Gakkou no Kaidan

The thing about this anime is that it is actually REALLY really bad. It bombed in Japan and it is easy to see why, the time this was released, there were so many good anime out that blew it out of the water and this anime doesn't do anything special. It tries to be Scooby Doo and also the cliche's and bland characters really hurts this show.

However......


Aniplex was handed the English dub of the show, knowing it was a failure in Japan and probably would be a failure here, it SEEMS they didn't take the dub too seriously. So what do we get? The best ... dub that has ever been done ever.
Let me try to explain; the show has so many logical fallacies and strange lip flaps, the voice actors decided to add really adult and funny jokes, often breaking the forth wall and mocking the show itself. It's like a fandub with comedians or an Abridged series, but full episodes.

The animation is poor, the story is thin and a more like villain of the week episodic series and the environments and sound designs are really really bland, what saves this show is the English Dub ONLY via Aniplex.


My advice to you is to watch the Dub, if we were basing this show on its sub in this review I would tell you to send this show to the closest pit of fire and exorcise the demons out of your house, but the English Aniplex Dub is a MUST see. Bare in mind the adult humor may be offputting to younger audiences.

What I've edited on the wikipedia article on a few occasions was the reason ADV didn't do a dub that directly translated the original version, I've sited sources and still it was taken down for some reason. It was the fact that they did this that made so many people try to bury the series before it was released. Hate for ADV came left and right if you mentioned "Ghost Stories" or "Gakko no Kaiden" (School Ghost Stories), This was the dub that no hardcore anime fan wanted to see succeed. While some threw hateful comments, others were just plain confused. ... Why would ADV, after so many years of being a group of anime purists (when the company was first founded there was no intention of doing any dubs) and a company that helped give the dubs crowd in the classic "Dubs vs Subs" war validity, suddenly just do a dub that was just plain silly? The reason is simple; in it's Japanese form, this series sucks. That's the reason, it's simple as that.

When this show was released in Japan, reception was bad and I can see why. Before I talk about this show itself, I want to point out that I'm actually surprised this show is bad. You've got Noriyuki Abe in the director's chair, the man behind hit shows like "Bleach" and "Tokyo Mew Mew" (these are hit shows for crying out loud!). And speaking of people attached to "Tokyo Mew Mew" and bleach, the a few members of the Japanese voice cast, such as Takako Honda and Tomoko Kawakami, were in those shows. Studio Peirrot put a lot of money into this series, and usually when a studio puts so much money into a product then that means their real serious about this. And to top it all off, this show is based on a series of best selling novels, I haven't read these books, but I'm gonna assume that they are awesome. Looking at all that I've listed above, you've got to ask yourself, how did this show fail?

Show doesn't start off too bad, actually. We get the basic story, young Sastuki Manoshita has moved with her family to the town where her deceased mother used to live (and creepily, the same house she grew up in). On her first day of school, she, her brother along and their new friends chase their cat into an old school building, and find that the school buildings haunted. Not only that, the ghosts haunting it are suppose to be sealed off. Turns out the ghosts were sealed in areas where construction was taking place, and damage to anything ghost was sealed in meant that said ghost was now set free.

Not a bad too bad of a story, if things turned out differently, this could've turned into a decent kids' series. Instead, we are faced with three main story problems, and because of this the series suffers greatly:

Problem #1: The series is more episodic than chapter based. For long running shows like "Case Closed/Detective Conan" and Naruto, this can be a good thing. If you missed an episode, no worries, you'll catch up eventually and easily when plot points come up. "Ghost Stories", however, is only 20 episodes long. This may not be a huge problem for some people, but to me, this series feels like it needs a consistent story line. Weather it would be better or not because of that, I don't know, but as result of being episodic the show feels a lot like a Japanese version of "Scooby Doo" (as others have described it).

