Midnight Occult Civil Servants (Mayonaka no Okaruto Kōmuin) is an Urban Fantasy manga written and illustrated by Yōko Tamotsu, which began serialization in the shoujo magazine Monthly Asuka in 2015. The manga has been adapted to a 2018 novel and 2019 anime TV adaptation; the anime is being streamed by Crunchyroll (with cooperation from Funimation with an English voice track) in English and in Mandarin Chinese by bilibili.
The manga takes place in modern times where the Japanese government establishes various Nocturnal Community Relations Divisions in Tokyo's 23 wards to police and oversee any problems with the supernatural, known officially as Anothers. To cover up any incidents, they work closely with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Section Zero.
Miyako Arata is the newest recruit to work in Shinjuku's NCRD. Working under Kyoichi Sakaki, his job is to mediate and resolve any conflicts among various Another species while investigating any occult crimes committed in the city. With the help of a skill called Ears of Sand, used to understand the Another language, Miyako and his colleagues work to keep the peace in Shinjuku and prevent any events from affecting the city.
Midnight Occult Civil Servants provides examples of:
- Benevolent Conspiracy: The NCRDs work together with Japanese law enforcement to conceal supernatural incidents from the world because they're not ready for it. Also, they can't communicate with them.
- Bitter Sweet Ending: "Sense of Loss and Proof of Despair" has Izumi and Kyoichi's sister rescued from Azazel. However, he seems to be targeting another woman just to revive his human wife.
- Boring Yet Practical: Among the tools in their disposal, the protagonists also have access to special police tape that generally does a decent job at setting up a barrier to keep most Another species from going overboard.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: The cast is filled with dashing young men. Justified that it's printed in a shoujo magazine.
- Crossover Cosmology: Aside from pretty much every entity from Japanese Mythology, angels, various European mythical creatures and even Latin American deities are all among the Anothers encountered by the Nocturnal Community Relations Division. They all appear to have backstories mostly consistent with the myths they originated from. Every supernatural entity from any mythology appears to be exist in the universe.
- Gas Leak Cover-Up: Implied to be used by the NCRD and police officers familiar with Anothers to keep public attention away.Yokoyama: "I guess we can always say there was another gas leak."
- Government Procedural: A manga based on the inner workings of the city's bureaucracy (after dark).
- Hero of Another Story: The OAV showed Section Zero of the TMPD working on a vampire case.
- Market-Based Title: In Japanese, it's known as Mayonaka no Okaruto Kōmuin.
- Multinational Team: The team has Theo, who is of Irish origin. The manga suggests that he was naturalized.
- Punch-Clock Hero: Theo mentions time and time again that the NCRD is activated to intervene and save lives and not to defeat the hostile Anothers.
- Reincarnation: Arata is Abe no Seimei reincarnated in the present and looking almost identical to his most famous incarnation. Furthermore, Seimei was the ancestor of the Miyako bloodline.
- Starfish Language: From the perspective of ordinary humans, the language spoken by the "Another" species. Arata is an useful asset to the NCRDs foremost because he can get past the language barrier via the Ears of Sand.
- Urban Fantasy: The manga takes place in (mostly) Shinjuku where the NCRD polices the city after dark in order to protect the public from supernatural incidents and have Arata use his Ears of Sand skill to mediate conflicts whenever possible.
- Vampire Hickey: Officers with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's Section Zero take on a case of vampires after they were able to see bite marks on a corpse. For officers who aren't blessed to see the supernatural, they can't see it and they think they're just a weird bunch.
- Wham Episode:
- "Angels and Tengu Above the Shinjuku Skyline" revealed that Arata is the modern incarnation of Abe no Seimei. And he's able to mediate conflicts between Another species with the Ears of Sand.
- "The Trickster with Amber Eyes" revealed that the kyoshi incident Huehuecóyotl staged was from a missing person's case file from the NCRD desk.
- "The Parallel World Elevator of the City Hall Observation Deck" has Arata wondering if his Ears of Sand skill can prevent Pandora from taking women's memories of breaking up with their significant other.
