When your sister-in-law cleans out her bookshelves, you get free books! Here is #3.

Dear Rumiko Takahashi, it’s nice to meet your stories again. I like them so much :)

The premise here is very similar to Rin-Ne : a girl who takes no nonsense from anyone meets a boy who needs to work on his social skills a bit. The boy has special powers and fights ghosts and demons.

The story here is more mysterious and creepy (if you think the idea of cat demon sounds cute, think again). There is no silliness or banter (yet?).

Mao is a cursed exorcist, and when he is not busy exorcising he is a yokai doctor (awww!). Nanoka is tougher than she realizes. She has a horrific backstory – was the accident that killed her parents truly an accident? And what kind of connection do Nanoka and Mao have? Is it possible they share the same curse?

I liked how Nanoka travelled back in time to a parallel universe, and almost without batting an eye, started helping Mao defeat demons. Because why wouldn’t you?

Here is Mao, confronting a demon:

“Shall we join him, Miss Nanoka?”
“Sure.”

That spider lady was *very* scary, I hope I won’t dream of her tonight. *Shudder.* Nanoka saved the day, though. I wonder how on earth Mao had managed without her before? ;)

This first volume is very promising, shaping up to be a cool and scary series with adorable characters. It’s a pity I don’t have more volumes right now…

P.S. For the curious, here are other books from my sister-in-law’s bookshelf:

#1 Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me

#2 Palimpsest ( )

A perfectly decent juvenile fantasy by Rumiko Takahashi. It's one of those basic things, where an orphan, Nanoka Kiba, discovers she has hidden powers and stumbles into the quest of a grim man named Mao whose origin may be tied to hers. Together, they're detectives! Various supernatural beings pop up regularly to be fought, vanquished, or befriended.

Again, it's not bad, but I just can't find any enthusiasm inside me to continue with the series. ( )

I received a copy of this book for free for promotional purposes.

This was such a good start to the series!

I haven’t read a manga in a long time so it was nice to finally be able to read one again. I haven’t read anything from Rumiko Takahashi, so I can’t say how this compares to her other books.

The art style is very simple, but classic. There’s something a little old school and retro about it that I liked.

As for the storyline, I was very intrigued by it. It’s fast paced and there’s a lot of mystery and fantasy action and adventure that kept me turning the pages.

Overall, I really enjoyed this volume and am excited to read the next installment and see how the rest of the story unfolds. ( )