Ghost Hound was something I approached rather warily at first, since all the descriptions of it I could find made it seem like a David Lynch-inspired supernatural horror title, and the character designs I saw in the stills available online rubbed me the wrong way. Honestly, they all look like the art director suddenly channeled the ghost of the guy who designed the Chucky doll.

BUT. But I went on ANN and read their reviews of the series, especially the second part, and that made me go and try the series after all. Now why? Because they complained about some “obscure psychological theories” that seemed vaguely familiar to me.

I specialize in cognitive linguistics and experimental pragmatics, both of which require me to take courses in elementary neurology, psychology and psychopathology. So I was quite amazed to see everything I’ve been studying for the past 3 years at my University somehow transformed into anime form. I do realize that to a layperson this series must be tiring to watch due to the sheer amount of arcane psychology- and neurology-related knowledge put into it, but to me it’s a whole other animal, more like a fun ride kind of review of what I’ll be putting into my MA. Also, it must be a bitch to watch this to monolingual Japanese, as there are long stretches of script where the dialogue sounds like badly pronounced English for all the terms like PTSD, Dissociation Disorders and many more.

I’m about 10 episodes in, and so far I love it. Even the art style and character design sort of grew on me and I now find them very effective in their subtle expressions of various psychological and emotional states. So far it is very well paced, the mood fluctuating just enough to keep one involved, the plot chugging away steadily and characters developing slowly but surely into something thoroughly enjoyable. All in all a solid watch so far.

There’s one curious device in the storytelling I observe here that I think is worth noting. It’s like a plot hypnic jerk (nah, look it up yerself ;) ). Towards the end of each show there’s a sort of a lull in action, a slowing down of whatever’s happening in the plot. And just as you start wondering how on earth are they going to wrap it up for an episode, they throw in something that suddenly speeds it up, a single event that’s suddenly relevant and begs questions to be answered in the following episode. Just imagine you’re chilling in your favorite chair, all mellow and relaxed towards the end of an episode, thinking it almost boring, and then BOOM! You get a dose of adrenaline compressed literally into the very last minute of the running time, and it makes you go: “okay, just one more episode, and THEN I’ll go to sleep” even though it’s like 2:00 AM. Side note: you might NOT be able to sleep after some of these episodes J.

Non-anime note: while making coffee during a break In studying for my MA exam I discovered Florence and The Machine. Haven’t heard anything quite that refreshing in a good long while, though a bit too engaging to enjoy while studying so I’m ordering the album at my local store and having them deliver it after the exam. Gotta get it together, get it together, get it together, get it together, get it together…