Category: Finished Series: Horror

There was even more talking than usual this episode, which put me in a rather disadvantage. I’d guess that apart from Saiunkoku Monogatari, Ghost Hound is the hardest to understand of the anime I currently watch raw, though so far this hasn’t caused that much problems. This also was a clear build-up episode, after the major events of the last one, though this is the first time where I felt that I missed some important information about what happened to Makoto and his mother, after his grandmother died and all.

He basically runs into Tarou in the bus, and the two of them spend the episode together as first Tarou heads to Kei to apologize for what he did to her experiment, a few episodes ago (it seems that this experiment failed because of his meddling), and afterwards they meet up with the new partner of Makoto’s mother, and for some reason Makoto decided to bring along a knife for this. Things will probably get clearer the next episode, when we see what he actually planned to do with it.

In the meantime, Michio and Masayuki are on their own investigation, to figure out what Masayuki’s father is up to. It turns out that Michio’s skills are quite useful, and at the end of the episode he probably found out the password to Masayuki’s father’s laptop. They also contact the mysterious journalist. I thought that I remember someone in the comments who noted that he might be Tarou’s father, but the two of them are different people. He’s been investigating Makoto’s family, especially how Noriko has been inviting random people to come over.

The real treat of this episode was Hirata, though. It was a really interesting way to reveal the things that Tarou’s sister said to him, right before she died. Instead of Tarou, gradually finding out by recalling his memories, it was Hirata-sensei’s semi-out-of-body experiences that brought him in a part of Tarou’s memory, and he could understand her perfectly fine. What she basically said back then was meant to comfort him. She told him not to cry and survive, as she probably thought that she’d end up dying. In any case, it was pretty interesting to see Hirata freak out like that.

Apologies for the lateness on this entry. I’ve both been busy, and some wise-guy on Share thought that it was a good idea to disguise a random music-file as the latest Ghost Hound episode. In any case, if you were waiting for the major plot-twists, then this episode is not to be missed, because the plot-twists at the end of this episode were more exciting than ever. The building-up is really starting to pay off, and I don’t know about others, but the creators have managed to fully draw me into the atmosphere of this season.

I think I’ve said it before, but what I really like about Ghost Hound is how it manages to put building-up and major climaxes in the same episodes, compared to most other series, which basically have to make use of entire arcs to just build up enough for one climax that takes a few episodes. Because of that, I just know that a Ghost Hound episode will end up satisfying, because it took so much time in the beginning of its run to carefully place all of the pieces.

In any case, to give a short summary of things that happened: Miyako finally has some therapy from Hirata-sensei. Hirata-sensei seems to be quite a famous academic in Tokyo, which seems to point out how important he believes that Tarou’s case is. Meanwhile, Masayuki finds out that the woman who has been dating his father is the female scientist. Michio (who has really warmed up now that the bullies are gone, by the way), reveals in a library book something about the “Kotosaka no Kami”, they seem to be some kind of gods or spirits.

For the counselling, Miyako gets put under hypnosis. Then, Tarou sees his sister’s image in the unconscious Miyako. It could be very well possible that right now, the spirit of Tarou’s sister has possessed Miyako. In any case, the spirit takes over her again, even worse than last time. Luckily, Komori makes sure that she forgets everything that happened. On the way back, Noriko yet again turns up, and starts going after Miyako this time. It also turns out: Makoto’s grandmother died.

These were some really interesting developments. I wonder what’s going to happen to Makoto now. Is he going to start living with his mother? Or will Noriko still take care of him? Speaking of the devil, what the heck is she up to? She was seen making several phone-calls as well, when Makoto’s grandmother called out for her help.

I’m also not yet sure whether Tarou’s sister is really the spirit that took hold of Miyako, but if this was the case, then it would explain a lot. Of course, the reason why Tarou is so interested in her could just as well be because she resembles his sister so much. 😛

With a title of “For the Snark was a Boojum, you see”, this episode had to be different from all the others. And indeed, this one gives a totally new twist to the story. You don’t want to miss this episode. The strangest part is that the first three quarters play entirely inside Tarou’s head. It’s here where he meets Snark, a strange Ghost-like creature who seems to live there. And Boojum… well, let’s say that that guy is still missing, but if we were to believe the title, then it seems that this Snark was a Boojum as well. Let’s hope that the future episodes explain what the heck this means…

In any case, Tarou travels from his last memories with his sister to an old hospital full of deceased people, to Snark’s room, where all kinds of memories of him are stored. You have to love the creativity that the creators have put into the different sections of the guy’s mind. He also visits a certain room that Kei (I think that’s her name) forbad him to go into, and it seems that this is some kind of special fermentation-place where spirits also like to visit. Tarou then faints a bit. I really liked this part, because it shows exactly what the previous episodes have been building up for: Tarou, getting more and more familiar with the spirit-world and his ghost-form.

