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Many anime strive for a horror element and settle for the gore. Others try for the psychological approach and get lost in the relationships. This, however, is a shining star among them all.

Ghost Hound foregoes all the gore and heads straight for the downright creepy. The animation style, though soft and fairly unassuming, only enhances this creepy-factor once the ball starts rolling. Each episode title is taken straight from psychology texts, and exploits the given theme with finesse and underhanded tact.

Nothing is overdone. Everything is like a current flowing underground, or a train rumbling by only a mile away. ... You can't see it, but you can feel the presence. The atmosphere is set with an amazing score which seems to taunt all those soft and unassuming characters with the terror to come.

Only it isn't obvious.

Many anime try to shove "the horror of it all" down your throat, leading to some nausea and perhaps a little surprise. This, however, slips beteen the cracks and tugs at your primal half, makes you start to wonder whether or not you really are safe in your own head. The imagery shifts like flashbacks from a memory only half-recalled (they address that topic, actually) and the atmospheric music only sucks you in deeper.

The characters, too, are well-rounded and fascinating, from Makoto and is utterly horrifying grandma, to Masayuki and his social eccentricities, to Tarou and that FREAKY "lucid dream" he keeps having. ("Lucid Dream" is episode 1)

Overall:

If you love shows and movies that just crawl inside and start to make you think really hard about things you once thought were absolutes, then this is the show to see.

Perhaps one downside is the lack of dialogue, but in a horror, images and sounds carry so much more meaning, and these images and sounds are guaranteed to make tingles rund down your backbone. The other downside--a trifle, really--is that the first episode takes a few minutes to really take off, but once it does, the anime never slows down.

It is an anime for the true psychological horror fan, and Production I.G. was brilliant for making this their 20th anniversary release.

Plus, those little astrally projected bodies? Man, even if the show's creepy-factor doesn't appeal to you, those little things are just too cool for words.