I have a theory about manga. The front cover will be a reliable guide to what's inside the book. If you're looking for sports manga, you'll find it instantly. Shounen adventure? Dodgy harem isekai? You really can judge a book by its cover. Thus, of course, if the cover's sexually suggestive enough to make you worry about putting it on your bookshelves, what's inside will almost certainly be ten times worse. There are exceptions to this, mind you, e.g. Franken Fran, because it's deliberately playing with it. The colour cover on the dust jacket is sleazy, but then the black-and-white cover on the book itself will have stripped away flesh, skin, etc. to become grotesque horror. It's great. NOTE TO SELF: read Franken Fran Frantic.

Anyway, this manga's cover looked dodgy to me. Ghostly hands seem to be trying to pull off a girl's clothes. I saw this in the bookshop and avoided it, but on a later visit bought it anyway. (Book Off has tons of manga for 110 yen per volume, which is practically free.) I started reading and the first two chapters made my hair stand on end... but after that it became quite good. It's a boundary-pushing comedy.

Kamui is a sex-powered exorcist. He rapes the dead. If you're an actual living human, you're safe and he's not interested in you. If you're a murderous evil spirit, he'll banish you from this world with the power of your orgasm. (Yes, his dead victims enjoy it.) He also masturbates to spirit photos of malignant entities that don't even look human, let alone erotic.

All this is jaw-dropping. One of this book's funniest jokes is an evil spirit gloating over the hideous things it's going to do... and then it observes Kamui.

He's not our viewpoint character, though. That's Shizuka, a buxom schoolgirl girl who attracts evil spirits and had been in a bad way until she met Kamui. She never has sex and she's just a long-suffering assistant who lives with Kamui and behaves like his mother. (She also has an ordinary life and she REALLY doesn't want her school friends to know about Kamui. That's understandable.)

Another supporting character who appears halfway through this volume is a doll tsukumogami who's full of herself and initially evil. She's glorious.

Curiously, this manga's artist (Karasuma Yayoi) is female. Why did she do this series? Answer: she might like this kind of thing. Her doujinshi and light novel illustrations are similarly risque (or stronger). Her choices are interesting, though. This is an extremely dodgy manga with huge boobs and lots of sexual activity, yet it has almost no full female nudity. In contrast, Kamui's naked body is often and lovingly portrayed. Female nipples, no. Male nipples, definitely. The manga's female faces, though, are wonderfully expressive and can be hilarious, whereas Kamui tends to look unreadable and somewhat doll-like. What Karasuma particularly shines at, though, is yokai, ghosts, ghouls and other J-horror monstrosities.

At first, I thought this manga might be Mieruko-chan. Very wrong. It's also a perverted parody of Japanese horror and legends, with Mary-san, Teke-teke, Kokkuri-san, Sukima-onna, Rokurokubi, etc. If there's something you don't recognise, assume it's real and you just haven't heard of it. Is it good? Yes, but it's pretty wild. Googling, I found plenty of people who think this manga is hilarious and one of their favourite comedies, but they'll be outnumbered by people who'd call it an abomination that should be burned. The manga has at least nine volumes and counting. I might buy more.