TV-Series
Description
Haruaki Abe is a 25-year-old human language teacher at Hyakki Academy, a school populated entirely by youkai (supernatural monsters). Standing 188 centimeters tall with black hair and red eyes, his most distinctive physical feature is the ahoge, a single strand of hair on top of his head that can be cut or pulled out but grows back very quickly. He is typically seen wearing a white button-up shirt with a red and black striped necktie and dark pants, and on his right wrist he always wears a string of blue prayer beads.
Haruaki comes from Osaka, where his family runs a shrine dedicated to his ancestor, the legendary onmyoji Abe no Seimei. He has a twin brother named Amaaki, who is expected to continue the family business and has a more mature and composed personality compared to Haruaki. Before arriving at Hyakki Academy, Haruaki had planned to teach at a regular human school, but on his very first day, he was threatened by student troublemakers and became so traumatized that he ran away and stayed indoors for an entire year. After this failed experience, he eventually took a position at Hyakki Academy, initially unaware that the school was exclusively for monsters.
In terms of personality, Haruaki is defined by a striking contradiction between his immense inner power and his timid, anxious nature. He is an extreme coward who is easily frightened by many things, including middle school students who hang out outside convenience stores, and he has a notorious lack of direction, frequently getting lost. He is often bullied by small children and even by his own students, and he has been known to cry easily or use his student Sano Mikoto as a shield when frightened. Despite his cowardice, Haruaki is deeply kind and genuinely cares about his students' wellbeing. Teaching is his dream job, and he works hard at it, approaching his responsibilities with enthusiasm and a surprising amount of determination when the situation calls for it. He rarely gets angry and is generally portrayed as being a bit of an airhead, yet he possesses a clever mind and can devise effective strategies that leverage the unique abilities of his monster students.
His most unusual and defining quirk is his absolute obsession with sailor uniforms. This is not simply a casual preference but an all-consuming passion that can make him ignore all laws of physics and common sense. The principal of Hyakki Academy bribed him to stay at the school by offering to give him a sailor uniform of his choice each month, and this same obsession has been used by students and colleagues alike to motivate, distract, or locate him. His love for uniforms extends to other types as well, including police and nurse outfits, but his devotion to sailor uniforms is so profound that he has claimed his first word as an infant was sailor uniform and that he can eat them with rice. While others often call him a pervert for this fixation, his interest lies purely in the uniform itself rather than the person wearing it, and he has worn sailor uniforms for boys since childhood. Conversely, he dislikes blazer-style school uniforms so intensely that his negative feelings toward them can actually affect his ability to use his powers.
Haruaki possesses extraordinarily powerful anti-youkai abilities that he inherited from his ancestor Abe no Seimei, of whom he is the reincarnation. These powers are so strong that, ironically, he never saw a youkai growing up because he would unknowingly smite them the moment they came near him. His family gave him the prayer bead bracelet on his right wrist to suppress these abilities, as he has almost no conscious control over them. The powers typically activate involuntarily during moments of strong emotion, especially when he wishes someone to stop bothering him or to protect others. When released, the power can cause damage ranging from burning a youkai and giving them an afro to completely draining their spiritual energy and causing them to faint. Without his beaded bracelet, his power becomes even more difficult to control and significantly more dangerous to those around him. Unlike other members of his family line who have shown generational weakening of their inherited powers, Haruakis abilities remain exceptionally potent for reasons that are not fully understood within the story.
His role in the story is that of a reluctant but determined educator trying to survive and succeed in an environment where he is the only human. He serves as the homeroom teacher for Class 2-3 and teaches Japanese language arts. At first, most of his students do not know how to react to him and tend to avoid him, finding his behavior strange and his obsession unsettling. However, as he consistently proves his genuine kindness and willingness to go to great lengths for their sake, he gradually earns their respect and trust. His most significant relationship is with his student Sano Mikoto, a yakubyougami god of misfortune. Sano is the first student to discover Haruakis hidden powers and promises to keep his secret. While Sano often serves as a reluctant punching bag for Haruakis cowardly antics and physically responds with kicks, he grows to deeply respect and care for his teacher over time. Other students, such as the shapeshifting tanuki Tamao, also develop close bonds with Haruaki as he goes out of his way to accommodate their unique learning needs, such as extensively researching cats to make learning easier for Tamao. Among his fellow teachers, who are all monsters, he is initially treated as an oddity, but they come to respect his clever planning and strategic thinking.
Throughout the story, Haruaki undergoes significant development. Though he remains a coward at heart, his experiences at Hyakki Academy gradually steel his resolve and strengthen his mind and powers. He transforms from a teacher who ran away from human students to someone who will stand up for his monster students, even against powerful spiritual entities. His growth is particularly evident during the school trip to Kyoto arc, where guardian gods attempt to claim his soul to resurrect Abe no Seimei. When his soul is split into five fragments, each embodying a part of his personality, his students and colleagues rally to save him, demonstrating how much he has come to mean to them. The headmaster of the school and the tengu captain Ranmaru, both of whom have secret histories dating back a millennium to the time of Abe no Seimei, also become personally invested in protecting him, revealing that the three of them are more deeply connected than Haruaki ever imagined. His behavior also becomes increasingly erratic and less bound by the normal limits of humanity the longer he spends at the school, with his colleagues occasionally noting that he acts weirder than the monsters themselves, especially when sailor uniforms are involved.
