Muhyo to Rouji is a Shounen Jump manga released between 2004 and 2008 that, weirdly enough, only got an anime adaptation in 2018 that actually slipped under my radar. I first heard of it back when I was playing Jump Ultimate Stars, and the connection with Nougami Neuro both in atmosphere and time made me curious about it, but I never really did give it a read until now.

The plot is simple: Muhyo, the executioner, and Rouji, his assistant, work together to exorcise spirits that may be lost in this world and causing problems. For this, they use magic laws, and their respective sentences, that the ghosts may have broken. It sounds like an episodic style manga and it does start like that. For the first couple chapters we get to follow our two leads as they are asked by people to exorcise certain ghosts. It really helps to set the tone for this series. The cute, round and bubbly art may look like it doesn't fit with the theme, but when the ghosts and envoys appear, they look gorgeous and downright creepy at times. Plus, it's interesting to see the ghost's past and such. Since all ghosts have reasons to do what they do, we often have some heart breaking stories to follow in the chapters.

It doesn't take long for the actual story to start though. Soon we get to meet the rest of our core cast and our main villain, Enchu, an old friend of Muhyo. And from there on out our manga turns more into a traditional battle manga series, and while the actual story and characters are interesting enough to make the change work, the battles themselves are never really the reason to read this one. The magic laws are used basically as attacks with pacts with envoys, which are the creatures that carry out the sentences asked by the executors. The envoys are varied and great, ranging from humans to animals to bizarre lovecraftian creatures, and they're appearances are some of the best parts of this manga, leaving us with great double spreads.

But visuals apart, there really isn't much battle to have, generally when Muhyo sends an envoy that's the end of the battle. And the fact that some of the executors (mainly our main character) have a supply of almost infinite number of envoys, you never really get a sense of strategy or thinking in the battle. Plus, the power system isn't really deep nor it does seem to follow any logic that we, readers, can follow. You can kinda tell that some envoys are stronger than others, but you're not really given much information about each's strength, nor how can someone get stronger or weaker. Things just kinda "are" and you accept it. And since Muhyo, with some exceptions, always calls different envoys, you don't really get any attachment to any of them.

While I'm pointing negatives, might as well tell you the other one. Personally, this one didn't bugged me much, but character growth is almost non-existent between our characters. There's some power level growth within Muhyo that you know happened but can't really tell, but other than that, most characters are very much the same from start to end.
With that said, the characters work as they are, and that's why the lack of growth isn't that detrimental to this series as it could have been. I feel that what hurts the most is the lack of power growth in Rouji, because we're teased about it a lot, but you never really get that big moment for him.

The story itself is great though, and one thing that I really enjoy is that it establishes a villain and a plot and everything else expands from there, with every arc being about getting closer to him in some way. It all culminates in a final battle that, rather than going for epic fights, goes into an intense battle against the clock. While I'm a fan of some manga that follow a arc by arc basis, I am a bigger fan of those that follow the pattern of Muhyo to Rouji since it helps it feel more solid and flow better. It all wraps up real nicely by the end of volume 15. Which is when I realized that I still got 3 volumes to go. I felt a bit of a disappointment and fear, but I pushed through the same.

We are back at episodic chapters for a while before we kick into a short and final arc. This arc isn't necessarily bad and it does lead to some explanations of things about Muhyo and Rouji that weren't explained before, but it really has no reason to be the final arc, and it would fit much better as something happening in the middle to later part of the manga, before the battle with Enchu and Co. Thankfully, the manga ends with a few chapters to wrap things up between Rouji and Muhyo an emotional and satisfying end to the whole thing.

In the end, this manga isn't perfect, by any means, but it's a solid battle manga that has been incredibly underappreciated and is sure to satisfy and entertain the fans of the genre.