I love digging up obscure works that, despite their lack of popularity, are rated well by the few people who have rated it, and have promising-sounding descriptions. Quite often, these works turn out to be pleasant surprises. Unfortunately, this one-shot manga consisting of four short stories and an epilogue is not one of them.

The premise of the story is fairly unique. It follows the anti-hero Kuroe, whose inhabits the local shrine and masquerades as a high school student. His real job, however, is to eliminate the tsumitsuki, a kind of demon that possess the bodies of those overcome with guilt, use their body to commit murders, and eventually kill off their hosts. Unfortunately, the central idea is not sufficiently developed. There is no clear overarching message conveyed to the reader. It seems that tsumitsuki simply kill off those who have hurt their host at first, even if they have nothing to do with the source of their guilt. The result is reminiscent of two common concepts in horror - the bullying/abuse/etc. victim that gains gets revenge on their bullies/abusers/etc. with a 'be careful what you wish for' kind of message, and the idea that we need to atone for our own sins instead of escaping/washing them away - but without actually putting out either message: most of the victims never wished for anything so they couldn't be careful what they wished for, and the guilt actually leads to the characters' demise. Perhaps a better reader could discern a clearer message from the story, but I could not.

Moving on to the stories themselves, the first story mainly served to introduce the reader to the setting and premise of the story, and was not particularly memorable. The last story was a continuation of the first story, and was very weak in my opinion - there was a minor surprise in the ending, I guess, but it was otherwise predictable and pretty forgettable. The epilogue hinted at some greater forces behind the anti-hero, but we never get more than a teaser about this.

The two middle stories were better, with more developed drama as well as somewhat significant plot twists near the end of both. The third, in particular, was the best story in my opinion. However, both were far too rushed; we barely have time to grasp the characters' background and current situation before we're presented with the twist. Moreover, each left some major part of the story not fully explained.

－ － － Spoiler below － － －

In the second story, it's unclear what guilt Yumi possessed to turn her into a tsumitsuki. In the third, it is not made clear why Makoto refused to see the truth about her mother, which made the drama less satisfying.

－ － －End spoiler － － －

Overall, the story tried to do too much in a <200-page manga, and ended up rushing everything. Thus, neither the horror nor the drama was particularly convincing. Unless you have a thing for drama-oriented possession manga, you won't miss much by passing up on this.