chesley97 - 2015-08-26 11:42:02

What sets Ghost Hound apart from many anime is the atmosphere it creates. For a mystery anime, the creepy atmosphere adds much to the show. Accompanied by some of the most precise and well thought-out sound effects. The only show that I've seen which puts as much effort on sound effects is Serial Experiments Lain, which shouldn't be surprising considering both shows were directed by the same man. This is not just a mystery anime though. It blends both the psychological and the supernatural in a way that makes it very exciting. The psychological aspect is well thought-out too as the main character Taro is being treated by a psychiatrist for trauma so expect to learn a lot of neuroscience terminology if you're not already familiar with it. This anime also masters pacing as it keeps the events progressing without being either too rushed or too slow, there is always something happening and the anime always seemed to know the right time to reveal answers without revealing too much of the mystery too soon.

Another thing that the series did right is the characters. For a series that has a cast that is as large as this one, it did well on developing them, especially the main trio of the show. Their varied backgrounds and personalities made the experience more fun and their interactions served to really flesh them out.

Perhaps the only thing that holds the show back is the ending. While it mostly resolves all its mysteries it also leaves the viewer a bit underwhelmed mainly because of how those mysteries were resolved. I expected the ending to be as spectacular as the rest of the series, but I can hardly call it that.

In the end, this is a mostly gripping and spectacular series that doesn't stick to the norm and that has a lot of creativity behind it but it suffers from an underwhelming ending that keeps it from being perfect.

tamara88 - 2015-07-26 17:21:56

First of all, I noticed that there were some fairly big names behind the show, like: Masamune Shirow, Tyutaro Nakamura and Chiaki Konaka. This got my hopes up before I started watching it, which (retrospectively) probably was a bad thing.
Anyway, let’s split this into categories.

The premise
I thought the general idea behind the show (soul travel, alternative worlds, mysteries around such ideas) was pretty good. it stands out among the masses purely on paper, but the problem here is that ideas seldom work in practice, which of course depends on the execution of said ideas.

The Pacing
22 episodes is quite a long time to tell a story, but with all the subplots, the large cast of characters, the slow but atmospheric moments, and the general complexity of some of the ideas (religion, science, mysticism, psychology), there just wasn’t enough time to fully flesh out most of everything. Basically: it felt rushed and unfulfilling (and sometimes all the subplots simply made it feel like a clusterfuck of randomness).

Plausibility
This is an aspect that isn’t always important. But seeing as a fair amount of time is placed on themes, I felt like I needed to bring up some things that broke my immersion, or simply seemed really dumb. Let’s just start with this; not all things were very plausible. The internal supernatural elements were never explained in some kind of acceptable way, and it flip flopped between actual explanation based on reality and supernatural mumbo jumbo too often.
The show also threw around a lot of nonsense, like conspiracy theories about global warming, as can be seen here:
http://i.imgur.com/0rBAZAK.png

I mean, what am I supposed to think about this? Is Masamune advocating climate change denialism or something? If we’re even going to go into this aspect of science we really need to spend more time on the subject. In any case, how important the consistency of the setting is in its logic is to be decided by each viewer for themselves, but for me, it wasn’t solid nor explored enough.

Characters
The show has four main characters and quite a lot of side characters that play somewhat important roles but are mostly not explored.

Taro Komori wasn’t a particularly interesting character on his own. Without his back story he would be rather bland and even more forgettable than the average supporting character. I like that he comes to terms with his trauma in the end, and thus comes across as quite a bit more mature than earlier, but it still wasn’t enough for me to like the guy. Sure, he counts for some amount of development in the story, but it’s hardly exceptional.

Masayuki Nakajima is one of the driving forces of the show. He causes the other characters to progress and grow, and he also progresses to the point of overcoming his own fears over the course of the show. Besides that, he wasn’t all that interesting, I think. He barely changes after experiencing all the stuff in the anime, even though issues were settled and you’d expect the guy to contextualize himself somewhat differently, that does not happen. Perhaps this is a realistic aspect as the parental issues were resolved much too quickly for substantial change to be expected, but nonetheless it is disappointing.

