I think the advertising of this Anime failed. It tried to offer something in name, that it couldn't give in reality. Maybe because I just watched too many Animes, I started to criticize alot, but: The flashy, colourful and happy characters were unfitting to the horror atmosphere. The boy actually blended in well into the background/atmosphere, while the girls were like sparkling stars, as if they were taken from an entirely different Anime and put into a Horror Show.
The plots in each episode were actually interesting and got better with each episode. But the flashiness and carefree characters of the girls dampened the atmosphere alot. It is okay for me, when everything goes fine in each episode. But this Anime made it absolutely obvious that everything is absolutely going to be fine with how genius, flashy and cute Yayoi was. As if the Anime tried to constantly reassure its audience of an absolute happy-ending each episode. Yayoi was a living walkthrough and a cheat in this Anime, and the Anime completely supported and featured this.
And, as if the author suddenly noticed their mistakes, they tried to force Eiko into the role of a Psycho Yandere. But they didn't keep that side of hers up, but only featured it once in a while, which also completely failed the atmosphere - as if it was just an attempt to make it a little bit more horror-like, after the atmosphere was already completely flooded by carefreeness and happiness.
So, for me, it was: Interesting story plots - vs - unfitting characters, which acted out of their role regarding the Anime's atmopshere.
The failed advertising reminded me of "Okashi na Tensei (Sweet Reincarnation)" - its name and description tell you, that it is absolutely about cooking sweets. But it was actually not about cooking, and if you collected all scenes about sweets together, the results would not even be a single 20min-episode in total.
Compared to "Dark Gathering", I would say even "Gakkougurashi! (School-Live!)" did a better job in Horror.
And in case you forgot after reading this wall of text: It is not like I hate this Anime, but I solely criticize it. I actually liked the plot ideas in each episode, they were interesting. But in my opinion, the execution of the characters failed alot. |