Corpse Party: Tortured Souls - Bougyakusareta Tamashii no Jukyou

Hello. Well this was probably the most disturbing thing I have ever seen in my life. Not only is this the most disturbing animated series I have ever watched, it is the most disturbing fiction work I have had the pleasure of experiencing.

This is one of those series that makes you cringe but you still love it because it takes you on a well written story. Where as this is still not my favorite horror anime, I still think that it did an amazing job with what little time it had. It had a story and a conclusion and we were not left with a ... cliffhanger like Umineko left us with. But what I really want to emphasis on is the fact that series fit everything into 4, half-hour long episodes. This is amazing for that small length of time.

I also want to bring in the concept of how good the disturbing art was. The art in this series did such a good job at making the art disturbing and grotesque that I almost vomited a couple times throughout the series. I did notice some similarities between this and the Team Silent Silent Hill game's art, what with blood coming down the walls and bodies everywhere, and that was generally a good choice, just to make the series that little bit more disturbing.

The opening theme was pretty good and most of the background sound, or even the lack of sound at points was a good choice for the series. You can really see the inspiration from Akira Yamaoka within the soundtrack and I thought that it was genuinely a good choice to go that way for a horror series.

The place where this series is a bit lacking is the unoriginal cast of characters. Though, to be fair, it is harder to create a cast of characters within this genre of horror that is original while also keeping it in a more modern time line, you could of done better than taking the generic cast of highschool students (2 possible lesbians, 1 guy with glasses, 1 hopelessly brave guy, the little sister, the occult freak, and the guy with no defining features what so ever, otherwise know as the boring guy). But the character of Sachiko was pretty original. Half of the things that happened with this character I didn't see coming and I just love her voice actress.

But for my overall enjoyment. I really enjoyed this series. it was a very genuinely well made horror series that kind of goes away from the norm. I do genuinely believe that there aren't many series that pulled off this sort of thing nearly as well, and definitely not in the same time frame as Corpse Party.

Watching Corpse Party is literally like watching a horror movie. There you are, trapped. Can't even shout, can't even cry, the dangers are coming by. When you realize that death is coming before you, screams are shouted out but you won't be heard. But that's just the beginning. For once you're trapped, Corpse Party will take you to a place where your life will never ever be the same again. (that is if and only if you escape alive)

Corpse Party: Tortured Souls - Bougyakusareta Tamashii no Jukyou (or simply known as Corpse Party: Tortured Souls) is a series of four OVA episodes. The animation is ... based off the game and chronicles the events in which a group of young students tells ghost stories at a school known Kisaragi Academy. However, they soon become haunted by the ghosts themselves after the earth shaken and sucks them deep down into the abyss....of the once existent school known as Heavenly Host Elementary School.

As this is a horror theme series, expect dark themes such as blood, gore, and death. I'll just throw a warning sign right now that if you can't take the first episode (or rather the first 20 minutes), then you might not have enough stomach to make it. I'll just say this as bluntly as I can:

This series is about watching kids getting murdered. Got it? Good.

There is a sense of hopelessness in Corpse Party. Because the characters are trapped in this new environment of darkness, they struggle to survive both physically and mentally. The taunting scenes of blood and body parts carves a haunting memory into the characters. In particular, the first episode sets up a graphic premise for a particular girl named Naomi after she witnesses a gruesome death of her friend. It is from there on that we immediately take notice just the grievous situation our characters are in. The deaths and tortures are real and there's no turning back. Rather than a ghost story, this might be the final chapter for our characters' lives. Corpse Party paints such dark themes as the way it conveys itself from the premise.

Happiness though? Honestly, there's none of that anymore. The joy and smiles from the faces of our main characters are wiped forever so don't expect any happy scenes in this episodes. What's more taunting deals with the fact that a few bonding scenes between certain characters are lived out so damn short. It really creates a sense of hopelessness and despair, more fueled so by the way the characters die off so tragically. As the group of students are separated into closed spaces of the alternate dimension, there's little hope of working together to escape. They are literally trapped rats. The souls are the predator and the kids are the prey.

Corpse Party also has a sense of mystery in its atmosphere. The mystery part comes from the Heavenly Host Elementary School where years ago, several staff members and students mysteriously vanished following murders and strange instances. It just happens that deja vu happens again and the murders are reanimated. The mystery aspect can be comparable to Another, Higurashi, and other series involving mysterious murders. The murders themselves are also quite graphic so be wary of gore and violence.

Character wise, the series is only condensed into two hours with these four episodes combined. Hence, don't expect everything to be adapted from the game. Because of that time length issue, most characters only gets some moments; some with drastic exits. The characters themselves tries to figure out not only how to escape but also of the history on what happened previously in the past. This specifically involves the origins of the Heavenly Host Elementary School and the murdered students. It is essential to unlock its mysteries (I guess similar to the game as well) because it will also allow the students to escape. More importantly though, it will also allow them to understand exactly why they were trapped in the first place.

Unfortunately, this series tries a way too hard especially in the violence department. It wastes no time with the blood and violent moments involving various weapons of torture. The taunting screams echoing throughout the school is also too old fashioned. Story wise, it's also quite confusing. Perhaps the length might be the issue here. In short, too many questions with not many clues to go on at first. More frustrating enough is the confusion on who is friend or foe. Plus, let's not also forget the fact that the violence itself serves more as a way to cover up the more exciting mystery aspect of the series. It literally kills any way for viewers to enjoy this series in formulating theories. Most of the time, you'll be watching kids running for their lives against fate even though everything seems to be hopeless. Oh and the supernatural part....kids murdering kids inside a school, ah the irony.

