GS Mikami: Gokuraku Daisakusen!!

Well, this is a rather interesting manga. You put a girl who is really interested in money and wears really sexy outfits with a perverted man who pretty much is her slave and then add a rather quite sweet ghost and you pretty much have this manga. The manga doesn’t really follow a full fledged storyline, but it really doesn’t have to. Just as most I have reviewed before hand, this one acts more along case files then on a wide driven story. Some chapters are rather short when others could have 7 chapters all about one case. It all depends how fast the caseis dealt with. The stories don’t play out what you would expect but always seems to end up comical without really meaning to. It’s like people who work for a serious company but they are all jokesters. It just doesn’t have a lot of drama unless you count the many characters that pop up from time to time. You can pretty much know that the characters will get out fine except for maybe their wallets and a couple of scratches so you don’t really worry about that. What you do end up wanting to know is that if they are actually making money out of the job. I can compare this manga to a Sci-fi anime I watched before, Outlaw star. The Ghost Sweeping business is a lot like a starship; both need a lot of money to keep up and running. You can tell this by when Mikami talks about just how much money just one talisman is worth. So basically the main story of the manga is get enough money to get onto the next job and to keep Mikami happy. The characters are… well strange… The extra characters almost always make life harder for the main characters. We have a crybaby with shikigami that go crazy when she cries, a woman who uses voodoo magic as Mikami’s rival, a crazy alchemist who has lived forever but almost every thing he does blows up in his face, and tons of other various ‘colorful’ characters. They all come and go as they please making it interesting when they actually end up showing up. Unlike Ranma (and thank god its unlike it), these characters are not actually love rivals although the girls normally end up catching the perverted eye of Yokoshima only for him to end up getting harmed by them as they either go through him to get to Mikami or just because of his stupidity. Unlike many characters that would be just fitting the bill of their stereotypes, these characters do slightly grow, and I think the one that grows the most would be Yokoshima. I consider him more the main character to these mangas then Mikami just because he is the one that seems to grow the most. I can’t really say how much he grows because it is really hard to do so and not spoil some of the things happening, but trust me, you will end up seeing it. The one thing that bothers me though is even when they are trying to be serious; they end up messing it up with some lame joke that is used a little too much such as Yokoshima’s horniness of Mikami’s money greed. It feels like the only things that happen end with these jokes and when you are reading every single story and it ends with that, it sort of bothers me. Even though the main stories are delightful and have a really good creative flow, when they use the same joke as the ending to all the stories, it ends up feeling uneventful. Here is another example of something that annoyed me. During a rather intense battle, one with a rather strong enemy, for some reason as they fought, the enemy ends up slipping on a banana peel that had no reason to be there. Just little things like that, though entertaining, break the feeling that she manga had. There are other times where the characters talk about the author and talk about the series breaking the forth wall. The style reminds me of Rumiko Takahashi’s work to a point. At least the male looks like a rip off of Ranma slightly in the face. You can tell the personality of each character by how they dress which shows that the author was paying attention to it when he created the manga. You can tell who the pervert is, who the quiet one is, and who the rather sexual and money grubbing one is. The artwork is pretty standard for how old it is in that most panels have just enough detail to tell you what’s going on but the artist didn’t go any farther then that. Comical scenes are very un-detailed with characters comically exaggerated with chibi style faces, characters being sort of squashed, or other such things. The clothing style of the characters and even the people in the background are very suggestive of the timeframe where it reminds me of old American 1960’s, rocker hair cuts and jumpsuits, small mini skirts with jean jackets, the occasional headband tied around the forehead. It’s slightly surprising that she decided to use that art style when it was done in 1991 but I believe part of that is because of the culture. You see, when Japan tries to imitate America, they end up being a little behind in the times because of how fashion is circulated around the world. We may try to imitate Japan in a way (well, most of us otaku fans) but we are behind in that. This is a good way of seeing it from the Japanese standpoint and I do not fault the author on creating this type of style in the manga no matter now much I sometimes question the fashion sense.

