The small, forest village of Komorebi (木漏れ日) Village tells stories of Youkai to their children more than any other town or village in the entire country of Japan. Many of the elder members of the town are old-fashioned, but it isn't to say the same for the youth necessarily. While some reflect the same views of their parents and believe the tales of Youkai (some to misbehaving children, some not), the more modern leaning ones do not. Despite the village being located in the middle of a forest where the light leaks through the trees (as the name would imply), it is not at all isolated from town or an exclusively old-fashioned town (to all). They go to school in town (which is half an hour away by the bus that stops just outside the forest) and they have jobs in the town, as well. The village appears as you would expect from a forest village—being tans and browns in colors, with sliding screens for doors and the like, surrounded by lots of rivers and lakes with stone paths and bridges across the glistening, clear waters.
A neighboring town was once bustling with energy but is now abandoned—or so they thought. A brave few humans decide to venture to the abandoned town one night (because of a dare, most likely, or perhaps morbid curiosity? their parents, after all, told tales of the townspeople being run out by Youkai!) and are shocked by what they see. A town once thought to be abandoned was now bustling with energy and people... but if one looked close enough, they weren't people at all. They were... Youkai.
It doesn't stop there, of course. A few Youkai notice the group of teens and confront them, inquiring as to how they're visible—they were under the impression they were in the Spirit World, a realm that is completely separate from the world of humans unless they so choose to cross to feed. Now that they share the same world, the Youkai are more vulnerable than they originally thought, and they have to learn to coexist with the humans they usually tease or feed off of. Anything could happen now, from romance between humans and Youkai to tension between the two.
{ reservations are endless! }
{ four preferred! }