is a comedy anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 and manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series created by Nemu Mukudori. The manga was serialized

Serial (literature)

In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...

 in the monthly manga magazine Dengeki Comic Gao!

Dengeki Comic Gao!

, also known as Dengeki Gao! as was a Japanese shōnen manga magazine that primarily contained manga and information about series featuring bishōjo characters. It was published from December 1992 to February 2008 by MediaWorks. The Gao in the magazine's title is a childish form of the sound Grr...

 by MediaWorks

MediaWorks (publisher)

was a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group known for their brand magazines and book labels. These included such well-known magazines as Dengeki Daioh, and Dengeki G's Magazine, along with MediaWorks' main light novel publishing imprint Dengeki Bunko. The company was merged with ASCII...

 from 1996 to 2001. The anime, produced by Bandai Visual

Bandai Visual

, is a Japanese anime, film production and distribution enterprise, established by Bandai Co., Ltd. and a subsidiary of Namco Bandai Holdings, Inc., which is based in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Since the reorganisation of Namco Bandai Holdings in 2006, Bandai Visual now heads the group's Visual and...

 and Studio Deen

Studio DEEN

is a Japanese company that produces anime. Three years after Sunrise was founded in 1972, Studio Deen was established by Sunrise's members in 1975. As a result of this, anime shows such as Cowboy Bebop that were produced by Sunrise may have had assistance from Studio Deen.-Produced anime:* Urusei...

, aired between 2 April 1997 and 25 June 1997.

Themes

This series explores some themes of folk religion

Folk religion

Folk religion consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of an organized religion, but outside of official doctrine and practices...

 such as possession

Spiritual possession

Spirit possession is a paranormal or supernatural event in which it is said that spirits, gods, demons, animas, extraterrestrials, or other disincarnate or extraterrestrial entities take control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in health and behaviour...

, exorcism

Exorcism

Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...

, shamanism

Shamanism

Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...

, yurei

Yurei

are figures in Japanese folklore, analogous to Western legends of ghosts. The name consists of two kanji, 幽 , meaning "faint" or "dim" and 霊 , meaning "soul" or "spirit." Alternative names include 亡霊 meaning ruined or departed spirit, 死霊 meaning dead spirit, or the more encompassing 妖怪 or お化け...

, and yokai

Yokai

are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "otherworldly" and "weird". Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them...

. In the final episode, some more existential themes are explored.

Main cast

The son of a Christian minister and president of Saitō High School's Holy Student Council. He has curly blonde hair and as the series progresses, he grows it long and keeps it in a ponytail. Though he has no spiritual powers aside of seeing ghosts, Haruto is entrusted with the seven badges of the school spirits and summons them as necessary. He hates his job and dealing with ghosts, but his attempts to resign or transfer schools are constantly sabotaged by the Chairman. His dream is to spend one day attending classes, though his fellow student council members enjoy slacking off. With the exception of Episode 6, every episode ends with him saying "Oh my God!"

In the manga, while Haruto still thinks he doesn't really fit in the Council in his own words, he's noticeably more mature, reliable and level-headed than his anime incarnation, and gets along somewhat better with the spirits.

The son (grandson in the manga) of a Buddhist monk. His body is seen as ideal for ghosts and he is constantly possessed by the ghosts of people, animals, and demons; his friend and fellow Council member Mutsuki has to exorcise him several times a day. He is incredibly amorous of females, particularly the Toilet Hanako of the school and all the other Toilet Hanakos. In the manga, this obsession is a family trait shared by his grandfather Taro Ryudo, owner of the shrine where Kazumi lives.

The tomboyish, strongwilled daughter of the proprietors of a Shinto shrine, and a miko

Miko

is a Japanese term that anciently meant a "female shaman, spirit medium" who conveyed oracles from kami , and currently means a "shrine maiden; virgin consecrated to a deity" who serves at Shinto shrines.-Word:...

