The Yōkai Hunter Amakusa Haruaki Appears!
~The Threat of a Hundred Demons!!~
Japanese Title:
妖怪ハンター・天草晴明登場！ 〜百鬼の脅威!!〜
Yōkaihantā Amakusa Haruaki Tōjō! ~Hyakki no Kyōi!!~
Original Air Date:
12 October 2022
Mob's class will be contributing a haunted house to Salt Middle School's bunkasai note . The teenager gets teamed up with Inukawa and two other slackers from Class 2-1 for costume duty. His teammates elect to make lazy costumes out of bedsheets, but Mob suggests they put in some actual effort. He has no specific ideas, though.
The student council reviews the list of festival booth ideas from all classes. Ritsu has... some misgivings about this year's submissions. A concert space? His own class's crossdressing maid café? Student Council President Kamuro waves away the younger Kageyama's objections; everything on the docket is fine, provided everyone is careful. Vice President Tokugawa agrees.
Two weeks to bunkasai day. Mob is beginning to panic at his classmates' progress; he still hasn't come up with a solution... Cut to Reigen bemoaning a decrease in traffic to Spirits and Such's gaudy website. Serizawa wants to talk about leaving work early to attend night school. Just as Reigen gives his blessing to the older psychic's request, the office door slams open. In the doorway stands a man. A man by the name of Haruaki Amakusa, proclaiming himself to be a 'yōkai hunter', who then commences to babble about some kind of mission he's on. Reigen is not amused. Not at this man's odd fashion sense, the real sword he's carrying, or his presumption. As he has an existing exorcism appointment on the books, he asks the strange man to wait outside.
Three hours later, Amakusa is back and making even less sense than before. Reigen vents barely contained spleen all over this fellow, since the man isn't a client by his own admission; he needs to get to the fucking point and soon, or the phony psychic will inflict some real damage on him. The hunter relates his story at last in a format Reigen can actually parse: Amakusa needs help defeating the advancing threat of Hyakki, a group of a hundred yōkai attempting to drain the life forces of every surrounding human being in hopes of resurrecting their Great Yōkai King. Reigen—still ready to punt the man out of his office through the window if necessary—changes tack when Amakusa sets down a hefty wad of bills in exchange for his help. Amidst all this, Mob arrives in need of some counsel. Reigen assents and bids him tag along.
After walking around the city for some time, they step inside an abandoned building—one Spirits and Such has already exorcised—that Amakusa identifies as a source of Hyakki aura. Amakusa and Reigen panic as the way out seals shut behind them. Serizawa, however, is strangely calm, while the bulk of Mob's attention lies elsewhere. Amakusa, despite being in apparent possession of some psychic ability, is outmatched when a yōkai pounces on the quartet, but Serizawa casually slices the spirit in two with a business card. More hungry ghosts, and even the Great Yōkai King's Four Generals, arise from the shadows; Serizawa's acrobatic fighting technique and the preoccupied Mob's raw strength snuff these spirits out too. The yōkai hunter watches on in awe: what kind of power is this? The Great Yōkai King himself, incensed, swells up to his full height and bears down on young Kageyama...
...Who summarily reduces him to a pile of inert ash. An impressed Amakusa offers employment to both psychics as yōkai hunters, but they flatly decline. Reigen's glee at his talent refusing to be poached and his disrespect for Amakusa both cost him dearly. But the experience gives Mob the perfect costume design, and he politely takes his leave... without asking for Reigen's help, to the man's eternal surprise. The next morning, Inukawa and the other two students join Mob and pitch in on a replica of the fallen Great Yōkai King.
Mob is rightfully proud of himself for saving the day on all fronts: he came up with a good ghost concept for his class's haunted house just in time for the bunkasai and managed to convince three consummate slackers to help him build it. In the maid café, Ritsu serves two older women a pair of cutesy drinks; his misery can be heard in his voice. Against the sound of his customers' cooing over all the cute crossdressing maids, he hears Shou Suzuki's voice raised in greeting. Shou orders a soda and compliments his look in drag...
