Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, Vol. 03

Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok #3

by Sakura Kinosita

These mysteries are stranger than fiction! Private Investigator Loki is certainly an extraordinary fellow with an incredibly demanding profession. While his boyish good looks disguise his true nature, no challenge is too tough for Loki. Not only is it Loki's job to solve mysteries, but he must also protect his own interests, namely his family, especially when those who want him rubbed-out enter the picture. Loki must dig up evidence surrounding kidnappings, murders, suicides and the like. When old adversaries strike too close to home, Loki must prepare, not only to solve the crime, but to survive the vicious attacks! If the action's hot, you can count on Loki being there!

Genres: Manga, Mythology, Mystery, Fantasy

173 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2005

Reviews

[Bibliothecat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loki remained in the human world and is back with his detective work. But the question as to why Odin wants to have Loki killed still remains. Slowly, the other gods also begin to doubt Odin's motives. When a young girl with memory loss named Spica turns up, even more questions are in need of answers.

What a mess - what a disappointment!
Firstly, it is absolutely ridiculous how this was published in English without the direct prequel being released first. Why would any publisher do something so absurd? Ragnarok picks up right after the events of the original series. The story is told in a way that you need to be familiar with the original. If you go into this without having read the prequel, it would be absolute chaos - you won't understand the characters, the motives, why it's even called 'Detective' Loki - everything will simply appear as random or irrelevant.

That being said, Ragnarok is a mess even if one has read the prequel. There is no consistent flow of the story. The chapters seem disjointed and there's no smooth transitioning between them. Even the events within the chapters have a very strange flow, almost jumping from one random thing to the other. It was a real toll on the characters as most of them just showed up at random and disappeared again for a good long time. This was particularly noticeable with Mayura and Naru who were both major characters in the original.

Spica was a bit of an odd character. I mean, I loved her design and she was cute - but I didn't fully grasp her purpose. It is never properly explained who she is, why she is there and what brought up the memory loss. She also serves as a form of love interest for Loki and, based on the few things we do get to know about her, it seems like a complicated matter. In any case, I wasn't too happy about this additional romance option as there were already more than enough female characters who are interested in Loki. Ragnarok also completely ignored the teased Romance of the original and only brought it up again at the very end.

The randomness and choppy chapters settle down after the first three volumes and the story finally gets properly going with the final two volumes. Unfortunately, these final volumes are far too short to bring a proper explanation of what is actually going on. Things are explained in a rush (or not at all) and the ending leaves us hanging in regards to many of the characters' fates. That being said, I did love how things ended for Loki and the original love interest. It is, once again, very subtle - but it teases many possibilities.

Getting to some of the better aspects: the art style has improved a lot when compared to the original. So even when the story is chaotic, at least it is still nice to look at! There is also a bit of drama towards the end which was quite nice in this otherwise humorous series. Unfortunately, due to the lack of explanations, you don't get to care as much - I think most of my care came from my love for the characters based on the original series.

It's a real shame that Ragnarok made such a mess of things - it could and should have been a great conclusion to the hilarious original Mythical Detective Loki series.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm reading this series too.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, nice supplement to the anime.

[Clarence Detuya]

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