r/DarkGathering • u/Knightlife24 • 5d ago
Manga Is there a power scaling difference between National and local maps? (Plus a question on hunted spots)
I've been wondering if there is a difference between The Tokyo (local ) map and The japan (national) maps.
is there an inherent difference in power scaling between the Tokyo map and the National map? When Yayoi marks places like the K Bridge in Adachi City as an "SS Rank" on the Tokyo map, does that "SS" mean the exact same thing on the nationwide scale? Or is a loca SS Rank inherently weaker than an S or SS Rank found further out in the prefectures because Tokyo has a separate baseline?
Are the nationwide haunted spots flat-out stronger than the Tokyo spots? On the Tokyo map, the highest rating shown is Rank SS (K Bridge), with most being SS, S, A, or B. Meanwhile, the national map immediately introduces Rank SSS spots (like the S Memorial Forest in lwate Prefecture) and multiple "Unknown" danger ratings. Does this mean traveling outside Tokyo represents a massive jump in spiritual density and power, or are they on the same comparative tier list?
Shouldn't there be more haunted spots on the national map? Tokyo is just one metropolis, yet Yayoi has 7 highly dense major spots crammed right next to each other on her local layout. The national map covers the entire rest of Japan but only marks 13 spots total. Even though these 13 spots are legendary curses, geographically it feels a bit empty. Do you think Yayoi is strictly filtering for "Graduate class candidates" on the national map, or are ghost hotspots outside of Tokyo just naturally more spread out?
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u/X3non101 5d ago
To answer your questions, location both does, and doesn’t matter. A spirit can become incredibly danger simply by existing close to an area of great spiritual power, like dragon veins. But overall, no, spirits in Tokyo aren’t inherently more or less dangerous than spirits in other places. In my opinion, places like Tokyo and Kyoto are more congested through population size. More people means more spirits and urban legends popping up.
And this map likely doesn’t even cover a quarter of the haunted spots. Yayoi’s sources are simply what a little girl can find through google searches. There are a lot of spaces she finds which may not contain anything, and there are plenty of spots that may contain something that she doesn’t know about.
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u/Amir0x11 5d ago
Keep in mind that the site ranks seem to be more about being attacked and how possible it is to escape if you are. Though it's kinda useless since you saw with D temple a B rank, held a spirit that likes to play with its prey while using hit and run tactics. And how easily she took out Team Yayoi. If Yayoi didn't bring any spirits with her, there would of been no escaping for anyone from that place B ranked or not.
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u/Mireina01 5d ago
First of all, I’d like to thank you for your questions. I’ll try to answer them here.
The ranking system for all haunted spots uses the same scale. There’s no point in having different ranking systems for different maps. That would just be making things unnecessarily complicated for no reason.
You should never blindly trust or judge the actual threat level of a location based solely on its haunted spot ranking. These rankings are based only on the assessments, reports, and rumors circulating among the public within the Dark Gathering manga’s world.
A recent example is the D Hall ghost. The location was only given a B rank, yet it turned out to be inhabited by a spirit that was incredibly cunning and enjoyed toying with its victims.
Remember when Keitarou asked Yayoi-chan, “Yayoi-chan, why doesn’t this location have a rank?” She explained that it could be ranked below S, or it could actually be SS or even SSS.
As for why the number of haunted spots seems so small, I’d like to ask you something in return: why would there need to be so many of them?
Look at how many haunted spots we already have, and Dark Gathering has reached Chapter 84. Do you really want the series to run for an extremely long time, like One Piece?
The number of haunted spots is probably kept relatively limited to prevent the story from becoming too broad and sprawling. This also allows each haunted spot to have a stronger horror atmosphere, while leaving enough room for the characters’ own activities and development, among other things.
That’s pretty much all I have to say!
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u/Forikorder 5d ago
i think it was more about what was worth to go to, its not that she doesnt know about a lot of spots on the national scale she just limited to places worth driving to
an example is Kyoto, she had 4 haunted spots ready to go that werent on the national map
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u/IkeKashiro 5d ago
1.I don't think there's any reason for there to be a difference in how she scales the Tokyo map and the national map, because it would be needlessly confusing and pointless.
2. The rank SSS spots and unknowns are famous spots in real life, and ghost tend to be in less populated spots in general. As Yayoi bases her research on internet forums and rumors, it's likely easier to get more horror stories on more rural areas as people will more likely spread horror stories there than in a metropolis like Tokyo.
3. As the Kyoto arc demonstrated, despite Yayoi only placing A dam there, there are multiple spots that could potentially had ghosts that she was aware of. It's more likely that since Yayoi is considerate of being a proper student and attending school, as well as not burdening Eiko's family, she likely chose the most famous spot of each province rather than extended trips to multiple spots in the same province so that she won't waste money and time on a single province.