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Last edited by Tony K. on Thu Apr 11, 2024 12:32 pm; edited 10 times in total

Dark Gathering (TV)

Source: Manga (ongoing @ 14 volumes by Kenichi Kondō)

Demographic: Shounen

Animation Studio: OLM (Team Masuda)

Genres: action, adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, psychological, supernatural, thriller

Themes: curses, detective, exorcism, factions, folklore, ghosts, gore, magical items, monsters, occult, school, spirits, urban legends

Plot Summary: Keitarō Gentōga is a college freshman who hates ghosts. Unluckily for him, he has a knack for attracting spirits. Two years ago, this connection had led to him receiving a spiritual injury on his right hand, with his friend getting caught in the crossfire.

As part of his rehabilitation, Keitarō takes on the part-time job of a private tutor, and his first pupil is Eiko's cousin, Yayoi Hōzuki. Besides being a child prodigy, there is another peculiarity regarding Yayoi—she has a spiritual constitution, just like Keitarō. However, she yearns to encounter spirits, hoping to find the ghost that took her mother away.

Air Date & Platform:
July 9, 2023 (Sunday)
Available on: HIDIVE

Episode Count / Runtime: 25 episodes

Last edited by Harleyquin on Mon Jul 10, 2023 9:12 am; edited 1 time in total

#1

This is not the only offering this season featuring the supernatural, but this is the only one focusing on traditional Japanese horror (unlike Mononogatari or Undead Murder Farce which are different genres despite the commonality with the supernatural or paranormal). This is the appropriate season in Japan to air this as well, so that box is ticked off. This series is not on the radar for viewers and I'll have a good chance of getting some peace and quiet if the premise turns casual viewers off early.

For the setting, it's a decent hook for uninitiated viewers. A shut-in is recently reintegrated into society thanks to the efforts of his childhood friend, but he now has to face his fears head on as his societal rehabilitation now includes shock therapy as said childhood friend's niece has the same affliction he has but is handling it completely differently and wants his assistance to complete her goal of seeing her mother again.

Perhaps it's just me, but there's an aspect of emotional blackmail which isn't overtly stated. Koutarou owes his friend Eiko for getting him back into society as a university student, and he can't really say no to anything she suggests as he is really grateful for what she did for him. For this reason, he is letting himself get dragged into Yayoi's grand plan to find the entity which seized her mother's spirit despite his repeated objections. I don't think Eiko's assessment of his addiction to fear is accurate; she doesn't seem to be an objective observer in this spectacle and likely has her own reasons for proactively assisting her niece. Considering Eiko is "normal" and isn't affected by malevolent supernatural entities, there's no personal risk for her in indulging her orphaned niece. Her motives in doing so remain obscure so far, but I'm curious to see what's her deal. If anything, Koutarou's middle-school friend who was badly affected by his curse IS Eiko. Which would explain quite a bit about their relationship, but that's speculation for now.

Yayoi doesn't need tutoring if her IQ is 160 and her test scores in Japan's notoriously competitive school exam benchmarks are well above average. Keitarou said he was specifically requested for, so it's possible she found out about him through Eiko and arranged for him to be the tutor. That would be a bad deal for Keitarou all round at first glance, but she has a full set of tools to hunt malevolent entities and provided she intervenes quickly enough as she did this episode, Keitarou might well find a way to overcome his fear of the supernatural and even rid himself of the parasite in his right hand. Her penchant for "collecting" malevolent entities to use them as either her tools or as fodder for her existing tools is probably why no entity wants anything to do with her as her reputation precedes itself, so Keitarou is the perfect "lure" she's been looking for.

Keitarou's grandmother is introduced next week and she appears to be in a line of work which is most suitable to Yayoi's quest. She's in the OP and features briefly in next week's trailer, so I'm interested to see what role she plays in this story.