Problem #2: If there was a movie made about a Japanese ghost legend, it's in this series. What makes movies like "Epic Movie" and "Meet the Spartans" so bad? Answer; referencing every movie in the past year, those movies concentrate more on making references than making jokes. Now, while "Ghost Stories" is nowhere near as bad as those movies, they make the same mistake. According to the ghost profiles on the DVD extras all monsters and ghosts are based on Japanese Uban and Ancient legend. With this in mind, it seems like the producers told the writers to make sure every monster and ghost made it into the series. Much like the movies above are reference happy, this movie is very ghost happy.

Problem #3: This series falls apart completely at the end. It got to the point where near the end of the series where they basically just, "Screw this," and just stopped trying. As I said, the series doesn't start off too bad, the series even has a few good episodes worth watching. But alas, the series becomes progressively bad, there become some plot twists that make no sense, there's a few continuity errors in a few episodes and as I said before, material is recycled, thus the show becomes stale. Very stale.

If I wasn't watching the english dub, I would've given up on this show. The dub stays true to the original storyline and keeps the original Japanese names, but changes everything else. The english voice cast had a translated script in the studio with them, and were told to ad-lib when it was appropriate. George Bush haters will love the Republican, the Democrats aren't even safe from the wrath of the Texas voice actors, Scientologist prepare to sue ADV films, and celebrities are ripped a new one. And aside from poking fun at famous figures, there's also quite a few clever one-liners and running gags. The spells that are chanted to seal the ghosts are often changed or twisted in meaning, the kids begin to chant it normal, "Jaku, Jaku, kick the bucket!" which suddently becomes, "Jaku, Jaku, you can suck it!" But where this dub is the funniest, is the personality changes in the characters. Satsuki becomes a fairly unlikable b!#*@, Leo is now Jewish, Hajime is a lot more perverted in the english version, and Satsuki's brother Kechiro it apparently retarded. My favorite performance comes from Monica Rial, who portrays Momoko as an overly fanatical Christian (being a Christian myself, this offends me, yet I can't help but laugh). But if there's an award for most revetting performance, it should go to comedian Rob Mungle, who portrays Amanojaku, the ghost that possesses Satsuki's cat. Rob plays this role seriously, and waits to make a joke, as opposed to making one every 3 seconds, thus making his punch lines all the more rewarding.

People tried to hate on this dub, but in the end of 2006 Anime Insider magazine named it "Best dub of the Year". All attempts to bury it have failed, and even most of the critics caved to liking it. The dub makes the series all the more watchable. If you plan on watching show in Japanese (the Japanese track is still on the DVD with translated subtitles), then go right ahead, just a word of warning, you may like it more when you're not sober.

Going into this series, anyone should know that the dub and the sub of this show are drastically different. The sub is probably more serious, and the dub is complete crack. So of course, I watched the dub version.
Ive done my fair share of watching serious animes. But once in a while its nice to sit back and relax with something light. Trust me, if you just want to laugh for half an hour, then Ghost Stories is what you want.

Story
Story? what story? This show has the plot of an abrigged series you'd find on youtube.
To me there was a certain formula to watching ... this show. Its definitely not a series someone should marathon. Nope, it should be enjoyed an episode or two at a time. Anymore and you'll find yourself sick of the studpidity.

Characters
The characters were the best part! Although, I cant remember any of the characters actual names (I gave them nicknames throughout the entire show) But besides that, the characters were unforgettable and the relationship between them was just as great. (aka. their relationship was filled with insults. Some of the best one liners were because of their insults!)

Sound/Art
Terrible. The art was.... well, lets stick with terrible. That seems to fit pretty well.
The sound was also pretty bad. Except for the ending song. Its extremely catchy.

For this review I've said mostly bad things towards this show, yet I give it a 7 out of 10. Ghost stories is so bad its good. The show gets most of its fame from being so awful and the dub so hilarious. Honestly, I really wanted to give this show a 9/10 because I loved watching this train wreck so much.

listen. I'm throwing out my usual review style for something much more casual for this show. THE SUB SUCKS DON'T WATCH IT.

