Crossing Bodies, Crossing Fates, and Crossing Death!

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TSF Showcase 2024-47
Mayonaka no X Giten [Midnight Cross Method] by Mikoto Yamaguchi and Bareisho

Back in the 2010s, I was actively trying to seek out TSF manga of various flavors and types, and found myself particularly allured by four ongoing series. Nyotai-ka, Ame Nochi Hare, Sekainohate de Aimashou, and Mayonaka no X Giten. None of which I ever read to their conclusion, due to how long it took them to come out and get fan translated, and it has been a secret objective of mine to cover all of them in TSF Showcase. I’ve done half of them so far, and English language scans for Nyotai-ka were never released, so next on the list is Mayonaka no X Giten, or Midnight X Method. With X here meaning cross, as in crossing bodies, because this is a body swap murder mystery story, which is easily one of the best genres for a body swap story.

Hear me out. When you cannot identify someone by their body, by their DNA, the art of detective-ing becomes exponentially more complex. Trust becomes harder to maintain, superstition rises as certainties cannot be taken for granted, and the suspect list only gets bigger as investigators try to suss out who is who. And when thinking about why people would swap bodies, there are a diverse group of answers that could also be explored in addition to a challenging whodunnit. 

A body swapping murder mystery is such a rich concept that I’m pissed that nobody has ever tried to make a dedicated detective adventure game about body swapping. Well, aside from that one, where it was an 11th hour twist that pushed the game onto my top ten list. I’d say I’d just write a murder mystery myself, but subtlety is not my strong suit.

Mayonaka no X Giten is a 2014 manga that ran for four volumes and was written by Mikoto Yamaguchi. A manga artist turned manga writer with a rather impressive series of long-running projects to his name, most of which tackle some manner of darker subject. And Bareisho, an artist who was dabbling in various smaller projects prior to working on Mayonaka no X Giten before making their big serialized splash here… and then becoming an NSFW artist. Presumably because even drawing a monthly manga is an intensive task only for the impassioned… and deranged.

Just glancing around, neither of them had much in the way of ties to TF or TSF or continued fascinations with body swapping, beyond stray bits or some Ranma fan art. So I think I can begin digging into Mayonaka no X Giten and see how it fares.

Also, I am going to be reprising my personal format for referring to characters while they swap bodies. Referring to characters by their mind/soul followed by their current body in parenthesis. So Hiroki in Mikuni’s body would be Hiroki(Mikuni), and Mikuni in Hiroki’s body would be Mikuni(Hiroki). If you don’t like that, too bad!

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Part 1: Cross eXchange Method

Mayonaka no X Giten— which I’m just going to abbreviate as MXG— starts off with one of the most TSF-ass introductions I have seen from a story that’s not directly trying to be TSF. The series follows Hiroki Kamiya, a 17-year-old student. And the first thing we learn about him is that he hates girls and also wishes he was one. But not because he’s trans or any of the sort. Instead, it is out of frustration over the fact he needs to care for his 24-year-old sister, Yui. A NEET who spends all day lounging around playing video games, her brother needing to buy her food and clean up after her.

This situation leaves Hiroki so embittered he takes up the pastime of blogging, where he rants about his sister every single day, and how women have it easier. After all, someone as “hopeless” as his sister has a guy like him to watch over her. He regrets posting such a thing a few minutes later, but before he can erase this post and rethink his life, he gets a comment. A comment from someone who wishes to exploit his misogynistic tendencies and convert him as a member of a men’s rights community. A group hellbent on rolling back women’s liberation, ending civil rights, and creating a new order led by self-appointed community leaders and billionaires who wish to exploit— Wait, no, this isn’t reality. This is a manga!

The commenter actually informs Hiroki that he can become a girl by visiting https://www.eXchange-method.com/. A URL I am not linking, because it currently redirects to a scam website. Hiroki, rightfully, hesitates to visit it, but has a change of heart after getting into an argument with Yui, who proclaims that men have it easier, even if she doesn’t understand “a man’s problems.” 

Visiting the website, Hiroki learns of the Midnight Cross Method, a way for a group of eight or more people to exchange bodies for two hours at the cusp of midnight. They simply need to print out a special card with two skulls and a flower on it, place it on their forehead, and wait for the clock to strike. Once it does, they will be sent to a spiritual domain where they can choose a door corresponding with the other participants. Men have white doors, women have red doors, and the design of the door differs for each person. It’s a bit convoluted— particularly the whole printing thing— but it’s a good way to facilitate long distance, or ‘long’ distance body swaps between characters, and a novel idea that is worth building upon. 

Which is precisely what Kawaii Tsun’aho of Change Ring fame did with Body Shuffle: School Bullies and Body Shuffle: Unfortunate Victi. This in turn inspired (future TSF Showcase candidate) Myra to make New Dawn, New Milf, which built upon the same idea. 

While I would expect Hiroki to wind up in his sister’s body and for the series to pivot into being a sibling body swap story, that’s not what happens. Instead, Hiroki wakes up in the body of 16-year-old idol Mikuni Mikuriya. He promptly gets out of her nightgown, putting on a cute fit, examining her apartment, and musing on her life. How she can live on her own in an apartment, own so many things, have a purse full of money, all while being a woman and having access to elusive women’s things. Women-only train cars, women-only eateries, and… women-only photo booths? But since it’s midnight, the only place he can go is a late night ramen shop, where he eats way too much food, and runs into a pair of creeps.

First guys who hassle Hiroki(Mikuni) for being a famous woman, and then a gas-lighting controlling bastard who claims to be Mikuni’s boyfriend. When in reality, he’s just a stalker who feels he is entitled to own Mikuni. He harasses Hiroki(Mikuni) for eating too much, pins him down, and as Hiroki(Mikuni) stares at him, he can practically hear his inner voice. It’s just as toxic as one would imagine. Despite being proficient in martial arts— a karate black belt— Hiroki(Mikuni) is unable to escape and is left with no other choice but to ‘act like a girl.’ Crying  until this nasty man runs away.

Returning to Mikuni’s home, Hiroki(Mikuni) is humbled, believing that Mikuni must have some secret that would lead her to escape from her body like this. However, rather than pry further, he just wants to go back to himself, and does so as the clock strikes 2:00. He wakes up in his bed, and he finds his sister, who previously asked to sleep beside him earlier, by his side. Hiroki tries to stir up conversation with her, but despite having her eyes open, she is not responding. Removing his sheet, he sees why. There is a pool of her blood, sprayed everywhere, and a bloodied knife in his right hand. And with this powerful image, the first chapter comes to a close.

While definitely a bit dense, but it gets a lot done in 45 pages. It introduces and shatters a relationship and poses the overarching mystery of the series. Who entered Hiroki’s body that night and killed his sister? Because only eight people entered this Midnight Cross Method, there is a limited number of suspects. To figure out who could do it, one would need to trek backwards to find out the murderer and the circumstances that led him to kill Yui, of all people. It’s an effective crux for a multi-volume story like this and comes as a surprise to Hiroki and the reader alike.

Chapter two kicks off with Hiroki devising a plan on how to deal with the corpse in his house. Fortunately, his father travels a lot for his job and his mother is dead (not that we learn this until way later), so he does not need to hide things from them. Though he has a body to dispose of, and his solution is… fridge her!

This is the most iconic image in the entire manga for me, and it has been living rent-free in my mind for almost a decade. Partially because I think it is a twisted sight… while also being unintentionally hilarious, raising many questions. One, why do this instead of imitating every edgy teen who watched Breaking Bad? Why not just grab a plastic tote, hydrochloric acid, and decompose a corpse like a real murder-boy would? Two, why would he even think of preserving her corpse? He doesn’t have a big family. There would not be some proper funeral procedure that he needs to uphold. And preserving a corpse in a fridge is not an effective way of preserving her. Even a freezer is a temporary measure. Three, Hiroki had to strip his sister’s dead body and dress her in new clothes. While morticians do that every day, the idea of Hiroki doing that is just weird.

