I discovered this series after stumbling across Vol. 5 at a local used book store, and promptly fell in love with it; I picked up the first couple of volumes and am now determined to collect the whole set. (This is my second copy of volume 6; it was on the shelf at the Borders closeout sale and I couldn't resist getting a spare!)

The TV Tropes page calls it a black comedy horror manga, which certainly fits, but the actual mix of emotional, spiritual, mundane, funny, and gruesome elements is hard to describe...

I also like the unusual cover design. For one thing, the covers have a matte finish rather than the typical gloss; for another, each one includes a stylized illustration showing one or more of the subjects from one of the cases in the book. (This can include some spoilers, so purists may want to avoid examining the covers too closely!) The covers also include pictures of each of the team members, with that of the "corpse-whisperer" always staying the same, while the others are presented in a different style on each book - this one has X-ray-style silhouettes.

This volume opens with the gang bemoaning their negative cash flow (including some lampshading regarding the way their cases all seem to wind up being very convoluted and thus not paying off). After a suggestion that they "get back to their roots", they return to the place where the series began, Aokigahara Forest, for more stunning scenery and newly-discovered corpses. But what's this? Karatsu's chatting with the latest find - and she says she's already hired another firm! Turns out the local postal service has added a feature for potential forest suicides to arrange to have their bodies picked up and returned home. (They're doing this in part because of cutbacks in the postal budget; I wonder if the US postal service should consider something like this {wry grin}.)

Anyway, things aren't quite what they seem, and our heroes have to step in and help; pity it doesn't seem likely to result in a paycheck!

The next story introduces yet another company dealing in corpses - sort of; this one's a "corpse cleaning service", that contracts to clean up crime scenes or other messy-death scenes. (This is actually a real-world service, btw.) Our guys decide this might be a profitable sideline for them - until Sasaki shows them some photos of the nastier types of scenes; we don't see the photos but we do get her graphic descriptions, and it puts the guys off. And then Numata (who's been camping out at the office after getting evicted) rents the apartment that the corpse-cleaners just finished with - and finds that it's not quite as clean as it looks... This story has its comedic elements (including bringing in a psychologist to help with a corpse that's too scared to talk), but also features one of the squickier scenes in the series - talk about renter's-nightmare!

There's a mysterious man with severe facial scars (very similar to those of Karatsu's guardian-spirit Yaichi, who shows up soon after in a VERY dramatic and terrifying scene), who Sasayama claims is dead, but who seems to have been responsible for a very recent killing; a mysterious little girl who accompanies him; and some kind of conspiracy...

And, in mid-bafflement, I found myself reading the two-part story that concludes this volume, and which is a flashback set in (roughly) 1903 during the early life of Kunio Matsuoka (later Yanagita), when he was a government official (and writer-on-the-side). He meets a young boy named Yaichi, whose face is covered with mysterious scars, and who seems to be the target of spirits - and who gets involved in the investigation of a series of bloody murders of prostitutes. Several characters here either look like or perhaps *are* characters from the modern-day story; there's a Sasayama lookalike, and a bandage-wrapped morgue attendant named Shinouhe... Some great period detail, dandy detective work, creepy imagery, and spirit-power from young Yaichi - who I choose to believe is the origin of Karatsu's spirit-guardian, though the story hasn't made that clear so far. (It seems that the flashback story also has a spinoff series, Kunio Matsuoka Apparition Extermination; not available in English yet, though.)

There's a shout-out early on to the MPD-Psycho series, from crossover character Sasayama, a nice touch.

And, as always, the notes at the end are a delight to read, whether explaining obscure cultural references, revealing the appropriate sound effect for squirming maggots, or referencing other works that influenced this story, such as the tales of Edogawa Rampo (the author based his pseudonym on "Edgar Allan Poe"), or The Four Immigrants.

Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.

I left this book in the Little Free Library, after noticing in its LFL-map writeup that manga was welcome; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

*** Released for the 2020 Seeking Septads challenge. ***