If there was ONE genre that I wish had stood out more in the modern day and age of copy-paste Isekai, fantasy, and reincarnation stories, we've seen one show too many, and it's the horror genre. But then again, horror is a genre that not many authors nor creators can get it right, much less from the one sole afficionado of a famed mangaka that brought us much of the genre's fame: the illusive Junji Ito. Sure, we have series like Ryukishi07's Higurashi franchise, the Junji Ito Collection (which Studio Deen's Winter 2018 adaptation is not what was expected of the level of the acclaimed horror mangaka's stories), Mieruko-chan (which is more comedy than horror), and the never-ending Theatre of Darkness: Yami Shibai series. But other than the last "true" horror show being MAPPA's Winter 2020 adaptation of mangaka Q Hayashida's Dorohedoro (partly because of its gore), there hasn't been a TRUE horror or supernatural show that TRULY makes you feel like you're feeling scared and shitless.
That is until now, with mangaka Kenichi Kondo's Dark Gathering, for which I'm surprised that the series being serialized in Shueisha's Jump Square (Kemono Jihen, Yuukoku no Moriarty, to name a few) since March 2019, isn't as popular as it should be. With this show, the horror and supernatural genres can finally go hand-in-hand to deliver what I feel is one of the most "true"-feeling modern-age horror shows that you can pick up and it'll NOT relent on you putting it down.
A young man with a cursed right hand who has a natural predisposition to attract ghosts to himself. This is the story of Keitarou Gentoga, an innocent-looking boy of a college sophomore who freezes at the sight of ghosts, with an incident with one ghastly experience causing his right hand to be cursed (which forces said sophomore to wear gloves). Keitarou's clearly had enough tolerance for experiencing the supernatural, so much so that he wants to go back to his typical life. A suggestion from a girl to help alleviate his problems from being a shut-in, and he decides to become a tutor to help suppress his emotions. Little does he know that by helping to tutor the person that the girl perceives as her cousin, Keitarou was the bait that was waiting for a catalyst to reactivate his fear of the supernatural and occult and simultaneously...be a helper? OK...reluctant to join, but Keitarou's already at the point of no return, and he assists on said girl's and her cousin's matters. Keitarou has one more student: Ai Kamiyo, the energetic girl who appears to be just a clumsy one whose misfortune always ends up involving people around her. However, just like Yayoi, take a look at her eyes: Ai has star-patterned pupils, which is a sign that she has been marked by a malevolent god as his bride, who's always in constant protection to prevent her from being tainted. So, she's also connected to the occult in some way.
That girl that Keitarou is very acquainted with is his childhood friend, Eiko Hozuki. Remember the traumatic event that the former went through when he was young? Both he and she were inflicted by the same ordeal as the former, also having experienced the spirituality that resulted in both childhood friends being cursed by an unknown spirit to have nerve endings grow from their bodies: Keitarou on his right hand and Eiko on her left hand. As childhood friends go, Eiko is clearly in love with Keitarou...but don't expect her one-sided crush to be wholesome. Instead, Eiko wears a rather agonizing Yandere expression on her sleeve to the point of a dark, twisted obsession, being immensely overprotective of Keitarou to the point that she has committed things like wiretapping, placing hidden cameras and tracking devices to stalk and monitor his vitals without his knowledge (though in some of the ghostly cases, this proves vital to his survival). This leads to the fact that, while said yandere girlfriend has a strong foundation in computer science at school, which produces excellent grades, she opted to study folklore so that she could better understand his struggles with the occult.
But while both childhood friends appear human, Eiko does not have a spiritual sense as much as Keitaro, especially when in comparison to her cousin Yayoi. From the outset, you can tell that her eye pupils are in the shape of skulls, and that's because she had developed polycoria (two pupils in the same eye) in both eyes for some unknown reason. This enables her to see ghosts clearly, which she once saw as hazy figures. But her reason for engaging in the occult and supernatural is a story that's bigger than life: She witnessed her mother's ghost being abducted by an embryo of ghostly origins (called the Spectre of Death) and has made it her goal to get her mother back by capturing ghosts to defeat the perpetrator. Moreover, her sharp, superhuman instinct has always kept both Keitarou and Eiko safe, though she may not be right all the time, to which she uses her intelligence to outwit the many ghastly episodes going into the Dark and Gathering ghosts for her objective.
The plot of Dark Gathering, in its simplest form: think of it as like playing Pokémon (the 3rd Gen games) and going straight to Lavender Town, to the Pokémon Tower, where Pokémon are laid to rest, fighting both ghost Pokémon and the spirits that linger around. That's the basis for Yayoi's goal and objective, with the help of both Keitarou and Eiko, to wander around the fictional "7 Wonders" locations to locate the strong ghosts (called Graduates) and seal them in a doll of her choosing that must be big enough to sustain the damage received from its user. If that's not enough, Yayoi's room is a doll's haven full of the council of captured spirits and being tamed for their use, which also acts as a central HQ hub of sorts for the artifacts of stronger spirits that they cannot handle alone, and worse still, be the tool for their enemies to build the Spectre of Death. It's a clear race against time to collect as many Graduates all across Japan for a sizable battle against the perpetrators in alliance with the Spectre of Death, as many low-key jumpscares as you'll get while watching the show. For a full horror experience, I recommend watching Dark Gathering around midnight (which airs in Japan at 1 in the morning) and having your headphones ready to feel the sizable amp in ghastly quality.
Over the course of six months since Summer, the kids' arm of OLM's Team Masuda (responsible for the Beyblade series) has done a respectful job of adapting the manga with most of its horror themes kept intact. Although Tonikaku Kawaii a.k.a ToniKawa director Hiroshi Ikehata may not be the best representative to understand the dark, violent, and gritty nature of the original source material, he at least did his directorial role right, and this should count on the overall execution of the anime, which has grown from good to being great IMO. Also, the OST should be commended for giving off the horror vibes; it literally brings chills to your bones from head to toe. luz's OP song is very good, and it fits Dark Gathering to a T, while Eiko's VA HanaKana gets 2 ED songs to her name, though I'd lean more to the 1st Cour's ED song.
It's going to be pretty tough to beat Dark Gathering as a very lean horror supernatural series, because this is now my new favourite horror supernatural show that will stand the test of time until the next rival comes, which will be in a very long time to come. I feel both ecstatic and scared at the same time, and nowhere other than Dark Gathering will you get a tantalizing horror experience as modern as this.