It’s clear how Hiroki got his sister fridge— he called his father and asked for permission to buy a new one hours after the murder. But I just love to imagine the process he went through to put his sister in there. He had to clean up all the blood, strip her body, put new clothes on her, and then position her in the fridge. Except, he didn’t just prop up her rigor mortis corpse into the fridge and let it slink another way. He went to a hardware store, bought screws, brackets, probably an electric drill, and did this slapdash job of bolting her to the fridge. Hell, if this is the new fridge, how did he fit her in his older, smaller fridge? It’s implied that he set all of this up during a school day, but there is no way the fridge could be set up and get cold enough to preserve someone like this. 

Or in other words… somebody should make a short film about someone trying to store a corpse in a fridge, going through the full process. I’d watch it!

Anyway, I was jumping ahead here, and I’ve only covered chapter one. So let’s jump over to a new section for chapter two.

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Part 2: Idol Investigation X Invigoration

Chapter two properly begins with a stressed out and messed up Hiroki slumping his way to school, where he is spotted by his class rep and childhood friend, Shion Anno. She mostly just serves as an outlet for Hiroki’s frustration over his situation, leading him to affirm that he never wanted his sister to go away. He just wanted her to stop being a burden, to get better. And while he is under no illusion that she is indeed gone, he is determined to get revenge on the person who killed his sister, even if it is the last thing he does with his life.

Fortunately, he is given his first lead as one of his classmates starts auctioning off tickets to Mikuni’s handshake event, and Hiroki offers to pay 100,000 yen for them. Which would be… 111,600 yen in 2024, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. At the end of 2014, 100,000 yen was worth $833 USD, and now it’s worth only $646 USD. Which is extra bad when you realize that the buying power of $833 in 2014 is the same as $1,120 in 2024 dollars. Inflation sure is terrible… but I guess it’s better than the halcyon fictitious go-go years of the 1970s.

At the handshake event, Hiroki makes a desperate ploy to garner Hikuni’s attention, mentioning how he woke up in her body the previous night, revealing personal information, and acting like a crazed stalker. However, Mikuni knows that somebody was in her body last night, so she agrees to meet with Hiroki later that night. …And then she pulls out a knife, stabbing Hiroki in the hand for stealing her virginity. Yeah, it’s not clear where she got that idea from— grab a mirror and check your hymen, girl.

After this burst of conflict, Hiroki explains what happened. That someone took his body and used it to kill his sister, and he considers Mikuni to be a suspect. However, Mikuni is quick to turn the tables, saying that she might know who Yui’s killer was, and promising to help Hiroki… if he does her a favor first. Specifically, dealing with the stalker he ran into last night… who started releasing deepfake photoshopped erotic photos of Mikuni over the past day. And to prove these are fake, Mikuni… strips in front of Hiroki. …Yeah, I need to talk about this.

This series has something of a problem when it comes to treating Mikuni in particular with a level of respect. She’s 16, a minor, and her body is routinely sexualized throughout the first half of the story. This prominent ick factor largely goes away after the boat arc, but I’m still surprised nobody had the taste to think better. Though, based on this work as a whole, I would say that Mikoto Yamaguchi is not particularly well versed when writing female characters. As if that has not been made evident with the whole fridging. Also, from what I can gather, Bareisho, the artist of this series, is a woman. Which just makes the sexualization of minors in this series all the more confusing. 

Point is, Mikuni— while completely naked in front of a man she just met— says that she wants him to kill her stalker. She cannot go public about this, because it would be bad for her image, and Mikuni is… very superficial. Going so far as to say that she believes in murdering people to make money and that if Hiroki won’t kill this creep, she will.

As the first new mechanic bolted onto this narrative, it turns out that the papers printed out for the Midnight Cross Method are actually just body swapping magic. If two people, each with a card, place the cards on their foreheads and touch foreheads for a minute, they will swap bodies. This is later referred to as the Direct Cross Method, and… I have mixed feelings about this.

One, it introduces more body swapping, so I am all for it. Two, how the hell do these pieces of black ink and printer paper have these magical properties? Is this the work of a digital devil or something? If you wanted magical paper, then have it be delivered to the characters, don’t have it come from a damn printer. Three, this becomes the primary means of body swapping throughout the series, and it can only be done with two people, has no duration, and can be done at any time. So the titular Midnight Cross Method is relegated from a means of swapping bodies to an inciting incident. That’s a bit weird. Four, how the hell does everybody know about this other than Hiroki? Did he just not read all the instructions on the website? Was he supposed to check out the forums?

Regardless, Mikuni stages a phony warehouse wedding between her body and the stalker, letting Hiroki in Mikuni’s body take the brunt of his rage before Mikuni in Hiroki approaches him, ready to kill! Something unique about MXG is how its male protagonist is actually a powerhouse. He looks unassuming, having light novel protagonist hair and glasses, but dude is ripped, with the type of body men want to be with and that women want for themselves. Mikuni(Hiroki) relishes in this newfound strength, eagerly bringing a knife down onto her stalker, before Hiroki(Mikuni) stops a knife with his hands… again!

Hiroki(Mikuni) cannot bear to watch his body kill someone before him, and as he rants at Mikuni(Hiroki), he is able to… read her mind and see her past. As a little girl, Mikuni was the sickly sort, needing expensive medicine to combat her intense illness. She was such a financial burden that her mother abandoned her, sending her to an orphanage, where she was taken in by a scummy man who did “some pretty bad things” to her. 

Based on the virginity comment, I am inferring this means sexual activities involving everything but penis-in-vagina intercourse. However, I am not sure if that is the intention, as Mikuni is not presented as a survivor of child sex abuse. She is driven, willing to kill for her own gain, committed to absolving her debts, and views money in a high regard. …Yet she is also introduced as a girl with a lavish apartment and works as an idol. You know, a field where people are notoriously paid very little, burn out by the time they hit 25 or 30, and put their education on standby, limiting future career opportunities. Also, she gives a lot of money to the orphanage where she grew up, as is revealed later on. So clearly it could not be that bad. Mikuni’s character is just an odd mishmash. The sort of thing you typically only get when going through editorial battles or when writing characters based on what the plot needs.

On that note, with the stalker brutalized/traumatized, Mikuni reveals to Hiroki who she switched bodies with on the night of the Midnight Cross Method, a prisoner named Sachi Kirishima. An 18-year-old man allegedly responsible for murdering his mother, father, and older brother just to see what kind of expressions they would have at that moment. Hiroki immediately thinks Sachi’s the killer, theorizing why he would kill Yui in the way he did. But before he can venture off for revenge on his own, Mikuni throws a shoe at him and offers to help him, as she considers herself to be in his debt. Really though, she just fell for him, because he is the male lead, she is the female lead, and the editor and writer want the readers to want them to kiss.

But before they can investigate further, the two need to explain what the heck Hiroki’s mind reading was earlier. Rather than just be a standard body swap story, every character in MXG has something known as a Cross Ability. Cross Abilities are body-specific abilities triggered when another spirit is in their body. Everybody has a Cross Ability hidden, giving characters access to a theoretically limitless list of superpowers and a good reason to constantly switch bodies. 

Again, I am of a mixed opinion on this concept. On one hand, I think the idea of characters’ mind and body combinations creating additional powers sounds like a killer mechanic for a body swap driven RPG. It could function as a class system, could be paired with other transformations to add secondary effects, or could change the way certain trinkets or accessories work. A game designer could go HAM on this idea!

