History Manga / NightmareInspector

* {{Bishonen}}: Most of the male characters are beautiful, especially Hiruko himself.

''Yumekui Kenbun'' (夢喰見聞) or ''Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun'' in the English translation, is a {{Shonen}} {{Horror}} series written and illustrated by Shin Mashiba, set in the end of the Taisho era. It takes place mostly in Ginseikan (Silver Star in English), the teahouse run by Mizuki Asahina.

When a person has nightmares they go to Hiruko, a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_(spirit) Baku]], for help. Hiruko helps people by entering their nightmare with them with the help of his supernatural cane that puts them to sleep, and helping to sort the nightmare out before taking it to eat for himself. Hiruko has a preference for painful nightmares and will do anything to get one.

* GroundhogDayLoop: In one of the first chapters, this seems to be happening to a customer, who every night writes in her dream on a piece of paper "every day will be exactly the same" [[spoiler: or rather, Hiruko writes it for her, as the end of the chapter hints]]- and indeed, it is.

* MindScrew: Among other weirdness like as found in [[CloudCuckooLand the Delirium]], the series is very unclear about when something is ''just'' a dream which affects nothing but the client's own mental health or when it's something that actually has an impact on the real world, leading it to have very confusing logic. The fact that one of the first chapters ends on a GroundhogDayLoop and yet the story keeps going on is confusing enough.

* TheKillerInMe: Happens at least once with a customer trying to find out who killed someone, usually with amnesia involved in some way or another.

* FriendlyRivalry: Tsukishiro is a secondary character who is quite the opposite of Hiruko: he wears white, and instead of offering service, he lures vulnerable people, imprisons them and feeds on their eternal nightmares as they are being mentally tortured every day for the rest of their lives. One of his victims is a poor little orphaned girl.

* DiabolusExMachina: The series loves making it seem as if a customer's story will end happily, then introducing a sudden out-of-nowhere twist or reveal that puts a much more sinister twist on things. One example is the fan of a beloved movie star who has Hiroku manipulate his dreams so that he saves her from a suicide attempt, giving them a chance to live happily together. [[spoiler:Only to reveal that the movie star is still mentally ill and suicidal, and she wants to make her lover "join" her...]]

* NightmareFetishist: The Baku; the most disturbing and sorrowful a dream is, the better it tastes. Hiroku himself notes a few times that nightmares with blood and death taste particularly good.

* MandatoryTwistEnding: Most of the short stories end To the point where when a chapter ends 'without' a twist of some sort, it's so surprising it practically counts as a twist in itself.

** Another story has
** [[spoiler: Not to mention the ending of the entire series: while Azuka's nightmare/fantasy of making Chitose the next baku ends and he and Mizuki are reunited, Chitose is revealed to be nothing more than a figment of Azuka's imagination brought to life by his nightmare/fantasy and, once it ends, fades away. The worst part is that he finally got all the happiness he was missing while being abused, and once he realizes it he can do nothing but disappear.]]
* BodyHorror: A woman has dreams about losing different body parts: Her arms, eyes, and an ear. She discovers that [[spoiler: she had a painful breakup and she was forgetting the memory by losing the ear that heard her love say goodbye, the hand that parted with his, and the eyes that saw him leave. She leaves the hand behind in the dream that was a "good memory" so that she could start fresh. That was the hand that she had stabbed him with out of anger. She gets away with the crime because she couldn't remember stabbing him because she never regained that memory.]]

The series is mostly episodic, and each chapter sees Hiruko helping a new client discover what their nightmare means. There is an overarching story about the origins of the baku and the histories of the Silver Star's residents Hiruko, Mizuki, and Hifumi, but the emphasis is on the customers.

* ALoveToDismember - The body part in question isn't ''quite'' severed, but in one later chapter, a man [[spoiler:bricks his wife up in a wall and leaves her arm sticking out, stroking it and talking to it.]]
* AllJustADream - Often subverted, but [[spoiler:grandly played straight in the end]], when they find out that [[spoiler:just about everything that happened since Chitose took over as Hiruko the Baku is all a massive nightmare created by Azusa, with the help of the Delirium.]]
* AndIMustScream - [[spoiler: While Hiruko was still Chitose Kurosu his masters broke all of his limbs. All he could do was scream.]]
* AxCrazy - Mizuki Asahina and Hiruko say that dangerous sleepwalkers running into Ginseikan is a common occurrence.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor - in spades.
* {{Bishonen}} - Most of the male characters are beautiful.
* BittersweetEnding
** Pretty much the best you can hope for if you've got a nightmare that you want Hiruko to help you with.

