English Dub Review: The Demon Prince of Momochi House “A Fourth Friend”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Himari brings a group of her new classmates home with her only to discover that something is very, very wrong with one of them.

Our Take:

Much like her new home, Himari’s refreshing start at her new school is far from a piece of cake. She managed to befriend her new teacher in the previous episode during her attempt to help Aoi. Now, she’ll have to work on fitting into her new school and making new friends her age. Of course, there’s one thing I learned from watching an episode of Dark Gathering, and that’s to choose who you hang out with carefully. You’ll never know who they really are until it’s too late. Unfortunately, Himari didn’t quite get the memo when she brought some classmates to her new home.

The first few friends Himari makes consist of Hana, Aika, Rui, and Tadashi, all of whom she invited to her house. Unfortunately, the only problem is that they don’t realize that Himari is living with Aoi and his shikigamis. So what’s the only solution to that problem, you ask? Why, by disguising themselves as Himari’s older sisters, of course. There’s definitely nothing wrong with that idea. However, as much as we love to see the mishaps resulting from their disguises, the episode instead focuses on Himari finding the spirit residing in one of her new friends. That ghost, according to Aoi, can become an Ayakashi by sucking the energy from the Momochi House, making this task highly crucial to Himari.  

It’s similar to a murder mystery, except Himari is searching for the spirit before it “murders” the house’s energy, which is later revealed as Aika Tori, who hopes to become an Ayakashi to make friends. However, that’s not the only thing Himari uncovered during her mission. She also discovers that a powerful Ayakashi named Kasha is responsible for pulling the strings, using Hana as a disguise to drain the house’s energy. Kasha is also Aoi’s biggest rival, and from the looks of this episode, he’ll probably be the season’s primary antagonist, causing Himari and the others trouble at every turn.

Overall, the episode does a fine job introducing the series’s big bad through its whodunit scenario. Of course, we’ve only seen parts of what Kasha can do regarding his powers, so we will have to see how threatening he really is in later episodes. While Hana’s reveal wasn’t too surprising for me and its plot rushed through Himari’s introduction to the group, it provided a good enough twist involving Aika to keep this friendly get-together from falling apart too quickly. Here’s hoping Himari’s next get-together with her friends has less yokai than this one.