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     Mai Taniyama 
Voiced by: Kaori Nazuka (Japanese), Cherami Leigh (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30450_5944.jpg

A 16 year-old first-year high school student who becomes involved with the Shibuya Psychic Research (SPR) after she accidentally breaks an expensive video camera that was being used by the SPR in an investigation of an old building at her school. In the same incident, she is saved from a falling bookcase by Lin Koujo, who is injured instead; to repay her debt, she fills in for Lin to assist SPR's manager Kazuya Shibuya. After the conclusion of the first case, she is offered a paycheck for her work and a part-time position at the SPR. As the series progresses, it is revealed that Mai has ESP abilities, which include astral projection, psychic dreams and clairvoyance.

  • Action Survivor: She’s not a fighter, but she gets on the field and lives to tell the tale.
  • Badass Adorable: A spunky young woman who you should still beware of.
  • Badass Normal: She’s just an ordinary young woman. Until…
  • Badass Unintentional: Her powers often give her key information, even when she's not trying to.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Mai and Naru often bicker with each other so easily and familiarly much to the ire of Masako who eventually calls Mai out on this.
  • Catapult Nightmare: Expect this to happen a lot in the series.
  • Conveniently an Orphan: Her parents died when she was young.
  • Curtains Match the Windows: Both her hair and eyes are brown.
  • Cute Clumsy Girl: Not so much emphasized, but she has her clumsy moments. The most clear example is when she breaks Lin's camera in the first arc.
  • Damsel in Distress: Nearly every arc will have Mai in major trouble of some sort, often more than once. Unlike many other examples of this trope, this is NOT a case of Too Dumb to Live; Mai just has really shitty luck. In the few times it is a direct result of her bad decisions, she's generally acting on incomplete information or is in a situation where all the options are bad.
  • Demonic Possession: In the Silent Christmas episodes, after John exorcises a spirit out of a young boy, the spirit goes into Mai and possesses her until the end of the arc.
    • It happens again in the Bloody Labyrinth arc, when she gets possessed by the spirit of one of the maids that was killed in the mansion. The spirit makes her experience her death in what's probably one of the most terrifying moments of the anime. The spirit possesses her again later but Masako notices and effortlessly exorcises the spirit out of Mai's body and lays it to rest.
  • Determinator: She’ll keep moving forward even if the odds are stacked against her.
  • Dreaming of Things to Come: Where her powers kick in.
  • Genki Girl: She can be excitable, especially when off-mission.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: With Masako. The pair initially couldn’t stand each other, but grew to.
  • Furo Scene: Very brief and not very revealing (due to the nature of the anime), but still counts.
  • I See Dead People: Gains this ability as the series progresses.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: If something is really bad, she’ll get to here.
  • The McCoy: She doesn’t listen to logic too much.
  • Muggle Best Friend: Subverted after she gains her medium powers, but still acts like a layman on most occasions.
  • My Parents Are Dead: She even mentions it word by word once.
  • Near-Death Experience: In the seventh arc, she has a vision of what it was like to be murdered, when one of the spirits that was killed in the house possesses her and makes her experience her murder on her own flesh.
    • And later in that same arc, when she goes to rescue Masako. She's saved by Lin just in time, though.
  • Nice Girl: She can be stubborn, but she’s a very kind young woman who will help you should you need it.
  • Ordinary High-School Student: What she seems like at first.
  • Plucky Girl: She doesn’t back down.
  • Psychic Powers: It is revealed that she has these at the end of the third arc.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Naru's (and Lin's) blue.
  • Rewatch Bonus: If you re-watch the early episodes, particularly the first arc, in the knowledge that Mai has psychic powers herself, including clairvoyance (true seeing) and claircognizance (true knowing), pay close attention to what she says and the voiceover of her thoughts. Several of the remarks she thinks is exactly what someone else is about to say out loud, and most of the things she says randomly turn out to be Foreshadowing (like when she comes up with the nickname 'Naru' - the Japanese pronunciation of his actual nickname) or clues to the mystery (when discussing poltergeists, she all but spells out Kuroda's motivation for powering the poltergeist).
  • Ship Tease: With Naru. The pair bicker a lot, but it’s clear there’s love there.
  • Supporting Protagonist: She’s the protagonist, but it’s Naru who gets a lot of the things done.
  • Tareme Eyes: She has round, innocent eyes.
  • Tempting Fate: Near the end of episode 10, Mai muses about how it would kind of suck to have psychic powers, and that she's glad she's just an ordinary high school student. Guess what we eventually learn she has?
  • Took a Level in Badass: After discovering her latent Psychic Powers, which grow stronger in every arc.
  • Tsundere: Shows some aspects of it, especially around Naru. She acts like she hates him, but it’s clear she loves him.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: Wordof God confirms that this is the basis of their relationship as Naru and Mai would get jealous if anyone of the opposite sex tries to get the other's attention but in the end everything is "resolved" and they go back to square one.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Mai is not pleased to discover that Naru is willing to turn a death curse onto six hundred relatively innocent students (hoping that the curse would dilute itself and "merely" severely injure them rather than kill them. Maybe) just to guarantee the life of one Jerkass teacher — his justification being that, unwittingly or not, they still invoked a powerful death curse. Naru instead takes a third option and diverts the death curse to six hundred hitogatas of innocent students, leaving everyone unharmed.
  • Will They or Won't They?: With Naru, considering how their relationship is further put into question after she confesses to him. According to Word of God, Mai and Naru do have feelings for each other and she was originally going to have them end up together, however, she decided to leave their relationship as is since she doesn't do "happy endings". She later clarified this as saying they will end up together eventually, but it won't happen in-story for the aforementioned reason.
  • Work Off the Debt: How she becomes Naru's assistant.
  • You, Get Me Coffee: She is often on the receiving end of this joke, particularly from Naru.

