Inukami 1

Hmm.  This is one of those middle-of-the-road series that has a lot of fanservice and a pretty predictable story progression.  I don’t normally go for these, but I actually kind of liked the plot to this one.

A boy is a member of a family who is famous for taming Inukami, or dog spirits that seem to take the shape of women.  The boy failed the first time he tried to summon, but when he is given a second chance, he has delusions of basically making the good-looking girl he imagines will be his partner into a type of slave.  Things don’t work out this way, and while the boy occasionally has pervy, fanservice-y fantasies and moments, the inukami spirit winds up being the jealous, vengeful type of girl that zaps him for bad behavior.

The characters really aren’t too good at this point.  What I like about it is the plot, which is basically about the boy and the inukami spirit going out and solving supernatural problems.  They both have things they can do along the lines of strengths and weaknesses, and they actually work together pretty well when solving these mysteries.  The mysteries themselves are pretty good, too, and while there are a number of fairly stereotypical anime-type humor scenes (the boy peeking into the hotspring, the boy being greedy about money and a reward, etc), the problems themselves, as well as the solutions, are kind of unique.  I’m thinking of one in particular where the pair is forced to go up into the mountains to solve a problem that eventually involves ghosts, a wandering cat, and a buried fortune and possibly jilted land owners.  There were some expected things mixed in there, but overall I liked it.

I’m curious to see if the series improves on its strengths and the characters perhaps develop better, more unique personalities as the series continues.  It could be pretty fun if things settle down in subsequent volumes, and I like the pair of the main character and his inukami and the way they work together, too, so there are many directions for this to go that would make it into a pretty nice story.  Of course, it could just stall around in fanservice territory forever too, but I’d be willing to give it a few more volumes to see where it goes.

This was a review copy provided by Seven Seas.