trying to track down the guilty party. Once they determine who the culprit is, the culprit often has an allegorical shift in their design, drawing on symbols related to their personal beliefs or crimes. They go from average, everyday people to grotesque caricatures, twisted by the way they justify their actions to themselves and the detectives who've caught them in the act. Yuusei's early art may not be the most accurate when it comes to anatomy, but his artistic vision is really fascinating, and I think that Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro showcases it the best out of all of his work.

MTNN does have its fair share of humor that hasn't aged well, for a multitude of reasons, but the overall product is really fascinating and I've never read anything else quite like it. I would say that it's very much a hit or miss manga; you'll either love it and stick around to the very end, or you'll be turned away by its uncomfortable sense of humor and strange tone. It's definitely not for everyone, but it's my favorite work by my favorite mangaka, and I want more people to know about it and give it an honest shot. As the series goes on, it explores some fascinating storylines regarding crime, identity, and self-confidence. I seem to discover or absorb something new every time I read it.

My most recent readthroughs of the manga were in October 2020 and April 2023. It was never officially released in English and multiple groups worked on it during its initial run, so when looking for fan translations, some chapters are of a lower quality than others. A new circle picked up the series in the last few years, but it seems that at the time of writing this page only ten chapters are available. Regardless, if this series sounds even slightly interesting to you, or you're familiar with any of Yuusei's other work, I implore you to give this strange, special series the shot it deserves.

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