Granted, as the series starts, he doesn't have the latter option. In Kantaro's world, whoever names a demon becomes its master; Kantaro currently lives with a fox spirit whom he named Yoko, thus securing her services as housemaid, cook and all-around companion. She sighs a little over the state of affairs but doesn't seem to actively want to escape Kantaro—instead, she treats him something like a hapless brother, constantly berating him for not earning more money and managing the household better. Apparently folklorists don't earn much cash, even when they're moonlighting as fantasy authors, occult journalists and amateur ghostbusters.

Kantaro has apparently always had a special relationship with the supernatural realm, at least judging from an early flashback in which he pours his heart out to a couple of weird, blobby "monsters" who are clearly his friends. Apparently his childhood peers either didn't believe in monsters or thought they were ugly, and he took a lot of teasing for it because he wasn't strong enough to fight back. He spent his childhood wishing he were stronger, so when his monster buddies told him about a demon so strong that it ate other demons, instead of being frightened, he idolized it and went looking for it, hoping to befriend it and learn from it.

As the show begins, he finally finds its resting place, names it Haruka and metaphorically takes it under his wing. Which is a bit ironic, since Haruka himself has huge black wings, though he otherwise looks like a handsome 20-something. Like Yoko, Haruka initially seems fine with his new master. But is he really comfortable as the demon-battling servant to a mere human?

A better background than a foreground

Tactics is somewhat reminiscent of Ushio and Tora, another series about a boy and a demon. Visually, they're nothing alike: Where Ushio featured heavy lines and rough action, Tactics has the fine lines, arty compositions and elegant, angular, pretty characters of a stereotypical yaoi series. But like Ushio, Tactics uses its central occult partnership as a jumping-off point to delve into Japanese mythology. After the characters are established in Episode 1, the next four installments follow a pattern: Someone supplies Kantaro with evidence of a haunting or supernatural events, and he follows up and fights a demon with Haruka's help. The setup is already getting a bit predictable by the end of this first disc, but the rich folkloric background helps keep things interesting.

In particular, Episode 3 stands out for its storyline, in which children are disappearing from a mountainside; looking into it, Kantaro uncovers a pertinent local legend about the spirits battling for control of the area, and he ties that into a singing game that the local children play. In another show, that game would merely be a spooky mood-setter; in this one, the lyrics and history of the song are analyzed to uncover its meaning. It's an elegant and intellectual touch.

Not that the show's all cerebral; it still ends every episode with a big demon-on-demon battle. And of course there's a bunch of comedy and a little romance, as women swoon over the imperious, handsome Haruka, and the hapless Kantaro endures the backlash, as well as Yoko's shrill interactions. Still, a little more focus would be nice; so far, none of the cast members really stands out, and their interactions are fairly generic and repetitive. There are a few vague hints of deeper emotions brewing below the surface—Kantaro's plaintive comment that he'd die for Haruka, Haruka's own early inability to understand why he didn't kill a demon he was attacking—but so far, the richly realized world and the similarly rich animation are both more interesting than the fairly bland characters bouncing around inside them.