Review of Ghost Hunt

Overview: "Ghost Hunt" is pretty much exactly what it sounds like- an anime about a group of people who hunt ghosts and exorcise spirits encountered in various locations. However, anyone going in expecting something along the lines of "Ghostbusters" will be in for either a surprise or a disappointment, as rather than a light-hearted comedy about catching ghosts with advanced tech, it's instead more of a mystery/horror series about getting rid of spirits using exorcisms and ancient spells. But is it good? The answer is "Yes", even if there is ultimately nothing remarkable about it. Story (6.5/10): "Ghost Hunt" follows the viewpoint of Mai Taniyama, a 16-year-old schoolgirlwho enjoys telling ghost stories with her friends. One night, she ends up encountering a mysterious teenager named Kazuya Shibuya, whom she quickly dubs "Naru" due to his narcissistic personality. Upon investigating him, Mai accidentally breaks a camera belonging to Naru and injures a man named Lin Koujo. As it turns out, Naru and Lin are members of a ghost-hunting company named Shibuya Psychic Resaerch, with the real surprise being that Naru is the president despite not even being 17 yet, while Lin is the assistant. It turns out Naru and Lin were hired by the school's principal to investigate an allegedly haunted school building. With his assistant confined to the hospital as a result of Mai's actions, Naru hires Mai as his temporary assistant so she can work off the debt she owes him for breaking his camera, though naturally she continues to work for him even after said debt is paid. Along the way, Mai, Naru and Lin are assisted by various other people who specialise in their business, including Buddhist monk Hoshou Takigawa, shine maiden Ayako Matsuzaki, TV psychic Masako Hara and Catholic priest John Brown.

If there's one positive thing to say about the story, it's the pacing. The series never stays on the same arc, or "Case" as they're called, for too long, with most of them being 3 or 4 episodes long, though there are also a couple of shorter ones in the middle. This provides enough time for the team to figure out exactly what's going on within the location, learn the history of what led to the phenomenon and finally figure out exactly how to deal with the ghost or spirit. While this does mean things can be somewhat formulaic, the various means and approaches are different enough that the formula works without going stale. That being said, the arcs can get pretty repetitive after a while, with no less than three arcs (which together take up 11 of the 25 episodes) taking place in a school, albeit in a different one each time. In particular, the third and sixth arcs are very similar to each other with almost no meaningful differences, aside from the fact that the latter is a fair bit darker than the former.

Besides the repetition, the self-contained nature of the arcs eventually starts to work against the series, as despite it being a mystery series, none of the ongoing mysteries ever get resolved. For example, we learn in the first episode that the nickname "Naru" is familiar to him somehow, but exactly how it's familiar is never really explained, since the series awkwardly skips over the whole thing and never brings it up again. I still enjoyed the mysteries in the individual arcs, but it can be really annoying that you will likely be answering yourself a whole bunch of questions and never get answers to any of them. All in all, if you're looking for a great story, you will not find it here.

Art & Animation (8.5/10):
"Ghost Hunt" is actually a really good-looking series. While it doesn't look incredible, the characters and environments are very well-drawn and detailed, and the special effects of the various spirts and powers are a true sight for sore eyes, or not given that I'd doubt anyone with sore eyes would want to look at something so horrifying. The visuals are especially impressive not only because the animation studio is J.C. Staff, which don't exactly have the best reputation in the anime community, but also because it came out in 2007, a year in which many of the anime that aired ("Baccano", "El Cazador de la Bruja", "Kaze no Stigma" etc.) were average-looking at best.

Sound & Dialogue (8.5/10):
The soundtrack is nothing to write home about. It fits the series, being moody and atmospheric, but it mostly consists of still tracks that you would most likely hear in any other series of this genre. Notably, the opening and ending themes don't have any lyrics at all, making them less memorable then they could have been since the music itself is very good. The voice acting, on the other hand, is excellent- “Fairy Tail” fans will immediately recognize Cherami Leigh and Todd Haberkorn as Mai and Naru, the latter of whom plays a character completely different from his usual type, albeit one that’s not that hard to voice due to Naru not showing much in the way of emotion. Besides these two, the series has a number of big names in the main cast including Colleen Clinkenbeard, Travis Willingham, Jad Saxton, and J. Michael Tatum, as well as Brina Palenica, Monica Rial and Eric Vale in supporting roles. That being said, the voice acting is far from perfect, with Jason Liebrecht, who’s normally a very good voice actor, being something of an odd duck as John Brown, due to trying to put on an Australian accent that sounds less than stellar.

Characters (7.5/10):
From the first episode, Mai is quickly established as a very kind, friendly and cheerful girl, which is especially impressive considering a troubled past revealed late in the series. Although she quickly becomes annoyed by Naru (which is why she gave him his nickname in the first place), she nevertheless tries her hardest to be civil with him and quickly grows to accept him as a friend, to the point of readily accepting his offer to continue to work for him after their initial case together is done, though she can still get frustrated with him from time to time. In an early arc, she is discovered to have psychic powers, which allows her to take a more active role in investigations, which is very much a good thing at first, especially since there’s only so much she can contribute otherwise due to being a newbie investigator instead of a skilled professional like the others. Overtime, however, her powers start to become more of a convenient plot device to get her and the others out of tight spots, with her repeatedly discovering new abilities when the situation calls for them with pretty much no build-up beforehand. Characters gaining new powers as the plot demands is usually something I don’t mind in anime, but this series kind of pushes the limit to how much I can tolerate. Nevertheless, she is still a very likable character, and certainly one of the best this series has to offer.