In terms of artwork, I do admit that the series conveys the atmosphere quite well with the gruesome violence. Characters are simple but to the point with nothing too flashy. The murdered kids from years ago all give off a creepy atmosphere by their disfigured faces. Then, there's the school itself or rather more specifically the Heavenly Host Elementary School. The structure of the school is designed to look old, haunted, and creepy. It hardly looks any realistic but definitely fits within the Corpse Party theme.

As soundtrack goes, expect some high standards. What I mean is the quality of the OST as it is strong enough to create a sense of fear for both the characters and maybe even for you, the viewers. The way it is orchestrated is thrilling with tearing vibrations. I have not played the game before but from my understanding, there's some of that original feeling from the game we get into this series. The OP and ED song are also strengths of this series that marks both the beginning and end of each episode. The voice acting is decent to convey the way the characters react to situations with their loud screaming. Their new-found situation has the characters scream at the top of their lungs and the voice actors/actresses does a well job at that. In particular, I find Kitamura Eri and Nakamura Yuuichi's performance to be quite well done.

So ultimately, I think a score of '6' is justifiable for Corpse Party. Oh I'd love to flip that number upside down but the lack of a decent story and destruction of a calm ending makes this a bit frustrating to watch all the way through. Oh and the violence serves as just pure shock value than anything taken for granted. It's also hard to understand certain situations at many stances because you might be more taken in more by the OST and violence than anything else. It's a ghost story gone wrong but I do have to admit that the premise is set up well. The concept's execution is quite gruesome so this might be something you'd watch on some weekend night with your friend while hunting down a scary movie to watch. Rather watching a horror movie like The Grudge, Corpse Party could be the alternative. For me though, this series was crafted out of violence, screaming, torture, and souls. Oh and do yourself a favor:

Don't watch this before you go to sleep. Seriously, don't.

Well...this definitely tortured my soul. "Was it because it was scary?" You might ask. The answer is no. It was simply...mind numbingly stupid. And incomprehensibly bloody. Corpse party is an opera of gore which not only fails as an anime, but also fails on every fundamental level of the horror genre.

Plot: 2/10

The story begins with a group of people in a classroom performing a ritual of some sort. They suddenly and inexplicably get transported into another dimension full of other students who are getting killed by these mysterious ghosts as well as each other. While this may seem interesting enough (to those with twisted minds ... who enjoy watching miserable characters suffer immense pain and anguish), one must keep in mind that the producers tried to fit a ton of material into just four episodes. This resulted in Corpse Party being incredibly rushed and full of plot holes. Many things were left unexplained and the anime just felt unfulfilling. Nothing much happened in this show besides tons of mindless killing. The only thing that somewhat redeemed the plot revolved around a little ghost girl and why she dragged these kids into her twisted dimension, though even that was too insignificant to salvage this train wreck.

Characters: 1/10

This might be where the anime failed the hardest. Throughout the entire show all of the characters just mindlessly killed each other or suddenly became absolutely hysterical. Most didn't even bother trying to escape the alternate reality that they were trapped in and were just like "lol, I'm gonna die here anyway, so might as well brutally massacre the other student trapped here with me!" The cast were generally aggravating to watch and the majority of their decisions were nonsensical. The most interesting character was the ghost girl, because the writers at least seemed to try to give her some development, but it still wasn't enough to make me care in the slightest. I also couldn't tell you the name of a single character from this show. They're just that forgettable.

Art: 4/10

The visuals are pretty average. I thought that the characters looked quite bland and it was always too dark to actually make out the features of the scenery and characters anyway. Then there's the gore, which always came in unrealistic amounts at a time, making moments that were supposed to be horrifying seem almost comical.

Sound: 7/10

I will say that I thought the opening theme was a nice sounding composition. Plus I have no complaints about the soundtrack, which worked efficiently in some situations and gave the show more of an edge. Also the screams sounded painful/hysterical enough to be believable and the maniacal laughs were good. At least the voice actors tried to get the audience to care. The producers should have followed their example.

Enjoyment: 2/10

I was cringing while watching this. Once again I must say that it wasn't because it was "scary"; it was just bad. I really couldn't invest myself in this anime due to it's atrocious story telling techniques. The one good thing about the anime being only four episodes was that I was able to finish it rather quickly.

Overall: 2/10

In conclusion, Corpse Party was just horrendous. I watched it hoping for a horror anime on par with the likes of Higurashi. Instead I got a rushed and poorly designed show that I'm simply better off forgetting. I'd suggest Corpse Party to those interested in media focused on horror and gore (though don't expect much). Otherwise, it'd be best to avoid this anime.

Naming an anime "Corpse Party: Tortured Souls" is like making a promise to the viewer that you're going to deliver with exactly that. It's easy enough to expect the opposite; after all, for some reason a lot of would-be horrifying, gory anime are hit with the unfortunate black bars of censorship, or the convenient off-screen carnage of PG-13 justice, or otherwise just have a mechanism to protect your eyes from seeing violence, even if violence is the reason you're there. Sometimes the Blu-ray edition arrives months later to fix that, and sometimes it just remained unfixed, forever covered in a shining white light across the ... screen where entrails should've been visible. In the case of "Corpse Party: Tortured Souls", the title alone brazenly declares that it has torture, corpses, spirits of the dead, and raves. It's practically OBLIGATED to be a gruesome splatterfest, PG-13 be damned.

