Sensei and Me, Second Half comments

(Image from amazon.co.jp, used for review purposes only.)

Sensei to Watashi (Sensei and Me), Second Half, by Yousuke Takahashi, Grade A
I reviewed the first half of this series back in April. Both books came out at the same time, but they're kind of expensive ($12 USD each), and I hesitated buying both at the time. But, I did like the first one and had been considering getting the second volume for some weeks now. The kicker came in the form of Japan's really badly thought-out sales tax increase which went into effect on Oct. 1st. I figured that if I was going to get it, I'd do it when the sales tax was at 8%, rather than wait until it hiked to 10%.

As a recap, the story revolves around a young boy who has one big eye, and a horn in the middle of his forehead. He started out unnamed, and his mother wanted to get rid of him because of the eye and horn thing, so she took him to a priest that controls spirits by writing commands or drawing pictures in ink on paper. The priest, later identified as Mumyou (no name) Sensei, touched the boy on the head and two demons flew out, turning him back to normal. The boy gets named "Muten," and becomes Mumyou's student, responsible for feeding the drowned dead and demons, in the backyard gardens, and occasionally fighting off the collected energies of people's hate and anger.

The stories in the second book are still semi-comical black-humored ghost tales, but Mumyou's family becomes less of a factor, and are replaced more by unrelated individuals at the hearts of various mysteries, such as in the Tale of the Sleeping Wife, and The Hand-Eye Bar. With Sleeping Wife, a woman lives in a house surrounded by mist, with her beloved husband. They enjoy their time together, and have the occasional married-couple sex. One day, a strange man appears at the house and tries to drag the woman out. He's assisted by Muten and Mumyou, who show that her "husband" is really a monster living in her dreams. When she wakes up, she's told by her actual husband that she'd been in an accident that put her in a coma, and that something had been preventing her from recovering from it. The real husband had asked Mumyou to help rescue her. The problem is, the woman's parents had arranged her marriage to this guy, and she never actually liked him. From here on out, she occasionally takes naps during the day as "an escape."

There's a bar that exists between the worlds of humans and ghosts, called the Eye in the Hand Bar. One patron, a dirty old alcoholic, has staked out a stool at the counter, to escape his beautiful, but angry wife. The wife asks Mumyou for help in bringing her husband back to the real world so they can do that husband and wife thing together. Mumyou and Muten drag the guy out of the bar, fighting evil spirits along the way. A little later, the wife is looking for the old man, frustrated that he'd gotten away again without drinking his poison. The guy appears behind her, saying that yes, he knew she was slowly poisoning him to collect on his will. But, he'd been at the ghost bar so long, he's turned into a monster himself. The woman sees the tentacles and runs screaming from the house. Back at the Bar, the owner, Mumyou and Muten have a good laugh with the old man (the name of the bar comes from the fact that the owner, another beautiful woman, is a magic user that has a big eye in the palm of her hand).

Towards the middle of the book, we get a slightly different story, of a woman that falls in love with Mumyou and has his baby. Then, Mumyou turns into a mud monster and dies, as the woman professes her undying love for him. Turns out, the woman had gone to Mumyou for help, and he had used his reflection in the garden pond to create a copy of himself to protect her in his place. The woman fell in love with the reflection, and somehow, unexpectedly, had gotten pregnant. Later, we learn that her child is Muten. The series ends with a 70-year-old (or so) version of Muten living with his wife, and preparing to to die. He'd learned how to perform exorcisms and fight monsters from Mumyou, and continued to do that for a while. But, as he became a young adult, he decided to give all of that up and lived a normal human life. His wife (we never learn anything about her), sits by his side as he passes away. Muten's spirit finds Mumyou's home, and he becomes a small boy again. Mumyou acts surprised - he wasn't expecting Muten to return for another hundred years or so, but the boy is happy to be back where he belongs, fighting Mumyou's evil sister.

The last 2 chapters of the book are titled "Maid's Diary." Nayuko is a young woman that is forced to find work wherever she can get it. She's hired by a family of monsters that harasses her, and keeps creeping her out all the time. But, she can't quit the job because "she has to feed her mother." One night, after making a mountain of rice balls in the family's kitchen, Nayuko brings the rice balls to her room, takes off her uniform and feeds the rice balls to a hungry old woman's face that is attached to her breast. A neighboring female version of Mumyou sees this, and uses her priest powers to free the girl of the face (Nayuko's deceased mother's spirit). Nayuko starts shouting about finally being free, turns into a giant tiger demon (think - "Lum-chan") and proceeds to destroy the house. The female Mumyou puts the face (a sealing rune) back on her chest, and Nayuko becomes a normal-sized girl again, forced to work to feed her mother. The second story is equally silly.

Summary: These stories originally ran in Manga Grim Stories magazine from 2018 to 2019. (Maid's Diary ran in 2017.) Great, great artwork, interesting stories. Muten's life is a bit convoluted, but he's a sincere kid in spite of it. The books are on the pricey side, but still recommended to anyone that likes Japanese horror.