Mystery (351)

Whether its solving a crime or finding an explanation for a puzzling circumstance, the main cast willingly or reluctantly become investigators who must work to answer the who, what, why, and/or how of the current dilemma. The narrative of mystery stories is always on collecting evidence, identifying suspects, and theorizing possible scenarios for the unexplainable, before finally capturing the perpetrator or resolving the current situation. Almost always, the audience has the same information as the main characters and anticipation is directed towards discovering the explanation, not what will transpire after the answer is found. Contrast with Suspense or Horror where often the audience has more information than the cast, which heightens the tension or fear of what will happen next.

Blood+: Yakou JoushiBlood+ Kowloon Nights

Kisaragi, Hirotaka 2024
A Haji solo story, prior to the events of the TV series. In Hong Kong, a police detective named Nishitatsu Yoshi investigated a string of murders in which the victims died due to loss of blood. During the investigation, he encountered a mysterious man who may have a connection to these incidents.
Sep 2005 to Apr 2006 | 5 chp | Publishing

JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 7: Steel Ball Run

Araki, Hirohiko 2024
In the American Old West, the world's greatest race is about to begin. Thousands line up in San Diego to travel over six thousand kilometers for a chance to win the grand prize of fifty million dollars. With the era of the horse reaching its end, contestants are allowed to use any kind of vehicle they wish. Competitors will have to endure grueling conditions, traveling up to a hundred kilometers a day through uncharted wastelands. The Steel Ball Run is truly a one-of-a-kind event.

The youthful Johnny Joestar, a crippled former horse racer, has come to San Diego to watch the start of the race. There he encounters Gyro Zeppeli, a racer with two steel balls at his waist instead of a gun. Johnny witnesses Gyro using one of his steel balls to unleash a fantastical power, compelling a man to fire his gun at himself during a duel. In the midst of the action, Johnny happens to touch the steel ball and feels a power surging through his legs, allowing him to stand up for the first time in two years. Vowing to find the secret of the steel balls, Johnny decides to compete in the race, and so begins his bizarre adventure across America on the Steel Ball Run.

[Written by Animeranku Rewrite]
Jan 19, 2004 to Apr 19, 2011 | 96 chp | Publishing

Yorugata Aijin Senmonten Blood Hound DX

Yuki, Kaori 2024
Rion is on a mission to find her missing friend Shihoko. Her only two clues are a card given to her by Shihoko and a confession that her best friend was in love with a vampire. Thus she heads down to a club filled with pretty male escorts whom she insists are vampires...

(Source: MU)
Nov 26, 2002 to Jun 25, 2010 | 5 chp | Publishing

Muhyo to Rouji no Mahouritsu Soudan JimushoMuhyo & Roji's Bu...

Nishi, Yoshiyuki 2024
Are you a victim of unwanted spirit possession? Is there a ghost you need sent up and away...or down to burn for all eternity? If the answer is yes, then you need Muhyo and Roji, experts in magic law. Serving justice to evil spirits is their specialty.

(Source: VIZ Media)
Nov 29, 2004 to Mar 3, 2008 | 159 chp | Publishing

Loose Senki: Old BoyOld Boy

Caribu, MarleyMinegishi, Shinm 2024
Drugged and confused, Shinichi Gotou wakes up in a small room inside a private prison. Despite his pleadings, none of the guards will tell him who kidnapped him or why he is being held captive. As the days go by, his forced isolation slowly takes a toll on his sanity. He finds an outlet through training his mind and body for the day he will be able to wreak vengeance.

After 10 years, Shinichi is finally free. Once outside, he encounters a much changed world. His long imprisonment ripped him from society and kept him from having the normal life he desired. With nothing to lose, he begins his hunt for the one responsible. However, it seems that the person behind Shinichi's captivity is not done with him just yet, and thus begins a twisted game where only the winner survives.