At first glance, though, it might seem like the odds are against that. There are primarily three sorts of people who would watch this anime: unassuming strangers who want to see high school students get abused by ghosts, unassuming strangers who are squeamish to blood and don't yet know that this anime will feature high school students getting abused by ghosts, and fans of the video game it adapts who want to see their favorite high school students get abused by ghosts, this time animated. However, said source material, Corpse Party (...Blood Covered: Repeated Fear) is a handheld video game that's developed by a rather small studio. So visually, what it can show is inherently limited to pixelated guts and the occasional artist CG. To amend this, the game mainly relies on its excellent audio and writing to convey its horrors. In many ways, reading a lengthy description of a torture scene, alongside the horrifyingly realistic screams of the talented voice cast, is a lot more effective than flatly 'showing' what takes place. To add to that, "Tortured Souls" is actually the second OVA based on the franchise, the first one, "Missing Footage", being more of a trailer. Despite being an OVA and therefore being more immune to censorship than television broadcast series, Missing Footage ended up being censored all the same.

So, taking into account the style of horror displayed in the source material, which is unsuitable to be imitated properly in an animated adaptation, and Missing Footage being an unfortunate display of censorship, there should be no reason to assume Tortured Souls will fully live up to its title. There shouldn't be, and yet, well...

...Corpse Party: Tortured Souls ended up being, quite simply, a slasher film in animated format.

Does it live up to its title? It damn well surpasses the title, as it's not called "Corpse Party: Tortured Souls: Eyeballs Being Skewered by Goddamn Scissors: Now With 50% Less Innards". Basically, they did not hold back. The very concept of "holding back" was brutalized as much as the show's main cast. The result is nothing short of a 2 hour guro display of high school students being violently executed, fitting squarely into the genre of "Slicing of Lives". No censorship whatsoever; no hopes or dreams, either.

Without a doubt, the brutality and even the plot-induced psychological despair deserve some respect for how unadulterated they are. Of course, like quite a few other Japanese horrors, it relies on vaguely sexual gore and excessive violence more so than the "don't look behind your back!" sort of subtle scares (or God forbid jump scares), accomplishing a result that's more 'disturbing' than 'scary', but it executes the former absolutely splendidly while still retaining aspects of the latter. And yet unfortunately, there's still something besides that to be desired, something that's perhaps only noticeable while having the source material as a point of comparison. The more 'refined' elements, the ones that aren't judged by the amount of spleens visible to the naked eye; that is, the characters themselves, and to a lesser extent the plot in general.

Alongside its more subtle direction of horror, the main protagonists in the video game were more than just slaughter material for the villains. In classic utsuge fashion, all the characters that end up dying horribly are to varying degrees likable, given background, motivations, something to make you care for them. Unsurprisingly, though, Tortured Souls ended up suffering from the bane of many, many video-game-to-anime adaptations: time constraints. Jamming lengthy stories into 12 episodes- or in this case, only 4. The characters have been reduced to the absolute basics of what their personalities should consist of. However, unlike most cases, there was a way to make the best out of this predicament, and that was intentionally shifting the focus from the characters to the beheading thereof. It took a more "western" approach to horror, one that doesn't try to make the viewer particularly empathic or attached to the characters, essentially amplifying the raw horror and gore aspects at the cost of the emotional and heartbreaking ones. To this end, the characters were more than just "reduced to their basics", and some of them were altered to act in a stranger way as part of the process of shocking the audience- for instance, altering one of the characters' deaths from a suicide to an armed fit of madness, in the process getting quickly killed by another character.

On the storyline front, the premise is as simple as always. A bunch of teenagers and a teacher accidentally perform a ritual that transports them to the cursed Heavenly Ho- I mean, Tenjin Elementary School, in which dying means experience the pain of your death for all eternity as a soul (a 'tortured soul', if you will). While the plot unsurprisingly progresses a lot quicker than usual and several minor and major plot points are different, none of this is exactly noticeable without being familiar with the source material- which begs the question, does it really matter? All things considered, the result in question is by no means bad. Shallow, arguably, and perhaps even disappointing in some aspects. But 'bad' would be far too much of a stretch. Looking at the production values, most everything is pretty good- sure enough, the animation for most 'normal' scenes isn't the best Studio Asread has produced, especially considering that this is an OVA and not a television broadcast, but the, uh, 'raunchier' scenes are done well and are pleasing to the eyes. In as much as decapitation is capable of being "pleasing to the eyes".

And as the "Party" in the title promises, the soundtrack is great, albeit primarily recycled from the game. The voice cast is terrific, featuring good ol' Pikachu as the main antagonist, and A Certain strangely familiar scientific pairing among the main protagonists. The opening song performed by resident cast member Asami Imai is likewise superb, and the cast's performances are enough to make all the gory scenes disturbing even with the screen turned off. All in all, the audio is very splendidly done.

And so, the main drawback lies with the characters. Even while being a stranger to the franchise, it's easy enough to see that neither the protagonists nor the antagonists are particularly deeply thought out, to the point where it's hard to see them as being a lot more than a hunter and its prey, both serving as the 'trigger' for the violence to occur. But had I been a stranger to the franchise, I would've by no means expected anything really beyond that from something titled "Corpse Party". Considering this and the dramatically different ending, the best way to enjoy Tortured Souls would be to treat it as a standalone creation. This way, Corpse Party: Tortured Souls is a very welcome addition to horror anime, and makes for a great anti-censorship statement, and an example to be followed.


On the other hand, if you find the notion of panty shots flashing directly before the violent mutilation of a schoolgirl to be disagreeable, consider not watching Corpse Party: Tortured Souls, as Corpse Party: Tortured Souls is very, very disagreeable.

This is my first ever review so please bare with me. And i apologize in advance for the mistakes ill make.


