Osoroshikute ienai

— by Eric "Scanner" Luce

Kuwata Noriko is always an entertaining read for one reason or another. Usually her stories rotate around rather bizarre situations; this manga happens to be one of my favorites. OSOROSHIKUTE IENAI ("It is So Scary That I Will Not Tell You") revolves around a high school student, Satsuki Niina, and his misfortune in life. His misfortune is quite literally his problem. Bad luck, ghosts, and other such spirits have an extremely high affinity to him. He is like a ghost-magnet, which leads to his most visible foil in the story: Midou-kun. Midou is heavily in to the occult; his whole nature is surrounded by mystic presence and foreboding — so much so that his character is drawn with a perpetual shadow across his face.
Naturally Niina does not believe in ghosts and spirits at all, and from there the antics begin. Midou hangs around Niina continually trying to convince him that ghosts do exist and that he is a natural pole for them to be attracted to. Throw in to this mix Kirishima, who although followed around by the ghost of his dead girlfriend, has absolutely no sensitivity to the spiritual world at all. He is frustrated because he desires to see the things Midou sees, and attract spirits like Niina does. However, as Midou points out, Kirishima is like one of those super aerodynamic cars, and ghosts and spirits are just wind that slide right over and away from him.

The story starts out with the beginning of the new school year. On the school roof, several girls are startled by the ghost of a dead student. Meanwhile, Kirishima is happy to be placed in the same class as Midou again, but the others are not so thrilled to be in the same class as the school spirit-creep. Niina, being a transfer student, wonders what all the fuss is about. He is already under the pall of some misfortunate star, sick with a cold. When informed of Midou's strong link to the supernatural, Niina scoffs. Midou tells Niina that the spirits crowd around him so much that they caused his cold. Niina retorts that it is just a cold, shows his temper, and tries to get rid of Midou, saying that he does not believe in such foolishness. Midou leaves saying it does not matter whether Niina believes or not, it is his fate.
Kirishima asks Midou to confirm whether there is indeed a ghost on the roof of the school. Midou says blandly that there is. A frustrated Niina stomps up to the roof. He finds no ghost, but he cannot see the ghost because she is now resting her hands on his shoulders from behind him. He stomps back to the classroom telling Midou that he was lying. Meanwhile all the other students look at him and turn several shades of gray. All of the students start talking to each other about the grim spectre hovering over Niina (which everyone except for Kirishima and Niina can see.) The ghost cleans the blood off of her face, slides in to Niina's body, and starts talking. She is Yamamoto Sachiko. After telling her story, she is free to go on to the next world and she (using Niina's body) hugs Midou as she does so. Niina awakens in this rather compromising position. He is not relieved, not believing when people tell him that he was possesed by a female ghost. The story ends with Midou telling Niina that it is his fate to be beside Midou. Niina complains that Midou is a problem. Kirishima gloms on to Niina saying that it will be all right. Maybe with Niina's natural ability Kirishima will be able to see something! Midou waxes on about how this will be an interesting class.

Naturally, a number of story elements come up that are far more entertaining than the brief sample just given here. So far we have only met Midou, the supernatural expert; Niina, the super-skeptical supernatural magnet, and Kirishima, for whom the mystical world is totally invisible. We have yet to come to know Niina's classmates, to experience possession by a kitsune, meet Kirishima's dead girl friend and Midou's put-out guardian spirit. The best part will come when we get to meet Izumi-White and Izumi-Black. Then there is Niina's home life, his step-mother, his adorable younger sister Hazugi, his dead mother, his dead dog...
The story is rife with humor, romance, frustration, and bizarre and amusing characters, and is made even richer by Kuwata's style of drawing. The small frown of Izumi-Black, the blithe cheerfulness of Kirishima, and Niina's brooding dissatisfaction all stand out with a subtle force that makes the reader feel what the character is expressing. When a major character says something, usually several other characters in the background will be adding their comments. This adds a strong sense of depth to each panel, for it is not just one character speaking to another, but a character in a room full of people all of whom have their own reactions and comments to make. Especially since usually the comments are rather humorous in and of themselves.
Usually short but rarely to the point, I recommend any story you may find on the shelves by Kuwata Noriko, especially if you appreciate humorous romances with fairly strange twists in just who is attracted to whom and why and what gets in their way. Not your standard shoujo fare by any means.