Episode 1

Hmmm, not sure about this one. It's something personal to me, but I don't enjoy premises where a character who is afraid of something is forced to confront whatever that fear is... in this case spirits. I guess the conceit of the show is that Keitaro actually does enjoy feeling fear but I'm not convinced yet. He's also not too bright... it seems pretty obvious that his childhood "friend" orchestrated his becoming Yayoi's tutor but it doesn't look like he's figured that out yet. Anyway, I'm intrigued enough to carry on for a while.

I’m going to give this a try next week. This week I’m trying to clear like 4 things off my watching list so I’m not juggling so much.

Horror is a really neglected genre. I love a good ghost story even if it crosses several genres. Was hoping for this from Dead Play but it just turned into Isekai. Maybe this one will turn out better. I’ll give it 3/4 episodes before I start to draw a strong conclusion because horror can have a slow build up (if done well).

Need something different to cleanse my mind after finishing smartphone 2 gah.

Blood- wrote:

Episode 1

Hmmm, not sure about this one. It's something personal to me, but I don't enjoy premises where a character who is afraid of something is forced to confront whatever that fear is... in this case spirits. I guess the conceit of the show is that Keitaro actually does enjoy feeling fear but I'm not convinced yet. .

I had a similar reaction. Take the film, Aliens. Ripley was traumatized by the events of the first film. Horrible dreams. Living in a slum, obviously depressed. Facing her fears turned out to be what she needed to do to shock her system back into survival mode. I don't have a problem with any of that.

My problem is, the asshole who shoved Ripley back into the deep end, lying to and manipulating her, was some corporate sociopath. In this anime, it's the main character's' childhood friend. When you've been deeply hurt, it's important to have somebody that you trust not to lie to you or emotionally betray you. Tough love is fine. Deception from somebody you need to trust is not. And instead of being upfront, this childhood friend kept info from the MC and manipulated him.

It's not just that though. I could just assume that the childhood friend is an asswipe and move on. After all, I don't have a problem with dark anime. Chainsaw Man. Death Note. I don't even have a problem with innocent characters dealing with dark elements.
Wonderegg Priority. Puella Magica, etc. But the underlying premise of this world seems mean spirited, no pun intended.

The soul of the little girl's mom, through apparently no fault of her own, is abducted by some demonic force. In the other anime I mentioned, there's a root cause. Someone committed suicide. Someone made an unwise deal. Here, souls are just bullied and tortured. The soul of the little girl's father is bereft. The little girl herself apparently doesn't release spirits...she tortures these already tortured souls by confining them in a symbol of childhood innocence and forces them to continue torturing each other. And she does it with hatred burning in her eyes.

So...yeah. I get a...feeling? Suspicion? An intuition that the underlying...infrastructure?... Soul?...of this anime is rotten somehow. It's hard to put into words.

@ Edjwald - you may be right about the underlying "soul" of this show being rotten somehow but it's also possible that as we learn more, some of the stuff we are currently stubbing our toes on will smooth itself out. I'm interested enough to undertake that exploration.

I love this show.

Eiko, the childhood friend, was the one deeply hurt by spirits, you know, physically hurt by spirits and now will never be seen without those gloves she wears.

Keitaro, who only wears one glove, considers himself traumatized by their shared experience while Eiko knows he secretly delights in such experiences. Also, his gloved hand would now seem to be possessed. What happened to the two of them would seem obvious... Eiko's possession moved into Keitaros hand... but this is Japanese horror, which doesn't seem to know the difference between trickster fox spirits and screaming spirits of vengeful death, on the hunt to kill anyone living for no reason.

And into their lives enters Eiko's cousin Yayoi who was ripped right out of Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. Traumatic experience, now you can see spirits, you can even see spirits kill other spirits, it looks like the series took the movie's full plot.

She's looking for one particular spirit, her mother but more specifically, the spirit who took her mother so she could... torture it to afterdeath, apparently. I love a character with defined goals.

The direction is fantastic, the character designs are fantastic, the voice acting is fantastic, the blend of comedy and horror is... also taken from the Frighteners.

"Let's Gooo"
"Oost."

