Dark Gathering: Season 1, Episode 4 - Eiko Hozuki (2023)

Yayoi realizes that the picture Eiko showed Keitaro in episode two was not his hand but Eiko's own cursed hand.

Keitaro explains to Yayoi that he encountered a spirit during his ninth-grade summer which cursed him and also affected Eiko as a result.

Keitaro ponders Yayoi's offer to help with supernatural matters, weighing his desire to avoid all spirit activity against his wish to free both Eiko and himself from their shared curse.

Keitaro, Yayoi, and Eiko attend university orientation together.

After orientation, several students approach Eiko, inviting her to join various university clubs and groups.

Eiko collects contact numbers from her new friends but declines to join their clubs, stating she prefers to take more classes with Keitaro.

Eiko asks Keitaro to register for similar classes as her.

Keitaro confirms with Eiko that she holds no ill will toward him for inadvertently cursing her hand during the ninth-grade incident.

They decide to enroll in the Urban Legends class together.

In the Urban Legends class, Keitaro has a bad feeling, but they stay.

The professor shows the class a mysterious videotape depicting someone committing suicide by setting themselves on fire, which curses viewers to burst into flames within minutes, burning only their clothes.

Keitaro watches the tape and becomes cursed by the spirit within it, as evidenced by his clothes beginning to smolder.

Yayoi's monkey plushie, containing nails from Yayoi, Keitaro, and Eiko, starts burning, signaling the presence of a spirit.

Yayoi urgently tells Keitaro they must eliminate the spirit or break the curse before the plushie burns through completely, which would cause Keitaro to die a fiery death as shown on the tape.

Yayoi rushes to the VHS player, ejects the tape, pours salt on it, and uses one of her dolls to catch and contain it.

Yayoi informs Eiko and Keitaro that she cannot kill the spirit yet, so they must stop the curse's progression first.

Keitaro insists on handling the spirit himself to avoid putting Yayoi and Eiko in harm's way, given the spirit's dangerous fire-based abilities.

Eiko and Yayoi express worry for Keitaro but agree they must work together.

Eiko takes Keitaro to the hospital for treatment of his curse symptoms and picks him up later.

Eiko tells Keitaro that Yayoi located the carcass of the spirit from the video.

Eiko explains the spirit's origins to Keitaro.

Eiko informs Keitaro that Yayoi taught the spirit a lesson.

With their plan in place, Yayoi, Keitaro, and Eiko return home without encountering further obstacles.

Once home, Yayoi throws the doll containing the spirit into her room.

The other spirits Yayoi has previously captured attack and overwhelm the new spirit inside the room.

Eiko expresses excitement about starting classes with Keitaro.

Keitaro hopes he can continue protecting Eiko from danger.

In her internal thoughts, Eiko reveals her yandere obsession, viewing the shared curse as a blessing that eternally binds Keitaro to her, and believing he secretly enjoys the fear like she does.

Eiko projects her addiction to supernatural phenomena onto Keitaro with a sinister smile, exploiting his protective instincts by drawing him into danger so he will save her, repaying him for past protection while tying him to her forever.

Eiko takes Keitaro to the hospital after he is affected by the curse, then picks him up later and drives him home while updating him on Yayoi's progress.

Eiko explains to Keitaro in the car that Yayoi located the carcass of the spirit from the cursed VHS tape, reveals its tragic origins as a boy bullied into suicide whose vengeful curse spiraled out of control, and shares that Yayoi taught the spirit a harsh lesson by forcing it to confront its own burning death on the tape, effectively neutralizing it for now. Keitaro expresses his hope to keep protecting Eiko as they prepare to start classes together, showing his lingering sense of responsibility despite his fear of the supernatural. Eiko then returns to her home alone, stepping into her private room filled with Keitaro-themed decorations and occult memorabilia. There, she gazes at her cursed left hand, hidden under her pink glove, and whispers her inner thoughts aloud, admitting her deep love for spooky things and her joy in sharing them with Keitaro, viewing their shared curse not as a burden but as an eternal bond that ties him to her forever, just as it did since middle school when she deliberately drew him into the danger.

Keitaro, now recovering at home, sits alone reflecting on Yayoi's earlier offer to join her in gathering powerful spirits to confront the one that took her mother. He ponders whether to accept and dive deeper into the occult world to free both himself and Eiko from curses, or to reject it and escape the horrors entirely, his face etched with internal conflict between self-preservation and loyalty.

