The Spring 2017 Manga Guide

Ghost Diary Vol. 1

What's It About? 

Kyouichi Sakami is the second child of an exorcist family, and his older sister Hanaichi is who he wants to become. Hanaichi's incredibly skilled, and while she's willing to teach her little brother, she'll also do anything to keep him safe. That takes a dark turn when Kyouichi is in the fifth grade: he and his friends have formed an “Occult Club” that investigates Ghost Stories and urban legends, and when one of their adventures goes wrong, Kyouichi angers a god. Hanaichi trades her life for his, leaving behind only the monster guide she was working on for her brother, the Ghost Diary. Now six years later, Kyouichi and his club friends are still determined to find a way to bring Hanaichi back. “Helped” by a reaper named Chloe Kowloon, who believes that completing the Ghost Diary is the answer to both her lost memories and Hanaichi's return, Kyouichi embarks on a journey of urban legends and ghosts in the hopes of reuniting with his long-lost sister. Ghost Diary is an original manga by Seiju Natsumegu. The first volume was released in April by Seven Seas for $12.99.

Is It Worth Reading?

Amy McNulty

Rating: 2

Ghost Diary takes an intriguing if somewhat overdone premise and manages to punctuate an adept execution of said premise with enough cringe-worthy moments to make reading the first volume a chore. There's the uncomfortable quasi-incestual relationship between protagonist Kyouichi Sukami and his older sister, Hanaichi, complete with on-the-mouth kisses, although sibling relationships aren't terribly uncommon in anime and manga to begin with. Then there's Chloe Kowloon, a beautiful but highly irritating reaper who joins Kyouichi on his quest to complete the Ghost Diary to find his sister. Her callousness toward Kyouichi's human attachments to his friends and her initial introduction as a foe he faces down adds some tension to the proceedings, but Chloe insists on swapping every “you” for “toi” and every “me” or “I” for “moi” (incorrectly using the object French words for both object and subject pronouns) in dialogue that would put Miss Piggy to shame. It gets so abrasive at times, her appearances throughout the volume become a source of displeasure. Then there's the near-rape scene at the end—made even more uncomfortable with the circumstances leading up to it and the menace and malice put into the scene. Yes, it's a horror story, but the scene is more gratuitous than necessary.

Uncomfortable elements aside, there are few characters to root for in this first volume. They're either unlikable, and not in a fun-to-read-about kind of way (like Chloe and Kyouichi's tsundere-ish friend Mayumi Kaguyadou—and even Hanaichi to a point) or bland and one-dimensional, like the rest of the Occult Club members and Kyouichi himself. The Occult Club is largely window dressing, and despite the wackiness the club president especially engages in, the supposedly close friendships between the members that's lasted for over six years just doesn't come across on the page. If there's one plot element that remains compelling, it's Hanaichi's disappearance—although the reader sees why she vanishes, while the other characters remain unaware—and the mystery behind her continued activity in the paranormal realm.

Natsumegu's art style is pleasant to look at, and the full-color opening pages are especially beautiful with violets and blues lending a spooky atmosphere to this world of paranormal activity and exorcists. The character designs aren't particularly unique, though, and even seem a touch too reminiscent of latter Clamp manga, xxxHOLiC in particular. Ghost Diary volume 1 isn't without merit entirely, but it's just bland and discomfiting enough that there's little to recommend picking up the next volume.

Rebecca Silverman

Rating: 2 

I really want to like Ghost Diary more than I did, if only because Seiju Natsumegu is so darn excited to have written it. He's clearly in love with his story and characters and thrilled to be able to use influences that mean a lot to him (mostly horror games at this point; I do like that he makes it a point to list what inspires him), and his excitement is contagious.

It's just too bad that the manga itself isn't that great.

Mostly the problem here is that Ghost Diary is all over the place. Beginning when protagonist Kyouichi is in the fifth grade is fine, and actually does a great job of setting the stage for the main story, which is trying to find his missing older sister Hanaichi. (We readers know what happened to her, but Kyouichi was unconscious when the Nameless God spirited her away.) Natsumegu does a good job with the actual events, and that's true for most of the book – when it counts, the story and art work together to keep things tight and at least a little bit scary. But when it counts less, or rather, when the characters are getting to where they need to be for the story to move along or they're just hanging out being their slightly-too-wacky selves, things stagnate. There's nothing particularly unique about any of the players to make following their daily lives fun, which leads to the feeling that we're getting information that we don't need (Saeki's a womanizer! Kukuri's teddy bear talks!) at the expense of more pertinent details, like why Chloe waited six years to find Kyouichi or how the Phantom Macaron actually made the transition from human to, well, giant macaron. It basically feels as if the author hasn't quite figured out what makes up the 80% more a creator has to know about their story than the reader does, which makes our 20% a little patchy.

Given that this is the creator's first series, that makes a certain amount of sense, and there is a definite sense that given the chance, this series will improve. As I said before, when it really counts, Natsumegu can pull it off, and the chapters about the Phantom Macaron and the Amusement Park Killer are both pretty good, with both of their reveals not pulling any punches. Panels do tend to be too crowded and not flow easily, but the art is competent with some nice touches, such as Chloe's human-headed bird. It'll be worth reading, or at least glancing over, volume two when it comes out to see if this does start to fix some of its issues.

Nik Freeman

Rating: 1.5

There are a lot of manga that use the premise of exorcising evil spirits, so it can be very difficult for such a series to stand out from the pack. Ghost Diary attempts to achieve this with an emphasis on horror elements, with mixed results. Some of the spirits have appropriately creepy appearances and methods, with probably the most effective being Phantom Macaron. But like a lot of bad horror, it is frequently overly reliant on shock value, using body mutilation and thrown-around rape elements in order to get a reaction. The manga is festooned with fan service, and beyond a few involving Chloe which are played for laughs, most examples are in poor taste due to the aforementioned rape elements. It seems as though there's no situation where Natsumegu deems it inappropriate to throw in a bit of titillation. It's pretty difficult to get emotionally invested in the story when, in the scene that establishes the dramatic hook for the entire series, Hanaichi strikes a sexy pose on literally the same page she is spirited away from her brother.

There are some interesting ideas in Ghost Diary that tend to get drowned out by its flaws. The emphasis on trickery and evolving techniques over straightforward and traditional methods of exorcism is a nice touch, as is the ambivalent relationship between Kyouichi and Chloe. Really Chloe's one redeeming quality is that she goes behind Kyouichi's back to do all the dirty work that he's unwilling to. When she's not being the cold-hearted realist between the two, she's a constantly annoying presence with one of the most aggravating verbal tics I've recently encountered in a manga. It's also strange how reluctant the manga seems to be to have Hanaichi be absent. Between Chloe regularly assuming her form, Kyouichi dressing in drag, and various flashbacks, not a single chapter goes by where Hanaichi doesn't make an appearance in some manner. An occasional flashback would be enough to emphasize her influence on Kyouichi and his friends, but as is, Natsumegu seems afraid that Hanaichi will be easily forgotten. For a plot built around her disappearance, she never feels like she's missing.

There's no quality worth recommending Ghost Diary on. It's too dependent on appealing to the lowest common denominator, which adds a seedy quality to any creepy feeling it successfully conjures. The premise has been done and the characters aren't well-written or unique. There are simply too many better, similar manga to make reading it worthwhile.