Spirit summoning is the order of the day as the occult makes its way back into the show.
What They Say
Maya's class goes to a special class in spirit summoning. They try to summon the spirit of Jun'ichiro, but instead a young girl named Akari appears. "I want to go home," she cries, and Maya and the others decide to help her find her home. Bunmei says that he'll help too, but then instead agrees to meet with Mikaze. Bunmei is deeply infatuated with Mikaze, and Maya is more than a little annoyed by this. Maya and the others take Akari to the city, but...
The Review!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After the back and forth material dealing with life after death that Maya and the others had to work through with her friends and the splintering and fix of their friendship, Occult Academy dabbles in the occult a bit again as Maya is attending a special spirit summoning class that's going on in the academy. Her skeptical streak is most certainly still there but there's a bit more patience out of her at first at least about the whole experience as her friends try to remember what key things like ectoplasm means from their recent test about it. Unfortunately, as is often the case with the occult in how it would really work, the spirit they want to communicate with is not the one they get.
Instead of the spirit of Jun'ichiro, they get that of a young girl named Akari who is skittish in general and uncertain of what's going on. The class is interesting in that they're very quiet during her appearance and want to know more instead of reacting crazy like and wondering what's really going on. The reactions later, after she disappears and then reappears elsewhere on the academy, are just as bland as Akari talks about wanting to go home. I still prefer the freak-out reaction to such things, especially as she has some physical presence, but essentially it comes down to Maya deciding that she's feeling enough pity and guilt to try and help Akari get to whatever her home is along with the others who witness the event.
Abe takes an interesting view of the entire thing as he's surprised by Maya in this as she's trying to help something occult related and it's also something that's seemingly unrelated to the Nostradamus Key, which she has been very keen on finding since realizing the truth of it all. The show delves into the usual kind of stories you get of this nature as the group tries to find out where Akari belongs, figuring out which school she went to and discovering her past, so they can help her provide some closure and return to the afterlife with no regrets or issues. Though it's done with a touch of style and a continuing approach of humanizing and softening up Maya a little more, what we get here is rather standard material that's decent but unexceptional.
In Summary:
Occult Academy does a decent job overall of finding the balance between the stories that deal with the larger storyline and those that are just having a spot of fun with the occult and stand alone. This one is decent overall but it's ever so familiar in a lot of ways to stories done in many other shows involving spiritual matters, or even your basic slice of life shows that dip into this arena. It makes out a bit better because of the characters involved here and the way they interact with each other and the animation is once again fantastic, but there's just a bit of mediocrity to it over all. It's not bad, but it's not what I want to see out of this series, especially with only a few more episodes to go.
Features
Japanese 2.0 Language, English Subtitles
Review Equipment
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70" LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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