[Written by Animeranku Rewrite]
1996 to 1998 | 79 chp | Publishing

Cat's Eye

Hojo, Tsukasa 2024
The protagonists of the series are the three Kisugi sisters—Hitomi, Rui and Ai—who run a café called Cat's Eye. The sisters lead a double life as a trio of highly skilled art thieves, leaving cards with the name "Cat's Eye" at the scene of their crimes. They steal works of art (mostly paintings) that belonged to their long-missing father, Heinz (who was a famous art collector during the Nazi regime), in the hopes of him contacting them. Toshio, the police officer investigating this case is the fiancé of Hitomi. He also swears to capture and bring down the Cat's Eye Gang.
Jun 16, 1981 to Jan 15, 1985 | 135 chp | Publishing

Variante

Sugimoto, Iqura 2024
After seeing her family slaughtered, Aiko is surprised to wake up on a laboratory table, apparently intact. But when she notices the horribly disfigured arm grafted onto her body, she soon realizes that life as she knew it before the attack is now over. Infused with the DNA of a mysterious monster known as Chimera, the arm acts on the urges of its master—leaving Aiko powerless to stop it. Alone and frightened, how will she deal with this horrible fate?
(Source: CMX)
2004 to 2006 | 19 chp | Publishing

Butterfly

Aikawa, Yu 2024
Ishikawa Ginji is a young man who happens to hate any kind of business related to 'the other side,' such as ghosts, superstitions or the occult. His despise for the matter is such, that he can quickly break up any girl if they show any interest in matters such as lucky charms or any kind of future reading.

One day, while he was self pondering about his life while ruining a date on a whim, he is suddenly kissed by an elementary school girl go goes by the name "Ageha," stating that she will use him to "wipe out every ghost in the world." While the sex appeal of an elementary school kid kiss was not enough to turn Ginji to her side, the fact that she "bought him" by paying a huge debt that he had acquired seems to work quite efficiently.
Sep 12, 2002 to Oct 30, 2006 | 43 chp | Publishing

Reset

Tsutsui, Tetsuya 2024
An online game is causing players to commit suicide. One hacker rises to solve the mystery.
2005 | 6 chp | Publishing

From Dusk till Dawn

Mamahara, Ellie 2024
Kirishima Eisuke, a scoutman for adult videos, picked up Clarence, an amnesiac and handsome foreigner in the city. Eisuke always kept distance between himself and strangers, but he can't seem to throw Clarence out.
(Source: MU)
2004 to ? | 6 chp | Publishing

Honoo no Mirage

Hamada, ShokoKuwabara, Mizuna 2024
Difficult to classify, Mirage of Blaze is equal parts melodrama, historical romance, and supernatural fantasy. Japanese history predominates a heavily structured plot, which mainly involves the continued aggression between magic using guardians, or "possessors," and the denizens of a "feudal underworld," or the restless souls of long-dead samurai attempting to re-ignite ancient war on the modern plane.
Aug 24, 1994 to Apr 24, 1997 | 16 chp | Publishing

Ray

Yoshitomi, Akihito 2024
Ray started life on a farm intended for no other purpose than supplying body parts. When she was young, her eyes were harvested, but a mysterious person rescued her, giving her new eyes with powerful capabilities. She can see through objects and inside people, and she uses these powers for good and profit.

(Source: School Library Journal)
2002 to 2006 | 34 chp | Publishing

Cinderella Tokkyuu

Matsumoto, KazuraMatsumoto, Yo 2024
Mari is to be headed to another country to visit her friend who became a queen. When Mari arrives there, things starts to get mysterious as there is an attempt to kill the royal family. Who is behind the plot to kill them?
(Source: MU)
1984 to ? | 5 chp | Publishing

Kara no Kyoukai: The Garden of Sinners

Nasu, KinokoTakeuchi, Takashi 2024
A teenage girl, who possesses the "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception," a supernatural ability that allows the user to see the "death" of everything in existence and kill the object by destroying its "origin." She recently recovered from a two-year coma caused by a traffic accident. Prior to the traffic accident, she originally had two personalities, a male personality named Shiki (織), and the original female personality Shiki (式). Children born into the Ryougi family are generally male and are raised with two personalities, so the male personality is customarily called the "yang" personality, while the female is called the "yin" personality. It is easy to tell which Shiki is speaking at a given time because they both have a distinct style of speaking, most notably that the female Shiki refers to herself with the pronoun watashi (私), while male Shiki refers to himself as ore (俺). After waking from her coma, Shiki discovers that she can no longer feel the male Shiki's presence and assumes that he died because of the accident. She also feels a detachment from her memories before the accident, and while she knows she is Shiki, she does not feel that she is. In the hopes of regaining herself and the "dead" Shiki, she puts on a cold facade that somewhat resembles the male Shiki's and tries to act as the female Shiki did. Touko understands the sense of detachment Shiki feels, but considers the current Shiki a third, new personality.

