Will the Real Eiji Otsuka Please Stand Up: Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service vs. MPD Psycho

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve only recently started to get into manga. It’s kind of overwhelming – there’s just so much stuff out there. But The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is something that almost immediately jumped out at me: In part because of its fantastic and distinctive covers, but also because it’s about a bunch of university students who go around finding corpses and helping them resolve any leftover issues. I reviewed the first volume a couple months ago, and while I think it topped out at “pretty good”, the second and third volumes were significant improvements.
After enjoying Kurosagi, the notorious MPD Psycho seemed an obvious followup: It’s by the same writer, Eiji Otsuka, and was adapted for Japanese television by Takashi Miike, one of my favourite filmmakers (though one who, even his most fervent fans must admit, produces a lot of crap.) But I was fairly surprised to find that while Kurosagi has its flaws, MPD Psycho both shares those flaws and lacks the charm and with of Kurosagi. In fact, it’s almost hard to believe they’re written by the same man.
Both books share similar concepts and themes: They’re both mystery-oriented, with bizarre and often gruesome deaths that need to be either explained or cleaned up. MPD Psycho is about a detective with multiple personalities who solves bizarre crimes, while Kurosagi is about a group of students who help out the dead. Otsuka certainly has a knack for inventive deaths, both in setup and execution. And both his artists, Sho-u Tajima on Psycho and Housui Yamazaki on Kurosagi, are skilled at bringing it to life (so to speak).

Things start to diverge significantly after that. MPD Psycho is nominally a police/detective story, though there seems to be limited detective work (we’ll get to that in a bit). Detective Kazuhiko Amamiya, along with all the other people in his head, is unquestionably the star, with other characters generally filling the roles of either plot advancement or bystander who notes how crazy and creepy Amamiya is. Kurosagi, on the other hand, is more of an ensemble story, less police procedural than Scooby Doo with more corpses. Karatsu is the most important character, but just about everyone pitches in to help solve one mystery or another; everyone but Makino, the American-educated mortician, gets some character development. (Even Yata’s puppet is more interesting than Makino.)
It’s worth noting that neither series starts out particularly strongly: The first volumes of each series are a bit too in-your-face grisly, and try too hard to show off how dark and fucked up things are. Even Kurosagi doesn’t have much character development in it; it’s just setup, introduction, and a general exploration of the concept. Both books are rather fixated on sexualized violence: There are two attractive and naked female corpses in the first volume of Kurosagi, and several female victims are either naked or in bondage gear in MPD Psycho. It’s the sort of thing that needs to be used sparingly, but Otsuka overdoes it, at least in the early going, for the sake of shock value.
There’s also a chapter break illustration in the first volume of MPD Psycho featuring a lingeri-clad Detective Machi, who is fully clothed in the rest of the book. It makes one wonder about Otsuka’s feelings towards women. Kurosagi‘s Sasaki is a more fully-developed character, smart, together, and generally in charge of her male co-workers, but the art continues to sex her up in subsequent volumes: she surfs the net in her underwear in volume 2, and seems to stop wearing a bra some time before volume 3 starts. It’s the sort of thing that could very well be editorial direction, an attempt to add some sex appeal to an otherwise grim series, or it could just be the way Otsuka and his artists think. Regardless of which it is, things are sufficiently toned down in subsequent volumes that it’s not too distracting.

Perhaps the most puzzling difference between the two series is that Kurosagi is a far more effective mystery book. Otsuka explores different ways of solving the various problems: Often it’s Karatsu talking to the dead, or inadvertently inciting a corpse to action, but everyone gets their turn: Numata finds the corpses with his dowsing medallion and acts as a sort of sidekick to Karatsu; Yata and his puppet get to discover part of the mystery in the second volume; Sasaki hacks computers and does some more traditional detective work; and Makino… well, she embalms things and looks cute. There’s only one story so far, in the first volume, where she plays a significant role, and the reader probably figures things out long before she does.
MPD Psycho, in comparison, is set in a world of police officers and detectives, so one might expect a little more detecting. And while there is some, most of the cases seem to hinge on one of Amamiya’s personalities having some connection to the case. It’s mysterious, no one can solve it… but then, BAM!, another personality surfaces with some new information. It would be interesting if it only happened once in a while, but it seems to be the theme of the book: Everything is connected to Amamiya, who’s done some really fucked up stuff. Unfortunately, that bit of plot decision puts the book on an only slightly higher level than all those terrible Wolverine stories people have been writing for the past two decades where a villain shows up claiming to have some new information about Wolverine’s dark and oh-so-very-mysterious past. It doesn’t even feel particularly conspiracy-oriented, though Otsuka is clearly moving in that direction – just feels like a bunch of really convenient coincidences, which doesn’t leave the reader particularly impressed with either the characters or the writer.
It should also be pointed out – and this doesn’t quite fit with my other comments – that MPD Psycho has some atrocious lettering. It’s not that it’s bad, but rather that it’s all bold. It feels like everyone is either shouting all the time or carefully emphasizing every single word. And the funny thing is that a book like this, with a character with multiple personalities could put some good, creative lettering to use. I don’t know whether this was Dark Horse’s decision or an attempt to reflect some peculiarities in the original Japanese language edition, but it wasn’t a good choice. (This is, I’m pretty sure, the first time I’ve mentioned lettering in any comic or manga. That’s not a good sign.)
On the whole, MPD Psycho just feels more shock-oriented. It’s probably no more gruesome than Kurosagi, but it feels like Otsuka is trying to outdo himself. There are some great visuals – Tajima does some gorgeous work – but it rarely feels legitimately shocking, mostly because Otsuka doesn’t build to it effectively. In Kurosagi, on the other hand, the occasions when Otsuka and Yamazaki really cut loose will knock your socks off. In part, it may be because Tajima’s art is slicker and more polished, while Yamazaki’s feels more visceral and immediate. But mostly, it’s because you expect the depraved and fucked up shit Otsuka does in MPD Psycho, while it always comes as more of a surprise in Kurosagi. Kurosagi has drama and comedy and slapstick; sometimes the body just talks, and sometimes it gets up and does something nasty in a particularly decomposed or mutilated fashion. The uncertainty of Kurosagi makes its horror more horrific, while you just know that MPD Psycho will always go for the grossest and most disturbing option.

It’s probably fair to point out that Otsuka wrote Kurosagi almost five years after he started MPD Psycho, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the latter is a more polished and effective work. The improvement is staggering: They’re both interesting books, but Kurosagi has superior characters, plotting, and a wider variety of moods and themes. It also has an obscene alien puppet, so that really puts it over the top. I’m curious to keep reading MPD Psycho to see if it improves – there are certainly interesting elements to it – but Kurosagi is the one I’m looking forward to continuing.
(You can see some previews of Kurosagi over at Dark Horse’s website.)
Incidentally, if anyone has any good manga recommendations – particularly along these lines, but not necessarily – I’d love to hear them.