Makoto Ōgami came across as bland and cold at first. But at least he became more contrasted later on. Not much to say about this guy. He plays an important role, sure, but nothing really makes him interesting. The dialogue involving many of these characters is fairly bland, which might not necessarily be a bad element to have, mundane elements can make for good contrasts with fantastical ideas and so on, but this way of doing it just didn’t quite grab me for the most part.
The following illustration could be seen as hyperbolic, I’m aware, but it might be enough to show that not everything in this series deals with theme exploration and cool ideas, as some might have you believe.
http://i7.tinypic.com/8e1fbq8.jpg

Miyako Komagusu is a typical Kuudere, which actually makes her more interesting than any other character in the show, imo. The bond between her and Taro kinda developed into a romance later on, but that went nowhere, though it was kind of cute to look at sometimes. I like her design quite a
lot, which isn’t surprising as Mariko OKA (Hell Girl) made it.
Anyway, Miyako isn’t developed much in the show, and serves more as a plot device than an actual human being. So in the end, I can’t say that I bonded with any of the main characters. That’s really not a good thing.

The side characters are not very complex and only serve their role in the story. Sometimes you can see that they have minds of their own, but it doesn’t happen nearly enough. 
I find it quite easy to compare the characters of this show to the ones in Shiki (polar opposites). In that one most are fairly unlikeable, but pretty much all of them stand out in some way, and the main ones have developed philosophies and connections which makes them interesting.

Visuals
It’s animated by Production I.G. so I was expecting the show to look amazing. But it doesn’t, really. Every piece of artwork has a very simplistic and sterile look to it. The colours are all washed out and fit more in the grey spectrum. While in anime such as SEL and Texhnolyze the animators ramped up the contrast of the pictures so high that it was blending light through the environment, Shinregari simply lacks this effect which I personally missed, as I thought it gave SEL and Texhnolyze a pretty eerie feeling. The animated movement was nothing outstanding either, which is somewhat disappointing. But this kind of series doesn’t actually need good animation quality to portray its themes in a captivating manner.
The backgrounds also didn’t strike me as especially noteworthy. They all worked and created an environment to work in, but interesting to look at? Not so much. They were far from realistically drawn, much more traditional, which is also not bad, but certainly not outstanding. A strong point of Ghost Hound are the Visual Effects, which are very reminiscent of things like SEL and Texhnolyze (sorry for the constant comparisons). The dream sequences in the beginning worked really well to create an eerie and immersive atmosphere.

Sound
The audio track was overall nothing memorable. The voice acting was fairly fitting, and most actors seemed experienced enough to properly portray emotions, yet not to the point of being memorable. The opening was okay I suppose. Crazy jazz goes well with mystery cases for some reason. Though I ended up skipping it most of the time. The ending was mediocre. Felt like an old school Japanese folk song which tries to put me to sleep. The transition from end of episode to ending song was usually really poor too, feeling off-putting in the kind of way which makes you question how it went through the editing phase.

The Background Music was mediocre for the most part. It never stood out in any way, and I forgot it very quickly (excluding one piece which was lovely). The sound effects were fine, but I thought the voice effect used for the “Soul Travel” parts was off-putting.

Enjoyment
Eh. I was mostly disappointed. I liked the start, but as it went on it got less and less interesting. My main point of interest throughout the show was Miyako. I like Kuuderes most of the time, so it was nice to see her, and the cool design helped as well.

Now for some excused scoring.

ART SECTION: 6/10

General Artwork 1/2 (not bad but not outstanding)

Character Figures 1/2 (most are generic but a few look gorgeous)

Backgrounds 1/2 (basic and not eye-catching)

Animation 1/2 (uneven and rough most of the time, but not so bad that it may as well be non-existent)

Visual Effects 2/2 (atmospheric and eerie)

SOUND SECTION: 5/10

Voice Acting 1/3 (standard and doesn’t add much to the characters)

Music Themes 2/4 (decent but not worth remembering)

Sound Effects 2/3 (ok I guess)

STORY SECTION: 5/10

Premise 2/2 (compelling)

Pacing 1/2 (slow while not stopping to develop enough)

Complexity 1/2 (somewhat complex, but not explored enough)

Plausibility 1/2 (little)

Conclusion 0/2 (shoehorned happy crap)

CHARACTER SECTION: 5/10

Presence 1/2 (generic)

Personality 1/2 (simple)

Backdrop 1/2 (simplistic and rushed but it’s there)

Development 1/2 (simplistic but it’s there for most)

Catharsis 1/2 (shoehorned but it’s there)

VALUE SECTION: 3/10

Historical Value 0/3 (none)

Rewatchability 1/3 (low because of too little plot and small focus on themes)

Memorability 2/4 (aside from a few aesthetic touches and a cool premise there is nothing to remember)

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 1/10

Art 0/1 (a few nice character designs and visual effects stand out, but nothing else)

Sound 0/2 (sounds typical)

Story 1/3 (too much to properly develop with such a slow pace and few episodes, plus clusterfuck subplots)

Characters 0/4 (Miyako is cute, that’s all)

Conclusion

Shinreigari had a lot of potential but it fell flat in the end.

