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REVIEW: Ghost Hound Sub.DVD 2


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vashfanatic



Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 3489
Location: Back stateside
PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:27 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Rather than explain itself, Lain remained unknowable to the end, a jigsaw puzzle that no matter how assembled always had a few extra pieces and few missing ones. Which was exactly its tantalizing charm.

...ooooor it's precisely why that series is an over-rated pretentious piece of garbage, though I suppose your mileage may vary. Sorry, I know it's off topic, but I rarely give up a chance to bash Lain, I really hate it.

In a lot of ways Ghost Hound employs similar "confusing for the sake of being confusing," throwing around every last piece of outdated pseudoscience vaguely related to the mysteries at hand. Unlike Lain, though, it at least had the decency to come up with an "it's all beyond our level of comprehension" hand wave. I still could have used a nice "aha!" moment rather than feeling like half the episodes were wasted on exposition that went nowhere.

Ghost Hound is a good rental. It's definitely creative and is often incredibly creepy. But yeah, in the end, it is disappointing.
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Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:51 pm Reply with quote
The Word of the Day is "obscurantism".
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Hunter Sopko



Joined: 05 Mar 2003
Posts: 259
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:49 am Reply with quote
vashfanatic wrote:
Quote:
Rather than explain itself, Lain remained unknowable to the end, a jigsaw puzzle that no matter how assembled always had a few extra pieces and few missing ones. Which was exactly its tantalizing charm.

...ooooor it's precisely why that series is an over-rated pretentious piece of garbage, though I suppose your mileage may vary. Sorry, I know it's off topic, but I rarely give up a chance to bash Lain, I really hate it.


Agreed. For a show that almost seemed tailormade for me, Lain utterly disappointed me and put me to sleep.

I'll also agree that the end of Ghost Hound is a little disappointing as well. I was expecting more, but I guess it's nice to have a relatively solid ending. It still leaves some things unexplained, though. Another episode I think would have let them wrap things up, and sometimes it honestly felt like there was supposed to be one.
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pachy_boy



Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 1323
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:34 am Reply with quote
The ending did feel a little conventional, but it worked well enough and I was quick to forgive it, because it wasn't terrible and the rest of this series was just awesome. It gave so much riveting and intriguing philosophy and pseudoscience theories that I intend to look up and learn most of it, and just the general bizarreness of this series kept me glued to the end. I really liked the characters, and I thought the closure for the main boy and girl was just right for a story like this.

And while I agree that they made Lain randomly confusing for the sake of making it confusing, I still love that series. Although I've watched it 5 times and still can't figure out what's going on 90% of the time, its atmosphere and bizarreness more than make it up for me as a classic, which I believe Ghost Hound already is.
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_V_



Joined: 13 Apr 2009
Posts: 619
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:40 am Reply with quote
can you please review the physical quality of Neo-ADV's DVD release? (Yes I realize it was subs only)

How were the subs? Overall audio-video quality? What's the packaging like? Is there a new "section 23" logo at the beginning, and if so, how is it animated?
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The Human Spider



Joined: 19 Jan 2007
Posts: 334
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 9:14 am Reply with quote
The action-style ending felt kinda rushed to me and I was hoping the show would go in more of a supernatural rather than pseudo-science direction. But I still think it's one of the best horror anime I've seen. I like the focus on a gradual buildup of weird and mysterious atmosphere over gore and "gotcha" style shocks.
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Otaking09



Joined: 24 Feb 2009
Posts: 637
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:38 pm Reply with quote
So... no good huh?

Too bad... I just finished Monster this morning, and this review caught my eye.
"Endlessly confusing, without any reward"?
Yeah, I think I'll focus on Honey and Clover, or Twelve Kingdoms...

I didn't mind Lain TOO bad, sure it didn't end well for me, but the overall message was there so I can't hate it... If there's no message here then it's a waste of time.
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partially



Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 702
Location: Oz
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Strange I found the ending of Lain somewhat conventional and not that unkownable or confusing. It is actually one of my favourite endings for a show.

On the subject of Ghost Hound though I simply could not get into it. I only watched the first several episodes, and although the use - particularly of a main psychological theory for each episode was interesting - overall I felt that it simply didn't tie well with the show, and felt basically tacked on.

