Among them is a spirit-world sidekick of sorts, Guren (no, not Lagaan), a little foxlike creature whom Masahiro calls “Mokkun”-short for “Mononoke”-with the capacity to unleash a spiritual butt-kicking of his own if the moment calls for it.
Now with diabolical spirits of all kinds running wild in the capitol, Abe and his onmyouji cohorts need all the help they can get, and so Masahiro has to balance a life of more “conventional” spiritual work with some more advanced exercises. The kid has a remarkable amount of power of his own, but for years it languished behind a seal established by Abe himself as a protective measure. In the show, he’s not so much the hero as a (literally) grandfatherly figure to the real protagonist: Masahiro no Seimei, Abe’s grandson and a budding onmyouji in his own right.
If the term rings a distant bell or three, chances are you might have stumbled across the two live-action movies of the same name, Onmyouji I and II, also issued by Geneon before they ended up in the great Suncoast Video cut-out bin in the sky.īoth the movies and this TV series use the same historical figure for inspiration: Abe no Seimei, a real-life onmyouji who served the Heian court. Sometimes translated as yin-yang master, an onmyouji was the feudal Japanese version of your friendly neighborhood ghostbuster-plus astrologer, sorcerer and a few other supernaturally-inclined vocations, all rolled into one. Most of us reading this know what shonen means (young man), but onmyouji is probably going to send most of us scurrying for the dictionary. As Frederik Pohl once said about another movie, “It may not be Bach, but it’s certainly Offenbach”, and that’s still plenty good.Ī description of the show would probably be best served by talking about the title. It’s got a mix of elements that hits a personal sweet spot, an attractive visual style, and a compulsively watchable storyline. Shonen Onmyouji is by no means a ground-breaking piece of work, but darn it all if I don’t like it.
There’s a big difference between a truly great show and one you just feel an endearing affection for.
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