The Contract Between a Specter and a Servant Volume 2 Review
Masamichi has been living with antique dealer Shino over his shop Bougyoudou for two months. Shino saved the young man’s life when Masamichi was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. But handsome and sophisticated Shino is in fact a fearsome specter who has been living in human form since the Heian Era, when he was bound by an onmyouji. Masamichi agreed to become Shino’s ‘food’ but since the time of the accident when he entered into a contract with the specter, this means that Shino will feed on his human energy. In return for board and lodgings, Masamichi will help in the shop and attend classes to try to get into university. And as for the antique shop? It’s cluttered with very unusual objects, tsukumogami, artefacts that are possessed by spirits with strong feelings – as Masamichi has already discovered to his cost!
After a high school girl pays a visit to Bougyoudou, she shares her experience on social media and a pushy young female journalist, Yumiko Matsuoka, arrives, eager to feature the shop in a story. Not the kind to take ‘no’ for an answer, she persists, bringing gifts of expensive cookies. She even finds a spiritual object in the shop – a fan – that she feels a kinship with (and vice versa!) Yet there’s more to her persistence than the desire to run a good story. Masamichi learns, as they chat, that her father was killed in a hit-and-run accident when she was still a schoolgirl. Having heard some stories about a recent mysterious accident rumoured to have taken place locally, she’s very keen to investigate. “It’s a hit-and-run case with a missing corpse.” Masamichi is horrified. He assumed that no one had witnessed what happened to him that fateful night but it turns out that urban legend-style rumours have been circulating. Matsuoka feels a special connection to the story, but she’s keen to make her name as an investigative journalist by tracking down the truth. Unfortunately, her enquiries come too close to the perpetrators of the crime and she becomes their target. She runs to the only place where she feels she’ll be safe: Bougyoudou. But the criminals are right behind her – and Masamichi finds himself facing the man who knocked him down and left him for dead when he and two cronies burst into the shop.
The second volume of Michiru Fushino’s The Contract Between a Specter and a Servant builds in a very satisfying way on the events of the first. It opens with a chilling Prologue set in Heian times in which a spiritual medium (an onmyouji) calmly confronts a terrifying wild specter in the form of a ravening wolf and subdues it to his will, naming it ‘Shino’. This glimpse into the titular specter’s far-distant past and his first human master shows us what Masamichi in the twenty-first century only glimpsed briefly on the night Shino rescued and remade his injured body. Centuries of being forced to live alongside humans has made the specter into a cold-hearted but rational, refined semblance of a mortal man.
The author is skilled at setting up disturbing scenarios that chill the reader’s blood in subtle and effective ways – although she’s also capable of delivering moments of genuine horror. There’s a very pleasing balance in this second volume between character development and a well-constructed plot; it’s a great page-turner! Yumiko Matsuoka’s journalistic ambitions are believably portrayed and it’s fascinating to watch the way she stirs things up in the unconventional domestic set-up at Bougyoudou. By the end of the volume, it’s impossible not to feel that all three main characters have grown and changed in various way, especially Masamichi who is gaining in self-confidence and self-esteem. Could it be that Shino has gained a little more understanding – and even appreciation – of his human servant too?
The excellent translation for Yen On is again by Eriko Sugita and makes for a smooth and effective read. The beautiful cover art is again by Aki Aoi and makes me wish (again) that there have could been interior illustrations as well. However – and this is in no way a criticism of the translation – I can’t help wondering if certain turns of phrase or terminology were editorial choices? I wouldn’t have minded at all if the terms such as) ‘onmyouji’ and ‘tsukumogami’ were left in the original language (translation notes or footnotes are always an option, as in Seven Seas danmei) instead of using ‘spiritual medium’ and ‘artifact spirit’. There’s also a very brief lapse into the first person (one that the author obviously missed – as she explains in Volume 1 that she’d re-written the novels in the third person for the new edition). These are small issues, however, and shouldn’t interfere with your experience when reading the novel. The third volume is due out in November 2024 (there are currently five in Japan).
If you love Japanese urban fantasy that’s overlaid with a light but unsettling veneer of horror, then The Contract Between a Specter and a Servant is a must-read. Recommended!
Our review copy from Yen On was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