On the other hand, these powers are generally not the most well thought out and lack much application. They aren’t like stands from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. They’re pretty shallow, are often incredibly situational, and generally… basic. Take for example, Mikuni’s power: Silent Regret. It lets the person inside Mikuni’s body see into someone else’s memories if they stare at their eyes for 30 seconds. A power that comes from how Mikuni could never see her mother’s lies as a child, and is distrustful of people, due to her status as an idol. It’s basically mind reading with a small criterion, but it can also be undermined if someone has an unreadable mind. Or no eyes to stare at.

There’s also no way to know what these powers actually are unless someone just figures it out, and Hiroki does not know his body’s Cross Ability. …Meaning it will be a deus ex machina ability someone in his body uses to defeat someone in the ending arc. 

Explanation aside, the story then takes the opportunity to introduce a new character, Kaede Makina. Mikuni’s idol co-worker who was her go-to body swap partner. Yes, rather than using the Midnight Cross Method to swap bodies with other people, Mikuni was using it to switch with the same person every time, her friend Kaede. Which really begs the question of why don’t they just use the Direct Cross Method instead. She’s bubbly, a bit snarky, and very much possessive of Mikuni in a way that is either meant to be cute, or imply she is a lesbian. Either work.

However, the important thing about Kaede for now is that her father is a prosecutor, meaning she can allow her friends to meet with a dangerous killer. I don’t think that’s how it works, but I guess that is a way to get past this obstacle, allowing Hiroki and Mikuni to meet with Sachi. A tall, lanky man with long, slick black hair, slightly intimidating, having a very ‘L from Death Note‘ vibe, and having a habit of being a step ahead of everyone else. …Also, he has a poor understanding of social norms, except for when he doesn’t.

Sachi, obviously, knows that the two are here to see him about the Midnight Cross Method, and after being given a briefing, he offers to tell the two what they want to know, under one condition. He wants to spend a day out of jail and wants Hiorki or Mikuni to lend him their body. Which Sachi can do because the Direct Cross Method does not require direct contact, just that two people are less than 15 millimeters away from each other. Also, someone gave Sachi a Cross Method card while in prison. I want to call bullcrap on that. No prison would let an inmate hold on to a card with two skulls and a flower on it— because that just looks like a gang symbol. It is shown that somebody gave it to him, but prisons tend to be very stingy with gifts, even if it is just a piece of paper. Maybe Sachi is just good at hiding it in his butt…

Almost plot hole aside, this is the next step in their investigation, so the pair of Hiroki and Mikuni come to an agreement. Sachi will enter Mikuni’s body, as that is the weakest and least physically capable body around, even though most idols have killer stamina. Hiroki will enter Sachi’s body, where he will need to find a note left by Sachi explaining his side of the story. While Mikuni will be in Hiroki’s karate man body, so she can keep Sachi in Mikuni under control. An overall sensible arrangement of bodies that I approve of very much. It takes the spotlight away from the protagonist, puts a veritable weirdo in the body of the main heroine, and forces her to spend more time in a male body while someone else is prancing about as her. It’s the type of body swap dynamic that I love to see!

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Part 3: Body Swap X Prison Break

Starting off the next story arc, Sachi(Mikuni) and Mikuni(Hiroki) venture out into the city for a day out. With Sachi(Mikuni) immediately falling into the role of a teenage girl, clinging to Mikuni(Hiroki)’s arm and dragging her to a cosplay shop, where borrows a lolita dress. Both to show Sachi is more playful and to give him a unique visual identity separate from Mikuni for the next few chapters. Also, Sachi(Mikuni) gets this lolita dress from a shop run by the sole Black character in the story. Who, of course, has white lips. We hate to see it!

I have not really touched on the TSF elements so far, as the story is still getting started, but the execution is often reserved. There is not much in the way of shock or thrill to being in a different body, and characters generally try to be respectful when it comes to using their bodies, treating this concept more pragmatically. Mikuni is not thrilled about being in Hiroki’s body, but despite being an idol who puts a lot of stake in her form, she is not really against it either. Similarly, while Hiroki is comfortable walking around and being seen as Mikuni, he does not have a character arc about learning to respect women or the like. He just kind of… rolls with it. 

There is no shortage of TSF body swaps throughout the series, though it does not play too much into the prospect of having a different body or presenting as a different gender. I understand why this is— the story is focused on mystery solving and uses body swapping as a tool. But I do wish that there were more overt references to what it is like being in another person’s body from most of the cast, beyond subtext, vibes, and occasional remarks on things like strength or stamina.

However, there is a clear exception with Sachi(Mikuni), who is one of the few characters who plays around with gender, and seems to enjoy the state of being in another body. This is seen in how he visits a local karaoke place to play around with his new voice, singing some “soprano songs” before taking things in a… predictable direction. He begins seducing Mikuni(Hiroki), pressing his body against her, and dropping a positively ill line. “Isn’t this why we exchange bodies in the first place? To become someone you aren’t and enjoy the things we can’t do ourselves. A woman can know a man’s desire and a man can know a woman’s… ecstasy.”

Mikuni(Hiroki) starts to feel the desires of her current male body, the cosplay enough to dissociate that body from being ‘her’, but before Sachi(Mikuni) can break Mikuni(Hiroki), he handcuffs her. …Wait, did the cosplay shop have handcuffs? How did he— no, no, if I highlight every one of these minor plot holes? This already took me all week to write.

Meanwhile, Hiroki(Sachi) finally found the note written by Sachi, informing him that he is not the killer they seek. That he instead landed in the body of an adult man who could barely move his body. This represents a dead end in the investigation, but Sachi also, somehow, knows that there is a nightly party attended by “those behind this series of body switches.” An event called… The Midnight Cross Method?

Okay, this is another point of contention that I have with either this series or this fan translation. The fact that the Midnight Cross Method refers to two separate events. An event held at midnight where eight or more people switch bodies, and a party at midnight where people, who are already body swapped, board a boat and enjoy themselves. Which is very confusing due to what the word method means. A method is not an event, it is a process, a procedure, and the body swap event at midnight has a clear method to it. Lay down with the magical card on your forehead at midnight. It is a method of swapping bodies. Meanwhile, the boat party has no method that must be followed. It is just a party located in a fixed location that is held every day.

This terminology is further complicated with the term ‘Cross Act’ which I think is synonymous with ‘body swap.’ It is the act of crossing, i.e. exchanging, minds/spirits. So I’m just going to make up my own damn term for the boat party. The Midnight Cross Party. Because it is a party at midnight for people who cross bodies.

Also, as for why Hiroki believes Sachi’s words… his Cross Ability, Judgment Fake, determines if any text being read is truthful or deceitful. It is a lame power that was only envisioned to answer the question of ‘why does Hiroki believe Sachi’s words’ and it is never used again. Great use of a power set right there.

Back to the plot, Sachi(Mikuni) has gone missing, Mikuni(Hiroki) and Kaede rush to the prison to inform Hiroki(Sachi) of the situation and determine what Sachi(Mikuni) is plotting. He mentioned visiting his sister, Ai, before leaving, and they infer that means he’s going to kill her, ending his murderous business and framing Mikuni as the murderer. Which Kaede refuses to accept, and threatens to cut off Mikuni(Hiroki)’s balls, get plastic surgery, and steal the body for herself. This happens to make for the second most iconic panel from this series, and one that I have featured on multiple Rundowns in the past. One where I was musing about starting HRT and being genderqueer (lol) and one where I was recovering from genital electrolysis I had done so I could get bottom surgery. And now my testicles are decomposing in some medical waste dump. Good times!

