Paranormal Mystery Squad is a manga created by Adam Arnold with art by ComiPa (Vol 1), Ian Chang (Vol 2) and Micheal Shelfer (Vol 3) and licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment. It, and its sister manga, Vampire Cheerleaders, are hosted by PixieTrixComix.The Paranormal Mystery Squad is a group of three young women who hunt ‘cryptids’, i.e. monsters.The print (and e-book) versions of Volumes 1 & 2 are sold as the second half of the Vampire Cheerleaders books. Volume 3 marks the seemingly permanent merger with Vampire Cheerleaders opening with one big crossover.Now has a character page.Paranormal Mystery Squad provides the following tropes
Adorkable: Charlotte has her moments. Mostly when she's fumbling spells or referencing some old show.
All Myths Are True: In addition to classics like vampires and werewolves, there are such things as Native American Deer Women, Phoenixes, Chupacabra and what appears to be Mothman.
Cassandra Truth: Despite raising some valid points about how vampires could be disguising themselves as highschoolers, JC and Char continue to dismiss Steph's suspicions.
Description Cut: At a very public trial, the judge gives the Squad 2,000 hours of community service as punishment for various crimes. He then asks if Steph if she has anything else to say, and she clicks off the TV, since it was actually a recording of the trial.
J.C.: I can't believe you said that.
Steph: He deserved it.
J.C.: Yeah, but he doubled our hours!
Devil in Plain Sight: The Vampires of Bakertown High, who masquerade as the school's cheerleading team and student council.
Fan Convention: The Squad has to do community service in the form of an appearce at ParaCon, which are full of people who consider the crew as evil hunters.
Fantastic Racism: Steph's attitude towards all 'cryptids'. Then her sister became one.
Even more "off" due to twocrossovers with Layla. Layla evidently managed to miss the whole TV fame of her old friend and "kill all cryptids" video on YouTube, but for her obliviousness is in character. She had to talk about it with oh so polite Maria, though.
Mercy Kill: How Steph views slaying monsters that were born human. She initially plans to do this with her sister, but is talked down by JC and Charlotte.
Mismatched Eyes: Charlotte has a less noticable version with one blue and one green. There are hints that this is a halmark of her magical affinity.
Monster Wrongs Group: Steph finds herself butting heads with PETM (People for the Ethical Treatment of Monsters), who demand that ‘cryptids’ be captured alive and unharmed.
A notable subversion (especially when compared to PETA) is that PETM are well aware cryptids are dangerous and even have standard issue tasers. As Summerfield put it, they're naive, not stupid.
O'Keefe takes the entire thing to ridiculous extremes, such as refusing to let the army bomb an "innocent cryptid" who mind-controlled half the county (there are good reasons not to drop a bomb on a bunch of people, but that isn't one of them) and later gets the president to declare a Kaiju that's about to destroy the city and possibly the world an endangered species, forbidding the military from attacking. Well, the Squad is forbidden too, but they ignore it.
Near Rape Experience: The reason Mr. Campbell summoned the team to his farm not to investigate, but to be breeding stock for his son.The climax of volume one begins when the son kidnaps Katie in order to try again.
Reasonable Authority Figure: The general put in charge the incident in Volume 2 comes off sympathetic to the PMS crew, and most definitely does not like O'Keefe's presence and interference.
When they kill the Kaiju rampaging around Vegas (which O'Keefe got named an endangered species), he gets them issued a full pardon, and the 4,000 hours of community service fully commuted.
Shared Universe: With Aoi House and Vampire Cheerleaders, with Stephenie being introduced in Aoi House, and there being cameos between VC and PMS. With PMS being hosted on the same site as Eerie Cuties and Magick Chicks, there is some talk of seeing if a link is plausible between them.
A couple of guestcomics by Adam for Eerie Cuties were set in a flashback focusing on Layla and Steph as kids. Turns out it was Layla that gave Steph her hairpin saying that they (her and Steph's hairpins) come in pairs. The two strips close with Steph in the present day wondering what Layla was up to at the moment. As far as Adam is concerned, the comics are canon for Paranormal Mystery Squad.
Which, coupled with the latest comics (as of this writing), where Nina, Layla, Blair and their mother Maria make an appearance, pretty much confirms that Eerie Cuties, Magick Chicks*
by extension, since it shares the same universe as Eerie Cuties.
All of the main cast of Vampire Cheerleaders have made at least one appearance. Lori and Lesly here, Heather here, and finally Suki and Zoey here.
Volume 2 of VC had some references to events that were happening, or about to happen, in PMS. Adam has stated that Volume 3 will have a full scale crossover.
The Unfair Sex: Steph as per most of her jerkass tendencies, for example she blames the whole Katie turning into a werewolf on J.C. when really Katie had wandered off on her own. J.C, despite being a nice guy, thankfully isn't a doormat and more then willing to call her out on this.
Unusual Euphemism: You were "double-clicking your mouse," weren't you?
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: "Cryptoslaughter" has only recently been made illegal, and appears to remain a civil offense.
Van Helsing Hate Crime: Steph who believes all cryptids are evil roughly stemming what happened to her parents. Things gets complicated when her sister is turned into a werewolf and the newest member of their team is revealed to be a Dhampyr.
is a manga created by Adam Arnold with art by ComiPa (Vol 1), Ian Chang (Vol 2) and Micheal Shelfer (Vol 3) and licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment. It, and its sister manga, Vampire Cheerleaders, are hosted by Pixie Trix Comix.The Paranormal Mystery Squad is a group of three young women who hunt ‘cryptids’, i.e. monsters.The print (and e-book) versions of Volumes 1 & 2 are sold as the second half of the Vampire Cheerleaders books. Volume 3 marks the seemingly permanent merger with Vampire Cheerleaders opening with one big crossover.Now has a character page.
0 reviews