In/Spectre (Volume 1) - Kindred Spirits

Kotoko Iwanaga is the God of Wisdom to the yokai and spirits. She solves their disputes and offers guidance. However, they are concerned about a boy Kotoko is interested in. The mere sight of him makes them flee in terror!

In/Spectre (Volume 1) – Kindred Spirits

What happened?

Kotoko Iwanaga spends a lot of time at the hospital. When she was eleven, she went missing for two weeks and was found sitting on a bench missing her right eye and left leg. She claims to have no memory of what happened to her during that time, but that’s a lie. She was kidnapped by yokai who asked her to become their god of wisdom. The loss of the eye and the leg was the price to pay for the power to see and interact with them.

During her visits to the hospital, she met Kuro Sakuragawa who visits his cousin regularly. For Kotoko, it was love at first sight, but he had a girlfriend. Then, sometime later, she learnt that Kuro was now single, so she made her move. She asked him why he broke up with Saki and was surprised by the response. He claimed that they saw a kappa. Saki turned to him for comfort, but the coward ran away. Not long after that incident, she broke up with him.

Kotoko was curious about who the coward was. Did he mean himself or the Kappa? Although, she already knew the answer. All of the yokai are terrified of Kuro and tell her regularly. However, she likes him and thinks she can use his ability to scare the yokai to assist with her duties. She tells him about the incident that cost her an eye and a leg, and then after following him to the library where he checked on her story, she convinced him to help her with a particularly angry yokai.

In Spectre Volume 1 Kuro protects Kotoko and has arm bitten off

What did you think?

So, I watched the anime version of In/Spectre back in 2020 and have mixed feelings. I loved the way it started and the fantastic use of wordplay. The dialogue is without a doubt one of the highlights of the show and it rightly should be as it focuses on Kotoko telling truths, half-truths, and lies. Well, the manga is exactly the same and I am really enjoying it so far. My main issue with the anime was how it dragged the Steel Lady Nanase arc out over most of the season. It was effectively Kotoko telling three stories and it dragged.

I’m hoping that it will work better in manga form and so far, I’d say the signs are positive. It’s already skipped one arc that the anime spent an episode on. I don’t know whether it will show up later or not, but it was nice to get to the Steel Lady sooner, although it came complete with a two-year time skip. I’m not a huge fan of time skips, especially so soon into the story. It happened at the halfway point of the first volume. Anyhow, I’m excited to see if the manga can deliver the arc in a less drawn-out manner. There are also sixteen volumes so it’s bound to go well beyond what the anime covered.