Sometimes a series' greatest detriment is the very character meant to be our window into its world. That's one hundred percent the case with A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School!. Protagonist Haruaki Abe is the worst thing about the twenty-four-episode show. Not only is he screechy and whiny, he's also got a uniform fetish that the plot tries desperately to play off for laughs. Although he does improve as the series goes on, the show itself gets better despite Haruaki, not because of, or alongside, him.

And it does get better. After a rough opening essay, Ghoul School improves once it's established the kids in Haruaki's class and gets into their yokai characteristics and why those don't render them inhuman. The main student the story interacts with is Sano, a yakubyougami, or god of misfortune, who essentially functions as the show's deuteragonist. Sano is the voice of reason in the cast, and he and Haruaki play off each other almost like a traditional manzai duo…to the point where you could be forgiven for wondering if there isn't a stealth BL subplot going on. While that would be distasteful to some viewers (they are teacher and student, after all), Haruaki rarely acts like an adult, something meant to be part of the humor. But more importantly, Sano grounds Haruaki, keeping him on task and providing information about his classmates and the other teachers so that the plot can move forward.

The series is at its best when the focus is on the students or the strange events at their school, and it manages some surprisingly touching storylines throughout its run. The plotline that makes up the finale, involving hitotsume-kozou (cyclops) Rensuke Nyuudou's past, is genuinely emotional and explores some of the lore behind how yokai and humans interact in the story's world. While Haruaki is revealed relatively early on to be a descendant of Heian era onmyouji Abe no Seimei (and most of his students call him by the nickname Seimei, an alternate reading of the characters that make up his name), this only becomes a major focus in the back half of the series. In part, this is because that's how long it takes him to master his exorcism power, but it also catalyzes Nyuudou's storyline; his father is deeply concerned that an onmyouji is working at a yokai school. The lead-up to this plot is neatly slipped into the ubiquitous school culture festival episode, and it addresses the mutual fears that humans and yokai have about each other, ultimately hitting on the idea that fear is not helpful and that there needs to be not just discussion, but authentic attempts at understanding. This storyline also looks at how some yokai, such as the gashadokuro, whose mythology involves being created from numerous dead humans, fit into Ghoul School's world. It's a good place to end the series on, nicely bringing many of the tangled threads together.

It's also representative of how Ghoul School can be strangely effective at presenting modern cultural issues. One character is half-human, which lends itself to discussions of being biracial and how that's treated in society, while another has three dads – Beniko the zashiki-warashi is born from an old house that three male friends were fixing up with lots of love; all three adopted and raised her as their mutual daughter, something the other characters treat as perfectly acceptable and normal. Finally, Fuji, a yuki-onna, is portrayed as gender fluid, comfortably switching between masculine and feminine presenting and not treated differently because of it. Although AMAB, Fuji is more often seen in the girls' school uniform and is simply accepted as being who they are. While none of this is particularly unusual in this subgenre of fantasy, it's still nice to see these characters as a regular part of the plot, and the connections to the real world are plain if you care to see them – and can be ignored if you don't.

The series is ostensibly a comedy, however, and in that it's a bit of a mixed bag. Most jokes involving Haruaki fall flat, not helped by Ryōta Ōsaka's high-pitched delivery of his lines. But more general humor works decently well – a trip to Beniko's family's inn, which is attempting to appeal to guests by being haunted, has some very funny moments, and “The Cursed Second-Hand Book” is probably one of the funniest episodes in the series although the one about animal yokai being abducted is also pretty good. There's also decent use made of the kids' yokai characteristics for comedic purposes; the summer vacation episode that involves other students meeting jorogumo Yuri's family is a good gag.

A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School! is a decent show. It's never as funny as it could be, nor does it look as good as it might, with some episodes being notably off-model. It doesn't tell us what kind of yokai all of the students are (I'm so curious about Marilyn, the hairy green monster), and Haruaki is truly annoying at nearly all times. But it still has some laugh-out-loud episodes and others that are surprisingly touching. It wouldn't be my first recommendation for a supernatural anime involving yokai, comedic or otherwise, but if you can get past the irritating main character, it's a pretty good time.