Yokai Night Parade 百鬼夜行

Manga Like Natsume's Book of Friends

Quiet stories of living alongside yokai

6 titles

What readers of Natsume’s Book of Friends ask for is not more battles but more of the same register: a human who can see what others cannot, spirits who have reasons, and stories that close with an understanding rather than a victory. These titles share that register, in a shrine, a courtroom of the yokai, a hell with a personnel department, a school’s third-floor toilet.

  1. Natsume's Book of Friends 夏目友人帳

    Keeps the traditional forms, invents the stories Midorikawa Yuki · 2003–

    A boy who sees spirits inherits his grandmother's ledger of their names and gives them back, one yokai at a time.

    Yokai that appear: Kappa, Kitsune

  2. Kamisama Kiss 神様はじめました

    Uses the names, reinvents the rest Suzuki Julietta · 2008–2016

    A schoolgirl inherits a shrine and its fox familiar, and the gods and spirits of Japan become the cast of a romance.

    Yokai that appear: Kitsune, Tengu, Oni, Bake-danuki

  3. In/Spectre 虚構推理

    Uses the names, reinvents the rest Katase Chasiba, Shirodaira Kyō · 2015–

    A one-eyed, one-legged goddess of wisdom solves the cases the yokai bring her, with a boyfriend who ate a kudan and a mermaid.

    Yokai that appear: Kudan, Ningyo, Yuki-onna, Kappa

  4. Mononoke モノノ怪

    Uses the names, reinvents the rest Ninagawa Yaeko · 2007–2008 and 2013–2019

    The Medicine Seller's inquests, redrawn from the anime: each yokai is the name of a human wrong.

    Yokai that appear: Bakeneko, Umi-bōzu, Zashiki-warashi, Nue, Noppera-bō, Karakasa-kozō

  5. Hozuki's Coolheadedness 鬼灯の冷徹

    Uses the names, reinvents the rest Eguchi Natsumi · 2011–2020

    Office comedy in the Buddhist hell: the king's chief of staff, his rival the hakutaku, and a cast drawn from every corner of Japanese folklore.

    Yokai that appear: Nurarihyon, Hakutaku, Oni, Zashiki-warashi, Kitsune, Bake-danuki, Kasha, Kirin, Tengu, Shuten-dōji, Nekomata, Oiwa, Kodama

  6. Toilet-bound Hanako-kun 地縛少年花子くん

    Yokai-adjacent: urban legends and mixed lore AidaIro · 2014–

    The toilet ghost of the school legends is a boy, and he rules the Seven Mysteries of Kamome Academy.

    Yokai that appear: Ningyo, Kitsune, Kodama, Tsuchigumo