I picked up this softcover at Barnes and Noble today; it's the first volume of a series about a young man who finds himself teaching at a school for youkai - aka spirits/monsters...

As one might expect, it's very quirky and often hilarious, with fish-out-of-water teacher Haruaki (who quit his last teaching jobs through being intimidated by very young children) confronting a classroom full of supernatural beings, most of whom could wipe the floor with him if they felt like it. Ah, but it turns out that he has one gift: he's a descendant of Abe no Seimei, famed occultist of ages past, and when he's suitably motivated he can invoke impressive (if hard-to-control) powers.

He also has a little fetish: he's into sailor uniforms. The schoolgirl kind. Not necessarily including actual schoolgirls - he squees with delight over catalogs, and even over a uniform made for dogs, to the vast amusement of the snarkier students. Yes, it's all very silly, yet there's a good balance of characters (including the snarky bad-luck-spirit Sano, the cheerful and mischievous little tanuki, and the mud-throwing Hijita), and I enjoyed it. I'll probably pick up the next volume to see where things go now that we've had the main introductions!

This is the kind of series with lots of fourth-wall-breaking, including a comment from one character about how the poor teacher is so upset that he's swapping his voice-balloons with his sound-effects. And the sheer variety of youkai is a lot of fun.

I left this book in the Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in CT here.]

*** Released for the 2018 Spook-Tacular October release challenge. ***