Corpse Party: Tortured souls blew my mind, It was absolutely disturbing to the point that it just made me sick to my stomach and this is coming from someone who enjoys watching horror/gore animes but even though it was disturbing i really did enjoy it.

Although the plot was your typical ''Students trapped into an creepy building'' kind of plot i still enjoyed it and after it ended it left me craving for more.

The blood coming out of the walls, Organs splashing everywhere.. God ... it was so amazing. The graphics were just so outstanding also the main reason why i kept watching. Yes it was disturbing and yes i had moments where i wanted to put down my laptop and run to the toilet to vomit.. But i just couldn't stop watching and when i can't stop watching something you know you've created an masterpiece

Usually when i watch an anime i always skip the opening theme but i kept the opening theme of this anime playing which automatically means i like it so that was done pretty well.

I'm kind of disapointed that the characters weren't original because in every ''Students trapped into an creepy building'' story you have the type of characters this anime had and i wish could see the characters develop but then again what do you expect in an 4, half- hour long episodes.

I liked the way it ended i'm glad it didn't end in an cliffhanger though of course i wish they made more episodes but it's understandable considering these ova's were created to attract more people to play the corpse party videogame

I give this series overall an 8 i would have given it an 10 if it wasn't for the way the characters were portrayed and if it wasn't for such an overused plot.

Overall i really enjoyed this series and i recommend it if you like gore/horror and have an strong stomach!

So I decided to watch Corpse Party because of the intriguing name and of the things I'd heard about it. ("It's so disturbing!")
I wasn't exactly disappointed... I just have high standards. I'm extremely critical of the horror genre because I am not easily scared and they usually lack a good story, which is most important to me.


Story:
It was better than I thought it would be. I honestly expected a half-assed ending with no real conclusion and tons of plot holes. But it was actually pretty good. The explanations for the events in the story were interesting and made decent sense. But that only came ... into play in the last episode. The first 3 episodes just weren't that original because the overall idea isn't that original. (Kids trapped in a creepy Elementary school?) I'm glad I decided to push through to the ending, though.

Art:
Eh, it was your average anime style. It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't amazing either. The only prominent part of the art was the massive amounts of gore.

Sound:
Pretty good. I liked the opening song a lot and the soundtrack really set the mood.

Character:
They did a good job of introducing the characters in such a short amount of time. I became pretty attached to some of them after just 2 episodes. (I don't recommend doing that, though, haha.) The characters were all pretty different so you got to see different reactions to the horror which was good. My favorites were Satoshi, Ayumi, and Seiko.

Enjoyment/Scare Factor:
To me, this anime wasn't really scary, per say. It was most just nasty. I wouldn't even say that it was disturbing: to me, I've heard of waaaay more disturbing horror premises. But I have to say, the guts and gore in this anime were on point. I felt kinda nauseous throughout watching it just because... can anyone die a peaceful death? Nope. If you're into that, then you'll love this anime. The selling point is its massive amounts of spurting blood. There are some pretty creative deaths!

I'm going to give this a 7 overall because I got through it and the ending was pretty damn good. The first three episodes are kinda slow, but it's worth it in the end. And if you're easily scared, than they probably wouldn't be that slow, haha. I'd say the anime is a lot scarier than the game just because of obvious reasons (the game is literally pixels). And did they hire the same VA's as the game? If not, they were extremely similar which was cool!

To sum it up: watch this if you love blood and like a good ending.

It may seem weird that the my overall score is lower than every other number on there, but the problem is that while Corpse Party satisfies the requirements of every technical aspect, what it lacks, utterly, is delivery.

I don't know why they decided to make it 4 episodes long (5 including the OVA, which is actually quite important and a lot more well done than the rest of the series) when it could have easily been a standard 12/13 long one. And, to be honest, probably the only reason I enjoyed at all is because I had already played the game. Otherwise, it would have ... been a lot of general confusion on my part. What baffles me even more is why they add so many unnecessary subplot devices, when they are already evidently having a tough time packing in all this exposition into 80 minutes. And it IS evident, to anybody. The plotline, while in itself is satisfactory, is rushed through so spectacularly that you hardly have time to think about it. There is a fine line between fast-paced and thrilling, and outright hasty.

But, obviously, the directors did not care about that, since they were so solely focused on the shock value. Every character death is done as gorily as they can, and then put out of the minds of the viewer swiftly so they can follow with another. But, here's the crunch, why should we care about the characters' deaths if we do not care about the character in the first place? In between cramping in storyline, and shoehorning as much blood as they can, there is no time to allow the characters to show any real relatable or likeable qualities, at least not enough to make the viewer give a damn. Safe for clumsily laying down a useless internal love struggle, the directors put minimal effort into shaping the characters.

I don't know what target audience this anime is meant to serve – those who haven't played the game will hardly be able to catch anything going on long enough to peak much interest, whereas those who have, have already experienced much more through the game than this series could offer, although they might get a kick out of the shock factor since they have already come to know and love the characters.

In conclusion, to those who did not play the game, I can't recommend it at all, unless you simply want to watch innards fly with zero emotional attachment. And to those who have played, only if you have absolutely nothing else to do.

I'll try to tell you why this isn't worth of your time without writing unecessary things or trying to sound cool like so many reviewers do.

Bear in mind that I have not played the games this OVA is based on.

This is as generic as generic gets.
It fails to deliver anything (except boredom) and it tries to cope with its flaws by adding unecessary elements to it - examples being:

Cheap ''sad'' scenes
Even more blood than is necessary (it just gets silly at a certain point)

... Now - is it bad to have a lot of blood and gore when it comes to horror/gore/slasher media?
Absolutely not, if there is a point behind it.

