Original Story By George Iida, Manga by You Higuri
Del Rey, 200 pp.
Rating: OT Ages 16+

Naoto and Naoya are two brothers with amazing psychic powers. They were kidnapped from their homes at a young age, but with the death of their protector, they’ve escaped their prison and run out to the world as adults. Almost immediately, however, the two find themselves mixed up with a psychic named Kamiya who has a dangerous group of followers who all think that the brothers will wipe out mankind. The two brothers struggle to fend off Kamiya’s followers while simultaneously trying to aid a scientist named Kurahashi, whose AIDS vaccine is the one that will mutate into the virus that wipes out mankind. Can they save Kurahashi’s life while convincing her that her benevolent vaccine is dangerous?

This is, unfortunately, a manga adaptation of a novel. Even worse, it’s a manga adaptation of an anime adaptation of a live action television adaptation of a novel, so it’s several times removed from the source. In the afterword, You Higuri apologizes for all the cuts she was forced to make to the story for space reasons. She does the best she can, and the story at least makes sense, but it is very rushed and there are quite a few details that are glossed over or simplified.

There isn’t too much to say about the plot past the basic summary, since it’s told in as straightforward a manner as possible. One brother possesses destructive psychic powers while the other is an empath than can sometimes predict the future. What happened to them in the facility through their childhood is left out, as is the part where it talks about how they assimilate to regular life after fleeing the facility on foot. They also mysteriously have a contact with… a police officer (?) at the end of the book that isn’t previously mentioned, and this police officer somehow knows a key suspect who left no clues behind as to his identity. Those are the only parts that are obviously missing, and it’s clear that there’s a lot more that’s been left out, but the rest of the story is surprisingly smooth, if completely neutralized into a kind of boring psychic mystery.

I’ll admit to having a soft spot for You Higuri. I loved Ludwig II, and I even fell for the ridiculous Cantarella. Here, her art is nice, as always, with just the right number of backgrounds and good-looking male leads. This series doesn’t leave a lot of room for fun embellishment like her historical dramas and fantasies, but she does a good job of making the characters realistic and still distinct from one another. But Higuri is primarily a shojo artist, and doesn’t alter her style much for this seinen story. As a result, I kept wondering about the relationship between the brothers and laughed a little at the slight cheese in the cover illustration.

Overall, this might be a good companion to the anime or original novel, but I don’t think there will be too many people that will be interested in it as a standalone story. Shojo fans looking to pick this up as a Higuri manga will likely be disappointed by the story, and people looking at the story will be disappointed by the obvious abridgement. Again, it’s not terrible, and does stand on its own, but it’s a little too stripped down and vanilla to be worth a read.

Volume one of Night Head Genesis is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.