That and the flying baby forms were completely retarded Evil or Very Mad
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HellKorn



Joined: 03 Oct 2006
Posts: 1669
Location: Columbus, OH
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:15 pm Reply with quote
Carl Kimlinger wrote:
The series' air of uneasy uncertainty lifts as its conclusion nears and it tries too hard to explain everything. In the stark light of that lifting plot lines are revealed to be less related and science and religion less seamlessly married than they seemed. It reveals a show that, ultimately, is less than the sum of its intellectual parts.
That's one of my few qualms with it. There's a ton of interesting ideas in the story, but a lot seem little more than red herrings. Lain and Texhnolyze (especially the latter) were more dialetical than allegorical, but there are threads for both the plot and thematic narrative that actually ties all of these ideas together. Ghost Hound doesn't quite make that effort, which makes me wonder how conscious it is of that aspect.

On the other hand, Ghost Hound is a self-described "spiritual anime," so these elements of pseudo-science and psychology are meant to engage the characters in some way rather than have any meanings themselves. Just depends on whether you're (fully) satisfied with that or not... Despite a few contrivances (the spoiler[landslide is actually kind of hilarious, and I think is supposed to be that way. Nakamura and Konaka are not hacks, so that sort of ridiculously humorous ending to the cult seems intentional]), the ending is actually a pretty satisfying resolution. Konaka's endings have never really been ultimately satisfying outside of his ABe-related works (I don't remember the finale of his Digimon series, tho'), but this is still damn good.

vashfanatic wrote:
...ooooor it's precisely why [Lain] is an over-rated pretentious piece of garbage, though I suppose your mileage may vary.
Disliking/hating something is one thing, but how is it "an overrated piece of garbage"? Its ambiguities are actually justified in-story and thematically, even though you can gain a relatively straightforward understanding of it.

Otaking09 wrote:
Too bad... I just finished Monster this morning, and this review caught my eye.
"Endlessly confusing, without any reward"?
Except it isn't "endlessly confusing," and Carl even states that he still found it satisfying overall ("rewarding," or whatever).

partially wrote:
That and the flying baby forms were completely retarded Evil or Very Mad
Uh...
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Otaking09



Joined: 24 Feb 2009
Posts: 637
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:42 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Except it isn't "endlessly confusing," and Carl even states that he still found it satisfying overall ("rewarding," or whatever).


Satisfying to put things together. But not the overall picture. It's fun to discipher a riddle, but does that mean you're going to be happy in the end?

I wanted to try out Ghost Hound based on the first review, but this review just tells me that it'll be "inconclusive" in the long run.
Can't remember when I liked something I couldn't get...
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HellKorn



Joined: 03 Oct 2006
Posts: 1669
Location: Columbus, OH
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:51 pm Reply with quote
Otaking09 wrote:
Satisfying to put things together. But not the overall picture. It's fun to discipher a riddle, but does that mean you're going to be happy in the end?
Except judging by Carl's fourth paragraph, while he's not satisfied that all of the ideas gel together, he finds that there's more than enough emotional satisfaction to be gained from the ending. Noting one's misgivings doesn't make it "inconclusive" or whatever -- he even states that, unlike Lain, there's only one or two solutions to it all.
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Dorcas_Aurelia



Joined: 23 Jul 2006
Posts: 5344
Location: Philly
PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:59 pm Reply with quote
Otaking09 wrote:
So... no good huh?

Not no good, but the ending doesn't fully feel like it carried through on some of the promise and potential the series seemed to hold. Particularly how actiony the final resolution was compared to how talky and thinky the rest of the series had been.
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dragonrider_cody



Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 2541
PostPosted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:21 am Reply with quote
I have to admit that despite the fact that I love Ghost Hound and consider it one of the best licenses of last year, the ending left me wanting. However, considering the mysteries throughout the show, it did somehow seem to make sense that it would leave some questions at the end.

I really can't wait to hear what the dub turns out like for this!
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:20 am Reply with quote
I agree with much of what the review said, actually. The show did introduce concepts which had no relevance on the plot, characters or themes. The show did strive to be weird (that's putting it mildly) in the first half and then quite lacklustre in the second. The ending didn't feel complete, although I liked parts of it. The show did have a lot of potential, but just couldn't wrap up all of the plot lines in a satisfactory manner and tie them all up in a logical way. And then there were the characters, whom I never quite connected with (especially the girl).

All in all I gave Ghost Hound an overall rating of Very Good. It could have gotten an Excellent with a little bit more work, but there you go. Still not bad for a show which dared to be risky and unusual.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11365
PostPosted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 3:34 pm Reply with quote
dragonrider_cody wrote:
I really can't wait to hear what the dub turns out like for this!


Me too, except it's not dubbed. Unless there are plans to go back and re-release it with a dub, like Clannad?

I loved this series, and though I think the criticisms are valid, I think it's worth the watch just for the marvelous sound design of the whole thing. Creepy as hell. And I thought the spirit babies with their monkey butts were hilarious (they don't last throughout the series though, if that was what was the only thing stopping the poster who hated them).
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