The episode is more than just that, though. In his explorations, Tarou also saw that Miyako had caught a really bad cold, so he decides to visit her, along with Masayuki, Oogami and Michio. It’s here where Tarou tells Takahito about the things that Miyako said when she was possessed, and Takahito immediately orders them to leave, looking worried. It seems that he knew exactly what these sentences meant. To make things even better: when they descend the stairs of the shrine, none other than Noriko (Makoto’s grandmother’s household) stands there, waiting for him. Makoto of course gets angry and runs away, and everyone follows him, but Michio looks back, and suddenly sees a really evil grin from Noriko’s face. I never expected that even she had some kind of secret. This can turn out really interesting, and you just have to see that evil smile for yourself. 😛

Finally, after yet another week of hiatus, Ghost Hound now seems to be back for real. This episode yet again continues the trend of seamlessly integrating the building-up scenes with the important ones. And that’s really why I love this series. At first sight, it may seem like nothing happens, and yet the plot has been continuously pushed forward by every single episode.

The major event for this episode was Miyako, freaking out in front of Tarou. Only now, I realize that the girl in the storm in the OP was her, without her braids, and only now I realize that her problem is that she often gets possessed by ghosts. I couldn’t exactly pick up what she said back then, but it’s interesting how she freaked out, just at the time when Tarou mentioned his sister, and from what I understood, she was possessed by one of the local gods. It’s quite freaky how this was done. Most series in the same position go all GAR or emo, though this was handled quite naturally.

On further news, we finally learn what happened to Miyako’s mother: she’s in Tokyo. It seems that she divorced from Miyako’s father, and Miyako decided to stay with him. I’m surprised that Ghost Hound is one of the few series where parents can actually be divorced, even though this happens quite often in the real world. But yeah, most lazy anime solve this by never showing the parents of their protagonists, so I guess it’s only natural.

Miyako’s father also runs into the councillor during this episode, and it looks like Miyako will get some sessions in the future as well. It’ll be interesting to see what he’ll discover, especially now that he’s been seeing more and more hallucinations himself. The female scientist (god, I’m going to have to start to learn these people’s names…) also manages to see Makoto in Ghost-Hound-mode, at the start of the episode. Masayuki’s father, meanwhile, is being investigated by a strange photographer, so it really seems that the guy is working himself into trouble.

Makoto, meanwhile, confronts his grandmother about his father’s death. Another conversation I didn’t quite get, but it seems that Makoto is suspecting that the same thing might happen to either him or Tarou. We also now see that Makoto’s grandmother really desires his attention, though the way she acts now, she’s never going to get it. I think that she neglected him so much over the years, that she only noticed how much she needs him once she started getting seriously ill. And yeah, now it’s a bit too late to apologize to a guy like him.

Ah, finally Ghost Hound is back after its holiday-hiatus, and it did a good job of reminding me why it turned into one of my favourite series for the fall-season. It’s so delightfully down to earth, and doesn’t try to force anything. This episode also made things even better when it finally provides lots of answers. And of course, even more questions. ^^;

First of all: the mouse finally appears! Turns out to be an experimental rat from the female scientist (name?), she uses it in this episode in an experiment where she connects the brain to a little robot, making the robot move, based on the rat’s though-patterns. Quite interesting, though I wonder whether it’ll play any future role for this series. Speaking of this doctor, the end of the episode sees her making out with Masayuki’s father. Now that I mention it, we haven’t seen the guy’s mother, have we? Perhaps that would explain why Masayuki hates his father so much, because he forcefully separated him from his mother when he divorced.

In any case, the real meat for this episode was about Makoto’s parents. It all starts when an unidentified corpse shows up in the dammed lake. News like this travels fast, especially with a bunch of psychics like Tarou and Miyako in the neighbourhood, and very soon half of the town is gathered around the site of the murder. One of these people was Makoto’s mother. I actually thought that she died as well, but it seems that they too divorced at some point. Makoto hates her as well.

After seeing this, Miyako’s father (by the way, what happened to his wife?) decided to let the main characters know a few things about his past with Makoto’s parents and the mayor, as they used to be good friends in the past. They too went to visit the old hospital, just like Makoto, Masayuki and Tarou did in episode four. At one point, they found one very strange looking entrance, where Makoto’s father was the only one who entered it. Miyako’s father and the future mayor were too scared to go in, and prevented Makoto’s mother from following her future husband. In the end, Makoto’s father ended up somewhere that made no sense at all, though I didn’t quite catch the exact spot. Still, it has to be quite strange if this is the only thing that Miyuki’s father managed to find weird about the time he spent with the guy as a teenager. Still, he doesn’t know why Makoto’s father committed suicide, but I think that the Mayor can answer those questions.

I liked the small details in this episode as well, like when Masayuki’s bullies returned with their sempai, and this sempai turning out to be the guy from the convenience-store in the previous episode. I also like how he made friends with the fourth guy, and basically involved him with the story. I don’t think anyone would have guessed that the guy would get so much screen-time when he first appeared, and just got bullied by his classmates.

Oh, and it also seems that Tarou can now transform his entire body into his out-of-body experience, instead of the strange babboon-like creatures. I also liked how when Miyuki’s father told is story, Tarou and Makoto (but not Masayuki) got sucked right into the story, as if they were there themselves. It’s interesting how Masayuki didn’t come along with them. After all, he’s probably still in babboon-form in his out-of-body experience, and apart from his little video-game weapons, he hasn’t really tried to search for the borders in these experiences, unlike Tarou, who went to the other side and Makoto, who basically has been running around as a giant ghost hound. The thing also is that we’re only halfway up the series now, so there are still lots of directions that this series can explore.