Ghost Hunt: Season 1 - Part 1

Introduction

Manga Entertainment's Funimation invasion continues apace, bringing with it the first half of another full-length series in one convenient two-disc set. These half season sets are such a pleasant way of doing things, I'm surprised that other companies don't follow suit. After last month's Ouran High School Host Club though, we're back on familiar Manga Entertainment territory, returning to their core values of spookiness, cyborgs or violence. Ghost Hunt (the clue's in the title) falls firmly into the spooky category, and for once I'm in the mood to be spooked. Actually, I'm feeling a little nostalgic for The Real Ghostbusters, but what are the odds of a modern anime updating of that fun series from my youth? In fact, reading the PR blurb, the paranormal classic The X Files is invoked, and mention is made of the creator of the manga Fuyumi Ono (Twelve Kingdoms), and the director Rei Mano, who directed the superlative Gunslinger Girl. With comparisons and names like that attached to the project, Ghost Hunt is a tantalising prospect.

Mai Taniyama is a high school student who revels in telling tales of the supernatural. In fact it was one day after school when she and her friends Keiko and Michiru were swapping tales of a nearby abandoned school building that she first encountered Kazuya Shibuya. It turns out that Shibuya, nicknamed Naru for his narcissistic demeanour is the head of the Shibuya Paranormal Research group, and is investigating the abandoned school building for the principal for any evidence of paranormal presence, before it can be demolished and redeveloped. But the principal is hedging his bets, and has also hired a shrine maiden, monk, catholic priest and medium for the same purpose. When Mai gets drawn into the search, she doesn't expect to become an employee of the SPR, and wind up working with Naru and the others to investigate paranormal occurrences on a part time basis.

Manga Entertainment present the first 13 episodes of a 25 episode series on two discs.


Disc 1

1. Evil Spirits All Over, Part 1
2. Evil Spirits All Over, Part 2
3. Evil Spirits All Over, Part 3
The abandoned school building near Mai's own school has long been the cause of bafflement and a ripe source of scary stories. The time has come to redevelop the area, and the principal of the school wants the mystery solved once and for all before it can be demolished. Curiosity leads Mai into the building, only to be rescued from a structural collapse by a taciturn man named Koujo Lin. Lin is the assistant of paranormal investigator Kazuya Shibuya, but now that Lin is injured, Kazuya a.k.a. Naru insists that Mai take his place and help him set up his equipment. But Naru hasn't expected the principal to hire others to solve the problem. Soon shrine maiden Ayako Matsuzaki, monk Hosho Takigawa, spirit medium Masako Hara, and priest John Brown, join Naru and Mai, although the six of them inevitably wind up working at cross purposes. Hara insists that there are no spirits in the abandoned building, while the monk, the shrine maiden and the priest all try their particular brand of exorcism. Naru isn't convinced either, but then Kuroda, one of Mai's classmates appears, insisting that the building is haunted, and claiming her own spiritual sensitivity indicates of a long history of dread and pain in the building.


4. The Doll House, Part 1
5. The Doll House, Part 2
6. The Doll House, Part 3
Mai's contribution earned her employment in Shibuya Paranormal Research, although she can't deny a certain masochistic fascination with its infuriating proprietor Kazuya 'Naru' Shibuya. It's more interesting than the average part time job though, and their latest case takes them to a large family home, currently inhabited by a mother Kana, step-daughter Ayami, and, while Kana's husband is away on assignment, her sister in law, Noriko. And something malevolent and incorporeal of course. Odd, unexplainable things are occurring in the house, furniture inexplicably rearranged, sudden chills, and the feeling of someone's presence. The effect is most noticeable in Ayami, who has become sullen and withdrawn ever since her father remarried and the family moved into this new house. Naru has been engaged to find out just what is causing all this, and he's also brought Hosho and Ayako along with him. The first thing to investigate is Ayami of course, and it turns out that she spends most of her time with her doll Millie, who has become something of a surrogate friend. She tells everything to her doll, which is to be expected, but what's worrying is that the doll speaks to Ayami in return, and Millie isn't telling her bedtime stories.


7. The After School Hexer, Part 1

Disc 2

8. The After School Hexer, Part 2
9. The After School Hexer, Part 3
10. The After School Hexer, Part 4
Another high school, a private academy called Yuasa High School, becomes the attention of focus for the SPR. But the problems at this school seem to be ticking the boxes on a list. There is a cursed desk, which causes all the students who sit at it to suffer an accident while getting off a train, one girl was possessed by a fox spirit and started eating sand, the track and field club changing rooms are haunted, and a teacher named Yoshino keeps hearing knocking at night, and is seeing a phantom arm. As Naru investigates, he learns that it all began with a girl named Chiaki Kasai. Kasai has a PK ability, one that manifests in warped cutlery. But her 'talent' didn't help her make friends and influence people; on the contrary, as half the faculty thought she was faking her spoonbending. That sort of stress can affect a girl, and she wound up publicly cursing all her detractors to death. Since then, the mayhem at the school has escalated and she has been ostracised, with only the biology teacher Kei Ubusuna believing in her. After Naru questions her, even he is afflicted by ghostly visions.


