You may not know Onmyoji, but you’ve definitely seen its affect on popular culture. If you’ve ever played Pokémon, congrats! You’ve been introduced to the basics of Yin-Yang Mastery. Now, the popular Japanese novels by Baku Yumemakura are being turned into an anime for the very first time. Check out the trailer below.
Abe no Seimei, the main character of this anime, was possibly the most famous master of onmyoji—traditionally a form of divination—and lived in the middle of the Heian period of Japan. He was so widely regarded in Japan that his story spread to China, and influenced folklore there as well. Seimei is a fascinating character in both history and legend, and he has been given many different fictionalizations in the century since he lived.
Abe no Seimei and his partner Minamoto no Hiromasa, are part supernatural detective agency and part oracle service. The new series will follow the novels and expand on the stories that Yumemakura told about the infamous onmyoji. The director of Netflix’s version of Onmyoji is Soubi Yamamoto, with the series written by Natsu Hashimoto and Yuiko Kato. It’s set to begin streaming November 28.
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