The best character in the series, however, would have to be Naru himself. A lot of characters tend to comment on his narcissism, to the point that Mai gives him a nickname because of it, a nickname he ends up being called by everyone to the exclusion of his real name. However, he’s actually nowhere near as annoying or insufferable as this implies, as while he is extremely blunt and confident, he consistently lives up to his own standards, doesn’t hesitate to give credit where credit is due and never claims to be better than he is. It’s just that in Japan, taking pride in your own accomplishments is considered to be extremely egotistical, so from their perspective he IS a narcissist. Don’t get me wrong, he’s certainly not a nice person, his default attitude being very cold, critical and sarcastic, but there are multiple cases (no pun intended) where he is shown to care for his co-workers, especially Mai and Lin. Granted, he does have a tendency to set a plan in motion without telling anyone while also expecting them to trust him, which can be pretty aggravating. Furthermore, I felt that we only really started to get to know him in the final episode, with multiple things about him being implied but never completely explained (like why “Naru” is familiar to him, as I mentioned above).

The rest of the main cast are good enough, but none of them are as developed as Naru or Mai, which isn’t helped by the fact that they often are absent from a certain arc, sometimes with no explanation. One of the best is Houshou Takigawa, or Monk as he’s called by the group. Of the team, his way of dealing with spirits is the most direct: blowing them away with spells, though this doesn’t always work due to the unpredictable nature of ghosts. Personality-wise, he's quite different from what you’d expect from a monk, being one of the most light-hearted members of the team instead of really serious. He’s also one of the nicer members, and acts as a father figure to Mai, even teaching her some of his skills. There’s also Masako Hara, who is a TV star despite being the same age as Mai, due to being a spirit medium (someone who can see and sense spirits). However, while her powers may be useful, they’re not perfect, as Naru states in the first episode, it’s common for mediums to be spot-on or completely off-base. Her powers also run the risk of her getting possessed, which does happen in one arc, albeit the most light-hearted one in the series. For her actual personality, she is generally polite to most people, but she is quite cold and resentful towards Mai at first due to how close she and Naru are, though the two girls do become friends eventually. The last of the three main heroines is Ayako Matsuzaki, who like Naru, has the absolute confidence in her abilities, in her case as a shrine maiden. Unlike Naru, however, she often lacks the necessary skills to back this up, as not only do her rituals often do pretty much nothing, but she keeps assuming in early arcs that the ghost is an earthbound spirit, despite being proven wrong every single time. That being said, she does prove herself to be highly efficient under the right circumstances, and, much like Naru, she DOES care about the others, even acting as the medic whenever one of them gets hurt.

Next up is Lin Koujo, a man of Chinese descent and the only one to have known Naru before the series started, and so the one who understands him the best. It’s immediately easy to see why the two work so well together, as their similar aloof, cold personalities makes it easy for them to tell what the other is thinking. Much like Masako, he also starts off not liking Mai, though in his case it’s very understandable considering she hospitalized him when they first met, accidentally or not, and he does warm up to her eventually. Finally, there’s John Brown, who unfortunately doesn’t get nearly as many moments to shine as the others, as well as not having much personality beyond being a nice guy. Besides the main seven, the cast changes with every arc, with most supporting characters being never seen again once the arc they appear in is over. The only exception to this is Osamu Yasuhara, a high school student whom the team meets in a case late in the series and often acts as a confidant for them from then on. Ultimately, though, he contributes the least out of all of them, with the most he can do being providing some much-needed insight. Nevertheless, I found myself liking him quite a bit, since, much like me, he believes strongly in treating others based on how they treat him, or “being a jerk to a jerk” as he puts it, which makes for some very funny moments. As a whole, the characters are good, but there is also definite room for improvement.

Enjoyment (7.5/10):
“Ghost Hunt” starts off reasonably scary, though the cases are ultimately wrapped up with no real issues, and the middle cases in particular are surprisingly light-hearted. That all changes in the second half of the series, however, as things start to get much more horrifying, with the final arc being aptly dubbed by Mai as “one of [their] most horrific cases” and the one before it being even darker. There is some comic relief to ease the tension, most of it coming from Monk and Yasuhara, but there are nevertheless a ton of scenes that demonstrate that this is a horror series first and foremost.

Overall:
There really aren’t that many anime out there quite like “Ghost Hunt”, but sadly the series fails to use that fact to its fullest potential, with repetitive writing and a number of questions that we never get any answers too. But while some mystery fans will be disappointed, there is plenty of appeal here for horror lovers, with likable, well-developed characters, surprisingly detailed art, great animations and visual effects and brilliant voice acting.

Score:
6.5+8.5+8.5+7.5+7.5=38.5/50=7.7/10