Review of Ghost Stories

Okay, so I'll get to the dub, but frankly it feels like a different show, so I'll treat it separately. This series is essentially Goosebumps in Japan and has a similar level of originality, narrative sophistication, and character development as what you might find there. These characters are loosely sketched and bring little memorable to the table (frankly I can't remember most of their names apart from protagonist Satsuki). The animation is not exactly stellar and most of the ghost/demon designs are rather derivative with only a few stand-outs. The stories are not genuinely scary, but it's aimed at a young audience, so I canforgive that (and it's a little more intense than the aforementioned Western equivalent, Goosebumps, so I s'pose there's that). What is more odd is the ED 'sexy sexy' in a show about and aimed at elementary school kids and the repeated panty shots of the show's protagonist. But oh well... anime I guess.

So yeah. That's 'Gakkou no Kaidan' and my ratings above reflect THAT show.

Then there's the ADV dub, which is likely to be quite unlike anything else you've ever seen. Well, at least seen in the world of official dubs - what it does resemble is an abridged series. However this isn't a fan made project and it actually predates by about a year the first abridged series, having been released in 2005 compared to 'Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series' 2006 upload (thanks Wikipedia).

The humour is irreverent, and aims to shock, playing off the juxtaposition of the crude, very adult things being said and the childish nature of the show's characters. A hallmark of the jokes here is a dedication you'd likely not get away with these days to being politically incorrect. There's the little brother who is made severely autistic in the dub, the right-wing sanctimonious Christian Evangelical fond of reminding other characters that they will go to hell, the tight-fisted Jew, the repeated jokes about the endowment of black men delivered in casual, deadpan style, and much, much more. If you find yourself easily offended, some of this material ain't gonna be for you. There's no way this would be made as an officially licensed dub these days, but I can honestly say, I'm glad it did. Because it is damn funny.

The humour, in addition to being crude and very un-PC, is also spectacularly self-aware and freely pokes fun at the original show. Characters lampshade the repeated harvesting of tropes from everything from 'The Grudge' to the works of Stephen King. Fourth wall breaks are routine.

Things take a while to fully ramp up, but as the episodes go on, the dub cast and writer seemed to find their rhythm and abandon any pretense of making a faithful translation. Instead they throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, with evidence abounding of the ad libbed, free-styling joke writing at work here.

The whole thing isn't supremely clever and witty, but it's got enough of that to keep you going. It's fun to dip in and out of and an enjoyable way to spend a half hour or so. If I were reviewing the dub, I think I'd have landed on a 7 for it.

Now at the time of its release, the ADV dub was loathed by many puritanical Western fans as some grave insult to the Japanese craft of anime. That's nonsense. This isn't a very good show and if it had never seen Western markets to begin with, no one would have missed out. This dub takes something that could have been relegated to the trash heap and makes quality entertainment out of it. It doesn't salvage the original work, because like I've said, this dub isn't really even the same show as the original. What it does do is give us something enjoyable where there wasn't anything. Just as bad shows like SAO have given us wonderful abridged series, so has something bad here been used as the basis of something pretty great.

And for that, I'm thankful.