Review of Ghost Stories

First things first, Ghost Stories is completely unwatchable in its Japanese version. Its like a bad rip off of Scooby-Doo. It came as no surprise that ADV decided to dub the show as a parody and not a straight dub, since I doubt they would’ve had any sales if they decided to do a serious dub. They knew the show was crap and just went with it. The results seem to be hit or miss. The VA’s for the most part are up to the task and have decent comedic timing. I would say that Chris Patton and Greg Ayers do the best job at bringingthe laughs. That said, the script is either hilarious or awkwardly unfunny. If you stick to the end of the show, the jokes start picking up and the laughs are more common. Probably midway thru the series is when I felt they had really hit their stride in the writing department.

One thing I didn’t understand is why they chose to censor foul language in the beginning of the series, and then stopped about half way thru. The censoring annoyed me; if you’re going to do a parody, and an adult one at that, why would you censor it? It seems pointless. Luckily the “bleeps” go away after a while.

Overall I would recommend this to anime fans that have a good awareness of modern – and not so modern – pop culture, because the cultural references abound in this dub.