I remember coming across this series after watching Ghost Hunters and wondering: Hm... I wonder what ghost mangas I can get from Japan. Naturally, I typed up 'Ghost' on animefreak.tv and Ghost Hunt spontaneously appeared. I watched the anime and decided that the ending sucked and I should read the manga as well. I was not disappointed.
Well, with that introduction out of the way, let me introduce you to 'Ghost Hunt', a manga created by Ono Fuyumi in the mid 1990s. The series starts with our main character Mai Taniyama telling her friends a ghost story in the middle of the night at school (I'm more worried about how they got in) when the main character Kazuya Shibuya makes an entrance. The introduction is typical to start with and you don't really expect anything much until Mai decides to be a bit of an idiot and go to the haunted school house and accidently ruins one of the cameras and manages to injure Lin, who is Kazuya's assistant. Very smart.
Because of Mai's general stupidity, she has to work to pay of the insurance for the camera and Lin having to go to the hospital. I can't really tell you too much about the series without giving you spoilers, but I can tell you that the series is based around the many cases that Mai joins Kazuya (Naru) in and they have a darker meaning than you would all expect. Along the way, Mai meets a bunch of people that she connects with and forms a friendship with, but I won't note them here since I have a limited amount of space. Instead, I'll talk about three of the main characters:
First we'll start with our female lead, Mai Taniyama. Mai is a 16-year-old orphan living by herself in an apartment. Mai openly dislikes Kazuya because of his generally large ego (according to her) and nicknames him Naru (short for narcissist). She is hot-blooded, stubborn and usually causes more trouble than help, but she cares for those around her and has a well-hidden sense of knowledge and is quickly able to come to a conclusion about situations. For me, personally, I think she is far different from the most common girly, shy or modest female roles you get in anime today with an obvious tomboyish role and the capability of doing things herself. One thing I will point out I dislike about her personality is the times where she is completely ignorant of the situation and doesn't realize how people are feeling. However, I still find this kind of character refreshing compared to the usual female roles you get in anime.
Next up is our main male role: Kazuya Shibuya (otherwise known as Naru). Naru is the leader of the SPR group or the Shibuya Paranormal Research group (later it turns out that this is actually not the name of the group and it is an alias for another group) and a highly intelligent 17-year-old who started up the group for reasons unknown (except they aren't). He is cold and calculating in front of most, but he does in fact care of them. One thing that is also noted about him is he is a narcissist. Hence his name. Unlike most anime, they don't have his personality change much around the female role and he is genuinely cold around...well everyone. He shows his care for the group in subtle ways (ie. the coin trick when him and Mai fell down the man hole) although he keeps to his attitude. Unlike most ghost anime, Naru refuses to believe that ghosts exist in the premises unless it is proven via scientific evidence. He's one of those characters who has the sort of attitude where you love him in the anime, but you probably wouldn't want to meet him in real life. That's all I have to say on this guy, I'm on to Lin.
Lin is Naru's assistant that was injured on their first case in the series after preventing Mai from being injured. He rarely speaks and appears even more serious and expressionless than Naru. Except he isn't. He actually smiles. He bares a hatred to all Japanese people because of the previous conflicts between China and Japan, but after a thoughtful comeback from Mai, he warms up to the others. You can tell that he is more caring than he appears and, like most assistant, does all the dirty work. I don't really have much to say about him considering how little he actually says, so I'll just summarize with the minor roles before my overall opinion on the series.
In the series, you get a great mix of minor characters that you either love or you hate. I love the 'shounen detective' and hate the school teacher who is pressuring students until they start cursing the school. They are quirky and interesting. The ghosts themselves are usually rather traumatizing in both fear and sadness. My favourites was the ghost from the blood-stained labyrinth, which made me scream and run away from the screen (shivers) and the ghost from Silent Christmas which has me crying even now. You'd have to watch to understand just how real these ghosts can be. Especially that doll. That doll is the reason our dolls are now in the attic.
Now for my overall opinion on the show. The animation is okay at best, there's nothing particularly special about it other than the dream sequences which are often really beautiful. The music has a nostalgic, peaceful feel to it that can quickly change to sinister when the episode turns for the worst. The show has a great plot that can have many ideas and themes placed into it and the author uses every single one to her advantage.
What I like most about the show are the characters and how they respond to the casefiles and how their abilities can be used to the episodes advantage. I love how the show develops the characters as the series goes on to show that they are all useful in their own way and despite the fact that they know hardly anything about each other, they connect well which one another and you can't help but feel upset at the end of the manga. The anime has an inconclusive ending that doesn't live up to the manga's standard which literally had readers demanding for a sequel.
As a horror anime, this is one of my favourites that doesn't go overboard with blood and guts but instead fills you with fear because of what you can't see and what you fear might happen. The music especially helps with this as does the shadows. Shadows add a creepy feeling to everything.
So, with me off to search for more manga done by this author *cough* Shiki *cough*, this is Rinrei giving Ghost Hunt a rating of 9/10.
Signing off!
Rinrei
P.S: We really need to update the news. How on earth will I manage to hack into the website (heh heh heh...)
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