APADFTMOM Day 6: Kekkaishi, and Split Narratives With Limited Settings

For the past few days I’ve been reading 10 chapters of Blood Lad by Yuuki Kodama a day as one of the two series currently marked on my reading calendar. I’m currently about halfway done with it and it’s fine, but there was a stretch of chapters that shared a few similar beats with today’s topic. Sometimes an author may place a restriction on their main character that, for some reason or another, prevents the whole story from being told. We may go into how Blood Lad handles this in the future, but today we’re taking a look at how masterfully this is handled in Kekkaishi by Yellow Tanabe.






Kekkaishi is about a boy named Yoshimori who is a kekkaishi - a demon-hunting spiritualist who specializes in confining and destroying demonic spirits with magical barriers - and one of two heirs to the practice along with his friend and neighbor Tokine. While their families feud over who the true heir is, Yoshimori and Tokine spend their nights patrolling the land their school was built on - known as Karasumori - and exterminating any ayakashi - supernatural monsters - that are drawn to the land’s immense spiritual power.




While Yoshimori and Tokine are frequently alongside each other, Yoshimori is the de facto protagonist for the series. Yoshimori has a lot of typical protagonist traits such as being headstrong, kind of dimwitted, not taking his duties seriously, and being the Chosen One - In his case, via a mark on his hand. He is jealous of his older brother Masamori for being a much more skilled kekkaishi and for garnering more favor from Tokine, and he enjoys sweets and baking whenever he gets a chance. In terms of the content of his character, there are very few unique traits that make him stand out both in the series and against similar protagonists.




Tokine is the balance to Yoshimori’s personality. While he is a bit of a reckless idiot, she is the rational one who is more knowledgeable about her kekkaishi powers and the ayakashi they fight. Despite having such a level head, Tokine has moments where she seems to overthink things and arrives at dangerous, almost irrational conclusions. This makes her a little more interesting than Yoshimori, but overall she fits a lot of the typical traits of somebody in her role what with being a typical high school girl with typical likes and dislikes.




It may seem that both of the primary characters for Kekkaishi are kind of boring and underwhelming, and that would be because that’s pretty true. Luckily the series has a third character who could be seen as one of the main characters: Yoshimori’s brother Masamori. Masamori is one of the strongest, smartest characters in the series and serves as the stick by which Yoshimori is measured. Masamori is a model son and a model kekkaishi, and he puts his all into everything he does to prove his worth to those around him to compensate for how he was not born with the successor’s birthmark.




The relationship between Masamori and Yoshimori is loving yet strained on both sides. Yoshimori sees Masamori as someone who is rarely around for important events because he’s constantly off on secretive missions that don’t seem to mean much to Yoshimori. On the flip side, Masamori harbors a constant feeling of jealousy over how his little brother was chosen to be their family’s heir to the kekkaishi practice. Masamori does his best to help Yoshimori in any way he can, but it could be argued that he does so out of selfishness to assert that he is the true heir to the family and that a simple birthmark only means as much as people let it mean.




Masamori is by far the most interesting character in Kekkaishi, and to understand why it is essential to first go over the structure of the story. Kekkaishi’s narrative is split between Yoshimori and Masamori and swaps between the two of them fairly frequently to keep the plot moving. Whenever there is a lull with Yoshimori, focus is shifted over to Masamori to either help progress time or influence actions that will play into Yoshimori’s side soon. Likewise, when Masamori’s side comes to a stopping point, focus goes back to Yoshimori to see how Masamori’s actions impact Yoshimori and to set things up for Masamori’s next development. This is all done while both characters are also feeding into their respective longer storylines.




A split narrative is almost a necessity for Kekkaishi due to the simple fact that Yoshimori is tied to a handful of locations for the majority of the series. Yoshimori’s life is a balance between going to school, leading the life of a normal high schooler outside of school, and going back to school at night to fight off the ayakashi drawn to Karasumori’s powerful spiritual energy. As his family’s chosen heir and as a kekkaishi in general, Yoshimori’s duty is to guard Karasumori and he is in a perfect position to do so regularly.




Limiting a character to a handful of locations also limits through what means the story can progress. When the main character only goes to two or three places, the plot starts to revolve around the character and all advancements come to them as opposed to them seeking the advancements out. Kekkaishi is set up in a way where that can work to a degree with one of the locations being the focal point for the whole series and drawing things to it in-universe, but that gets bland very quickly as everything starts to feel like new details laid against the same backdrop.




By putting focus on Masamori, who is not bound to Karasumori and is free to move around as he pleases, Kekkaishi avoids the stagnancy achieved by constantly using the same setting. Kekkaishi is a reactive series by nature, but Masamori being an active character allows him to seek out a variety of settings that open up the world to showcase what else going on outside of Karasumori while also emphasizing just how much Karasumori means on that larger scale. This is also a strong tool to keep the story progressing as it allows new settings to come into play based around what the characters need as opposed to trying to justify pulling those needs to one central location.




Masamori’s involvement also helps to break up the pace of the story. Yoshimori’s overall storyline involves getting stronger to continue defending Karasumori and to live up to his birthright as one of the heirs to the kekkaishi line. This is a very common development path that can feel cyclical and played out as Yoshimori continues to grow stronger and stronger through training and battling. Kekkaishi is an action series so it requires this to a degree, but Masamori helps to balance this out with a strong secondary story that focuses minimally on action.




When the story is centered around Masamori, the pace slows down considerably and takes a more political tone as the audience watches Masamori pull the strings behind the scenes to influence Yoshimori’s side of the story. A lot of time spent with Masamori involves diplomacy with characters important to the world who do not have solid reasons to fight or even visit Karasumori a lot of the time, but the outcomes of these meetings and power struggles always have an impact on the events at Karasumori and, by extension, Yoshimori.




These interactions help to reinforce Masamori’s character as an ambitious man out to do whatever he can to show his worth. Masamori is shown to not just be a powerful fighter but also a powerful influencer with a lot of pull on a large scale. This also establishes new conflicts purely unique to Masamori where he and his peers are at odds with each other almost constantly, which in turn gives him additional burdens to bare on his quest to prove himself. The resolutions help progress his own overall narrative while also funneling back to Yoshimori, and the plot continues moving forward.




Kekkaishi seems to write itself into the corner of being a flat, one-note series at first glance due to committing to one primary setting, but the inclusion of a main character who is able to provide story support outside of that setting keeps things from feeling stale. Masamori is also just a well-written character in general and I would recommend reading Kekkaishi solely for his perspective on the series. Kekkaishi is licensed by Viz and available both physically and digitally.