Dark Gathering

Alright boys, first ever review and as someone who just capped off the final season. Idc about your tips for new writers MAL, I'm throwing down my pure unfiltered, slightly censored, thoughts. Dark Gathering starts off seeming like your typical horror anime, cowardly guy meets ghost hunter, we get monster of the week fights, and deux ex machina demon hunter barely saves the day. In terms of horror you're not going to find anything too special here, and it's probably aware of that because as you slowly delve and unravel this series, you'll slowly realise what I did, this ain't no horror anime, it's a f**kingshounen plot. Dark Gathering sets up its established horror themes but then proceeds to add monster tam- it's Pokemon, it's a horror-themed Pokemon. It'll start pretty slow but you'll eventually realise you're coming back for the horror not for the terror or suspense, but for the thrill of seeing two ghosts pit it out against each other and wondering "Oh sh** which DaGamon (I coined the term from DA-rk GA-thering MON-ster) we'll see next?". A lot of the intrigue of the series will come from Yayoi gathering S-ranked DaGamon, which she intends to pit against a big bad final boss. Oh, and they even have their own catchphrase, "Retsu Go-Suto!", wordplay with "let's go" and "ghost". Idk man, if that doesn't scream Shounen plot idk what does. Arguably it's not for everyone, and if you're looking specifically for a good horror title, this might not be it. The main reason I come back to this show is how they spotlight these DaGamon, and seeing how it blends horror elements into a Pokemon-esque series, like imagine if the process of catching Pokemon could kill you, and even after you caught them, they still wanna kill you. You'll get to see how interesting and unique each DaGamon is from the others, all have different personalities and morals, and unique backgrounds that lead to them being the S-ranked DaGamon, on top of their special attacks and abilities in action. I think the biggest scene that sold me on the series was the one scene where, mild spoiler, the fight and capture of F Tunnel Ghost, which gives that big S-rank v S-rank DaGamon fight, but the biggest "dayum" moment comes after the battle when Yayoi "catches" the ghost, its like "dayum, you sold me anime" and it also highlighted how badass Yayoi is. Oh yeah, outside of DaGamon which can be considered their own characters, there are the human characters. Uh, Yayoi is undoubtedly the highlight, this lil stoic demon-hunting girl, you'll get plenty of moments to witness her being badass, but despite her veteran demon hunting exterior, you'll see endearing elements and she can be a childish goofster too. Keitaro is ghost bait, and obviously, he starts off wanting nothing to do with them and very wimpy, but he's our foil for exposition dumps and at the very least he doesn't come off as too annoying, and he'll naturally grow the most out of the cast. Eiko just scares me, she's also voiced by Kana Hanazawa, so that confuses me, and also scares me even more, idk what else to say, oh she's Keitaro's love interest and its not bait cause they mutually express their feelings early on, but I think that scares me the most. Throwing down aesthetics, art and animation is serviceable, sakuga this is not, and being that it's not focusing on visual horror, I don't think adept horror fans will get much thrill there, but it does the job I guess, and its far from bad. Music, I can't say much about the OST but the opening is adequate parts horror-ry and upbeat enough to be shounen-esque, its something I'd find from an emo-garage-band-kid's mixtape. Hana Kana does the ending so you know those are solid hits, especially the 2nd ending, it's very soothing it almost makes me forget what kind of series its from, but very nice to wind down to. So yeah, Dark Gathering, its a solid banger, do not be fooled by the horror genre, because it is in essence more of a shounen plot, and the DaGamon are fun to watch, and seeing how it parallels Pokemon but deviates through horror elements which gives the show enough uniqueness and intrigue that separates it from anything else. Give this show a shot if it sounds like your cup of tea, I'd like to see it go well because I am heavily invested in the overarching plot, and I'd like to see a continuation.

