What’s it about? A nameless man is six times more afraid than ghosts than the average person, which means when he crosses paths with a supernatural organization, he’s in for a ghastly time!
Our episode starts with the haunting reveal that our protagonist is, according this his parents, six times more easily frightened than your everyday person. Because of that, he’s lived his life on the edge, afraid to become something of a boon to ghosts—should they ever appear to him.
Thankfully, our protagonist has gone through life without a single ghost. That is, until he’s forced into proximity of a girl while trying to out-crap the crap-tastic effects of seeing a potential ghost go bump in the night while walking home with a friend by… crapping in the streets. It doesn’t work because it turns out the so-called ghosts he anticipated seeing is actually just a girl named Mechako who’s trying to revive the Kaikigumi, a supernatural society that’s all about studying the things that hide in the shadows. Looks like our protagonists is going to put his heart to the test. Question is, will he survive being constantly frightened for the sake of science?
Comedy is subjective, and that’s definitely the case with Let’s go KAIKIGUMI, which feels… out of place and out of time for an anime made for the 2026 summer season. That’s saying a lot because the manga this series adapts is modern, running from 2018 to 2024 despite its retro style. Speaking honestly, I think that retro style is the only thing KAIKIGUMI has going for it––well, that and Mechako, the female lead in this story.
Charged with reviving the Kaikigumi as the daughter of its former leader (and for personal reasons) Mechako is downright off-putting, and I think that’s great. She’s constantly wide-eyed with small irises and severe lack-of-sleep shadow ringing her entire eye. She’s weird, a loner, speaking in a flat, low voice that heightens her eeriness. In fact Mechako, herself, seems supernaturally gifted with super strength and the ability to summon will-o-wisps. Collectively, it creates a girl who you can’t predict, who is the straightman to the comedic fool.
Yet even that dynamic wasn’t enough to help because our nameless protagonist spends most of the episode screech-screaming as his most common reaction. Almost every other line is an ear-shattering scream and honestly, there’s no comedic nuance there. It’s just screaming as the joke, like he’s a reaction Youtuber trying to get likes. It’s the main joke that occurs in what is ultimately a pretty unremarkable anime that’s supposed to be a comedy horror.
In my heart, I think I want to like KAIKIGUMI because of its retro animation, but I just really struggled to find its jokes and comedic timing funny, and after watching so many anime that are genuinely funny, I think it’s not my sense of humor but that fact that Let’s go KAIKIGUMI just isn’t funny at all. Instead, it feels very disjointed, making a lot of jokes that just never seem to land.
In truth, I’m not really sure why this gag series was adapted, but it made me feel weird. There’s a lot of body humor that just isn’t… enjoyable. Like, there’s an entire segment where an adult man in a loincloth asks out protagonist to touch his fundoshi loin cloth to see if he can get luck and like… he’s essentially asking him to touch his genitalia. It’s a weird joke and, because our protagonist is supposed to be a student, it takes on this extra weird layer that fully put me off this show.
Safe to say Let’s go KAIKIGUMI isn’t my thing. It might be yours, but I don’t think it’ll be because I recommended it to you, at least not this time.
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