Naturally, this missing person problem can be solved by body swapping, as Kaede has her own situationally useful Cross Ability, Stalking Perfume. An ability that allows the person in Kaede’s body to pinpoint their location by smelling freshly worn underwear. Or to be more blunt, Kaede’s power is that she can stalk someone by sniffing their panties. …Uh, Yamaguchi-san, what the hell is this supposed to say about Kaede’s character? Is this implying that this 16-year-old has the markings of a trained stalker? I get that this is supposed to be some silly lighthearted perversion, but come on!

Point is, Kaede and Hiroki(Sachi) swap bodies and go off to locate Sachi(Mikuni) while Mikuni(Hiroki) goes to visit Ai and warn her about her brother, marking her proper introduction. Ai is a 14-year-old girl with a weak constitution currently under the guidance of her loving aunt, Saeko Fujiwara, and her imaginary husband. They are trying to offer her a loving home, giving her whatever she needs, and openly state they want her to become their own daughter. Because that’s a normal thing to say.

After barging into her room, Mikuni(Hiroki) explains to Ai that Sachi escaped and in explaining body swapping to her, she reveals that she’s actually the one who taught Sachi about “Cross Method.” Rather than elaborate though, Ai, somehow, causes Mikuni(Hiroki) to pass out, pulling out a steak knife in her left hand as she looks over her unconscious body.

As this happens, Hiroki(Kaede) and Sachi(Mikuni) are having a street fight and Sachi(Mikuni) begins a revelation-riddled rant. In short, he does not have any memory of killing his parents. Ai is the one who provided the dirty details to the cops. And while Sachi would have fought against these claims, saying that he loved his family and they were kind people, he also does not trust himself. He claims to have always been a “touched child” with an eerie vibe to him, and feels he cannot defend himself from others’ acquisitions. However, he remains convinced that his body did these deeds… just that someone else was inside of it. And Sachi believes that this person was either Ai, or someone who was inside her body. A person who, yet again, has claimed her body as their own.

Rushing to the Fujiwara household, Hiroki(Kaede) and Sachi(Mikuni) approach Ai, or the person inside her body, and use the Silent Regret Cross Ability to identify who this swapper is… but it doesn’t work. Because there is not just one mind inside of Ai, there are two. Yes, for the second week in a row, we have a swappossession story! A story with both body swapping and possession, except this one makes far less sense than magical silver age chemicals!

This second person in Ai’s body refers to themself as X (or perhaps it is 𝕏, χ, ˣ, ×, ╳, ✕, ✖, ⨯, ✗, or ✘) and they are the main villain for this story. A serial killer with twisted desires who killed Sachi and Ai’s family for their own twisted amusement before and stays in Ai’s body due to her suburb Cross Ability. An ability that we are not shown, but we are informed that Hiroki’s body is immune to it. So now we now know how the final battle is going to go!

When confronted with why they killed the Kirishima family, X(Ai) describes how they were merely acting upon Ai’s hidden desires, that she was a miserable child who loathed her family. To prove this, X(Ai) strips this 14-year-old’s body to reveal that it is coated with bruises from neck to ankle, all inflicted by someone in the Kirishima family. …Also, this happened months ago, meaning these are not bruises, but permanent skin damage caused by constant abuse. When faced with such abuse, Ai felt she had no way of escaping unless she could become someone else, so she turned to alternative solutions and, somehow, discovered the Cross Method. 

Also, I just love this line that X(Ai) gives as to why people pursue the Cross Method. “The only reason to become someone one is not, other than the desire to seek some momentary pleasure, is because one is deeply dissatisfied with one’s present self.” It’s not strictly true, but it captures a certain duality in body swaps. That they are either used to escape or get something better, or as a novel form of recreation. I would argue that there are far more intellectual and scientific reasons to pursue this, but this article already has too many tangents as is..

Now, my biggest question here is how did X even get inside Ai’s body? Are they some sort of spirit who can flee from bodies whenever they can? Do they leave a body at the cusp of midnight? There is an explanation of how X took over Ai’s body initially, but the mechanics of how they venture in and out are never clarified. 

Determined to maintain their mystique, X(Ai) tells them to figure out who they are at the aforementioned Midnight Cross Party. Only then will they be rewarded with the answers they seek. …Then X(Ai) just walks out of Ai’s bedroom, where this confrontation took place, and goes to somewhere else. Hiroki(Kaede) and Sachi(Mikuni) could have easily jumped him and pinned him down, but I guess that would be too easy.

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Part 4: The Xtreme Cruise Chronicles

Chapter 9 is mostly a wrap up of the prior arc and set up of the new arc. Hiroki(Kaede) and Sachi(Mikuni) have one last bit of pseudo sapphic fun together while they’re both girls. Everybody gets their bodies sorted out. Hiroki and Mikuni are back at the prison to report things with Sachi, who continues to be a bottomless barrel of exposition thanks to his relationship with the person who invented the Cross Method of body swapping. A ‘man’ by the name of Daigorou Igarashi, who cast his human body aside and now lives as a talking cat stuffed animal incapable of walking on his own. Which means he needs to be carried around by his granddaughter, Shino Igarashi.

…No, I’m not yanking your tail. I am jumping ahead a bit with this explanation, but it’s not even presented like a big reveal. A talking stuffed animal invented all Cross Methods and, seemingly, is a mastermind behind all of this. 

Anyway, Daigorou told Sachi much about the Midnight Cross Party, including its next time and location— wait, wasn’t this a daily event? Damn inconsistent translators and/or writers! Along with what sorts of activities people get up to at this party. In short, they fuck! And anybody infiltrating this party needs to be ready to fuck! Or ret-2-fuck!

You might think this would unsettle Mikuni, who was so protective of her virginity in her debut. But instead, she is adamant about participating, believing that, no matter what, Hiroki will keep her body safe. This might be intended as a bit of character development, though I’m more inclined to believe that the writer just forgot that Mikuni considered it to be “the most important thing” she has. Also, it’s an excuse to get Hiroki back in her body during a high pressure situation. With all the planing complete, Sachi(Hiroki) and Hiroki(Mikuni) arrive in a tux and dress and hit up the home of this mysterious boat party, held on a… cruise ship?

Wait, an actual cruise ship. Not a standard boat, not a yacht, but a cruise ship! Why the hell does one need a cruise ship for something that basically takes place in two rooms? How the hell do the people running this game afford renting a cruise ship? Who is paying for the cleanup, the snacks, and everything else that’s involved in hosting a party like this? Heck, it probably costs a pretty penny just to dock it and take up valuable harbor space. I can imagine that a deranged millionaire might buy a 2 billion yen yacht with luxurious, expansive rooms, and three stories, and use it for wild sex shit. Hell, a lot of them buy yachts specifically for that, as there’s no age of consent laws in international waters! But who arranged this in the first place?

Regardless, Hiroki(Mikuni) and Sachi(Hiroki) walk onto this boat, where they meet up with Miki. A fellow dressed in a suit and top hat, wearing a mask that looks like someone tried to mash together Monokuma and Korosensei. He greets the two and invites them in, hesitating at how odd it is for people to appear as a couple, before dividing them up into two rooms. Yes, rather than have a party involving a large group of people, groups are split into two rooms, each with only a measly six people. While I understand this is a way to force Hiroki(Mikuni) to think on his own and not rely on the more experienced Sachi(Hiroki), this is just an odd decision from a party design perspective. 

Despite being alone, Hiroki(Mikuni) still goes into his assigned hall and meets a rogue’s gallery of weirdos. A schlubby hentai protagonist,a tough guy with a glass eye, an old martial arts sensei guy, a busty lady with sunglasses, and a little girl holding onto a teddy bear. Hiroki(Mikuni) is full of nerves as these bodyjacking veterans get ready to party, drinking to numb his senses, but then they pull out the knives, cocaine, and nipple clips. 