There isn't one here. They just keep adding it for the sake of shock, but said shock loses its meaning quite fast (I already wasn't surprised with it on the very 1st episode).

The art used for the environments is okayish but the characters look generic. They are different from one another yet they still resemble one another in many ways. The bland faces just make it hard to care for them.

The voice actors don't seem to have put a lot of effort into what they were doing, I could not feel any empathy towards their cries. In fact, there was a point at which they just became very annoying to listen to.

The OP/ED are forgettable and I just endured through them because, well, this is only 4 episodes anyway.

There, I tried to be as objective as possible. If all of that isn't enough as a warning to try to prevent you from wasting your time with this OVA, then the last thing I can say is that this is the first time I have watched such a short anime (OVA) which made me feel so annoyed.

I felt annoyed because I just wanted it to end.

In fact, this is the first review I have ever written, and I did not want it to be for this OVA, but I just couldn't let other people waste their times with this.... thing.

Welcome, my Beauties, to the first review of horror anime month. Last year, one of the things I looked at was Corpse Party: Missing Footage, a short OVA about a bunch of one-dimensional characters being dull. We saw a bit of blood and carved up children at the beginning, but nothing else to connect it to horror. This year, I'm going to look at the follow up that, supposedly, moves into straight up horror. Corpse Party: Tortured Souls.

Story:

A group of eight kids is staying at school late after an event and telling ghost stories. Before leaving they, along with their teacher, decide to do a ... charm that will supposedly make them stay friends forever. This naturally results in them being separated & transported into a dilapidated school where blood and gore are everywhere. Now, they have to find a way to rendezvous and escape before a group of vengeful spirits can add their bodies to the décor.

In theory, this is a good premise for a horror piece. It's relatable with characters who are separated through no fault of their own as opposed to the old cliché of them just splitting up because they lack sense. It could also give the audience a real air of mystery and intrigue. In theory, this is a great set up. But this is reality and theory only gets you so far. With that in mind, let's discuss the execution, shall we?

Any potential this OVA may have had for horror is quickly ruined by the execution. It's over the top, ridiculous and very similar to a Hollywood B-movie. As a result, the scares end up being a bit humorous and not even remotely frightening. The pacing is also an issue. The OVA skips over a lot of plot details, I'm guessing because the game is longer. Even with that in mind, this has the unfortunate consequence of making several plot details come across as vague and poorly explicated upon. It doesn't help that the narrative itself is uninspired and trite.

Characters:

When I reviewed Missing Footage, I talked about seeing snippets of the everyday lives of a bunch of bland non-characters. But that was barely over ten minutes long. Surely, an OVA that runs for nearly two hours total would have to have better developed characters, right? If you answered in the affirmative, prepare for disappointment. The cast remains a group of caricatures of stilted stereotypes with no chance of connecting with any of them because they barely resemble a representation of human behaviour.

The worst is definitely Yuka. She's a middle school kid who acts like she's four, right down to asking her brother to take her to the potty while doing a stereotypical pee pee dance, and it's excessively annoying. Compounding the annoyance factor is that all of the other characters treat her like she's perfectly normal. Because telling your older sibling that you have to potty is totally an age appropriate thing for someone who's fourteen. It doesn't help that these people are all really stupid and inept. There's also a plot element where, and this is a minor spoiler, the distorted space where they're sent causes people to lose their minds and go psychotic. But there's no consistency since we only see shades of it with a few characters and the rest seem to be immune for some reason. Maybe the game explains it, but in the OVA it makes no sense.

Art:

The character designs and such are really generic but what I really want to focus on, in this case, are the horror elements. Mainly because they are really funny and I'm not sure how Asread looked over what they'd done and thought it would be horrific. There's a black shadowy monster that looks incredibly silly and instantly ruins any sense of tension when you see its face in the first episode and inevitably burst out laughing. There's another monster based on an anatomical model that's similarly goofy looking and just makes you laugh when you see him. This is supposed to be legitimate horror and not a parody, right?

Then we have the gory scenes, and there are quite a few. I'll admit, that I'm the type of person who can get really grossed out by gore, particularly when it's realistic. In this, the gore is so overblown that it quickly loses any impact. The death scenes are another big failure on Asread's part. They're so over the top and ridiculous that they end up having no impact or being unintentionally funny. I should not be laughing this often when a series is actively trying to scare me. There's also the issue with class, or lack thereof in this case. There are several unintentionally funny scenes that decide it's a great idea to give the audience a shot of a female character's knickers, usually when she's being menaced by something or murdered. And that's just in bad taste, Corpse Party. It would seriously undermine the gravity of these scenes if they weren't already unintentionally funny.

Sound:

The vocal performances in this are really over the top and there's a lot of over-acting. It adds nicely to the B-movie aesthetic that the OVA has going for it. Except that the series is trying to be taken seriously so it comes across as pretty damn incompetent. To be fair to the actors, they really have nothing to work with, given how underwritten their characters are. The music is passable, if a bit underwhelming.

Ho-yay:

One of the girls is pretty heavily implied to be the caricature of the stereotypical schoolgirl lesbian. She even gets to share a moment with her equally uninteresting friend in the infirmary. But the impact is diminished by them talking about her friend's male love interest.

Final Thoughts:

As a horror piece, Corpse Party: Tortured Souls is pretty abysmal. Its attempts at being scary are met with laughter or indifference, the characters are absolute garbage and you aren't going to care what becomes of them, the performances are over the top and the art does not keep it classy. That being said, I do kind of recommend watching it. While it fails at what it's trying to do, it does it in such an absurd way that it's kind of amazing. It comes across more as a parody than a legitimate horror piece and, as a parody, it kind of works. If you've got a macabre sense of humour, this might just be what you're looking for. Still, I have to give it a 2/10 for its many, many, major failings as a horror piece. Next week I'll continue the month with Night Walker: Mayonaka no Tantei.

