Short Synopsis: Okay, Mai obviously never really died. She got possessed by a deceased spirit and relived that spirit’s memory. In this episode, the truth gets discovered about the case, now all that’s left is to solve it?
Good: Quite a bit of background info on Naru, Mai looked really freaky at times.
Bad: Why is it always Mai who gets possessed. Take Matsuzaki for a chance.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10

Okay, so a little summary. The first owner of the house suffered from a rather heavy illness, which made sure that he didn’t have long to live. Because of this, he got the strange idea that if he bathed in the blood of young people, like his maids and people from a nearby orphanage, he’d regain immortality. He began seeing himself as Urado, or another version of “Burado”, katakana for Vlad, the person Dracula was based on. Obviously, his plan didn’t work, and he died. But not before he killed a rather large amount of people. His son, the next owner, realized this, and desperately tried to hide this by sealing off the original building by continuing and continuing to expand the house, sealing off the bloodstained parts. Urado’s spirit, however, remained inside the hose, and it’s quite a powerful one, as it managed to actually physically teleport persons through solid walls, killing them afterwards.

Regarding Naru, it’s never mentioned explicitly, but I think that everyone knows now that his father is the real professor Davis. That’s why he didn’t want to be associated with the fake one. It obviously isn’t fun to see someone pretend to be your famous father. Davis also seems to have assigned Lin to look over Naru, which probably explains why such a talented exorcist is working for someone like him. Another interesting thing is that Naru backed off when Mai mentioned how he doesn’t know what dying means. I don’t know what that means, but could it be that Naru died already at one time? Is that why he keeps showing up in Mai’s dreams? In fact, could he be one of those dolls that Lin made, in a desperate attempt to keep him alive?

Then, the cliff-hanger. It would be awesome if Naru actually were to leave the mansion, along with everyone else. It’d be great to see this problem actually solve itself, like seeing the house being wrecked down, or something similar. But the fact remains, however that Ghost Hunt has never really tried to defy the general rules of anime. All stories in Ghost Hunt so far have had a beginning and a conclusion, with the conclusion solving everything. And there still is the fact that we’ve still got one entire episode left. Mai will probably whine a bit to make Naru solve the case.

Overall, this was quite a nice episode. Lots of things happened to distract from the fact that Mai didn’t really do anything. The hidden room was a great addition, Mai really looked freaky when she was in shock and the fake Davis’s confession was pretty interesting.

One thing I am afraid about is the final arc. If you ignore episode 11, 12 and 13, each arc has been dealing with an increasingly dangerous case. First we had a spirit which liked to destroy just buildings, second we had a spirit who moved around objects and attempted to drown little children. The next curse was aimed at a rather large amount of people. Next up, a school was filled with a huge amount of spirits, all set to kill almost half of the students, while this case now has a bloody serial murderer as a spirit. The next case has to be along the lines of genocide or something. If I had to guess, the final arc will have 5 episodes, since 2 episodes will probably be too little for an arc at this point (although it would be appreciated, see The Third and Night Head Genesis). It has to close the series, so Naru-chan and Mai will probably get together. This can happen in two different ways: Mai gets put in grave danger, while Naru has to save her, or Naru gets put in grave danger, while Mai has to save him. I’m so hoping for the latter.

Oh, and while I told myself not to complain too much about this series for this episode, there still is something I wish to talk about. It’s the side-characters. Why the heck are John and Matsuzaki even in this anime? They’ve got absolutely no role at all. Okay, Matsuzaki comforts Mai at times, while John says something smart once in a while, but that could also have been done by other characters.

Okay, that was weird. When this anime showed up, I knew nothing about it, but the title was interesting so I decided to download it to try it out. So, what do I get?

Nine minutes of insanity.

Seriously, this is another one of those short 9-minute films. It looks quite old, I expect it to have been released somewhere around 1990. It’s another great example of a good old show. I definitely recommend this series if you like fantasy-stories. It’s basically one big parody of the fantasy-adventure genre. Due to its length, it’s impossible for it to get boring. The evil lord Memphis has kidnapped the students of the Magic School Lunar and he demands the power of the Blue Dragon for ransom. The only problem: the head of the school doesn’t know what the Blue Dragon is. It’s now up to our three main heroes to explain this to Memphis. It may be a story, but after the first sentence of this anime, it becomes clear that it doesn’t take itself seriously at all.

The best point about this short film? The pacing. It’s really the same as the anime: totally insane, which really becomes apparent in the first scene. A character also warns in advance that this anime may be over before you know it, and that’s the perfect way to describe it. If there ever was a roller-coaster ride, it’d be this one.

And guess what, despite the age, the animation is excellent. It makes great use of deranged character designs to accompany the insanity. If you need 10 minutes to burn at one time, then this one is definitely recommended.

Short Synopsis: See what happens when two people try to be alike and together at all costs.
Good: Nice ending; The music gets better and better; Nice symbolism.
Bad: A truck is a popular plot device; The usual formula again.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10

When I first heard Ren talk about Wanyuudo, I thought that he was taking a small break after the rather strange previous episode which made him be away for a couple of days. Though then it appeared that one client just had been holding him for a very long while, without releasing the string. In fact, she was blackmailing her victim with it. To make things even more complicated, the two of them once were friends, who did everything together dressed alike.

It’s interesting, we have a fairly standard case, but the episode was a really enjoyable one. Especially the history of the two was very nice. This is what happens when you get obsessed over a friendship. Ai and Kikuri nicely symbolized the case as well. Seeing Yurie witness Marie with a boy (aka Ren) also was a very interesting. Especially seeing that even though she gets blackmailed and abused like hell (pun intended), she actually doesn’t mind this at all. She just hopes to get back to the good old days.

The ending is debatable. The truck definitely was overused, but I like how things turned out in the end with Marie sending herself and her best friend to hell, just so that they could meet up with each other. It makes you wonder, though. What kind of place is hell exactly? This show never really shed light on this.

The question also remains: how will this show end? We’ve got the history of Hone Onna still to come, with possibly another episode dedicated to Ichimoku Ren, but what is to happen next? It would be great to see Hell-boy return, but what kind of conclusion will that give to the series? And what about the spider? And Ai’s grandmother?