It couldn’t deliver interesting characters, had too many things going on in its plot with some weird messages and erratic planning, and was visually not all that exciting.

It’s still an okay watch if you like mystery series, but there are far better ones out there.

Recommendations list:

Shiki

Ergo Proxy

Serial Experiments Lain

Jigoku Shoujo

xrunolfsdottir - 2015-02-03 10:33:02

A great physiological and mild horror anime. It's great for someone who isn't a fan of dark horror. But be warned there are a lot of unexplained parts in this anime that may of had you looking at the characters from a completely different perspective if explained.

hilton.ratke - 2014-10-12 04:54:01

Ghost hound, although a lot of people may have had negative reviews on it. I on the other hand thought otherwise. The dark story definitely pulled me in and kept me watching episodes back to back. Weather it be the traumatic events that happened in the main characters lives. To the  astral-projection in the "Unseen World", they pulled it in together nicely.

rchristiansen - 2014-04-30 21:03:55

The story is interesting and the psychology behind everything is very accurate. It didn't keep me interested though and I found myself having to force myself to watch some episodes. The ending was decently interesting, I don't think I would suggest this to anyone though.

ola.gutkowski - 2014-02-11 18:10:59

Shinreigari: Ghost Hound had all the right ingredients to be an outstanding Anime.

Originally created by Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell), directed by Tyutaro Nakamura (Serial Experiments Lain), Composed by Chiaki Konaka (Texhnolyze) and produced by Production I.G. it seemed to me like a very promising show.

But did it fulfill my expectations? Let‘s find out...

In the desolated mountain town of Suiten strange things are happening. Eleven years before the story takes place, a boy (Taro) and his Sister (Mizuka) have been abducted by a man. While the abductor dies in an accident, Taro and Mizuka are still missing. Taro is found days later still alive, though his sister unfortunately passed away.

In the present Taro is plagued by nightmares of his abduction caused by his PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). He and two other boys in his school gain the ability to soul travel and try to find out what really happened 11 years ago.

The premise of the shows sounds like it would be a great mystery series with some horror elements and many psychological themes. The setting is interesting and far from your ordinary school comedy anime.

With 22 episodes Ghost Hound seems to have a good long duration for a complex story like it has. But the duration wasn‘t quite long enough to cover all elements of the story. Because of that the ending felt rushed and unfulfilling.

Though while watching the show is kinda slow, coming from the SEL director, it never really drags. The atmospheric, trippy scenes are all spooky and immersive, though sometimes instantly crushed by a shift in tone which the show often handles poorly.

Ghost Hound covers many themes and topics and has a fairly large cast of characters, of which the main characters all have their personal background story with a solution within the anime itself.

Because of that sometimes too many things at once were happening. Not only did Ghost Hound try to cover the basics of the story (which was on it its own complicated) but also handle various themes about religion, science, psychology and mysticism.

I wouldn‘t call it a clusterfuck, but considering the issues with the pacing I mentioned, having so many themes and subplots at once can make the viewer confused to what is going on.

And it is not like in SEL where the topic and presentation itself was confusing, Ghost Hound was pretty straight forward with what it was trying to be, but it tried too much at once which led to many unanswered questions, half hearted explanations or ideas and a lackluster conclusion.

Given what I said about complexity, not all things were very plausible.

Ghost Hounds internal supernatural elements never seemed to be explained and it flip flopped between actual explanation based on reality and supernatural mumbo jumbo.

Besides that it also threw around a lot of nonsense, like conspiracy theories about global warming:

I mean, what am I supposed to think about this? Is Masamune advocating climate change denialism? Because to be fair, the character who said this was probably the most sane character in the entire series.

Or it diverges into „pro-life“ rhetoric about „what is life“ and „is humanity even allowed to meddle with it".

Things like these kinda put me off, as they seemed to propagate unscientific nonsense over actual facts, something I really dislike in any kind of medium.

There were also some other parts in which it was quite not understandable how that could have happened, though that would go into spoiler territory.

