Ahhh, smell that?
It’s a fragrant smell, of chocolate, pumpkin, and
shitty lists of the best horror anime
to watch on this unofficial holiday of madness, death, and
PAIN.
Last time we talked, me and my friend Eric spent a good time talking about horror anime,
what it is, and what it isn’t.
If you haven’t seen it go check it out.
But the show I’m talking about today isn’t so much horror, but a supernatural themed
series bent more on the unsettling.
At least I feel like that was the intent.
This is a series that has been, shall we say, haunting me for several years, since I first
started reviewing in fact.
But it’s been on the chopping block for awhile,
I just never had the heart to put it down.
Not because I enjoyed this series, no, in fact anytime I see it recommended as an anime
to watch around this time of year I can’t help but roll my eyes.
and it's not one of those like, very light "eh" kind of roll your eyes. No, it's the full on:
And that's because,
This series is not scary, it's not horror, it's not even particularly memorable either
to be honest.
But it does involve ghosts, and it does involve the supernatural, but I would much rather watch
almost any other anime with Ghost in the title.
Ghost Stories, Ghost Hound,
Ghost in the Shell
Stand Alone Complex
2nd GiG MA BOI!
But this is still kind of perfect for a….
Halloween episode, so here we are.
Ladies, Gentlemen and others my name is Arkada and welcome to Glass Reflection.
Today, Ghost HUNT.
*sigh* let’s Jam.
So, let me give you the reasons why you might WANT to watch this show.
Thankfully they all revolve around the show’s premise, so this section is relatively spoiler free.
Young high school student Mai, a connoisseur of ghost stories as it were, through accidental
ouran highschool like circumstance finds herself in the employ of a paranormal researcher.
This researcher, Naru, is brought in to observe paranormal activities and, with his
"apparent genius" removes problems so that normalcy can continue.
You may notice I speak with distaste when I talk about Naru, and that’s because generally
speaking, he’s a pompous ass.
He’s the age of a high schooler despite being an entrepreneur and because of his intellect
walks around with a high and mighty attitude.
Like Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock but without, you know, anything remotely interesting
about his character.
Anyways, the show is made up of our characters finding and dealing with paranormal events,
but none of said events in this show are made up FOR the show.
They all have some basis in actual things that people believe about the paranormal.
How the show deals with the paranormal though……well here I want to draw a parallel with a live action series
called House MD.
You may have watched it or heard of it. Doesn't matter.
The general story of any House episode, is a patient has a problem, House quickly believes
he knows what the problem is due to his vast medical knowledge, but his staff all have
differing opinions and we spend the episode with each of them attempting their own solutions.
But none of that matters because House is always right.
Ghost Hunt is similar.
The supporting cast is full of a variety of different characters who all have their own
unique way of dealing with the supernatural.
Though of course while they all have their theories and their solutions which they believe
will of course work because they are awesome.
In the end they all fail and Naru’s hypothesis is king and always correct, because SCIENCE!
At the very least however the secondary characters can be interesting, even if their schtick’s
get old past the halfway point.
On top of which our Main character Mai does successfully fulfill her role as audience
surrogate / companion to Naru’s Doctor.
There is a lot of empathy with her character as the series goes on, but ultimately she
is not a character who can hold the weight of the entire show and I don’t feel like
she helped keep the show interesting.
For me, the problem is with how the mystery of these paranormal events are solved.
In that the solution to any arc is usually the same, Naru is always right.
All hail our supernatural overlord Naru the Narcissist.
However the show also likes to use red herrings to make you think, “Hey man, I know he’s
always been right so far but this time, THIS TIME he’s wrong.”
But he never is.
Slightly off at times perhaps, but as always with the scientific method,
hypotheses can change with the introduction of new evidence.
Which I think comes to my major beef with the series.
It’s slow.
Most of the time we aren’t really dealing with a mystery, it’s all about the paranormal.
So you’d expect plot points to come out of nowhere and the whole picture shouldn’t
be seen until the end unless of course you are the great and powerful Naru.
The few times where a human culprit is involved however is where the slowness really takes root.
As I mentioned previously most of these storylines take place over the course of several
episodes.
Labeled as such with Part one, Part two and so on.
I felt that most of these stories could have been halved in length and nothing really of great
significance would be lost.
There is so much superfluous information brought to the table that it just feels
like we are being dragged along through plot points that don’t resolve anything
and are mostly incidental.
