Review of Ghost Stories

I don't know how this fell into my pilots watchlist, but I'm so happy it did. I can't believe there haven't been more animes dubbed quite like this one. This is one of those shows you need to watch the English dub of, I'll explain in a sec why. Gakkou no Kaidan (Ghost Stories) is a pretty tame, predictable show about kids in school that accidentally release a bunch of ghosts and have to put them all back to sleep. Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound that memorable, but it's actually one of the best comedies I've seen in years and by far the most memorable. Ichecked out the first episode, on the English dub because I'm lazy, and the voice acting completely threw me. The voice actors that worked on the dub had nearly complete creative freedom for their lines, to the point where the actual plot dialogue is stripped to the absolute bones to make room for improvised comedy. It's hard to describe, but it feels like the voice actors saw their scenes once, pretended to be snotty little kids, then insulted each other and made dick jokes on mike. There are brick jokes, observational jokes, 4th wall breaking commentary... See? Hard to describe. It feels sort of like an abridged series, except played straight for an entire length episode.

Getting down to details, the animation itself is a little bit weak because of it's budget, it looks like it was made early in 2000s because it was. The zoom in detail shots hold up nicely, and the dynamic movements are still pretty enjoyable to watch. There is a bit of abstract horror which surprisingly stands up very well on character design even now.
The music is largely underscoring, so it isn't overly memorable but it fits the feeling well, no overall theme here. I did quite like the intro music though.
I'm not sure why the show is split into 19 episodes and 1 special, it's pretty much just a 20 episode long sketch show with Japanese cartoon actors.
The characters Should be fairly routine, nothing special to any of them, but thanks to the comedy lines each one of them is completely memorable and distinguishable. From the first episode, their personalities are made clear through the jokes and insults they sling at each other. By the end, there are so many in jokes that you've been included in that it feels like your own friends making fun of each other in front of you. Some of the best characters are the side ones that you'll only see once, but you'll still be smirking at the thought of them a good few episodes later.

I want to give away some of the jokes, but I can't. I started this not even knowing it was a comedy, and the pilot episode damn nearly made me cough up a lung laughing. There wasn't a single episode that didn't have me in pain from excessive laughter. I loved this so much I bought it. You can show this to people who hate anime and even they'll have a great time. I can't recommend this enough, as an intro show or to those of us who've wasted an excessive amount of time on cartoons. This is a goddamn treasure.