Haruaki comes from Osaka, where his family runs a shrine dedicated to his ancestor, the legendary onmyoji Abe no Seimei. He has a twin brother named Amaaki, who is expected to continue the family business and has a more mature and composed personality compared to Haruaki. Before arriving at Hyakki Academy, Haruaki had planned to teach at a regular human school, but on his very first day, he was threatened by student troublemakers and became so traumatized that he ran away and stayed indoors for an entire year. After this failed experience, he eventually took a position at Hyakki Academy, initially unaware that the school was exclusively for monsters.
In terms of personality, Haruaki is defined by a striking contradiction between his immense inner power and his timid, anxious nature. He is an extreme coward who is easily frightened by many things, including middle school students who hang out outside convenience stores, and he has a notorious lack of direction, frequently getting lost. He is often bullied by small children and even by his own students, and he has been known to cry easily or use his student Sano Mikoto as a shield when frightened. Despite his cowardice, Haruaki is deeply kind and genuinely cares about his students' wellbeing. Teaching is his dream job, and he works hard at it, approaching his responsibilities with enthusiasm and a surprising amount of determination when the situation calls for it. He rarely gets angry and is generally portrayed as being a bit of an airhead, yet he possesses a clever mind and can devise effective strategies that leverage the unique abilities of his monster students.
His most unusual and defining quirk is his absolute obsession with sailor uniforms. This is not simply a casual preference but an all-consuming passion that can make him ignore all laws of physics and common sense. The principal of Hyakki Academy bribed him to stay at the school by offering to give him a sailor uniform of his choice each month, and this same obsession has been used by students and colleagues alike to motivate, distract, or locate him. His love for uniforms extends to other types as well, including police and nurse outfits, but his devotion to sailor uniforms is so profound that he has claimed his first word as an infant was sailor uniform and that he can eat them with rice. While others often call him a pervert for this fixation, his interest lies purely in the uniform itself rather than the person wearing it, and he has worn sailor uniforms for boys since childhood. Conversely, he dislikes blazer-style school uniforms so intensely that his negative feelings toward them can actually affect his ability to use his powers.
Haruaki possesses extraordinarily powerful anti-youkai abilities that he inherited from his ancestor Abe no Seimei, of whom he is the reincarnation. These powers are so strong that, ironically, he never saw a youkai growing up because he would unknowingly smite them the moment they came near him. His family gave him the prayer bead bracelet on his right wrist to suppress these abilities, as he has almost no conscious control over them. The powers typically activate involuntarily during moments of strong emotion, especially when he wishes someone to stop bothering him or to protect others. When released, the power can cause damage ranging from burning a youkai and giving them an afro to completely draining their spiritual energy and causing them to faint. Without his beaded bracelet, his power becomes even more difficult to control and significantly more dangerous to those around him. Unlike other members of his family line who have shown generational weakening of their inherited powers, Haruakis abilities remain exceptionally potent for reasons that are not fully understood within the story.
His role in the story is that of a reluctant but determined educator trying to survive and succeed in an environment where he is the only human. He serves as the homeroom teacher for Class 2-3 and teaches Japanese language arts. At first, most of his students do not know how to react to him and tend to avoid him, finding his behavior strange and his obsession unsettling. However, as he consistently proves his genuine kindness and willingness to go to great lengths for their sake, he gradually earns their respect and trust. His most significant relationship is with his student Sano Mikoto, a yakubyougami god of misfortune. Sano is the first student to discover Haruakis hidden powers and promises to keep his secret. While Sano often serves as a reluctant punching bag for Haruakis cowardly antics and physically responds with kicks, he grows to deeply respect and care for his teacher over time. Other students, such as the shapeshifting tanuki Tamao, also develop close bonds with Haruaki as he goes out of his way to accommodate their unique learning needs, such as extensively researching cats to make learning easier for Tamao. Among his fellow teachers, who are all monsters, he is initially treated as an oddity, but they come to respect his clever planning and strategic thinking.
Throughout the story, Haruaki undergoes significant development. Though he remains a coward at heart, his experiences at Hyakki Academy gradually steel his resolve and strengthen his mind and powers. He transforms from a teacher who ran away from human students to someone who will stand up for his monster students, even against powerful spiritual entities. His growth is particularly evident during the school trip to Kyoto arc, where guardian gods attempt to claim his soul to resurrect Abe no Seimei. When his soul is split into five fragments, each embodying a part of his personality, his students and colleagues rally to save him, demonstrating how much he has come to mean to them. The headmaster of the school and the tengu captain Ranmaru, both of whom have secret histories dating back a millennium to the time of Abe no Seimei, also become personally invested in protecting him, revealing that the three of them are more deeply connected than Haruaki ever imagined. His behavior also becomes increasingly erratic and less bound by the normal limits of humanity the longer he spends at the school, with his colleagues occasionally noting that he acts weirder than the monsters themselves, especially when sailor uniforms are involved.