However, rather than pursue this more hardcore angle, the gang decides to play a ‘regular’ game of King’s Cup instead… while using Cross Abilities to cheat in every round. The cheater being mister hentai protagonist, his target being Hiroki(Mikuni), and his demands… basically boiling down to sexual assault. Hiroki(Mikuni) gets shoved in a bunny girl outfit, forced to chug beer, tickled by everyone in attendance, his ass paddled, stripped down to nothing, and more. 

Hiroki(Mikuni) is fortunate enough to lose consciousness during the worst of it, and is only brought back to the waking world by the old sensei guy. He explains that he is ultimately on Hiroki’s side, that someone was using their Cross Ability against him, and that he is not here for mere leisure. Instead, he is high school girl detective Shini Aono, and she’s pursuing X the Killer. 

To interject with something that is not revealed for a while, pay attention to that name, Shini Aono. Recall this is a series where very few characters are given names, and how we only know the name of one of Hiroki’s peers. Yeah, this is Shion Anno in the body of an old man who is later revealed to be her grandfather, Shinichirou Anno. It’s a twist that works when reading the series as it was published— because who would remember the name of a minor character last seen half a year ago? But reading through it all at once, it’s pretty obvious.

With a mutual goal of bringing X to justice, Hiroki(Mikuni) and Shion(Shinichirou) pair up to investigate the other four people in their group. In short, they want to use their Cross Abilities to suss out who X is and interrogate them. With the goal being to have one of them become the king and use Mikuni’s Cross Ability to read their minds. Then, once they are able to narrow down the suspects, Shion(Shinichirou) will use Professional Police. A Cross Ability that can only be used once a day and forces the target to answer two of three questions. Again, not a versatile power, but it can interrogate a suspect.

After Hiroki(Mikuni) wraps up a towel over his turn up bunny girl suit— just put your party dress back on, dude— they enact their plan, and things go about as expected. The swap veteran gang keeps up their perverted attack on Hiroki(Mikuni). He tries to read their minds. They eventually get smart about this, try attacking him, but Huroki, even in Mikuni’s body, is still a karate champ, so he narrows the opposition down to the girl with the big bear. Shion(Shinichirou) then uses his Cross Ability… and finds out that this girl is not X. 

Frustrated, but unable to investigate further, the cruise comes to an end, and everybody is called to leave the ship. Shion(Shinichirou) departs, Hiroki(Mikuni) and Sachi(Hiroki) reunite, and share that… neither found X. Leading the two to a conclusion that, in retrospect, is all too obvious.. That Miki, the masked attendant, is actually X. And they prove this by highlighting how Miki is left-handed, and so is X.

They flash back to how X in Ai’s body held the knife with their left hand, and how, in three small ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ panels, that Miki was using their left hand. They used it to point at a door, make a gesture, stroke their chin, but not take off their hat, because even left-handed people are supposed to use their right hand for that. It is enough for them to conclude that X is left-handed… though, I think that’s a bit of a rushed conclusion. They do not know how X’s form of possession works, if it changes their dominant hand, and ignore the possibility of X being ambidextrous. Sure, those people are 1 in 100, but they’re still a possibility. 

Also, if you remember chapter 1, Hiroki was holding a bloody knife in his right hand when he woke up. And why would a left-handed killer stab someone with their right hand? Generally, you really shouldn’t make these twists harkening back to past chapters if the theory the characters are operating under is undermined in chapter 1.

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Interlude: I Actually Really Like Mayonaka no X Giten

So, at this point in running through this series, I think I might have buried the lead and the fact that I actually really appreciate this series and what it is doing. I have offered a lot of small and petulant criticisms, pointed out logical issues, and highlighted the writer’s problem writing female characters. However, I would like to make it clear that I like Mayonaka no X Giten. It is definitely rough in spots, but it does have an energy and ambition that I appreciate. I like how it balances darker themes with bouts of silliness and absurdity. It creates a story that both feels grounded enough to do the murder mystery angle justice, while having enough humor to make things digestible. The characters are all fairly simple and don’t have much in the way of development, yet I do ultimately like the cast, find their banter amusing, and enjoy seeing them work out the mystery. 

Hiroki is generally stoic and determined, but he’s also just some regular kid who’s in over his head. Mikuni starts as a brattish and selfish girl, but she becomes genuinely fascinated in the mystery and becomes a reliable female lead who, when she is allowed to, stands up for herself and throws herself into danger. Sachi is a neurodivergent weirdo who has a mellow sense of humor and a worldliness that exceeds his years, both liking to play games with people while never being a bad or malicious guy. A bit selfish and frustrating, sure, but even when he does bad things, he doesn’t do them for bad reasons.

The mystery itself, while filled with holes and minor inconsistencies, had a good pace to it. The series has only 27 chapters, something significant happens in all of them. There is always at least one great scene or moment in each one. And the series remains consistently engaging and entertaining, not really having any lulls in its duration. 

Meanwhile, the artwork is good. Bareisho might not have pursued the life of a serialized mangaka, but she does have the skills needed to make a series with solid layouts that make the series a breeze to read. A lot of great expressions from its cast. Designs that, while basic, do give the characters a sense of personality, accentuated by their wardrobes, and it manages to capture the silly/serious tone as the script calls for it. 

It is a country mile from being perfect and definitely has a lot of kinks I would have liked to see addressed in an adaptation— it would’ve been a good 12 episode anime. However, I did find it to be a thoroughly entertaining read, even considering some of the wild and contentious choices it makes during its latter fourth. Plus, while it never goes ham on the body swapping angle, it still uses the concept regularly, and puts characters in different bodies.

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Part 5: X Gon’ Give It To Ya!

The night after the cruise, our merry band of heroes begin following their next lead. Which is, of course, a pair of panties Sachi(Hiroki) snagged from someone who claimed to participate in the Midnight Cross Method held a few weeks ago. Using Kaede’s powers of perverted stalking, they discover this person was none other than… Shion Anno. But before they can go after her, the story treats us to a flashback to Hiroki’s childhood. Showing that he was a small and vulnerable child who was protected by Shion many times, and always idolized his responsible and tough-as-nails big sis. So much so that he passed up Shion’s offer to train him in the art of self defense, choosing to stay with his sister instead.

Following this, Hiroki and Shion were placed in different classes, and when they reconnected in middle school,Hiroki was already a buff karate teen who didn’t need her to protect him. Upon reconnecting, she asks Hiroki who led him to become strong and who he wants to protect, and he says his sister. Because, from his perspective, he hasn’t seen Shion in several years. Yet this is seen as a faux pas, because Mikoto Yamaguchi is bad at writing female characters. (But at least he’s done overtly sexualizing them… for the most part.)

The story then spends basically a whole chapter investigating Shion and redefining the suspect list, pointing out how Shion could be the X they are looking for, as she never liked Hiroki’s sister. But, like I said, she is clearly supposed to be a high school girl detective and… she is. After a trailing mission goes awry, Shion and Shinichirou make their formal debut and explain they are private detectives who work on commission, and were paid by someone to apprehend X. (We never learn who this person is.) This person also gave them the magic skull body swapping cards, and Shinichirou participated in the Midnight Cross Method in hopes of apprehending X. 

In their recap, the Annos add that Shinichirou swapped into Ai’s body, while an 86-year-old man named Kou Furuyangi swapped into Shinichirou’s body. Hiroki processes this information and assumes that the chain of swaps went like this: Hiroki to Mikuni to Sachi to Kou to Shinichirou to Ai and X back to Hiroki’s body. Assuming that the two missing links just swapped with each other. Which, in all fairness, is a possibility. Though, it obviously won’t be that simple. Not with two more volumes of story to get through.