Yayoi's fate remains secure as the active hunter; she successfully contained and punished the spirit without apparent harm to herself, using her monkey plushie alarm, salt barriers, and capture doll to force the spirit into a box where it burned alive while trapped watching its own taped demise, buying time before the curse could fully claim Keitaro. Keitaro survives the immediate fiery curse threat, hospitalized briefly but released, physically safe yet still cursed on his left hand and mentally torn about his future path. Eiko emerges unscathed physically from the episode's events, her curse intact on her left hand which she cherishes as a "blessing" linking her to Keitaro, driving him protectively while hiding her obsessive thrill for danger and her manipulation of his protective nature to keep him close.

Yes, Dark Gathering Season 1 Episode 4 "Eiko Hozuki" (2023) has a post-credits scene.

The scene shows Eiko returning home alone after dropping Yayoi off, her face illuminated by the dim light of her cluttered bedroom as she quietly shuts the door behind her, a subtle tension building in her posture from the night's supernatural ordeal. She steps into the room, which is obsessively themed around Keitaro--walls plastered with photos of him from their shared past, shelves lined with mementos like his old school items and candid snapshots capturing his unaware smiles, the air thick with her unspoken longing that mixes relief from the curse's partial resolution with a deeper, possessive hunger. Eiko's expression softens into a chilling, almost manic smile, her eyes gleaming with unfiltered adoration as she whispers her confession: she loves spooky things, but above all, she loves being with Keitaro, her voice trembling with emotional intensity that reveals her motivations rooted in a twisted, curse-forged dependency and romantic obsession. The camera lingers on her face contorting into a skin-crawling grin, heightening the horror through her warped affection, before fading to black, leaving Keitaro in the final pre-credits moment still wrestling internally with Yayoi's offer, his face etched with doubt and fear of deeper entanglement in the supernatural world.

In episode 4 of Dark Gathering Season 1 'Eiko Hozuki', Yayoi realizes that the picture Eiko showed Keitaro in episode two wasn't his hand, but Eiko's own hand affected by the curse. This revelation ties into Keitaro explaining how the spirit that cursed him during his ninth-grade summer also impacted Eiko, deepening their shared supernatural bond.

Keitaro confirms that Eiko didn't have any ill will toward him for inadvertently affecting her with the curse he received. Instead, Eiko views the curse positively as a blessing that eternally binds her to Keitaro, projecting her addiction to the supernatural onto him with a sinister smile. She exploits his protective instincts, believing he secretly enjoys the fear, as seen in her self-thoughts about tying him to her forever.

Yayoi's monkey plushie, containing nails from Yayoi, Keitaro, and Eiko, starts burning, signaling the presence of a spirit. Yayoi warns they must eliminate the spirit or remove the curse before it burns through, or Keitaro will die a fiery death as depicted on the VHS tape. She ejects the tape, pours salt on it, and uses a doll to catch it, unable to kill the spirit yet.

Yayoi finds the carcass of the spirit in the video and 'teaches it a lesson', as Eiko later explains to Keitaro. She throws the doll-infested spirit into her room, where her other captured spirits attack it, showcasing her method of making spirits fight each other. This ties into her plan to capture evil spirits to lift curses by killing the originating spirit.

Fans describe Eiko as a 'sadist yandere' who intentionally does risky things so Keitaro risks his life to save her, repaying him for past protection. Despite her curse's suffering, she loves Keitaro deeply, suggesting they take classes together like Urban Legends, declining clubs to stay close, and viewing their curse as a eternal tie. Her sinister tendencies shine as she drives the group to haunted spots and owns haunted property.

No, Dark Gathering Season 1 Episode 4 "Eiko Hozuki" (2023) is not family friendly. It carries an official R - 17+ rating due to violence and profanity, and belongs to the horror/supernatural/gore genres, making it unsuitable for children or sensitive viewers.

Potentially objectionable or upsetting elements include: - Depictions of a cursed videotape showing suicide, with themes of bullying escalating to family harm and criminal acts. - A victim's clothes bursting into spontaneous flames as part of a deadly curse, evoking intense burning imagery. - Disturbing and creepy supernatural hauntings, possessions, and spirit confrontations with high tension and horror intensity. - Emotional distress from obsession, curses manipulating relationships, and perilous ghost encounters.