    Kazuya "Naru" Shibuya/Oliver "Noll" Davis 
Voiced by: Yuuki Tai (Japanese), Todd Haberkorn (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30606_2551.jpg

A 17-year-old paranormal researcher and the manager of the Shibuya Psychic Research center. Mai nicknames him "Naru" for his narcissistic (narushisuto) attitude; this nickname generally comes to be adopted by their colleagues. Though appearing cold and critical in front of his friends, he does care for them deeply and earns their trust and respect. Eventually, it is revealed that Naru is actually the famed paranormal researcher and psychic, Oliver Davis, and that he has very strong psychokinetic abilities.

  • All There in the Manual: There are several things about Naru that are either vaguely hinted at or not brought up at all in the anime but are explained fully elsewhere.
  • Badass Bookworm: Comes with being a paranormal researcher.
  • Badass Normal: He’s just a human detective. He doesn’t have any other profession.
  • Angsty Surviving Twin: What he turns out to be.
  • Battle Aura: He shows this in episode 25.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: He’s a man of few words, but he still gets the job done.
  • Brainy Brunette: A smart young man who will use his tactics to get the job done, no matter how brutal.
  • Brutal Honesty: Oh, so much. He won’t waste time stating how he feels about some people.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Use of his psychokinetic abilities severely taxes his body. The one time he does use it in the series, he collapses and is hospitalized afterwards.
  • The Chessmaster: He plans out pretty much everything without telling anyone. Lin is too used to it to care at this point and the others never get what's going on until it's over.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: He’s among the youngest of the group, but he’s still a professional ghost hunter.
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: Downplayed. He doesn't show it to the degree that Mai does, because he's The Stoic, however it was most noticeable when Mai became attached to Lin when she was first possessed by Kenji in episode 12. Justified as in a pamphlet that the author wrote regarding Mai and Naru's relationship she stated that the relationship between Mai and Naru is that Mai would get jealous when girls become attracted to Naru and Naru would become jealous when male clients become attracted to Mai.
    • "Why don't you keep her company for a while, Dad."
  • Demonic Possession: In the eighth arc. Fortunately, he gets out of this.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: He’s a bit aloof and not someone you’d talk to.
  • First-Name Basis: Towards Mai and Lin.
  • Genius Bruiser: Easily the smartest in the group and the most powerful psychic of them all.
  • Gratuitous English: Actually justifiable given that he is actually Oliver Davis, a young paranormal professor from Britain.
  • Hates Being Touched: As Gene states,in a small short about the daily life of Gene and Naru by the author, Naru wasn't comfortable with physical contact which is why he and Madako and the rest of Naru's family (exception of Lin) like to get physical with Naru to tease him.
  • In-Series Nickname: Naru, nicknamed by Mai on the very first episode from the Japanese word narushisuto, or narcissist.
  • Insufferable Genius: Yes, oh yes. He’s a genius and isn’t afraid to rub it in your face.
  • Jerkass: Due to his cases of Brutal Honesty, he may come by as this, but deep down is truly a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. A particularly bad case occurred after his Demonic Possession, where he and the team confronted Okubu-sama and seemingly scoffs at the team's failed attempts to exorcise it, but it turns out he actually is strong enough to end it in one blow and was itching to do it, but he has to maintain his cover and doing it is dangerous for his body, so he may be justified after all.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: When he realizes Urado has transformed from a mere ghost into something far far worse, he instantly tries to get the team out of there, as they have no experience in dealing with demons and Urado has proven himself extremely powerful and dangerous.
