Title: Mai The Psychic Girl
Volume(s): 3
Creator(s): Kazuya Kudo/Ryoichi Ikegami
Format: Flipped; Left-to-Right
Publisher: Viz, LLC
MSRP: $19.95
Genre(s): Science Fiction
Rated: Older Teen (16+)
| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents should be warned that there is some graphic violence, nudity, and bad language in this book. However none of those things are done so that they're over the top, so most teens should be fine reading this. Action fans will most likely love the action, as no one can deni that there is a lot of action to be found here. However people who want a deep and compelling story may not find as much to like here, and may in fact walk away frustrated by how much potential the story had that was wasted. People who take their comics seriously won't like this series, as it speaks down to the readers. |
"Mai The Psychic Girl" is a frustrating experience. This is a story that has lots of potential to be memorable and captivating, but instead it does nothing but manage to take good opportunity's and trips over them every chance it gets. The story opens up with the hero of the story, Mai, having a dream that something is chasing her, and she is trying to get away from...whatever is following her (I can't tell), but she can't escape and gets caught. And then she wakes up of course. Starting a story with a dream sequence is not the most original way to open up a story, but it works. This dream actually does a nice job of spelling out what this series is going to be about mostly: Running, lots and lots of running! Anyway, after Mai wakes up and ponders what the dream she just had means, we go to a secret organization meeting that is taking place somewhere in the Swiss Alps. Apparently they have discovered that a very few percentage of people have very strong PSI abilities, and these clowns think that if they could get a hold of this "destructive" power, that they can bring peace to the whole world (Yeah, I'm sure the guy who created the Atom Bomb had the same idea too -_-;)!
They have found five children who can use the powers, and of course our girl Mai is one of them. Mai's father (Who is somewhat of a workaholic) doesn't want Mai to find out about her powers, so he tries to keep her powers a secret so that she can live a normal life. However what he doesn't realize is that Mai already knows about her powers, and use's them on a daily basis to pull harmless little pranks on people(Like slowing down a speeding baseball just long enough to make the batter get a strike). However this peace can not last long, and she soon realizes that she is being followed by men in black suits (You'd think these people would learn to just wear casual cloths when following someone). Well Mai ditches them easily, but when she gets home and tells her dad about the men that followed her, he goes ballistic and says that they have to get out of town as soon as possible. However the second they start running the suits get persistent on catching her, and when Mai's father kills off several of the squads that were sent to capture Mai, well then the leader of this group (Who is a samuri for some reason) becomes hell bent on getting Mai back at all costs, and he even turns the hunt for Mai into his own personal mad obsession!
After about fifteen chapters of running away from the suits (with no real story development happening during the running), Mai and her dad get separated, and she runs into a 25 year old hiker named Takeru (But everyone calls him Intetsu, read the foot notes in the book to find out why), and he takes her to his apartment, and then offers her a place to stay. However when she gets there all of his buddies that live in the building come out to greet their new guest, and they all fall in love with Mai (But we all know who she'll get together with in the end). At this point Mai is feeling like there is no one else she can talk to, so she shows all of her roommates her powers, and they all vow to help her out in any way possible. However the suits find Mai, and then its back to the running. And that's really what makes this series so frustrating. The author brings in lots of interesting characters, potential story twists, and all that other junk, but for pretty much every twist he brings in nothing comes from it. For example, it's established at the beginning of this book that Mai knows all about her powers and doesn't mind using them here and there, but her dad doesn't know that she knows about her powers. Now why is that?
Did Mai freak out about her powers at first? Did she have questions she wanted to ask her dad about her powers, or was she too afraid to talk to her dad about her powers for fear that he would consider her a freak? Or maybe she didn't freak out at all. Maybe she was happy when she discovered her powers. But why would she keep it a secret? She never tells, and we never find out why. See what I'm talking about yet? There was huge potential here for some personal growth on how Mai feels about her powers, but as far as she's concerned, she doesn't love or hate her powers, they're just there. And then there's the suits. It's established early on in the story that there are about five kids who have special PSI powers. If this is true, then why do they spend all their resources hunting Mai down like a dog when there are other kids across the street they could easily get a hold of? And what's up with the roommates? When Mai shows them her powers they are shocked at first, but not ONE of them considers her a freak or is scared of her! My guess is that there are about twenty roommates that she showed her powers too, and not one of them was scared of her powers, they all just agreed to protect her.
Seems a little too convenient that not a single person felt uncomfortable around Mai, and why no one felt uncomfortable around her after seeing what she did leads to quite a few more questions that will never get asked in this book. And all of this leads to the biggest problem in the book: Running! Mai spends a good portion of the book doing nothing but running from the suits, from a human monster, from the police, from every single damn thing! I'm surprised everyone in this book resisted to say "Run Forrest, Run!" Heck, for that matter I'm surprised that none of the translators suggested that a name change would have been appropriate, maybe something like "Catch Mai If You Can" (Pun intended)! She runs, and runs, and every interesting thing that comes up in this book gets shoved aside to make way for more running. Do you realize how frustrating it is to have a cool new character or story twist show up that has the potential to totally change the story into something special, only to have absolutely nothing done with said character/twist? It's pretty darn frustrating, and it's even more frustrating when a series brings up BOTH the interesting characters and story twists, and then fails to do anything with either of them!
This series had the potential to be something special, it really did, but the author wasted his (and our) time by having extremely underdeveloped characters, story twists that didn't add anything to the story, and a whole lot of plot holes that you could drive buses through! "Mai The Psychic Girl" is above average entertainment that frustrates the reader with wasted opportunities. Granted some people may like this story...people who like a lot of running will like this book, everyone else can get something else!
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -