Review of Ghost Stories

I watched the dub, obviously, and I am certain that most people are here for the dub as well. The background of the dubbed version should not come as a secret to anyone. I mean, a few clips of this anime can get over a million views elsewhere. Repeating the backstory of how the dubbed version came to be would be unnecessary, as it has already been repeated ad nauseam. However, most of the backstory seems to exaggerate some claims that are sourced from an at best, second-hand account. For the sake of providing a more vague explanation, the dubbed version was simply less constrainedby the rules set by the original network. So, after a bit of tweaking, the localization turns the anime from a generic set of ghost stories (hence the name) targeted towards youths into a black comedy.

A generic series gets a generic title, with its literal translation being “School Ghost Stories,” which does a good job at setting the precedent for the entire series. The structure of each episode is formulaic, which makes this series comprehensible, but rather boring. Firstly, the start of the episode presents a problem that is related to the old school. Then, the group of kids are incentivized to investigate the problem, which takes place in the schoolhouse most of the time. Then, they encounter the cause of the issue, which is a ghost that terrorizes the kids for at most a couple of minutes. Then, the kids use their wits to either find something lying around or cast a spell that dispels the ghost. Finally, the episode concludes with a witty comment from one of the kids. The story is all around fine and definitely a bit underwhelming, but that’s not why people are here.

Ghost Stories attempts to fix the rather boring plot structure through its dubbing. The series is contingent upon how clever it is, so the dubbing would either make it or break it. Personally, I didn’t find it to be as clever as some people make it out to be; most of the jokes either consist of being politically incorrect, make fun of the animation used, or reference pop culture. Sure, the sub is occasionally funny, but for a series that gets its viewers to watch it because of the quirky dubbing, it's quite underwhelming when it decides to be politically incorrect, not because inoffensiveness if funny (because it is), but because it’s hard to do right. Ghost Stories decides to take the laziest route possible when it comes to being “edgy,” because a good chunk of it boils down to “you are [pejorative],” because most of the humor is not “edgy,” but instead "safe edgy." Besides the fake edginess, pop culture references are additionally found in the series, which doesn’t work because pop culture references are known for not withstanding the test of time. Ghost Stories humor is essentially edgy Family Guy humor without the shitty cutaway gags. Even then, most of them aren’t funny because the entire show is just. “Look! [insert pop culture reference here]!” To tie the series into the Family Guy lore a bit, Hajime resembles Glenn Quagmire to the point where it seems purposeful, to the point where he even copies his “catchphrase” in episode one. I can see it now: a group of edgy manatees helped write Ghost Stories by moving colorful idea balls into a specialized compartment.

The only off-putting aspect of the art is Leo’s character design. Unfortunately, it’s not the nose, mostly because the English dub can only change so much. Besides that, the characters are well designed for a show originally aimed at youths. Additionally, a lot of the ghosts have neat designs as well. Not much else stood out, as both the background and the audio are unremarkable.

There’s not much else to say about Ghost Stories that hasn’t been said already. From now on, let’s keep the talks of the dubbing’s history and an explosive weapon that set off in Japan to a minimum. The formulaic structure of the anime made many of the events that took place feel repetitive, and thus uninteresting; it tries to add some witty lines to make the lackluster story bearable, but at most it gets a small chuckle out. Ghost Stories seems to be a test for those with low attention spans. Much like Family Guy, the compilation clips that are out there on the internet are bait. It’s a series worth watching for the sake of knowing where the jokes come from, but besides that, it doesn’t offer much.

Thanks for reading; you’re the bomb!