Ghost Hunt: Some of the puzzle pieces not shown in the anime

Note: I have invited LKK to blog on some of the manga spoilers and plots that have not been included in the anime. I also added a few images from previous episodes to give a visual summary of the anime. Cheers!

Signed, Impz

Naru, Mai, Masako, dream!Naru … the Ghost Hunt anime ended without answering some major questions, didn’t it? It’s possible that Ghost Hunt may get a second season to explain the answers. It’s possible that Ghost Hunt may get an OVA release to explain the answers. However, nothing’s been announced yet. Impz has invited me to share some of what I know about the puzzle pieces left out of the jigsaw puzzle that is known as Ghost Hunt.

My information is based on the Ghost Hunt novels. I have not read the novels. I have collected this information from people scattered across the Internet who have read the novels. I confess that I no longer know from whom I got what information. I know that I owe a large debt of gratitude to the members of the LiveJournal community shibuya_pr and especially to Shadow Dreams who generously answered many of my questions. I do not guarantee that this information is 100% correct. I have tried my best though. All mistakes are my own. I apologize for them.

If you hope that Ghost Hunt will have a second season to answer the outstanding questions and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read this. If you hope that Ghost Hunt will receive the OVA treatment to answer the outstanding questions and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read this. If you hope that someday the manga will answer the outstanding questions and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read this.

About the novels, the manga, and the anime >>

There are ten Ghost Hunt novels. The first 8 books are collectively known as the Evil Spirits series. They are called this because the phrase “Evil Spirits” appear in each title. The 8 books cover 7 major SPR investigations. The last investigation spans 2 books but is a single case. These 8 books are told from Mai’s perspective and are written in the first person. These books are no longer in print in Japan.

Books 9 and 10 of the Ghost Hunt novels are sometimes called the White Heart series. This refers to the publisher’s catalogue listing and has little relation to the books themselves. Like books 7 and 8, books 9 and 10 cover a single investigation. Unlike the Evil Spirits series, which is written in the first person narrative, the White Heart series is written in the more common third person narrative. Books 9 and 10 are still in print in Japan; however, they are increasingly hard to find.

The manga covers the Evil Spirits series novels 1 through 6. To date, 9 volumes of the manga have been released in Japan, 6 in the USA. (Volume 7 will be released in the US in late March, early April.) A tenth manga volume was recently announced for Japanese publication, but that announcement was retracted. The manga has yet to cover the last case in the Evil Spirits series. This is significant because it is during this last case (novels seven and eight) that most of the questions regarding Naru and the vision of Naru appearing Mai’s dreams (“dream!Naru”) are answered.

The anime has stopped where the manga has stopped at novel #6.

There are also 4 CD dramas. The CDs changed some events and used information from more than one novel in some cases. Occasionally, the CDs invented scenes that were never in the novels. This is particularly true of CD drama #4. This summary uses information from the novels, not the CD dramas.

If you would like to see the covers of the novels, Wiki’s Japanese page for Ghost Hunt has the cover art embedded in its entry. Here is a Google-translated link to the page.

Before the series started >>

Naru is Japanese by ethnic heritage. He learned to speak Japanese at an early age from his mother. However, he wasn’t born, raised, or educated in Japan. Naru and his older brother were born in the USA. They were orphaned when they were young and placed in an American orphanage. Little information is known about their birth parents. The boys lived in the USA until Naru was 8 years old. At some point during this time, Martin and Luella Davis, a British couple, adopted the brothers. When Naru was 8, the family moved to England. Martin Davis is a psychic researcher with the British SPR organization. Luella Davis learned Japanese in order to understand what her sons were whispering to each other. It is not known if the boys’ given birth names were different from their given adopted names. After their adoption, the older brother’s name was Eugene J. A. Davis. Naru’s adopted name was Oliver E. C. Davis. At an early age, the brothers started calling each other by the traditional nicknames for Eugene and Oliver: Gene and Noll. Family and friends picked up the habit as well. Naru is the heavily accented Japanese pronunciation of Noll.

