It seems ungrateful to wish for more when it comes to a series I really like, because there don’t seem to be as many of those as there used to be.  And I really like Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin – in terms of writing, it’s the sleeper hit of the season.  I just wish the production side were a little less pedestrian.  Not Made in Abyss quality or anything, just enough so that I didn’t keep noticing how bland the show looks.  It’s not only that the animation is choppy and the details a bit spartan – the direction itself is very by the numbers.

It’s really too bad, because I don’t think there’s much else preventing Mayonaka from being fairly exceptional.  We have a really interesting recurring plot playing out behind consistently good episodic storylines, and an outstanding attention to detail when it comes to the world-building.  I’m biased in favor there having lived in Shinjuku-ku I suppose, but seeing the familiar depicted so accurately really grabs me.  Especially when it comes to my neighborhood of Kagurazaka, which was front and center this week.

That’s because of Kagurazaka Matsuri, which takes place in late July centered on the precincts of Bishamonten Zenkoku-ji Temple.  The first part celebrates the Japanese Lantern plant (very important ceremonially) and the second is effectively an Obon festival, with lots of large dance organizations present.  Arata’s childhood friend (who may want to be more) Izumi (the very underrated Makino Yui) invites him to attend with her and he accepts, but on the way out she’s the object of Kohaku’s unwholesome attentions.

All of this ties together several storylines – the hopping vampire episode and the recurring drama of Kyouichi’s disappeared sister chief among them.  One of the victims from the zombie incident has awoken, and it turns out she’s been missing since 1965 – and still looks 17.  If you remember Huehuecóyotl name-dropping a devil who’d been collecting girls, that thread is tied in here – he seems very likely to be the one who kidnapped Kyouichi’s big sister.  His goal is apparently putting together the perfect human woman out of mixed and matched body parts – he leaves the girl alive, but whatever part he takes becomes useless.  And Izumi, unfortunately, has something this devil is looking for.

All this is a stark reminder that what Seo (maybe it’s Theo, as it turns out) has been saying – Anothers are just not like us.  Coyote may fancy himself Arata’s friend on some level, but it’s nothing to him to help a devil snatch Izumi away for his nasty little experiment in Hell.  And the creatures he trades favors with are certainly from the wrong side of the eternal tracks.  And for Kyouichi, big problems arise because he’s blurring the line between business and personal by getting Arata involved.  But given that the whole reason he pursued this odd line of work to begin with was to look for his sister, didn’t he already do that just by taking the job?

This is really nicely done, all of it (apart from the visuals), and I’m struck once again by how on-point and understated this stable of big-name seiyuu are across the board.  There’s an elegance to the writing with Mayonaka that I find to be very rare in anime these days, and a trust in the audience that’s equally so. Series that splice the ancient and mystical into the modern world are not rare in manga and anime, but those that do so as seamlessly as Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin certainly are.