* BodyHorror - A woman has dreams about losing different body parts: Her arms, eyes, and an ear. She discovers that [[spoiler: she had a painful breakup and she was forgetting the memory by losing the ear that heard her love say goodbye, the hand that parted with his, and the eyes that saw him leave. She leaves the hand behind in the dream that was a "good memory" so that she could start fresh. That was the hand that she had stabbed him with out of anger. She gets away with the crime because she couldn't remember stabbing him because she never regained that memory.]]
* CloudCuckooland - The Delirium. If you get locked in a room there, you live out your biggest fantasy until you either die or realize it's all a delusion.
* CloudCuckoolander - Kairi, The Delirium's owner.
* CrapsackWorld - If a BittersweetEnding is the best you can hope for...
* CruelTwistEnding - Some of the chapters could've been pleasant happy endings if not for this trope's sudden appearance.
* ColdBloodedTorture - See {{And I Must Scream}}.
* DeadAllAlong - Several clients turn out to be dead. [[spoiler:Also, the real Chitose.]]
* DiabolusExMachina - The series loves making it seem as if a customer's story will end happily, then introducing a sudden out-of-nowhere twist or reveal that puts a much more sinister twist on things.
* {{Fanboy}} - A young man falls in love with a movie star that he has reoccurring dreams about committing suicide like she did in one of her movies.
* FlashbackNightmare - A common occurence among Hiruko's customers.
* GainaxEnding - The series ends with this, with a touch of NoEnding because really, the resolution isn't one. The last couple pages just make it ''[[MindScrew worse]].''
* GreenEyedMonster - Several of the customers, often in conjunction with LoveMakesYouEvil.
* GroundhogDayLoop - In one of the first chapters, this seems to be happening to a customer, who every night writes in her dream on a piece of paper "every day will be exactly the same" [[spoiler: or rather, Hiruko writes it for her, as the end of the chapter hints]]- and indeed, it is.
* HumansAreBastards - Although a human customer does get a BittersweetEnding or even a happy ending occasionally, they far more often have bad endings. The non-human customers typically have better endings.
* IFoundYouLikeThis - Kashina is introduced as the girl who helped [[spoiler:Chitose]] survive during the time he was [[spoiler:locked up and tortured.]] When she meets him again much later, she hugs him, and then kisses him shortly afterwards. [[spoiler:Then it turns out she was imprisoned by the same people who tortured Chitose, and that she was only helping him because if he died, she'd be tortured next, making her arguably a deconstruction.]]
* LoveHurts - Happens with many of Hiruko's customers, sometimes involving the death of some person or another.
* [[{{Girl In A Box}} Man In A Box]] - [[spoiler: Azusa Asahina, Mizuki?s older brother and former Baku, is kept in Hiruko?s briefcase after being eaten by a nightmare instead of him doing the eating.]]
* MandatoryTwistEnding - To the point where when a chapter ends 'without' a twist of some sort, it's so surprising it practically counts as a twist in itself.
* MindScrew
* NightmareFetishist - The Baku fit the name of this trope almost literally.
* NightmareSequence - Most of them aren't too frightening, but given the premise of the series, it's only natural that they show up every chapter, besides a few exceptions.
* PsychologicalHorror
* ReplacementGoldfish - It's implied at a few points in the series that Mizuki only sees [[spoiler:Chitose, Hiruko the Baku's current vessel]] as a temporary replacement for [[spoiler:her brother, Azusa, his predecessor]].
* ShootTheShaggyDog - [[spoiler: Chitose, the current vessel of Hiruko the Baku, was encouraged by Hifumi and Mizuki to seek his own happiness, and he decides to actually try. Then he finds out that he was actually just a figment of Azusa's imagination, and is going to fade in about 2 hours.]]
* StoicSpectacles - Kairi.
* TheKillerInMe - Happens at least once with a customer trying to find out who killed someone, usually with amnesia involved in some way or another.
* TrappedInTVLand - Overlaps with DreamLand in several cases, including a woman who wishes to be with her dead husband in a sketch of his and gets her wish (with unexpected consequences, of course), a nightmare where Hiruko enters a manga, and possibly some other examples.
* UnreliableNarrator - Many of the clients are hiding something, or have memories altered due to trauma. In several cases, the client is actually dead (or not even human to begin with!) already and we don't know until the end of the chapter.
* WhatMeasureIsANonCute - Averted. The carving of a rat symbolized a father's love, and the figurine is considered to be very cute.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Happened with [[spoiler: the original Hiruko, who merged with Azusa as a way of "death",]] and later with [[spoiler: Azusa himself]].

* {{Anvilicious}} - BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor

* BittersweetEnding - pretty much the best you can hope for if you've got a nightmare that you want Hiruko to help you with.

* CanonFodder - The resolution is... [[MindScrew confusing...]] to say the least. And even then, some things, such as Kairi and the Delirium, never even get an attempt at an explanation.

* FoeYay - Tsukishiro and [[spoiler:Azusa]] in the last volume. Might overlap with NoYay for some people.

* HumansAreBastards - although a human customer does get a BittersweetEnding or even a happy ending occasionally, they far more often have bad endings. The non-human customers typically have better endings.

* NightmareFetishist ? The Baku fit the name of this trope almost literally.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever - Happened with [[spoiler: the original Hiruko, who merged with Azusa as a way of "death",]] and later with [[spoiler: Azusa himself]].

This series provides examples of:

* WhiteHairedPrettyBoy - Tsukishiro

* ReplacementGoldfish - It's implied at a few points in the series that Mizuki only sees [[spoiler:Chitose, Hiruko the Baku's current vessel]] as a temporary replacement for [[spoiler:her brother, Azusa, his predecessor]], though [[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]] on whether she still feels like that in the end.

* NurseHello - Kashina is introduced as the girl who helped [[spoiler:Chitose]] survive during the time he was [[spoiler:locked up and tortured.]] When she meets him again much later, she hugs him, and then kisses him shortly afterwards. [[spoiler:Then it turns out she was imprisoned by the same people who tortured Chitose, and that she was only helping him because if he died, she'd be tortured next, making her arguably a deconstruction.]]

''Sleep now, and leave this world behind...''

* OuterLimitsTwist - Some of the chapters could've been pleasant happy endings if not for this trope's sudden appearance.