Tropes appearing in this episode include:
- Adaptation Deviation: Reigen agrees to help Amakusa for free out of self-preservation in the manga. Seasoning City has been hemorrhaging residents ever since Claw's world domination attempt; any more weirdness going down might dry up business for good. Here, Amakusa pays him a million yen for his help, but Reigen shames him for throwing his weight around with money and is shamed himself into giving it back.
- Body Wipe: Mob's poker face... then his right eye... then its pupil fills the screen as the gigantic, powered-up Great Yōkai King moves to crush him to pulp. The very next cut is of the King's bombed-out skull resting atop a pile of ash.
- Deteriorates Into Gibberish: Inverted; Reigen can only understand Amakusa's talk of yōkai conspiracy when he relates it in song.
- Dissonant Serenity:
- Aside from Mob—who is not only more powerful than everyone else here, but quietly panicking about the upcoming bunkasai and not even fully present—Serizawa is eerily calm in the abandoned office building when the way back seals behind them. Reigen lampshades it here and lampshaded it in the second season OVA as well.Reigen: You seem calm about this, Serizawa.
Serizawa: Oh, I tend to be more relaxed in dark, confined spaces. - Mob as the Great Yōkai King rushes him. The teenager doesn't flinch—or even blink—as he obliterates the ancient spirit.
- Aside from Mob—who is not only more powerful than everyone else here, but quietly panicking about the upcoming bunkasai and not even fully present—Serizawa is eerily calm in the abandoned office building when the way back seals behind them. Reigen lampshades it here and lampshaded it in the second season OVA as well.
- Dragged into Drag: Ritsu is outraged at the prospect of wearing a dress for his class's crossdressing maid café; he feels everyone should be dressed more conservatively for the school's bunkasai. At episode's end, his female customers' delight and his embarrassment in front of Shou are Played for Laughs. The other boys in his class, however, seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves in drag.
- Improvised Weapon: Serizawa's business card, which he clones into a sword, then later spins into a sort of multifaceted lens for intensifying his attack on one of the Four Generals.
- Just a Kid: Amakusa's first impression of Mob. Reigen assures him that the unassuming teenager is quite capable of handling himself against whatever may come their way.
- Kabuki Theatre: Amakusa sings the tale of his quest to take down the Hyakki. The background art shifts to lushly animated sumi-enote paintings, and the accompanying music evokes Kabuki Sounds. Reigen remarks that he can actually understand Amakusa's speech now.
- Meaningless Meaningful Words: He speaks in a flood of obscure references, antiquated syntax and off-kilter pauses. Reigen, normally patient with potential clients, finds Amakusa mostly unintelligible and frustrating enough to set off his Rage Breaking Point. In the manga, Serizawa is able to pick up on the references due to his hikikomori past: they happen to be locations and events from recently popular MMORPGs.
- No Social Skills: Reigen's sarcastic disdain for Amakusa never seems to register with the yōkai hunter.
- Rummage Sale Reject: The man's weird getup—a mix of martial-arts attire, a vaguely-Native American hairstyle, arm bracers and a katana—screams either 'LARPing' or 'gibbering mad'. Or perhaps both.
- School Festival: Salt Middle School's bunkasai, the backdrop of this episode. Like many other examples of this trope, Mob's class' obakeyashiki and Ritsu's class' café are given special focus, but we do see Tsubomi's class' pancake booth and individual club offerings.
- Shrinking Violet: Despite Amakusa's robust personality, he has tremendous difficulty presenting himself in front of Reigen and Serizawa during their first meeting.
- Talkative Loon: The yōkai hunter starts talking about his mission without confirming whether Reigen can even accommodate him. He waits around for hours for Reigen to finish up with clients before showering him with... even more prattle.
- Downplayed, as Amakusa happens to be right.
- Upper-Class Twit: Amakusa comes from a wealthy family and his parents "support" his yōkai-hunting mission.