What the H.

Blood- wrote:

@ Edjwald - you may be right about the underlying "soul" of this show being rotten somehow but it's also possible that as we learn more, some of the stuff we are currently stubbing our toes on will smooth itself out.

True enough. Maybe there's a family history I don't know about. Maybe the childhood friend is compromised in some way. And even if not, tastes vary, truth is subjective, different people have different buttons, etc. I'm not the type to accuse people of being horrible or flawed because their anime opinions differ from mine. I mean, obviously, you're horrible and flawed, but it's for entirely different reasons Wink

Anyway, I'll probably ditch this one and then come back and give it another chance during the Summer/Fall interim in a couple of months.

Edjwald wrote:

I mean, obviously, you're horrible and flawed, but it's for entirely different reasons Wink

I briefly considered suing you for defamation of character and libel but then I realized that you'd probably get off on the whole "truth" defense. So unfair! Wink

#2

Eiko's VA Hanazawa Kana sings the ED, a safe choice given her range. Completely different song in tone and character from the OP, with the visuals to match. One of the characters in the ED has yet to be introduced, so will need to watch more to see who she is as she also shows up in the OP.

It appears the shrine managed by Keitarou's grandmother in this franchise is real, especially when the road signs pointed to Wakayama prefecture as the final destination. It DOES deal with dolls as those are gifted to the shrine as offerings, beyond that I'll treat the rest of the episode as fiction. After all, Keitarou's grandmother as the manager of the shrine would be at odds with the usual arrangement with Shinto shrines.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/淡嶋神社

The episode motif is again borrowed from well-known Japanese horror stories; possessed Japanese dolls are a dime a dozen and there are plenty of videos everywhere with some variant of the basic template. The bit with the hair is even used in some of the more grotesque tales, but Yayoi intervenes in time to save Keitarou. Her reputation must precede her, as even the sealed dolls bend to her will despite Yayoi's grandmother giving her short shrift. Yayoi's use of the shrine Katana was interesting as well; because she's short and has no physical strength to do a proper swing she utilises gravity for momentum. It worked out fine, although I'm curious as to why she specifically called out Keitarou's issue as unusual, perhaps because it's not like her usual quarry?

It seems a lot of Yayoi's knowledge about the occult is self-taught, she just collected plush dolls prior to her parents' demise. She's certainly learnt enough to unnerve the professional, while her sight exceeds that of even Keitarou's grandmother. She's also desperate: usually one would not go after sealed spirits under the purview of the Jizou statues in hopes one of them is the one she seeks. Her target is too big to be sealed under statues, but that's probably not the point for her when she's young and needs every lead she can.

Keitarou's curse would be akin to kidney dialysis, if he doesn't get regular treatment (requiring an anaesthetist no less) he'll die eventually. Fortunate he has the grandmother he has, but Yayoi probably holds the key to his salvation if she can do for his curse what she does to every other entity she ends up "collecting". Perhaps we viewers will eventually learn why his hand ended up the way it is.

#3

This episode sets out Hoozuki Yayoi's stall: she collects spirits to form an army to eventually take on the wraith which claimed her mother's soul. We viewers already know this because the narrator told us from episode one, but Keitarou is now on board as the temptation of having his curse removed for good (along with Eiko's) is too good to resist. Ordinarily Keitarou wouldn't believe the terms of Yayoi's offer, but having seen what she's capable of over the last two weeks he's sorely tempted to tempt fate for the promise of freedom. What Yayoi is proposing would be heretical for Keitarou's grandmother; regular exorcisms in Japan (Buddhist or Shinto) do not require the intervention of malevolent entities. Still, I don't blame Keitarou as it would mean not having to undergo "surgery" for the rest of his life if she pulls it off.

There's something very unnatural about the way the Hoozukis think Keitarou is a glutton for punishment when it's clear to viewers he would very much prefer to as far away from haunted sites as humanly possible. It's not just Yayoi, Eiko had the same misconception in episode one. Keitarou's outburst at the start of the episode is something he should have done right at the very beginning, but because he owes Eiko so much and in turn blames himself for her curse he couldn't say no to her. Although his patience wore out this episode, he's still a softie and ends up saving Yayoi when it mattered.

