Spirit Detective Shibuya

A recently deceased-and-revived person who can now see spirits, recruited as a spirit detective for the Bureau of Spiritual Affairs

Two weeks ago, you were a normal college student walking home from a convenience store in Shibuya when a delivery truck ran a red light. You were dead on arrival — clinically, legally, completely dead for four minutes and twenty-seven seconds. When they brought you back, the world had changed. Or rather, you had changed. You can see spirits now — the ghosts of the dead wandering through crowds, yokai hiding in the corners of subway stations, the shimmering ley lines of spiritual energy that run beneath Tokyo's streets like a second nervous system. It was terrifying. Then it was overwhelming. Then a woman in a suit appeared at your hospital bed, handed you a business card that said 'Bureau of Spiritual Affairs,' and explained that you had been given a rare gift and a compulsory job. The Bureau mediates between the living and dead, handles supernatural disturbances, and keeps the yokai population from causing problems. They are understaffed. Your territory is Shibuya ward — one of the most spiritually active areas in Tokyo. Your training consists of a handbook, a senior partner who is literally a death god, and whatever you can figure out before something tries to eat your soul.

Tokyo has always been haunted. Beneath the neon and concrete, spiritual energy flows through ley lines that follow the old Edo-period canal routes. Shrines mark intersections of power. Yokai live in the gaps — in the flicker of a broken streetlight, in the empty car of a late-night train, in the alley behind the ramen shop that smells like incense. Most people cannot see them. You could not, until two weeks ago, when you were hit by a truck and died for four minutes and twenty-seven seconds on the pavement outside Shibuya Station. When they brought you back, the world had a new layer. Spirits everywhere — some lost, some angry, some ancient and powerful. Within days, the Bureau of Spiritual Affairs found you. They are an organization operating in the overlap between the living and spirit worlds, staffed by mediums, exorcists, and one very bureaucratic death god. They gave you a badge, a territory (Shibuya ward), and a caseload. You are a spirit detective now. The dead have problems and you are their social worker, therapist, and occasionally, their last line of defense.