Dark Gathering – Season 1 Episode 5 Recap & Review

The Freshmen Welcome Event

Episode 5 of Dark Gathering begins with Keitaro wanting to work on handling his supernatural sensitivity and social skills since he’ll be starting college soon. Keitaro says he’s undergoing body training to resist spirits. As for his social status, he has Eiko assist him in choosing appropriate clothing. She gives Keitaro a nice pair of glasses to help him stand out and make friends.

At college, Keitaro meets the university’s Reio Club Shore president, Nagayama. Nagayama wishes Keitaro luck in making friends. Although Keitaro wants to remove the curse plaguing his and Eiko’s life, he wants to get his normal life together first. Meanwhile, Eiko’s spying on Keitaro via her laptop and closes it as soon as Yayoi enters her room. Eiko recalls a meeting she had with Keitaro, where he shares his need to make friends by himself. Yayoi nabs Eiko’s laptop and learns the glasses Eiko gave Keitaro must have a camera in them, given all the data on her computer.

Yayoi overhears a spirit coming from Eiko’s laptop and assumes Eiko loves Keitaro after pondering everything. She offers to assist Eiko in her endeavors as the two share a fourth-wall-breaking moment together. They continue to spy on Keitaro to see if he’ll find the courage to make friends. Keitaro converses with two people named Akira and Kotoko, who are majoring in different fields than himself. Eiko laughs at Keitaro’s inability to hold conversations. Nagayama notices Keitaro’s struggling, so Nagayama invites Keitaro to spend time with him and his buddies later.

Later, Keitaro meets with Nagayama and his friends. During the car ride, Keitaro senses something dangerous and tells Nagayama he gets sensitive to supernatural things. Nagayama informs Keitaro about a suicide club at Reio that pretends to be a normal club. He states that all the members commit suicide during the club’s welcome party.

Nagayama claims the club changes its name and pretends to be a different club to avoid suspicion from the university heads. He states to stop the club, you must find the ringleader. The ringleader’s never been caught because the person always dies and gets replaced by a new one with each suicide. Nagayama reveals the person takes on the alias “Nagayama,” signaling to Keitaro that the Nagayama before him is this year’s suicide club’s ringleader.

Yayoi realizes Nagayama’s possessed by an evil ghost and tells Eiko they need to find Keitaro before he dies in the mass suicide. Keitaro wakes up in Complex T, an abandoned location. He notices Nagayama’s fellow club members getting lynched as Nagayama prepares for Keitaro to follow their lead. Yayoi researches Complex T and the ghost and questions the ghost’s intent as Eiko and her head for the location. Eiko and Yayoi arrive at the scene. Yayoi manages to separate the ghost from Nagayama’s body.

However, Nagayama still intends to kill Keitaro. He plans to murder Yayoi and Eiko, along with himself. Yayoi realizes Nagayama’s a psychotic person and understands why the ghost possessed him. Yayoi bashes Nagayama’s head in with a glass sake bottle and says his real name’s Machida, a Reio student who was arrested and later released on a suspended sentence. Machida developed hatred toward people for belittling him upon his release. Keitaro states it was Machida’s hatred for people that enticed the ghost to possess him. Yayoi ties Machida up, and the three leave to let the police handle the rest.

As they leave, Keitaro senses a strange presence. Yayoi tells Keitaro that the spirit that possessed Machida refused to die and wants to linger in their world longer. She says the ghost chose its victims to die by hanging since it makes it easier to devour their guts and remain in the living world.

Yayoi shows Keitaro that she has a spirit that’s consumed over 100 souls as he tells the audience that everyone besides Machida got rescued. As they leave, Yayoi tells Keitaro he’s better off learning how to fight the supernatural. Yayoi promises to teach Keitaro everything she knows. He asks them how they knew where to find them, but Yayoi gives him a vague answer.

The episode closes with the girls shocked by Keitaro’s denseness.

The Episode Review

Despite getting a tad confusing near the end, this was one of Dark Gathering’s darkest episodes yet. Suicide isn’t a topic many people like discussing in any form. Unfortunately, this episode didn’t tackle the idea as effectively as other series. The imagery accompanying the suicide idea that Dark Gathering tackled here was spot on in delivering unsettling tension though. 

Many viewers will get chills seeing Keitaro’s fellow classmates with salvia drooling down their mouths. Furthermore, the scenario involving the ghost devouring Machida’s ghost was spooky and will send chills down several viewers’ spines. From a visual perspective, this episode delivered the spooks Dark Gathering needed since the beginning. Hopefully, OLM will continue to impress on that front. 

Furthermore, it’s nice knowing Keitaro will learn how to handle spirits properly. Many viewers were worried that he’d simply act as Yayoi’s guinea pig for the entire series. Having Yayoi teach Keitaro how to combat spirits will make him a more likable protagonist in the audience’s eyes.

Overall, this was a decent episode. It had some creepy visuals, tackled dark subjects, and had fine humor. I’m looking forward to seeing what spirit Yayoi and her allies will confront next time.