A refreshing horror anime! Good horror anime has become increasingly rare. Quality is lacking even for adaption of quality manga (like Junji Ito's). All impressive horror anime that I can think of are from over a decade ago, such as *Another* (2012), *Higurashi: When They Cry* (2011), and *Shiki* (2010). Early 2010s was indeed a golden era for horror! Without horror elements, this anime should be called "Dark Pokémon." The main story follows a very standard formula: battling, defeating and capturing enemies (growing the team), and ultimately challenging the final boss. Therefore, even though it spans 24 episodes, viewers won't grow weary of it after thehorror elements becoming routine. Instead, they'll focus on how the protagonists continues to battle and delve into the background stories of the enemies (some of which are quite fascinating). The beginning of the story (ep.1-9 or so) presented (seemingly) standalone exorcism episodes. They acquainted viewers with story settings, and contributed some of the best action scenes in the show. This part exudes a classic horror movie vibe hitting the right note (urban legend, jump scares, etc). Personally, I feel this part could have been more concise to quickly get into the subsequent part. But compared to other animes that keep dragging, *Dark Gathering* is already a well-paced one. After ep.10, where the anime delved into its "Pokémon" part, the creator's boundless imagination was revealed. Various attributes, personalities, and backstories of evil spirits required diverse strategies. Of course, the eerie atmosphere was still there, but the viewers' attention had been drawn to "How would the protagonists tackle the next battle?". In the latter half of the anime, I gradually grew accustomed (or a little fatigue) to the horror, but my curiosity about the story's development persisted until the very end. The anime excelled in both plot and atmosphere; but I wouldn't give it a higher score due to its less-than-satisfactory production. It's evident that the budget was limited: the characters often came across as rough, and the battle scenes frequently feature almost static key moments. Nevertheless, the fact that the anime provided such great enjoyment despite resource constraints speaks to the excellence of original manga, and the staff's good handling of horror theme. Additionally, I think choosing Hanazawa Kana as the voice actress for Houzuki Eiko was spot on. The ending theme song, performed by Hanazawa was also excellent. Despite the flaws, the anime is definitely worth watching if you find recent horror animesunsatisfying!

A very interesting folk-legend inspired horror show broken up by a mediocre slice of life. Definitely keep in mind that this is a fairly comedic show with some very serious bits. Slowly, the show matured more with the characters knowledge and that was something that made it more enjoyable. The attention to little details from the ghost stories when showing the spirits themselves was a very nice touch leaving me eager to know what parts of each urban legend were going to be true. Some of the urban legends were very interesting and unsettling, something some horror comedy animes fail to do. Biggest gripe would bethe MC, Keitarou's, unnecessary recaps of the show. Multiple times he would just break down the entire backstory in an overexplained way taking me out of it - we just watched and learned all of this but for some reason he feels the need to keep telling us and not in a "previously on..." kind of way. Just straight up reflecting on his life for seemingly no reason. Idk.

I loved it! The story was solid enough to make me bookmark the manga to read for later. I prefer korean mangas too and rarely want to read a Japanese manga, but this one was different. It took me a long time to get past the first episode, but once I did I was hooked. The main reason being was Yayoi, but Ill get to that later. I'm a big thriller, suspense, and horror type of guy when it comes to anime. Especially when it comes to very good ones like dark gathering because its like finding a needle in a haystack. It took meawhile to get past the first episode because of a biased towards Yayoi. I just couldnt take the anime serious at first because she was this young animated girl. Ironically enough though Yayoi ended up being my favorite character in the show because she got that dog in her. Its not really much else to say the art was amazing and the soundtrack was cool too for a suspense, thriller, and horror vibe. If my girl was into this type of genre I would definitely watch this with her no problem. Dont expect no high school of the dead fan service type deal lol but truth be told this anime does completely fine without it. No disrespect to the people who put this anime together at all though just a hobby for me. I know how it is to create things and havent it judged harshly just got to keep creating for the love of the craft. Story: 8 Art:8 Soundtrack: 8 Characters: 9 Rewatch Value: 8 (Idk why, but in the summer I love watching suspense/thriller anime) X/Twitter: AniSabii (I follow anybody back thats into anime)