In fact, it reminded me a bit of a particular manga—Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha—but only really in a few of the broad strokes, some of which I guess are even apparent from the cover alone.
On that cover are Kuro Kyogane and Fuyu. Kuro, known as "The Black Wolf", is a social outcast, but he comes from a long lineage of exorcists; in fact, he comes from a clan of exorcists that have defended Japan from demons for a thousand years.
As Kuo is the clan's last male heir, his grandfather is constantly bugging him to marry, but Kuro has no interest in doing so, as he is completely devoted to eradicating every last demon, something he has acquitted himself to after his parents were killed by demons.
When his grandfather presents the beautiful Fuyu to him as a potential bride, Kuro immediately rejects her...and the very idea that he even needs to marry in order to continue the clan for another generation.
"Exorcists won't be necessary once demons go extinct," he argues. "And since I'm wiping out the demons... ...I don't need a wife."
Fuyu proves even more persistent than Kuro's Gramps, however, and, after proving how much help she can be and (part of) the reason she wants to marry Kuro, he agrees...but things go differently than he expects, as both Kuro's grandfather and his betrothed were keeping a few important details from him.
After a rather unexpected twist, Kuro comes face-to-face with Kyubi, a powerful nine-tailed fox demon that his family had previously sealed away (and which, I should note, probably doesn't look like any nine-tailed fox demons you've seen before), and Fuyu finds herself possessed by it.
This possession, however, seems to manifest only as a pair of fox ears atop her head and a tail...otherwise, as of the first volume in the new series, she seems perfectly normal (Although she is now a target of other exorcists, as such possessed "vessels" can attract other demons through their "miasma").
By the end of the first chapter, then, about 70 pages in, the premise seems set: Kuro and Fuyu must quest for a cure to her possession, finding themselves beset both by supernatural threats and the exorcists who hunt them.
These exorcists appear to be organized into something between a guild and an army, as a faction of four agents from "The Exorcism Agency's Pursuit Squadron" follows our heroes into a supernatural black market. They are (mostly) young and good-looking, dressed in all black uniforms and all extremely interesting.
The plainest of them is a man with an eye-patch and a rifle, the most modern technology in the book, which seems to be set in the later centuries of feudal Japan. There's also a little girl who controls a huge and terrifying puppet; a girl with a very short skirt who was previously set up as a potential wife of Kuro and who carries a scary doll whose face transforms to a scarier masked form; and, finally, Gyobu Monobe, whose face is completely wrapped in bandages, with a few random pins stabbed into them (He might look like the Snake Eyes of the team, but is apparently, like Fuyu, a person possessed by a demon; the marks of his possession are apparently not as cute as Fuyu's).
Mostly set up then, this volume tells us the story of the two characters on the cover, how they come together, what they are devoting themselves to, and introduces us to some of their adversaries; the book ends with the couple rushing to an assembly of the Exorcism Agency to have their marriage officially recognized, which will allow them to stay together (in much the same way that Gyobu is allowed to work with the Agency, even though he is possessed by a demon).
The character designs are all quite strong and striking, and full of some interesting surprises (Like the aforementioned puppet, for example).
What is perhaps most interesting is the demons that populate the book. These don't look much of anything like those you might have seen in other manga or anime and are visually pretty far removed from the sorts of creatures in traditional Japanese folklore.
The Kyubi, for example, looks nothing like a fox, nor does it seem to have any tails. It wears a mask over its eyes...or maybe the "main" eyes on its...let's say "head." Below this horned head, which sits atop a long neck, are a mass of arms...and eyeballs and mouths and a big, weird secondary head. It looks more Lovecraftian than something one might find in traditional Japanese art. (Speaking of traditional Japanese art, there is a tengu in one panel, a corpse of one lying on a table at the black market; it looks like a humanoid chicken with well-developed pecs and abs.)
Other demons include a gigantic crying monster baby which forms an exterior stomach attached by umbilical cord in which it captures and tries to digest its victims, a centipede-esque "dragon" and a shapeless demon that is all mouth that later resolves itself into what resembles a huge two-headed Komodo dragon.
The fist demon we see—Kuro is actually introduced cutting his way free from inside his body with a sword—looks like some sort of toothy, bug-eyed kaiju.
And then there are these weird little fellows, which look like something that might walk by in a Studio Ghibli film:
Fuyu, who you can see drools a bit when she notices them passing by above, immediately proceeds to club one to death with her ladle and make them into a stew:
After each chapter, the manga names the various demons that have appeared, and ranks their danger, rarity and intellect with stars. These guys, officially labeled "Low-Level Demon", are one-star all across the board, and their write-up says, "They are found everywhere" and that they are "Nicknamed 'Ingredient-kun' by Fuyu."
That scene is probably the funniest bit, but there is a decent amount of humor throughout, helping level the action and adventure that dominates, and the elements of horror present in the story.
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