  • The Leader: Doubles as this and The Smart Guy.
  • Lightning Bruiser: He’s quick on his feet and doesn’t waste time.
  • Narcissist: Hence his nickname Naru.
  • Mad Scientist: Lampshaded as one in sequel manga Akumu no Sumu Ie by Monk
    • Naru goes on a long rant about his dissatisfaction with the Japanese investigation team to Hirota, a government officer. He sounds like a rightfully angry brother about their incompetence in handling that case up until he snapped at Monk, who tried to placate him, that what he was most angry about was the loss of valuable research of his brother's remains. Mai, Masako and Monk are horrified and dread what Naru would do if any of them died in his vicinity.
  • Non-Action Guy: Until the end of the eighth arc, at least.
  • Not a Morning Person: Makes sense when you work inside a lot.
  • Not So Stoic: The end of the seventh arc suggests this, as he is seen holding Masako's comb and using his psychic abilities to see if she was okay after she went missing, showing that he does care about the others.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: As the series progresses, everyone just ends up calling him Naru.
    • And in the final volume of the manga, SPR discovers that "Shibuya Kazuya" is apparently only an alias for Oliver Davis, a famous British parapsychologist. Apparently, his twin and family nearly always called him Noll - the traditional British nickname for Oliver.
  • Power Incontinence: It's revealed that this is why he was forbidden from using his psychokinetic powers.
  • Psychic Powers: At the end of the eighth arc, Lin reveals to Mai that Naru has an outstanding amount of psychic powers, too much for his body to control, and that it was what caused him to pass out after briefly using said powers.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Mai's red. Naru calculates accordingly while Mai will rush.
  • Ship Tease: With Mai
  • The Spock: He’s cold and thinks very straight.
  • The Smart Guy: Easily the smartest of the group.
  • The Stoic: Not a lot fazes him, all things considered.
  • Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He’s a tall and very beautiful young man.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: While he is beautiful, he’s also rather snarky.
  • Teen Genius: 17 and the leader of a ghost hunting group.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: He may tell Lin his plans, but that's only because he needs his abilities. Except for that, he rarely reveals his plan, and Mai and the others have to figure it out on their own.
  • Will They or Won't They?: With Mai According to Word of God, Mai and Naru are inevitably canon...except that she isn't going to show how they are going to end up together or write an ending with them together as she doesn't do happy endings/romance.
  • Wise Beyond His Years: Sometimes it's hard to remember he's just seventeen...
  • Workaholic: Played with. He actually only takes cases that truly interests him, but works his ass off on those he took and is always busy.

     Lin/Rin Koujo 
Voiced by: Ken Narita (Japanese), J. Michael Tatum (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30455_3718.jpg

A Hong Kong-born practitioner of Onmyodo, Lin acts as part-bodyguard, part assistant to Naru before the investigation of Mai's school. A skilled spiritualist with a knowledge of Chinese and Japanese spiritualism and occultism, Lin also brings five bound spirits with him to act as his means of dealing with dangerous threats.

     Ayako Matsuzaki 
Voiced by: Masami Suzuki (Japanese), Colleen Clinkenbeard (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/51626_8210.jpg

An outspoken 23-year-old self-styled shrine maiden whose powers and knowledge often come up short compared to the other practitioners in the earlier arcs. This is due to her powers deriving from tree spirits and SPR's earlier cases being in urban areas. She is also a licensed doctor at hospital, a talented cook and quite wealthy.

