ゴーストハント 1

Ghost Hunting

ゴーストハント follows high schooler 舞衣 (まい) after she's wrapped up in a ghost investigation in an old school building next to her school. She assists a ghost investigator who she quickly nicknames ナル for his narcissistic personality, and the two work together with other, specialized exorcists to get to the bottom of the schoolhouse haunting.

I liked the premise, but honestly I wasn't a huge fan of 舞衣. She's nice enough, but she's one of those protagonists whose only unique features is "spunk". Combine that with a partner, ナル, who has little personality of his own other than "dismissive", and it can make the text-filled pages drag a bit. Introducing the other characters was interesting, but this is definitely one of those series where you'd need to read several volumes to really get to know everyone.

Grammar is fairly standard stuff; you do get slangy speech for to the protagonist being a high school girl, but it didn't feel too over the top. One character speaks 大阪弁, but it's little enough you could consult a list of basic expressions and probably be fine. Vocabulary stretched into more technical ghost/spiritual/some religious vocab, but furigana with everything generally makes it easy to look up. Hilariously, just enough ghost vocab is given in katakana-ized English, to the point where 舞衣 needed clarification in Japanese art one point.

I've heard the anime is pretty good, but I unfortunately cannot compare it here to the manga, having not seen it.