First off, I have to praise the artstyle. It's an inspired spooky style with lots of little touches to the environments, the buildings, the people or more appropriately, creatures, that give the show identity and atmosphere. It's probably the greatest strength of this anime. The animation itself, as well as overall production values, however... they're definitely on the cheap side, to put it kindly.
As for the narrative, the basic set-up for each episode is that Momonosuke, the protagonist traveling in search of scary stories for a book he's writing, will come across some horrific seemingly supernatural situation, where he either serves as a passive witness to the events that unfold, or well-meaning participant trying to help people, with most of the situations as well as Momosuke's role ending up having been set in place by a trio of ghoulish tricksters he becomes increasingly involved with, who serve as karmic retribution for the ne'erdowell of the week.
The execution, however, is flawed in several general ways. The way the stories are set up, rather than all the elements being introduced in the beginning and coming together as the curtain peels back, instead we get staggered, trickled out exposition that comes out of nowhere in scattered chunks. This exposition is often very blunt too, and makes the mysterious openings seem stupidly simple after all is said and done, and if the elements in these dumps were introduced from the start, the mysteries would be child's play to at least get in the ballpark of what's going on. It's understandable why they then decide to just omit these elements from the stories until they become relevant but that leaves us with unsatisfying ass-pulls or nonsense that feels cobbled together at the last minute. Some character will just come in at the eleventh hour to say "It's so sad that that captain of the guard whose been hunting the ghost, his wife died 10 years ago in the exact same way as the current murders... such a shame" and then it's like oh gee I wonder what's going on.... But then in another vein, there's a lot of stuff that's also convoluted but not vital to the story. Deep-cut historical and occult references (at least to a weeb like me, but I think even a standard Japanese audience might not know all the things that are referenced) that might build some ambiance, but don't serve much purpose except to make it seem like a deeper mystery going on. It's not so much that these things are being set up, but when the more critical components AREN'T getting this treatment, it's feels like a waste. It's like all the things in that should be simple and easy to grasp are needlessly complex and involved, while all the things that should be intricate turn out to be overtly basic.
There's an over-arching plot going on beyond the episodic stories as well, but it's sadly underdeveloped. It focuses on Momonosuke's relationship with and the nature of the three fiendish characters, as well as Momonosuke changing from interacting with them, but developments come in sudden and overstated bursts while skipping over the crucial interstitial stuff. The whole thing (including the epic finale) is all just kind of done half-way.
The pitfalls in both the episodic and background story writing are surely just a matter of not having enough time to build up all the things they need to and satisfactorily pay them off, having to fit an entire ghost story plus overarching plot into 20 minutes an episode and only 13 episodes to do it. It's just too little time. If it was perhaps done like Mononoke where instead of 1 story per episode it uses its time to strongly build up 3 stories over several episodes each, or if it got 24 episodes and got to do two parters and main story and episodic story specific episodes, or if it was 40 minute episodes, or just some other way to divvy up the time and give more time and effort to each individual component, it could've smoothed over most of the issues I'm sure. But coulda woulda shoulda, and all that. What's here is just a watchable but not quite at the next level experience.