Overall considering Masamune created the intelligent Ghost in the Shell, Ghost Hound disappointed me in regards of themes and ideas.

Scratching on ideas such as soul travel (Out of Body Experience), Sanctity of Life, Spirits and Ghosts, various psychological factions, Ghost Hound felt short on its actual plot by the end.

While all characters got their personal conclusion, especially satisfying had been none of them. It just felt to happy ending and threw me off, especially considering the darker tone of the show.

Some conclusions seemed out right shoehorned in just that this or that got finished and not abandoned, but a lot of sense or natural it did/was not.

Ghost Hound features quite a large cast of characters, containing at least 4 main characters and several side characters which all play more or less important rolls.

At its heart is Taro Komori, the 14 year old boy who got abducted with his sister at the age of 3. Is is suffering from PTSD and nightmares of his abduction.

Because of it he is shy and reserved, he also doesn't seem to be very mature and rather child like.
Besides that, he isn't a particularly interesting character on its own. Without his back story he would be rather bland to be honest.

His shyness feels sometimes awkward and stifles any possible story progression, though he later warms up and gains some courage. Not only that but he also comes to terms with his trauma and past and overall feels like a bit more mature character. He is nonetheless not a great main character to watch on its own but thankfully there are more...

Masayuki Nakajima, a boy from Tokyo who recently moved to Suiten because of his fathers work is by far the most interesting to watch character.

His eccentric, outgoing personality is the main drive for the story to go on.
Without him none of the other characters would have grown or moved at all. Which renders him the most important character of the entire anime.
Not only is he a major driving force for the plot, he also seems to be the deepest characters of them all. We learn about his past and while he seems open and outgoing on the outside, he also has a secret in his past tormenting him in the present.

Besides overcoming his fears of the past he doesn't change much.
I also have to note that his parental issues which all of the main kids have, seem to be resolved in the most rushed way and felt not satisfying at all.

Makoto Ōgami is the third boy of the main cast and the son of one of the possible abductors who committed suicide when Makoto also was still very young.

He is cold, cool headed and doesn‘t talk much. If he shows emotions its mostly aggression he directs towards anyone who is around.

His family issues are resolved the best in Ghost Hound and he also seems to have the best character development, though going from also a rather bland personality to a more contrasted one isn‘t all that great.

He later plays a crucial roll in the plot and is besides Masayuki the more important character.

Miyako Komagusu is the last important kid introduced.

Apparently she is the only one of the four who can‘t soul travel, but also the only one who can channel spirits which she frequently does, and also serves a major plot point.

I would consider her personality as a rather typical „Kuudere“ (meaning cool or cold, but actually nice). Taro and she later bond which serves as a minor romance which goes nowhere but was cute to look at anyways.
And by the way cute. Miyako is probably one of the cutest characters I‘ve ever seen in anime. Her character design helps greatly, but also her dismissive facial expressions with sometimes more innocent ones.
Though as for the other characters she isn‘t all that developed or complex and serves more as a plot device than an actual human being. Which makes all the characters hard to bond with.

The side characters are also not very complex and only serve for their role and rarely have minds of their own or we see how they feel besides small glimps.

The most important side characters though are: Reika Ōtori (the scientist working for Bio Tech) who becomes more essential later in the story; Takahito Komagusa (the priest and father of Miyako) who spouts nonsense about climate change, but is otherwise more inclined with naturalism than mumbo jumbo, despite being a priest; Atsushi Hirata (the psychologist from Tokyo who counsels Taro) who first seems like some creepy old guy, but is actually quite nice and experiences a lot of weird things in his stay in Suiten Town and Hoshino, Michio (the classmate of Masayuki) who gets bullied but later becomes a part of the group of kids.

All in all the characters are not the strength of Ghost Hound, but also aren‘t terrible. Unlike another spooky mystery anime called Shiki, Ghost Hounds characters are all quite likable, but not particularly outstanding.

Animated by Studio Production I.G. you‘d expect Shinreigari to look superb, but right off the bat I have to say that nothing about the visuals in Shinreigari were outstanding, compare to other works I.G. had their fingers in.

Shinregari: Ghost Hound looks rather clean for a show about spooky events in a desolated town. Every piece of artwork has a very simplistic and sterile look to it. The colors are all washed out and more in the grey spectrum.

While in anime such as SEL and Texhnolyze the animators ramped up the contrast of the pictures so high that it was blending light through the environment, Shinregari lacks this effect which I personally missed, because I thought it gave SEL and Texhnolyze the eery feeling.