This week's haunted site would be the typical horror tale of clueless and reckless youths going to a cursed site, getting scared witless and then getting cursed for good measure after escaping with their lives. The twist for this franchise being Yayoi is protected from curses because of her collection, she's after the statue for her ends and she has tools of her own to counter the target's weapons. I wouldn't bet against her actually making another attempt in the future, but she admitted she needs a large arsenal for another attempt at the statue and that might be a while yet as her foe is formidable. Even the Mizuko who surround her had a handful of VAs take on bit parts, so it's something we viewers might see again in future.

How indeed did Eiko figure out where Keitarou was? She has no talent unlike her cousin, and the situation she was in rules out luck or divine intervention as the reason for her timely appearance. Maybe that's something viewers will find out further down the line. Unlike Keitarou, she wears a pair of gloves at all times so despite her sunny disposition she must have a reason to do so even if it seems she doesn't need regular "dialysis" the way Keitarou does.

The "introduction" part of the series seems over. Regardless of his fear of spirits, Keitaro now has ample motivation to get involved with Yayoi's adventures. I'm glad, because the formula of her and Eiko suggesting going to a haunted place and Keitaro resisting would have gotten pretty old, fast. I too am quite curious as to how Eiko knew where Keitaro was. They were both cursed in the same incident so perhaps this left Eiko with a way to sense where Keitaro is at all times? We'll see.

#4

Although Keitarou hasn't made up his mind yet, events might well force his hand as Yayoi will make use of Keitarou as the perfect lure no matter what it takes to achieve her goal. He has good reason to hesitate: if he does go all-in with her proposal he might never have a normal life again even if she keeps her promise and cures them both of their condition. This assumes he stays alive long enough for her to honour the bargain; this week's episode proves his unique innate traits might get him killed from even the most innocuous situations.

More insight into Eiko. As expected, she has significant ulterior motives for helping Keitarou out. Just as well he's oblivious to her true nature; if he found out about her secret collection the relationship would permanently break down. He's had glimpses of it so far, but never enough for him to suspect something is amiss. For her part she knows he's very grateful to her for getting him out of his room after two years and is more than happy to indulge her twin "hobbies" for as long as the current situation persists. Curiously, he needs to go for surgery every so often but she does not. Perhaps the curse is active only on him so he has to get it treated regularly, but it's dormant at her end so she gets away with it using gloves on both hands to avoid suspicion in public.

This week's trope is the cursed video tape. I think I've seen variants of this urban legend outside of Japan, but it's a dying genre because technology has passed it by and no one really talks about cursed Blu-Ray videos or streaming feeds nowadays. The trend was popular though; other games like the Ryuu ga Gotoku series have referenced it at least once and putting their own spin on the trope. Keitarou is very unlucky as an unwilling magnet for everything supernatural as others who did watch the tape (the university lecturer for example) weren't affected by the curse; so Yayoi has once again got him out of trouble. Suspension of disbelief is required for the audience to ignore Eiko and company not being reported to the police for speeding and Keitarou somehow avoiding detection from indecent exposure. Yayoi's solution is a novel one: I didn't realise straw dolls with no visible "eyes" could still be forced to watch videos if positioned correctly.

Although the main premise is in place and the characters more or less exposited, the pacing isn't picking up much. Yayoi isn't going after last week's target yet, and her main goal hasn't made an appearance aside from flashbacks to date. There's airtime to come, so I'm curious how the story will proceed from here as next week's trailer doesn't give much indication it's going to be anything more than another showcase for conventional Japanese urban legends and horror stories.