The series is regarded as being set in the same world as another TYPE-MOON series, Tsukihime, with Aoko Aozaki's sister Touko Aozaki being featured in this series and the protagonist of the series, Shiki Ryougi, possessing the same abilities as Tsukihime's protagonist, Shiki Tohno.

(Source: Wikipedia)
Oct 1998 to Aug 1999 | 10 chp | Publishing

Honey Bitter

Obana, Miho 2024
Shuri Otokawa, a girl who can see premonitions of the future, has been trying to hide and suppress her special ability for 18 years. In order to start a new life, she joins the private investigation agency owned by her aunt, trying to use her ability in a beneficial way. However, her ex-boyfriend (and the reason of her hate towards men) Riki Nijihara was accidentally hired by her aunt as well, not to mention his superior performance as a private detective has thwarted her plan to have her aunt fired him. With another male colleague named Youta Kubo who has a crush on her, Shuri has to prove herself professionally worthy as well as dealing her office affairs triangle.

(Source: ANN)
Included one-shot:
Volume 3: Bunkai File
Dec 26, 2003 to Dec 1, 2018 | 63 chp | Publishing

Heads

Higashino, KeigoMase, Motoro 2024
Junichi Naruse, an average guy with a passion for art, decides to pursue drawing and painting again. Upon doing so, he meets and falls in love with Megumi Hamura. After they start dating and eventually make the decision to live together, Junichi visits a real estate office. However, while attempting to save a child during a robbery, he is shot in the head.

Regaining consciousness a month after the incident, Junichi's miraculous recovery is made possible by receiving a brain transplant from an unknown donor. As time passes, Junichi notices drastic changes to his personality, affecting his relationships as he struggles to maintain them. Gradually approaching the brink of insanity, he attempts to figure out the cause by determining who the donor is before losing sight of his own identity forever.

[Written by Animeranku Rewrite]
Jul 18, 2002 to Apr 24, 2003 | 36 chp | Publishing

Maya no Souretsu

Ichijo, Yukari 2024
Maya's Funeral Procession dates back to 1972; Ichijo's style is very different here, a combination of the quickly evolving shoujo style still very influenced by Osamu Tezuka's designs and of the blockier Gothic horror style reminiscent of woodcuts. The blacks are very solid, the whites are very bright; there is some stippling and cross-shading, but it all looks hand-drawn rather than screen-toned, and the panel layouts are just gorgeous.
On the way to her family's new country house, innocent young Reina notices a tall, dark, striking woman standing in the shadows. Soon, neglected by her parents, Reina falls under the spell of the mysterious Maya ... but family secrets may destroy any chance Reina has for happiness. This is one of the earliest examples of shoujo-ai (girls' love or lesbian romance) in manga and it is the kind of over-the-top Gothic melodrama that could easily be slipped into a collection by Edgar Allan Poe.
(Source: coffeeandink)
1972 | 4 chp | Publishing

Pandora Hearts

Mochizuki, Jun 2024
Reminiscent of a broken toy box, the mystical Abyss is a terrifying realm home to monstrous creatures called "Chains." Most believe it to be only a fairy tale, used to scare children who misbehave. Oz Vessalius, the cheerful and mischievous heir of the noble Vessalius family, is one such individual—until, at his coming-of-age ceremony, the mysterious Baskerville Clan arrives and condemns him to the Abyss for a sin he neither committed nor knows anything about. Oz then forms a contract with Alice, a unique Chain who can take on human form, in an attempt to escape from the Abyss.

As Oz struggles to unravel the mysteries behind his sin, the Abyss, and a tragedy from one hundred years ago, he and his companions find themselves confronted by the Baskervilles and ghosts from the past. Meanwhile, his journey back home is plagued by relentless despair.