Easily one of the goriest and most viscerally enjoyable show I’ve ever watched.

The Short Version:
(+)The soundtrack layers fear upon you.
(+)The art is pretty good.
(-)None of the characters are memorable.
(-)The violence is a bit stomach turning.

The Story (5/10): The story behind this show is, when you actually pay attention, very confusing. A bunch of kids try out a school urban legends and call forth a wicked spirit, which in turn transports them to a different dimension filled with ghosts wanting to kill them… Or you could just expect a standard gorno horror flick and take bets on whose going to die first. The ending of the ... anime is predictable and left me a little bit angry, I won’t say why because of spoilers, but I wasn’t very happy. The ending is predictable and isn’t really great in any way. That and I’d didn’t really like what happened before the final credits rolled.

The Characters (4/10): I’d normally list off the main characters and give a quick description of each to give you a general idea of the character themselves, but it’s really not worth it with this show because most of the cast are here to die and that’s it. The important characters are the ones doing the killing, because behind them is the entire mystery of what exactly happened in the school this show takes place in. I’ll say that the way some of the characters die is straight up gut-wrenching. One involves a pair of scissors, another a very sturdy wall, and yet another that I just don’t want to remember because of how cruel it actually is.

The Art & Sound (8/10) & (7/10): These are the areas in which this show absolutely shines. The art is the show is great, considering it was done by Asread, whose other works include Mirai Nikki and Yuushibu, I probably shouldn’t be surprised. When in motion the movements are very fluid and with static characters/object the overall quality is some top grade stuff. However, the place where the art really takes over is in the scenes where people are dying, the sheer amount of blood on screen made me have the reaction of, “Ease up on the gore.” The level of detail on human organs is something you’d expect with a medical drama, not a horror anime.

The sound of the show is another strong point, not necessarily the OST or the OP & ED, but more the voice acting and some of the general sound effects. When a character laughs in this show I unconsciously check behind me to make sure nothing is there, and especially the children laughing. The shivers I get are uncanny. The voice acting for all of the voiced characters are exceptional are well, when everything is going to hell, you genuinely believe that the characters are fearing for their lives and panicking like anything, and when the characters starts dying. Well. You think people are actually being slaughtered in the next room. At least that how I felt.

What do you think of this show?

Don’t watch it in the dark, and have a bucket on hand just to be safe.

Would you recommend this show?

If you watched When They Cry, you’ll find more of the same here. Otherwise I can’t really recommend this show, you won’t be missing out on much.

Goodbye my brethren, see you in the next one.

Since the Horror genre in anime is quite small compared to Action, Adventure, Slice of Life, etc --- Corpse Party: Tortured Souls is very often compared to other animes like Hellsing Ultimate, Elfen Lied and all those other Ivy league animes. Sad to say, but Corpse Party just can't compare to any of those when it comes to quality. However, in terms of blood, gore, and (brutal) deaths, Corpse Party has a nice niche that lets it compete with the other bad boys.
... ***Spoiler Free***

Story (6): Pretty straightforward. A bunch of innocent Highschool kids get transported to an old, abandoned Elementary School after performing a sort of "charm". From there, the fun begins with a story interesting enough to keep you watching.

Art (4): While there is nothing really bad about the art, I found that it didn't really suit the anime well. Its a bit too colorful for the creepy/scary atmosphere it tries to set. And occasionally, it made the gore look awkward or too fake.

Sound (8): Probably the most impressive thing about Corpse Party. In addition to great music during the opening, Corpse Party manages to set the Horror element perfectly during scenes that are meant to be creepy or get you on your toes. The anime also knows when to NOT have music playing, which in itself really impressed me.

Character (3): There is literally nothing unique or interesting about any of these characters. Barely any of them even got any exposition or development at all. In fact, I disliked most of them for how stupid they were. I guess it made their gruesome, bloody deaths that much more enjoyable, so they got that going for them.

Enjoyment (6): There's nothing I hate more than having to turn off my brain for an anime, and this anime was no exception. Characters in most of any film, anime, novel, etc. in a Horror tend to be dumber than sacks of potatoes for some reason. Honestly, most of the characters could have survived if they simply stuck together, which is a taboo in any Horror. When you do turn of your brain though, this anime presents very well executed, gruesome deaths, and under the right conditions (At night, with headphones on) can actually be a pretty creepy anime that might make you jump once or twice. Pacing was also pretty spot on for a short anime.

Overall (5): I had fun while watching Corpse Party. I'm a big fan of Horror and gore-based animes, and although Corpse Party wasn't as good as I'd thought it be, I guess it lived up to its reputation (barely).

If you're also a fan of Horror animes, Corpse Party is basically an essential watch for you since it's both well known and not a complete let down. Also, it's only 5 episodes long including its short OVA, so you'll get it out of the way fast if its not for you, or complain that it wasn't longer. Do prepare for major cliches' however. But I do recommend watching this at night with headphones on for the best experience.

Corpse Party: Tortured Souls brings you gore on a silver platter, well, a silver platter containing dismembered limbs, rotting and beheaded corpses, and a lot of cringe. It’s the perfect package for horror genre enthusiasts or a perfect gateway anime for those trying to get into the genre.

