Kyokou Suiri

Hidden in plain sight, spirits known as youkai inhabit the world. While most are benign, a certain subset threatens the tenuous peace between youkai and humanity. Ever since she agreed to become their "God of Wisdom," Kotoko Iwanaga has served as a mediator between the two realms, resolving any supernatural problems that come her way.

At a local hospital, Kotoko approaches Kurou Sakuragawa, a university student whose long-term relationship ended with an unfortunate breakup. Kotoko harbors feelings for him and suspects that something supernatural lurks within his harmless appearance, so she asks Kurou for his assistance in helping out youkai.

Two years later, news of an idol who was accidentally crushed to death by steel beams flooded the press. However, months later, sightings begin to tell of a faceless woman who wields a steel beam. As is the case for any supernatural problem, Kotoko and her partner set out to stop this spirit from wreaking havoc—but this case may prove to be far more sinister and personal than they could have ever thought.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Kyokou Suiri
Other:	Kyokou Suiri Mini Anime, Kyokou Uranai
Sequel:	Kyokou Suiri Season 2

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Iwanaga, Kotoko

Main

Kitou, Akari
Japanese

Sakuragawa, Kurou

Main

Miyano, Mamoru
Japanese

Yumihara, Saki

Supporting

Fukuen, Misato
Japanese

Sakuragawa, Rikka

Supporting

Saco, Mayumi
Japanese

Nanase, Karin

Supporting

Uesaka, Sumire
Japanese

Steel Lady Nanase

Supporting

Tanio, Aoi

Supporting

Hanawa, Manami
Japanese

Detective Terada

Supporting

Hamada, Kenji
Japanese

Yoshikazu, Machii

Supporting

Komainu (Shiro)

Supporting

More staff

Staff

Yamaoka, Yuuki

Producer

Ozawa, Fumihiro

Producer

Hidaka, Isao

Producer

Ishiguro, Tatsuya

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Mononoke in the Fiction (モノノケ・イン・ザ・フィクション)" by Uso to Chameleon (嘘とカメレオン)

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Ending Theme

"LAST DANCE" by Mamoru Miyano

Reviews

Oct 12, 2023

Vikorean

Recommended

There are a few shows I will claim to be proud of watching. In/ Spectre is one of them, as I am happy of
not having let its poor ratings stand in the way of giving it a chance.

In/ Spectre is not an underrated anime, it is a misunderstood one. It seems it was expected to follow the trend of spectacular demons fights in the line of other recent successful shonen.

However In/ Spectre has a very elegant and original take on the yokai theme, one not explored yet. Not the fighting approach mentioned above, nor the emotional one tackled in other acclaimed animes. ... Indeed, In/ Spectre focuses on helping yokai by solving mysteries with the sheer power of logic and deduction.

As such, poorly written characters would have been unfit to carry the sophisticated themes tackled. Starting with a simple but important step: their age. Do not expect for the usual colourful or overemotional teenagers, but rather mature young adults capable of thinking over acting. It may be a trivial detail, but it sets the level of complexity to be expected from these characters. Each one of them has his or her personal baggage which are linked to the plot. Past relationships and trauma define their way to tackle the existence of yokai and solving their mysteries by the same occasion.

The role of detective and main character is brilliantly fulfilled by Kotoko Iwanaga. Behind her youthful looks and clingy girlfriend tendencies are in fact hidden overwhelming intellect and maturity due to her role and respected status within the yokai community. On the opposite, the older and seemingly more composed Saki, already working as a police officer, actually hides an unresolved lack of confidence and acceptance towards the existence of yokai. These two female characters, both revolving around the main male character Kuro, are the perfect illustrations that people are not what they seem.

Finally, Kuro is probably the most mysterious character alongside Rikka, the antagonist. This make perfect sense since they both got the closest encounters and trauma experiences with yokai during their childhood, deeply affecting them more than any other characters. As such, their closeness with the unexplainable logically make them both unpredictable and hard to read through our normal human eyes.

These complexed characters are of all satisfyingly tied with personal relationships. Saki is Kuro's former girlfriend, Kotoko is his current love interest and Rikka, with whom he share the same past trauma and doom fate, his eternal childhool love but nemesis. Well written characters all tied up together with an emotional background. The simple but difficult combination, In/ Spectre managed to achieve it thanks to a clever and thoughtful writing.

