Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter

Matthew Kizior
9th & 11th Grade
Career Readiness
City Charter High School
Onibi was a surprising and refreshing graphic novel in many ways. The cover page and the opening pages of the story hint to a type of trek through the more ancient and supernatural aspects of Japan usually associated with monsters and spirits (here encapsulated in the Japanese word yokai). In this regard, the comic book was a breath of fresh air. Instead of doubling down on the foreignness and uniqueness of Japan that has been highlighted in other works, Atelier Sento (the name for the creative duo of Cecile Brun and Olivier Pichard) took the route of highlighting the extraordinariness of the ordinary. The main character of this story receives a toy camera that supposedly has the ability to capture yokai in their natural environment, whether it be forest spirits amongst the trees or fox spirits at Shinto shrines. And, while that may possibly be the case, Sento leaves it up to the reader to decide whether or not the yokai themselves are present, or if their presence is felt through the sheer “otherness” a French tourist may feel in a Japanese town. Through the exploration of the finer aspects of Japanese mythology, Atelier Sento are able to do a great service through their storytelling - highlighting towns, landmarks, and the natural beauty of Japan’s Niigata Prefecture. As a person that has read and watched a lot of media not only from Japan, but about Japan, I will say that this was a welcome breath of fresh air. Japan is rarely highlighted outside of some of its major cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, and to be given a window into the less populated areas of Japan and their quaint beauty and connection to the past is indeed an edifying experience.
I would recommend that teachers who may be teaching about Japan or world history use this graphic novel in middle school classrooms (5-8) and possibly for high school freshmen and sophomores as well. This is a nice resource to use to highlight the differences between urban and rural aspects of various societies and countries, as well as the unique mythology. This could easily be part of a comparative unit where it is juxtaposed against the idea of the faye folk in Irish culture, which contains a lot of similar ideas. If a teacher wanted to talk about Shinto, Japanese Buddhism, or even simply Japanese customs, this text definitely acts as a nice introduction. Some of the most interesting scenes revolve around Shinto shrines and Buddhist statues in this novel. Such examples could be well utilized in a 9th or 10th grade honors social studies or sociology course to highlight the syncretic aspects of folk beliefs and religious symbols (such a lesson may also be better left for 11th and 12th graders). Overall, the text does a great job of capturing how Japan is “spiritual while not being spiritual.” These myths and legends about monsters, spirits, and gods are so interwoven into the DNA of how some Japanese understand, view, and interpret their world that it is not taken as anything to believe in or dissect as a singular belief system. Whether or not any of these yokai are real, Atelier Sento shows that there is more to it than that. The creative duo aptly highlight the deep connection many Japanese have with their customs, history, and islands that makes it less a matter of any sort of religious belief and more so a focus on the fact that, in Japan, it’s just everyday life. Whether or not a foreigner can grasp the utter uniqueness of where they are at is another matter entirely