© 近藤憲一／集英社・ダークギャザリング製作委員会
If you didn’t know that the storyline started by Ai was going to be longer, this week’s episode of Dark Gathering makes that perfectly clear. Technically, the girl betrothed by God has four years until her mystical lover comes calling to pick her up, so Yayoi and Keitaro have some time to prepare a suitable attack. The setback they encountered last week, with most of Yayoi’s ghost-imprisoning stuffed animals destroyed, finally charted a new long-term path. It looks like our mysterious group is about to go on a journey through the sites of Japan’s biggest paranormal events. So yeah, we now have a real, proper arc on our hands.
You can tell this is about the process of getting to that structured setup by the way this episode explains most of it. There are plenty of internal recaps and flashbacks to immediately preceding plot points to pad this episode. Even more jarring, when not busy explaining what we just saw happen, the writing of this episode addresses another problem that Dark Gathering has had, where Yayoi is simply found and arranged off-screen solutions. In this case, we find out that she had three “Graduation” souls, super powerful due to a free-eating ghost, prepared before she ended this episode. It’s like a cooking show host revealing that they’ve had a previous version of an appetizer in the oven the whole time. Likewise, the business we saw her do with the Jizo statues at the beginning of the show is unceremoniously confirmed to have contributed to the creation of “Transcendent Jizo” which she would also used for this great work, my God.-fascinating plan.
It’s all very mechanical plot convenience, not a deal-breaker, but a reminder of how clumsily Dark Gathering has handled progressions like this before when it doesn’t focus on the simpler goofy and/or spooky segments. Accompanied by other sudden developments such as the gang letting Ai return to Kyoto on her own because she suddenly remembered it was time to attend her brother’s memorial service. Somehow, I was never sure exactly when that guy’s death happened, but I had previously thought that it must have been longer ago than imagined. This is mainly a way to get Ai out of the way so that our main characters can freely take their road trip until it’s time to come and save her. But it still raises immediate questions about the purpose of setting up all the security measures in her apartment and the like and whether they will ultimately let her go elsewhere without being harmed. monitor or not.
Serving the setting up of this ‘larger’ plot makes all this front-loaded information a little more palatable. The god they are pursuing has managed to present himself quite well, hindering Yayoi’s efforts against him and demonstrating the ability to manipulate the phone calls and even verbal communications of the gods. our character as a method of entrapment. Seeing Yayoi, even temporarily, feel incapable of fighting this threat takes things to another level. It also sets up that path to power up and advance Dark Gathering’s core world-building ideas in terms of the level of technical and mechanical effort that goes into solving these problems. And the whole detail about the fake phone calls is also a pretty effective little horror plot in this episode.
It also gives Keitaro a chance to shine in his statement about how ready he is to face the god. for the benefit of his students, and this results in showing the growth of the characters along with the escalating scope of the story. Dark Gathering’s focus on the intertwined pragmatism of characters pursuing their plans while accepting help from others is, in doing so, its most compelling central theme. But now, we see Yayoi having to think about how Keitaro’s sincere concern for her and others makes her feel, and it seems like her compassion has increased because of it. The moment she admits that their close friendship makes her happy and accepts that her relationship with Keitaro has grown beyond that basic interest makes for a sweet twist. Her simple, heartfelt statement of “Thank you” was a real ‘wow’ moment, making it clear that growing closer and more personally attentive in this way is also instrumental in helping All characters become stronger as well as collect more powerful souls.
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Dark Gathering is now streaming on HIDIVE.
Chris knows that summer is the perfect time for ghost stories and hopes that’s enough to distract him from this intense Fresno heat wave. You can help distract him further by annoying him on Twitter (no matter how long that lasts) or check out his less scary musings about it on his blog.
