Are you interested in angels, demons, ghosts, spirits, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, influence, and how to protect against the unknown? If so, then welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more.
The limited run series that reanimates Noctober to cover all things horror. As always, I'm your host, JJ. Well, last week's debut episode was way too long. So I'm going to keep it, or at least try to keep this one more in line with previous ones. Also, last episode was a bit controversial. So I'm going to keep up with the Uno Reverse pattern and talk about a show that unless you've been following the current anime release schedule, you may have never heard about.
And that would be Dark Gathering, a horror anime that started during the summer anime season and has thankfully continued into the fall season. And the reason I want to chat about it isn't because, ooh, anime or ooh horror, or even that it's a mixture of the two. In the past several years, we have been getting more and more high-quality horror anime, which has just tickled me to death. No, I want to talk about this show for a few reasons. First, Dark Gathering, or in Japanese, get ready for it, Darku Gathering is really good. But the second is that the show is so much better than I expected.
And third, I haven't heard anyone else talking about it on the English side of the language barrier. And it really does deserve some attention. On the surface, this show seems like nothing special. In fact, after watching the first episode, I was strongly inclined to drop it mainly because of the fact that it reeked of shonen manga. And in case you're not familiar with that term, the word shonen specifically means young man, and it describes a breed of manga and then anime that is solely focused on battles, ridiculous styles, and over-the-top drama.
Think Bleach or Naruto or Dragon Ball or Pick Your Poison. In this series, a freshman in college who is scared of the paranormal gets assigned to be the tutor of a young girl whose pupils are skulls. And yes, skulls, and who likes to wear smiling shark shoes. Say that 20 times fast, dear lord. In fact, it was the over-the-top character design of this little girl that almost made me drop the show right then and there. Together, along with her freshman female cousin, with whom she lives, and just happens to be the childhood friend of the tutor.
This whole group then teams up to go searching for ghosts. And if the show stayed at that surface level, then it would have been absolutely horrible and would deserve to fade into obscurity. And I most certainly would never be talking about it. But it absolutely does not. The characters get flushed out usually in very dark ways. And that is the operative term with this anime. Appropriate since it has that word in the title. This anime gets dark. And I'll give you an example.
Yet the team was able to turn the table on the thing, and they essentially immobilized it and allowed the enslaved ghost to in turn feed on it in perpetuity. This anime is a great example of subversion in that it purposefully emulated Shonen anime to grab an audience and then it allowed its true colors to shine through. And honestly, it's a great move. As anime has so many genres and subgenres, but a lot of viewers stay at that surface level of only the most popular, and that typically is shonen manga in anime.
But the other thing that really fascinates me about this anime is the exposure it provides to beliefs around Yudei and the divine. Of course, if you're not familiar with the topics, then it is difficult to know what the anime is creating as part of its world and what is believed in general. But I love getting to see the dull reflections of attitudes and belief systems translated and utilized in new and unique fashions, especially in regards to the concept of Tachiyari, or roughly translated divine curse, which is different than Noroi or regular curse.
I actually have an entire episode about curses if you want to hear about that, specifically in regards to Japanese belief systems. I hope you give this anime a chance. And if you do, let me know what you think. Or feel free to submit your own horror favorites. You can reach me at southerndemonology.com. And as always, this is JJ, wishing that you have had and will continue to have a spectacular October. Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com, which offers links to all of our social media and episodes.
Southern Demonology is solely owned, produced, and edited by myself, and the intro and outro music are composed by me as well. If you have a moment, please rate, like, and share this podcast, as it is the best way to help support my work. As always, I am JJ, and it has been a pleasure to speak to you today.