#5

The running joke of this franchise is Keitarou's accursed luck because of his supernatural affinity. This episode would have certainly killed him; if not for Yayoi and Eiko's intervention. We viewers now know how Yayoi was able to find Keitarou so quickly two weeks ago, her unhealthy obsession makes her a first-rate stalker with the tools to match. If her secret was leaked to Keitarou, their relationship would end straight away so she has to be extra nice to her niece now that she's also in on the secret.

I've not read about this particular urban legend in detail, but the series' unique selling point is exposited this week. Turns out malicious entities are also predators: consume enough of your weaker fellows and you obtain enough "fuel" to maintain a presence in the regular world instead of passing on. Because it's a vicious cycle, this has to be kept up to ensure survival. Best way to do that is to find more gullible victims, so possessing the appropriate vessel is the primary means of securing more "fresh meat". This also presents a problem: Yayoi's primary target did the same thing to Yayoi's mother so if she's "consumed" then all of her efforts are for naught. Yayoi's hypothesis indicates it takes time for consumed spirits, so probably first come first serve for the host. If this isn't the case, then Yayoi is on the clock as her mother is serving as someone else's battery and failure to secure her before she's fully consumed will mean failure. If it's a large "battery pool", then the time required to fully consume the stock would be evenly spread out amongst the consumed which in theory will slow down the process enough to give Yayoi more time to find and eliminate her primary target.

Yayoi makes an attractive proposal to Keitarou: she's more than happy to teach him everything she's picked up since her quest began in return for him being a lure. At the very least, this knowledge will better equip him to handle future challenges like this week. This of course assumes further adventures don't kill him before the ladies can bail him out again like they've done over the series. It's not intelligence that is the stumbling block for Keitarou; more like he lacks the wisdom to overcome this hurdle. How he progresses from here will determine how the series progresses as well, since it's focusing on both of them with their different motives.

I'm surprised the victims this week survived (with the obvious exception of the main perpetrator). Usually cause of death is of a broken neck and asphyxiation, so for the victims to be revived there must have been no more than 10 minutes from the first victim to the arrival of the pair and their manual intervention to get them down. I'll have to pass it off as suspension of disbelief, although the subject matter means this is not an episode to watch lightly and without sound mind.

#6

I was wondering why this week there wasn't an OP airing, turns out the animators wanted to squeeze every last minute from the episode for content. For me this is probably the best episode to date, as it shows what Keitarou can do if he's motivated enough and combined with Yayoi fully utilising all of the knowledge and tools she's acquired since her quest began.

Camping in April is out of season, so no surprise they weren't going to be successful in fishing. Eiko expected this, so brought lots of ingredients to cook with. The actual camping experience was normal, with Keitarou happy to be used by the two girls as free labour.

It's when night falls that the fun begins. Bridges and rivers are a potent mix for Japanese horror stories, and it's no surprise the infamous trope of bridges being suicide hotspots is exploited to the full this week. Surprisingly it is Eiko who is possessed this time round; previous episodes made it clear she usually can't see the supernatural and enjoys the horrors experienced by Keitarou as a bystander. This time round she's in the thick of it, although unfortunately for her she has no memory of the experience despite the considerable amount of time spent mind-controlled. Seeing Yayoi go about her business with ruthless efficiency is great entertainment, and as a bonus we viewers also learn she has exceptionally strong wraiths under her control which she uses as offensive weapons.

I had suspected Eiko had had a hand in arranging for Keitarou to be Yayoi's tutor as the episodes aired, and am proven right in this episode. My initial guess it was Yayoi as the driving force turned out to be wrong, but it's not a surprise having seen what Eiko has been up to since the start. After we've seen the full spectrum of Eiko's motivations and thought processes behind her actions, one can't help but feel a little sorry for Keitarou that his childhood friend is really the devil in disguise. Of course she'll do her part to make sure he stays alive, but if she strays too far from the balance she's trying to maintain she might well lose the biggest source of excitement in her life.

Now that Keitarou is belatedly on board the Yayoi Express to Supernatural Damnation, it's time to see what she's really going to do now that her best bait is on hand to lure out powerful resident wraiths she wants for her army.

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