But that dub. It has been touched by God. It became a comedy series. Quite possibly the greatest comedy series to have ever been invented. every bit of the show, any moment of emotion, became comedy. Every second of this show is comedic gold. The characters are beautifully voice acted comedians. Every character reacted unrealistically in the most hilarious way possible, without being childish. Screw the story it don't matter. The art style, throw it in the trash. Comedy fans rejoice. watch it. love ... it. then give this show a 10/10.

This is, without a doubt, the funniest anime dub I have ever watched. If you have anything remotely resembling a sense of humor, I highly recommend that you watch it.

The reason the ADV dub is so funny is because ADV took the original script and essentially tore it up, giving the VAs carte blanche to say whatever they wanted as long as it matched the lip flaps. As a result, Ghost Stories went from an almost unwatchable show to one of the funniest dubs in existence.

(WATCH THIS ANIME DUBBED)This anime is a must-watch definitely a cult classic anime, with the best dialogue in anime. With this anime is recommended to watch dub some episodes were very good and the anime is well-paced. Do not binge this anime and it is best enjoyed with friends. This anime is too complicated and is straight forward which makes it watchable. I can probably rewatch this anime by far favorite character is that cat. This is an anime you at least have to see once and is really well written.

If you do not laugh at least once then you have NO SOUL

Important note: This should come as no surprise, but I watched and will be reviewing the famous English dub of this anime. 'Cuz who gives a damn about the sub? Certainly not the Japanese licensors, which is why they allowed what happened to happen in the first place. Lol.

So what I could gather was the actual plot of Ghost Stories is that it's basically about a girl, along with her brother and friends, finding out their ex-homosexual mother was the ex-principal at their school's old building, and that she did a lot of work with ghosts before she died. In her work, she learned ... a lot about what the ghosts were, and how to put them away so that they would stop being problems for the humans who attend the school. And then after the old building gets abandoned, ghosts haunt it, and the main characters have to put them away, often using the information that their mom gathered. And no, I am not breaking the MAL rule of summarizing the story because I am giving the perspective of someone who watched a different script from the one used in the synopsis.

FULL DISCLAIMER: I am not saying that any of the character traits mentioned below have any sort of causation or correlation between each other. I promise you that I am just giving an overview of the characters. Anyway, the main character is Satsuki, who is the daughter of the aforementioned ex-lesbian principal. She is probably the closest one of the main cast to normal. And then there are the four deuteragonists: Keichirou, Hajime, Momoko, Leo, and Amanojaku. Keichirou is Satsuki's retarded, dyslexic brother that is also incapable of modern human speech. He has a signature scream, and he can occasionally manage to bust out a sentence or two. Hajime is, is... yeah ok I kinda lied because he's also kinda normal but I guess he enjoys bullying Keichirou and he sometimes gets horny. Momoko is a homophobic born-again Christian who used to be a junkie slut. She also knows Satsuki's and Keichirou's mother, from working in the conversion camp where the principal was turned straight. Oh, and of course, she hates Muslims and thinks all Jews are going to hell. Which leads me straight into her perfect foil, Leo, who is a horny Jewish loser. Throughout the show, Momoko keeps trying to get Leo to convert to Christianity. The two of them honestly make a perfect foil. I really couldn't name a better duo if I tried. Then there's Amanojaku, who is a tsundere cat possessed by a demon who does nothing until all of the characters are in big, bad, trouble. I got no clue why he's the most favorited character in this anime because he's definitely generic af and the least funniest, but whatever I guess. Just another day on MAL.

