In this essay-series I've written a fair amount about one of its stars, Ghost Sweeper Reiko Mikami, but very little about her male co-star Tadao Yokoshima, who's integral to the series' concept. He unlike Mikami does not have a consistent "literary psychology," but is composed of a congeries of humor and heroism tropes, fluctuating between one set of tropes to another however it suits author Takashi Shiina.
The first two-part adventure clearly establishes Yokoshima as the butt of most of the series' jokes. He's simply a horndog teenager who works as an assistant to the gorgeous ghost sweeper, risking his life for little remuneration, just because he lusts after Mikami. In the earliest adventure Mikami appears more flirtatious than in later episodes, making it clear that she's offering the false promise of a future hookup in order to keep him working for chump change. Only one incident in the two-parter suggests that Yokoshima may be more than just a miserable lust-monkey. Both Mikami and Yokoshima are menaced by a deadly ghost, and Mikami is ready to go down fighting. Craven Yokoshima wants his last memory to be pleasurable, so he grabs Mikami's breasts-- which, for no explicit reason, allows the horny teen to release some magical/psychic power that amps up Mikami's abilities and exorcises the ghost. Despite the fact that Yokoshima's lustfulness saved their lives, Mikami beats the hell out of the teenager for taking liberties-- though to his credit, the possibility of other beatings never permanently cows Yokoshima.
The matter of Yokoshima's lust-power finally becomes an ongoing story-element with the 20-part arc "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The dragon-goddess Shoryuki approaches the Mikami agency, fearing that a demonic power has compromised the testing-ground of the Ghost Sweeper Academy, and wanting Mikami to investigate. Shoryuki has already noticed that Yokoshima possesses an untapped spiritual power and suggests that it would be easy for the teenager to enter the Ghost Sweeper trials alongside other students. Though Mikami goes along with the plan, the lady exorcist has no faith in Yokoshima's potential and mocks him ruthlessly. However, when Shoryuki bestows a blessing on Yokoshima in the form of a kiss on the youth's forehead, Mikami is seen to be annoyed, even though she knows intellectually that the goddess isn't making any sort of romantic overture.
Yokoshima does pass his Ghost Sweeper tests, but there's little to indicate that he possesses the passion Mikami has for the profession. He oscillates between taking on heroic stature and devolving back into all-too-human cowardice, but I'd probably still deem him to belong to the persona-category of "hero," albeit of a very flawed nature. If anything, his "assistant ghost-sweeper" status binds him even more closely to Mikami's orbit, as she becomes "sensei" to his "student." And since he still screws up, this gives Mikami additional reasons to yell at him and beat him up-- which ironically, work to bind her more closely to him, despite her conscious denial of any such feelings.
Author Shiina also teased his readers with the possibility of a future Mikami-Yokoshima hookup in the time-travel arc "Stranger Than Paradise." Yokoshima meets a stranger who turns to be out the Yokoshima of ten years in the future, who reveals that by that time he and Mikami have become man and wife. More crucially, Future Yokoshima has made the time-jaunt because in his time Mikami is dying of an untended wound she took in the "present" era. Future-Tadao accompanies Yokoshima and the unwitting Mikami when they seek to attack the demon who poisoned Future Mikami, the idea being that Future-Tadao can concoct a counteragent to his wife's poison and take it back to the time of ten years hence.
Naturally, this mission is successful as far as the reader knows, though Shiina throws in some plausible denials, having two characters state that Yokoshima and Mikami of this time may not be fully identical with their counterparts. Mikami is so upset when she learns the nature of Future-Tadao that she uses magic to erase both her memory, and that of Yokoshima, of the entire revelation. Shiina never brings up the maybe-alternate future again, though he surely meant for readers who wanted to ship the two leads to take pleasure in the prospect of their marriage-- because by the end of the series, that was the closest readers would see to "Tadreiko." For good measure, Shiina does note that the two fractious heroes are still on uneasy terms, with Mikami dominating her husband while Yokoshima still hits on other women.
Though Shiina devotes a couple of arcs to stories about Yokoshima's parents, neither of the teen's progenitors shape his personality the way Mikami is shaped by her parents-- which shaping I'll explore in another post. The dominant impression Shiina wants readers to reach is that Yokoshima remakes himself partly in response to Mikami's high expectations, and partly to his hormonal intensity.
In two late stories, Shiina tells the story of the couple's first encounter. In the first, it's Mikami reflecting back on her low opinion of Yokoshima when they first met.
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