Serialized from Micro Magazine into manga form, The Haunted Bookstore: Gateway to a Parallel Universe is published in the United States by Seven Seas Entertainment. It is written by Japanese author Medamayaki and illustrated by Shinobumaru. It was originally released as a light novel.

According to the GoodReads synopsis,

“Kaori lives in a bookstore where the boundaries between the mortal realm and the spirit realm are blurred. She spends her days in peace, selling books to otherworldly beings alongside her adoptive father, a spirit himself. But all of that is disrupted when a self-proclaimed exorcist stumbles into this ghostly utopia. Can Kaori embrace her better nature and help a man who’s vowed revenge against all spirits find his way back home?”

For a series with a title like The Haunted Bookstore, I was expecting, well, a haunted bookstore. At least in this first volume, the bookstore was only in the beginning. While it was a cool exploration of Japanese folklore and mythology, I was kind of disappointed in it. Sure, the artwork was good, but I felt like the story was kind of random with no sense of direction. Now, this could be due to a poor translation into English, but even if that is the case, I still would have liked to have seen more of the bookstore the title promised.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Tell me if there is a comic book, movie, or novel you would like me to review. While you are at it, check out my manga highlights of the eighth volume of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes and the first volume of My Happy Marriage. Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more posts like this one.

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