Mugen Shinshi, vol. 5 comments

(Image from amazon.co.jp, used for review purposes only.)

Mugen Shinshi (Fantasy Gentleman), vol. 5 (1990-91, Shonen Captain), by Yousuke Takahashi, Grade A (400 pages, 860 yen plus tax)
This is the last of the wide volume collection for the original Mugen series. As mentioned in the review for #4, the stories have devolved largely into slapstick gag one-shots, with Mamiya Mugen getting into silly situations and often just making them worse because he can. There are a couple stand-out chapters, though.

The first is "Mugen Neko Boken, Parts 1 and 2" (Neko Mugen's Adventure). Neko is Mamiya's aunt, an uncontrollable force for evil, head of the Neko Harem, and serial widow. In "Adventure," we get a flashback to see Neko at work, trying to "accidentally" off her new husband (she fails at that while blowing up the cruise ship they were on for their honeymoon). Neko, the deadman walking, and Alucard drift in a lifeboat to an island occupied by a devious smuggler. Neko outsmarts the smuggler and escapes with much of his wealth. To her chagrin, her new husband is still with her. In part 2, she re-encounters the smuggler and eventually kills him, all the while going topless for the entire story.

In "Konya wa Saiko" (this can be both "Tonight is Wonderful" and "Tonight is Psycho"), we get another flashback. This time with Mamiya's mother, Yukie. As a young mother, Yukie decides that she should get a job to support the family (since her husband, Kyoushiro, is so bad at stealing money on his own). However, she's a hopeless klutz and gets fired as a waitress. However, she's approached by a guy with a strange 2-tone face (the left side is white, the right side is darker), named Menda (Mask-Field). He hires Yukie on as a housekeeper to tend to his mansion while his new wife is preparing to move in. Menda goes out of his way to instruct her to not open the door in the basement with the key locked in a safe that has the combination 3261. Yukie proceeds to apply herself to her tasks, while the guy keeps coming back and telling her to stay out of the basement, and correcting her when she gets the combination wrong. That night, as she's getting ready for bed, she's surprised by Neko, who turns out to be the weird guy's new bride. They sneak into the basement, where they find a bunch of young women frozen into statue-like poses. Seems that the guy is in the same serial-widower line Neko is. The two women are then attacked by "Mother," - the weird guy in a dress and gray-haired wig. Yes, this is a Norman Bates-homage. Mother almost knifes Yukie and she calls out Kyoushiro's name for help. He's been hiding in a suit of armor, standing outside the basement room, and he bashes Menda in the head with a mace. Kyoushiro and his priest friend had been planning on stealing money from Menda, and instead Kyoushiro and Yukie take over the mansion for themselves. And to this day, Menda, in his "Mother" outfit, is still living in the basement, rocking away in his chair.

"Otone no Kuni no Mugen Shinshi" (Mugen Shinshi's Maiden Country) starts out bizarrely enough with Detective Edogawa asking Mamiya for help in rescuing his tomboy daughter, Pinko. She's fallen under the spell of Tsukiko Hanajimakaze (Moon-Girl Flower-Island-Wind), a stage actress that specializes in male impersonation and has formed her own harem of young women worshipers. Mamiya cross-dresses to infiltrate the harem to try to get Pinko to come back home. The harem quickly realizes that Mamiya is male and rips his dress to shreds before chasing him away. He and Atsuko try returning to Tsukiko's mansion, and are about to be defeated again when Neko blows a hole through the building. She tells Mamiya that Tsukiko's harem used to be her own servants. The former servants prefer someone that treats them with "love" and refuse to return to her. Tsukiko laughs in victory, and Neko empties her flamethrower at her opponent. We quickly discover that "Tsukiko" is actually a guy that likes to cross-dress. The harem turns on him at learning they've been tricked, and then happily become Neko's faithful minions again. This include Pinko, to her police detective father's dismay. Meanwhile, Kyoushiro and Yukie have taken a vacation trip to 1940's Germany, where they pick on Hitler to the point where he puts them in front of a firing squad.

Finally, we get "Souyuu wake de" (For that reason). Mamiya and Atsuko prepare to travel to Germany to rescue his parents, while all the previous supporting characters try to get in one last cameo appearance each. Mamiya and his girlfriend get on an oceanliner, which quickly sinks after a crewmember removes the "lucky" seal Kyoushiro's priest friend had put over a hole in the hull. This leaves Atsuko and Mamiya alone in the middle of the ocean in a lifeboat. Atsuko decides to take this opportunity to seduce her boyfriend, and Mamiya is willing to let her. They ignore the attempted interruption of a squadron of fighters flying overhead. Later, Atsuko wakes up to see Mamiya staring out ahead of them. It is 1942, and they've arrived at the destruction of Pearl Harbor. Armed with his pistol, Mamiya leaps into WW II. Time goes by. At some point after 1956, Detective Edogawa and his men, all old and gray-haired now, are starting to wonder if their friend Mamiya is ever going to come back home. Suddenly, a group of hooded gangsters, The Dry Z group (Dorai-Zeto), runs in and kidnaps the mad scientist the police are supposed to be protecting. The scientist invented a kid's science kit for turning people into sludge, and the leader wants to know how to control the sludge monster they've created with the kit. The scientist refuses, and is rescued by a girl in a beret and sunglasses, calling herself "Tokyo Kid, the girl without a name." Kid uses a whip to flog most of Dry Z into the sludge, but the boss tries to escape in a hot air balloon. A stranger hands Kid a Colt Pocket .25 automatic, and she shoots and blows up the balloon. She then notices the stranger, a tall man in a white suit and hat, with a thin mustache, is her father, Mamiya. The girl is named Mako (Magic-child), and her mother, Atsuko, drives up in a Bugatti, smashing it into a utility pole (making this the fifth car they've gone through so far). Atsuko says that the radio has announced a bank robbery nearby, so the family goes running off to deal with the villains.

The last illustrated story is told by the dead maid from book 4. She relates various visitors Mamiya had received at night, including Death, a girl with a dinosaur for a brother, a murderous elf, and a few others. The story ends with an older version of Mamiya arriving and asking his younger self if he wants to go out for a drink. The two walk off into the sunset, accompanied by the bloodied dead maid.

Summary: Oh man, what a ride. Lots of weirdness, dark humor and straight-out slapstick, with parodies or cameos of Gegege no Kitaro, Boris and Natasha, and the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey (treated as one in a long line of dominoes). I love the character designs, and the background art is highly-detailed and well-rendered. Book 5 probably was the best place to end the series, while it was still riding on a high note. There's no real graphic violence or sex, but this book especially has a lot of naked breasts. If that bothers you, or if you're underage, I don't recommend Mugen Shinshi. For everyone else, check this out.