They share more information, form a nice little union with little tension— except for Mikuni and Shion, who have a slight rivalry going on, because of course they do, and pick up their next lead. …The talking stuffed animal Sachi brought up a while back, Daigorou, the inventor of the Cross Method. They go to figure out his location, only to learn that Sachi escaped (again) and already figured out who X is and determined that Yui’s killer is someone Hiroki knows.

…So, this is a lie. Sachi does know who X is, and the reveal of that… sure is something. But he is just lying about knowing who Yui’s killer is. He does not know. He has no way of knowing.

Because of Hiroki and Mikuni’s association with Sachi, minor character hot detective lady You Mitsumune is withholding them for questioning until they talk about a mysterious letter Sachi left. Or, at least their bodies are being held for questioning, as Hiroki escapes by body swapping with Shion… wait, I got that twisted. Instead of taking this opportunity to switch Hiroki into the body of another girl, something this series reasonably loves to do, he switches bodies with Shinichirou. That’s something you don’t often see in body swaps. The teenage male protagonist willingly switches bodies with an old man. And, funnily enough, we never actually see Hiroki in Shion’s body. Huh.

Free to walk about the city, Hiroki(Shinichirou) and Shion go over their lists of suspects, trying to narrow down who X could be and how to pursue them. Fortunately, the cast of this series is small, so they head back to the Fujiwara residence to interrogate Sachi and Ai’s aunt, Saeko. They interrogate her briefly before deciding to just use Shinichirou’s Professional Police Cross Abilities to pry an answer out of her, and… she’s obviously not X. However, she does offer some pertinent insights into the background of Sachi and Ai.

She describes Sachi as someone far too smart and honest for their own good, who would commit regular social faux pas in family junctions and drew ire from the entire extended family. He could see that most of the family hated each other, that they were just playing nice for their own gain, for inheritance, and he spoke the truth without any filter. Combined with his ‘murder child’ aura, his entire family hated him, his father beat him (which is later changed to his brother), and the simple happy family life he claimed they had was far from the truth.

Also, Saeko reveals that Ai loved Sachi… as a man. She thought he was wonderful, wanted to be as close to him as two people possibly could, and while Saeko thinks this was brainwashing, it probably wasn’t. It’s probably a result of Ai growing up in a hateful household full of deception where physical abuse was regular, and she latched onto the one person who was not abusive and always spoke the truth. There’s a saying that everybody’s parents fuck them, but Ai’s parents fucked her so much she wanted to fuck her brother. 

Shion analyzes this situation, highlighting how Sachi claims to have loved his family, to have never mentioned the abuse or perverse relationship he had with his sister. Per his only used once Cross Ability, she knew that he could not lie about this. This, somehow, gives Shion the information needed to determine who X is. She ventures off to the unlocked and unoccupied Kirishima residence, specifically Sachi’s room, which still has personal artifacts in it. …Yeah, there are three things wrong with that statement. 

In a drawer, she finds a pair of scissors that are presented as a big reveal… when they are just scissors, right? Well, no. They are actually left-handed scissors, which are basically regular right-handed scissors, but with the blades stacked in the opposite order. Meaning that Sachi is X? Well, no, that can’t be the case, because Sachi and X were in the same room before. And before we can get to an answer, X in the body of Ai, arrives and displays this body’s Cross Ability, Love Lullaby. Which uses the power of Deutsch to force all who hear it to fall into a hypnotic slumber where they are vulnerable to the singer’s will. 

Also, in making themself cozy in this body, X(Ai) spends the rest of the series dressed in black gothic lolita dress, complete with a funeral veil over their face. Just so you know they’re wacky!

With Shion sleeping before them, X(Ai) pulls out the same steak knife from before and Shion’s life flashes before her eyes. Thinking back to how her grandfather taught her father to be a detective but, after a careless accident, he passed away, leaving her without someone to look up to, feeling all alone. So, she followed in her father’s footsteps and worked with her grandfather and became a detective. That way, part of her father will live on in her duty, in her work, and she won’t need to feel so alone. She threw herself into this field, knowing how dangerous it was, and as she comes to, she finds herself covered in blood. …The blood of Hiroki(Shinichirou)!

This is a great dramatic flourish for the series to throw in to keep things interesting. It’s an act of selflessness for Hiroki. An act of profound loss for Shion as she sees her grandfather, the man who raised her and taught her all she knows, at body at death’s door. All while knowing that behind this gray bearded face lies her childhood friend and long-time crush, who sacrificed himself for her. It uses the nature of a body swap to foster more intense emotions, to double the sense of loss that comes with death, lacing it with a bittersweet red-lining that… just makes this worse!

…But of course this isn’t going to result in Hiroki’s death, just his near death. The cops are able to get Hiroki(Shinichirou) to the hospital, Shinichirou(Hiroki) arrives, and is adamant about being the one to die in his body. Shion has a big character moment as she cries over this situation, somberly saying goodbye to her grandfather. Shinichirou takes his death in stride, reminds Shion that his heart of justice lies within her, and she promises to put an end to this case, to make sure no one else dies at the hands of X. With a smile, Shinichirou leaves to undo his swap with Hiroki, and the two share a conversation as their consciousnesses cross. With Shinichirou thanking him for protecting Shon and saying that he has nothing to apologize for.

It’s something that simply couldn’t be done without the mechanic of a body swap. The tension, the sorrow, the dread of the characters really sells the seriousness of the situation, and after the story has gone on for so long without a murder, this does feel like a genuine shock. However, it also serves as a call to action for Hiroki, Mikuni, and Shion to finally take X down. They know they are active, know about their powerful Cross Ability, how to overcome it and, unlike the reader, know their true identity. So it is finally time to end this, to launch their plan to eliminate X!

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Part 6: The Plan to Eliminate X

While having a planning meeting with You Mitsumune, Mikuni is called back to her idol business by another member of her troupe, Rikako Shimazu. She’s pissed that Mikuni has been gallivanting about with this murder mystery crap when she should have been practicing her idoling. But as she is being literally yanked away, the gang hatch an idea. Fight music… with music!

Or to put it more comprehensively, they plan to stage a concert with a cryptic gimmick to lure in X. A game where one needs to guess the lyrics for a new song… about the way X murdered Sachi’s family. It’s not a great plan. X is a body hopper, so why would they care if their crimes are made public or their original identity is known? Hell, about fifty pages ago, we learned that X publishes their crimes and ruminates over them on a murder story site called Twilight. 

Whatever. After the literal first panel of this comic was a pair of idols, it’s finally time to get ready for an idol concert. With even Shion and Hiroki joining in on the practice as they rapidly learn the routines and songs ahead of the inevitable body swapping. While I understand the desire to maintain the momentum of the story, this is an area that I think should have been handled with more attention. 

Becoming an idol is hard. Singing well is hard enough, let alone with a different voice, and just because you learn a dance in one body does not mean you can do it effortlessly in another. Being an idol performing a concert is hard mode in the world of body swapping. Not because you need to navigate social cues, but because you need to do a series of highly specific predetermined actions with a different set of tools. Yet this is all brushed aside in ten pages, where the sense of time makes it feel like this all passed in a day, when really it was probably at least a week. Especially since Hiroki and Shion are allegedly still students. And it’s hoodie weather, so you can’t even say this is summer break.

