Tactics

Summary: 

    Loosely set in Japan during the Taisho period, Tactics is the story of Kantarou Ichinomiya, a young man with the ability to see youkai and other mythical beasts. When he was a child, this ability resulted in him being ostracized by human company, and he turned to youkai for friendship instead. The youkai tell him that in order to be stronger, he must find the oni-eating tengu, the strongest of all youkai. The young Kantarou then vows to himself to find this tengu and name him 'Haruka'. By naming a youkai, a human becomes its master and the name contract is only broken if the master sets the youkai free. As Kantarou grows up, his interest in youkai leads him to a career as a folklorist and a part-time exorcist or 'youkai exterminator', with the ultimate goal of helping youkai.

The story begins when an assignment leads Kantarou to a rural shrine up in a mountain where he discovers a shrine to a fox god (tenko) which is actually the seal of the oni-eating tengu. By calling upon Haruka's name, Kantarou breaks the seal and finally meets the youkai of his dreams, who turns out to look like a very handsome young man with black wings. Together, Kantarou and Haruka go through many adventures and gradually grow closer to one another.

The story in both the manga and the anime follows a monster of the day format. Both the manga and the anime have been categorized by fans as shounen ai or boys' love due to Kantarou and Haruka's implied sexual attraction to each other, but this does not seem like a suitable categorization as neither of them openly express their affections physically or verbally, and they both display brief attractions to women.

As the past Haruka struggles with slowly comes back to him, his relationship with his master starts to crack. The tengu yearns to learn everything he had forgotten, especially the identity of the person who had sealed him within the huge rock boulders. This is the point where Minamoto Raiko and his group of soldiers come in. Together with another formidable demon, Raiko and his attendants plot many plans to try to force Kantarou to cancel the name contract or make Haruka awaken his real powers, so they would be able to capture Haruka and present him to "that person", whose identity is unknown. If the name contract is not canceled or if the master dies, Haruka's power would forever be restrained and he would not be able to be used by the antagonists.