Murdist: Shikeishuu Kazami Tazuru

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murder+artist=murdist？Where's the Art part? Welp, unexpectedly ended much earlier than I thought it would. But it was nice to have a clean end. The reasoning in the early stages was somewhat lacking in logic. But as long as they don't screw up the last episode it's actually a very refreshing story.

So it seems that Yuki Otohito is so tragic, taken away by the police without informing the reason, suffering for no reason, trying to investigate the whereabouts of his older sister, trying to protect his younger sister, he was kidnapped and forced to tell his situation, and then was forced to sleep, and last hes ... own life was replaced by a murderer. Hope he can have a good ending. There is one more episode to go and keep the suspense.

Murdist is a manga with so many twists and turns that the philosophical and existential question posed at the beginning; of the boundaries between sanity and insanity, and the normalisation of death and murder is sidetracked for an M. Night Shyamalan style - pull the rug beneath your feet - twist. While the twists here make for an incredibly entertaining manga that constantly keeps you guessing what other unexpected notions would be thrown in, this seriously reduces a lot of the intriguing questions posed at the beginning to superfluous sprinkles. For the most part, Murdist manages to constantly ride that fine line between drama and ... B-movie shlock. The death and mystery scenarios are so over the top that it's hard to believe in them as 'reality', yet the way the story deciphers its protagonist's psychological turmoil and moral questioning is handled surprisingly well that there is still a degree of believability within the drama.

However, this is all thrown out the window near the end of the series with an impressively 'no one was thinking about it' twist that completely throws all balance into full-on B-movie shlock. This is made worse with an ending that wraps everything in a neat bow, completely contradicting its overly edgy tone, and failing to make any intelligent commentary on the nature of murder or any aspect of the human psyche. Murdist was never an intelligent work, but it was always intriguing in the way it handled the human reaction to spectating an abyss, and in the way, the manga kept you on your toes with twists, turns and absurd depravity. Sadly, this ending just made whatever superficial enjoyment I had diminished into disappointment. This ending confirmed what was hovering in the back of my mind with each chapter- the mangaka never really thought out anything properly. It shows in the empty philosophical discourse and in the contradicting meanings in his story. The mangaka probably just thought the twists were cool.

Murdist was supposed to a crime a thriller mystery of which it only delivered only the mystery part and that too was not ground breaking, not like I was expecting it to be but I sure was left wanting something clever. The story was short which I liked because I was not immersed in the world created by the the artist or the story told by the author and it was because of the diversion of from the main setting that was promised in the initial chapters which was the murder of people in the name of art. Let me be straight the motivation of ... the criminals behind the murders were not convincing at all, It just came across as goofy and something that a chuunibyou would do, The author should have studied the psyche of the serial killers and the motivation behind the murders they commit, which leads me to the characters.

Though I do not seem to any problems with the the main good characters I am confused if the author displayed Kazami Tazuru as he wanted to though the character was mysterious and it was a good thing it lacked a major thing and that was charm and attractiveness, she was smart but not cunning which made it hard to believe that so many people will follow her just because they heard about her murders and would a drive to go to such lengths to commit something as brutal as that. It was as if we are supposed to believe that because the author said so, it seemed magical that so many people will follow her, which leads me to my another criticism, the genre.

The body morphing and all the shtick was straight up out of supernatural or sci fi which in the last chapter led to a big plot hole when Tazuru's last video broadcasted in where she was back to her original body which would tell that the one who did the operation on her was done by the 'Technician' so did the police captured him or not we were never given an answer. I feel like the author should have kept the story grounded as much as possible and that would have the story more grim and compelling, also he should have made Tazuru the Murdist more menacing, manipulative and conniving but even after all this I give this a relatively higher score and that is because...

The story, even though there are plot holes, less fleshed out characters and unbelievable motivations and incidents, it sure provides the entertainment for the 16 chapters that have been published. The story was not too long, not convoluted and didn't portray itself too be better than it was. The story attempted to provide a crime thriller mystery but did not stood up to the standard, but at the very least there was an attempt which is a big word especially in today manga and manhwa world where is everything is just generic shounen, erotic romcom or just over the top power fantasy. The author and the artist at least attempted to provide a new, interesting and compelling story to it's readers and I would the choose these type of stories over what flies nowadays, because this story was lacking but not bad. It did it's work perfectly of making me enjoy reading it while making me focus on the developments going on. I did not just skim through it and paid attention. It was nice.