My Noisy Roommate: The Roof Over My Head Comes With Monsters and a Hottie Volume 3 Review

“Nijio-kun! You’re the boy who rescued Osuke when he went missing all those years ago!”

Student Osuke – irresistible to ghosts – has been sharing an apartment with Nijio for four months in exchange for working for Divine Inspiration Real Estate, a ‘unique’ firm that deals with troublesome hauntings and other supernatural occurrences. And then his older brother and sister, Koya and Kirame, come to visit, anxious to find out how their ‘precious little’ brother is faring for himself. But when Nijio appears, they realize that they’ve met him before.

It turns out that Nijio and Osuke first encountered each other when they were children (although neither one seems to have remembered). Six-year-old Osuke went out alone, annoyed that his older siblings weren’t able to play with him, and met Nijio (nine)…

The two little boys hang out together and Osuke suggests visiting the shrine dedicated to the God of the Land. Nijio is strangely reluctant to take him there but gives in to Osuke’s pestering… however there’s a reason Nijio doesn’t want to go and that’s because the God of the Land already has a hold over him. To the boys’ astonishment, the deity of the shrine appears – and when Nijio dares to confront him, he’s angered, and tells him he must be punished!

After more telling details of the past events have been revealed, the pair are sent to work on a new case. This involves the ghost ‘Hani-san’ that students in a local high school have been invoking to advise them about their love lives. However, in helping one lovelorn student, Osuke also receives a surprising piece of advice about his own relationship with Nijio from the matchmaking spirit! And as Nijio’s original partner Ten is the one who put them onto the case, Nijio is certain that he’s done it out of mischief, unable to resist to meddling in their affairs again.

However, the next case, Infinity Mirror, involving a house filled with sinister mirrors, turns out to be far more dangerous – especially for Osuke.

In the third volume of My Noisy Roommate, we get to learn more about Osuke and his family – but also about Nijio and their nascent relationship. Nijio is trying to ignore the feelings he has for his younger partner but with every case they solve, it’s getting harder to do so. The encounter with the God of the Land answers some questions about how both young men acquired their powers but also leaves the possibility open for future problems and even, maybe, debts needing to be repaid. Fans of the delightful little Zashiki-Warashi won’t be disappointed as he’s very much present in this volume and the older pair of supernatural investigators, Ten and Takao, are still around.

This series is very much ongoing with Volume 4 due out in December from Kodansha – and it’s worth mentioning that if you like Kaho Ozaki’s attractive drawing style (especially when it comes to portraying hot supernatural guys) Yen Press are bringing out her vampire manga My Beloved Supper (not BL) in September.

My Noisy Roommate is ably translated again by Jacqueline Fung with lettering by Dietrich Premier, and there are several useful translation notes, as before. With the engaging story-telling, the cast of good-looking men and the supernatural encounters that add a suitably chilling note to each case (but nothing too scary so far!), the series still makes for an enjoyable supernatural read.

Our review copy from Kodansha was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.