Hell is Dark with No Flowers by Yoru Michio

Seiji Tohno is a down and out NEET, living out of Net Cafes he's on his last few coins when one evening at Twilight, he finds himself lost. After wandering for a bit, he finds himself in front of a European style mansion and is quickly invited inside for tea. Once inside, he meets Shiroshi Saijou, who offers Seiji a part-time job, including room and board. All he has to do is help Shiroshi with his business. The problem is Seiji is 100% sure that he can't say no and that Shiroshi's business is no normal business. It may even be Hell on Earth. 

I can not begin to tell everyone how much this is exactly the story I've been looking for for months! This blends Yokai folklore and mythology with a detective style story reminiscent of Yokomizo. So much so that the second "case" in the book appears to be dedicated to him. And I can say with 90% certainty that I think Yokomizo would love these stories. 

So far we have delved into two stories that center around broken families, those lying to each other and betraying each other (very reminiscent of Yokomizo's works), people who have sinned and believe that have gotten away with it. The twist here is that Seiji can see these sins in the form of a corresponding Yokai, instead of the person he sees the Yokai that represents the sin, which is great because Shiroshi can send them to Hell (after giving them the opportunity to repent of course). This is such a brilliant use of Yokai, having them manifest in an individual, I busted out my own copy of Seiken Toriyama's Yokai Encyclopedia (a modern translation) to see if I could figure out which villain was which Yokai first! 

I genuinely can not recommend this enough, especially if you enjoy Yokomizo's Detective Kindaichi series. Thank every god ever. I picked up Vols 1 and 2 at the same time!

Hell is Dark with No Flowers Vol 2

On the way to the store from a certain mansion, Seiji is attacked by a young woman attempting to find the mansion and it's master. This is bad enough but then he is attacked again by a young man who drops a bombshell on both Seiji and Shiroshi; his name is Aka and he's not only Shiroshi's youngest brother he's angling for Seiji's job and if Seiji has to die for him to get it, well, that's even better. To make matters worse, Shiroshi receives a summons to a mystery island requesting he join the occupants to witness a dismemberment...

This volume delves a bit more into Shiroshi's background and how he ends up becoming Gorouzaemon's heir. It's not pretty and is almost identical to Odoro's story, which is extremely sad, especially since I can't imagine Shiroshi would have wanted to become heir in that manner. I feel bad for him, and honestly, after this volume, I'm more than positive that Seiji is the brother he needed all along, and Shiroshi just didn't notice it. 

The mystery in this one is an actual locked room mystery that clearly pulls from Christie's And Then There Were None but is so much more twisted than hers. We again have another extremely messed up family, except this time, there seems to be some sort of outside force leading them to do things that they otherwise may have thought about but never acted on. Although, I will say I do not blame Riko in the least, not even a little bit. You'll get this when you read it but trust me Riko snapping was only a matter of time, what she does afterwards, however, is something I don't believe she would have done without this outside influence.

I genuinely can't recommend this series enough, and if you follow me on Bluesky, you are probably getting sick of me talking about it, but it's truly an exceptional nod to the classics in this genre. 

Hell is Dark with No Flowers Vol 3

Saori Toribeno, a writer from an occult magazine reaches out to Shiroshi but sending him an interesting journal and a request to interview Seiji. Saori has apparently stumbled upon a woman by the name of Mayuka Asaka who appears to have with a shard of The Mirror of Illumination in her eye as well and she had sent her to story to Saori's magazine, however, when Saori attempted to do an interview she was completely dismissed and decided to reach out to Shiroshi, where she also relates a strange tale of the murder of Mayuka's own father. Shiroshi immediately books a trip to the Asaka family's Inn, hoping to get to the bottom of both Mayuka's father's murder and to find out more about Mayuka's shard. Unfortunately for Shiroshi and Seiji there is a far greater conspiracy here and it may cost Shiroshi his life. 

Since its only volume 3 I feel like saying best one yet, is a little premature, but I don't care because it is the best one yet! The first story honestly seems a bit boring, but that's because it's laying the groundwork for the second story and a conspiracy of, well Hellish proportions! Not to mention that the entirety of the yokai's story in vol. 2 is absolutely off the wall. I'm not going to go into it because I don't want to spoil it but as far as I'm concerned, the second story solidifies Michio's place among all of the great Japanese mystery writers.

I also love how close Seiji and Shiroshi are now, regardless of how old Shiroshi actually is he truly is just a lonely little boy at his core and I'm so glad he found Seiji. And Seiji needed someone just as much as Shiroshi did so to see them interact as almost brothers by volume three is wonderful. 

I can't wait to read volume 4! With that cliffhanger ending everything is up in the air especially since a character has emerged from hell that is actually evil!