Well hello there Well dont dawdle now my dear come in out of the fog... We dont get very many travelers out here especially so late at night. Um if you dont mind me asking what are you doing out here in the first place? Theres nothing but dark spooky woods for miles around here... Well except for us that is. You were lucky to find us when you did my dear its a lot safer in here than it is out there... Well slightly anyway. Welcome to our humble hotel. Allow me to show you to your room... Oh dont bother with the paperwork its already been taken care of. We have many lovely guests here tonight and its probably for the best if you keep to your own room so you dont meet any of them. Lets see youll be staying... Oh Not there darling theres an anime critic in that room. You know some lonely ageing nerd who wastes his time writing reviews of foreign cartoons. Ill admit our guests generally arent the friendliest lot but go near that one... Hell talk your ear off And I am that critic Sorry about that weird intro its late on a very strange day off from work and Im experiencing the excitement of early October with the goofy side of sleep deprivation. Im here to give you another shortform review that nobodys going to read because my life just be like that and for the first of hopefully THREE spoopy reviews for this month Ive decided to revisit one of the strangest anime franchises Ive ever covered Gregory Horror Show Because yes this blocky CGI Nick Jr. looking series is a legitimate anime so if anyone ever uses that Anime is a specific stle argument for why they think they should be able to post a Teen Titans or Castlevania review on this site Gregory Horror Show is a damn good counterargument. I reviewed the first season last year... Well lets be clear its an ONA or Original Net Animation consisting of largely two minute episodes so its technically an hour long Series. Theres a lot that hasnt changed since last time. Like the previous installment The Second Guest is spooky in some areas... The locations some of the more twisted vignettes the character designs when you first meet them... And it also falters in a lot of the same areas like with the cheap party city style soundtrack some of the concepts being a tad on the pretentious side and character animations taking the scares right out of their designs. Yeah Gregory and his supporting cast CAN be scary until you see the laughable way they move and talk. Well Ill admit that aspect of the series is slightly improved since last time theyve found more ways to use the stiff character motions to their advantage but not by much. One area thats gotten even worse is the shows adamant refusal to be consistent with its point of view. I mentioned in my previous review how the series is mostly told from the perspective of the nameless faceless protagonist but it would constantly abandon this gimmick with no hesitation OR explanation and theyve gotten even worse this time since not even the setting is consistent... At least last time you were either in the hotel or you were directly outside. This time theres an entire vignette taking place in an old west ghost town that appears around everybody out of nowhere... And the fact that it stars two racially insensitive mexican cactus outlaws doesnt help. I will say the story has a much faster pace than last time and a somewhat smoother and less randomfeeling narrative so yay theyve made at least some improvements. The big change this time is that instead of a male protagonist the nameless and faceless wanderer who ends up stuck in the Gregory Hotel is a woman and its not just a cosmetic change. You could easily argue that switching the male protagonist from the last season with a woman wouldnt have changed a damn thing and that is true but a good chunk of this season is very explicitly gender specific... From Gregorys condescending dialogue towards her to the very nature of the protagonists backstory which... Yikes well get there in a minute. I dont have the first season fresh in my memory so I dont remember specifically who was in the cast for that one and who wasnt but there are a few who Im pretty sure are new. Theres a chef with the body of a giant candle who hates smoking... Gregorys evil souleating mother who along with Gregory and his grandson officially make up three out of four confirmed generations of the mouse family... And the cactus hombres while previous main characters like the lost dolly and Judgement Boy make small but memorable cameos. There are some effectively scary moments... The protagonist has a dream about a potted rose in her room coming alive and evolving as its thorns extend into new vines covered in new thorns trying to simultaneously slash her to ribbons and embrace her. She tries to escape an attempt that goes horribly wrong in the most nervewracking and chilling ways possible. On the other hand theres a sub lot about Gregorys mother harvesting peoples souls to eat them which is a little lame especially because it winds up with the protagonist Gregory and his grandson going through whats basically the bodyswapping subplot from the first live action Scooby Doo movie. The only part of this arc that kind of worked for me was when Protag and a bunch of other souls escape and try to cross to the afterlife but she gets rejected and sent back to her body. Spoilers I guess. But the most interesting thing about this season... For better and for worse... Is the way Japanese societal gender norms seep into the story. Its hinted early on that in the protagonists backstory shes at a crossroads because she just came from the wedding of her exboyfriend and her best friend... And the reason she isnt with her boyfriend anymore is because her career was more important to her than he was. Now you hear that for the first time you would naturally think Oh she neglected her relationship because of her job right? No. As Judgement Boy reminds her later she received a promotion on the same day as he proposed to her. This was framed as a choice she had to make. To anyone from the western world you might be thinking Oh cool so you get to marry someone you love AND pursue your dreams Well thats not really the case in Japan. I dont know if things are still this bad over there but at least at the time this came out women were basically expected to give up their personhood and a chunk of their rights upon marriage. Becoming a wife means in so many ways becoming someones property so the protagonists choice of her career or her relationship was a very real decision she had to make... And while it doesnt come right out and say it it often feels like this season is saying she made the wrong one. The fact that her boyfriend was shattered and turned to the bottle is shoved in her face Gregory himself makes some comments about women marrying before theyre too old to be considered desirablean attitude that seems to be in direct response to women responding to their cultures backward laws by marrying later and later in life and a lot of her dialogue does feel like its dripping in regret. I dont know if I consider this season to be better or worse than the first season. This season feels a lot less fun like the random madness of the first season has been sanded down to present a smoother narrative but it also feels a lot more interesting like the social commentary being more focused and deliberate. The new protagonist does have a nice noiresque delivery like shes casually telling her story in a seedy bar over a pint and a smouldering cigarette. But then again Im not sure I like what that social commentary is saying and it feels highly culturally impenetrable to the point that Im surprised the dubbers didnt rewrite it to make it more accessible. Its certainly a thought provoking little oddity one thats perhaps a bit too esoteric for younger audiences if not all around too scary. I give Gregory Horror Show The Second Guest a 5/10.