Dark Gathering
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kenichi Kondo. It has been serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Jump Square since March 2019. An anime television series adaptation by OLM premiered in July 2023. By September 2023, Dark Gathering had over 1 million copies in circulation, including physical and digital copies. Characters

A young man with a cursed right hand. He has a natural predisposition to attract ghosts to himself. As a young boy, Keitarō encountered a spiritual event that resulted in both him and his playmate Eiko being  cursed by an unknown spirit to have nerve endings to grow from their bodies. This traumatic event resulted in him becoming a shut-in for a time and was rehabilitated by Eiko. As a way to resocialize himself, he took upon Eiko's suggestion and was introduced to Yayoi as her private tutor. At present, the curse is being suppressed with the help of his grandmother who is a shrine priestess. It was pointed out by Eiko that although Keitarō is terrified by the supernatural, he is also enamoured by the dread that it brings. He has a mutual affection for Eiko and has expressed his feelings towards her more than once in the course of the story. Keitarō's first student. She was a normal child in the beginning but had developed polycoria (two pupils in the same eye) in both eyes for some unknown reason. Originally, she only saw ghosts as hazy figures but after an accident that left her an orphan, she was able to see ghosts clearly. During the accident, she witnessed her mother's ghost being abducted by an embryo of ghostly origins and has made it her goal to get her mother back by capturing ghosts to defeat the perpertrator. Post accident, her IQ was evaluated to be greater than 160 and her intelligence has saved the trio more than once in their search for the embryo ghost. Eiko is the childhood friend of Keitarō who possess a cursed left hand as a result of being caught up in the same ordeal as Keitarō. Being in love with Keitarō since a young age to the point of a dark twisted obsession, she is immensely over-protective, wiretapping, placing hidden cameras and gps tracking devices to stalk and monitor his vitals without his knowledge. Although Eiko has a strong foundation in computer science from her wiretapping and excellent grades at school, she opted to study folklore so that she could better understand Keitarō's struggles with the occult. She does not have a spiritual sense like Yayoi or Keitarō. Keitarō's second student. An energetic girl with star patterned pupils as a sign that she had been marked by a god as his bride. Due to the god's energy leaking out from the star-shaped seals in her eyes, wandering ghosts are attracted to Ai. At first, Ai appears to be a clumsy girl whose misfortune always ends up involving people around her, including her brother who died as a result of pushing her away from falling steel pylons. However, it is later revealed that this was due to the malevolent god deflecting all of Ai's misfortunes to people surrounding her to prevent his bride from getting harmed. Ai is destined to die and become the god's bride on her 20th birthday. Media

Manga
Written and illustrated by Kenichi Kondo, Dark Gathering has been serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Jump Square since March 4, 2019. Shueisha has collected its chapters into individual tankōbon volumes. The first volume was released on June 4, 2019. As of August 4, 2023, thirteen volumes have been released. At New York Comic Con 2022, Viz Media announced that they licensed the series for English publication. Volumes

Anime
In July 2022, it was announced that the series will receive an anime television series adaptation. It is produced by OLM and directed by Hiroshi Ikehata, with scripts written by Shigeru Murakoshi, character designs handled by Shinya Segawa, and music composed by Kohta Yamamoto, Shun Narita, and Yūsuke Seo. The series, which is set to run for two consecutive cours, premiered on July 10, 2023, on Tokyo MX and other networks. The opening theme song is  by Luz, while the ending theme song is  for the first cours and  for the second, both by Kana Hanazawa. Sentai Filmworks have licensed the series. Muse Communication has licensed the series in Asia-Pacific. Episodes

Reception
In 2020, the manga was one of the 50 nominees for the sixth Next Manga Awards in the print category. By September 2023, the manga had over 1 million copies in circulation, including physical and digital copies. Notes

References

Further reading

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Adventure anime and manga
Anime series based on manga
Horror anime and manga
Muse Communication
OLM, Inc.
Sentai Filmworks
Shōnen manga
Shueisha manga
Supernatural anime and manga
Tokyo MX original programming
Viz Media manga