Context/Intro: This manga, which originated well before I was born in the 1990s, was published in Shounen Jump. It comes from a different time period and was intended for different audiences, so we should keep that in mind before diving into it. I had already watched the anime beforehand, so it wasn't all new to me, but it definitely helps in highlighting any differences. This review will be spoiler-free. TL;DR: Recommended with some caveats. It's a good supernatural comedy manga with shounen elements and lovable characters. Plot: (Not Good) The plot isn't great. Let's dive deeper into why. This is primarily a comedy manga. Yes, it has shounen elements likepowerful villains and an evil mastermind, but it consistently gravitates towards comedy, even as the plot progresses. Therefore, if you compare the beginning and the end in terms of plot, not much really happens. While there is an overarching plot later in the manga, it is mostly episodic, with storylines rarely taking more than a few chapters before resetting. The plot's weakest aspect is its pacing, which is all over the place. The ending feels fitting for a comedy manga, though some serious aspects are left unanswered, which isn't a deal-breaker. Characters:(Good) Mikami, Okinu, and Yokoshima form the main trio. While they are not particularly complex, they are charming, and you start to like them more as the manga progresses. Character evolution is in line with the manga's comedic focus, meaning it's often played for laughs. Yes, all three characters evolve, with Yokoshima showing the most notable growth, but even by the end, their core behavior remains largely unchanged. Despite the focus on comedy, all characters get their serious moments, which leave an impact. The supporting cast is colorful, though not more complex than the main trio, often running the same gags and punchlines, but they are still appreciated. If you love Yokai folklore, you'll definitely appreciate the enemy one-shot characters. The relationships between characters are surprisingly natural, with a tight bond among the main trio and decent interactions with the supporting cast. As for romance, without getting into spoilers, it's childish and not taken beyond jokes. This subverts expectations, leaving something for the characters to find rather than giving the audience clear answers, which is good for mystery but not for the hearts of readers. Overall, characters are the manga's strong point, and you really want to see what they do next. Art:(Bad) It's hard to say the whether style or art itself is any good, and it's not just because of the time it was released. Over time, it does improve, but only slightly. During emotional scenes, you can sometimes distinguish the expressions characters are trying to convey, but only after reading the text, making it inconsistent. Even during comedy scenes, the art isn't great. While you get the gist of it, most of the time you're just skimming through. However, in some important scenes, the art is probably the best in the entire manga, showing the author's effort. The paneling is not good either; the flow is off and noticeable, but you get used to it. It looks generic, and the art style doesn't help. Backgrounds are not good either; there are no notable backgrounds, and some seem like straight-up photographs drawn over or edited in. The backgrounds probably make the characters and paneling much worse than they are. Recommendation: I definitely recommend reading the manga for its comedy and characters. While other aspects are weak, I still continued reading all 390 chapters because the characters really hooked me in.

Coming from the anime adaptation I was not expecting to like this manga as much as I did. Indeed, following the adventures of a greedy and avaricious woman with sexy looks in charge of a private agency that deals with ghosts alongside an assistant who can’t keep his pants on and a couple other characters with their own weird personalities didn’t sound like much outside a slice of life show. Many episodes would go like this: introduce a new monster or ghost, justify its presence through a new detail in the world of the occult, deal with it in some fashion, and continue. Here andthere we would have attempts at continuations with mini arcs yet not enough for the status quo to be affected in any meaningful way. However, even with 45 episodes, what has been adapted only showed 25% of the story, meaning that a big portion has been left out for those not looking any further. Such is a shame considering the turn it takes as soon as it leaves that realm and concentrates on developing its current characters, creating an overarching story with long standing villains and a new set of secondary characters which are among my favorites in the series. As a result, the reader will find themselves wanting to know what happens next, how are they going to deal with this situation and what the consequences are going to be for the future. Furthermore, while 39 volumes looks like quite the task, its 18-19 pages per chapter format with an art using lots of impact effects makes it quite an easy read specifically for slow readers such as yours truly. As it progresses the quality especially in battle scenes improves, the expressions entail more meaning and the details and references spread around aid in its comedic charm. The manga knows how to get down to business as the stakes of each new arc increase as well as make fun of itself by breaking the fourth wall. Unfortunately, the overall climax happens a few volumes towards the end , leaving the epilogue and the subsequent chapter to just plateau into its default slice of life status with a couple of matters left unsolved. It’s a bit of a bittersweet sensation since it seems like the story could have had a more proper way to conclude, maybe with either a timeskip or a chapter dedicated to each of them respectively. Moreover, the balance between its serious moments and humour doesn’t always work. A big battle with a strong foe might be at its peak only to be suddenly interrupted by a gag, and in some cases the same one over and over again. So the question of whether this is funny or breaks the flow depends on how it lands really. In other words, it’s as if the slapstick comedy bits from a work by Rumiko Takahashi’s were in the middle of a Dragon Ball battle. Regardless, with all of the above in mind, if you were curious about the world, wanted to read an ecchi battle action manga from the 90s or just wanted to know how it all continues after the anime ended, consider giving it a read.