Ghost Hound also lacked the more realistic super detailed gritty feel Ghost in the Shell had (especially the movie).

Overall it didn‘t look bad, but also not outstanding and lies around average town.

Again coming from I.G. which are known for their great animation and are one of the studios in the advanced field of it, you would expect also some delicious animation, though that also fell short. I can‘t recall any animated moment which was really great to look at. Probably because there wasn‘t much action going on, but even so, it all was just very straight forward

It looked okay but again, nothing outstanding.

Guess what... yes, the backgrounds also didn‘t strike me as especially noteworthy. They all worked and created an environment to work in, but interesting to look at? Never, they were far from realistically drawn, much more traditional, which is also not bad, but also not outstanding.

Probably the most noteworthy aspects of Ghost Hounds visuals are the character designs which were made by Mariko OKA (Hell Girl) whose trademark are probably the round eyes of the characters.

Not all of the characters have super round eyes, but especially Miyakos eyes were particularly adorable.
In general his character designs are interesting and suited for the horror genre. So props for that.

But who the fuck thought these were a good idea...?

Instant immersion killer...

The other strong point of Ghost Hound are the Visual Effects, which are very reminiscent of things like SEL and Texhnolyze. The dream sequences in the beginning worked really well to create an eery atmosphere and there also were two occasions where I was genuinely frightened by what was going on, which never really happens in anime.

The Soundwork was overall nothing memorable, but let me go over the individual points.

Besides Taro, everyone had a really good voice actor suiting its roll. I mean Taro also had a suitable VA but you could hear he wasn‘t all that experienced compared to people like Jun Fukuyama (Masayuki) or Souichiro Hoshi (Makoto / who is by the way not my cup of tea).

Ghost Hound also has an english dub if you care about that, which isn‘t bad as far as I can tell, but to be honest I am not a big fan of english dubs in general.

Opening

The opening suited Ghost Hound well, crazy jazz works well with horror/mystery, I can‘t explain why it just feels right.

Though I personally didn‘t care much about the opening and always skipped it.

Ending

I also skipped the ending song which always felt like an old school japanese folk song which tries to put me to sleep, not that it was bad, but not very exciting either. I was always just shocked how inconsequential it was slapped on the end of an episode, sometimes without any obvious transition, which I later learned to detect though.

TENG was responsible for the soundtrack which wasn‘t good in a traditional sense, as it more served its purpose to create a mysterious atmosphere with slow japanese drums and weird sound effects mixed into it. I also never heard of TENG before and I couldn‘t find out what else they did, but apparently they only worked for Ghost Hound and that‘s it.

Sadly no song stood out to me and it was just somewhere in the background doing what it was supposed to do.

Similar to the visual effects, the sound effects were also pretty good, helping with a lot of the scarier scenes. The only effect which I didn‘t really like was the voice effect used for the „Soul Travel“ parts.

Shinreigari was something I hoped more for, but kinda disappointed me, it wasn‘t terrible to watch, but it wasn‘t all that great either. There were parts here and there which put me off (especially towards the end), while the entire start was pretty good I must say.

I would lie if I wouldn‘t admit that my main catch was Miyako, she was just so damn adorable that I wanted to watch more even if nothing super interesting happened. And towards the middle it was indeed enjoyable, but no where near I hoped it would be.

Art and Animation
Artstyle 0 (it looked too clean for my taste)
Quality 0 (never bad, but also not outstanding)
Background 0 (simple but not an eyecatcher)
Character Designs +1 (Best part about the visuals)
Visual Effects +1 (Make up for a lot of the general art)

7/10 (good)

Sound
Voice Acting 0 (Standard)
Opening and Ending 0 (Solid but not great)
Soundtrack 0 (Works but nothing worth listening)
Sound Effects 0 (Good but not good enough)

5/10 (Average)

Story
Premise and Setting +1 (Fairly interesting)
Pacing 0 (okay)
Complexity 0 (almost too complex)
Plausibility -1 (little)
Conclusion -1 (just no)

4/10 (Bad)

Characters

Personality 0 (simple)
Behavior and Chemistry 0 (also simple)
Development and Progression 0 (guess what... simple)
Motivation and Backdrop +1 (enough for the main cast)
Likability 0 (a bit more personality and then I‘d have liked them more)

6/10 (decent)

Enjoyment
Art and Animation 0 (besides character designs nothing)
Sound 0 (quite disappointing but effective)
Characters 0 (Nothing really besides cute Miyako)
Story 0 (Started good, ended meh)
Value 0 (not important anime to me)

5/10

I don‘t know why, but Shinreigari: Ghost Hound felt flat despite its insane potential.

