Ghost Hunt

Ghost Hunt is best described as The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS or better known as the Ghost hunters) meets Japanese folklore. Ghost Hunt is divided into several cases. Each of the cases shows a different aspect and spiritual ability of the cast. Cases range from creepy possessed dolls to demonic entities.

Ghost Hunt can almost be watched in any order. The arcs are stand alone outside of the character developer. The development of Mai Taniyama is what pulls all the story arcs together. Over time the teenager uncovers latent spiritual abilities as she helps Naru (her nickname for Kazuya Shibuya) on his cases. Mai is a bubbly extrovert who isn’t afraid to stand up for herself. Although she is easily frightened! That is certainly not a good trait when you are working with yuri, shiki, and other oddities.

Naru is the manager of the Shibuya Psychic Research center. Mai nicknames him Naru because of his narcissistic attitude (narushisuto). Naru comes off as cold and unfeeling, but he actually cares deeply for each of them. There is a bit of a love triangle between Naru, Mai, and Masako Hara, a spirit medium. The triangle is mostly used for comedy relief and is not fully developed.

The series is interesting and genuinely creepy at times. It focuses on mysteries and circumstances surrounded each of the cases. Many of the cases are predictable. The viewer will have many solved in the first episode of the arc. The situations are interesting. The odd mix of Shinto, Buddhist, Tao, and Catholic spiritual traditions works. Each of the characters in Naru’s team represent a tradition.

This is a “talk” anime. Action scenes are separated by long diatribes about various spiritual entities, ideas, and acronyms. The dialogue itself is uninspired. Don’t expect banter like you see in Spice in Wolf. The characters are generally stereotypical: the outgoing girl who falls for the silent guy, the faux priestess, and other stereotypes.

The animation is sound but not stellar. The soundtrack is forgettable.

Ghost Hunt is interesting despite the problems. The TAPS style investigations mixed with Japanese mythology held my attention for the 25 episodes. The mysteries were predictable, but watching how the characters come to the conclusions keeps the viewer entertained. Many of the case arcs were too long; they could often fit in just a single episode or two. Fans of TAPS should take a look at this anime. As it progresses, it departs from the TAPS investigation model, but the mix of East and West makes for a thought provoking watch.