Ghost Hunt: Season 1, Part 1 | 
| Studio: Funimation Prod
Category: DVD
List Price: $49.98
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Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 13538
Format: Color, Ntsc, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: Japanese (Original Language), English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 325 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 0
UPC: 704400079108
EAN: 0704400079108
ASIN: B001DN0UQW
Release Date: October 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new Item. CD, DVD, Book, VHS more than 400 000 titles to choose from. ALL days Low Price !
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Dead Have Something to Say....The appeal of the unknown is undeniable and freshman Mai Taniyama is hooked. This fact coupled with her burgeoning psychic powers leads Mai to join the ranks of the Shibuya Psychic Research team. Led by enigmatic Kazuya "Naru" Shibuya she works alongside a spirit medium and a shrine maiden an exorcist and a monk to uncover the darkest mysteries of the unseen. Using state of the art technology and their respective spiritual gifts evil is confronted and vanquished time and again.Format: DVD Genre: ANIMATION/ANIME UPC: 704400079108 Manufacturer No: 0
Amazon.com
Mai Taniyama, the heroine of the supernatural adventure Ghost Hunt (2006), thinks of herself as an ordinary high-school freshman who enjoys telling ghost stories with her friends--until she meets Kazuya "Naru" Shibuya. A handsome, poised senior, he runs his own company: Shibuya Psychic Research. Mai becomes Naru's assistant, helping to uncover what lies behind unexplained happenings in an abandoned building, a luxurious home, a seemingly normal high school. Glass shatters, furniture moves, things go bump in the night. Some of these actions are caused by humans, others by ghosts and poltergeists. Mai and Naru are assisted in the ghost-busting business by an argumentative supporting cast that includes John Brown, a teenage Catholic priest from Australia; Ayako Matsuzaki, a Shinto shrine maiden who's getting a little long in the tooth; Houshou Takigawa, a Buddhist monk turned rock bassist; Tao master Lin Koujo, Naru's taciturn second-in-command; and Masako Hara, a TV psychic. They perform an ecumenical assortment of exorcisms and purification rituals that rarely do much good. Mai discounts her own psychic abilities, but her vivid dreams often reveal the key to the mystery. Those dreams are also the one place where Naru becomes the warm and gentle boy she'd like him to be, rather than the arrogant, often rude guy he is in real life. Ghost Hunt is a agreeable, light-hearted fantasy that plays on suspense and character interaction, rather than violence and gore. (Rated TV 14, but suitable for viewers two to three years younger: minor violence, scarey imagery, possibly offensive religious imagery) --Charles Solomon (1. Evil Spirits All Over ?! Part 1, 2. Evil Spirits All Over ?! Part 2, 3. Evil Spirits All Over ?! Part 3, 4. The Doll House, Part 1, 5. The Doll House, Part 2, 6. The Doll House, Part 3, 7. The After School Hexer, Part 1, 8. The After School Hexer, Part 2, 9. The After School Hexer, Part 3, 10. The After School Hexer, Part 4, 11. Ghost Story in the Park?! 12. Silent Christmas, Part 1, 13. Silent Christmas, Part 2)
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| Customer Reviews:
 Ghost Hunt - A good writer meets a good idea for a good time. October 17, 2008
T. D. Paddock
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you are a fan of anime, there is no question you should be buying this DVD thin-pack set! If you're just curious, this is a great starter set!
Ghost Hunt is impressive because it manages to honour the often clever manga that inspired the title. The characters are engaging. There are nods to what could be considered 'anime by the playbook', that is, features you'll find generally in an anime (probably most grating of these is the Australian accent of John Brown, the young exorcist, but the character is actually useful and good at his job, so any irritation will pass). For the most part, it's odd how the use of formula seems different in Ghost Hunt than many other titles. This is due to the care taken by the writer of the manga, which is another good buy.
The ghost stories (often mysteries) are all entertaining; this isn't a run-of-the-mill 'one haunting per-episode will be resolved' title either. The team can be mistaken. They can be misled by conflicting evidence (even prodigy, Shibuya). Thus, one 'haunting' may take a few episodes to crack. Shibuya, founder of SPR (Shibuya Psychic Research), and his loosely aligned staff often need to figure out if the phenomenon is real, and if so, whether it's caused by a disturbed person, or some other and inexplicable force (or if someone is just plain-old cracking-up).
