A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School! Volumes 13 and 14 Review

With fourteen volumes released so far, A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School! is still an entertaining and hilarious read—Haruaki and the students of Class 2-3 can’t help but attract problems and cause mischief by simply existing!

This time, trouble finds them when they go on a school trip to Kyoto for a few days. While the readers know that Haruaki is descended from Abe no Seimei, the strongest onmyoji (similar to an exorcist) who could deal with any youkai (aka supernatural creature), Haruaki and the student of Class 2-3 finds out that the relationship is more complicated they expected: Haruaki is actually Abe no Seimei’s reincarnation! This explains his powers and why the guardian gods protecting Kyoto want Haruaki’s soul.

When Kyoto was still considered the capital of Japan, Abe no Seimei served the emperor and protected the city from youkai. To do so he assigned four guardian gods to the city and created a barrier that repelled any youkai from entering. However, his death soon after and the disappearance of one of the guardian gods left the barrier with a hole, which youkai took advantage of.

The time he’s spent at the school for demons has steeled Haruaki’s mind and power, and so he’s ‘ripe’ enough to be used to revive Abe no Seimei. Thankfully Haruaki’s students and colleagues won’t let the guardian gods do as they please. Even with his many faults, Haruaki is their comrade and they’ll fight for him. Sano as well, one of the most troublesome students who can’t control his powers, gets involved. To try to get his teacher’s soul back, he unleashes his powers, only to have Haruaki’s soul splitting into five little Haruaki, each with a part of the teacher’s personality.

It’s up to Class 2-3 to turn Haruaki back the way he was before the guardian gods get their hands on him again. This time, though, the youkai can count on the help of the powerful school headmaster and on Ranmaru, the captain of the Tengu troupe. They both have a secret that goes back a millennium, and involves Abe no Seimei…

Each character in this series has their own bizarre personality. They are all weird, but their interactions and quirks are what makes them mix so well that the story turns into a comedy. While Haruaki’s obsession with school uniforms is really troublesome, the author uses it as a way to bring laughter, for example as a way for Haruaki’s students to find him whenever he gets lost. Thankfully, his students know better than to encourage his obsession and don’t hesitate to stop him when things get out of hand. It shows that the new generation of youkai at least has some common sense.

In these two volumes, readers also find out more about the elusive school headmaster, Acchan, and Ranmaru, the captain of the Tengu troupe, who acted as the villain when Haruaki first joined the youkai school. The relationship between the headmaster and Ranmaru runs deep, and it started when Abe no Seimei was still alive. The three of them are more connected than Haruaki could have ever imagined, and their secret will surprise the readers. However, Haruaki gets to witness part of their history due to the magic of one of the guardian gods, and he promises Acchan that he’ll find the true culprit behind the murder of Abe no Seimei. It seems like more chaos, oops I meant adventure, is to come in Haruaki’s future.

Haruaki, though, is not the only one who has grown since he joined the academy as a professor. His students have as well, especially Sano. He didn’t open up much to his classmates and didn’t use his powers as he couldn’t control them. However, Haruaki’s persistence in being what he considers a good teacher, made Sano believe in him, so now that Haruaki needs his help, he’s there to do anything he can to bring his teacher back. Their relationship and the one Haruaki has with the rest of his students is quite moving and without a doubt, he’s changed the lives of the people, or in this case, youkai he’s met since becoming a teacher.

Although some big secrets are revealed in these two volumes, there is still a lot we don’t know, and we can’t predict how the story will develop. Haruaki is too much of a magnet for trouble to think he’ll get his answers soon-ish… Something is bound to go wrong.

A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School! is written by Mai Tanaka and is released in the English language in both print and digital format by Yen Press. One year passed between the release of Volumes 13 and 14, but readers can cheer because they won’t need to wait too long for Volume 15 as it is slated for release in September 2024, which will be followed by the anime adaptation releasing in October on Crunchyroll.

Our review copies from Yen Press were supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.