Ghost Stories Volume 2: Sophomore Scares - Anime Frontier

• Media Source:Anime Frontier
• Reviewed By:Jared Elswick
• Review Date:02/01/06
• Read the original review click here

"...what ADV has done to the show makes it all the more bearable than it would be otherwise."

"Love it or hate it, I think Ghost Stories is an interesting experiment as far as anime dub scripts go..."

"The humor factor here is what really makes this show enjoyable..."

The Verdict
Audio
Offered up in English 5.1 and Japanese 2.0, I went with the Japanese for the first three episodes and the English for the last. Having seen the first three in English already I figured I?d take in the show in Japanese for a while, taking in the final episode with the English dub so as to be accustomed to the entire script for this volume. Overall, things sound pretty good all around here, with the Japanese track coming across as well as possible, although it would have benefited from being in 5.1. The English track though, in all of its controversial glory, sounds great, making full use of the forward and rear soundstages while keeping things fresh with the hilarious dialogue.

Video
Originally airing back in 2000, Ghost Stories manages to look pretty good throughout, but it certainly won?t knock your socks off. The animation itself is good if uninspired, but the overall quality of the show is good enough that I can?t really complain too much. It?s really your standard fare as far as animation goes, from that time at least, but things do look good here. The transfer is a prime example of that as it helps this show retain its vibrancy while at the same time keeping things together in a technical sense, as there isn?t really anything here as far as cross coloration or aliasing that I could tell.

Characters
Hajime - Hajime is your average boy, he's rather rough and always interested in what the girls are doing, regardless of whether his motives are love related or if he just wants to bother them, it doesn't matter to him.

Leo - The resident geek in the group, Leo is Jewish (at least in the dub he is) and often the butt of many jokes, although he proves his worth every now and again.

Momoko - A newly reborn Christian (again, in the dub) Momoko is a somewhat shy girl who plays up the role of the other pretty girl in the group. She instigates a lot of the jokes in this show, and plays against Leo's Jewish character well.

Story
Continuing with the wacky nonsense of the first volume, Ghost Stories moves forward with what would be expected from this type of show, although thanks to ADV?s new dub this show is more fun than it is otherwise. Things kick off in this volume with a bit of a focus on Keichiro as he?s trying to figure out something he?s good at so other kids won?t beat him up. Hajime throws his two cents in on this and tells him to try running track so he can win first place at the Sports Festival, which would definitely put him in the limelight with other kids. He tries his best, but in the end Keichiro?s skills just suck something fierce, but he gets a bit of a renewed sense of vigor thanks to a ghost of course. This ghost that is helping him is actually a bit darker than it seems as it really intends to cut off the feet of particular runners during the Festival, which helps take the normal Sports Festival type episode and turns it into something completely different.

Of great interest to me on this disc were the episodes that featured the Babasare ghost and the mirror ghost. With the Babasare ghost, the kids hear tale about other kids in school being found scared out of their gourds but the kids are only found this way after being alone. Amanojaku has a good sense of what is really going on throughout the episodes so he just sits back and watches the whole thing play out, laughing along the way as he waits for each of the kids to get picked off one by one. The overall episode isn?t really anything special, but the Babasare ghost worked in such a good way that it really makes the episode more interesting, and it actually has some moderately horror-esque elements to it too, so that?s always a plus.

The episode with the mirror ghost is pretty interesting, although I can?t say I was really impressed with the overall story to it (since it isn?t very original). However, the inclusion of a mirror ghost in this series was basically a necessity and the way the ghost is able to swap bodies makes for some really interesting material, it?s just not anything new is all, but I did enjoy it. The final episode of the volume brings in a new ghost that haunts dark corners and spirits off travelers to the underworld to cross the river Sanzu. However, in the modern day there aren?t many dark places any longer so these ghosts have to inhabit areas like that of a nerd?s sanctuary, a room with just a lit computer screen, making Leo the prime choice for the main character here. It?s a pretty odd episode, it did make me laugh, but the story isn?t all that great.

Afterthoughts
Overall, while I'm still not head over heels for this show in terms of the overarching storyline presented, I can say that the dub script is making this show more enjoyable for me than when I first saw this show in Japanese. The humor factor here is what really makes this show enjoyable, and while some may find the jokes to be in bad taste, I find them to still be funny (to an extent) and they really make the show go by faster. Love it or hate it, I think Ghost Stories is an interesting experiment as far as anime dub scripts go and while the show definitely has its faults, what ADV has done to the show makes it all the more bearable than it would be otherwise.

Posted on Wednesday, February 01, 2006 (Archive on Wednesday, March 01, 2006)