shanimebib

Ghost Hunt

Synopsis: 15 year old Taniyama Mai and her friends are fond of ghost stories, they were telling scary stories one after another in a dark room after school hours. Pretty much scared with their own stories, one ended up with a story that someone should be around in the darkest corner of the room and once the story ends he/she will speak up, as soon as she finishes….the girls start screaming as someone did speak in the dark, anyways they were releaved to see that it was just an upperclassman, to add to their delight, he is a handsome one as well, thus Mai meets 17 year old Shibuya Kazuya.

At their first meet, Shibuya tells Mai and her friends that he loves ghost stories as well, and would be glad to be in their group, while the others started to surround him (with stars in their eye…”oh! Shibuya-san Kakkoyee”), Mai finds him to be little unnatural…

Review: Just completed this anime, and wasn’t it great, i still wonder why it’s rated so poorly, i mean 8.2 or 8.3 isn’t that bad, but comparing to the information it carries, the storyline, the character setups and their developments and moreover the animation makes it a rare ghost related anime, it was really scary to be honest as i watched it alone everynight after 1 or 2 am.

Storyline: 8.5/10 Normally i wouldn’t give any ghost related anime this much points, but ghost hunt surely IS different, it contains a flowless storyline over a span shown of one year as Shibuya and his team along with Mai solve mysteries and incedents. Every story is unique, some are bone-chilling, some are tragic, some are really hilarious while others are crime based. The important thing is how mysteries are solved with scientific explanantion or by exorcism. The storyline kept on going forward and revealing many things unheard of making the anime a really informative one. Never expected Rei MANO (Direction Asst. Cardcaptor Sakura) to be directing a Mystery/Horror genre anime with such standards.

Characters: 8.0/10 The main two characters are really interesting, Mai (Seiyuu: Kaori NAZUKA: Nunnally of Code Geass, Kisa from Furuba, Eureka from Eureka 7, Aya from Mushi-shi) is really cute and her will to protect Shibuya from Masako and Ayako makes her exceptionnaly adorable. From the very first episode one will find a growing weakness on her for Shibuya. Shibuya (Seiyuu: Yukki TAI, the same guy gave the voice of Nara from School Rumble: Are you Kiddin’ me!) on the other hand, is really cold, like there are cool characters like him on other anime, but not as cold as him, at least towards girls, Mai in particular. Other characters such as already mentioned Masako (who can sense spirit), Ayako (Priestess), Lin (Shibuya’s right hand man), Brown (Exorcist) and Houshou (Monk) are well portraited.

Music: 8.5/10 Ghost stories are supposed to have good BGM, so does this anime, perfect music selection has made particular parts far scarier. The opening and ending themes are music though, there is no song in the anime, well don’t expect one in an anime like this, so its not a disadvantage IMO.

Animation: 8.5/10 As expected from Satoshi IWATAKI (Key Animation: Blood+, Eureka 7), the animation was of top draw, the environment was made intentionally gloomy to give the shrilling environment any ghost story requires, the background stages were drawn perfectly and the apparitions were made as much as scary as possible.

Overall: 8.5/10 I loved the show, other than the first case, which i found to be pretty ordinary and decided to drag on once started watching this anime, things changed as i wathced the next few epiodes (epiosde 4 and onwards), the anime got better by the cases and things started to move on as Mai starts to discover Shibuya (i love romance, that is something which makes any anime a wonderful piece of entertainment). The characters develop steadily in each and every episode. I can gurantee that you will find this anime marvelous. But my advice, dont drop the anime after the first three episodes. An excellent anime that should be watched by any anime-fan. :)


Screencaps: Animay.Net

Info: Ghost Hunt

Vintage: 2006-10-03 to 2007-03-27

Genre: Detective, Fantasy, Monster, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Supernatural

Number of Epiosdes: 25
Running Time: 25 Mins.

Age Ratings: (15+)

ANN Rating: 8.22/10

AniDB Rating 8.31/10

Releted to:Ghost Hunt (Manga) by Shiho INADA (Adaptation)
Ghost Hunt Official Site (Japanese)