Ranked #3985

Warau Hyouteki

When watching this anime, remember two things. First this is adapted from Rumiko Takahashi's Rumik world manga's which she wrote in the early eights. These were series of short stories which spring boarded her career into the place it is now. So the story is a little weak, and somewhat transparent, and to some extent a little rushed, but is worth the watch just to get an idea of where show's like Inu Yasha came from. The second is that ist was animated in the eighties, so the animation isn't the best, it carries a low production value feel about, which is common in the eighties.
Overall well worth the watch, Rumiko Takahashi's work always has a element of oddness about it, giving the viewer something to contemplate in the end. read more

Story (6/10):
Classic yandere with a bit of a paranormal twist. It was an interesting idea, but I felt that the introduction of ghosts raised a lot more questions than it answered. The ghosts were obviously introduced in order to explain Azusa's clearly psychotic behavior, but were given no explanation themselves. I would have at least liked a small back story showing how Azusa came to be posessed. Surely she wasn't always that way, or was she? We had an interesting flashback to childhood, but it isn't clear whether the posession began then, or if it did, why it begin then?
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My own crackpot theory: I think it would have made more sense if the ghosts were actually hallucinations caused by post traumatic stress from her troubled past. Seriously, why on Earth would ghosts make someone try to kill off their romantic rival? It's gotta be in her head. >.>;
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Other than my gripes with the ghosts, the story was basically a stock yandere plot, where the victim is the romantic rival. If you've ever seen the live action Japanese horror movie "Audition", it's a little like that (but with ghosts -_-;).

Art (7/10):
Although the art and animation seems to be roughly standard for its time, I thought that the dark tones and contrast really helped bring about the "horror" feel.

Character (6/10):
Aside from our one yandere character, none of the characters really go through much character development. That is to say that although their reactions to the situation is more or less realistic, they come off as feeling rather flat. Aside from which, the character setup is a bit stereotypical - A love triange: One yandere, one tsundere, and one mediocre male who gets two interesting girlfriends (lucky guy XD).

Enjoyment (5/10):
I have to say, I was disappointed! As Rumiko Takahashi is one of my favorite mangaka, I was expecting something rather better than this. Although I enjoyed the horror to a certain extent, willing suspension of disbelief was broken rather often. (And as you can tell from the above rant, those ghosts really bother me XD)

Overall (6/10):
Overall, it was a reasonably enjoyable tale. Can't say that I'm a big fan of the ghosts, but as a pscychological thriller, this does pretty decently. read more