The comedic aspects that Ghost Stories are known for is actually mostly character-based, instead of just offensive statements at random. Yeah, go figure. That's probably why it took me four episodes before I could really start to get into this show, and appreciate/laugh at the jokes. But even then the jokes don't always land. In fact, they don't land nearly as much as I expected from watching funny clips compilations on YouTube. This was actually surprising to me, because I cracked the hell up when I watched the out-of-context clips on YouTube. You also have to have an understanding of American culture in 2005, the year the anime was dubbed in English, to understand a lot of the jokes too. Like there's a running joke throughout the show where characters reference Christian Slater's dead career. Who the fuck is Christian Slater? I was a little baby zoomer back in 2005. Ok but it's kinda ironic that the joke is about his career being dead and I don't know who he is. 😆 At least Imma smort American zoomer who knows about stuff like Condoleezza Rice, Michael Savage, and Rush Limbaugh I guess. To get back on track, if the jokes don't hit, then there's not really much enjoyment to be had with this show because the story definitely won't hit. Monster of the week type beat with no consequences at the end of any episode. Hell, even the Japanese licensors knew the story was pretty shit lmao no one was paying to watch Ghost Stories. At least the majority of the jokes are based on the stuff in the paragraph above, the offensively humorous character traits.

Art and sound are pretty standard I guess. Nothing special. Funnily enough however, the script is self-aware of its animation errors during some scenes. OP and ED are pretty banger too. Moreover, I was impressed with Greg Aryes's performance as Leo, because normally I cannot stand his voice. But I have a newfound respect for him after hearing him nail so many Leo lines, and even more after knowing that the voice actors' scripts were actually their own improv.

Ok people of MAL: listen up because based daddy Bengofo boutta bust out some truth. Aight. You ready? Here goes: The most important aspect of anime is enjoyment and there's this mystical thing called subjectivity. In the end, this magical element of enjoyment composes 100% of what influences my score on an anime or manga. And you know what? I had quite a moderately good enjoyment of Ghost Stories. So I give it a 7/10. But don't take that the wrong way; usually a 7/10 from me would still be recommendable, but I don't recommend that you watch this anime in full by itself, to be honest. Since the story is boring and many jokes don't land, I genuinely think you're better off just watching the funny moments compilations on YouTube because then, if you don't find a joke funny, it'll fly right by you as the video goes onto the next clip.

Now what even happened for Ghost Stories to get the dub that it did? Well in my amateur zoomer research, what I discovered was that no one in Japan gave a crap about this anime so sales were very low. As a result, when it was handed over to ADV for them to dub it in English, they were told to basically do whatever the fuck they wanted with the script as long as they kept the characters' names the same. And so, the voice actors decided to do offensive improv and got paid for it.

Tl;dr: Some funny character based comedy that doesn't always land. Have an understanding of American culture in 2005 if you want to watch this, which you shouldn't do in the first place. Just watch funny clip compilations on YouTube. Many of the jokes are still incredibly funny even without the context of the situation.

LOL! I gave this anime a perfect 10 all the way through because I know it would would just tick off the anime purist. Mind you, I am giving it a perfect 10 because of the ENGLISH DUB!

What can I say about this anime that hasn't been said better here except to add to the opinion that if you have a sense of humor you WILL enjoy this anime, this dub is by the far the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. Let's just be honest, the show in Japanese sucks, plain and simple, there is just no getting around that. So ... what does this Dub company do? They saw the potential for something hiliarious and had the courage to make it a go. Thus we have this epically funny anime that will keep you busting a gut the whole way through. These kids are awesome!Everything about it is awesome. If you're having a crappy day just pop it in and watch and relax and laugh. I just wish more crappy animes get the same makeover.

Trust me, if you're a person who loves to laugh you will not regret giving this anime (English dub only) a chance.

Watch this anime in DUB and its will become one of the funniest things you will EVER come across. This has a very predictable story and the mystery is nothing special you can probably guess the ending of it by watching the first episode but in the official dub it is freaking hilarious just for comedy alone I'm giving it a full score but as a whole show its great mainly because of the hilarious comedy.

Every single episode manages to make me burst in laughter the dub voice actors would have had a blast making this I am assure of!

The characters in the show are ... also fairly generic and nothing that you would love or cherish forever but still in the dub version you start to like em, maybe even love them, because they make you laugh like a damn psycho.

It will take thousands of years for an anime to be like this one. What makes this anime enjoyable is that it does not care what you think of it. They'll say whatever they want even if the script is controversial.

