tek's rating:

Tactics, on TV Tokyo
ANN; IMDb; Madman; TV Tropes; Wikipedia

The story is set in Japan's Taisho period (sometime between 1912-1926). Kind of hard for me to tell about the era, just by watching, it seems like a mix of the modern and the traditional, sort of, but hey... I guess that makes sense for that era. Anyway, the main character is Kantarou Ichinomiya, who has always been able to see and talk with youkai (demons, or as they seem to be called in the English dub, monsters). When he was little, he told a couple of his monster friends that he wanted to be able to make others see what they were really like, but first he'd need to become stronger. So they told him he should find a powerful demon-eating goblin who had been sealed away. (In this series, "goblins" look just like humans, except for their wings, though those seem to be invisible or something, most of the time.) Kantarou would spend years looking for this goblin, whom he named Haruka. Apparently, naming monsters gives him power over them.

Anyway, the story flashes forward to Kantarou as an adult. He's now a folklorist and part-time exorcist, but he's never stopped trying to find where Haruka is sealed away. Now he's also living with a fox youkai whom he named Youko. She has to obey him, because he named her, but still she also complains about how much he puts off his work, so they don't have enough money. But she also gets a job as a waitress to supplement their income. In the first episode, Kantarou finally found and released Haruka, who came to stay with Kantarou and and Youko, and would help Kantarou with exorcisms. In the second episode, Suzu Edogawa, the young sister of a woman Kantarou had helped in the first episode, showed up at Kantarou's place. She had a crush on Haruka, and befriended Youko. So she visits fairly often.

Well, there's also a woman named Reiko, who works for Kantarou's publisher. She sometimes stops by to try to get Kantarou to work more on the book he's supposed to be writing, as well as assigning him articles to write. Kantarou and his friends often learn from her of cases of monsters or spirits causing trouble, possessing people and whatnot. So not only does he write about these things, he and the others also do what they can to help people out. And then there's another goblin called Lord Sugino, who claims to be "married" to a small, green monster called "Muu-chan," who doesn't say anything except "Muu." Muu-chan seems to have a crush on Kantarou, so Sugino always gets jealous and can't stand Kantarou. Also, Muu-chan can suck up demons or whatever, which is sometimes helpful in Kantarou's cases, though Sugino always tells her she shouldn't do that, because it could make her sick, or whatever.

Well, there's also a another folklorist named Hasumi Ryoukan, who shows up now and then. He was a fellow student with Kantarou, though he doesn't believe in monsters or anything like that. He believes every seemingly supernatural occurrence can be explained scientifically. And so he and Kantarou don't get along at all. Eventually he adopts an orphan from London, named Rosalie, who can see monsters and such (and also gets possessed a lot), though Hasumi believes she's just imagining it. Anyway, he starts something called the Paranormal Research Society, which takes away a lot of Kantarou's business, even though it doesn't seem to actually solve any cases. Though Hasumi clearly believes it does. Also, there was in one episode a girl named Ayame, studying under Hasumi, though unlike him, she totally believes in monsters, so she's a fan of Kantarou's.

There's probably other stuff I should mention, or other characters. I dunno. I think those are the main ones, though there are also some people who take an interest in Haruka, and present some problems for our heroes. It seems they want Haruka to regain his full memories and powers. In which case he'd probably kill Kantarou, which he doesn't want to do. But mostly the series consists of stand-alone episodes of Kantarou and his friends investigating and exorcising evil spirits and such. It's really pretty cool to learn about different kind of creatures from Japanese folklore. But the show also has a great deal of humor and just plain silliness, which is, I think, it's most notable aspect.

Well, it ends both sadly and happily, but unfortunately, some things never seemed to be fully resolved. So that's kind of annoying. Still, it was fun while it lasted. And I can't really think of anything else to say, I guess....


anime index
Ani-Monday