Ghost Hunt, Volume 2 by Shiho Inada and Fuyumi Ono

Mai and her handsome, conceited boss Kazuya Shibuya are contacted by the Morishita family, who feel that something strange is going on at the mansion they are living in. They hear someone singing, doors open and close by themselves, and so on.

When they get to the house, they find that the little girl seems to be especially moody where her elder sister is concerned. She refuses to talk to her, and won't take any snacks prepared by her. The girl's doll, too, is very strange, showing up where it wasn't before, and there are clear signs of Poltergeist-type activity. Two rooms rearrange themselves diagonally when no one is looking, but too fast for any human to have done it.

The history of the house is much darker, and stranger. Young children living in the house, girl children especially, have a history of dying after living in the house. Mai, who has taken to calling her boss Naru (or Narcissist in Japanese), has a dream in the house where she sees the souls of little children, all empty, somehow. But is it the children behind all the deaths in the house, or is it something else? Something... darker?

But when the little girl's doll comes to life and says she has plans to kill everyone, the investigators try to destroy it, and whatever spirit is inhabiting it, but it seems to be too powerful to be exorcised. Can they protect the family and free the house of the spirits inhabiting it? Or is this one spirit too powerful to destroy?

Wow. Quite a difference from the first volume. While the first story is more about a non-supernatural cause to the possible hauntings, this volume shows that the supernatural is real, exists, and that the ghosts are inimical to human life. While the original story was mildly spooky, this story rockets right past spooky to downright creepy.

The first story was actually thrilling, but this one is scary, and the stakes only go up from here. Each of the characters tries to deal with the spirits in their own way, from John Brown's Christian teaching to Ayako's Shinto exorcism, Takigawa's Buddhism and Mai and Naru's more modernist approach. Later on, we'll see other approaches, and Naru seems to be able to draw on all sorts of traditions to bring an end to the haunting.

Like I said, the first volume sort of eases you into the scary nature of Japanese ghosts, most of which are very nasty and don't like humans. From here on, the scares and nastiness will only increase, but I don't mind that one bit. It's interesting to see the different approaches the different religions in Japan take to deal with ghosts, and I definitely want to see more.