  • Action Girl: While the series isn’t action based, she’s the closest to one. Especially when she can get her abilities to work.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Her ritual requires ancient, living, healthy trees in order to truly work, and one location can only be used once every half a year. That said, when conditions are met, she can easily purify evil spirits en masse.
  • The Chew Toy: She is often the object of teasing (mainly from Naru and Monk) due to her rituals not being very effective in the first few arcs.
  • Conditional Powers: Her power stems from her connection to tree spirits and is stronger when in rural areas. Unfortunately until the final arcs all the investigations occur in urban areas, so her powers are greatly limited until then.
  • Cool Big Sis: Towards Mai in the later arcs.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: It seems her powers don’t work. But if given the right setting, it’ll work and it will show.
  • Determinator: Despite how ineffective her powers are at times, she still focuses on getting the job done.
  • Fiery Redhead: She’s pretty easy to get a rise out of.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Woman!: She has to slap Mai in order to calm her down after she wakes up from a nightmare.
  • Hidden Depths: She was perceived as an incompetent miko by the group for her many unsuccessful rituals, but it turns out she just needed the right conditions, and never made excuses because she knows the others won't believe her. Also, despite her arrogance, she genuinely cares for the team.
  • Hot-Blooded: She’s quick to get to work.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She’s arrogant and her powers don’t work unless given the right setting. But she does care about her comrades.
  • Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Loudly proclaims the earlier arcs' hauntings are "Obviously the result of an earth spirit!" They never are.
  • The Medic: She usually takes up this role whenever one of the team gets injured.
  • Nature Spirits: The true source of her powers.
  • Non-Idle Rich: A shrine maiden that works against the supernatural.
  • Plucky Girl: Just like Mai, she doesn’t back down until she’s done.
  • Psychic Powers: Her exorcisms, among others.
  • Rich Bitch: A mild example. She’s from a rich family and while she is a bit arrogant, she’s overall a good person.
  • Team Mom: Labeled as such by Mai. Checks out since Masako is roughly her age.

     Houshou Takigawa 
Voiced by: Kenji Hamada (Japanese), Travis Willingham (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30454_8398.jpg

An apostate Buddhist monk with a family history of being monks, "Monk" acts as the bedrock of SPR's cases when the cause is finally revealed and an exorcism or purification is necessary.

  • Asian Rune Chant: He’s a monk, so this has to be the case.
  • Big Brother Mentor: To Mai. He can also be considered her Parental Substitute.
  • Big Damn Heroes: In the third arc, when he saves Naru and Mai from one of the spirits in the school.
    • There are also various moments in which he saves the day with his Asian Rune Chant.
  • The Big Guy: Among the team, his exorcism method is probably the most direct: blow the spirits away with spells. Personality wise, he's also the most lively of the crew. Also, he's physically the tallest of the group, a trait he shares with Rin, and likely the fittest.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's actually a rock bassist, so yeah, he's not your traditional Japanese monk, but he still gets the job done.
  • Curtains Match the Windows: Both his hair and eyes are a light brown.
  • Hidden Badass: Naru even notes that he may have underestimated him at one point.
  • In-Series Nickname: "Monk", by nearly everyone else. He also has a nickname when he's performing with his band, as revealed in the third arc. It's probably an audio pun, since his name (Houshou) only needs one syllable change to make it sound like monk (Bou-san).
  • The Lancer: When Naru was incapacitated, he took up the leadership mantle. Naru also seems to value his input.
  • Lead Bassist: Type D.
  • Nice Guy: Probably the second nicest of the group. He’s a sort of father figure towards Mai and is generally good with children.
  • Psychic Powers: He's a monk, after all. He mentioned that he used to be able to see spirits until an accident during an exorcism made that ability disappear.
  • Shipper on Deck: For Naru/Mai. In episode 11 of the anime, when Masako suggests that they should divide in couples to attract the spirit, he whispers to Mai that it was her chance to get a date with Naru.
  • Team Dad: Labeled as this by Mai. Makes sense since Naru and Lin are both too aloof and focused on their jobs.

     John Brown 
Voiced by: Nobuhiko Okamoto (Japanese), Jason Liebrecht (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30451_4136.jpg

An Australian Catholic exorcist, John backs up the team with his abilities learned from the Catholic Church to aid in exorcisms of human beings.

  • Anime Catholicism: He’s an Australian Catholic.
  • Badass Adorable: He’s fairly young, but he’s capable of kicking all sorts of ass.
  • Badass Bookworm: Well, he’s an exorcist.
  • Badass Preacher: He’s an exorcist and just as capable of helping the team.
  • Celibate Hero: Due to being a Catholic priest and all...
  • Demonic Possession: Being an exorcist, he specializes in handling this. It's stated that while Takigawa and Rin are much better at driving away and exterminating evil spirits, they still need John because they can't exorcise a spirit or entity inhabiting an object or person without harming the host, which John can easily do.
  • Funny Foreigner: Treated as funny mainly due to his accent.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: He has an accent, due to being foreigner, that seems particularly funny to other characters.
    • To elaborate, he spoke with Kansai dialect, which is usually spoken by The Idiot from Osaka, not a caucasian foreigner like him.
  • Improbable Age: To be a priest at age nineteen. It's pretty much impossible in real life, so...
    • Takigawa actually notes this, saying that John can't be an official exorcist since he's way too young.
  • Jesus Taboo: Subverted in episode 24, when John mentions Jesus during an exorcism early in the episode.
  • Near-Death Experience: In the very first arc. The roof was falling down on the room he was practicing an exorcism, and it would've ended him had Mai not warned him and gotten him out of there just in time.
  • Older Than He Looks: He is nineteen, but on their first meeting everyone (particularly Mai) thought he was way younger.

