Dokebi Bride

Dokebi Bride Volumes 1-4 by Marley (amazon)

Sunbi Shin’s mother is dead and she lives with her grandmother in a small village. Her grandmother is the village shaman, able to see spirits and demons called dokebis. Sunbi has inherited some of her grandmother’s powers, but her grandmother doesn’t want her to become a shaman. When Sunbi’s grandmother dies, she has to go to live in the city with her estranged father, stepmother, and stepsister. Sunbi is sullen, keeping to herself among her new classmates and avoiding interaction with her new family. Unfortunately Sunbi’s strong emotions only serve to draw demons towards her.
The stories where Sunbi interacts with traditional spirits are very interesting. I had no idea that there were spirits in charge of the well being of the bathroom, in addition to kitchen spirits. Since Sunbi was never formally trained by her grandmother, she has to figure out how to deal with demons and curses on her own, aided by some inherited shaman equipment. She makes a deal with a dokebi she names Gwangsoo, and her bargain may have some unforeseen consequences in the future. As Sunbi gets used to life in the city, she gradually starts to encounter people who may help her master her powers – a classmate, a monk, and a professor at a nearby university.
I had a couple quibbles with this manhwa. The dokebis in the book look very creepy and are intricately drawn, but the facial expressions of the human characters sometimes look mask-like. Also, a few times per book characters will go into lecture mode, where they will rattle off long unbroken paragraphs about a topic like spirit photography or psychic abilities. I usually found myself skimming over these pages, waiting to catch up to the next episode where Sunbi has to cope with a demon.