[Written by Animeranku Rewrite]
Included one-shot:
Volume 8: Pandora Hearts (pilot)
May 18, 2006 to Mar 18, 2015 | 107 chp | Publishing

Vassalord.

Chrono, Nanae 2024
Charley, a cyborg vampire who does the Vatican's dirty work, is the thrall of the local vampire playboy Johnny Rayflo. As the two fight crime—and each other—hilarity, violence and sacrilege ensue! But can Charley resist his own desperate cravings for blood? Find out as the devilish duo go up aginst a childlike vampire princess, a mysterious branch of the Unitarian Church...and one another.

(Source: Tokyopop)
Included one-shot:
Volume 2: Zoul Half
Nov 17, 2004 to Feb 15, 2013 | 36 chp | Publishing

The Ring

Suzuki, KojiInagaki, Misao 2024
A series of mysterious murders all surround a video tape. Supposedly, anyone viewing this tape will die within 7 days. Reporter Reiko Asakawa, an aunt to one of the victims, decides to do a story on this tape. Upon viewing it however, she finds she has more to worry about than whether her boss will like her story or not...

As she begins to experience horrifying visions, she comes to realize that she has no other choice but to find a way to break this horrible curse... or die.

(Source: Dark Horse)
1998 | 9 chp | Publishing

Q.E.D.: Shoumei Shuuryou

Katou, Motohiro 2024
Touma Sou is an MIT-graduated-student who comes back to Japan because he wants to know how it feels to be a high school student.

Mizuhara Kana is a strong girl who loves sports.

Together, they are partners in solving cases that happen around them.

(Source: MU)
Jun 20, 1997 to Feb 17, 2015 | 99 chp | Publishing

Hatsukanezumi no Jikan

Toume, Kei 2024
From the time they were toddlers, Maki Takano, Ryo Arayama, Mei Sonokura, and Natsume Muroki have been locked inside a school for gifted individuals. The school enforces a strict "no going outside" policy and has a rigorous educational system. Despite the oppressive rules, the four live comfortable lives and hang on to the hope they will be guaranteed success once they graduate. However, everything changes when a new girl, Kiriko Hinatsu, shows up at the academy.

After seeing Kiriko, Maki believes to have met her before, but everyone including his friends claim to not remember her. Questioning his memory, Maki confronts Kiriko who reveals she was a former student who had escaped. She further divulges the school is an experimental facility that tests memory-altering medications and other various drugs on the students.

Now aware of the truth, Maki is asked by Kiriko to help her break out again and to come with her, but he is hesitant to take her up on her offer. Leaving means he will finally be able to go outside and see the world he had been kept away from for so long; however, he will lose the safety and opportunities he has been promised. For the sake of his future and his friends, Maki must decide what is more important: freedom in an unknown and chaotic world or comfort in a secure and restrictive cage.

[Written by Animeranku Rewrite]
Jul 15, 2004 to Feb 25, 2008 | 38 chp | Publishing

Black Bird

Sakurakouji, Kanoko 2024
Misao Harada has been able to see demons since she was a child and has vague memories of a boy who protected her from these troublesome creatures, vowing to come back for her someday. Now in high school, Misao wishes she could be normal and have a boyfriend. As she returns home one day, she notices a gorgeous stranger has moved in next door. To her surprise, he introduces himself as Kyou, her long-lost childhood friend and first love.

The next day, on her 16th birthday, Misao is suddenly wounded by a classmate. Exposed as a demon, he plans to eat her in order to gain eternal youth. When all hope seems lost, Kyou saves her, revealing himself as the leader of a Tengu clan. Since making Misao his bride will bring prosperity to his clan, he offers her a choice: sleep with him and become his bride, or endure more attacks from other demons drawn to the power of her blood.

[Written by Animeranku Rewrite]
Jul 13, 2006 to Dec 13, 2012 | 84 chp | Publishing

Shinobi no Onna

Kayono 2024
Another collection of short stories by Kayono involving strange worlds.

1. Shinobi no Onna (Secretly a Woman)
2. Butterfly Night
3. Matenrou no Koibito (Lovers in the Tower that Touches Heaven)
Feb 26, 2003 | 3 chp | Publishing