English Dub Review: Dark Gathering “The Old I Watergate: An Innocent Grudge”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
A little boy shows Keitaro his drawings as the trio explores an old watergate with a famous spiritualist. To his growing horror, he realizes they are all in imminent danger.

Our Take:
Our next S-rank adventure takes us to the Old I Watergate, which isn’t a tourist attraction worth visiting at night like the other destinations. The Watergate, also known as the “Red Watergate”, is said to be haunted by several ghosts after the old design became a historic landmark. But according to Yayoi, it is now tainted by weaker spirits. However, Keitaro and the others aren’t the only ones investigating the phenomenon.
Upon arriving at the Watergate, they encountered a famous television spiritualist named Nagiko Shami, who also arrived at the location but with a different motive in mind. It’s also revealed that Shami is secretly possessed by an unknown spirit, hearkening back to the end of the previous episode with spirits taking over human souls. Unfortunately for the ghost, its time inside the spiritualist was surprisingly short-lived as they were quickly killed off by the Watergate’s curse, and let me tell you, it is far from innocent. The Watergate houses the spirit of a grudge-holding young boy who was brutally murdered by his stepmother and turned into meatballs. So now he’s hanging and killing everyone who resembles her new mom, with Keitaro and the others being his next targets.
Based on the show’s tone and the spiritual boy’s vengeful wrath, this is far from a comical scenario that we can look back and laugh at. This is another real deal that continues the second half’s hefty reliance on high-stakes suspense and horror regarding the S-rank areas. The question now is how big of a threat this boy would become compared to the other S-rank ghosts. This new S-rank arc is one episode longer than the previous arcs, so that traumatized boy has many expectations to meet to stand alongside the greats. Shami and the spirit inside her could’ve used more screen time regarding the concept of ghosts possessing humans. Besides that, it’s another disturbingly invigorating start to the latest S-rank venture.