YMMV / Mitama Security: Spirit Busters

• Abandon Shipping: Despite a relatively small age gap and a fair amount of Ship Tease, the chapters presenting Joh as a Parental Substitute to Rena (like the Mom Competition or the Parent-Teacher Conference) killed the ship for a lot of people who find the Wife Husbandry subtext too Squicky.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: On first glance, Mitama Security has a rather unoriginal plot ("exorcist fights spirits to protect girl") coupled with an average art style which doesn't really attract readers, especially in a magazine as competitive as Shonen Jump. Even as a pure comedy, it appears too soft and grounded compared to previous WSJ gag manga success like Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo or Pyū to fuku! Jaguar which thrived on their unapologetic Surreal Humor.
• Epileptic Trees: Because none of the spirits have backstories or even real names, there are numerous fan-theories about who they were when they were alive which often fall into the Everyone Is Related category to explain why they are friendly with the main characters. The most common theory would be that Zobiro is Rena Haze's late father.
• Fountain of Memes: The author itself Hatomune Tsurun (that most people nicknamed "Pigeon") due to the various photographs of him doing silly things wearing an Author Avatar mask that many found Creepy Cute which - coupled with Mitama's unexplainable survival in Jump - lead to several jokes about him being more powerful that he seems.
• Fridge Brilliance: The whole "embrace your dark past" chapter 28 suddenly makes a lot of sense after Mr. Stripe explained that the Reihyoken technique is stronger the more its user is a Dork Knight. He was mentally preparing Joh to accept his own natural dork side in order to deal with the upcoming Popoki threat.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Late 2019 to 2020 showed a large influx of comedy series coming to WSJ starting with Mission: Yozakura Family and Mitama Security. This started a somewhat friendly rivalry between all of them under the assumption that only one of them would survive in the end in an event that was nicknamed the "Gagbowl", with numerous crossover edits and memes. As both Mitama and Yozakura survived way longer than people anticipated and new series kept coming, the Gagbowl became very crowded and eventually occupied more than a third of the magazine's lineup.^note Mitama Security: Spirit Busters, Mission: Yozakura Family, Agravity Boys, Mashle: Magic and Muscles, Moriking, Bone Collection, Magu-chan: God of Destruction, Hardboiled Cop And Dolphin, and Me & Roboco
  • There are some interactions between the Mitama fans and fellow Shonen Jump series Jujutsu Kaisen fans due to both series dealing with spirits and exorcists with diametrically different approach. The main joke is that Rena Haze is secretly a Special Grade curse user and the real antagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen.
• Growing the Beard: For a series that was initially described as "action comedy", the first few chapters' jokes were really hit or miss and repetitive while the battles themselves weren't that impressive, taking a step back for the aforementioned awkward jokes. As the series progressed, became Lighter and Softer, and more characters joined the main cast, both of these aspect started to improve: the chemistry between the characters became more charming and funny while the (now rare) battles not only better utilized the characters' strengths but also created genuinely shocking O.O.C. Is Serious Business moments. The most obvious switch to the format was making Mitama the Straight Man instead of just the eccentric bodyguard he presented himself to Rena as, a move many fans liked.
• Inferred Holocaust: It's probably best not to think too much about the fact that all the cute spirits in this lighthearted series probably died a remorseful death to remain as spirits on Earth in the first place, especially Yuko, Ta, and Pi.
• Magic Franchise Word: At least now, people will know what "REI" means in Japanese...^note It means "spirit/ghost", by the way.
• Spiritual Successor: Has seen many, many comparisons to Weekly Jump's 2016-17 series Samon the Summoner, due to both series centering around spirits, exorcist male leads, and gag comedy. Some fans of Samon even came to Mitama with open arms.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: BODY. Despite their memorable design, very few (Neck, Leg, and Elbow) have any semblance of story relevance (and even then not that much), the others relegated to a background role just to fill the baseball team. We didn't even got see the wing powers of half of them in action!
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Little Girls?: With its focus on cute characters doing silly slice of life things, it's hard to believe that it is technically a shōnen series (a.k.a. "aimed at teenage boys") published in the same magazine as One Piece, Chainsaw Man, and The Promised Neverland. Even fans joke about the series being a shōjo manga in disguise.