I’ll be honest, Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter ticks a lot of my boxes, so I think I was bound to like it. A French bande dessinée (graphic novel) about Japanese spirits that also, in parts, feels like a personal travelogue? What’s not to like? The fact that it was made with traditional techniques, including a lot of watercolor painting, makes it feel like something special.

However, let’s get this out of the way up top: Atelier Sentō isn’t Japanese. It’s actually a French duo (Cécile Brun and Olivier Prichard) whose work has been inspired by Japanese culture and frequent trips to Japan. Indeed, Onibi focuses on two French travelers in the Japanese city of Niigata and surrounding countryside – conveniently named Cécile and Olivier – who go searching for yōkai (a general term for ghosts, spirits, monsters, and supernatural beings).

After encountering a strange, otherworldly procession through a small town that seemingly comes from nowhere – and disappears as quickly as it appears – the two are drawn into a small curio shop and end up buying an old camera that can apparently take pictures of yōkai… if you know how to use it. Cécile is immediately enchanted by the camera and becomes obsessed with finding yōkai.

The book is a series of “short stories” detailing their encounters with the local people, wandering the countryside, and having unexplained experiences. Don’t go into this one expecting a “ghost story,” per se, despite the book’s title. If you think it’s going to be something along the lines of a Japanese horror film, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

What it is, instead, is a lovely and deliberate (i.e., slow-moving) story about two outsiders immersed in Japanese culture and trying to understand a very specific piece of it from the inside. The “diary” part of the subtitle is the most important bit. The book feels like Cécile and Olivier took their actual diaries from their travels, painted them, and lovingly re-created and presented those memories for our enjoyment.

It’s the art, though, that makes this one more than worth the price of admission. The hand-drawn watercolors make Onibi stand out in a sea of candy-coated, digitally colored graphic novels. The muted colors and subtle blending of the lines and colors perfectly fit the story, thematically, which deals with the subtle blurring of the boundaries between this world and the spirit world… as well as the fuzzy cultural divide even seasoned travelers still feel.

Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter is available in English from Tuttle Publishing (also available in the original French and Japanese) and is a wonderful little window into a piece of Japan the casual tourist might be ignorant of. It’s also a lovely ode to international travel through Cécile and Olivier’s eyes, and in the current climate, I’ll take armchair travel over no travel.

If you’re a fan of Atelier Sentō’s art here (and why wouldn’t you be?), I really do need to recommend checking out their other work. They’ve got another book called Rêves de Japon (Dreams of Japan) that’s only available in French, but seeing as it’s primarily an art book, it doesn’t really matter. It contains more than 300 watercolors, sketches, and prints from their travels off the beaten track throughout Japan.

The duo has also designed a few point-and-click computer games with their watercolor art. I haven’t played any yet (though I will), but each is absolutely stunning (and free!). Check them out for yourself, but definitely take a look at their still-in-development The Coral Cave.