The anime removed all direct references to Eugene. However Bou-san and John do discuss him and his psychic abilities in the manga in addition to discussing Oliver Davis’. Everything that Bou-san and John said about Eugene’s and Oliver’s abilities is true. Here is recap of what has been said about the brothers in the manga as of volume 6. Eugene is a perfect medium. This means that when he channels a dead spirit, he speaks in the native language of the dead person whether he can speak the language himself. For example, if Eugene channeled the spirit of a German, he would speak in German. If he channeled the spirit of a Greek, he would speak in Greek.

Oliver is one of the few persons known to have both ESP and psychokinesis abilities. He is a psychometrist (the psychic ability to read both the past and the future) and a powerful PK-ST user (PK-ST: psychokinesis on stationary objects). He once demonstrated his PK-ST abilities in a lab under scientific testing where he smashed a 50-kilogram aluminum block into a wall. This demonstration was videotaped.

He once found the kidnapped son of an American millionaire. The boy had been buried alive. With Oliver’s help, he was rescued. Oliver’s doctorate degree was not earned through the traditional education system. Instead he was given the degree in recognition of his research accomplishments. There are some things about Gene and Noll that John and Bou-san either don’t know or haven’t mentioned in volumes 1 through 6. Their Japanese heritage and their adoption by the Davises are two things obviously. In addition, the following things have not been mentioned.

Oliver intended to earn a university degree through traditional means in addition to his honorary degree. He was accepted as a student to Cambridge Trinity College in England at age 15 but had not yet studied any course work. Gene is capable of performing exorcisms in addition to acting as a medium. Gene and Noll have a special telepathic connection. They are able to send each other psychic power.

Gene helps Noll control his PK powers. If Noll were to use a large amount of PK power generated from within himself alone, the power would be overwhelming for his body. To prevent that, Noll generates a seed of PK power that he transmits to Gene. Gene amplifies it and sends it back to Noll who amplifies it even more and sends to Gene again. The brothers continue bouncing and amplifying the PK energy back and forth until it reaches the sufficient energy level that Noll needs in order to accomplish what he wants to do. Then Noll unleashes the PK energy on the object he wants to move. Exactly how close to each other the brothers have to be in order for this PK bouncing to work is not known definitively. The White Heart novel series implies that they could bounce the PK energy to each other over distances.

Noll’s psychometric power can occasionally have a harmful effect on his body. However, the potential harm is different from when he uses his PK ability. If Noll synchronizes strongly with the person in his psychometric visions – in other words, if he experiences the vision as if he were actually involved – he might develop bruises or possibly go numb where the original person experienced injury. Fortunately, Noll has learned to control his visions such that he can stop them if they become too dangerous for him to witness.

The novels imply that the brothers have other psychic powers as well. However, these are not elaborated. Their mother strongly disapproves of the boys being used as psychic test subjects. Furthermore, the brothers aren’t interested in exploring those areas. Apparently those additional powers only work between the brothers and can not be used elsewhere.

Two more facts about the brothers have not been revealed. Gene and Noll are identical twins. Gene is dead.

Gene had been invited to Japan to perform an exorcism. While in Japan, he planned to visit some of the Japanese mediums in order to learn about their methods. During his trip, Gene was killed. Back in England, Noll decided to borrow some of Gene’s clothes. He experienced a pyschometric vision of Gene and eventually saw his death. (Whether he saw Gene’s death real time or shortly after it occurred is unclear. However, it’s likely that he saw it real time.) Noll sees the scene shortly before Gene’s death. He experiences Gene’s accident and eventual death. (The vision turns green. Prior experience taught Noll that when a vision turns green, that’s an indication of a vision of a dead person.)

