For people who enjoy listening to Japanese seiyuus talk as fast or faster than the protagonist of Tatami Galaxy, cramming as much information as possible into their rapid-fire speeches, have fun—and good luck. If you like Another or Boogiepop Phantom wa Warawanai or Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World, you may also enjoy this series.

The setting for this anime is the lovingly animated Kichijoji, a real neighborhood in Tokyo filled with temples and shrines, and the peculiar nature of that neighborhood and the painstakingly detailed depiction of it is part of the appeal of watching it. Because of the heavy content, I would say this anime is not for the faint of heart - though I would not call it overly suspenseful per se. It has elements of horror, but morbid curiosity is the factor that will inexorably draw you, the viewer, and the characters deeper and deeper into the story. From the beginning the anime presents compelling impossibilities and mysteries you do not yet have the clues to solve. Throughout, it is...disturbingly imaginative.

The main character is am agnostic high-schooler who rushes to write summaries of alleged occult happenings on his cheap blog for clicks and popularity. He is neither open nor closed to the supernatural until the supernatural intrudes on his life and he steps straight into the scene of a gruesome murder and follows the instructions of an unknown voice seemingly contacting him through radio waves. As events go on, it becomes increasingly clear that nothing is really as it seems.

You should be aware that the content is disturbingly violent in many places. The title itself should tell you that yes, the occult is involved, but that will not necessarily warn you of some other related concepts: an underage serial killer with a strange box, a quasi-New Religion conspiracy, mass hypnotism, a barrage of occult and pseudo-science, fortune-telling, witchcraft, uncertain states of death, and uncomfortably large boobs (though to the animators’ credit, they are not oversexualized beyond their extraordinary size and one obligatory Marshmallow Hell gag).

Occultic;Nine does end rather abruptly. The climax is narratively satisfying, but it does not concretely answer questions about the fate of certain characters. It left me with a somewhat uneasy, unfinished feeling. The plot and the characters are handled quickly and lightly without too much depth, but for a short anime with so many characters it does just enough without becoming unbalanced.

The ending song, “Open your eyes” by Asaka, is one of the most beautiful I heard among the anime that I watched in 2017.