Fuyuzora Kogarashi hasn’t had the normal life. Cursed with being possessed by spirits throughout his upbringing, Kogarashi’s dealt with abandonment, scorn, and living his life under trees. Thanks to meeting a sensei to control his psychic powers, however, he’s managed to live as best he can. One day though, an opportunity arrives — he ends up exorcising a spirit teasing a couple. One of those people happens to suggest he take residence at the boarding house Yuragisou. For Kogarashi, he’s looking for something cheap, and with the following available:
- No initial costs
- No guarantor
- A hot spring
- Rent is cheap as heck
He was not going to pass it up. However, there’s a reason this is the case: the house is haunted. Cue tragic backstory of how it got to that state! But as Kogarashi discovers, it’s not just the ghost Yuuna that’s going to affect him — it’s the four other female residents that live there too. All of them happen to be monsters (or a demon slayer shinobi), and one of them threatens to end his life almost every time. Needless to say, he quickly discovers why no one bothers to stay there. Too bad he needs a place to stay…
Before actually discussing the content of Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs, it’s important to note a few things. For starters, this is a Weekly Shonen Jump title that’s NOT in VIZ’s hands. And as this title grew in popularity in Japan, it didn’t seem likely it’d get licensed since VIZ didn’t want it. That’s where Seven Seas comes in, as they were able to grab the license for this. However, rather than release it straight up (like say Freezing or Monster Musume), they created an imprint specifically for titles like this (Ghost Ship).
After reading it, I’m not sure why…?
I said the same thing with To-Love Ru, though Darkness I know for sure belonged, and Yokai Girls is also a worthy one as well. Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs? Not so much, at least not yet. It’s essentially Love Hina + any supernatural manga, but hey, you can see nipples. There’s the usual harem antics of main dude accidentally touching the girls due to no fault of his own (except one), with some background information peppered at points throughout volume 1. All in all, it doesn’t do that much to differentiate itself from others of its type.
But it does manage to be more thoroughly entertaining than most!
I think one reason for that is the strong localization of this work. Whether Yuuna was supposed to remind me of Velma I dunno, but there’s a lot of really strong dialogue that helps showcase the characters and livens situations up. You still have the same general personalities in most harems, like the sultry, buxomed oni (yes, oni) who gets drunk to the cat possessed by a nekogami that says her name as she speaks, but it reads super well. With that and how clumsy Yuuna overall is, it’s a combination that works very well.
The stories themselves are fairly simple too, as Kogarashi and Yuuna try and discover a way she can pass on. Since the series is ongoing it’ll take a while before that happens, but in that case, you hope the journey will be good. I guess having to fight possessed stuffed animals is questionable, but having a zashiki-warashi use up all the luck of divine monks to chase them away is pretty funny. All in all, there aren’t that many harems that are super great, but Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs is very much worth your time.