Yami Shibai 6

*Disclaimer*
Just personal scratch.
Advised, possible spoilers.
Opinion & Informal

Art: 5/10 Each episode had a completely different style of art and design. It kept things fresh so that each short story felt unique. Overall there wasn't anything negative to point out. Sometimes the art looked sort of rough and sometimes the art looked sort of decent. No episode really stood out in terms of nice art style. Proportions and anatomy across all thirteen short stories checked out. Some episodes the art style fit nicely and added to the mood such as episode 11. The somewhat gritty art style in episode 11 added to the sense of cold and ... isolation the protagonists, especially the old man, may have felt in that blizzard storm.

Animation: 4/10 Nothing impressive here. I can see how multiple seasons of Yami Shibai can be pumped out because the animation is very simple. Animation is basically a narrated slideshow with slight facial changes and body movements intraslide. It would be hard to truly call this "animation." There are some special effects added in such as the distortions appearing/materializing in episode 13. You could probably get away with saying that the animation in this whole series is something like 12 frames a minute, lol.

Characters: 5/10 Can't exactly go in depth on anything like character development but the character designs were fine. Adolescent girls looked like adolescent girls, etc. Very real-world character designs. No "anime designs" here.

Plot/Development: 6/10 Some of the individual stories were actually interesting. This season of Yami Shibai in my opinion did much better than the previous 3 or 4. I felt seasons 2 through 5 were trying too hard to retain the scare factor that season 1 did decently enough at. Season 6, this one, did much better at addressing this one gripe I had with the previous 4 seasons. Instead of trying to pull off the horror that season 1 did the best at, season 6 decided to take on a more anxiety and suspense inducing sort of tone. What I mean is that season 1 was decently good at being scary and would sometimes slightly shock a person. However, I think this was it for Yami Shibai. Seasons 2 through 5 tried way too hard to stay in that sort of zone which is why they failed because they ended up using really lackluster stories and development which resulted in stupid outcomes and zero scare factor. Season 6, however, seems to have gone with a more suspenseful mystery. Episodes 11 through 13 were the best episodes of this season and they did a really good job at that. Episode 11, for example, simply built up suspense. There was no monster, there were no screams or chase scene, and there was no jump scare. That was a good episode. Episode 13 did likewise. The whole episode gradually increases the eeriness of the situation until the very end. No monster was ever introduced and almost left off on a happy ending. The scare at the last second was also very telegraphed, but what I felt was the scariest part of that sequence was the use of sound; I'll talk about that...

Music: 5/10 The music and soundboard were alright. There wasn't an OP, really. The ED was catchy and sorta looked stylish. There's only one instance of sound design I want to bring up and even then it's so small one may just not even call it sound design in the first place. Well, episode 13 had an interesting use of the change in sound. "Echos" played a bit with the use of sound and distance; how they were used it added to why the scare at the end was enough to make me jump a little (just a little), lol. Let me explain what I personally felt about this all. I could be crazy too so take it with a grain of salt. Episode 13 called "Echos" involves just that, echos. Two girls are on a mountain and one yells playing with her echos. They hear a response. Gradually the responses get creepier. Fog sets in. This fog is important. It doesn't have anything to do with the monster, just forget that. The fog to me was there to turn this episode into a listening one and make it so that both the characters and viewer would have to just listen. You could watch this episode with your eyes closed, that is what I mean. The idea of hearing a stranger yelling, "Stay there, I'm coming!" in a situation where you can't see and only hear is a bit anxiety inducing. The voice doesn't get closer to the girls though, just echos. The fog lifts. The last bit was what was made me jump. The sudden change in sound intensity lets you really know that the "thing" is right there, right next to you. If you can understand it, or at least want to see a bit of what I mean, try watching this episode with your eyes closed and you may see what I mean. The voice sounded normal when it was only echos, however, it sounded very distorted and unsettling up close. Those two sound decisions for this one specific episode is what I really liked about this season's finale. I could be crazy too.

Conclusion: N/A Not going to write on its conclusion since it's short story based and there wasn't an overarching plot to be concluded.

Overall: 5/10 This season of Yami Shibai did much better than the previous 4 seasons and I feel that it could be compared to how decently good season 1 was. I would say that season 1 and this season, season 6, are the only ones worth watching out of the entire series.