There are enlightened debates about the cause of what can seem to be a full-fledged haunting, too. The SPR 'base-camp' at a paranormal investigation site is jammed with research and monitoring technology for just that reason. If you get the sense Shibuya's been around the block when it comes to ghosts, you'd be right. He does his homework. Logical explanations must not only be considered, but must be ruled out for a conclusive cause to be determined. Shibuya requires evidence. It's relying on that sort of thinking that allows him to be exhaustive.
Shibuya is a stoic and brooding person, logical too, and a great foil for some of the more lighthearted, or scathing members of the cast, which includes neophyte investigator, Mai Taniyama, one of the most interesting figures in the show. It's Mai who gives us our point of view into this world. She's afraid of ghosts, but adept at telling ghost stories. She seems reassured to learn, early on, that not all the hauntings are actually hauntings.
Mai has a lot of humanity but she's also a young woman, and, though she is attracted to Shibuya and doesn't bother to deny it to herself (which is refreshing in an anime), she's attracted in an appalled sort of way. Shibuya, after all, is young, exceptional, and *arrogant*: a narcissist, as she puts it (and nicknames Kazuya 'Naru').
Because Mai joins SPR mid-stream, there are many unknowns regarding the main characters she works for. There are also many things Mai doesn't understand about her own intuitions. How irritating for her that Shibuya always seems to be in the know.
Ghost Hunt is just spooky enough to give you goosebumps without keeping you awake at night (mostly). It isn't gory, but it is clever even in how it deals with peripheral characters like the concerned woman whose young niece may be haunted, and who, upon finding the little girl's room in a mess, starts her line of questioning with "You're not in trouble...".
There's a woman who knows the ropes.
For anyone looking for appealing and entertaining anime, Ghost Hunt, with its interesting characters, quirky writing, plot-twists, and absorbing hauntings, is a no-brainer.
 A Halloween Treat October 18, 2008
Kellyannl (Bronx, NY USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
What do you get when you cross Fruits Basket with Most Haunted? The answer is this rather conventional but nevertheless delightful shoujo series.
Mai Taniyama is a typical teenage girl save for the fact that her school is apparently haunted. Enter Kazuya Shibuya, a paranormal investigator whom she quickly nicknames Naru - as in "The Narcissist" due to his seemingly rather high opinion of himself - and his taciturn assistant Lin Koujo. When Mai inadvertently becomes partly responsible for an accident that temporarily incapacitates Lin, Naru asks her to step in until Lin is back on his feet, and in spite of her initial opinion of him Naru has enough good qualities that Mai starts crushing on him.
The pair are soon joined by four additional freelancers - Masako Hara, an eccentric celebrity medium whose most important function is to usually do the inital sweep of the target area to get initial impressions and, because this is shoujo we're talking about here, provides Mai's likely competition for Naru; Hip, fun Houshou "Monk" Takigawa, who in spite of his nickname ultimately declined to take up the monastic life but is nevertheless fully qualified to perform Buddhist rituals, with whom Mai develops an affectionate big brother/kid sister rapport; vixenish Shinto priestess Ayako Matsuzaki, whose vanity makes her the frequent subject of Monk's good-natured teasing; and last but not least kindly Father John Brown, a Catholic priest newly arrived from Australia (and considering his age presumably straight out of Seminary) to help serve the largely expatriate Christian community, and whose niche within the group turns out to be a talent for calming frayed nerves when tensions run high. After the first case is successfully solved, Naru takes Mai on as an intern as they're rejoined by Lin, and the other four show up to lend a hand when needed. The story is off.
The cases are typical but varied enough to hold our interest. Sometimes we know what's going on from the bat, other times it's more of a mystery - especially since the problems are sometimes caused by latent psychics rather than poltergeists. There are no real jump out of your seat moments, but one or two of the cases are genuinely creepy.
It's the relationships between the regular cast that drive the story and provide some of it's best moments, however. Little moments like Mai's astonished reaction to learning what Monk's day job is, Naru at his best calming Mai when they get stuck in a well (long story) or Father John proving that contentment with a social life that (for obvious reasons) doesn't involve dating is entirely possible as he hangs out with the rest of the gang. Indeed, getting to know the characters is essential if we're supposed to care about what happens to them during casework, and at this Ghost Hunt strikes a healthy balance. And we do come to like these vibrant, enthusiastic young people in their late teens and early twenties who sometimes make mistakes and aren't afraid to admit when their work scares them, but are committed and there for eachother when it counts.
We still have the second half of the series to go, and with anime of this nature the tone can change drastically in the second half, but so far it's a series that any shoujo fan will probably be happy to throw into the DVD player in October and maybe a few other times throughout the year. I'm looking forward to continuing with Part 2.
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