Not all stories in COSMOS have to be about solving a mystery or defeating an evil alien entity. Sometimes a good story can come around whenever Kaede and Rin check up on someone. That someone in Volume Six of COSMOS just so happens to be Rin’s surrogate aunts, who are also twin manga creators. Oh, and they’ve got Benjamin Button Syndrome too.

The two-parter “The Youthing Process” focuses on the aunts, Imuri and Amuri. For a while, they’ve been aging backwards at the same rate, whilst spending the last fifty years penning a popular manga series. However, Amuri has suddenly sped up in the backwards aging process, now being at the age of an elementary school student. And not long after, Imuri starts to follow her sister’s quick aging, as they race against time to finish the final volume of their series.

In its odd fashion, COSMOS showcases how one should never take time for granted. This is a pair of twins who’ve stuck by one another for a very long time, seeing and experiencing as much as they could in their 90+ years of living. But now that their time on Earth is coming to an end, they try their best to finish their work and leave behind an untouchable legacy. And when the time comes for both sisters to depart the land of the living, it’s captured in a heartbreaking manner.

Thankfully, things lighten up when COSMOS’s best gyaru Kurogane takes center stage in “The Town That Vanished Off the Map”. Her work takes her into the countryside, where tiny one-eyed monsters take refuge in human vessels. When the mayor passes away, and his will leaves everything to his young grandson, Yosuke. This all leads to a plethora of in-family fighting, confusion, and more murder than a Benoit Blanc mystery. However, even after all the silliness commences, the story leaves one final creepy twist towards the end of this tale.

Part One of “Pinched” wraps up the sixth volume, where crabs are being traded black market style. When a deal goes south, a robot with a Space Adventure Cobra-like hand pistol goes wild in the American backdrop. It sets everything up for what is surely to be a literal crazy train ride that’s close to going off the rails. But knowing the COSMOS team, a way to save the day is surely in somebody’s back pocket.

COSMOS delivers a lot of heart in the first half of Volume Six. How it treats mortality in an odd-yet-respectful way is commendable, as it shows the range of Ruyhei Tamura’s writing. Thankfully, when it gets silly again in the second half, it shows that the manga author hasn’t lost his comedic footing. The question is, will he be able to stumble out of a bad runway train scenario?

Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media.