Mai, the Psychic Girl

Mai, the Psychic Girl was one of the first manga titles that Eclipse Comics (co-published with Viz Comics) began to publish in 1998. It was hoped that this title would appeal to young women and help boost sales. The comic was sold in monthly installments with each issue containing the industry-norm of 32 pages. Early issues had pages with mild nudity removed or edited to not offend the target audience. As the series progressed, the amount of editing was reduced. The unaltered original artwork was used when the series was collected into graphic novel form.



Mai is a typical 14 year-old Japanese girl who has developing telekenetic powers. She lives with her father (her mother is dead) and is content to use her powers for practical jokes. However, in the Swiss Alps, there is a secret organization known as the Wisdom Alliance whose mandate is to locate people with telekenetic ability as use them as weapons to enslave the world. Through their monitoring program, they have identified 5 children with exceptional telekenetic potential: Baion Yuwon from Mongolia, David Perry from the United States, Turm Garten from Germany, Grall Hong from Vietnam, and Mai Kuju from Japan. Surveillance programs are initiated on each of the children.



Mai is the only one of the five children that realizes she is being watched. She tells her father about the men and she is taken away into hiding. The leader of the Wisdom Alliance orders that she is to be taken into custody. The fact that she has detected the surveillance is a good sign of her abilities. While in hiding, Mai grows lonely and bored. She calls her high school friends and the call is intercepted and traced to her location. As she and her father try to escape, they are confronted by a white-haired martial arts master, Senzo Kaieda. Her father is defeated and as Kaeida prepares to deliver the killing blow, Mai's power comes into sharp focus and she delivers a strong beam of energy at Kaeida which disables him. Mai and her father are able to escape.

Mai and her father escape to the countryside to a villiage where her mother was raised. The village elder tells Mai about her lineage. Each woman in her family has been born with this ability, the ability to protect this village from harm. Knowing much about Mai and her descendants, it is not long berfore Kaeida and his men arrive. Attempting to escape along a mountain pass, Mai's father falls over the edge during a confrontation. When she reaches safety at the other side of the pass, she befriends a young college student, Intetsu, who takes him with her into the city.



Scared (and lonely), Mai explores her neighborhood where she finds a stray dog that is in danger of being hit by a car. Reflexively, her powers react to throw the cars out of the way to protect the dog. The damage done is severe and she is shocked with what she has done. Her powers are increasing dramatically. Returning to the college dorm room, that serves as her new hiding place, Mai is visibly shaken. She demonstrates her abilities to a stunned Intetsu and his room mates. Intetsu and his friends do some investigating into Kaeida and they discover the magnitude of the danger they are in. Intetsu and Mai leave the dorm and go into hiding. Fearing the danger she is putting Intetsu in, she slips out during the night and returns to her home where she is picked up by Kaeida. Assuming Mai's father has information that made him fear the Wisdom Alliance, Kaeida takes Mai under his protection and refuses to turn her over to the organization.



Not able to reach Mai while under Kaeida's protection, the Wisdom Alliance enlists the help of another of the 5 children - Turm Garten - to bring Mai in. Using her father as bait (he survived the cliff fall), a trap is set for Mai. Instead of following her orders to capture Mai, Turm tries to eliminate her competition. A fierce series of battles ensue which ultimately ends in Turm's death. Mai's father recovers and is able to explain the Wisdom Alliance's masterplan: to annihilate the human race and replace it with a new race of psychics.



The alliance recruits the remaining 3 boys being watched and they are sent after Mai. The two boys who remain loyal to the Wisdom Alliance are killed when Mai's powers manifest themselves to their fullest. The Wisdom Alliance's plan is thwarted... at least for now. Mai is able to return to her "normal life"...until her powers are needed again.