It couldn‘t deliver relatable characters, had too many things going on in its plot with some weird message overall and was visually not what it could have been.

I will still say watch it if you haven‘t seen it and if you like the horror/mystery genre, since there aren‘t that many and this one has at least some elements which are good, just as whole it fails in my eyes.

Overall: 5,4/10 ~ 5/10 (Average)

iemmerich - 2013-07-10 05:17:08

Trailer

Have you ever wondered? Have you ever asked yourself these questions:-

"What is religion, really?

It's suppose to be a system that saves people,

but it seems like it's teachings spread only through hurting them."

"I don't Know if it's truly forbidden for men to create life,

but what happens when they try to attempt it,

before they are ready to..."

Genres: Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Psychological

Ghost Hound is a show that deals with Psychology/Science as well as Supernatural/Nature, it blends together these two polar elements very well.

The story is based in the town of Suiten that lies in an isolated region of Kyushu, and we have so many characters here to make it interesting.The thing you'll realize after finishing is that no single character, whether main or side, has been wasted, almost each character has his/her unique and crucial part to play in the events.You won't feel the characters and their emotions are being imposed on you, this series has very good character development and you'll see them evolving right before your eyes, Tarou's attempts to recover from his traumatic past, Makoto's struggle to keep his act together while being haunted by the suicide of his father and the same ques. he has asked himself since childhood ... WHY?, Masayuki's sin that has turned into the fear of heights, Miyako who lives with her dad and is a spirit medium or just another victim of Multiple Personality Disorder?,etc. As i said no character is wasted from Tarou's therapist Professor Hirata to the lab Assistant Reika, each plays an important role.

The pace of this anime is close to "realistic", and the suspense factor is also not something you may find appeasing or interesting in just first or second episode, rather it increases with each one.So the people who can't handle anything other than fast pace anime may find it boring to watch, but that being said the excitement levels will only rise and so does the anxiousness.The good things came with slow pace are not just character development but the whole story progression and "reaction time", you can clearly notice how each character see an event, perceive it and then approach it.

This show has taken the use of Sound Effects to a whole new level, it's not only surreal and unorthodox but also feels like "alive".I consider sound and music to be one of the very strong and selling point of this show.Combine it with beautiful direction and you'll get dragged in the story.The voice acting seemed a bit "different" to me, only coz of the logical fact that the accent is of "Kyoto" or can be said "Kansai Dialect", which we are not used to listen normally.Nonetheless it matches with the setting of the story in a rural town.

Character designs are good, the same with the art, but i do feel they may have done a better job in integrating CG elements but the rest of the things makes up for it.About animation, well it has done by Production I.G. and lemme just tell you this, they didn't laze off it seems.

Overall a nice watch, explores the realms of psychological and surrealism, while keeping you shroud in the mystery of it.See at night with GOOD headphones for the proper experience.

glen.okuneva - 2013-06-26 00:04:04

Ah, Ghost Hound. After owning it on DVD for months, I finally finished this 22 episode series. This, was a difficult feat. Don't get me wrong, this show is far from bad. In fact, the show is very good. It's just very slow and not very fun to watch. My favorite anime is Gurren Lagann after all, so I think you can understand why I feel this way. That said, this was an interesting show.Story wise, this show tells a pretty simple story with a pretty simple moral. It's just executed in a very detailed, very interesting way. And that's what makes the show so good. It's executed wonderfully.The art is gorgeous and unique. The show also looks like it may have been painted rather than digitally colored, like the old 90s anime were. However, do not get me wrong- The show does not look dated. It has really nice visuals, and very unique looking art, similar to that of Kino's Journey.The music, other than the opening theme, is almost nonexistent. There is very little music. The opening theme is nice, however. Not the best, but not bad.The characters are some of the driving forces in the show. Each of the three main characters has some sort of psychological trauma or problems that heavily effect them in the show. All the while, strange supernatural phenomena also occur revolving around each of them. The show focuses heavily on them, and each of them are interesting in their own right.Overall, this was a very slow paced, yet very good show, that while it has a simple storyline, it is executed wonderfully.