Titanic body parts fall from the sky onto a town. The guts and viscera of corpses are mysteriously absent. And humanity continues to dream of eternal life and eternal youth. Katakishi of the Divine Incursion Special Investigations Department is on the case to uncover the truth of these phenomena, and other secrets that hit closer to home...

Divine Incursions is from an original story by Oumi Kifuru and drawn by Kōya Ashitaka. English translation by James Balzer. Lettered by Adnazeer Macalangcom. Published by Yen Press, Dec 30th, 2025.

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

I never did get around to finishing the seminal 1990s SF/horror/procedural drama TV show The X-Files (apparently, this was a good decision). For its first few seasons, before it went off the rails, it was a fun, mysterious weekly supernatural romp following two FBI agents investigating the supernatural and alien. With its male and female central investigative duo, Divine Incursions gives me real X-Files vibes, mixed with more than a hint of Mushishi, what with the significant focus on Japanese Shinto mythology. This is a world with local gods and strange yokai, whose actions and motivations are beyond the ken of mortal man.

Presented here are three decent-length chapters, the last of which sadly ends on a cliffhanger. Veteran investigator Katakishi is the world-weary Fox Mulder analogue, while his new, younger female partner Miyaki fills in the Dana Scully role, though without the skepticism. Together, they investigate some deeply odd cases, the first of which involves a village where enormous body parts, theorized to belong to a local deity, repeatedly fall from the sky. The key to resolving this issue lies in respecting and re-establishing ancient folkloric practices intended to keep the gods happy. It's the kind of story intimately tied to its national setting, which for a non-Japanese reader lends it something of an exotic mystique.

The third story, which I presume must continue in an eventual second volume, involves that staple of Japanese mythology, the mermaid. The concept of humans achieving immortality from ingesting mermaid flesh seems to be peculiar to Japanese, or at the very least East Asian culture, and plenty of manga reference it. It's hard to say what Divine Incursions plans to do with the premise, as the story is only getting going as it's halted by an abrupt cliffhanger.

I quite enjoyed this book, though I didn't feel the characters were particularly compelling yet. While very similar to Mushishi in terms of content and setting, Divine Incursions doesn't quite manage to conjure the same timeless, whimsical atmosphere, though it definitely has potential. One to keep an eye on.