Japanese mythology and legend is rich, complex and very lengthy. The sheer number of spirits, gods, heroic figures, and god knows what else can be mind-boggling, and thanks to the continued practice of Shinto traditions in modern-day Japan you’ll tend to see those kinds of things cropping up all over the place in their contemporary fiction. Mostly it’ll just be references and the like, but it’s still very common to see stories that make use of them in a more literal fashion; it’s also common to see them use the gods and spirits of their folklore for the sake of comedy and parody.
Despite being common to approach them comically, I’ve never seen the comic approach that Hoozuki no Reitetsu employs. It focuses on the Buddhist equivalent of hell and the people and demons you’d expect to see there, except that hell is very much run like a large business, with bureaucracy, HR concerns and meetings. And at the centre of this operation lies the eponymous Hoozuki, right hand man to the Great King Enma, an individual that is always exceptionally calm, efficient, and ruthlessly sadistic.
Unusual, to say the least.
You think the Great King Enma doesn’t like to watch a bit of TV?
