Yami Shibai 4

What a complete and utter disappointment...

For those not familiar with the Yami Shibai series, they're sketches done with paper-puppet animation techniques, quite stylishh, featuring small, one-episode horror stories. The first one was good, the second mediocre the third fantastic and unfortunately the fourth installment is 100% underwhelming.

First off, the most notable change: The narrator. The previous Yami Shibai narrator was a creepy-sounding old man, with a sly and sinister voice. This time we have a random idiot in what I assume to be his 30ish, giving a very disappointing opening ("It's time for Yami Shibai") that doesn't sound remotely threatening or vile.

The stories themselves are ... a mess too. Season 4 takes (good) ques from season 3, understanding that it's much scarier to have unexplained phenomena happen rather than the typical vengeful ghost that we saw in the first two seasons, but somehow completely misses. The stories feel like they have no buildup, whereas in season 3 the insanity of the situation mounded as the episode progressed.

Here, it's pretty much... "Dry".

Pros:
-Yami Shibai art style.

Cons
-The narrator is awful.
-The episodes have no buildup.
-Indifferent ending song.
-"Shallow" stories.

At this point, this is just sad.
None of us should even be here, and yet HERE we are.

Yami Shibai season frickin 4.

Season 3 set my expectations very low, and I'm glad I wasn't disappointed.
Not really any room for disappointment when your expectations are already at rock bottom.


Story: 1
...
Guess we gotta start somewhere.

I understand leaving things up to viewer's imaginations. It's important in horror, especially with ghost stories.

However, episodes just sort of... End in this season.
There's not much to be left up to the imagination as the endings just... Happen?

This is a problem throughout the entire show as well.

Stories are incomplete and a lot of important information is just left unexplained.

The writers also don't seem to understand the "show don't tell" rule, as the narrator narrated everything that you could see for yourself on the screen. It got old FAST.

Art: 3

Art and animation? What's that? HAH!

There wasn't any. There's your answer.

Seriously, the art style was poor and the animation was reduced to stills for most of it. Art and animation was nonexistent.

There was also a huge style problem, similar to season 3. Again, it was very jarring (though it was pretty funny seeing an episode with a Wiki-How esque art style)

Sound: 4

The ending song was trash. Narrator-san riding a bicycle to a J-pop song. Good idea for a horror themed show guys.

Sound wasn't memorable. The voice acting was meh at best. For whatever reason, they changed Narrator-san's voice every episode yet they weren't even good. Most of them sounded far too optimistic/enthusiastic for it to be creepy.

Characters: 2

Lol what characters

They're basically the same as season 3's characters. Boring. None of them were interesting. They're just lambs for the slaughter (red shirts).

Enjoyment: 3

This was tedious. It was a chore. I guess at least it was slightly better than season 3, but not by much.

Just end it now.

Overall: 3

Garbage season as always. Season 5 is probably gonna be garbage too.

They've added narrations to this, which makes the whole story telling less and less immersive, and while on it, why not let the man from the intro narrate? Most narrators (they used more than one) sounds overly calming.
Story wise I've got nothing to say, although it's not super predictable like in the 3rd season, this time, it's just way too random. The episodes are already 4 minutes short with an intro and ED, there's no proper build-up. It's simply not as creepy as the first two seasons, that has the effect to chill you to the core.
Also pretty sad about the lack of perspective artwise. ... (simple close ups and full/half body view mostly)

In conclusion, this season sucked.

The story would've been way, way better if the dude wasn't narrating the whole time. It made it less scary and made me feel like I already knew what was gonna happen. It took the enjoyment away.

I personally like the art style because it's different. There's been an obvious change in the art since the earlier seasons, but it's fine, I still like it.

The sound is ok. I could barely hear the characters over the narrator. It was very disappointing.

The characters were dumb as hell. Like, it just made it annoying because it was the same thing every episode. The ... characters are like, "something doesn't feel right!!?!?!" but they go through with their dumbass plans or whatever.

The enjoyment was honestly not good. There were maybe 1 or 2 semi-decent episodes in there, but overall, they weren't good at all.

So in conclusion, this season was a disappointment. I didn't enjoy it.

Rate a 3
English Subtitled
Warning: I know this is marked for teens and older but given the nature of episode 10 this but be stated. Teens already do stupid acts of violence for bizarre reasons episode 10 was designed to scare you. In fact it was the only episode that did for me. But it only scared me knowing that there will be viewers not as wise or old as me and try it themselves. For that reason alone will scare a lot of people, especially parents. If you want to watch the show I can’t stop you but please there are plenty of safe games ... to play and doing a single harmful game one time can have lifelong issues. Just like smoking.

