Yami Shibai 8

I love the Yamishibai series. It's unfortunate that there aren't many horror-themed anime in the industry.

The voice acting in each episode is consistently good not half baked at all. The storyteller’s voice is excellent, as always.
The ending music, however, is just "meh."

The animation has improved slightly, about 5% better, but the art style remains the same, which makes sense since it's based on Kamishibai, a traditional Japanese storytelling method using paper cutouts.

Some of the stories this season are actually better than in previous ones, but most are unsatisfying. They often leave you hanging, with no proper conclusion and open to interpretation.

I liked it overall, but ... I just wish the stories had proper endings.

If you've seen any of the previous Yami Shibai seasons, you know what's in store for you: short, compact horror stories. Unfortunately, this season has been quite disappointing. There was so much potential to show the audience something scary, but they opted to leave it to our imaginations. Sure, it works for some stories, but not all of them! I don't know if this is down to budget, lazy writing/animation, or perhaps it's being aired during a time slot when children can see it, but compared with the earlier seasons, this is too tame for my taste. I remember seeing several creepy and ghastly depictions, ... especially in the first and second seasons. With that said, there were still 2 or 3 stories that were pretty solid. If this is your first time viewing Yami Shibai, you can give it a go, but don't expect a lot.

Yami Shibai wanted to be a show with legends, but today it is nothing more than a myth forgotten by its quality that falls more than long American series.

It is already the third attempt of union between the new studio Drawiz and the ILCA. Since then, Yami Shibai 7 and Ninja Collection have been produced, but they have not yielded good reviews, especially when it comes to what is the biggest problem with horror stories: textual quality. Yami Shibai was never a franchise that honored the suspense and horror genre, because no matter what season, something always prevented the anime from really being a good ... thing. This time, for the thousandth time, the "terror" applied to Yami Shibai cannot even be considered a terror. It is an immeasurable affront for lovers of macabre stories...

I will not say that Yami Shibai 8 did not try. In fact, this was the season when I saw more variety in terms of what could be reused from the anime. Some stories are even like a re-adaptation of an old one (like the house of laughter). Other episodes had a change in the art of the characters and in the way of telling their ghastly tales. But, let's agree, none of this really put the anime in a good quality. Again, the show aims to bring a Japanese culture very focused on legends and urban histories, something common in the country, but when this is done with contempt and inertia, without developing a posture of innovation in the narrative, Yami Shibai becomes boring, VERY BORING. It has been a while since many people forgot about this show, which just became a "taboo" within its own focus, the audience that likes anime. Many like the show and I also have a fondness for the importance that Yami Shibai has as an exploration of the audiovisual resources and the adaptation of his kamishibais, something that I always try to value.

However, it is easy to understand the decadence of the show. In fact, it is noticeable. Since the fourth season (Where they introduced takes with scenes in live action), the anime already showed signs of being something of deep disappointment. Yami Shibai 8 just confirmed what I imagined. The third season really was a great set of episodes that, although it didn’t reach the same level of quality as the practically forgotten first season, it was irreverent and introduced grotesque creatures very well, without being appealing or exaggerated, nor did it use the common animation features. To continue like this until today would be great, but unfortunately that was not the case. Today the show is completely lost... More than a hundred stories (104, to be exact) have passed and not a tenth of that is really interesting...

Finally, I'm sick of looking at Yami Shibai and waiting for another sequel. In fact, I've been watching all the seasons for the past few months and it wasn't easy. Furthermore, I didn't even start some (5th, 6th and 7th), as it is not really necessary to admire this one. But in the end, Yami Shibai always missed something. The anime does not please and lost the interest of the majority, including mine. Will I continue to follow the show if I have a new sequel? Perhaps, it is always good to have something short to see, but I no longer expect anything from the anime, or my interest.