Ghost Hunt
Jul. 11th, 2007 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedGhost Hunt is an anime (and manga!) based on a series of YA novels by Fuyumi Ono, the author of Twelve Kingdoms, but of course I can't read those. ^^; I marathonned the anime on youtube. If I had to describe the premise in one line, it would be:
"So a Catholic priest, a Shinto priestess, an ex-monk from Mount Kouya, a Chinese omyouji, a television medium, a clairvoyant and a paranormal investigator walk into a haunted house, and..."
XD. There's really nothing special here, but it's cute and kind of fun. What I really like is that the supernatural elements are (mostly) understated. Ghosts register as a 5-to-10-degree drop in temperature, exorcisms are plain and not flashy, clients who come by say things like: "We've had reports of strange noises at the site, and one guy said he saw a table move across the floor by itself this one time. Since we started construction, we've had to stop three times due to mysterious accidents, though thankfully no one was badly hurt, but could you investigate?"
In other words, clients -- and witnesses, once Shibuya Psychic Research has arrived on-scene -- all tell normal ghost stories, the kind you can actually believe might be real. From there events might escalate, or they might not, but Ghost Hunt never strays too far from the every-day. (...This would probably have been even better if I believed in ghosts. XD;)
Other bonuses: Mai, the main character, is adorable. *g* And I like the other characters too. (Except John who has NO personality...and Naru, after the first arc ends and the animators forget to keep reminding you about his horrible personality, comes across more blank and robotic than high-handed and overly impressed with himself, which are the character flaws he's supposed to have.)
Drawbacks: Generic storylines. (Haunted house, haunted school, haunted seaside resort...the draw is in the execution, not the premise.) Low budget. (They couldn't even afford animated snow for the Christmas episode!) Very low target age group. (You can see places where the anime could have been disturbing, but the darkness was reigned in so as not to scare away any seven year olds who might have been watching.) Slow, slow, slow. (Seriously, it's SLOW.)
And the final drawback is that the show ends in a way that had me going NEED FANFICTION RIGHT OH MY GOD WHERE IS THE FANFICTION, but tragically, I couldn't find decent fic! Not anywhere! ;_; My standards aren't high, (no really), so if you know of any place that has even okay stuff please leave a comment, I am desperate and I will love you forever. *_*
(I even tried reading the manga, since that has storylines beyond what was animated, but in the end I had to give up. The manga is confusing -- I couldn't tell who was saying what, or even what they were supposed to be saying, in key scenes. I guess it's not easy paneling for a series that is 90% characters standing around talking to each other, but really, the artist/script editor ought to have been able to have done a better job than that.)
"So a Catholic priest, a Shinto priestess, an ex-monk from Mount Kouya, a Chinese omyouji, a television medium, a clairvoyant and a paranormal investigator walk into a haunted house, and..."
XD. There's really nothing special here, but it's cute and kind of fun. What I really like is that the supernatural elements are (mostly) understated. Ghosts register as a 5-to-10-degree drop in temperature, exorcisms are plain and not flashy, clients who come by say things like: "We've had reports of strange noises at the site, and one guy said he saw a table move across the floor by itself this one time. Since we started construction, we've had to stop three times due to mysterious accidents, though thankfully no one was badly hurt, but could you investigate?"
In other words, clients -- and witnesses, once Shibuya Psychic Research has arrived on-scene -- all tell normal ghost stories, the kind you can actually believe might be real. From there events might escalate, or they might not, but Ghost Hunt never strays too far from the every-day. (...This would probably have been even better if I believed in ghosts. XD;)
Other bonuses: Mai, the main character, is adorable. *g* And I like the other characters too. (Except John who has NO personality...and Naru, after the first arc ends and the animators forget to keep reminding you about his horrible personality, comes across more blank and robotic than high-handed and overly impressed with himself, which are the character flaws he's supposed to have.)
Drawbacks: Generic storylines. (Haunted house, haunted school, haunted seaside resort...the draw is in the execution, not the premise.) Low budget. (They couldn't even afford animated snow for the Christmas episode!) Very low target age group. (You can see places where the anime could have been disturbing, but the darkness was reigned in so as not to scare away any seven year olds who might have been watching.) Slow, slow, slow. (Seriously, it's SLOW.)
And the final drawback is that the show ends in a way that had me going NEED FANFICTION RIGHT OH MY GOD WHERE IS THE FANFICTION, but tragically, I couldn't find decent fic! Not anywhere! ;_; My standards aren't high, (no really), so if you know of any place that has even okay stuff please leave a comment, I am desperate and I will love you forever. *_*
(I even tried reading the manga, since that has storylines beyond what was animated, but in the end I had to give up. The manga is confusing -- I couldn't tell who was saying what, or even what they were supposed to be saying, in key scenes. I guess it's not easy paneling for a series that is 90% characters standing around talking to each other, but really, the artist/script editor ought to have been able to have done a better job than that.)