Review of Ghost Hunt

Horror shows with Shoujo demographic are quite rare to come upon as it is unconventional combination. Style in which Ghost Hunt progresses as one case is usually solved in three or four episodes is more typical for animes of this type. Solving of the cases was most of the times enjoyable and satisfying, BUT shoujo elements were occasionaly interfering with the plot. To be honest I’m not a big fan of a shoujo, so obviously this plays major part of me being slightly irritated mainly by main heroine as she has a lot of typical traits of generic shoujo FL. Still if you like shoujoand horror it can be gold mine as rest of the things is done on point. In case you are not an enjoyer as me you will be still most-likely able to enjoy it, if you turn a blind eye to these "FL thirstin over MC and he looks like he doesn’t give an F" moments. Ghost hunting remains major focus and border romance is really slight.

STORY:7/10
Narrative of the show is simple as many of you can guess. Story jumps right into solving of the first case where each case usually takes around 3-4 episodes to finish. In first three episodes we have briefly introduction of the main characters, plus you get to know the dynamics between them. Then it’s basically the same thing over and over, but enviroments and cases are diverse. These changes helped to keep show dynamics in flow and my attention as well. At times the outcome was slightly predictable, but neverthless satisfying. Peak of the story was file 7 which exceeded my expectations and steps out of the line in compare with others. It’s story was probably most complex with best atmosphere, antagonist and even culmination.

CHARACTERS:8/10
Male characters were much more interesting then the female ones. Again I’m not sure if it is thanks to shoujo demographic clichés or whatever. Ask to yourself how many shoujo animes out there has FL similar to Mai which is good hearted by nature, selfless for others, naive and little bit easy to manipulate. Also there is Ayako which is with her beauty and arrogant on the surface persona typical for supportive character in many shoujo. Hara is low-key Mai rival in love. She is deffinitelly more mature in comparison to Mai and seems like she’s always trying to best her. This ignites the first sparks of jelaousy with romantic rivality and woala shoujo triangle is born. Despite this Ayako and Hara were bearable, in some aspects even enjoyable characters. Although I was able to empathize with Mai as I also lost big part of my family, her character was low-key annoying regardless. Still she fulfilled her role well as her purpose was to always stand for others and contradict Naru’s cold approach, unfortunatelly her ways wasn’t that appealing to me.

On the other hand despite Kazuya being also similar to other shoujo MC’s because of his cold attitude, he is still easily likable and most fitting to the plot with his rationality and perfection at his job. He is little bit of a man tsundere/kuudere but made in a good way. Kudos for Monk which carried other characters like Ayako and Mai, because he had great dynamics while interacting with both of them. John is okay but nothing extraordinary. Each of them having diverse peronalities made them interesting even with not that much of an background. On the other hand this adds somehow mysterious aspect on characters like Lin or Naru which is big plus!

Don’t expect much of an character development. Only development I can see is in Kazuya as he is able to open up little bit more to Mai and trust others. Second would be probably Mai which discovers her hidden talents and adapts more on crisis situations which helps her grow as a person. Honestly there is most of the development in early episodes where characters are starting to lean on each other more which peaks like at the end of the third case and then it’s practically the same throught the rest of the show. Story focuses more on the progress of the bonds between the characters then development of one character as such.

ART:7/10
If you take into consideration the date anime was aired in, it looks fair. Desing of the characters and their clothing is probably one of the main forces. Style in which were some ghosts portraited could be little bit more gruesome and chilling, but that was balanced with solid atmosphere. It’s deffinitelly nothing special and lacks in terms of details, but overall I would say it fits correctly to it’s plot enviroment.

SOUND:9/10
Sound complements and builds atmosphere and atmosphere builds tension and anticipation in the audience. This is one of the most important things in horror genre in order to work properly. Imagine having some chilling scene without escalating background music, it’s not that common... This aspect is made really good. Soundtrack throughout the show perfectly fits the scenes and staff did excellent job. To be fair I didn’t paid much attention to OP and listened to it maybe twice, although it’s a okay match for the anime.

Enjoyment:7/10
Ghost Hunt managed to keep my attention steady almost whole time. There isn’t probably anything which would literally bothered me, although that shoujo part doesn’t fits my taste. Biggest strength of the show is dynamics between characters and atmosphere. Focus stays almost all the time on ghost hunting which is great as I wasn’t that fond of all that girly crushing over Kazuya, specifically the way it was presented in.

OVERALL:7,4/10
Major parts of the show which is ghost hunting and case solving are actually well-done. Problem is there’s unnecessarily lot of shoujo cliché which isn’t that much appealing and pointless. It certainly would be much better show if authors would put this immature romance completely away or made it in different style and stayed with what was best as relationships between characters would still be just as entertaining. Nevertheless it’s the only thing that little bit disturbed my otherwise good vibe while watching. For all horror anime lovers which want to take a break from excessive gore, this is the way. If you like shoujo demographic the better for you.