Noll witnesses Gene being run over by a car. At this point, Gene is injured but still alive. A woman gets out of the car, sees what she has done, and panics. She gets back into her car and runs over Gene a second time killing him. After watching Gene’s death, Noll sees Gene’s body taken to a garage, wrapped in silver sheeting, and then thrown in a lake from a boat. The Japanese police were contacted. However, they could not find Gene’s body or his killer.

After the police had no results in finding Gene, Noll got the idea that perhaps he could find his twin’s body. Instead of attending university as he had planned, Noll asked his parents for permission to go to Japan to look. They agreed; however, they insist that someone accompany Noll since he is still a minor. Since Noll would be using SPR funds and backing, it made sense that someone from SPR accompany him. Madoka, the head of SPR fieldwork, gathered those people in SPR who could speak Japanese. Lin was asked to accompany Noll. Lin had known the brothers since they were children. He taught Noll how to use his PK. Gene was the one who told Lin that he didn’t want Lin to hate him because he was Japanese or an orphan.

Together Noll and Lin traveled to Japan and established the Japanese branch of SPR. They gave it the fake name Shibuya Psychic Research. (Mai’s paychecks are marked SPR, but she never thought about the implication of the letters rather than the supposed company name until it comes out in a discussion.) Noll adopted the name Kazuya Shibuya and shunned any publicity. Noll has a natural dislike of publicity. On top of that, Gene’s killer is still at large. The fact that Noll looks so much like Gene could possibly put him at risk as well. The twins look and sound exactly alike as long as both are expressionless.

Noll’s overriding focus in Japan is finding his brother’s body. To that end, he spends most of his time researching locations that his brother might have visited. (In the manga, Mai mentions that Naru is always studying maps. She says he goes off on “vacations” but doesn’t bring back any souvenirs.) Solving psychic mysteries is his secondary task. But a few months after arriving in Japan, one of those secondary tasks brings Noll into contact with Mai Taniyama.

During the series >>>

Here are a few random comments about events in the series that are not fully explained in the series.

** When “Kazuya Shibuya” tells Mai about his work as a psychic researcher and a ghost hunter in the hallway the day they first met, he comments that Mai has terrible pronunciation when she echoes the English words back to him. The anime removed this comment. However, Mai’s questionable English skills may have contributed to Oliver mistakenly believing that Mail called him “Noll” when she accidentally said “Naru-chan” aloud the first time.

** When Masako first met Naru, she thought he looked familiar and asked if they had met before. Naru said that they had not. He told the truth. They had never met. Later Masako realized why Naru looked familiar. Prior to the series start, she attended a conference of the American SPR branch. During the conference, ASPR showed the videotape of Oliver Davis’ PK demonstration. After meeting Naru in person, she remembered why he looked familiar and realized that Naru was in fact Oliver Davis. Masako told Naru that she knew who he really was. He asked her not to reveal his identity as a favor to him. This favor is the hold that Masako has over Naru.

** Naru did not need to use a large amount of PK energy to bend and break the spoon in the spoon-bending arc. However, when he and Mai fell into the sewer, they were in danger of landing on a large pile of broken rubble. During the fall, Naru used his PK to move the pile away from their landing spot. This lead to his collapse afterwards at the base.

** In the Forbidden Game arc, when Naru investigates the classroom with the horrible smell, he discretely uses his psychometric power. As he goes from the back of the classroom to the front, he touches several desks along the way. Then he suddenly asks if the students have been doing anything unusual in the classroom such as conducting a summoning. Naru asks the question because his psychometric visions have shown him scenes of students performing a kokkuri-san summoning.

** After Mai was found passed out from the fumes in the biology lab during the Forbidden Game arc, Lin carried her to the nurse’s office. Mai saw her rescue because she was having an out-of-body experience at the time. (Only after she realized that she was witnessing the event from outside her body did it occur to her that seeing the event from outside her body might not be a good thing.) Mai was disappointed that it was Lin who carried her to the clinic and not Naru although she did confess to herself that Naru might not have been able to carry her weight.

** In episode 23 during the scene outside the family shrine, Bou-san’s conversation with Mai implies that she told everyone that she dreamt of Naru talking about the sacred ground of the cave.

