Ghost Hunt, Volume 4 by Shiho Inada and Fuyumi Ono

Shibuya Psychic Research is approached by the Principal of another school with help with unexplained incidents. Recently, a student committed suicide, leaving behind a note which read, "I'm not a dog!" And then, after that, a strange, stinky smell sickens an entire class.

But when SPR arrives at the school, it's obvious that not all of the staff agree with bringing them in. One of the teachers, Matsuyama-sensei, treats them as though they are there to rip off the school. He claims that the students are doing it to get out of the strictness needed to pass their classes. But Osamu Yasuhara, the class President, was also affected by the strange smell, and shortly after the SPR team arrive, there is an attack on a student by an unearthly black dog. And this isn't the first attack, nor the first one to leave wounds.

So many of the students are involved, and Mai's dreams show her that a fire will start in the video studio. She is just able to warn Naru and the others in time, but she also sees less explainable things. For one thing, there are many spirits in the school, but as time goes on, they become rather less numerous. a large black spirit seems to be eating the white spirits and growing larger as it does. She also sees a shrine with a gate decorated by foxes. Or an O-Inari shrine. But what does that have to do with the hauntings the school is experiencing?

Things get worse when she can see the spirit of the student who committed suicide is haunting the school, but he. too, is absorbed and eaten by the black spirit-thing. What can it be? And do they have any hope of stopping it before it eats all the spirits haunting the school?

The back part of the book is taken up with a side story. Children in a church orphanage and school are being possessed by the spirit of a speechless boy who wants to play hide and seek. He hid so well that he was never found, and it was assumed he had fallen into a nearby river and been drowned. But when they exorcise the spirit out the of the child he is currently inhabiting, he possesses Mai instead, who hangs around Lin, who resembled the child's father. But when Lin loses his temper and orders her to go away, now they will have to find where the child died to find Mai, and to free her body from possession by the spirit of the boy. But can they succeed where everyone else has failed?

This was a very moody and scary story, and the school is one I am glad I never attended, or never attended one like it. I think the reason why so many ghost stories are set in high schools is because in Japan, kids in High school are under a great deal of pressure to do well and go to a rigorous and academically prestigious school or they are seen as failures by their families.

A lot of kids internalize these pressures and end up committing suicide because of the social and familial pressure to do well. There is a many-times higher incidence of suicide in Japanese High Schools, and also, of physical attacks on teachers, or so I hear, all because of the pressure by the school and their families to do well and succeed with high marks. Even when kids don't commit suicide, they get physically ill or turn to drugs and alcohol to deal with the pressure. It's not a healthy situation, and just like the school students, the schools apparently become psychically sick.

I also liked the side story, which was rather cute, and mirrored a scottish story I'd heard of, where a high-spirited bride suggested a game of hide and seek at her wedding breakfast, and afterwards, couldn't be found. Supposedly, her ghost haunted the castle where she died. Hundreds of years later, a guest, exploring in the attic, opened a huge old wooden trunk and found a skeleton still garbed in a bridal dress. After the body was buried, the spirit of the bride was never seen again, and was at last at peace.

The side story has a lot in common with ths tale of the unlucky bride, but with a somewhat happier ending, I am still enjoying this series, and I found out, what luck... that a new volume will be coming out later this summer and again in November. I can't wait to read them!