520https://i.pin.com/originals/d1/4c/b0/d14cb0569ba8fe48fdf8849db52bf778.jpg One late October Eve I was making my way across town on foot. I was eager to retreat to the house I call home armed with grocery bags of sake cans and chocolatechip cookies to drown my sorrows and smother my worries. But found myself caught in a storm. And it wasnt the type of storm that crescendos from a drizzle. No this was the kind that appears in a flash engulfing the evening light in inky darkness shoving away the warmth to make way for chill. I felt the tears of frigid rain sink into the fabric of my clothing weighing me down as I searched desperately for somewhere anywhere that would shelter me until the tempest subsided. Through the thick rain I saw a flickering light in the distance. It was the local Blockbuster. I should have turned around right then and there the rain would have been better than facing what lurked inside. I knew it odd as the Blockbuster had been shuttered for the better part of ten years but the allure of comfort won out over common sense. As I entered and wrung my shirt I was greeted by the soft synths and bassline of Everybody Wants to Rule the World and I immediately felt at ease. After all its scientifically proven that anyone who plays Tears for Fears is a great person who you should trust implicitly with your life. Though when I looked for the fine person with such good taste I came up emptyhanded. Near the cash register was only a handwritten sign that said Take One Movie : It didnt have to tell me twice. Since Im a weeb otaku person who enjoys anime I made my way to the anime section. twas the season for some spooks so I thought it befitting to watch a scary movie. But what I ended up with was much more frightening. What I got was fit to make me shudder at the thought of closing my eyes ever again for fear of even the brief glimpse of the darkness that reminds me of the hellish DVD I so foolishly decided to bring into the sanctity of my home. What I watched put the thing I held dearest in this world in jeopardy: my mind for in watching that accursed DVD my sanity is now on the slow track of slippage. I may be fine now fine enough to warn all who come after not to walk the same road but I just know that one of these days Ill crack. I watched a mediocre early 2000s OVA. 520https://m.mediaamazon.com/images/M/MV5BNDJkNTM3ODctZWNjOC00YTBlLThhNjEtZGRiMmQxMGVlNDE0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzQwMzAwNTI.V1.jpg Like the Blockbuster this was an anomaly something that shouldnt exist in this time period. We had survived the Golden Age of OVA and managed to withstand the onslaught of both great and terrible Original Video Animations that terrorized the animewatching population during 80s and 90s. The slaughter would have gone on forever if not for the valiant knight Unchecked Capitalism which slew the Japanese economy that so terrified Michael Crichton. Yet here stood Ghost Talkers Daydream eager for one last bloody dance. Ghost Talkers Daydream follows Saiki Misaki a woman with the uncanny ability to see ghosts. While she works as a dominatrix to make ends meet during the day she moonlights er daylights? as a paranormal investigator. Working with the Livelihood Preservation agency Misaki uses her power to send all manner of specters both benevolent and malevolent to the afterlife where they belong. So how do we begin this eerie tale knowing that as a fourepisode OVA time is of the essence and each minute must be perfectly crafted to nail the tone? Well while walking behind her trying to talk to her Misakis professional contact Souichiro trips and accidentally pulls her clothes down revealing her lingerie to a crowd of bystanders. 520https://m.mediaamazon.com/images/M/MV5BZWZlZWYxMTMtYjIzMC00NDFmLTgzMjItODI1ZjQ3NDAyNmVhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzQwMzAwNTI.V1.jpg Alrighty then. See its one thing to use dumb cliches its another thing entirely to be this aggressively stupid. Earlier in the year I criticized a showhttps://anilist.co/review/14943 for feeling too animey. At first I felt this was an unfair criticism of the medium I claimed to love. I feared it was proof that I outgrew anime. Thanks to the perspective that distance brings I realized that was a BS kneejerk reaction that was more unfair to anime than the criticism. Anime is many many things but one thing that it isnt is homogenous. Anime doesnt have to be filled with tired tropes but since a lot of the popular ones are its vital that you know where to look. Horror and more moody genres due to their tones and demographics are generally refuges from said tropes. Though Im being fair I must admit I buried the lede a bit in implying I expected the show to just be a dour scarefest. Ghost Talkers Daydream is listed as five genres on its Anilist page comedy ecchi drama horror and supernatural. In having such an aggressively stupid intro the anime firmly establishes that out of all its genres its most focused on comedy and ecchi. This would be a bit disappointing but it wouldnt be the fault of the anime if not for the fact that it genuinely does try to incorporate drama and horror. The ecchi and comedy kill the animes tone making for a very contradictory watch wherein Ghost Talkers Daydream doesnt know what it wants to be. When explaining their upcoming job which should be tense due to the nature of the case Souichiro makes stupid flustered faces because Misaki is getting changed in the backseat and he nearly totals the car due to distraction. A neighbor of one of the victims explains that she committed suicide. He explains this by pantomiming hanging himself while making a goofy exaggerated face. If I had to describe Ghost Talkers Daydream in one word it would be obnoxious. 