Masako: I once went to a place sacred to Native Americans, and this has a very similar feel. That was a holy place protected by spirits…
Mai: A place where souls go through?
Bou-san: Eh? Did Naru also say that in your dream?

Mai: Yeah. He said it in the cave — that it seemed like a place that souls got blown to.
{Episode 23, Shadows Dreams sub release.}

The direct reference to Naru is an anime addition. At this point, Mai is still unwilling to mention that Naru’s appearances in her dreams to the group as a whole.

** While Noll has been looking for Gene’s body, Gene has been trying to get in touch with Noll from the afterlife. Unfortunately, most of his time in afterlife is spent in a dream-like state. Gene feels as if he’s been chasing after Noll and is rarely lucid. On those occasions when he does “wake up” and gains some control of his thoughts, it’s always during one of Noll’s investigations. Gene can’t reach Noll telepathically like he could when he was alive. It’s as if Gene’s psychic antenna bent when he died or perhaps his psychic wavelength change. However, Gene finds that on those rare occasions when he’s awake, he is able contact a girl who is working with Noll, Mai Taniyama, who mistakes him for his brother.

Moving on to beyond the anime timeline >>>

The next investigation follows almost immediately after the last one in the anime. After Naru is released from the hospital, the gang begins their journey home. In transit, they pass by a site that resembles the lake area Naru saw in his psychometric vision of Gene’s death. Naru stops the journey home and hires divers to search the lake.

While they are waiting for the search results, they accept a case involving an old school house that was closed down. I do not know the specifics of the case. During the investigation, the fact that Naru is searching for his brother’s body is revealed. After the school house case is solved, the fact that Naru is Oliver Davis is revealed. Most of the men in the SPR gang suspected that Naru was Oliver Davis by now. Although there was some surprise at the revelation, everyone was more satisfied at finally knowing the answers because they were concerned that Naru might leave for England with his brother’s corpse without revealing the truth about himself. (Bou-san was teased about his idolizing Dr. Davis and about how he could easily ask for the doctor’s autograph now. Bou-san tried not to think about the whole situation.)

By this time, Mai has decided that dream!Naru is either a result of her subconscious or of Naru slipping out of his body. She does not suspect that it has been Gene visiting her. After his body is found, Gene visits her again. They meet in a forest area. He tells her that he was hoping he would be able to see her one last time. They talk some about Noll returning to England. Mai says that she can’t imagine what Naru’s life is like in England. Gene says that he’s just an idiot scientist. Mai is surprised at the comment because she believes that Naru is talking about himself. At the end of their conversation, Gene says that he had something he wanted to say to her, but he decides against saying it. Mai waits a bit and when she turns to tell him to just say it, she hears someone walking towards her. It’s Naru. When Mai looks back for dream!Naru (Gene), he’s gone. This is the last time that Mai sees Gene in the Evil Spirits series.

Although she isn’t sure if dream!Naru is a result of her subconscious or of Naru’s own powers, Mai never intended to tell him that she ever dreamed of him. She accidentally lets it slip during a later conversation though. Naru says that he cannot spirit travel and that he wasn’t visiting her dreams. Mai decides that the image of Naru in her dreams must have been a result of how she feels for Naru. However, Naru realizes that it was Gene visiting Mai’s dreams. True to his personality, Naru’s reaction to the realization is that his brother was being idiotic for wandering around in spirit form rather than moving on.

It is after this that Masako learns that it wasn’t Naru who visited her when she was Urado’s prisoner, it was Gene. Until Mai told her that Gene is the spectral dream!Naru, Masako believed it was Naru who came to her. Masako knew before the others that Gene was dead and that Naru was searching for his body. However, she did not know that the brothers were identical twins until Mai told her nor did she realize that the boy who came to her when she was held captive was Gene. Why Masako, the psychic medium, did not recognize Gene’s ghostly presence is unclear. The most likely explanation is that because she’s so stressed out, she wasn’t thinking clearly. (Gene never visited Masako’s dreams prior to that time and never visited them afterwards either.)