11. Ghost Story in the Park!?
Mai's friend Michiru has a problem. She was on a date with her boyfriend to a local park, about to snuggle up, when all of a sudden, from out of nowhere, a bucket of cold water drenched them both. It isn't just her; any couple venturing into the park, looking even vaguely amorous quickly get cooled off with a supernatural soaking. To draw out this spooky gooseberry, the members of the SPR will have to pair off and get smoochy. The problem is that all the females want to be with Naru.


12. Silent Christmas, Part 1
13. Silent Christmas, Part 2
It's Christmas Eve, and Naru fails to appreciate the cheer that Mai brings to the office by decorating a Christmas tree. While he's being a scrooge, the Christmas Spirit can be found at a nearby church, quite literally so, as the orphans and children resident there are being possessed by a roaming spirit. It's gotten so bad that priest John Brown has to be on constant standby to exorcise the latest victim. It seems a harmless enough spirit though, the ghost of a boy named Kenji, who thirty years previously was left at the church by his father. Kenji had a fondness for hide and seek, but because he was mute used to play by tapping out 'ready or not' with a stick. Until the fateful day that a game of hide and seek went wrong and he went missing for good. Now his spirit haunts the church, possessing child after child in a never-ending game of hide and seek. That's until the day Naru's assistant Lin shows up at the church, and Kenji's spirit mistakes him for his long lost father.

Picture

Ghost Hunt gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, but unfortunately it's one that is afflicted by signs of an NTSC-PAL conversion more than most. The image is as clear and sharp as you would expect for such, with strong colours and no signs of ghosting. What are a little more than just niggles though, are the jerky pans and scrolls. There are quite a few scrolls and pans in this show, and the screen always feels like it's stuttering during these moments. It's an annoying flaw in an otherwise decent transfer.

The animation is a tale of two halves really. The character designs are pleasant, if a little generic, and there's not a lot of budget spent on making them move. It's very much a static, talky piece, with a low frame count and not a lot of dynamism to it. That said, the character designs are easy on the eye, and there's more than a little effort put into making the world design distinctive, and keeping an attention to detail. Also, atmosphere plays a large part in this show, so mood, shadow and lighting have a significant effect. They may not move all that much, but the characters appear in the best light. Where the cel-animation is limited, that is more than compensated for in the digital effects. Editing is sharp and creative, there's plenty of use of devices like filters, negatives, split screen and so on, all to give the show an energy and pace that just the animation alone could never do. It's really quite effective.

Sound

You have a choice between DD 2.0 English and Japanese, alongside a sole translated English subtitles track. Manga Entertainment have apparently stripped out the signs only track that is usually standard on R1 Funimation releases. The audio is nice and clear, with a degree of ambience if you let prologic work its magic. Unlike most anime releases, Ghost Hunt gets orchestral instrumental pieces for its opening and closing themes, and very effective they are too, with just the right degree of Danny Elfman homage to them, to get you in the mood for the spookiness that is about to ensue. As always I prefer the Japanese version, and in this case it's recommended if you want to avoid a painfully bad Aussie accent for John Brown in the English dub. You'll also miss a Kansai accent joke if you choose the English track, but other than the Aussie, it's pretty much par for the course for anime these days.

Extras

All the extras are on disc 2, but really only amount to 5 pages of the Del Rey manga to look at, trailers for Jyu-Oh-Sei, xxxHolic, and Black Blood Brothers, brief profiles for thirteen of the characters, and a 90 second ghostly slideshow gallery.

Apparently the Region 1 discs also come with textless credit sequences, but they are no great loss.

Conclusion

It all depends on how much you like your ghost stories and the supernatural. Horror isn't exactly my genre of choice, and indeed I often proclaim my disdain for all things spooky at the start of many a horror review. But I do have my exceptions. I loved the aforementioned X Files, I have a soft spot for The Hitcher, and anime wise I have been loudly preaching the brilliance of Mushi-shi's eco-supernatural spookiness for over a year now. Even more recently, I've enjoyed the twisted morality tales of Manga's xxxHolic, so it turns out that I have a high tolerance for all things otherworldly and weird, despite my protestations to the contrary. It also turns out that I want my tales of the uncanny to be a little special, to take a different approach, and offers something original. It's all in the execution, so it boils down to whether Ghost Hunt is run of the mill, or something special…