The slowness is also not really helped along by the show’s animation.
This is probably a complaint that sticks out more now considering the shows age.
The vast majority of the show’s animation involves heavy use of still shots and little
actual moment, at least nothing extraordinary.
Speaking about something that’s not extraordinary, Let’s talk about the show’s opening shall we.
and while I’m talking I’m just going to play right here before you, because it's gonna help prove my point.
Now I wanted to take a moment to talk about this opening sequence, not because it’s
good or even mediocre, but rather because it is quite probably the most boring anime intro
I have ever witnessed.
Like I’m hesitant to say that it’s bad, but it’s not very interesting.
Like look at it, LOOK AT IT! Half of it is little glowing balls, followed by some fake water,
and the music makes the whole thing sound like it’s for a Saturday morning cartoon at the end.
I’m not wrong am I?
Which is such a shame because the musical score does so much more for this story then
the rest of it, but most of the time the music feels like it's ignored.
The musical score was composed by Toshio Masuda, who the year previous helped compose the
soundtrack to Mushishi which if you haven’t listened to or watched, you should go do that.
But his music here gives this show a wondrous atmosphere, that I feel got stifled by the rest of the
production.
There is a reason why I like to listen to anime soundtracks on their own outside of
the confines of the show.
Had I not done so in this case I would have given a response like “Ghost hunt had music?"
Well I guess it must have, but if I don’t remember it it can’t have been any good.”
But it does have music, and it is very good, but it doesn't....or rather it does do it's job a bit too well.
It doesn’t stand out.
It’s like a young student doing its best to help and support it’s Senpai without
actually trying to dominate the narrative or the production as a whole.
You don’t notice it’s even doing a good job until you pay attention.
It’s an interesting allegory for the show’s main cast honestly.
But!
But, ok as far as details and information on the world of the supernatural this show
does has a lot to offer, and if that’s the kind of thing that you get interested in, then by
all means try the show out.
Beyond that I see little appeal this far past the show’s original airing.
It’s strange, because I remember this show coming out.
There was quite a bit of praise towards this show.
A lot of praise for its characters, the stories it was telling, HOW it was telling them.
But now over 10 years after it aired on japanese television, I can’t honestly hold those opinions.
It’s not a bad show, and most of what I find it to be is just boring and uninteresting and I think
that could just be due to its age, because it hasn’t aged well.
This is not a series that has stood the test of time, and likely it’s not going to get
much attention past this point, well except for people like me who are looking for something
vaguely supernatural to use as review fodder near Halloween because I’ve already gone
through the more obvious subjects.
Except for maybe Gakkou Gurashi, but we’ll get to that eventually.
As such with all of that in mind I present Ghost Hunt with the recommendation to Skip it.
While it may have some reasons for some people to watch it, if you are looking for a series
to fill up your time you of course could do worse.
But also you could also do so much better.
At the time of this video, Ghost Hunt has been licensed and is available from Funimation
entertainment both for Home Video and on their website for legal streaming. Links down below.
The review copy for this video was lovingly provided by the folks over at Rightstufanime.com.
A fine purveyor of anime DVDs, Blu-ray’s, and other such merchandise for you to enjoy.
You can pick up Ghost Hunt from them, among many others, though honestly go with others,
like Higurashi, Shiki, heck even Parasyte.
Like I don’t like that last one personally, but I bet you'll find more enjoyment out of it than this.
Which of course though brings me to alternate anime recommendations!
First off, another anime about sprits and supernatural Japanese stories, just you know I'm going to say
Mushishi, again. Because you need to watch that if you haven't.
Second recommendation, goes to a show written by the same author, but focuses on a different
kind of supernatural, specifically vampires.
I am talking about the series Shiki which I reviewed a few years back, and if you were
to watch that video on it [Shameless plug] you’ll know that I had some qualms with
it as well, but between this one and that one Shiki was much better executed.
So with those recommendations you should hopefully find something to your liking.
And that’s it from me.
Thank you for taking the time to watch this video! I hope you enjoyed it.
Please subscribe if you liked the video, follow me on Twitter if you feel so inclined, and
hey if you like what I do here and feel like helping out, go check out my Patreon page
and consider donating.
Specifically though I’d like to thank Joshua Garcia, Yunru Dovaqueen Robert Chumsae, Calhounboy,
Siri Yamiko, and Viktor Ekmark for being especially awesome.
And until next time, stay frosty!