Disappointed is a great word to show my expression on the entire season. While admittingly each season that came before was somewhat lacking in the horror field this season was a true disaster. For it abandoned horror for mystery. Not that I minded the change. I do enjoy mysteries but not this kind. Mysteries like these are disappointing. For example in one of the stories a good deed was done by the main male character. His reward ended up being implied torture with the mixture of affection. A good sum up might be that this doesn’t teach good morals. In fact steers the young from trying anything brave or kind. So, if the show doesn’t even live up to what it promises, lacks in plot and doesn’t provide good morals why should I watch this?
As for the credits it was a nice change I suppose. No longer was it generally that same techno pop bit but instead a more relaxing environment and song. Kind of nice if you found each episode of this season to be scary. But, I don’t know can a relaxing or warm natured song work for a horror show?

Art
Another disappointment. Sure the same puppet or cutout animation was used in the other seasons but this time around there were brief moments of live footage. Couldn’t they have been drawn? Kind of ruined the mood of being immersed in the world of anime.

A few things before I begin. First and foremost, this review is, as are all reviews, only an opinion, so if you feel differently than I do, please do not take what I say personally. Also this review won't be one that's professionally structured in any way, I'm not going to go through each category and label what I liked and disliked about it, so essentially this is just going to be a big wall of text about things I didn't like about this show (not much positivity here), so I apologize in advance for that. I don't typically write reviews but I feel like ... I need to this time around just to express my disappointment.

Yamishibai is an amazing show, specifically the first season. I think it's a gem that every fan of horror should watch. Seasons 2 and 3 less so, but they're still at least fairly enjoyable. This season however was just bad. The first thing I noticed was the change in the narrator, now I could've looked past this eventually, however the narrator is changed constantly, and none of the new narrators came close to being as good as the original. The original narrator started each episode with a sinister, creepy tone of voice, most if not all the narrators in this season failed to do so and in most circumstances, sounded comical. Continuing in my complaints with the narration, for some reason in this season, the narrator would narrate the entire episode instead of just setting the scene like in previous seasons (minus season 3) which prevented the stories from organically telling themselves. The art style in this season was also very poor, whereas in previous seasons it was a paper puppet look with lite animation, this season's was more of a slideshow of rough sketches, especially in the latter half of the season. The stories themselves this time around were also just not scary in the slightest, not even the tiniest bit creepy or unsettling, or even interesting, which obviously in a horror show is the biggest drawback of all, I could forgive everything else if the stories where at least good, but alas they were not. In the end this season made me sad, as the first season of Yamishibai was so incredible, and although seasons 2 and 3 were no where near as good as the first, I couldn't believe how far this show has fallen. I can only hope that season 5 restores some of the magic this show originally contained.

Wow. Just wow. I'd heard this season of Yami Shibai was bad before I started it, but I didn't expect it to be THIS bad. If you asked me to tell you what not to do in a horror series, this would be the first thing I pointed to. And knowing that the previous seasons ranged from okay to actually pretty good makes this season's failings more baffling.

So for starters, the first thing you'll notice watching this, especially coming off the previous seasons, is the narrator. The narrator originally existed to give basic context for the setting, and they had someone with a distinctly ... creepy voice to do so, setting the mood. This one misses both of those marks by having a different narrator each time, and each of them not being that creepy, but also by having the narrator NARRATE ALMOST THE ENTIRE STORY. This by itself kills a lot of tension since you never are able to really get drawn in when every 5 seconds the narrator says "and she felt nervous". And the worst part is literally none of it is necessary. The characters could say what we need to know and we can infer from visuals a lot of this. In fact, it'd be better that way because we're using our imaginations to fill in the gaps and terrify ourselves. That's actually what the previous seasons did. But no, the narrator says almost everything that's happening in front of our eyes like we can't see it.

That might have been passable if the scenarios were legitimately creepy, but most of the time they aren't. When the series is trying to pass off the idea that footsteps outside a bathroom stall are creepy or that someone drawing chalk lines inside a school is creepy, you've hit rock bottom. And even settings that might originally have promise like an abandoned mansion get squandered when the scares themselves aren't creepy at all. Half the time the creature that appears just ends up not really doing anything and the other half I have barely any idea what I'm supposed to be scared of. In fact, some of the stories just straight up are confusing. I have no idea what they're getting at or what's even going on by the end, and in a way, that's impressive to manage given there's only 4 minutes of animation per episode and the entire thing is being described to me.

The artstyle sucks too. While this was a problem in previous seasons, I don't like how each episode has a different artstyle so it doesn't feel like a contiguous series. And it's not like the artstyle works well for each individual story either. One of them tried to pass off 30 something moms as middle schoolers. I know in anime age can be very misleading, but they looked nothing like that age, even for this series. And then there's all the cuts to live action, usually any time the main character holds something in their hand. I legitimately do not know why those are there, they are horribly out of place, they don't make the scene more disturbing, it's just.... there. It pulls me out of the experience every time, or at least it would if everything else didn't already do a wonderful job of that.

Oh, and as long as I'm tearing this show a new one, let's talk about that ED. Yes I will be this petty. It sounds like an ending to a shonen series. Yamishibai EDs have been a little J-poppy up to this point, but usually kind of off in some way as to still feel like it fit with a horror series. This one just does not at all, so you end up going straight from "was I supposed to be scared" to just straight up laughing because this song removes any tension that might've been left.

