Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories 2nd Season

JadedDragos Oct 7, 2018

8.5

Here is my review for Season 2. I enjoyed watching Season 2, but not as much as the first one. Not a lot of episodes I liked in this one, but a few..... Taro-chan, Inside, Wall Woman, and Capsule Toy Machine were my favorites. Animation once again was great. Showing the 2D animation style of old style story telling is always a plus and is a bit of a relief from standard anime. Music from this season is still creepy and is a good compliment to the stories. Characters are still unsuspecting people and do not need any sort of research other then what is going on at that moment. Overall I think it lacked a little after Season 1, but still had some good episodes and I am looking forward to Season 3.

tollie01 Apr 23, 2017

7.5

Right, it's confession time for me. If you have been reading my reviews than you may have noticed that I tend to rip the anime a new one. There is a reason for this though and it has to do with the fact that I can't turn my brain off when watching anime. I can't ignore the stupid shown in the anime and this is a problem as most anime are very stupid indeed. In this case I'm not talking about a 90 pound girl catching a multi-ton cruise missile and throwing it back. Yes, it is stupid but it is a stupid that I'll allow. It's anime. Things like this are normal here and I'm pretty much fine with it. It annoys me to be sure but I will not rant about it. So, having explained this lets rip into this anime shall we? Just a heads up: There will most probably be spoilers. The more I hate an anime the more spoilers there will be. ART: Art is minimalistic, very minimalistic. This has its reasons though and I'll get back to this later. SOUND: Again no complaints from me. Due to the minimalistic artwork there is more dependent on the voice actors and they deliver. Music is good and sets the tone quite nicely but I'm not a fan of the jump scares. CHARACTERS: Main character is the Storyteller. At the start of each story he gives the barest minimum the story needs to set it up and then lets the characters go from there. STORY: ....There is none. The anime consists of 13 short stories so telling about it here is pointless. RANT: First thing to discuss is the art. As I said it is very minimalistic and closest I can come to describe it is that it looks like cartboard cutouts are being moved across the screen. There is actually a good reason for this. The style of story telling is based on Kamishibai. This is a form of Japanese street theatre so using the art as they did is a nice touch. It does take some getting used to but once you do there is nothing wrong with it. As for the stories themselves. They are very short with 4 minutes being the shortest and 5 the longest. It will be impossible to like them all but this is to be expected. Some are shit your pants scary, some are ok, some are meh and some are eh? If you are a fan of Japanese horror then you'll probably like this.

ironsakura Jan 2, 2021

5

Story: Basically 13 short little stories based on Japanese urban legends or myths. In my opinion, this season is not as good as season 1. In season 1, every episode was scary, creepy and/or disturbing. This season 2 has only a few episodes that fill those criteria. Most of the episodes are just strange and/or make no sense. Still there were those few episodes that make me want to go on to watch the 3rd season. Just as a point of interest, in this season the narrator is in an amusement park instead of a playground. Animation: The animation is the same as in the 1st season. It is still done well and is based off of the Japanese paper theatre story tellers. I enjoy the style, even though it isn't anything fancy. Sound: The sound is done very well and adds to the general vibe of creepyness and is unnerving at times. The sound in season 2 is just as good or better than season 1. It really sets the tone for the few actual scary episodes. Characters: Can't really say anything about this because each story has its own characters. Overall: Not as good as season 1, but still worth watching for the few good episodes, the sound design and the animation design.