Just finished reading an older manga that I'd recommend for anyone in here to check out (here's looking at you
@BananaSplit²). Its called
Ghost Talkers Daydream (Teizokurei Daydream in the original Japanese). It was translated into English officially by Dark Horse Comics, but for some unknown reason, they never finished the series, stopping at the seventh volume out of ten. Fan translators finished the manga, and those are the translations I linked to (nine volumes are translated by one scanlator group, while another person handled the last volume; the first group aren't the best, with numerous spelling and grammatical, along with typesetting errors, but its still possible to follow the story). Its by Saki Okuse, and is a shounen horror manga.
Despite technically being a shounen series, its would fall into that relatively recent and nebulous "Dark Shounen" category, like Chainsaw Man, or Dead Tube, or Akame ga Kill, in that its a "shounen" work that doesn't
feel, like a shounen series, isn't told like a traditional shounen series, doesn't star a traditional shounen protagonist, and has adult/dark/edgy content that one wouldn't normally find a series targeted towards children (shounen manga are generally targeted towards young boys and teenagers aged 12-17). Thus, they feel more like Seinen works that just so happen to serialized in a shounen magazine. For why its a Dark shounen, let me explain: the main character is a 19 year old woman named Misaki Saiki, who's an albino and a virgin, who works during the day as a writer for a porn magazine and at night as a dominatrix. She spends much of the series dressed in her "work" outfit. There is plenty of frontal male and female nudity, with indistinct male penises and fully drawn female breasts and pubic hair. There are multiple, sometimes surprisingly graphic, sex scenes. The storyline is very dark, dealing with heavy themes like rape, murder, parental neglect, and suicide. Its definitely not a typical work you'd find in something like Shounen Jump.
The entire crux of the story is that Misaki moonlights as a "necromancer". In the world of this series, "necromancer" is a term for what we would probably call a spirit medium. They talk to ghosts, find out what's ailing them, and help them pass on. Misaki works as a freelance necromancer who works for a Tokyo government office that contracts with necromancers like her to go to haunted places and deal with spirits (there seems to be a lack of masquerade going on; spirits are known to exist, necromancers are a known quantity and openly talked about, and there is a government agency that is known for dealing with them). The story is about Misaki interacting with her job and getting caught up with mysterious person only known as "YUO" who works through the internet to convince people to go to known haunted locations and commit suicide. Its a highly interesting story with some genuinely funny humor and legitimately creepy and emotional stories, so I highly recommend it to somebody looking for a good horror story that isn't like anything we usually get from manga. Consider it my Halloween recommendation.
Bear in mind, the final chapter has Misaki (minor spoilers)
turn into a lesbian/bisexual for no reason seemingly, despite having shown no interest in women before. I think there is a good in story reason for this, but I won't discuss it here unless its with someone who's already read the manga.
There was also a four episode OVA adaptation as well (watchable
here), which I haven't seen yet, but I'm planning to watch.