The story is set in Heavenly Host Elementary School, which is an elementary school that was torn down following the murders and disappearances of several of its staff and students. By the start of the story, another school called Kisaragi Academy had been built over the elementary school site. One night, a group of students from Kisaragi Academy ... are telling ghost stories when suddenly earthquakes start to take its course all around the campus. This earthquake was not your average one, oh no, it was a supernatural earthquake that transports the group of students to another dimension where Heavenly Host Elementary still exists! And, might I add that it is still haunted by the ghosts of the school's murdered children. The students of Kisaragi Academy try to find their way home and survive the other mysterious forces that haunt the school, all at the same time.

Our cast consists of your generic high school students, a little sister, and a teacher more moe than anything I can think of! There’s the main male protagonist that everyone likes and he’s also the little sister’s older, protective and loveable brother, clingy little sister, a love triangle, best friends, a character that loses their sanity and goes psycho, and the one-sided love. So, as generic as the cast may be, there’s something there for everyone, or at least most of us.

NOTE: Considering that this is only a 4 episode OVA, because the anime was derived from a video game, I won’t go too much into detail about what happens with the characters, for the sake of not spoiling anything.

The character development was decent to generic as well. Consisting of the cast facing long hidden feelings and fears. Maturing because there is no other choice. Trying to become the hero, and realizing the worst is yet to come. Aside from all that, the characters’ development was in sync and corresponded with each and every scene. I really enjoyed how well their personalities adapted to each scenario and made them really relatable to real life situations.

The animation for Corpse Party was done by, Studio Asread. If you don’t know who they are, well, they’re the same group of people that did the animation for another, well-known horror anime, Mirai Nikki, or in English, Future Diary. The animation was done phenomenally! The environment in the Heavenly Host Elementary School was grotesque, with a dark and evil ambience that spread and lurked through every corner. Studio Asread brought a make believe haunted school to a real life blood bath with a death sentence waiting to catch anyone off guard. The deaths scenes were fluid with emotional and psychological effects, not only on the character, but on the watcher as well. It either will sicken you to your stomach or get you hooked! It truly brings out the sadist in you… just kidding.

I do want to touch on some negative factors before I give my final rating for this review. Length was definitely against this anime adaption. Considering that its an OVA, I believe if this was given, maybe an extra 3-4 more episodes, the plot could have been extended and the authors could have added more detail to the plot. Making it a complex horror story with depth in emotion and end game. I felt that some of the deaths and killings were rushed, going back to the length of the OVA, and would have had a greater impact on the plot and on the watcher’s emotional attachment to a character, making it more of a relatable feeling of despair and hopelessness.

Overall, I give this anime an 8 out of 10 and I definitely recommend it! Aside from all the good points I have been giving it, length did not do this OVA justice. Being derived from a video game, the creators already had dialogue, scenes, characters, and a plot to work with. Maybe time wasn’t on their side and the best they could do was only a 4 episode run, or maybe it was the lack of horror anime on the market that made them take a safer approach to the scene, but I won’t hold that against this. I definitely recommend this to anyone that loves despair, hopelessness, horror, blood, and the supernatural. If you can’t hold your own when it comes to any of that, definitely skip this, for it is very disturbing to the norm.

Wow, where to begin? I watched this show as it was recommended by a friend as a horror show but this was too extreme. I usually tend to agree with the reviews of my peers on MAL but in this case I did not. I'm not going to spoil it for you but I must warn you of the EXTREME GORE this show is chock full of. It also has some well known voice actors that I like so that lulled me into a false sense of security. In my opinion, this show is extremely depraved. Don't know who ... came up with it but this has to be one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. I don't recommend it and I'm going to do everything I possibly can to forget it. Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.

Before I go into the specifics I would like to say one thing. All of these are my own beliefs and I do not expect anyone to completely agree with them or agree with them at all. But as a person who have watched almost all genre of anime, and countless number of shows (I do not really feel like adding all to my profile), I believe my opinion may help someone who has trouble deciding "Corpse Party: Tortured Souls" is worth their time or not.

*The review is spoiler free.

Story:
The story is absolute nonsense. It is weak, hard to believe, and shoved down the ... viewer's throat. It is not appealing due to its lack of depth, and is hard to even follow at times. The story seems like it is going one way, but takes a turn for something completely different.

Characters:
Being generic is fine, but when a show crosses over the line from generic to completely predictable, it becomes a pain to watch the show. Before even understanding what is happening, the viewers can easily tell what the character will do. In contrast, a little later in the show, some character progression can be seen. As if they got a lobotomy, very few characters change their personality completely. It adds some interesting things, but it is not enough to redeem other unchanging characters.

Biggest problem of the show:
Fan service. It was completely unnecessary, but the producers included it anyways. Instead of intense violence, fan service managed to disturb me more. All the scenes with fan service is completely unfitting and borderline weird. The show is expected to be gory and bloody, but fan service is not.

Do I recommend it?
I am personally fond of the horror genre and enjoyed it.If you are looking for a show with insane amounts of blood, go ahead. Plot should not be expected.

As a fan of Corpse Party, I was rather disappointed, but still enjoyed it. The pacing was far too fast and it strayed from the plot of the games a little too much with some of the character deaths, but that's my only complaint, really. The best way to look at it is that it's the Wrong End that didn't get put into the game. If you don't like gore you REALLY will not like Corpse Party, there's people dying left and right in the OVA and games. I swear the atmosphere in the games is the worst part, I was tense as hell playing ... them. Compared to the OVA, I was still pretty tense, perhaps the pace added to that since I could feel my heart race while watching them.

Final Score
6/10, might watch again.