I'll give you some examples
"Sorry all you little yellow people look alike to me, and African Americans"
"You can do the broadcasting so I can get my brains banged out by Mr. Sakata..."
"Mr. Sakata's banging the living fuck out of Ms. Matsushima!"
"Sorry, but this number is not in service, hey! Maybe if they paid their fucking phone bill you could call again!"
"Get yo crackhead ass into ... some rehab, I don't got time for this bullshit!"
"Watch out! Stupid Jew!"

This is every single episode

Gakkou no Kaidan is a very hilarious anime. I had the pleasure of watching it dubbed and the comedy is in it is excellent, for me it is the best part, and what made this anime such a pleasure to watch. It is full of pop culture references and one liners, making nods to every thing from politics to celebrities.

As far as story goes, it doesn't change past, the kids encounter a ghost, and fight it off, but even with its static story, it remains entertaining and never becomes dull.

The character development also remains static, none of the characters really venture past the stereotypes that ... were created for them, however they are still compelling nonetheless.

I recommend it to anyone who enjoys black comedy mixed with supernatural and mild horror.

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.
I ... checked 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.

This is simply an amazing anime, ahaha. I cannot help but laugh at every joke, every poke on this anime as I watch it. You can tell it didn't even try to go after it's original script, but that was the beauty of it, they made something boring into a comedy.

If you have a sense of humor, just watch it, you won't be disappointed. Just, the whole anime just makes you laugh as a whole and if you are watching it to be a serious dub? Then don't bother, it's not something most people would even watch. If you ... are going to watch the sub, I guess you'd have a boring show? Other than that, watch it knowing that no one took it seriously.

Story: 8
Art: 6
Sound: 7
Characters: 7
Enjoyment: 8
Overall: 8

This is a review of a sub. The hate that the Sub gets is not justified in the slightest. I've seen some dreadful bad animes and the people pretending that this is one of them are lying to themselves and others.

This show specifically the first few episodes in particular have a very slow and mediocre start i'll admit that but a lot of animes do especially those around this era.
...
The show is about a group of friends who go around getting caught up in a lot of serious paranormal situations usually involving ghosts or demons (mostly ghosts) and how to put the ghost or demon to sleep. I don't plan on making this a super in depth review because I feel like that would bring out some spoilers but please don't disregard the sub because people have said its bad. They're really not being fair.

The Dub I hear is compared a lot to "Abdridged" series of animes on youtube. DBZ Abridged and the like. Personally I don't find those to be funny at all they're not my type of humor and the voice acting I always find to be really annoying and untalented (No offense) but if that's what the dub is being compared to i'm not interested in some comedic take of this anime especially when this show is serious its at its best.

The ADV English Dub of Ghost Stories exists as an interesting experiment: an official abridged version that has transformed an otherwise pretty poor kid's show into an amusing series for adults. With that said, there's some issues that prevent Ghost Stories from reaching comedic glory. For one, there's often no getting away from the original's badness. By the end of the series, a few of the episodes blur together either by being pretty forgettable, similar to each other, or just downright confusing. The dub often points this out and while it can hit the nail on the head, here's the other issue and it's a ... pretty key one: the dub just isn't always great.

It's a shame really because you can tell the cast is having fun (most of the time) with ripping the material a new one but certain things could have been revised. Oftentimes the actors will just speak phrases in random languages or spout plain nonsense. There's plenty of fourth-wall breaking and tons of Western references too. At times, especially early on in the series, these work wonderfully and will no doubt tickle the viewer. Same with some of the blunt lines with characters insulting each other or casually confessing dirty secrets. As the show progresses all of this can get very repetitive and tiresome, feeling as if the dub studio were running out of ideas and just wanted to get through it. And I guess that's part of the joke; hell, they even outright say it at certain points. But if that was the case then perhaps they should have only dubbed half of the episodes. Perhaps it just isn't the kind of material that anyone can successfully rip off of for a full 20 episode run (and yes, contrary to MAL's info, there are 20 episodes).

