Publisher: Seven Seas
Volumes: 4/4 (Complete), In Print
Shoujo (reads like), Yaoi Interest
Genre: Yokai, Supernatural, Fighting
Summary: Hiiragi thought he had no family left in the world, but on her deathbed, his mother told him that he had an older half-brother, Karasu. He goes to the Pet Shop that Karasu owns to meet him, only to discover the Pet Shop that seems to sell exotic animals is actually just a front for an even rarer service- a Yokai Rental Shop! For an exorbitant sum of money, a customer can rent a yokai to grant any wish. At first Hiiragi is determined to shut down this dangerous scam, but soon is swept up in Karasu’s plan to get revenge on their father- who is still alive!
Review: This is such a strange manga that mixes and matches several genres, I barely know where to start. I expected this manga to be more like the mangaka’s other most popular work, Nightmare Inspector, which is a series of mostly short stories around the theme of helping customers with their nightmares. The beginning of Yokai Rental Shop series was very similar at first, starting off with 4 short stories around the theme of “being careful of what you wish for.” These stories were enjoyable cautionary tales and I loved the Yokai, which are drawn differently in a Japanese brush painting inspired style. Yokai inspired stories can be so fun, they’re fascinating, often intelligent monsters/spirits that can be good, evil or anywhere in between and they have bizarre special abilities.
But partway through the second volume, the story takes a sharp turn and changes its focus to the two half brothers as they try to rescue a young girl who was kidnapped by their father to be his bride. While there are a few more Yokai that are featured in the later volumes, the plot gets hijacked into being about the father of the two brothers. It becomes a story about two half-human, half-yokai brothers rebelling against their powerful and cruel father, who seeks to breed the ultimate half-human, half-yokai hybrid to survive climate change, funnily enough.
While I thought the rebellion plot itself was sort of interesting, I was disappointed that from that point on the Yokai become helpless pawns in the struggle between the brothers and their father, and are no longer the focus of the story.
But the thing that bothered me the most is how this manga mashes up Shoujo, Shounen and Yaoi and somehow creates a manga that won’t please many readers at all. The artstyle is very Shoujo, the main characters are all very feminine pretty boys, including even their Father. But it lacks the introspection, character development and the focus on the feelings and the relationships of the characters like Shoujo has. And while there’s plenty of fighting like a Shounen manga, yet it lacks the strategy and determination like Shounen manga has. And finally while there’s a lot of Boy’s Love subtext enough to make those who like to ship characters together happy, it’s not actually a Yaoi romance. Even if it’s got two pretty boys who would die for each other and sometimes tearfully hug, and swear to be there for each other, it’s all technically non-romantic, which is honestly weird.
If you've read this far, and you're not put off from reading it and want to know how the ending was, it was fine. For Shoujo I would say it's a normal happy ending. I enjoyed it but wished there was more to it.
Recommended: TLDR; All in all fans of Nightmare Inspector are probably going to be disappointed that this is totally different. Shoujo and/or Yaoi readers might find something of interest in this beautifully illustrated manga about two half-brothers rebelling against their cruel, powerful father, but it’s lack of romance may be a turn off.
Age Rating: PG13: lots of blood, some violence but very little gore.
Other Works by this Mangaka: Nightmare Inspector (Shoujo, reads like)
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