The Ragpicker's Square: Shinrei Tantei Yakumo--Psychic Detective

Based on homonymous novel, anime Shinrei Tantei Yakumo tells supernatural stories brought by a young university student who has a CRIMSON EYE that can see the souls of the dead.

Introduction: Yakumo, born with a red left eye, is treated as an other and experiences attempt of murder from his own mother when he is a kid. Saved by a police detective Gotou from the hands of his mom, Yakumo asks "why did you save me?" In fact he has ultra strong sense of justice and a sympathy for those souls he sees as being wronged or murdered. He is confused by his otherness. He even tries to commit suicide because he feels it's his guilt that his mother went crazy and died due to his otherness. A girl from his university changes Yakumo's life....

Haruka Ozawa has lost some of her friends when they are trying to do an adventurous exploration in an old teaching building, and one seems obsessed by something evil. She believes she has seen something unnatural at the time her friends disappear. Tracing rumours about a young man who has supernatural abilities, Haruka finds Yakumo and pleads for help. Yakumo tells Haruka, he can see souls and communicate with them through his left red eye, but he is not an exorcist. Upon Haruka's insistence, Yakumo follows her to the building and disclosed a serial murderer behind this....After that, Yakumo tells Haruka that it is the soul of Haruka's sister that helped and saved her...

From that event on, Haruka's visit to Yakumo's place becomes a signal of new supernatural scenes that waiting for Yakumo to serach for the truth. Sometimes detective Gotou also seeks for help from Yakumo when there are strange cases that may involve souls of the victims. During one event, Yakumo encounters a mysterious man whose both eyes are as crimson as his, and for some reason this man claims himself Yakumo's father and is hunting Yakumo......

After experience with a lot more mysterious cases, Yakumo finds out the truth of his birth and that his mother's true love toward him. His bonds with Haruka, Gotou, his uncle Ishin and other kind people who cares for him are strenghtened, and he rediscovers hope and love for him to live for. By the end, the mysterious man who claims himself being Yakumo's father (fake) failed to possess Yakumo and retreats from Yakumo and his friends. Yakumo then tells others that man they see is actually a collectivity of evil desires and thoughts. Yakumo becomes stronger and finds his belonging.

Afterthought:

This is a story of Yakumo's search for his reason of existence and for him to copromise with his otherness. Truth sometimes hurts, but sometimes heals. Having been thinking himself as not wanted by his own mother, Yakumo is saved by his earliest memory of his mother. When Yakumo sees the pictures of his mother holding him as a baby, the smiles of both move him, so he recalls how sweet his mother smells. Souls do not tell lie. Yakumo sees souls and sees the truth. His meeting with the soul of his mom resets his life, and he finally accepts himself as being different and special, at the same time being accepted by his friends and family.

Covers of Manga Version