Still, with all of that said the series was pretty enjoyable overall. Certain episodes had fun little plots with some hilarious lines; the newly added characters (like Momoko's born-again preachy Christian with a history of drug addiction) are oddly endearing and props in particular to Rob Mungle for the voice of Amanojaku who is at once funny, charming, and awesome, capturing a sleek 'I'm cooler than you' attitude whilst still having you want to pat him on the head.

So, should you watch Ghost Stories? Yes definitely. English Dub. Admittedly, some episodes are completely forgettable whilst others are frustrating. A full marathon is not advised as the recurring material will become more obvious and quickly tire you. However, in bitesize chunks I wholly recommend getting through this series. The first ten or so episodes in particular are very funny and the kind of entertainment you can gather even non-anime fans around to watch for a fun night-in. The studio may have missed their mark at times but it's clear they tried their damnedest with some poor material and may Amanojaku bless them for it.

Such an amazingly funny anime. This show is like family guy, but 10x more offensive. Most of the comedy in this anime is spontaneous, but there's some pretty funny well thought out jokes throughout it. If you read some back story on this anime the voice actors were given permission to pretty much say whatever they wanted as long as they stayed on track with a story. As the show progresses the voice actors pretty much just go **** it and say whatever they want no matter how offensive (i mean that in that best way possible rofl). Anyway, not usually into comedic anime, but ... this one was simply the funniest **** ever. 11/10 would watch Reo rub his mom's nipples.

The dubbed English version is vastly superior to the original Japanese version. Even if you don't like the over-the-top humor, it's far better than the terrible original. The only good thing that I can say about the original is that its awfulness allowed the English dub to come into existence.

The rating's I've given are for the English dub. Ratings for the Japanese original would have been abysmal. Pretty much every aspect of the series improved with the English dub. The stories, characters and enjoyment skyrocketed in interest and engagement a result.

It's crazy, but it great fun. If you need a laugh, try an episode.

Ok so first of all, DO NOT WATCH the Subbed version of this anime series. Now its very rare that a DUBBED anime is better than the Subbed but in this case watch the Dub. The company that obtained the rights to 'Dub' this series essentially allowed the cast to say/ write whatever they wanted. If you enjoyed abridged series such as Team Four Star ect. then you will love the dub for this series as it essence it becomes a comedy dub. Apart from the actual dub aspect I personally wouldn't even bother watching the show. I mean the anime is older from the ... early 2000 and the story isn't gripping, i mean the audio is good and the characters i mean are at least some what explored.

"Now I know it will never work between us. And it's not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black."
Ghost Stories will go down as the greatest anime dub of all time. The dub is great, and not because the voices are speculator or anything, but due to the dub turning a supposedly garbage anime into a great one. For those who don't know, Ghost Stories is a horror mystery anime that bombed in Japan due to how bad it was. For some reason, ADV got the rights to it and gave absolutely no shits when dubbing it. Supposedly the only things they weren't allowed ... to change were the character's names and how the ghost were defeated in every episode. All of the names are the same, but there are a few episodes where they break the second rule which is completely fine by me. In one of the last episodes they defeat a ghost by telling it not to eat the yellow snow which is perfect.

Story: 3
By far the worst part of Ghost Stories would be its story. Every episode is episodic and sticks to the same generic formula. The cast is dicking around, they find out a ghost is causing trouble, and they stop it. It gets really old really quick. None of it is scary and it just gets boring most of the time. We all know no one is going to die, nothing is going to change, it just sucks. Not even the dub could save the shitty story.

Art: 6
From what I've heard, Studio Pierrot put a lot of money into this show and its not that good looking of a show. It doesn't look like shit, it looks fine. There are some good looking scenes but most of the time it just looks fine. Character designs aren't really good, especially Leo, no idea why his lips aren't like that, and I'm also more surprised that the dub never made a joke about it.