520https://i.ur.com/FWHHkFI.png The best part of Ghost Talkers Daydream is when it steps back and tries to foster a more subdued atmosphere. The music is genuinely good and the ghosts we see in the show are some of the highlights. Another highlight is Misakis English VA Megan Hollingshead. She gives a very downtoEarth almost tired performance. While some may find it boring I feel it gives some relatability to Misaki and works in with the tone. A standout example of the strength of her voice acting work here is during the beginning of the second episode wherein we essentially see a day in the life and how weary Misaki is of her routine. This culminates in her missing her train due to her attire making her lose her footing on some stairs. Of course the subduedness is deflated when we cut to a closeup of her yelling at the bus feeling more like an anime character than an actual person. Its one thing to see a characters bitterness and anger due to missing their bus. Its another to be told this through them going BAKA DENSHA : : : Im tempted to say that the show never takes itself seriously. Yet there clearly are moments when it does. It just bombards us with so much inorganic ecchi and comedy that we never can really take it seriously. And I use scare quotes not just because its seasonal but because the show isnt funny. Instead of jokes it features gags. Tired ecchi gags that youve no doubt seen before. Wardrobe mishaps? Breast size angst? A horny idiot getting distracted and causing himself harm? The gangs all here Except its not like the gang of your pals. Its more like the group of people you always give the slip by lying about prior engagements. 520https://chinesecartoons.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/vlcsnap2011032019h13m39s163.png And I bet youre salivating as you read just itching to add this to your next bad anime marathon. Dont. This isnt an anime thats sobaditsgood. Trust me when I say that this is just mediocre. Impressively mediocre given how stupid some of its gags are but mediocre nonetheless. Its a generic anime from the 2000s nothing more nothing less. The anime seems to do everything it can to be middling. The main character is given a sexy design to trick thirsty guys into watching yet it still manages to be just the most middleoftheroad BDSM latex corset and bottoms you can think of with the most striking thing about it being the color and the fact she changes outfits so often in a fourepisode OVA. For Chrissakes Lum https://anilist.co/anime/143277/UruseiYatsura2022/wears a goddamn bikini and I at least can trick myself into thinking its an interesting design due to the horns and the leopard print.https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/urusei/images/1/14/Lum27sOfficial2022Design.png 520https://i.ur.com/dOw4Oy3.png And lets talk about that BDSM element Misakis job as a dominatrix shall we? Does the show explore why she enjoys what she does giving us a glimpse of a lifestyle oftunexplored in pop culture? It doesnt in fact she hates her job. Seems a bit weird to introduce BDSM just to shoo it away but fine theres still merit in showing its problematic elements and how it can be draining for someone whos not totally on board with the lifestyle. Does the show at least do that? No of course not the only reason Misaki does what she does and wears what she wears is so the show can go haha booba. Honestly the only satisfying thing I could get out of the ecchi elements was the fact that Misaki complains about not being able to grow hair Down There. And no not because I was drooling as I imagined it it was because it was an interesting example of the different beauty standards between America and Japan. While I could prescribe a bunch of fixes like making the notquite deuteragonist more prominent adding more mystery elements to the ghosts and axing Souichiro completely or toning his stupidity way down it feels a bit pointless because there are just so many issues that the number of fixes Id have to prescribe to make the OVA halfway decent would make it an entirely different anime. 520https://preview.redd.it/zydcyg62dqd81.jpg?width=640crop=smartauto=webps=e48ca8538dbc3a08b16df7554284f1a26999de9a Beyond that I wonder if the formats to blame. As Ill get into in a future reviewhttps://anilist.co/review/18812 that hopefully comes out soon but Im haunted by the spooky specters of procrastination and burnout OVAs are the epitome of animeasadvertisement. While we got a lot of great OVAs we also got a lot of crap whether due to laziness or incompetence. To an unscrupulous director or producer it doesnt matter if the OVA is rushed all that matters is that it gets people to read the manga. But what they dont seem to get is that a shoddy anime kills possible interest in the manga. Is there potential here? Sure but this is a very mediocre story and in terms of its problems I dont know where the core concept of the manga ends and the OVA format begins so Id rather just walk away entirely. But of course I cannot live with this curse I must pass it on. Fortunately I have a captive audience. 520https://i.ur.com/92qteKL.png But dont take fright. If theres one advantage to receiving such a ghoulish DVD its the fact that its horrifying quality can be used as protection. If a ghastly snob materializes through your walls and tries to tell you anime was better back in their day shove this DVD towards them forcing them to gaze upon it. Theyll burst into flames and be sent back to their home the tenth and final pocket of the Malebolgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MalebolgeTenthBolgiaFalsifiers. And that dear reader is a Pockey guarantee. 200https://i.ur.com/x85ecJP.png 520https://i.ur.com/TLqHBZP.png