This is a creepy show. Having not seen the live-action show before, I don’t know if it does justice to the show or not but I have to say, I really like it any way and it does make me want to see the original show. The episodes all have to do with someone dying in a gruesome way, then the brothers’ end up being at the right place at the right time. Each show is its own storyline without many things to link them together. The story is slow, and not really action orientated. Many of the shows act more like detective shows where something odd happens and they discover why only to have a small action scene at the end. There is a larger mystery that they have in this show about the brothers trying to find their Dad.
The art style is rather interesting, almost a cross between anime and American comic book style. The characters are hard edged, and a lot of dark lines and heavy shadows that pretty much are black. Everything has a nice vintage feeling, sort of grimy in a good way. The characters look like the characters from the live-action as well which is what I would wish to see unlike some of them. Sadly, some of the images are pretty frozen, still images that feel like cop outs, especially when this was made in 2011.
The English voices don’t feel up to par with the animation, and feels a bit forced and doesn’t match the lip sink most of the time. They talk when the mouths are closed and part of it might be to get information out since this is shorter then the actual show. Even then, it just feels rushed and makes it a little hard. I really love the ending song though. I never thought I would hear “Cary on my Wayward Son” by Naoki Takao fit so well.
EDIT: I have now seen the live action show, I really like it as well. The show has the same creepy feeling and the same slowness that the animation has. The stories are altered slightly from the original but that’s partly because they were putting a 1 hour episode into a half a hour one.