 (shrine priestess) in her own right. Redhaired, pretty, and rather curvy, she is a master of exorcism. She has an aggressive shotacon

Shotacon

, sometimes shortened to , is a Japanese slang portmanteau of the phrase and describes an attraction to young boys, or an individual with such an attraction. Outside Japan, the term is used less often with this meaning. It refers to a genre of manga and anime wherein pre-pubescent or pubescent...

 tendence, an attraction to young boys, and Nino is often a target of this. Unusually enough for an anime series, while Mutsuki is not the main character or the de facto leader of the Holy Student Council, she is the strongest of the primary human characters and often acts like more like a leader than Haruto himself. She can use her prayer stick as a weapon, and frequently expels spirits out of Kazumi using her "Asahina Special" exorcism attack.

Shingo Oumi (Manga-Only)

Shingo makes his first appearance in Volume 2 of the manga series during the introduction of the Blue Hanten, but he soon becomes a recurring main character as of Volume 3. Shingo is a much more easy-going, laid back, fellow of the group that usually lightens the mood with a more friendly style of teasing. While he does attend a different High School, he has become good friends with Haruto and the other members of the Holy student council through an adventure dealing with his younger brother and a Teke Teke imposter. As such, he is often found helping out and tagging along on all of the adventures and mysteries that follow soon after. Shingo uses Tarot cards to predict the future and uses a large knowledge of folklore and other background information to help the others.

School spirits

A boy spirit found in a statue of Ninomiya Sontoku

Ninomiya Sontoku

, born Ninomiya Kinjirō , was a prominent 19th century Japanese agricultural leader, philosopher, moralist and economist.-Life:Ninomiya Sontoku was born to a poor peasant family with a name of Kinjiro in Kayama Ashigarakami-gun Sagami province. His father died when he was 14 and his mother died...

 (a common statue seen at many Japanese schools). He is very intelligent and he (for example) takes rule books as comedy books. Mutsuki adores him and he is the frequent target of her shotacon

Shotacon

, sometimes shortened to , is a Japanese slang portmanteau of the phrase and describes an attraction to young boys, or an individual with such an attraction. Outside Japan, the term is used less often with this meaning. It refers to a genre of manga and anime wherein pre-pubescent or pubescent...

 antics. His badge color is yellow.

A male spirit who wears a red cape and a white eye mask. His charms are said to be irresistible to women, though he has no power over Asahina because she prefers younger boys. His visual similarities to Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...

s Tuxedo Kamen is made more explicit in an episode mid-way through the series when he is enlisted to distract a trio of ghosts calling themselves the Sailors XO and is even briefly depicted wearing a top hat, which he complains about. He also has a sister named Blue Hanten. He wears a mask over his eyes because his beauty is so overwhelming that everyone regardless of gender or preference falls in love with him, causing headaches as the effects wear off. His badge color is red.

A male giant spirit, seen almost exclusively from the knees down. He is known as the "Dancing Giant" and is the "master" of the school's gym. He wears olive trousers and brown dress shoes. His badge color is purple.

and

• Voiced by: Hisayoshi Izaki (Suzuki) and Yutaka Shimaka (Haruo)

These two spirits show up as a team, since they are the bones and the internal organs of an anatomical model of a human being. They are generally completely incompetent and make the situations they are summoned to help far worse. Their badge color is dark green, though in Episode 5, the duo state that the badge color is iridescent and can be seen as any color.

A girl spirit of the mirror. She appears very rarely in the series, but is the quietest and most normal of the ghosts. Her badge color is orange.

A scantily-clad teenaged female spirit who dwells in a disused men's toilet in the high school. Toilet Hanako is one of the most popular school spirits having been voted No. 1 for 562 weeks on the spirit world's "School Spirits' Top Ten" voting program. Kazumi is obsessed with her. Her badge color is pink.

The chairman of the school, named Saitō Tatsugoro, is also a spirit, who can be summoned along with the others. He instructs the three members of the Holy Student Council to gather the badges for him, thus starting the series. He collects haunted artifacts from all over the world, thus continually increasing the number of ghosts that inhabit the halls. His badge color is dark blue.

(Manga-only)

He's the ghost who takes care of the music room; he's a living portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

who weeps tears of blood. He seems to have a good share of knowledge about ghosts themselves, though not rivaling the Chairman's. In the manga, he's the one who has the dark green badge and not Suzuki and Sato.