Japanese Ghost Stories is an artist and filmmaker’s dream! [Review]
Step proper up and take a look. It’s time for Yamishibai! Pic credit score: ILCA
Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories is the right sequence to observe in case you plan to create movies on-line or in actual life. The artwork fashion adjustments between seasons, and typically in the identical season, some ghosts/monsters are past creepy, and every episode is about 4 minutes lengthy.
But there’s additionally little plot to attach the seasons outdoors our narrator. Who seems in numerous areas, often at 5 p.m., and calls out to us to take a look in a cheerful voice.
Until we attain season 10, the place it seems he’s lastly able to retire from storytelling. But will the masks let him go?
Don’t snigger. You’re subsequent! Pic credit score: ILCA
What is Yamishibai?
Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories, also called Theatre of Darkness: Yamishibai, Yami Shibai, or Dark Play, initially got here out in 2013. It now has ten seasons and 130 episodes.
There’s additionally a spin-off sequence, Ninja Collection, and in a daring twist, Crunchyroll added the live-action sequence to the anime as an alternative of itemizing it individually. Thus giving the present two seasons as an alternative of 1.
And every little thing works. The tales are primarily based on Japanese myths and concrete legends, however there’s not often a contented ending.
Most characters aren’t doing something fallacious or need to be attacked, however demise is a continuing presence within the present. That mentioned, Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories did shock me a number of occasions.
The brief period of every episode helps focus the scares, and the viewer not often will get the possibility to determine what’s happening. In this present, something can get you killed or endure a destiny worse than demise.
But that does depart room for extra tales. One of the few complaints/needs followers have is the shortcoming to see the narrator’s face.
He’s at all times carrying a yellow masks that’s greater than what it seems. If the masks is alive, then what destiny has befallen the narrator?
Honoring the previous whereas embracing the brand new!
Yamishibai relies on Kamishibai or paper play. It was highly regarded in the course of the Great Depression, as a Kamishibaiya, or storyteller, would journey the streets and placed on exhibits utilizing illustrated boards and a miniature stage machine.
Which is proven completely all through the sequence. But the live-action takes it up a notch by producing longer episodes which have been minimize into smaller segments.
Although some are taken from the earlier seasons, the live-action additionally helps flesh out the reused segments. And there’s a shorter section that isn’t revealed till the primary one ends!
And the artwork fashion of the live-action makes use of static photographs of the actors and their environment to offer every episode a surreal high quality. The expressions typically are usually exaggerated, however every little thing suits collectively to offer the viewer a good present.
I’d advocate Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories to anybody who desires to experiment with visible storytelling and is an city legend fanatic.