It amazes me that a series could fall so far so fast. While I'll say I personally believe each season got a little worse, they still had moments that were really effective and enough to them that I could say "there's something there". This one does not. Almost nothing about this season works. Some story ideas had potential, but get squandered by everything else I mentioned. The only reason you should watch this season is if you want to see a perfect example of everything just being wrong. Not funny wrong or over the top wrong, just regular wrong. That's ultimately what this series is to me. It's just wrong.

I've talked about Yami Shibai many times. It's a franchise built around short form horror from ILCA. Thus far, it's been pretty solid. Let's look at the fourth series in the franchise and see if it continues that trend.

Story:

We follow the same pattern as the first three series. The narrator welcomes us to the theatre of darkness and we get a bunch of short, stand alone horror stories. That being said, this is not on the level of prior series. The stories in this one are almost a joke. There are maybe two episodes out of the thirteen in the series that are kind ... of creepy. The others just come across as dumb and kind of silly. This is rated for young teenagers but it feels like it was written with small children as the demographic because most of these scares are not going to work on teenagers.

The two episodes in this worth watching are Calling Crane and Snow Hut. Those two actually have some creepy things happening.

Characters:

Like the rest of the franchise, the characters are designed to be very straightforward. That being said, this one has some problems. For one thing, this series has the absolute worst of the narrator. The third series had him at his best thus far, in this one he's at the worst we've seen. Not only does he explain everything you're seeing instead of just letting you experience it, but the actor they have voicing him sounds almost bored.

Art:

While I can appreciate the little paper theatre aesthetic they have going for it, the problem with this instalment of the franchise is simply that they don't have scary imagery. Even the two solid episodes aren't amazing in that regard.

Sound:

This is yet another aspect that's worse in this series than it's ever been in the franchise before. I've already mentioned that the new narrator just sounds bored but that's not the only issue. Performances continue to be relatively flat and with absolutely nothing to work with, it's even more noticeable. The ending theme is also completely inappropriate for the franchise. The song is really upbeat and, if you look up the lyrics, optimistic. Let me remind you, this franchise tends to end their episodes with the main characters being completely buggered.

Ho-yay:

There's none.

Areas of Improvement:

1. This really needs to make use of body horror the way the third series did.
2. The narrator does not need to tell us everything we're seeing. I'm sure it's useful for people with visual impairments who speak Japanese but for the rest of us it just ruins any impact.
3. They really should be directing the narrator to speak in a less bored tone. At least try to sound somewhat menacing/ unsettling.

Final Thoughts:

The last time I looked at this franchise it was the best I've seen from it. This time, its the worst. The episodes offer very little in terms of horror. The narrator is horrendously bad. The ending song might be fine in a different franchise but it's awful for this one. My final rating for Yami Shibai the 4th is going to be a 3/10.

Story:

Basically 13 short little stories based on Japanese urban legends or myths. In my opinon, this season is the weakest of all the seasons so far. In season 1, every episode was scary, creepy and/or disturbing. Season 2 was a little scary, and season 3 was mostly just disturbing. In this season, only like 2 episodes actually scared me, mostly because I over think things sometime, so it wasn't really the episode that scared me, but my further thoughts on it. Main point is that I scare really easily, but most of these episodes did nothing in the scare factor.

Also most of the episodes ... have no ending. It's hard to explain what I mean by this, but I don't mind if they don't show everything. Part of what makes horror "scary' sometimes is that a person's imagination fills in the gaps that the story doesn't cover. In this season though, you don't even really get enough information to do that, so it leaves the story unfinished and unfulfilling.


Animation:

The animation is different in 2 big ways. Number 1, it is brighter and clearer, which I think is against the atmosphere of the horror genre. One of the things that made the 1st season great was that it was a little dark and grainy, which increased the tension levels, at least for me. Number 2, they added shots of real life things, which to me totally broke the immersion and except in 1 case were not scary at all. I think the art style for the first 3 seasons is better.

Sound:

This is one of the main things that hurt this season. For one thing, they Story Teller from the first 3 seasons, is gone and they have a different narrator for each episode. Only 1 of the 13 new narrators even came close to being as creepy as the Story Teller. Next, a big point, the narrators in each episode narrated the whole episode drowning out the background sound and making it hard to hear the characters talking. They went overboard with it. A good example is at one point the narrator says, "She heard a creepy sound.", instead of just letting us hear the creepy sound. To me it is more scary to hear the sound myself.

Characters:

No real comment, because as always, each story has its own characters. Except to mention once again, the loss of the original Story Teller is clearly felt.

Overall:

Not as good as the first 3 seasons. In my opinion, they dropped the ball with changing the art style, the narration style and getting rid of the Story Teller. Still worth watching for the 2 or 3 creepy episodes, but just be prepared for an unfortunantly lesser experience. Still hold out hope for season 5.