Lacking in the "fear department"

Although it was scary from time to time, it had more of a "splatter movie" like storyline. The buildup was ok, although the story was missing the "sitting at the edge of your seat" moments. I didn't cringe in fear once, but were mostly just grossed out by all the gory scenes.
It was also really easy to figure out who the "real" villain was ( pretty much guessed it from the start).
I think a reason for the lack of frightening moments, may be partially blamed on the intro ( it contained way too many spoilers ... ! ). As well as the fact that it was kind of "flat", and didn't really move forth after the second murder.
Other than the fact that the main characters lacked personality, the other ones had the feeling of being more of an accessory to the plot, rather than actually being a part of the story.
The art and sound was better than average, although it often lacked the finesse in how to portray height ( the characters often came across as quite short and "compact" ). The sound was good, but the music would often ruin the buildup towards a "scary" scene.

I don't recommend it if you are looking for an anime with "breath-catching, heart-stopping" moments of utter fear, but if you are searching for a more (like I mentioned before) gory and splatter like anime, this would definitely fit what you're looking for. It really has a lot of rather disgusting scenes!

All in all it was an ok horror anime (didn't really suit my taste), but could absolutely be of worth to someone who don't like the super scary stuff, and would rather watch the more bloody n' gory stuff.

Hope this review is useful to someone :)
It's my first time writing one :P

During this 4-day weekend (for me at least) I've watched 3 animes with, at the very least, good amounts of horror aspects. Those three would be Another, Mirai Nikki, and of course, Corpse Party. However, Corpse Party is different from the other two I watched as it is basically completely horror-oriented, whilst the other two have mystery implemented into it. However, even though Corpse Party did do well enough in the horror element itself, the subpar feel of most of the other aspects of the story kept it from being some kind of brilliant masterpiece.

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Story:
The start of the story feels very formulaic to most media ... in the horror genre. For the first half or so of the first episode, everything is lighthearted and fluffy, until EVERYTHING GOES TO SHIT. The actual plot of the story really isn't that great in the slightest, but lets be honest, that's not what you watch the show for. Sure, it doesn't make a bit of sense, but who cares?

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Characters:
Like many of it's spiritual predecessors, Corpse Party puts a lot of stupid characters that make stupid decisions, which of course lead to death and despair. When a character dies, you really don't feel any remorse for them, as you find yourself with you're hand in front of you're face when you realize how they kind of deserve to die. Well, that was for the students that were actually alive. You did get a bit of character development, but it wasn't handled in the best of fashions. It wasn't off-putting, to be sure, but it could've been quite a bit better, considering the things that were happening around them.

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Animation:
This is the one thing where I can praise this anime for. Although the character designs are standard, you can tell they put a good amount of effort into the horrifyingly gory death scenes. The color pallet used for this is very dark, which fits the anime basically perfectly, although you would assume so for a horror anime.

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Sound:
Nothing really grabbed me with the soundtrack. Nothing really stood out, even if it did accompany the visuals very well. The opening was definetely not that fitting. The singing just didn't seem creepy enough like I would hope it to be, and half of the visuals are the characters living out happy lives outside of the death school they have been placed in. The ending is nothing special as it is accompanied by scrolling credits. There is no dub, but even the sub wasn't that great, comparatively speaking, that is. The screams and laughs were bloodcurdling to be sure, but other than that, it was, well, average.

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For what it is, Corpse Party is good enough for shock value, but nothing really more than that. If you want to watch something with immense amounts of gore in the middle of the night, this is probably one of the best things you will come across. Don't expect much more than that, however.

In the corpse party anime there are highs and lows.



For the lows:

It can get very overly edgy at times and most of the time it feels kinda unnecessary.

It's characters in the anime adaptation are very flat and hard to get attached to.

...
For the highs:


The voice acting is honestly pretty good and it makes the anime as a whole a little bit more enjoyable.

The tone and atmosphere. I said earlier that I feel like it can get "too edgy" at times but at the same time I think they did a good job making it dark.


It feels dark while you're watching which is quite good.



Overall: Overall it has highs and lows so it's not bad or good. Just Average.

If you want to remain a human with your sanity intact and keep your mind in stable equilibrium condition, then perhaps it would be a nice choice to abandon the idea and refrain yourself from watching this anime.

Corpse Party: Tortured Souls successfully tortures your brain with its absolutely appalling plot execution and excessive display of gore and bloodshed, which does a fine job of implanting disgust in your minds.
The story is completely incoherent right from the very beginning and the inconsistent plot glitches sporadically scattered throughout the anime doesn't find any satisfactory explanation at all and leaves the viewers totally clueless.

The characters fail to ... attract even a fraction of attention and new characters pop up spontaneously trying to cover-up the shortcomings of the main characters; and just as you start gaining trust in them, they turn out to be killers.
The ending tries to provide an emotional conclusion but nobody knows why a child suddenly starts gouging out eyeballs and pulling out intestines of other people after she is killed.

The only positive aspect of the anime is its strong music and soundtracks. The OP is pretty good and the beautiful ED is well-suited as an ending theme of an epic anime, but ironically it absolutely isn't.

If you are an enthusiast of horror anime then be prepared to be thoroughly disappointed, unless you are a fan of hardcore gore and like watching innocent kids killing other innocent kids.
Thankfully, all the detestable mishap is limited to only 4 episodes.

Corpse Party is definitely a must-watch for all Anime fans....only if there is nothing left to watch.

Corpse Party was a very dark and gruesome anime. The plot was great, but sometimes a little bit confusing. The art was very well done and clean, and it really pulled off the "creepy" effect. Don't watch it for the firsst time at night, you wont even want to look behind you! You felt a bond to the main characters that really made you feel for them, whatever situation occured. If you like horror animes, I highly recommend Corpse Party: Tortured Souls.