Some guys have all the luck, but high-schooler Kimihiro Watanuki is not one of those guys. Instead of being a chick magnet, as someone his age rightfully deserves to be, he’s a weirdness magnet. Supernatural beasties and bumps-in-the-night of all stripes are drawn to him like moths to a fluorescent lighting fixture, and so for him even a simple walk to school ends up being a marathon run crossed with a wrestling match. “Monster bait” is not what he had in mind when he filled out his career choice questionnaire; he just wants to get rid of this affliction and go date girls like any other fellow his age.
One day he’s dealing with a worse-than-normal bit of spiritual molestation when he blunders across a house in the middle of the city that seems to ward off whatever’s currently pestering him. It’s a shop of sorts, a place where people can come to have their deepest desires fulfilled—but always with a price, and inevitably with certain conditions attached. The shopkeeper, Yūko, is an armful: leggy, boozy, and flirty, with a propensity for outré fashions, a long good smoke and expensive spur-of-the-moment snacking. She gives Watanuki the once-over and right away has his number. He wants something, she tells him, or otherwise he wouldn’t be here.
Review written for AMN. Click here to read full text.
