Mugen Spiral: The Complete Two-Volume Series is a shoujo title than runs the gambit from comedy romance to dark action-adventure. The story centers around two individuals, a young female spiritualist, Yaypo Sazuka, who entraps a demon prince, Ura, who was after her powers transforming him into a black cat. As the story progresses, more demons come after her and she must use Ura's aid to help defeat them invertibly forming a bond between the two of them.
Overview:
Mugen Spiral doesn't seem to know exactly what it is or where it is going. Book 1 of the complete series is more action oriented to the point it borders on the likes of more shonen action-comedy series in the vein of titles such as Sailor Moon, but much darker. Book 2 is light-hearted and more slice-of-life comedy that ends up feeling like a bunch of side stories bound together; indeed the last one is another side story, albeit one that does answer some questions. Those who like Book 1 may not like Book 2 and vice-versa. Finally, Book 1 creates a lot of questions and only a few of them are unanswered by the end of the series. For many readers this will make them feel wanting as the series feels only half-finished, if that. What is done, is done decently. While the story is fairly cliché, there are a few interesting twists that develop later on to help break the cookie-cutter molds for the characters and plot.
Mugen Spiral's artwork overall is pretty good although it does start to get a bit simpler toward the middle of Book 2 before picking up in quality again in the bonus chapter. Still, even with the slight degradation in quality Mizuho Kusanagi's artwork is still quite good. She makes certain to keep all of the major characters distinctive enough that no one should have a hard time figuring out who is who, although admittedly the cast is rather small. Her bishonen style drawings strike a good balance between being attractive and realistic.
If there is one really good thing Kusanagi does will in Mugen Spiral it is character development. Her characters, including many of the minor characters, get a great deal of background and personality development. While there is still a lot of holes missing, such as Ura's closeness to his father and how Ouga originally developed a distance from his parents (before he went down the path of darkness), and there are a few misses, such as how Hakuyo gets engaged to Ura, on the whole Kusanagi does a great job at shoring up the how and why for the major characters.
Mugen Spiral: The Complete Two-Volume Series doubles the enjoyable reading time, including for those read it previously with the new content. For those who haven't read the manga, this is going to be either one you'll really like or you'll feel that it ends to abruptly with too many loose ends; for the latter it may be that they would enjoy it more if Kuranagi should come back to and finish the untold stories.
ComicsOnline gives Mugen Spiral: The Complete Two-Volume Series 2.5 out of 5 demon cats.
