Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan – Demon Capital Volume 1

Thirteen-year-old Rikuo Nura is one quarter yōkai which means that he can only assume his powerful yōkai form, Nurarihyon, during the hours of darkness. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, he is the Young Master and potentially the Third Heir of the Nura clan. He formed his own Night Parade of a Hundred Demons to defeat the Shikoku yōkai who tried to take over his territory, the town of Ukiyoe. By day, Rikuo is just an ordinary schoolboy, who values his relationship with his school friends, even if one of them happens to be Yura Keikain, a young onmyōji from Kyoto who is training to destroy yōkai.

But a dark shadow from Rikuo’s past has returned. Four hundred years ago in Kyoto, his grandfather – then a young and confident Nurarihyon – joined forces with Hidemoto Kekkain (Yura’s ancestor) to fight against a murderous and powerful fox spirit (with all nine tails!) Hagoromo-Gitsune. This evil yōkai – with an appetite for fresh human livers – curses Nurarihyon and all his descendants. Now she is back in a new mortal body, with a burning thirst for vengeance – and as Yura is summoned back home by her older brother to try to help the Keikain onmyōji clan protect Kyoto, Rikuo is sent to Tono, a hidden yōkai village, to train to become stronger.

Of course, while Rikuo’s away, his school friends set out on a trip to Kyoto, blissfully unaware of the dangers that await them there. And by the time Rikuo has completed his training and made new alliances with the Tono yōkai, Hagoromo-Gitsune is wreaking havoc in Kyoto. As the protective seals set in place four hundred years ago are broken, will the young master be strong enough to withstand this powerful and hate-filled spirit and her yōkai? Will the Keikain clan forget their mission to destroy all yōkai and link up with Rikuo’s Night Parade to fight the ruthless fox-spirit? And can Rikuo and his Night Parade protect his school friends from Hagoromo-Gitsune’s craving for human liver and end the four-hundred-year-old curse?
 
The second season of Nura: Rise of the Yōkai Clan hits the ground running and doesn’t let up until Episode 13 which – rather disappointingly – turns out to be a résumé episode (just like in Attack on Titan). It’s much darker in tone than the first season (which, to be fair, eventually got serious in Part 2 and delivered some grim and nail-biting battles in the final episodes). Rikuo stays in his Nurarihyon form for most of the time, especially where there’s yōkai energy around, as in Tono Village, or in Kyoto which is polluted by Hagoromo-Gitsune’s evil emanations). It’s fascinating to learn Rikuo’s grandfather’s back-story and to meet Yura’s onmyōji family and their shikigami (even if her older brother comes across as an utter bastard). There are all manner of yōkai, both grotesquely humorous, exotically beautiful and downright hideous (Nura even has its own Monster Designer, Shinobu Tagashira). But the uneven tone of the first season – which veered between jokey school comedy (‘boy is really a yōkai, but how can he hide it from his nosy school friends?’) and dramatic feud between two clans of effectively creepy Japanese mythological creatures – has gone. It earns its 15 certificate for more than a few moments of grotesque horror – and it’s by no means certain at the end of these first episodes that Rikuo and the Nura yōkai are going to be able to defeat the nine-tailed fox woman before she takes control of Kyoto and begins her reign of terror.

The new director, Michio Fukuda, and new script writer Hideaki Koyasu are both very experienced in story-boarding and it shows. If the series can maintain the lively pace and the increasingly tense battles between the rampant yōkai (or ayakashi as they’re called in this version) it will definitely surpass its first season (which was still very watchable and engaging). Rikuo (Jun Fukuyama/Darrel Guilbeau/Grant George) is still a sympathetic hero, in whichever form he appears, and it’s good to see Yura (Ai Maeda/Sophie Roberts) becoming more confident in her own abilities.And Melissa Fahn deserves special mention, delivering a scenery-chewing dub performance as the utterly evil Hagoromo-Gitsune.

On the music front, it’s a relief to note that Kouhei Tanaka’s original theme – that was rather too reminiscent of John Williams’s Harry Potter music – has been dropped (although other atmospheric themes have been retained). It’s fair to assume that the other two composers mentioned in the credits, Kazuhiko Sawaguchi and Keiji Inai, are responsible for the new elements of the appropriately spooky soundtrack. Darker, retro colours are used for the animation for the Opening Theme, “Hoshi no Arika” by LM.C which is an aggressive, up-tempo, swaggering march and utterly appropriate for its depiction of the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. The Ending Theme “Orange Smile” by Katate☆SIZE  features the three female leads: Aya Hirano, Yui Horie, and Ai Maeda, just as in Season 1’s Ending Themes, but this time the animation is not so chibi or so cute…

And – no extras this time around.

In Summary
Dark, dramatic, with plenty of impressive ayakashi/demons, these new episodes in the saga of Rikuo Nura’s coming-of-age is well animated and excitingly watchable. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for the conclusion!

8 / 10

Sarah

Sarah's been writing about her love of manga and anime since Whenever - and first started watching via Le Club Dorothée in France...

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