Do you know the number of people who go missing in Japan every year?
It's in the thousands.
50% of them are those who, crushed by debt, had no choice but to vanish and live their lives in the shadows, holding their breath. Well, in this prolonged recession, it’s hardly a surprise.
26% are those who met their end in accidents or other unforeseen circumstances, leaving them unidentified—reduced to nothing more than a scrap of paper in a police file.
20% are the losers in the struggle for survival, caught up in kidnappings, murders, or yakuza turf wars. In short, they’ve either been called to God and returned to the earth, or ended up as fish food.
The real problem is the remaining 4%...
These are the people consumed by "Yokai," or those who have offered their own bodies and souls to them.
Yokai are troublesome demons. They feed on the bodies of human men and crave the vitality of young women.
During the bubble era, many buildings were constructed, and the Yokai that had been sealed away within sacred trees—trees that were cut down for this development—have been resurrected in modern-day Japan.
It wouldn’t be strange at all if a tragedy involving many more people were to occur at any moment...
* * *
I am Ginga Hoshino. I am an exorcist who sends these Yokai back to the darkness.
On a sweltering day, filled with the buzzing of cicadas, the phone rings in my office—which also happens to be my home. It is a desperate plea for help from my cousin, Kaoru Kashihara.
To rescue the young girls trapped in a Western-style mansion where it is believed a Yokai was once sealed away, I slam my foot down on the accelerator of my car and head out...
[Translated from the
official website]