Point is, it’s time for BRK48 to put on a show of non-stop singing and sound to a captivated audience, all culminating in a new duet number between Mikuni and Shion’s bodies. A duet about two halves of the same person trying to find balance and love for one another, before the darker, left-handed, inside half splits apart and promises to break everything. …Wait. Oh no. Don’t tell me they are…

Ahem. This is followed by X(Ai) letting loose a hypnotized person who launches onto the stage, stopping the music, before they appear from backstage, grabbing a microphone and lulling every person in attendance to sleep. However, they do not take a police officer’s gun and start racking up MDKs. That would be too tacky. Instead, they wait for Sachi to show up. Yeah, remember that was the crux of this storyline? Sachi went missing? Well, I guess he did! He went missing for over 100 pages!

As Sachi approaches X in Ai’s body, he states the revelation that Shion has been hiding from the audience for the past three chapters. That X is… Sachi’s other half! Yes, Sachi has an egregiously fictionalized version of dissociative identity disorder that split his mind in two. In good and evil, right and left, and sane and insane. With X, his dark half, being the one responsible for the murder of the Kirishima family.

…So, this sucks.

The entire concept of a character with a ‘split personality’ and one ‘crazy half’ has always been a shitty trope used by writers who are, at best, deeply ignorant of mental health, and at worst, bigoted, uncreative hacks. The renditions so often found in fiction seldom ever approach the subject with grace, let alone realism. While there are examples where this concept can be well done, they are often deliberately played for humor or so divorced from reality that they are basically just a magic power. 

Toko Fukawa from Danganronpa comes to mind. She has two personalities in her head— her regular neurotic self and her murderous clown self, Genocide Jack. In the context of the series, it’s clear the writers are not trying to say anything about mental health, and treat this concept as seriously as a talking bear doll robot. Also, part of the joke about Genocide Jack is that she doesn’t kill people. Not even in the spin-off where she’s a playable character! She’s just cuh-razy!

X though? X is just a cluster of cliches stuffed into a trench coat pretending to be a person. He wants to cause a revolution that frees humans from the social restraints that are imposed by them. Thinks that this is his reason for being born into this world. And literally calls himself “raw insanity given life.” He’s meant to be serious, meant to be an imposing threat, and everything about them is played straight. However, you could replace X being Sachi’s dark half with X being a literal demon and it would improve the story in every regard. It would make more sense, it would be a more surprising reveal, and it would make the story more interesting because… demons! Instead, he’s just from a bad bloodline! I get that crazy often runs in the family, both socially and genetically, but fuck off with that.

Also, Sachi split his personality by folding the magical skull card that he printed on an inkjet printer when swapping bodies with Ai. Yeah, so not only did the talking cat come up with body swapping, he found out how to split plural identities from their systems. Thanks, I hate it! I hate all of this stupid shit!

Going back to the story, X(Ai) shoots Sachi in the gut, aiming to kill him, but before he can aim the second shot, Shion(Hiroki) shows up and stops him. Naturally, the body of a black belt is enough to overpower a lolita middle schooler, and X(Ai) is promptly apprehended. In the context of the chapter, it seems that Shion(Hiroki) arrived here after hearing a gunshot. But if you remember what I said earlier, that Hiroki’s body was immune to Ai’s Cross Ability at the end of part 3? And the deus ex machina I mentioned in part 2? This is what I was foreshadowing!

Hiroki’s Cross Ability is Unsleeping Guardian. It means he cannot be put to sleep and will promptly wake up. Meaning his body is immune to Lovely Lullaby. The characters had the information to piece this together, but they did not plan around this during their big elaborate idol show. They could have had Shion(Hiroki) stay backstage and let her run into action when the time was right. Instead, she just shows up at the last possible second for a dramatic reveal. I remembered, you remembered, but the damn writer didn’t remember his own foreshadowing! 

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Part 7: A Most SeXual X

The final four chapters of this story are… odd. The majority of the MXG’s run has switched from being about solving a whodunnit and getting revenge to chasing down a serial killer who the ensemble think is responsible. The serial killer has been found, but there are still a lot of gaps and unanswered questions. Such as… where did X come from and how did the Kirishima murders happen?

Per Sachi’s now complete recollection— he fused his mind with X offscreen— the entire Kirishima family was rotten. Though the worst of the bunch was Sachi’s unnamed older brother, who would use violence to solve every problem he encountered. He physically abused Sachi throughout his youth, his parents neglected him, and the only person who would defend him was Ai. However, as Sachi got bigger and able to fight back, the brother eventually stopped abusing him and… started raping Ai.

This served as a radicalizing event for Sachi, and led to the creation of a violent and evil persona in his mind, one who would emerge when Sachi was consumed with rage. And right after this new personality emerges, Ai, moments after being sexually assaulted, begs Sachi to “become one flesh with [him].” 

Sachi heeds her request, believing that her “mind had already all but snapped” and “she probably wouldn’t have been able to live on.” But instead of swapping with her in the normal way, he somehow split his evil side and inserted it into Ai’s mind. Then, freed from the shackles of sanity, X took his first blood, using Ai’s puny 14-year-old girl body to murder the rest of the Kirishima family… while in nothing but a pair of panties. …Yamaguchi-san, what are you doing? How did you get away with this?

And with that, the case of X is closed. They were just a crazy dude with immense power, and now they are part of Sachi yet again, this time under his control. However, this does not answer the question of… why did X kill Yui? Sachi… cannot remember. His mind is a slurry and he does not know what happened.

Also, I just want to add that I don’t think Ai actually says anything outside of the flashbacks, as even when she is presented as a normal girl, we know X is controlling her body. Meaning that the only time we see this child, this 14-year-old girl, is when she is acting like a creepy and crazed bro-con.

Still, a conclusion is a conclusion, and Hiroki is willing to give his sister’s body to the authorities, opening the fridge for the first time in what should have been weeks and… she’s gone! Someone must have taken her, and in light of this revelation, they walk through the steps that led to her murder, pointing out some inconsistencies. Namely, the left hand right hand thing that I mentioned at the end of Part 3. Hiroki woke up with a knife in his right hand, while X is left-handed. And this suspicion is confirmed when Sachi admits that he doesn’t recognize Yui. He’d never seen her before. So, who killed her? 

To find out, they ask Daigorou for help, using his Cross Ability— yes, stuffed animals can have Cross Abilities, and it is the most bullshit one yet. It’s called Lucky Detective, and it allows him to blow past deductive reasoning and identify the culprit. But, being an asshole, he doesn’t say who it is, just that it is someone Hiroki knows, so load up the character list, again, and pull out the swap diagram!

Earlier in the story, Hiroki made the decision to assume that the man Sachi swapped into and the 86-year-old man, Kou, were one and the same. But with two sets of memories now in his head, Sachi can confirm that is not the case. X swapped into the body of Kou, thus forming an isolated swap triangle. Shinichirou to Ai, X to Kou, and Kou to Shinichirou. Meanwhile, Hiroki went into Mikuni, who went into Sachi, who went into an unknown man, hooked up to an IV. 

So, who was this man, and who was the eighth participant? Well, Hiroki does not figure this out as much as he has a revelation. That the eighth participant would have been his sister, Yui. And the man hooked up to the IV was the commentator on his blog, the man who introduced him to the Midnight Cross Method. I would’ve assumed them to be X or someone else who runs this show, but I guess that works too. Wanting to lure him out, Hiroki writes another blog post that frames his sister’s death as a suicide, saying he is happy to be free of a “trashy woman” like her.

Immediately, he gets a reply from his usual commenter, the one who introduced him to the Midnight Cross Method and begins sparking up a conversation with him. All with the goal of staging a meeting with them. This is clearly bait, clearly meant to be some sort of trick, yet the commenter obliges, because there wouldn’t be a story if they declined. So, the rest of the cast work together to stage an ambush.