Ghost Hunt is run of the mill. There's nothing quirky or off-the-wall about its premise, it isn't all that original, and it certainly doesn't break any new ground with the way it approaches its subject matter. The ghosts, spirits, psychic phenomena and odd happenings are nothing all that new, and the stories contained within these thirteen episodes are almost comfortable in their familiarity. It's a world where the supernatural is an accepted part of daily life, where psychic researchers, shrine maidens, exorcists and spirit mediums are genuine professions rather than just 'entertainment' and thus Ghost Hunt is a show which demands that you leave your disbelief at the door, rather than enticing you in with misdirection and altered perception. In other words, it's just the sort of show that I normally avoid. That said, if you appreciate your ghost stories then this show would fulfil all your supernatural needs. It's quite an appealing formula too, with each story offering a mystery to be solved, and the mismatched team work together, and at crossed purposes to solve it. I suppose in a way it is a bit like Ghostbusters, only without the proton packs and the sarcastic humour.


While the ghost stories in Ghost Hunt may not be my personal cup of tea, I can certainly appreciate the characters, indeed a lot of the show's charm comes from the character interactions, and in between apparitions, there's a lot of nicely judged character comedy to keep you entertained. The central pairing of Mai and Naru is amusing, with Mai initially disdainful of the elegant and driven psychic researcher, especially as her friends Michiru and Keiko melt in his presence. He's the epitome of aloofness and infuriation, managing to rub Mai the wrong way with just a glance. But, during the first episode, she gradually warms to him as they work together, and following an unexpected dream, she even develops feelings for him. A curious relationship develops, with her fantasy image of him constantly colliding with the reality, but it does seem that he's beginning to warm to her. There's a very touching scene between the two in a sewer of all places. Of course there wouldn't be any relationship shenanigans without a rival, which is where medium Masako Hara comes in. Her talent is spirit detection, and she's also made a name for herself on television. It appears that she and Naru have a past relationship, and she can make him do things that he resolutely refuses to do for anyone else. Then there are the triumvirate of exorcists, the Shrine Maiden Ayako, Monk Hosho, and Catholic Priest John Brown. They all apply their talents to spirit removal, although they each go about it in different ways, and more often than not, wind up competing with each other. Ayako is proud and brash, Hosho is easygoing and friendly, while John is inexperienced and vulnerable. Lin rounds off the team as Naru's assistant at the SPR, although as he's taciturn and brusque, he only really makes an impression in those episodes he features in.


I also appreciated the fact that the stories in Ghost Hunt take as long as they are meant to take in the telling. We have stories that last one, two, three or four episodes here, and they unfold naturally and with an even pace. The opening story, Evil Spirits All Over is a great introduction to the show and the characters, and as you would expect, it has the greatest character development as they get to know each other and work together for the first time. It also highlights the various approaches to the supernatural, with Naru apparently relying more on technology and hi-tech gizmos. It's also interesting as there are plenty of twists and turns in the story, blind alleys and misdirection, with the truth behind the school haunting only becoming clear at the end. The Doll House is probably the best story on this set. The venue shifts to a private home, with a family being terrorised by an apparently housebound spirit which channels through a girl's doll. When dolls start speaking and scaring little five year olds, you know that you're in spooky territory, and in my sceptic frame of mind, this is probably the story that came closest to sending a chill down my spine.


It was all going so well, but Ghost Hunt fell flat for me in the next story, The After School Hexer, which on the face of it is a reworking of the opening story. Once again we have a school building, manifest with all manner of terrors, and once again it looks as if it has a similar cause. Except that it doesn't. There is a twist in the tale, but unfortunately it's signposted in the first episode. This meant sitting through four episodes just to say 'I told you so' to the screen when I was proved right. Fortunately Ghost Hunt changes tack completely for the sole stand alone episode on this set. Ghost Story in the Park is played completely for laughs, and has great fun with the main cast as well. A vengeful spirit vents her ire by drenching amorous couples, and it falls to the SPR to solve the problem, except their own relationship problems get in the way.


The final story is perhaps the most melancholy, set around Christmas, and with the lonely spirit of a long missing child seeking attention. While the previous episode went straight for the funny bone, this one tugs on the heartstrings. The spirit latches onto the brusque Lin seeing him as a father figure, but contrary to expectations, the stern assistant's heart doesn't melt, which causes all manner of problems when the spirit feels rejected. The problem is that the ghost is possessing Mai's body at the time.


There's a lot to appreciate about Ghost Hunt. The animation may be pedestrian, but the character and world design, the lighting and attention to detail are all excellent. Creative editing also makes the show seem dynamic and energetic where the animation doesn't. The music is outstanding, establishing a mood and complementing the tone of the stories. The characters are all well written and interesting, and I certainly look forward to see how they develop in the second half of the series. There's also a nice blend of comedy and spookiness, enough to give the show a life beyond a scare story of the week. The problem for me is that the ghost stories themselves are so mundane. Then again, I ask a lot from my supernatural storytelling. If you like your ghost stories to be plain and simple, then this anime will go a long way to keep you entertained.