For this week’s installment, I’ll take a good look at Ghost Hunt, with
art by Shiho Inada and story by novelist Fuyumi Ono. Before I get into the story, I should point out the following important fact about the
story: Ghost Hunt had a previous incarnation as a series of novels, called the Akuryou Series, that were also written by Fuyumi Ono.

Story

Mai Taniyama is your normal Japanese school girl. At least she was, until she met Kazuya Shibuya, a 17-year-old paranormal reseacher, only a year older then Mai herself. Of course, things get a little weird after their meeting, when what seems to be a poltergiest starts to make its presence known in the old haunted school building not far from Mai’s own school.

After Mai gets hired on a temporary basis to pay off a camera that she broke, she meets a miko, a monk, a TV celebrity medium, and a
nineteen-year old American priest. Such a strange crew to be gathered; however, they’ve come together to get rid of the alleged ghosts in the building so that it can be demolished for good. That doesn’t sound so bad. However, when classmate Kuroda gets involved, things escalate to deadly proportions.

The story reads pretty smoothly, save for one area in the begining. It’s read like this according to word bubbles (page 4) :

“…After a few moments she heard a scary voice asking her… “Shall I put the red veil over your face…?”

“He pushed open the door and rushed in to find… The woman said yes and suddenly the police officer heard a loud scream.”

Reading that looks a bit awkward, doesn’t it? I’m inclined to believe
that the translations got a bit backwards, and were placed in the wrong bubbles. It should probably be read as follows:

“…After a few moments she heard a scary voice asking her… “Shall I put the red veil over your face…?” The woman said yes and suddenly the police officer heard a loud scream.”
“He pushed open the door and rushed in to find…”

This is the first time I’ve come across such an obvious printing error in a Del Rey-published manga. They’re usually pretty good about placing the dialogue in the right bubbles so as to be read smootly and quickly.

Art
Shiho Inada’s art is pleasant and works well with the given story genre.
She utalizes frequent facial expresions in the case of Mai Taniyama, when expressing her thoughts to herself in regards to Shibuya. However I will note my initial reaction to seeing Mai for the first time. I took one look and was immediately reminded of Hitomi from the Vision of Escaflowne TV series, and was also taken aback by how similar Shibuya looked like an older and far more serious Van, also from the Vision of Escaflowne TV series.

 
Anime Vs Manga
Yes, I watched the anime Ghost Hunt too. It happened just recently on a sleepless night. Considering that I only have Volume One of the manga, and there are 25 episodes of the Ghost Hunt anime, I have almost certainly spoiled myself with all things paranormal in this series.

However, the only noteworthy comparisons I can make are this. “There are Many Spirits” is in four parts. So that’s four episodes of Ghost Hunt that come right out of the volume one Manga. Pretty spot on, and some images seem to jump to life as if right out of the manga. That is probably to be expected, as even Naruto got this treatment when it became an anime.
There is one noteworthy diffrence with Mai Taniyama’s character design, though. On the cover of Ghost Hunt Volume One, her hair is somewhat lighter, which is what made me think of Hitomi from Escaflowne; however, in the anime she has much darker hair. It doesn’t detract from the anime however, and it will in fact please the anime fan.

Other Information
* Volume Two of the Ghost Hunt manga is already avalible.
* In 1997 there was a Japanese radio drama based off the original novel.
*On October 31, FUNimation licensed the rights to release the 25-episode anime on DVD. The first volume is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2008.

If you liked that, try...

1. Caldi’s Manga Beat 01: What’s New in the Manga Pile.
2. Manga Beat 04: Whats new in the manga Pile? Dramacon By Svetlana Chmakova!
3. Caldi’s Manga Beat 02: What’s not so new in the Manga Pile.
4. Manga Beat 09: Zombie Powder, Vols. 1-2.
5. Manga Beat 08: Angel Sanctuary Vol 1.

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