境界のRINNE/Kyōkai no RINNE
RIN-NE Volume 9 (manga)

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***SPOILERS***

In brief, the events covered by this manga begin with Rinne asks by a male student to discover why he’s always so sleepy when trying to study for exams, leading Rinne to discover a secret about the guy’s female tutor.  Sakura discovers a young girl ghost at a local skating rink, leading Tsubasa to find the now grown boy whom the girl has been waiting for. Next, Tsubasa is apparently being haunted by a young ghost woman whom Tsubasa has promised to help. However, Sakura and Rinne suspect the ghost has other motives for hanging onto Tsubasa, but after Rinne learns the truth, he discovers that Tsubasa has known all along and has been willing to endanger himself for the young lady’s sake.

Rinne learns that his father has been possessed by a ghost, forcing Sabato to work hard at a ramen shop he’d opened as a means to trick people. The ghost works Sabato to unconsciousness, allowing Rinne to learn that the ghost has wanted to run a ramen store in life. Sabato recovers, offering the ghost his body again, but instead, gives the ghost a dummy so that Sabato can take it easy while the ghost cooks special foot to force humans to give up their souls. Rinne tricks the ghost with an order for 500 bowls of ramen, breaking the dummy and causing the ghost to repossess Sabato until he completes 500 orders and the ghost passes on.

Sakura is in a play when a youkai wig has issues due to its part in a play having been cut sometime in the past. Next, Sakura notices lots of ghosts snakes, but though Ageha should be helping get rid of them, she refuses since she doesn’t like snakes. The culprit turns out to be a black cat (with a humanoid form) named Oboro, whom is still contracted to Ageha and who is determined to get revenge on her for all the times she mistreated him.

As usual, most of the stories here are forgettable for the most part. One thing that kinda bothers me is how there are so many dead children due to one thing or another.  Seriously, the town that Rinne, Sakura, and Tsubasa live in has to be the most dangerous town in the universe, seeing as how there are so many dead children and teens around.  Takahashi-sensei has to use the living ghost aspects to keep that from an even greater issue (meaning the ghost is not from dead person, but a manifestation from a living person).

Still, the story of Sabato being forced to work until his eyes bled did amuse me.  Takahashi-sensei loves creating despicable, worthless, low-life characters like Sabato, so it is always nice to see said characters get a bit of comeuppance, even if only a small amount.

Since Ageha only had a limited role in the ramen story, usually reserved to bonking her sister or Sabato on the head, she had a greater role in the final story, which was also mildly amusing.

While the story with Tsubasa and the female ghost was kind of sweet, to be honest, it didn’t do much for me, hence why after this review, I doubt I’ll ever think about it of my own accord again.

On the Viz side of things, I’m glad they didn’t give the ramen shop (Kaedama) an English name. That also meant that the t-shirt that Sabato wore with the Japanese name of the store on it didn’t get modified (which happens in Hayate the Combat Butler).  The Japanese honorifics are retained, but sadly, the sister title/honorific is removed when Ageha addresses her older sister.

RIN-NE is a title I ponder dropping since it isn’t anything special, but having gone through nine volumes, I figure I’ll go on a bit longer as it isn’t a complete waste of time.