Dark Gathering came in with a mild sleeper vibe to me.  I kind of liked the art, it has a good director in Ikehata Hiroshi, and I’d heard the manga was pretty decent.  In the end though it didn’t really work for me.  As compared to say, Mieruko-chan – a series with a broadly similar setup which I found to be much more entertaining (albeit intermittently).  That had a certain magnetism to it – Dark Gathering just kind of fell flat.

To start with I found all three main characters to be pretty annoying.  It doesn’t help that I increasingly find Hanazawa Kana grating in everything she does, kind of a female Kaji Yuuki (every performance is pretty much the same).  But beyond that the doormat protag and the loli grated on me too.  Then I found the premise itself pretty dumb – or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I found the execution of the premise pretty dumb.  The doormat allows himself to be dragged around by the other two despite his supposed PTSD, and the whole phone booth thing was patently ridiculous.

In point of fact the series did look pretty good, and maybe there could be the hint of something tolerable in here once the first episode exposition is out of the way.  But I’m not feeling especially inclined to find out at the moment.  It’s a relatively slow season for me so maybe it’s give Dark Gathering one more shot at it.