Ghost Stories

Synopsis:

After moving back to her hometown, Satsuki Miyanoshita's first day at school doesn't go as planned when her younger brother Keiichirou decides to bring along the family cat, Kaya, to school with him. After Kaya is discovered hitching a ride in Keiichirou's backpack he decides to run off ahead but ends up going into an old school building which is said to be haunted. After teaming up with her annoying neighbor Hajime Aoyama and the schools self appointed paranormal researcher Leo Kakinoki along with Satsuki's friend Momoko, they all enter the abandoned school to search for the cat but end up encountering a troublesome little demon named Amanojaku. Although the ghost hunting youngsters manage to banish Amanojaku from the building with the help of Satsuki's deceased mothers book of spirits, something went wrong and Amanojaku ends up possessing her cat Kaya instead. Now due to local urbanization taking place, more and more spirits are re-awakening but with the help of her friends and one back talking cat with a bad attitude they decide to continue the use Satsuki's book of spirits and put the vengeful entities back in their resting place.


Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 20


Review:

Four kids and a talking animal confronting a new ghost or monster in every episode. This sounds sort of familiar but I just can't seem to put my finger on it... Anyway, Ghost Stories can be summed up in two words, horror light. It's the type of show that can create a tense an creepy atmosphere and still deliver somewhat of a scare without using any intense horror elements at all. There's no blood and no body count, even the ghosts themselves aren't very frightening in appearance but each of them does have a rather interesting story to tell as to why they still roam the world of the living. However, no matter how hopeless things look, our band of pre-pubescent paranormal sleuths always manage to find a way banish the spirit so that it never returns to our mortal world. This makes the show predictable but still enjoyable at the same time but before this anime received it's DVD release, ADV decided to do something a little different to make the show stand out in it's own way by making the English dubbed track more of a comedy routine in which it has the characters breaking the fourth wall, making American pop culture references, and just flat out ad-libbing random lines that in no way match the original script. Of course, you can see the original dialog through the subtitles but ADV's attempt to take a mediocre anime series and add a little something extra in the way of gutter humor is definitely one of a kind. As for me, I just stuck with the subtitles. Hey, if I want to laugh at raw comedy as it was intended in an animated series... I'll go watch an episode of South Park.

Even though the animation is a little dated, the self-contained ghost stories in each episode are somewhat interesting but Ghost Stories doesn't try to be overly frightening nor does it want to be. This show seems to be targeted at a younger audience... as long as you stay away from the dubbed track. Because that one little audio switch changes this series into a tongue and cheek comedy that should be kept away from a youngsters ears at all costs.

Ghost Stories (opening)

Recommendation: |Average|

Media Type: DVD
From: Section23/ADV
Languages: English;Japanese
Subtitles: English