Mononoke Soushi is a
weird horror manga by Takahashi Yousuke about a mononoke girl who has the eye of truth painted on her hand. She helps people come to rest and sometimes tries to save them. It can be described as: This is the story of a girl called Tenome who works as a performer at sake houses, but who has a unique ability. She has a tattoo of an eye on her hand which endows her with the ability of "second sight." Though this often comes in handy, it also complicates her life. She is constantly getting involved in situations with various supernatural creatures, such as animal spirits, kappas, and more.
Tropes incluce:
- Abusive Parents: Tenome's father aparently used to beat her.
- Action Girl: Tenome.
- Alcoholic Parent: Tenome's father.
- Ambiguous Gender/Ambiguous Gender Identity: Her aprentice Shao Tzu, uses male pronouns, and wears both male and female clothes, including a Little Black Dress.
- Ambiguously Human: Tenome and Shao Tzu, are they human or youkai pretending to be or youkai believing that they are?
- The Assimilator: Tenome is a non-villainous example, she absorbs a youkai after it tries to eat Shao Tzu for a while.
- Autocannibalism: A cook Shao Tzu meets gives parts of herself in a soup. It was a lie though, but it was still human meat.
- Badass and Child Duo: Tenome and Shao Tzu.
- Barbarian Longhair: How Tenome has her hair when she was a child, Shao Tzu as well.
- Cheerful Creepy Child: young Tenome and Shao Tzu invokes this, also a Cute Ghost Girl they meet. Although most of the children they meet are very creepy.
- Cool Big Sis: Tenome is this for Shao Tzu who even calls her Anego.
- Dead Person Conversation: Tenome can do this and will often help them reach the other side.
- Dream Weaver: One of Tenome's abilities.
- Dream Within a Dream: More often than not.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: A quite literal example. A man tries to rape young Tenome, right before she can knock him out and steal his money, a whale she saved earlier falls on him, killing him brutally.
- The Empath: Tenome is this to some extent.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: Tenome's tattoo invokes this.
- Friend to All Children: Tenome likes to befriend children, unlike the useless adults. This is also her Fatal Flaw.
- Hates Being Alone: Tenome, everyone's she has cared about has left her.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: The Pan Pan Girls
. - Grey-and-Gray Morality: Pretty much this.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Heavily implied.
- Identical Stranger: Shao Tzu looks like a younger Tenome. It scares her at first before bringing the mysterious child along.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Tonome likes pretty dresses, and kicks ass.
- Kid-Appeal Character: Shao Tzu, despite this being a seinen manga.
- Kimono Fanservice: Tenome's was a bit too loose.
- Kimono Is Traditional: Tenome used to wear one but started to wear more international clothing after getting to the continent.
- Lovecraft Country: The final volume takes place in a mostly ruined Japan after the atom bombs. A lot of it is covered in a fog where akayashi live and fuse with humans. The place makes wishes come true, at a price.
- Master of Illusion: Tenome is this, even though she mostly uses it to guide people through vision quests, can she also use it to scare people or do stupid things until they die.
- Meaningful Name: Tenome means Eye of the Hand.
- Mind Screw: And how! One see a scene play out in many different ways before finally revealing itself.
- Ms. Fanservice: Tenome was always this due to not caring about being nude, but grows up to be Hotter and Sexier.
- Naked People Are Funny: Some rich people hunted a young girl for their own entertainment. Tenome then made them believe they had become animals, so they run after the Cute Ghost Girl until they die, in the nude.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Tonome licks the skull of a friend.
- Parental Abandonment: Tenome's mother apparently left her and her [[spoiler:drunk father.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Tenome can apparently do this.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Tenome's Plot-Relevant Age-Up is due to
young girls starting to read the manga and Takahashi didn't want her to be an Anti-Role Model. - Roaring Twenties: Takes place during these and both world wars.
- The Scream: Many ghosts looking like it shows up in chapter 17.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: A model mountain was used for this, but turning it outside down releases them.
- Seers:
- Tenome meets a boy who can see the future selves of people around him, unfortunately for him does he see them as zombies.
- The eye on her hand allows Tenome to be this.
- Sex Slave: What many a person has tried turning Tenome into.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: How Tenome makes some of her money for a living.
- Space Whale: Tenome saves one causing it to save her later.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Tonome has these.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: How Tenome wears her hair as an adult.
- Vision Quest: Tenome can take people through these until they find one they're happy with as they're dying, or dead already. Ghosts can also send her on them.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Shao Tzu can do this, sometimes leads to Shapeshifter Identity Crisis.
- The Walls Have Eyes: Or rather, the fabric of Tenome's kimono does.
- Youkai: Many, including Tenome.