On the midnight of the following day, we see the commenter look over the corpse of Yui, preserved in a glass box full of flowers. He hooks up to an IV, engages in the Midnight Cross Method, and lands in the body of… Daigorou. Yes, the murderer, the man who is responsible for Hiroki’s whole quest, is apprehended… by being put in the body of a stuffed animal. I could respect that in a story that acknowledges the absurdity of the situation, but no, this is played seriously. And to keep things serious, Mikuni(Shion) reveals that final Cross Ability in the series, Truthful Name, which forces someone to respond when called by their true name. Thus leading to the reveal of who this man is. And he is… Daki Kamiya. The father of Hiroki and Yui. 

Yep. The series kept saying that the killer was somebody we knew, and Hiroki did talk to his father on the phone during the second chapter. …Hiroki never said anything about him other than that! We don’t know what he looks like, what he does for a job, or anything like that. 

Before explaining this, the story gives the reader a flashback to explain that Hiroki lost his mother when he was young, leading Yui to act like a maternal figure to him. And while Yui was a good role model for much of Hiroki’s life, she suddenly quit her job one day, refusing to explain why, and became a recluse as she continued having fights with her father. She didn’t explain what happened to her, just that if she was born a man, she wouldn’t have to deal with this crap. This crap being… the rape.

Daki, frustrated by the loss of his wife, emboldened by how his daughter was aging, drugged and raped Yui several times, each instance causing her to recede further and further from society. Her one living parent betrayed her, did the worst thing he possibly could short of killing her, and she just broke. She became a hikikomori and relied on Hiroki for everything, because Hiroki was the one person who would never betray her. Who would always defend her. Daki knew this, so he made sure to drug him before bed. He was her guardian, and Daki forced him to sleep. Hence where he got his Cross Ability.

Then, Daki found Hiroki’s blog, and was furious. He despised how bitter and angry Hiroki was, when he was the object of Yui’s love and affection. So, Daki made a plan. To inform Hiroki, and Yuii, about the Midnight Cross Method. To get them out of their bodies and take Yui’s body for himself. Not so that he could have it for himself and do all manner of perverted acts. But so he could kill Hiroki’s body and “fuck up [his] face so bad [he’d] never have to see it again.”

Unfortunately for Daki, Yui landed in Hiroki’s body, and Daki(Yui)’s plan of drugging Yui(Hiroki) body failed due to Hiroki’s Cross Ability. Without knowing who was in whose body, with fear flowing through her, Yui(Hiroki) took the murder weapon, the knife, away from Daki(Yui) and stabbed him in the chest. In doing so, Yui killed herself, making her death a suicide.

…Except hold up, there are several things here that do not add up.

How did Daki(Yui) survive this, let alone get in bed with Yui(Hiroki)? Yui’s body died… so he should be dead, right? Or do souls survive this if their hosts are killed as part of the Midnight Cross Method? Hell, how did Yui return to her body when the swap was undone? Her body was dead! You cannot put a soul inside a corpse! Or did Daki(Yui) wait until the two hours were nearly up to attack Yui(Hiroki)? Why would he wait? Why not just go after his son’s body right away? Was Yui’s body just bleeding out for two hours, meaning she swapped back into her body just a second before she died? But then why would Yui(Hiroki) and Daki(Yui) lie in the same bed like that?

Secondly, where did Yui’s card go? You know, the card that would be physical evidence that she participated in the Midnight Cross Method. Did Daki destroy it? Did he light the stove and burn the evidence, throw it in the trash, or just rip it up and stuff it down Yui’s mouth? Why destroy the evidence if he did not expect any resistance in Hiroki’s body?

Third thing. Daki, sir, what was your plan to deal with the body? Did you have a plan to dispose of your son’s body? What if Yui called the cops and confessed to murder and was sent to jail for a decade or two? Guess you’d be shit outta luck, wouldn’t you?

And fourth problem with this plan is… Daki expected Yui to be so heartbroken that she would start viewing Daki— the man who raped her— as a proxy for Hiroki. That, in her mind, the two would become the sake. Just like how, in Daki’s mind, his wife and daughter became the same thing! …Because that makes all the sense in the world!

This… just does not work. I love the idea. I think the idea of turning this into a family quarrel and involving sexual abuse is actually a good angle that allows the story to end by showcasing a more banal yet powerful form of evil. By having the final boss be this pathetic loser who wanted to destroy his family just to get his dick wet. But Daki’s plan… is a first draft of a plan, without any contingencies, built on assumptions and hopes. This concept could work, this premise has more than potential, but there are so many plot holes and problems that I’m surprised that the editor gave their OK on this.

This ending is a microcosm of so many parts of Mayonaka no X Giten. It has good tension, the art does a great job of emphasizing and framing the story, with even Daki, in the body of a damn cat plushy, being framed as a degenerate fuck, his unmoving face looking eerie and psychotic. The mystery is elaborate, clearly has a lot of thought put into it, and if one is just going through the motions, it is a thrilling race of revelations and new powers being introduced. It has emotion, it has drama, it has passion, and twists upon twists. But when I stop and analyze it, I see that this tapestry is falling apart, full of holes from moths of carelessness.

When this is all said and over, Hiroki and Mikuni venture off into the night to clear their heads, Mikuni crying over the heinous acts she heard, knowing all too well how toxic and vile family can be. However, through all this, through the near-death experiences and trauma, she found a person she can trust, and one who she wants to become family with. …To which Hiroki says “you sound so lame, you idiot.” Grape job, fan translators. I’m sure that’s the tone the original was going for.

We are then treated to an epilogue, where Hiroki is now working at the orphanage where Mikuni grew up. He has dropped out of school (because shut up), and is devoting his life to protecting and helping children in need, all while Mikuni continues to scrounge up money to help fund this place… and I guess pay Hiroki too? That’s where a lot of donations go to. Payroll!

Meanwhile, Shion, Sachi, and Daigorou are still working on pursuing their own justice by going against the police, who have tried to block all investigations into body swapping. Not because they are concerned for citizens, but because the higher-ups are freaks who attend the Midnight Cross Party. Which… is absolutely something I would read, because detectives are cool, while cops are bastard pigs. 

And with that final bit of ‘closure’ the story ends.

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Part Final: What the X Were They Thinking?

As I said in the interlude, I like a lot of elements and ideas presented in Mayonaka no X Giten. I try to go into every work I cover with an open mind, a desire, however nebulous or misplaced, that I will find something to love about the work in question. And that is the case with MXG. The characters, the underlying mystery, the mechanics that encourage routine body swaps, and even the tone that veers between silly, perverse, and intense. It has the markings of a great story… but the execution is laced with holes.

While the story can be imaginative, there are often times where its lack of creativity were galling, if not befuddling. Though the story is confident in its status as a mystery, its mystery is far from airtight with plot holes big and small. And despite its characters being likable, the characters don’t develop as much as they morph, the story eroding away the sharper edges applied to them in earlier chapters. 

All of which is before getting into the writer’s contentious handling of his female characters, both as characters and as visual figures. The boo-worthy reveal that the entire series was building up to with X’s identity. And the often baffling nature of the final act. All these things, and more, prevent me from openly praising this work. However, I still admire, if not love, MXG for what it gets right. The core of the experience is often thrilling and captivating. Its boneheaded decisions are preceded with brilliant ones. And many of its ideas— the mechanics of the Cross Methods, Cross Abilities, and the Midnight Cross Party— are all deeply and immensely cool.

It’s a series I admire more for its ideas and brief snippets, rather than the collective whole, and one that I think people interested in different types of body swapping stories should check out. Chiefly as a source of inspiration, but also an example of certain key obstacles to avoid.

…And my goodness, do I wish that this series got an adaptation. Because in the right hands, this 6/10 manga series could have been a 9/10 anime banger.