As Noll prepares to leave for England, Mai tells Naru that he should be more honest with himself and cry at the pain and sorrow Gene’s death. However, he says that everyone dies eventually and that in one hundred years, no one will be around. Mai finally confesses her feelings for him to him. Naru smiles slightly and asks her if she loves him or his brother. Mai starts crying. She’s realized that she never thought about why Naru often smiled in her dreams but rarely in real life. She never tried to see the real Naru. When she finally stops crying, she is surprised to see that Naru is still there. He tells her that she will see Gene again whether she wanted to or not. Mai asks if he means in 100 years like he said earlier. Naru answers that she might have 200 years to live.

At his farewell party before leaving for England, Naru gives Mai a photograph that his mother Luella had accidentally left behind during a visit to Japan. It’s a picture of Gene and him together. In the photograph, Naru is not wearing black.

This is where the Evil Spirits novel series ends. It’s my belief that the novelist intended the story to be finished at this point. I have no evidence of this. It’s just my opinion. I think the publishers pushed her into writing the next story due to the series’ popularity among the fans.

The next story starts about two months after Gene’s funeral. Naru and Lin have returned to Japan. The reason given is that Naru is interested in the supernatural and for some reason Japan has a lot of supernatural activity. Although Gene has been buried, Naru is still wearing black. Yasuhara has been hired as a part-time office worker. Mai is now a part-time investigator.

SPR accepts the case of a family that’s bothered by a haunted house. Unbeknownst to them, a Japanese police detective is working undercover as a member of the family. He is investigating Naru. The detective does not believe in the supernatural or the paranormal. He believes that since Naru knew where Gene’s body was located, Naru must have more knowledge about the murder than he has revealed. Naru might have been a part of the murder itself.

During the investigation, all of the usual SPR helpmates are eventually called in. (Bou-san, Ayako, Masako, John.) Mai begins to have her strange visions again. She has not had one since Naru left for England. Gene wakes up from his dream-like state and returns to Mai’s dreams. When dream!Naru returns, Mai asks if he is Gene. He confirms that he is. This upsets Mai because she thought that Gene would have moved on. (Everyone expected that to happen after Gene’s body was found.) Gene says that he doesn’t understand why he hasn’t moved on either but for some reason he’s stuck there.

In addition to visiting Mai’s dreams again, Gene has figured out a way to contact Noll as well. Actually, he had figured out a new way to contact Noll earlier; however, if Noll is not directing his attention to Gene, Noll won’t hear him. As the investigation reaches its conclusion, the twins make other discoveries about Gene’s altered abilities by relying on their instincts like they did as children. If Gene enters a mirror, he can see some of the real world through it. If Noll touches the mirror with Gene in it, they can toss Noll’s PK seed back and forth amplifying the PK power like they did when Gene was alive. With the case solved, the twins’ reunion comes to an end. Gene says that he’s getting sleepy again and fades from contact.

Still unresolved >>>

The novel series has left several questions still unanswered. Who was the woman who killed Gene? Is she ever found and brought to justice? Is Gene sleeping forever? Why didn’t Gene ever tell Mai who he really was or provide information that would help Noll find his body?

Does Mai ever really get over her love for Gene? Does Mai ever fall in love with someone else? Do her powers continue to grow? Or have they reached their full potential?

Does Naru become romantically involved with anyone? Does he remain in Japan now that he’s returned or return to England?

The last novel was published in the mid-1990s. It seemed as if the novel series is on permanent hiatus. Recently though, rumors surface that she may be working on the series again. These rumors are based on a comment she made during a question and answer interview published by Tokyopop. When asked what she was currently working on, she said that she was reworking an old girls’ horror series that she had written. Hopefully that old series is Ghost Hunt and she will give us more information about Mai, Naru, and company some day.