bookheaven | Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter

Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter by Atelier Sentô

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This graphic novel had some very weird artistic choices. It centers on two young visitors from France (the blurb says they're Cecile and Olivier but I don't think they're named in the book and those are the names of the creators) Artistic choice one: what age they? they look 12 but I suspect older. Artistic weird choice two: they have no noses. Seriously every other character has a nose but these two are forever noseless.

The young girl gets scammed into a plastic child's toy of a camera that uses expensive film but in theory can photograph yokai, spirits in Japanese lore. So their whole trip becomes about taking yokai photographs which they never seem to see in real time but each story ends with a diary entry and a photoshopped photo with yokai in them. That was the cleverest part of all of this.

The stories weren't bad just not memorable. THey are shallow. It would have been nicer perhaps if they had done less stories and gave everyone more depth.

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