Ghost Hunt

Publisher
Tanoshimi
Writer
Fuyumi Ono, Shiho Inada
Artist
Shiho Inada
Country of origin
Japan
Year
1998

Ghost Hunt vol 1-2

By John Huxley
9th Nov 06

Considering Japan’s recent track record at producing excellent horror films that offer up some genuine scares, it’s a wonder why there’s so little anime and manga that can boast likewise. Sure, there have been some very successful entries in to the genre such as Hellsing, but they’re mostly action-centric with little in the way of chills.

Ghost Hunt - a boring name that really doesn’t do it any favours - takes an unusually realistic approach to the genre, and in the process at least attempts to scare the reader. To be honest I don’t think manga is the perfect medium for horror stories...but let’s save that for another time.

If you’ve ever seen Britain’s Most Haunted or anything with that silver haired ham Derek Acorah in it, you’ll know what to expect from Ghost Hunt. The story opens in a typical Japanese high school (you’ll see a lot of these in Ghost Hunt...can you guess its target audience?) which has been home to a few too many tales of ghostly goings-on of late. So the principal, in a highly plausible turn of events, hires the unique talents of the SPR (Shibuya Psychic Research) team. Comprised of a rag-tag group of monks, psychics and ghost-busting priests called John, SPR sets about solving the mystery headed by its uncompromising and astonishingly confident young leader, Kazuya Shibuya. He’s a hit with the local girls too, as Mai Taniyama soon finds out despite her better judgement. Dubbing him Naru for his narcissistic attitude, their paths cross for good when she brings down a heap of expensive equipment with no way to pay the damages except work for SPR. And once they’ve solved the bizarre case at Mai’s school, her good work is rewarded with an offer of a part-time job assisting Naru and his team.

And so her adventures in the world of the paranormal begin. The story is told mostly from Mai’s perspective, which not only lends the narrative a more human touch, it’s also a handy way of explaining all the technical jargon they use throughout the pages of Ghost Hunt, as Mai is just as lost as ourselves when it comes to ESP, PSI and ESR (OK...I made that last one up).

In the two volumes I’ve read so far, each individual story arc has followed a rather set formula. In a kind of supernatural twist on the detective genre, it’s up to Naru and his team to discover the cause behind each haunting and do what’s necessary to prevent it from happening again. It’s the detective work behind this that really drives the narrative, as Mai aides Naru and his team in searching for clues and researching the background to each case. Much like Detective Conan, trying to second guess the outcome is all part and parcel of Ghost Hunt’s charm. And it’s not just the old Indian burial ground tact here - the writers (Ghost Hunt is based on a series of popular Japanese teen novels, apparently) give us plenty of variation from disgruntled psychics to the totally staged.

But herein lies Ghost Hunt’s downfall. Bar a few side stories and Mai’s ongoing relationship with Naru, Ghost Hunt spends far too much time on the ghosts and not nearly enough developing its characters. Apart from Mai, who takes up most of the page space, the majority of the cast feel like bit-part players. And having a central character so dour and featureless as Naru doesn’t help any, although I do hope the few hints dropped so far that there’s more to his personality continue to develop in to something more substantial. His relationship with Mai could be the key to Ghost Hunt’s success, but on the strength of the evidence shown so far, I wouldn’t hold out much hope.

In the end, despite its interesting slant on the genre, Ghost Hunt doesn’t do enough to really impress. Without trying to be cruel, in retrospect it reads exactly as if it were based on a series of average teen novels. The horror theme, the school girl protagonist, the shoe-horned romance - you could easily imagine it as a trite teen novel. To be fair it does show a little more potential than that, and I hope future volumes can prove me wrong. Yet in the meantime I wouldn’t really recommend investing in Ghost Hunt unless you’re taken by the concept for whatever reason. It might not cover all the same bases, but Serial Experiment Lain or Boogiepop Phantom should serve you better. There’s even a Boogiepop Phantom novel printed in English, so that might be worth a punt.

-- John Huxley 9th Nov 06