Dark Gathering – Season 1 Episode 19 Recap & Review

Within The Brothel

Episode 19 of Dark Gathering begins with Keitaro, Eiko, and Yayoi arriving at an old love hotel. Yayoi explains the love hotel’s spooky origins to our protagonists. It was once owned by a criminal organization that used to bring women here to torture them. The female spirits wander the hotel’s grounds and are looking for ways to escape. She mentions a secret room within the hotel and says she placed the courtesan graduate inside it.

However, Yayoi tells Eiko and Keitaro she knows a way to reach this room. However, every time she’d enter through this passageway, she’d end up at the hotel’s entrance. This is due to the courtesan graduate only allowing specific entities through. 

However, Yayoi argues the courtesan graduate will let Keitaro inside since he’s a man. Yayoi hands Eiko and Keitaro tools and the trio head inside. Upon entering, Keitaro ends up in the spirit world, away from Eiko and Yayoi. Keitaro ponders a way out of his situation and believes strengthening her seal will help him return to his companions’ side.

Yayoi and Eiko realize Keitaro’s absence from their group. Yayoi speculates he’s in the spirit world. Eiko pulls out her GPS and notices he’s on the move. Yayoi suggests they follow him and find the secret room. Meanwhile, Keitaro executes a plan conducted by Yayoi that’ll assist him in reaching the secret room. 

Keitaro reaches the secret room but a female spirit stops him. She grabs ahold of Keitaro and the two switch bodies for a moment. Keitaro frees himself and enters the secret room. He finds Eiko strapped in a puddle of water. Eiko says she got split up from Yayoi and wants Keitaro to free her. She thanks Keitaro for helping her and tries seducing him. However, Keitaro receives a severe neck injury, causing him to bleed. His blood drips into the water and he realizes this isn’t Eiko. It’s the courtesan graduate and she wants him to free her from her imprisonment. The graduate says if Keitaro wants to leave this place he must free her. 

To entice him further, the courtesan graduate forces Keitaro’s body to start decaying like hers. Keitaro uses Yayoi’s tool to strengthen the courtesan graduate’s seal.

Yayoi and Eiko reach the secret room and Eiko senses Keitaro’s presence. Eiko reaches out to Keitaro and pulls him out of the spirit world. Yayoi notices Keitaro managed to capture the courtesan graduate in the process and congratulates him. Eiko believes her shared curse with Keitaro assisted her in helping him return. After Kaitaro questions their decision to leave the female spirits behind, Eiko brings up a story about a man and his son. This tale involved a spirit taking control of the son and the father having a difficult time removing it. 

The episode closes with our trio driving toward their next destination, the Old I Watergate.

The Episode Review

Dark Gathering continues following Yayoi and her allies on their graduate recruiting journey. This time we travel to a love hotel to pick up a seductive courtesan graduate. As with previous episodes, this one contained unsettling visuals and spooky tension. Although Keitaro finds himself trapped in another spirit’s hold and gets tortured again, he manages to come out on top without needing to rely too much on his allies for assistance. While the way he handled matters was convenient at best, it’s nice to see him tackle spirits individually.

It shows that Keitaro has the potential to be a valuable asset to his team rather than bait. At the same time, it’s great seeing Keitaro interact with Eiko and Yayoi again. He was missing in action during the haunted house portion of the series. Many fans will love the humor between him and Eiko concerning their discussion about love hotels. On the other hand, some viewers may have hoped the episode would’ve given a better explanation as to how Eiko managed to grab Keitaro out of the spirit world. While it makes some sense given their shared curse connection, others would’ve hoped the series would’ve included a better solution to the matter.

On top of giving viewers something to ponder over concerning our protagonists’ discussion about spirits switching bodies with lively humans, this was a decent chapter. Hopefully, the next episode will be more engaging to sit through compared to this one.