Ghost Hunt

Mai is an ordinary Japanese school girl who gets wrapped up with a team of paranormal investigators led by a young man named Shibuya. The team tries to use scientific means to investigate hauntings and other forms of psychic phenomena. While the team does try to break the actual investigating into scientific terminology and uses tools like heat sensing cameras the actual getting rid of ghosts is usually done by the rest of the team: a monk, a Shinto priestess, and a catholic priest. This is an area that seems a little sketchy since they seem to be trying so hard to prove how ghosts and psychic powers could exist scientifically but don't do much to explain how the counter powers exist. It seems to be just inborn or inherent to certain people. Another thing that got me was how the Catholic priest is basically 16 years old, I'm pretty sure you need an advanced degree in Theology for that.

Some of the things I liked about this series is how very Japanese it can be when it focuses on old legends and ghost stories. It also has a section in the back where it explains things in depth for none Japanese readers. It's based on a novel so the character building is slow but also pretty deep in comparison to other series. There are many mysteries between the group members, mainly focusing on Shibuya and his assistant Lin.

While some of the stuff that happens in this book is a little dark it's no darker than your usual mystery. People do die, sometimes a little graphically but it's usually integral to the story line. It also has a romance sub plot, although that's pretty light and only seems to feature when the action isn't heavy. All in all I enjoyed this series, and I think it's the first mystery series I've read. Pick it up for it's uniqueness, or because you want to add a new genera to your manga collection, or just because it's cool.