Manga Monday: Amnesia Labyrinth

Amnesia Labyrinth (Volume 1)
Nagaru Tanigawa & Natsumi Kohane

Souji Kushiki returns home from going to school afar to live with his family and attend high school with people he grew up with.  He's good at everything he does, from sports to his high grades to his popularity, and he definitely leaves an impression on the female population.  In fact when he left to go to high school elsewhere, he left plenty of broken hearts in his wake.  But not Sasai, a girl from his class who's pretty blunt (and proud) about not having had feelings for him.  She's a strong-headed young woman who's really persistent in getting Souji to help her with a murder investigation.  During the summer, three students from their high school have been murdered and she thinks with his wits, and his father who works for the police, she can help solve the case and find out why one of the students, whom she had a crush on, was murdered.  The only thing each victim had in common was that they were each really good at something: sports, grades or popularity.  Much like Souji.  Souji's worried that one of the three sisters he's come home to may be responsible for the murders, and with good reason.  This family is screwed up.  All of the sisters blatantly throw themselves at him, and he even indulges them a lot of the time, adding a creepy incest element to an already odd household.  Pile on top of that the scenes of what is perhaps a doppelganger and the suggestion of split personalities and you have a downright head-scratcher.  There's a lot going on in this book, and it's hard to make sense out of what the creators give you, but that's part of the fun of the many mysteries surrounding the characters in this title.  It's too bad that the sisters aren't developed beyond their sexual appetites, as I don't think I'm going to care one way or another if one of them is the murderer, and then, what's the point?  But Sasai and Souji are both pretty interesting, and I'm genuinely curious to see where this odd tale is going.