Ghost Sweeper Mikami: The Great Paradise Battle!! is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Takashi Shiina. It was published in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday from 1991 to 1999. In 1993, it won the Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnenmanga. The series explores some folk religion themes such as possession, exorcism, shamanism, Yurei, and Yōkai. The series was adapted as a 45-episode anime television series by Toei Animation called Ghost Sweeper Mikami which ran on TV Asahi and the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation from 1993–1994, covering most parts of the first nine volumes of the Manga. The anime lead to the release of a movie, which had been the only existence of Mikami in the United States. The TV series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks. In November 2013, Toei Animation released all of the episodes with English subtitles to YouTube.
Plot
Overdevelopment and crowding in Japan has forced many of its indigenous spirits and ghosts to lose their homes. Due to problems caused by the homeless spirits, a new profession was created, the Ghost Sweepers. Private exorcists for hire, they serve only the highest bidder to survive in the cutthroat corporate world. Among this, the Mikami GS Company, led by 20-year-old Reiko Mikami and her two assistants, the 17-year-old boy Tadao Yokoshima and the ghost girl Okinu, is said to be the best. The manga setup is scenario-to-scenario, with many plots intertwining classic Japanese culture and modern day realities, with occasional references to Western influences. In between these plots are some longer story arcs where new characters are introduced and the existing characters are further developed. There is no one ongoing storyline, therefore the plots are character-driven and serve to gradually develop characters, especially the main protagonists.
Media
Manga
Ghost Sweeper Mikami is written and illustrated by Takashi Shiina. The manga was first published in the combined issue #20–21 of Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday on May 8, 1991. It was then serialized in the same magazine from issue #30, published on July 17, 1991, to issue #41, published on September 22, 1999. Shogakukan compiled the series into thirty-nine tankōbon volumes, released from March 18, 1992 to November 18, 1999. Shogakukan re-release the series in a twenty-volume wideban edition, from December 16, 2002 to July 15, 2004. A twenty-volume shinsōban edition was published from June 16, 2006 to March 16, 2007. A twenty-three bunkoban edition was published from August 18, 2016 to June 15, 2018.
Volume list
Anime
There are 45 episodes that aired from April 11, 1993 to March 6, 1994.
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Title
Original airdate
Film
A 1994 anime film was produced by Toei. It acts as a sequel to the TV series.
Video games
The manga and anime spawned two video games, one for the Super Famicom and another for the PC Engine. Released in 1993 for the Super Famicom, Natsume's Ghost Sweeper Mikami: Joreishi wa Nice Body is a side-scrolling platform game where the player controls Reiko through multiple stages. Reiko is armed with a magic baton that can be used to perform several types of melee attacks. The baton can be powered up to shoot various types of projectiles, though these powerups are lost if Reiko takes any damage. It can also be used as a type of grappling hook to access certain platforms. There are also limited uses of magic attacks that hit all enemies on the screen. Banpresto released another game based on the franchise in 1994 for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM², an adventure game featuring card battles.
Reception
In 1993, Ghost Sweeper Mikami, along Yaiba, received the 38th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen category.