     Masako Hara 
Voiced by: Rie Kugimiya (Japanese), Jad Saxton (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30452_4313.jpg

A moderately famous TV psychic with actual psychic abilities, Masako is able to see the spirits and entities surrounding a case location, and is able to channel the dead in order to effectively communicate with them.

  • Demonic Possession: In episode 11, although it's more or a comic relief situation. It is more serious on the eighth arc, when she summons the ghost of a person who was recently killed in order to find out who killed her, and of course, said ghost takes full control of Masako's body to talk to the group.
  • Dreaming of Things to Come: It's implied that she has this ability.
  • First-Name Basis: She is upset when she realizes Naru refuses to call her (or Ayako) by their first name, but talks to Mai on First-Name Basis.
  • Friendship Denial: As regards her relationship with Mai. She completely changes her mind after the seventh arc, though.
  • Hopeless Suitor: So far, it doesn't look like Naru reciprocates her feelings. Then again, it is Naru who we're talking about, he may not even have noticed she has a crush on him. Made harsher when the truth about Glen was revealed and it turns out that, like Mai, it may not have been Naru she actually fell in love with.
  • I See Dead People: Due to being a medium and all...
  • Kimono Is Traditional: Somewhat made fun of when Mai imagines her going to school in pre-WW2 kimono uniform.
  • Near-Death Experience: In the third arc, a spirit pushes her down the stairs of the school while she was searching on her own. She was found by the others and taken to the hospital by John soon enough though.
    • Not to mention when she's abducted near the end of the seventh arc. Mai finds her and attempts to free them, but is captured too, and both are almost killed by the Big Bad (in a quite horrific way, might be added), but they're saved just in time by Lin.
  • Psychic Powers: Seeing and sensing spirits, among other medium powers.
  • The Empath: She's the most sensitive to spiritual presence among the team, and her exorcism method works by communing with the dead and convincing them to depart. Compare this to Monk, whose method causes direct harm to evil spirits.

     Osamu Yasuhara 
Voiced by: Kosuke Okano (Japanese), Eric Vale (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yasuharaosamufull521308_4.jpg

Yasuhara first approaches SPR as the student representative of a haunted high school, before joining the team as a researcher.

  • Ascended Extra: He had already been a main character in the light novels, but manga readers may have been surprised to find Yasuhara included on the front/back covers of volumes 4 and 5, an honor that no other "client" character had received and a hint that he was going to stick around for longer.
  • Badass Bookworm: His main asset is his research skills. At least once per case he will leave the haunted building and return with a huge stack of files cataloguing any tragedy that might be associated with the area.
  • Badass Normal: The only member of the team with no psychic abilities whatsoever.
  • Mellow Fellow: Not a lot fazes him.
  • Non-Action Guy: Spends time on the sidelines.
  • Rage Breaking Point: Generally has a very mild temper, especially compared to Mai, Takigawa, and Ayako, and doesn't take offence to Naru's abruptness. However, he is genuinely upset in the Cursed House case when Naru fails to respect his research skills, probably because he had not only done the research, but left his summer job and helped the team fight off a horde of zombies while Naru was in a coma.
  • Student Council President: Mai and Takigawa are very impressed that he manages to serve as class president in his senior year, when most students would be too busy with college entrance exams.
  • The Trickster: He likes to poke fun at people, especially Takigawa and Mai. In the Bloody Labyrinth case, when his age is mocked by an annoying rival investigator, he claims to be several hundred years old and doesn't stop talking about historical events from his "youth" until the man leaves the room.
  • Those Two Guys: Shades of this with Takigawa. They are the most light-hearted members of the team and frequently joke together, and occasionally talk about serious things before bringing in the rest of the group, such as when Naru is knocked unconscious on a case, or when they begin to have suspicions of his true identity.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: His nickname in high school is translated as "Old Man" in English.

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