Horror is something that seems hard to truly do in anime. That’s not to say that there aren’t any good horror anime out there however I find that there are few horror anime that seem to be legitimately scary. When I say this, I mean anime that can successfully keep the viewer on edge when watching them through sound and atmosphere, instead of just dumping lots of gore and yanderes into the show and having the characters give psychotic smiles every now and then (looking at you Elfen Lied and Future Dairy). Yami Shibai: Japanese Ghost Stories is one of the few anime I’ve seen that gets the Horror atmosphere right and while not perfect is a unique group of shorts that give some good creepy tales.
Yami Shibai is a series of 13 episodes all of which are three minutes long. The episodes consist of one-shot ghost stories that take place in modern Japan based on ghosts from Japanese folklore. The anime is based on a form of Japanese storytelling called Kamishibai. These were moral based stories stories drawn on paper scrolls that Monks would tell to a mostly illiterate audience. In modern times, Kamishibai is still conducted to tell stories to young children. The opening of each episode actually starts with a Kamishibai storyteller calling children over to him to tell them the story of the episode.
Each short focuses on a different short story with different characters and settings. These can range from a story about a haunted videotape to a man being trapped on an unknown floor of a shopping mall; my favourite though was the short about a ghost haunting a school printer (only because it proves that those things are evil). If these scenarios sound familiar, it’s because they are, all of them are heavily based on old urban legends and if you watch a lot of anime or read a lot of creepy pastas, they’re going to seem familiar. That being said, that seems to be the point of the anime, the stories are meant to seem like ones you’d tell to a group of friends around a campfire, which makes sense as the anime puts the stories in the context of being, well, stories being told to children. Most importantly though, the anime does a really good job at making these familiar stories still seem creepy. It was one of the few anime were I really did feel a bit tense as the episodes went on, even when I could predict what was coming next. It does a really good job building dark and eerie atmosphere that can really get under your skin and while there were a couple of dud episodes that weren’t that scary, the majority succeeded. Some people might complain about the extremely short length but in my opinion it was the perfect length for these kinds of short stories, it’s enough time to set up a scene but not so long as to let it start dragging on.
The animation is also quite interesting. Being based on the Kamishibai paper scroll artwork, the anime tries to emulate this using stylised cut outs for the characters. While I can see some being turned of by the lack of fluidity, I personally really liked this; it’s unique from other anime and adds authenticity of the anime further giving it the feel of being a story. My only real complaint is that some of the ghost's designs look a bit too similar, like be prepared to see ghosts that look like the girls from The Ring/The Grudge in at least 4-5 episodes.
Sound wise, there aren’t any real standout tracks but the music does help to set the atmosphere for the show and lets the audience know when all the really bad shit's about to happen. The opening has no song but strangely enough the ending is a dubstep song featuring Hatsune Miku. The song itself is kind of mediocre and sounds a bit out of place but I guess it’s meant to calm the audience’s nerves down a bit after the episode.
Yami Shibai is isn’t a masterpiece of anime nor is it truly innovative but the episodes are good little shorts with some familiar tales and a unique art style that can easily satisfy you if you’re in the mood for a spook, especially with Halloween coming up. There only three minutes long so it’s not like your wasting much time either.