Sound: 8
Kind of hard to score the sound. The soundtrack itself is whatever. It's always over-exaggerated a lot but sometimes it could be so bad that its funny. The OP Grow Up I actually enjoy and I love the ED Sexy Sexy even if it has no reason to be in a kids show.
The voices however, are perfect. Voice acting is good, but of course the dialogue is fantastic.

Characters: 9
The characters in Ghost Stories are great. Satsuki is a bitch and hates her brother. My personal favorite, Hajime, is a perverted piece of shit, Momoko is a full on Christian, Keiichirou is retarded, and Reo is Jewish. It's a great cast of characters and the series shines the brightest when all of them are together talking about the dumbest shit imaginable.
On a short serious note, I realized that the dub may have actually added a bit of character development to the character Momoko. In the dub the only thing she cares about is being a Christian and spreading the word of God. However, midway through the series, its revealed that she used to be a stripper, and was addicted to drugs. She changed her ways in rehab and transformed into a Christian. I know its really stupid and the writers or Monica probably had no intention of doing this but its still notable.

Enjoyment: 8
Ghost Stories used to be in my top 15 anime of all time, however while rewatching it I enjoyed it considerably less. Sure it can be hilarious during a handful of episodes but during most of it I'd say it's above average in terms of comedy. The jokes aren't even clever most of the time. It's just funny hearing a bunch of little kids talking about fucking midgets, spreading the word of God, etc. My problem during a second viewing would have to be consistency. The first 2 episodes aren't great, they have their moments, but they're nothing amazing. Episodes 3-11 are great, 12-16 aren't good, but the last 4 episodes get great again. A lot of the jokes in episodes 12-16 were either just repeated jokes that were used before that just got old, or they weren't nearly as many jokes in the episodes at all. Don't know if the cast didn't get enough beer that day or what but it's definitely noticeable.

Overall: 8
Despite enjoying it a lot less a second time around, I still really really like Ghost Stories. It may be inconsistent with its episodes, the jokes may get stale, the story sucks, but fuck it.
If you haven't already, Ghost Stories is an absolute must watch for everyone.
Also, Drop the Crispy Cremes Serpico.

[this is about the dub because who actually gives a fuck about the sub in this situation]

This anime is probably a once in a lifetime show. You could not get the possibilty of having a show with the most polarizing writing now in any capacity without it being on YouTube as an abridged series. Because that's basically what this is, an official abridged dub.

Story: 6/10
It's just fuckin Scooby-Doo but anime and Scooby-Doo is good on its own. Really can't say anything else about it other than there basically is no story in the dub.

Art: 3/10
The animation for the most part is passable but you get ... a lot of errors, weird animation and also terrible drawings. If you took a shot for each time you noticed some bad animation throughout the whole series you'd probably be dead by episode 5. The backgrounds are also fine but you really can't really fuck up backgrounds more than animation, if you can then what a feat.

Sound: 5/10
The soundtrack might as well be non-existant with there only being like 3 or 4 tracks they use throughout the show, the sound mixing and design were pretty passable even if they got quite a few stock sound effects snuck in. Nothing to write home about though overall.

Characters: 10/10
Now here's the fun stuff. You could legit consider the characters are basically the VAs just dicking about and telling jokes when you realise the fact that a lot of the script was just improvised jokes from the cast and crew. And that fact only reinforces the chemistry on display from the actors and their conversations in the show. It's all just so raw and unfiltered that it feels so real even if they had to at the very least guide the plot in the right direction to appease the studio's demands.

Enjoyment: 10/10
Overall an incredible, literal lightning in a bottle experience that you will not find in any other official anime dub anytime soon. I will never understand how the studio that licensed the show to ADV just gave them that much creative freedom with it, even with the jokes mocking the poor animation and plot. You could tell me this was an abridged dub by a group of friends that was published to YouTube and I would believe you but the fact that the story of how this dub came to fruition was real makes it so much better. For the love of god, please watch this dub before you die, because even if it's not for everyone, it is a landmark of when studios just don't care.