Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector Volume 1 by Shin Mashiba (amazon)
There are plenty of manga that fit into the “spooky magical shop” genre like Time Guardian, Petshop of Horrors, and xxxHOLiC. Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector joins this group, as Hiruko is the proprietor of the Silver Star Tea House, a baku who eats dreams. His abilities as a nightmare inspector seem to be well-known, as his shop attracts a variety of clients. The entire volume is set up as a series of short episodes where people seek Hiruko’s help, he puts them to sleep with his magical cane, and he enters their nightmares in an attempt to give them some resolution. There’s usually a surreal, twilight zone like twist at the end of the stories, and many of the tales deal with death or lost love.
While the manga was satisfying as a book of short stories, I wish it spent a little more time on character development. Hiruko seems a bit of a cipher. He sometimes makes an extra effort to help his clients while pretending that his actions are solely in his own interest. Hiruko also enjoys nightmares with blood because they taste better. The dream sequences of his clients are inventive and surreal – a girl walks through a broken landscape picking up her lost body parts in a bid to regain lost memories, a boy envisions a shed where his father locked him up as a series of Chinese characters, and an ardent fan tries to connect with the actress he’s obsessed with through the film of a silver screen.
The art is exquisitely detailed, with fine lines and the extensive use of screentone serving to illustrate the historical background of the Taisho era when this manga is set. The short storylines and lovely art made this a nice refresher volume for me as I was working through my stack of long-running series manga. Although there are plenty of spooky shop manga series out there, the historical setting and the art makes Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector stand out.
Review copy provided by Viz.
5:43 am on April 14th, 2008 1
[...] has short takes on vol. 20 of Bleach and vol. 9 of Black Cat at Manga Xanadu. Tangognat reviews vol. 1 of Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector. At The Yaoi Review, Sakura Kiss enjoys a non-yaoi title, Voices of Love. It’s a Drifting [...]
11:40 pm on September 27th, 2008 2
I like it. It’s a fascinating series, the art is beautiful, and it’s a very good start for Shin Mashiba.
I think people need to give Nightmare Inspector more of a chance, but that’s just my opnion.
7:52 pm on October 29th, 2008 3
[...] of the “twist” ending, with variable results. Check out reviews of volume 1 from Tangognat, Manga Maniac Cafe, volume 2 from Manga Village, Volume 3 from Kuri-ousity, and Volume 4 from Manga [...]
10:25 pm on June 18th, 2009 4
All though many people look down upon the series i find it absolutly addicting. Of course i do agree that there should be a little more character development but beside that i love the manga and cant get enough of it. Its going to be a sad thing when the series ends. Its to bad the the series is not more popular os i think it would be made into anime. In short this is one of my favorite mangas and many people looked down upon it for various reason but that doesnt stop me from continuning the series and loving it every beautiful page
1:20 pm on June 24th, 2009 5
i love this series and i think that people should just read it and i think that they will enjoy it as much as i do and i am wondering about the relationship between hiruko and mizuki is that her name the last baku brothers name is name was azusa
10:13 pm on June 30th, 2009 6
I read the 1st volumn, but the lidrary i have doesn’t have the 2nd. The best part about these books is reading them. Everything is so wonderful. I love how Hiruko fixes the peoples problems. But i have to say my favorite kind of nightmares are ones that are related to love. the last thing i have to say is I think that Mizuki and Hiruko should go out.