Dark Gathering

Episode 14

Dark Gathering's horror fundamentals have always been pretty strong. And hey, it's October now, the perfect time to crank up the creepiness and commit to being a spooky show. Apart from giving her some deserved development, that would appear to be one reason the series set its focus on Eiko last week: She's lacking in the ability to directly confront these creeps the way Yayoi and Keitaro can, so following her allows the show to embrace the oppressive, helpless elements of horror. This does come with a side order of turning Eiko into a little more of a damsel than I'd prefer by the end, but everything getting there is so spot-on that I'm willing to give it a pass this week.

Eiko seems to be trying to embrace research as her main role within the team. She's got a natural enthusiasm for all things spiritual and spooky, so as long as she's reading up on scary stories, she might as well share them with Yayoi and Keitaro to prepare them to take on things like this tunnel ghost. It's an element that's elaborated on when Eiko winds up separated from the other two, instead being led around by that most frightful of modern apparitions: YouTubers! Teaming up with creepy content creator Anna allows Eiko to collaborate on learning and expanding on this spooky lore. It also gets to make a point about the difference between simply reading synopses online and having a scary story properly told to you by another person.

After her reaction to the events of last week's episode was "Scared and loving it", I am curious as to how Eiko will feel about this instance when all is said and done. She finds herself dreadfully close to death at this point, and as I get into it, driving home the manifested misery of the experience. The last we see of Eiko before this episode ends is her screaming, begging Keitaro and Yayoi to save her from the horrors she's stumbled into. It's a far cry from how she previously appreciated these encounters as a vector for furthering her relationship. The weird, creepy girl we know and love is still in there somewhere, but this reinforces that Eiko is still a person beyond her character gimmicks. As mentioned by the other ghosts they encounter, people's most raw, base instincts are what come clawing out in their desperate moments.

Reaching that breaking point, gradually at first, then frantically, is where this episode succeeds so well. Dark Gathering's ability to depict aside, askew detail is deployed expertly. The traffic mirror's broken status shifting depending on whom it shows looking into it foreshadows Eiko falling in with the spirits early on. Her separation from Yayoi and Keitaro is drawn out, contrasted with the initially upbeat but eventually openly menacing Anna. The simple act of looping through the tunnel, not being able to leave, drives home the futile helplessness that even a horror enthusiast like Eiko must feel in a situation like this.

It coalesces with the "storytelling" aspect embraced by this entry. Once her tone turns, Anna isn't just elaborating on the details of the tunnel's tenant for Eiko, she's psychologically tormenting her with the sheerly unpleasant details of how she'll be killed. The anime's art allowing it to show images of a character forced to watch something wearing their own face brutalize them contributes to the effectiveness, sure, but the delivered dialogue is honestly harrowing enough on its own. It almost comes off like a strong "Shoe's on the other foot" moment for Eiko, who has reveled in the frightened reactions of Keitaro before. And appropriately enough, it provides a sense that this might bring the pair even closer together.

Being into Dark Gathering's second cour as it is, this episode isn't entirely a straight horrorshow. All the buildup to Eiko being taken in by the tunnel ghost sees her assigned guardian spirit (appropriately enough, the one from the earlier tunnel) deployed to fight against this frightful face-taker. Along the lines of those mechanics, the narrative wheels back around to Yayoi and Keitaro as they calculate a plan to save Eiko going into the next episode. I appreciate the focus on lore and stories tying into Eiko's role thus far, and how that worked so well to escalate the scariness of this episode. However, as I mentioned at the beginning, it's just a little frustrating that the setup here seemed to turn Eiko into a helpless victim requiring rescue in what's ostensibly her own focal plotline. Perhaps, hopefully, there will be a shift as the story continues and even resolves in the next episode. Besides, I'll happily give Dark Gathering the benefit of the doubt if it can keep turning out entries as fundamentally strong as what it showed off this week.

Rating:

Dark Gathering is currently streaming on HIDIVE.

Chris is happy to welcome this spooky season and its cooler weather. You can scare him up on the shambling corpse of Twitter, or check out when he occasionally rises from his grave to update his blog.