The art is one of my favourite. The characters are beautifully drawn with finesse, reminding me a lot of the Chinese animes. Generally speaking, it is clean and elegant. Although I was a bit disappointed with the yokai designs, which turned out to be a bit childish and overly simplistic. A bit more thoughts in their designs would have been welcomed and on pair with the show's complexity. However, since spectacular fights are not the point of the anime, spectacular designs for the yokai were hardly the priority.

Finally, the writing has to be put under the spotlight. In/ Spectre decided to go for the detective solving mystery approach, which is already an original take for a story centered around the supernatural. However, the approach itself is original, since In/ Spectre applies a reversed logic. Indeed, the purpose is to demystify a legend with an even bigger lie in order for the Yokai to be left alone and live in peace. Such method requires of course to find the truth, but only as a mean to build a logical and relatable tale to erase the previous but more dangerous one. The supernatural feeds on rumours and folklore, the purpose is then to build a harmless one over the dangerous preexisting one.

I find this storytelling fascinating as it implements a logic and common sense specific to the Yokai world. The supernatural has its own logical foundations, opposite and hardly understandable to the livings. They need to be taken into consideration for the characters to succeed and get closer to the truth.

Final note, the first season has the classical are dragging role of introducing us to the world and the story's structure. The complicated above mentioned elements do not make it any easier to understand and enjoy the show. However, getting past these adjustments will enable to experience an intellectually challenging story, likeable characters and clean designs. I only hope the producers and viewers will be patient enough to make it possible for the anime to get following seasons. In/ Spectre has undeniable quality, it would be a pity to not see it through now the most difficult part is behind.

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Oct 5, 2023

BanefulBroccoli

Mixed Feelings

An interesting anime story about japanese mythology, young love, idol culture and the purposefull spreading of misinformation on the internet. I'm only partially joking.

I won't go into detail about the story or anything, so I'll just say that the anime begins as a pretty standard japanese low-fantasy plot, with the MC setting out to help supernatural beings. The twist is, that every encounter takes what feels like hours and nothing really happens, because the gimmick of the series is that it's about crafting compelling stories to satisfy the curiosity of the listener. It's structured like interesting detective work, and while the stories told aren't bad ... by themselves, if you think about it for a second it becomes boring rather quickly, because unlike actual detective/crime shows, there isn't any evidence being investigated; even the MC makes it clear many times that it's all just made up. This is perhaps interesting from the writer's perspective, but as the viewer, your experience is comparable to listening to someone retell a crime story he read or saw on TV, who constantly forgets details and has to start over. In case you watched hack//sign, it's basically like that just shorter and with nothing happening in between the talking. This is one of my problems with the show, it focuses so much on the aspect of making stuff up when it could just as well used that screen time to let the characters use their contact with supernatural spirits to gather all the informations instead. And I know, it's part of the worldbuilding and the philosophy portraid by the show, but the plot determines the setting and not the other way around.

Another problem for me personally were the characters. The characters I cared about were always the side characters, they were interesting with no exception. The two main protagonists though? I don't really care about them at all. If they suddenly died and got replaced by a different set of MCs, it wouldn't change much for me. I feel like at least for the girl, the writers tried to give her a character, but it just doesn't come accross. Might be a me-problem, I know. But for the guy, I'm sorry, there's just nothing. His only character trait is that he can't make up his mind about his relationship with the girl. Oh yeah, it's supposed to be a romance story btw. Not like it impacts the story at all, might I add, it's basically entirely optional unless you're somehow emotionally invested in their "struggles". It's pretty one-sided and maybe that's supposed to be funny in itself, but it really isn't.

So my conclusion, the show definitely has a lot of potential and proves that it can present a compelling story, but a few imo unnecessary decisions hold it back, and the main characters are just not as interesting as they may have been intended. 5/10, not terrible, but at no point during the time period I was watching it I felt like "Oh wow, now an episode of InSpectre would be great"

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Jul 6, 2023

giraffenanime

Not Recommended

In our world, mysterious beings and creatures exist among us. These creatures kidnapped a young girl one day, and asked her, Kotoko Iwanaga, to become the god of wisdom. But to gang this power, she must lose her left leg and right eye.

Over ten years later, during her frequent trips to the hospital for her nub of a leg and eye socket, she falls in love with a man who also frequents the hospital. But to her surprise, the man Kurou Sakuragawa is no regular man. His family line always wanted power, and although passed down through the generations he was the one who was ...

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Nanase, Karin

Steel Lady Nanase

Tanio, Aoi

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