Story:
Coprse Party progresses quite fast, which makes sense considering there’s only four episodes. But it manages to not skip over important content or create immense plotholes on its way…at least not more than it would have done anyway. The story itself is a bit confusing, it did not fully understand the rules of this ghost dimension or what was going on in general. Some of the explanations came out of nowhere. The appeal of this show is a different one though, so it doesn’t affect the enjoyment a whole lot, but it is noticeable enough to make it potentially hard to follow. Of course, what people most likely came to see is the splatter. This is easily one of the goriest shows out there. It’s mostly kept in “realistic” boundaries, but the one scene where somebody gets smashed high speed against a wall looked totally over the top. Anyway, as mediocre as the whole story is, the ending was surprisingly good and satisfying.
6/10
Art:
The character design is not the most inventive one. I dare say, they all look rather bland. But that’s okay, because they are supposed to be normal students and what better way to portray them as such than by making them look accordingly? The animation was good from what I can see, the directing was as well. At times however, the setting was a bit too dark for my taste. I know, you wanna make it spooky and stuff, but I would have appreciated to see more details from time to time. Speaking of details, being an OVA, Corpse Party can get away with much more gruesome stuff than a tv show ever could. And boy, do they use this possibility. If you have a weak stomach or are not all that comfortable with gore, then this is not for you. I would have preferred to see severed body parts look a bit more messy than this, the cuts were way too clean. Somebody in the production crew also seems to have a serious bowel fetish. Do people even have so much (many?) bowels inside? But hey, it was a bloody mess, that’s what you wanted, right?
7/10
Sound:
Music plays an important part in the genre, you wouldn’t be horrified by a happy pop song, would you? Although American Psycho proves me wrong here. Anyway, the usual thing to do is have scary music, especially during suspense scenes. It’s as easy as it is effective and Corpse Party does it well. The opening song is also a pretty good one, dispersing the atmosphere of horror without doing it with a hammer. Pretty much the same goes for the ending song. The sound effects were disgusting, as they should be. Cutting somebody’s head in half accompanied by a squishy sound of slicing makes it as disturbing as it is supposed to, great job there. The voice acting was okay, they managed to sound convincingly frightened, that’s enough for me. The only voices that bugged me a little were Mayu and Yuka, who tried too hard to sound cutesy (I shall scourge myself for criticizing Eri Kitamura).
8/10
Characters:
Corpse Party is partially a slasher show, so it has the same problem that pretty much every slasher movie has. You don’t have time to establish the characters before you gotta start the killing. To be honest, I didn’t care for any of the characters, though obviously it’s uncomfortable to see a little girl being tortured to death, but in general, I didn’t feel particularly bad for any of them, because I didn’t know who the hell these people are. I acknowledge that they tried to portray some of them as sympathetic, but there are only so many fucks I can give about somebody who had about three lines of dialogue before their death. Much more interesting are Sachiko and her motives. Creepy children don’t usually creep me out the slightest, but she was portrayed more as sinister than just oooh spooky. I found her reasons to make sense (as much as this bizarre setting can make any) and her ultimate fate was conclusional and fitting. I have no idea however what was up with that ghost chick with the glasses who delivered exposition and then she somehow was evil all along. Maybe it was for the better they didn’t dig deeper into characterizations, we might have ended up with an incoherent mess of a cast, it’s confusing enough as it is.
5/10
Enjoyment:
The mix between traditional spooky horror and slasher gore was interesting. The story was confusing, but I could focus on the violence, so that wasn’t all that problematic and again, I really liked the ending. I was a bit baffled how everybody so quickly accepted that there were ghosts walking around, but then I just blamed it on cultural differences. Seeing everybody getting killed off was fun, as I wasn’t emotionally invested. I was also glad that the show was relatively short, otherwise I would’ve probably gotten bored around episode 6 or 7. I can recommend this to anyone who just wants to see people getting violently slaughtered, not so much if you’re looking for something more meaningful. For what it was, it was okay, nothing more, nothing less.
6/10
Overall:
6.4/10
